The sentries have orders to fire upon any person
offending against these rules.
(By order),
T. BAILEY RICHARDS,
Lieut. 40th Regt., Garrison Adjutant.
Chapter LVI.
Remember This Sabbath Day (December Third), To Keep It Holy.
I awoke. Sunday morning. It was full dawn, not daylight. A discharge
of musketry--then a round from the bugle--the command 'forward'--and another
discharge of musketry was sharply kept on by the red-coats (some 300 strong)
advancing on the gully west of the stockade, for a couple of minutes.
The shots whizzed by my tent. I jumped out of the stretcher and rushed
to my chimney facing the stockade. The forces within could not muster
above 150 diggers.
The shepherds' holes inside the lower part of the stockade had been turned
into rifle-pits, and were now occupied by Californians of the
I.C. Rangers' Brigade, some twenty or thirty in all, who had kept watch
at the 'out-posts' during the night.
Ross and his division northward, Thonen and his division southward,
and both in front of the gully, under cover of the slabs, answered
with such a smart fire, that the military who were now fully within range,
did unmistakably appear to me to swerve from their ground: anyhow the command
"forward" from Sergeant Harris was put a stop to. Here a lad was really
courageous with his bugle. He took up boldly his stand to the left
of the gully and in front: the red-coats 'fell in' in their ranks to the right
of this lad.
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