Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/251

 base on this side. The men were diving in through the battery embrasures or scaling the walls like cats. In they went—in by the road went the Sixth Infantry. The flags of the Eighth and Fifth disappeared over the top; soon the flag of the Sixth was dancing to meet them. Out boiled the Mexicans, artillery and infantry, and streamed in a tossing tide up the bridge and into the north, or else into the trenches on the west. The bridgehead had been taken by front and side.

"Now, men! On! Charge!"

"The bayonet, lads! The cowld steel!" shrieked old Sergeant Mulligan to Company B.

The drummers beat the charge; with a volley and a yell the Fourth Infantry and all the line ran for the dike. The Mexicans in it answered with one volley; out they bolted. Right through the canal, shoulder deep with mud and water, the men scrambled, and leaped over the other bank. The Mexican red-caps, throwing away muskets and knapsacks, were frantically crowding the built-up road where it crossed the lowlands beyond the bridge.

The bridgehead had been the key. The enemy's left was emptied; the trenches along the dike west of the road were still fighting, but Duncan's battery had come into action. It had been unable to advance through the cornfields; had continued by the road, under cover of a mass of abandoned wagons from San Antonio. It was firing from the road—never had guns been served faster. The four pieces made one continuous roar, cannonading the west trenches that reached all the way to the great stone church set in the midst of other field works.