Page:Into Mexico with General Scott (1920).djvu/269

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the Eleventh and Fourteenth Infantry with Captain Drum's battery of the Fourth Artillery had marched in from the General Pillow's Third Division camp, three miles south.

After retreat old Sergeant Mulligan plumped himself down at the supper mess with the words:

"We attack at daylight to-morrow, lads."

"Where, man?"

"The King's Mill an' the Casa-Mata."

"And Chapultepec?"

"Not as I know of. The Mill an' the Casa-Mata be the First Division's job, helped out by the Cadwalader brigade. Sure, the ould man—an' I'm manin' no disrayspect—had been a-lookin' at yon mill from headquarters, an' he says, snappin' his glass together, says he: 'I must daystroy that place.' Whereby he sends in the First Division, o' course, wid the Cadwalader troops to watch an' see how it's done."

"An' what does he want of those old buildin's, when we might better be takin' Chapultepec?"

"Becuz he can l'ave Chapultepec to wan side, if he likes, an' march into the city by another way. But Santy Annie's short o' guns an' solid shot—haven't we captured most of his movable artillery?—an' the report is that he's been meltin' up the church bells for cannon iron. Faith, we'll go down an' take them, too, before he can put 'em to use."

"Wid Chapultepec firin' into us?" Corporal Finerty asked.

"Oh, what do we care for the likes o' Chapultepec? Ain't ye soldier enough to know that downhill firin' is mighty uncertain work, especially wid