THE corporal had slipped out about ten minutes before my uncle _Toby_,
in order to fix his apparatus, and just give the enemy a shot or two
before my uncle _Toby_ came.
He had drawn the six field-pieces for this end, all close up together
in front of my uncle _Toby_’s sentry-box, leaving only an interval of
about a yard and a half betwixt the three, on the right and left, for
the convenience of charging, &c.—and the sake possibly of two
batteries, which he might think double the honour of one.
In the rear and facing this opening, with his back to the door of the
sentry-box, for fear of being flanked, had the corporal wisely taken
his post:——He held the ivory pipe, appertaining to the battery on the
right, betwixt the finger and thumb of his right hand,—and the ebony
pipe tipp’d with silver, which appertained to the battery on the left,
betwixt the finger and thumb of the other——and with his right knee
fixed firm upon the ground, as if in the front rank of his platoon, was
the corporal, with his Montero-cap upon his head, furiously playing off
his two cross batteries at the same time against the counter-guard,
which faced the counterscarp, where the attack was to be made that
morning. His first intention, as I said, was no more than giving the
enemy a single puff or two;—but the pleasure of the _puffs_, as well as
the _puffing_, had insensibly got hold of the corporal, and drawn him
on from puff to puff, into the very height of the attack, by the time
my uncle _Toby_ joined him.
’Twas well for my father, that my uncle _Toby_ had not his will to make
that day.