Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/304

 "Lieutenant Wood! Here, sir. General Pillow asks help. The whole division, sir. Quick!"

"Did he say so?" demanded Lieutenant Wood, reining short.

"Yes, sir. He's wounded."

"Who are you?"

"Jerry Cameron, sir; drummer, Company B, Fourth Infantry."

Lieutenant Wood whirled his horse and sped down for the mill. Jerry panted back for General Pillow, but the general had not waited. The Voltigeurs were acting as if crazy. They were shouting "Vengeance! Vengeance!" and were charging the redoubt, a squad of them carrying General Pillow on a stretcher of rifles and a blanket. He had refused to be taken rearward.

The rocky slope below the redoubt was alive with the riflemen, yelling, firing, stooping and rushing. But they slowed up—they took to cover—they could not outface the blast of musketry and grape. What next? Huzzah! Here was the support at last: the storming column and the Fifteenth Infantry. With a cheer and a volley the Fifteenth charged, bayonets leveled, straight for the redoubt, while the two howitzers, hauled by their cannoneers, unlimbered against the north angle, and the Voltigeurs rallied to storm from the right.

On went Jerry behind the gallant Fifteenth. The Fifteenth piled in, the Mexicans broke in flight to the north and the city. Jerry piled in. A Mexican officer had stooped to touch a slow-match to the fuse of a mine, but the musket balls hurled him aside, wounded.