"Rearguard" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of every charge being an affair requiring tact. But so regulate by general rules the conduct of an infantry charge that those who commence it too far away can properly be accused of panic. And there is a way. Regulate it as the cavalry charge is regulated, and have a rearguard in each battalion of non-commissioned officers, of most reliable officers, in order to gather together, to follow close upon the charge, at a walk, and to collect all those who have lain down so as not to ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... a harsh roar, like an angry beast, and next instant Josephine came flying into the room again, with the Emperor, inarticulate with passion, raving at her heels. So frightened was she, that she began to run towards the fireplace, upon which Madame de Remusat, who had no wish to form a rearguard upon such an occasion, began running also, and the two of them, like a pair of startled hens, came rustling and fluttering back to the seats which they had left. There they cowered whilst the Emperor, with a convulsed face and a torrent of camp-fire ...
— Uncle Bernac - A Memory of the Empire • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whole families. Such ruins are tapu[2] in the strictest sense; no native must approach them; they have become outposts of the kingdom of the grave. It might appear a natural and pious custom in the hundreds who are left, the rearguard of perished thousands, that their feet should leave untrod these hearthstones of their fathers. I believe, in fact, the custom rests on different and more grim conceptions. But the house, the grave, and even the body of the dead, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... have refrained out of policy, unwilling to forfeit any applause. Others have no doubt quite sincerely refused to perform any music that sounded cacophonous to them. For the army of musicians is almost entirely composed of rearguard. Not a single one of the orchestral conductors in New York has dared consider performing his "Sinfonietta," to say nothing of the early and comparatively accessible "Marche funebre" and "A la chinoise." Of the Philharmonic Society, of course, one expects ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... which such a vast army of infantry and guns might afford. In his opinion, even if we went to the Rhine, the cavalry would melt in its first charge under the curtains of fire and machine gun sprays of the rearguard actions of the retreating enemy. He had never been in the cavalry, and any squadron knew well what he and all of those who shared his views were thinking whenever it passed over the brow of a hill that afforded a view of ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... fraction is wearied or imperilled, another fraction relieves it, taking up the same task in its turn; the first fraction, which had hitherto been checking the pursuit, falls back rapidly on to the main body, under cover of the new rearguard's fire as it turns to face the enemy. And the process is kept up, first one, then another portion of the whole force being devoted to it, until the retirement of the whole body has been successfully effected, and it is well ahead of its ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... the whole of his army; the detachments of the vanguard and rearguard had more than once been engaged in partial combats when, on the evening of the 10th of June, the French army debouched before the entrenched camp of Heilsberg strongly supported by the banks of the Alle. Napoleon followed the left bank, seeking to forestall the enemy at ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... cheer As Monkery, black as a collier-barge, Trod sideways, bickering, taking charge. Cross-Molin, from the Blowbury, followed, Lucky Shot skipped, Coranto wallowed, Then Counter Vair, the declared-to-win, Stable-fellow of Cross-Molin; Culverin last, with Cannonade, Formed rearguard to the ...
— Right Royal • John Masefield
... merely brushed out of the way that we might learn nothing of it. My advice is that we retain this commanding position, throw out scouts on every side, and I doubt whether we find anything beyond a small rearguard in ten miles of us within ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... officially recalled, nothing was further from Borrow's intentions than to retire meekly from the field. He intended to retreat with drums sounding and colours flying, fighting something more than a rearguard action. This man's energy and resource were terrible—to the authorities! Seville he felt was still a fruitful ground, and sending to Madrid for further supplies of Testaments, he commenced operations. ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... kept his place with the other big-game gun, and Olva walked beside him with carbine and spears; in front of them, their three-year-old daughter toddled. Between vanguard and rearguard, the rest of the party walked: Varnis, carrying her baby on her back, and Dorita, carrying a baby and leading two other children. The baby on her back had cost the life of Kyna in childbirth; one of the ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... their exit. King Richard himself and the greater portion of his knights were to lead the charge; another party were to follow behind the footmen, who were ordered to advance at the greatest speed of which they were capable, while their rearguard by charges upon the enemy, kept them at bay. To this latter party Cuthbert ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... been mistaken. It was no rearguard that barred the road to Winchester, but Shields' entire division, numbering at least 9000 men. A prisoner captured the day before had admitted that the Confederates were under the impression that Winchester had been evacuated, and that Jackson had immediately moved forward. Shields, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... The rearguard should be the ships that I have called the supports, which are to be the fourth part of the fleet, and the lightest and best sailers; but they must not move in rear of the fleet, because they would not see well what is passing so as to give timely succour, and therefore they ought always to ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... women and children who came with the British; eight thousand French prisoners; effective men, returned to France; Holland completely evacuated—so much for Brune's contingent and the situation in Holland. The rearguard of General Klenau forced to lay down its arms at Villanova; a thousand prisoners and three pieces of cannon fallen into our hands, and the Austrians driven back beyond Bormida; in all, counting the combats ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... obvious that Adam knew the family history, for Christopher Askew was a turbulent Jacobite who lost the most part of his estate when he joined Prince Charlie's starving Highlanders in the rearguard fight at Clifton Moor. Afterwards the sober quietness at Ashness had now and then been disturbed by an Askew who inherited the first Kit's ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... said farewell to Captain McCuaig. The German tide rolled, indeed, over the deserted village, but for several hours after the enemy had become master of the village the sullen and persistent rifle fire which survived showed that they were not yet master of the Canadian rearguard. If