We joined the admiral off Toulon, and were ordered by him to cruise
between Perpignan and Marseilles. We parted from the fleet on the
following day, and kept the coast in a continued state of alarm. Not
a vessel dared to show her nose out of port: we had her if she did.
Batteries we laughed at, and either silenced them with our long
eighteen-pounders, or landed and blew them up.
In one of these little skirmishes I had very nearly been taken, and
should, in that case, have missed all the honour, and glory, and
hairbreadth escapes which will be found related in the following
pages. I should either have been sabred in mere retaliation, or
marched off to Verdun for the remaining six years of the war.
We had landed to storm and blow up a battery, for which purpose we
carried with us a bag of powder, and a train of canvas. Everything
went on prosperously. We came to a canal which it was necessary to
cross, and the best swimmers were selected to convey the powder
over without wetting it. I was one of them. I took off my shoes and
stockings to save them; and, after we had taken the battery, I was so
intent on looking for the telegraphic signal-box, that I had quite
forgotten the intended explosion, until I heard a cry of "Run, run!"
from those outside who had lighted the train.
I was at that moment on the wall of the fort, nearly thirty feet high,
but sloping. I jumped one part, and scrambled the other, and ran away
as fast as I could, amidst a shower of stones, which fell around me
like an eruption of Vesuvius.
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