From his lips came a black procession of curious oaths.

Of a sudden another broke out in a querulous way like a man who has mislaid his hat.

"Well, why don't they support us?
Why don't they send supports?
Do they think--" The youth in his battle sleep heard this as one who dozes hears.
There was a singular absence of heroic poses.

The men bending and surging in their haste and rage were in every impossible attitude.

The steel ramrods clanked and clanged with incessant din as the men pounded them furiously into the hot rifle barrels.