But I never dreamed that I was likely to be a cockshy myself." The usual duel was going on between the batteries, and the puffs of white smoke rose from the dark line of trenches and drifted up unbroken across the deep blue of the still wintry sky.
But happily the passage of the flotilla of boats attracted no attention, and they soon arrived at the shore close to the work known as Battery No.

4.
Here they were landed.

Those who could not walk were lifted into carts, of which some hundreds stood ranged alongside.

The rest fell in on foot, and the procession started.

The boys, to their satisfaction, found that the officer who had given them the coats was in charge of a portion of the train, and as they started he stopped to speak a word or two to them, to which they replied in the most intelligible manner they could by offering him a cigar, which a flash of pleasure in his face at once showed to be a welcome present.
It took some time to get the long convoy in motion, for it consisted of some 700 or 800 carts and about 5,000 sick and wounded, of whom fully three-fourths were unable to walk.