A general officer galloped up with two or three
of his staff to try to start the advance again. He saw the impossibility.
"If we could get a couple of batteries into that field for three minutes,"
he said, "it would do the work, but in ten minutes it will be too late."
The company from the old county was lying behind the bank
almost exactly opposite the gate, and every word could be heard.
Where the axe came from no one knew; but a minute later a man slung himself
across the road, and the next second the sharp, steady blows of an axe
were ringing on the pike. The axeman had cut a wide cleft in the brown wood,
and the big chips were flying before his act was quite taken in,
and then a cheer went up from the line. It was no time to cheer, however;
other chips were flying than those from the cutter's axe,
and the bullets hissed by him like bees, splintering the hard post
and knocking the dust from the road about his feet; but he took no notice
of them, his axe plied as steadily as if he had been cutting a tree
in the woods of the district, and when he had cut one side,
he turned as deliberately and cut the other; then placing his hand high up,
he flung his weight against the post and it went down. A great cheer went up
and the axeman swung back across the road just as two batteries of artillery
tore through the opening he had made.
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