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What was the silly word capering in his head? “Mill-clappers.” Why on earth “Mill-clappers?” It put him in mind of home: but he had no silly tender thoughts to waste on home, or the folks there. He had never written to them. If they should happen on the copy of the Gazette–and the chances were hundred to one against it–the name of Nathaniel Varcoe among the killed or wounded would mean nothing to them. He tramped on, chewing his fancy, and extracted this from it: “A man with never a friend at home hasn’t even an excuse to be a coward, curse it!”

Suddenly the column halted, in a bank of fog through which his ear caught the lazy ripple of water. He woke up with a start. The fog was all about them.

“What’s this?” he demanded aloud; then, with a catch of his breath, “Mines?”

“Eh, be quiet,” said Teddy Butson at his elbow; “listen to yonder.” And the word was hardly out when an explosion split the sky and was followed by peal after peal of musketry. Nat had a swift vision of a high black wall against a background of flame, and then night came down again as you might close a shutter. But the musketry continued. “That will be at the breaches,” Dave flung the words over his left shoulder. Then followed another flash and another explosion. This time, however, the light, though less vivid than the first flash, did not vanish. While he wondered at this Nat saw first of all the rim of the moon through the slant of an embrasure, and then Teddy’s pale but cheerful face.

The head of the column had been halted a few yards only from a breastwork, with a stockade above it and a chevaux de frise on top of all. As far as knowledge of his whereabouts went, Nat might have been east, west, north or south of Badajos, or somewhere in another planet. But the past two years had somehow taught him to divine that behind this ugly obstruction lay a covered way with a guard house. And sure enough the men, keeping dead silence now, could hear the French soldiers chatting in that unseen guard house and laughing.

“Now’s the time.” Nat heard the word passed back by the young engineer officer who had crept forward to reconnoitre: and then an order given in Portuguese.

“Ay, bring up the ladders, you greasers, and let’s put it through.” This from Teddy Butson chafing by Nat’s side.

The two Portuguese companies came forward with the ladders as the storming party moved up to the gateway. And just at that moment there the sentry let off his alarm shot. It set all within the San Vincente bastion moving and whirring like the works of a mechanical toy; feet came running along the covered way; muskets clinked on the stone parapet; tongues of fire spat forth from the embrasures; and then, as the musketry quickened, a flash and a roar lifted the glacis away behind, to the right of our column, so near that the wind of it drove our men sideways.

“All right, Johnny,” Dave grunted, recovering himself as the clods of earth began to fall: “Blaze away, my silly ducks–we’re not there!”

But the Portuguese companies as the mine exploded cast down the ladders and ran. Half a dozen came charging back along the column’s right flank, and our soldiers cursed and struck at them as they fled. But the curses were as nothing beside those of the Portuguese officers striving to rally their men.

“My word,” said Teddy. “Hear them scandalous greasers! It’s poor talk, is English.”

“On with you, lads”–it was Walker himself who shouted. “Pick up the ladders, and on with you!”

They hardly waited for the word, but, shouldering the ladders, ran forward through the dropping bullets to the gate, cheering and cheered by the rear ranks.

But they flung themselves in vain on the gate. On its iron-bound and iron-studded framework their axes made no impression. A dozen men charged it, using a ladder as a battering ram. “Aisy with that, ye blind ijjits!” yelled an Irish sergeant. “Ye’ll be needin’ them ladders prisintly!” Our three privates found themselves in the crowd surging towards the breastwork to the right of the gate. “Nip on my shoulders, Teddy lad,” grunted McInnes, and Teddy nipped up and began hacking at the chevaux de frise with his axe. “That’s av ut, bhoys,” yelled the Irish sergeant again. “Lave them spoikes an’ go for the stockade. Good for you, little man–whirro!” Nat by this time was on a comrade’s back, and using his axe for dear life; one of twenty men hacking, ripping, tearing down the wooden stakes. But it was Teddy who wriggled through first with Dave at his heels. The man beneath Nat gave a heave with his shoulders and shot him through his gap, a splinter tearing his cheek open. He fell head foremost sprawling down the slippery slope of the ditch.