If I could only get up some of the siege-train guns to help you. Let
some one go back to the artillery park, and tell them I want a couple
of eighteen pounders."
An aide-de-camp at once galloped off with the order, but two or three
eventful hours elapsed before these guns were brought to bear upon the
action.
Pennefather's men, although for the moment triumphant, had their hands
full. They showed an undaunted front or "knotted line" of
fighting-men: the remnants of the pickets, fragments, and
odds-and-ends of many regiments, mixed up and intermingled, still in
contact with the enemy, and so far still without supports.
Officers came back rather despondingly to ask for help.
"I cannot send you a single man," was the firm reply to one applicant.
"You must stand your ground somehow."
"We should be all right, sir, but the men have run out of ammunition."
"It's no use. I can't give you a round. What does it matter? Don't
make difficulties. Stick to your bayonets. And remember you've got to
hold on where you are, or we shall be driven into the sea."
The want of cartridges was what the troops felt most direly. They
growled savagely and grumbled at the mismanagement that kept back
these indispensable supplies.
Only here and there the energetic action of a few shrewd officers did
something to mend the mischief.
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