Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/93

 crossed a shallow trench or road that wound along, and climbing to the top of a sand hill were in view of the plain and the Mexican batteries. A number of soldiers were here, watching. They had dug little hollows, as a protection from shell fragments.

The firing had increased. The city and the castle of San Ulloa were shrouded in the dense smoke; the plain was spouting earth and brush, but it was spouting smoke and shot and shell also, for American batteries were replying. And the entrenched line of blue-coats, supporting the artillery, might be glimpsed.

"Those dons are trying to find our guns," asserted Hannibal. "That plain is full of trenches. Golly, but it was a job to dig them. We Regulars, and the Mohawks, too, had to work by night, in shifts; and we got jolly well peppered, you bet. We didn't dare use lanterns; worked by the feel, in the cactus and brush, and the northers near smothered us, besides. We were marched out after dark, and every man grabbed a spade and his orders were to dig a hole eight feet long and five feet wide and six feet deep. When the holes were connected they made a ditch all 'round the city, five miles not counting the sand-bags and parapets and battery emplacements and caves for magazines. Then we and the sailors dragged the guns clear from the beach, three miles and more, through the sand and swamps. We haven't guns enough yet. Only sixteen out of about sixty that the general expected. The most of 'em are ten-inch mortars, and they're no good for breaching walls. The castle's firing thirteen-inch shells at us—sockdologers! But the navy's helping the army with three six-inch solid-shot guns and three