Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/322

 into the belfry they climbed, led still by Lieutenant Grant. The men had hard work to hoist the pieces of the howitzer up the ladder, but they did it. They put the barrel upon the carriage and the carriage upon the wheels, and proceeded to pass up the powder cartridges and shells.

When the gun had been assembled and the gun squad was prepared, the belfry had little spare space in it.

The gun was loaded, pointed—Lieutenant Grant himself squinted over the barrel. He stood back.

"Give it to 'em!" he barked. "Fire!"

"Bang!" The lock string had been jerked. The shell flew true; exploded in the very midst of the gateway battery.

It created a little panic. The Mexicans seemed to think that it had dropped from the sky. The belfry squad cheered and reloaded.

"Bang!"

The lieutenant occasionally changed to the roof-tops and sprinkled them with canister. He was enjoying himself immensely. So was Lieutenant Fry. Jerry likewise was glad that he had come. Below the belfry the whole battlefield was outspread. The church was almost directly south of the breastworks that had been taken and left again. The gateway—arched over between towers, was too hundred and fifty yards at the rear of the breastworks. It had mounted a heavy gun and a howitzer, emplaced behind sandbags and stone abutments and scoured the road with shell and canister and grape. The square towers and the parapets of the wall on either side of the gate were volleying with musketry;