With two thousand men at work these tasks were soon carried out; and the count then led the men down the hill, whose face was covered with loose stones, and set them to work piling these in lines one above another.
At ten o'clock in the morning the work was complete.

The count told the men off by parties, each of which were to hold one of the lines of stones; each party was, as the French charged, to retire up the hill and join that at the line above, so that their resistance would become more and more obstinate till the village itself was reached.

Here a stand was to be made as long as possible.

If the column advanced only by the road, every house was to be held; if they spread out in line so as to overlap the village on both sides, a rapid retreat was to be made when the bugler by the count's side gave the signal.
The men sat down to breakfast in their allotted places, quiet, grave, and stern; and again the contrast with the laughter and high spirits which prevail among English soldiers, when fighting is expected, struck Jack very forcibly.
"They would make grand soldiers if properly trained, these grave, earnest looking men," he said to himself.

"They look as if they could endure any amount of fatigue and hardship; and although they don't take things in the same cheerful light our men do, no one can doubt their courage.