The moment the French perceived from their batteries that the attempt had failed, and that the leader of the enterprise was dead, they poured in an angry fire upon us.  I stuck my hat on the bayonet of my musket, and just showed it above the wall.  A dozen bullets were through it in a minute:  very fortunately my head was not in it.

The fire of the batteries having ceased, which it generally did at stated periods, we had an opportunity of examining the point of attack.  Scaling-ladders, and dead bodies lay in profusion.  All the wounded had been removed, but what magnificent “food for powder” were the bodies which lay before us!—­all, it would seem, picked men; not one less than six feet, and some more:  they were clad in their grey capots, to render their appearance more sombre, and less discernible in the twilight of the morning:  and as the weather was cold during the nights, I secretly determined to have one of those great coats as a chere amie to keep me warm in night-watches.  I also resolved to have the colonel’s sword to present to my captain; and as soon as it was dark I walked down the breach, brought up one of the scaling-ladders, which I deposited in the castle; and having done so much for the king, I set out to do something for myself.

It was pitch dark.  I stumbled on:  the wind blew a hurricane, and the dust and mortar almost blinded me; but I knew my way pretty well.  Yet there was something very jackall-like, in wandering about among dead bodies in the night-time, and I really felt a horror at my situation.  There was a dreadful stillness between the blasts, which the pitch darkness made peculiarly awful to an unfortified mind.  It is for this reason that I would ever discourage night-attacks, unless you can rely on your men.  They generally fail:  because the man of common bravery, who would acquit himself fairly in broad daylight, will hang back during the night.  Fear and Darkness have always been firm allies; and are inseparably playing into each other’s hands.  Darkness conceals Fear, and therefore Fear loves Darkness, because it saves the coward from shame; and when the fear of shame is the only stimulus to fight, daylight is essentially necessary.

I crept cautiously along, feeling for the dead bodies.  The first I laid my hand on, made my blood curdle.  It was the lacerated thigh of a grenadier, whose flesh had been torn off by a hand-grenade.  “Friend,” said I, “if I may judge from the nature of your wound, your great coat is not worth having.”  The next subject I handled, had been better killed.  A musket-ball through his head had settled all his tradesmen’s bills; and I hesitated not in becoming residuary legatee, as I was sure the assets would more than discharge the undertaker’s bill; but the body was cold and stiff, and did not readily yield its garment.

I, however, succeeded in obtaining my object; in which I arrayed myself, and went on in search of the colonel’s sword; but here I had been anticipated by a Frenchman.  The colonel, indeed, lay there, stiff enough, but his sword was gone.  I was preparing to return, when I encountered, not a dead, but a living enemy.