Colonel Carter, commanding the right wing, turned his head for a second
at the sound of a horse's feet and found the general beside him.
"Had I better have my wounded laid in a wagon, sir?" he suggested,
"in case you find it necessary to fall back?"
"There will be no retreat!" said General Turner. "Leave your wounded
where they are. I never saw a cannon bleed before. How's that?"
He spurred his horse over to where one of Bellairs' guns was being
run forward into place again and Colonel Carter followed him. There
was blood dripping from the muzzle of it.
"We're short of water, sir!" said Colonel Carter.
And as he spoke a gunner dipped his sponge into a pool of blood and
rammed it home.
Bellairs was standing between his two guns, looking like the shadow
of himself, worn out with lack of sleep, disheveled, wounded. There
was blood dripping from his forehead and he wore his left arm in a
sling made from his shirt.
"Fire!" he ordered, and the two guns barked in unison and jumped
back two yards or more.
"If you'll look," said General Turner, plucking at the colonel's sleeve,
"you'll see a handful of native cavalry over yonder behind the enemy--
rather to the enemy's left--there between those two clouds of smoke.
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