Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/313

 "Very good."

In a few minutes they all were descending from the hill top. The storming column took the route of a long flight of white stone steps leading down to the San Cosme road on the north. Several soldiers from the First Brigade had come up to see the battlefield. Jerry recognized Sergeant Reeves, of Company B, of the Fourth.

"Hello, sergeant."

"Hello, yourself. What you doing here? Absent without leave, eh?"

"I came with Captain McKenzie in the charge. How'd you get up?"

"Oh, I just wanted to look around. The brigade halted below for orders; and after a scrimmage I ran up the steps."

"Will we take the city, now, you think?"

"It's the time," said Sergeant Reeves, who was a quiet man, enlisted from Ohio. "You'll see the First Division go in by the San Cosme gate before sundown."

"Have you had much fighting, sergeant?"

"Considerable with what force was left us. We managed to get along after you quit us. One drummer more or less—what does that amount to? I hear that a general court-martial is going to sit on you." And Sergeant Reeves laughed. "Well, we were ordered to turn Chapultepec by the north and cut off the enemy in that quarter. Magruder's battery section got in a tight place in the advance. Lieutenant Jackson lost all his horses and half his men by grape. The Fourteenth Infantry supported,