The attack of the Third Division on our right had begun, and the noise of it was taken up by the 95th riflemen, spread wide in three companies to scour the _fausse braye_ between the two breaches, and keep the defenders busy along it.
As the sound of the assault spread down to us, interrupted again and again by the explosion of shells, we were marched forward for two or three hundred yards and halted, put into motion and halted again.
We could see the city now, opening and shutting upon us in fiery flashes; and, in the intervals, jet after jet of fire streamed from the rifles on our right.
Then someone shouted to us to advance at the double, and I ran blowing upon my bugle, for now the calls were sounding all about me.
I had no thought of death in all this roar--the crowd seemed to close around and shut that out--until we came to the edge of the counterscarp facing the _fausse braye_: and by that time the worst of the danger had passed.

The _fausse braye_ itself was dark, and the darker for a blaze of light behind it.

Our stormers had carried it and swept the defenders back into the true breach beside the tower.
Some stray bullets splashed among us as we toppled down the ditch and mounted the scarp--shots fired from Heaven knows where, but probably from some French retreating along the top of the _fausse braye_.
While we were mounting the scarp Napier and his men must have carried the inner breach.

At the top we thronged to squeeze through the narrow entrance, for all the world like a crowd elbowing its way into a theatre: and as I pressed into the skirts of the throng it seemed to suck me in and choke me.

My small ribs caved inwards as we were driven through by the weight of men behind.