The pressure eased, and an explosion threw a dozen of us to earth between the _fausse braye_ and the slope of rubble by which the stormers had climbed.
I picked myself up--gripped my bugle--and ran for the slope, still blowing.

A man of the 43rd gave me a hand and helped me up, for now we were stumbling among corpses.

What had become of the stormers?
Some we were trampling under foot: the rest had swept on and into the town.
"Fifty-second to the left," said my friend as we gained the top of the rampart, catching up a cry which now sounded everywhere in the darkness.

"Forty-third to the right--fifty-second to the left!" I turned sharply to the left and ran from him.
A rush of men overtook me.

"This way!" they shouted, swerving aside from the line of the ramparts and sliding down the steep inner slope towards the town.