Письмо лейтенанта Палмера 2
продолжение письма Джорджа Палмера; начало здесь
We tried all we could to form up the men on the beach but no go – it was like trying to make a parcel of foxhounds stand up in two ranks, with somebody crying out from the front “Pique comes on’ and someone else crying ‘President’. We all dashed into the battery and here I set our pioneers to work. They dismounted the guns, spiked them, broke all the carriages to pieces and knocked the trunnions off. We then charged up the hill which was covered with thick brushwood and mark the result. (I must mention that before we reached the battery we had eight men shot down from the heights.) We went up the hill strugging, as it was very steep and, as I said, covered with brushwood, the bullets pinging out of our heads in showers and the slope was evidently pretty thick with the enemy. We gained the crest from where we could see over the town and began peppering away at some Russians trying to drag a field-peace away and succeeded in bringing down two of them and one of the horses which I remarked were all loop-holed ready for an attack. They then fired the guns up the hill at us and wounded some men – one grape shot tearing away a poor fellow’s stomach. However, on we went, the men falling rather faster than we expected but they all behaved well, as Englishmen always do. Going up a horrid place like this, and not seeing a man for some time to revenge oneself on, is tantalizing to say the least of it. We pushed on to the top of the hill, at the same time a Marine was shot dead alongside me, to the right, but I managed to go on a little further from where only seven or eight men were to be seen, the hill being to steep and so thickly covered with brushwood.
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We tried all we could to form up the men on the beach but no go – it was like trying to make a parcel of foxhounds stand up in two ranks, with somebody crying out from the front “Pique comes on’ and someone else crying ‘President’. We all dashed into the battery and here I set our pioneers to work. They dismounted the guns, spiked them, broke all the carriages to pieces and knocked the trunnions off. We then charged up the hill which was covered with thick brushwood and mark the result. (I must mention that before we reached the battery we had eight men shot down from the heights.) We went up the hill strugging, as it was very steep and, as I said, covered with brushwood, the bullets pinging out of our heads in showers and the slope was evidently pretty thick with the enemy. We gained the crest from where we could see over the town and began peppering away at some Russians trying to drag a field-peace away and succeeded in bringing down two of them and one of the horses which I remarked were all loop-holed ready for an attack. They then fired the guns up the hill at us and wounded some men – one grape shot tearing away a poor fellow’s stomach. However, on we went, the men falling rather faster than we expected but they all behaved well, as Englishmen always do. Going up a horrid place like this, and not seeing a man for some time to revenge oneself on, is tantalizing to say the least of it. We pushed on to the top of the hill, at the same time a Marine was shot dead alongside me, to the right, but I managed to go on a little further from where only seven or eight men were to be seen, the hill being to steep and so thickly covered with brushwood.
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