d'autemaere's attack. 161 of some 330 yards under so hot a fire that it chap. loaded the ground with their dead. Some of !_ the boldest of the men pressing forward beyond the line of the wolf-pits, approached the Ditch of the courtine, where, however — too few to achieve any more — they were crushed by the enemy's fire. Others stopped, seeking shelter from undulations of the ground, or fell back into the stone-quarries which here and there offered cover. The number of men coining back Repulse oj the troops into the trenches there caused great confusion. The officers tried hard to rally and re-form the defeated troops and lead them forward once more to the assistance of the heads of columns ; but the enemy's fire proved so unrelenting and strong that the ranks had been hardly re-formed, when again they were stricken and torn.* VI. The advance of the left column was simulta- General neous with that of the force under Brunet. Gen- mane's eral d'Autemarre's Division was to descend by the right bank of the Dockyard Eavine, force the lines of defence near the Gervais Battery, and then operating flankwise from within the enceinte to turn, and to carry the Malakoff. General d'Autemarre at first can have seen no much better prospect before him than the one that had met General Mayran, and after- wards General Brunet ; but in war, some blind
- Nicl, p. 316.
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