Page:The battle of the channel tunnel and Dover Castle and forts.djvu/10

4 England would be by taking Malta and Gibraltar!! Would those tactics ever be forgotten? Would not the Bazaine of the day add to, or substitute for them as of minor importance, Egypt and the Suez Canal, (toward which France has already advanced as far as Tunis,) the Channel Tunnel, and a simultaneous landing on the South Coast; possibly at a point long since decided upon by our Ally Napoleon III.?

So that, as already foreseen, the charging of the mine with the Dynamite would be prevented; and the embrasures and portholes of Dover Castle and Fort, or of any other Forts that might be built instead of them, commanded, as shewn, by French Riflemen, engaged in picking off our few Artillerymen, commencing with the zealous superior officers! And this more quickly than might by some be supposed! The morning hour of changing Guard would be known. What if a single bullet were sent, at a given signal, into each casemate and battery of both Dover Castle and Fort at that time? Let us picture the scene that might be called

"A stray shot Sir!" "A stray shot, Sergeant? What next I wonder?" And where the Officer or man, whose head and chest would not instantly be leaning out to see for the smoke, and learn whence it came? Alas! Brave Hearts! The "stray shot" is but the prelude to a volley! Too late, alas, do you learn 'An enemy hath done this!' One alone escapes with knowledge sufficient to commence a Telegram to the War Office, just before the Castle, thus silenced, is taken by the next Regiment of the French column.

War Office. "A Telegram from Dover Castle, Sir." "The French have seized the Tunnel, Of the Garrison, I alone——" "Wire cut I suppose!" And His Royal Highness Field Marshal Commanding in Chief would be distressed by a duty divided between the Channel Tunnel and the South Coast indefinitely, uncertain which would prove the greater danger; and with perhaps 35,000 Regular Troops, nominally, but unluckily on a peace footing, at His Royal Highness' command in Great Britain and Ireland, and perhaps one half of them on duty in Ireland! But what might follow? Let us picture the scene; happily not yet a fact!