Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/301

 Suddenly every battery was quiet. The silence fell like a blanket.

"Voltigeurs, forward! Run!"

In two detachments, led by Colonel Andrews and Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph E. Johnston, the eight companies of Voltigeurs or Light Riflemen sprang out, rifles at a trail.

"Ready, Captain McKenzie. Ready, General Cadwalader."

Lieutenant-Colonel Johnston's detachment had charged on the right for a break made by the howitzers in the wall. The Colonel Andrews detachment charged straight ahead. So quick they all were that they had received only one volley from the ditch at the edge of the cypresses before the Johnston men were through the break and inside the defenses, and the Andrews men were scrambling over the wall itself. The ditch had been enfiladed in a twinkling; the Mexican infantry dived out and scampered into the trees.

The howitzers changed fire to the trees; one gun limbered up to advance by rushes—

"Stormers and infantry, forward! Double time!"

General Pillow dashed on with them upon his horse. The storming column, bearing their fascines or fagot bundles and ladders—two men to a ladder—passed close to the Fourth Infantry. Without a word Jerry darted from place (he simply could stand still no longer) and beating his drum ran to the head of the platoons.

He thought that he heard shouts—angry shouts; but he did not care. His heart was thumping and the