Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/243

 *thing was better than this suspense, when a sheet of flame was expected every moment!

"Forward, men! Forward! Steady!" And suddenly: "Fourth Infantry—charge!"

"Hooray! Huzzah! Huzzah!"

The drums beat the charge, Jerry pounding lustily as he ran. The men yelled—a Cerro Gordo shout. They stumbled, fell, splashed into ditches four feet wide. Lieutenant Grant was running and waving his sword in front of his company. All the officers were cheering on their men. The breastworks loomed higher, the cannon muzzles gaped wider.

The line swept on; the front rank began to climb—the men slipping and clutching and clinging, and ever advancing their muskets to pull trigger. Over they went with yells renewed; up and over went the rear rank, and over went the fifers and drummers, tumbling into the cheering mass.

The breastworks were empty. Onward extended the road, with the Mexican artillery and infantry, mingling with horses and women, legging pellmell in a mass for San Antonio town—through the little town and out again.

"On, men! On!"

Now it was a race. Look! The Second Brigade was closing in and firing. So rapidly it descended from the lava, beyond the village, that it struck the rout right in the middle—cut the mass in two. The first portion broke and fled east, across the fields; the Second Brigade halted in the gap, while the other half of the Mexicans scurried faster up the road for Churubusco.

The Fourth Infantry joined the Second Brigade