Stump electronic books

The two batteries, the 13th and the
69th, were moved nearer, first to 3000, and then at last to 2300
yards, at which range they quickly dominated the guns upon the
hill. Other guns had opened from another crest to the east of
Talana, but these also were mastered by the fire of the 13th
Battery. At 7.30 the infantry were ordered to advance, which they
did in open order, extended to ten paces. The Dublin Fusiliers
formed the first line, the Rifles the second, and the Irish
Fusiliers the third.
The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland,
where the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended
with the withered veld. There were few casualties until the wood
was reached, which lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It
was a plantation of larches, some hundreds of yards across and
nearly as many deep. On the left side of this wood--that is, the
left side to the advancing troops--there stretched a long nullah or
hollow, which ran perpendicularly to the hill, and served rather as
a conductor of bullets than as a cover.


Pages:
129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153