they died, they ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... his success with Cadiere was now being undone. She had hardly entered her own narrow lane in gloomy Toulon, when she began to fall off. She was just in those dangerous and baleful centres where her illness began, on the very field of the battle waged by the two hostile parties. The Jesuits, whose rearguard everyone saw in the Court, had on their side the crafty, the prudent, the knowing. The Carmelite had none but the bishop with him, was not even backed by his own brethren, nor yet by the clergy. He had ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... than it is. Peril and snare might still beset you; but you would confront and traverse them, as the Hebrews of old did the weedy bed of the Red Sea, its watery walls guarding their dread way, the pillar of light the vanguard, and the pillar of cloud the rearguard of their mysterious progress, the ark and the God of the ark piloting and defending them.... You are like a presumptuous and unskilful traveller, passing under the arch of the waters of Niagara. The falling cataract thundering above you; a slippery, slimy rock beneath your gliding feet; ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... time," he said. "Break out your extra ammunition while I take to the hole. We can't hope to do that bunch alone, so we'll fight a rearguard action." ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... their first Italian campaigns, had adopted a custom which they could not renounce: it was to fight His Imperial Majesty's subjects wherever they found them. Nevertheless, so great was the numerical superiority of the allies, that our troops had begun to retreat, when loud shouts from the rearguard announced that reinforcements had arrived. It was General Grenier, sent by Moreau, who arrived with his division at the moment when his presence was ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - VANINKA • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... of an attack the whole fleet turned off from the course they were steering at a sharp angle, showing only their sterns to the U-boat. A destroyer acted as rearguard to prevent any of the convoyed ships from straggling. When the fleet had arrived at a rendezvous far out in the open sea, where the danger of a submarine attack was much less, the escort handed over their charges to one or two ocean-going cruisers, which stayed with the merchant ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... constituted her dependable rearguard. Milo was there, and Milo would see to it that no skulker declined his queen's command. There lay the reason why Dolores so placidly turned her back to men whose dearest ambition would have been realized by the plunge of steel between ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... side, and some two miles south of the bivouac. Before that hour the transport, escorted by the cavalry and mounted infantry, was quietly withdrawn, and made its way safely to the place appointed, where it found cover behind the reverse slopes. The remainder, marching punctually, covered by a rearguard of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, reached the new position at 5 a.m., and took up an open line along the crest, facing generally north in the following order of units from left to right: Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Leicestershire regiment, ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Bonaparte, only three days after the seizure of Piacenza, threw his almost undivided force against the town of Lodi, his passage was disputed only by the rearguard, whose anxiety to cover the retreat of a belated detachment far exceeded their determination to defend the bridge over the Adda. This was a narrow structure, some eighty fathoms long, standing high above the swift but shallow river. Resolutely held by well-massed troops and cannon, it might have ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... fight. They had on the spot about nine hundred men and some machine-guns. Against these the Matabele with all their bravery could effect little. In two engagements they threw away their lives with reckless gallantry, and then they broke and fled. Lobengula himself was never heard of again. His rearguard cut up a small party of British who were too impetuous in pursuit, but by the end of the year the country was at peace. In 1894 Matabeleland was added to the territory of the Chartered Company, in 1895 the term 'Rhodesia' came into use for postal purposes, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... both showed themselves skilful and valorous in fighting, and if Mole and Figgins failed to distinguish themselves so much, and preferred the more modest and retiring rearguard of the army, we must consider the weak nerves of one and the ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... The lumbermen's rearguard had come to Kohiseva. They came by night, and here they were at their first day's work there now. Some were still busy floating the last of the timber down; others were clearing the banks of lumber ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... Catawba to guide us, I doubt if either the old man or I could have found my rearguard's bivouac near the trail I had left. But Uncanoola led us straight through the pitchy darkness; and when we were come upon the three soldiers we found them all asleep around the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... his troops in a hollow square, (4) posting half his cavalry in front and half on his rear; but finding that the Thessalians checked his passage by repeated charges from behind, he strengthened his rearguard by sending round the cavalry from his van, with the exception of his own personal escort. (5) The two armies stood confronted in battle order; but the Thessalians, not liking the notion of a cavalry engagement with heavy infantry, turned, ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... Sandoval commanded the vanguard, and Cortes the centre, where were the cannon, baggage, and prisoners, amongst whom were a son and two daughters of Montezuma; Alvarado and Velasquez de Leon led the rearguard. With the army was carried a flying bridge, which had been constructed to throw over any gaps there might be in the causeway. Scarcely had the Spaniards debouched upon the dike leading to Tacuba, which was the shortest of all, when they were ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... for this purpose that these desperate rearguard actions were being undertaken by the retreating Germans. Some of the big guns were drawn by traction engines, and their progress even over good roads must necessarily be very slow. To enable them to be transported to the positions already prepared along the Aisne River, looking to a ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... passing on the wings of a hurricane; and presently, through this storm of color, came swaying and swinging the majestic elephants, clothed in their Sunday best of gaudinesses, and the long procession of fanciful trucks freighted with their groups of curious and costly images, and then the long rearguard of stately camels, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... ever ready to strike upon the least provocation; thus it was impossible for any of them to hold converse with the others, the whites, in particular, being kept as far apart as possible, Dick being stationed with the head of the column, while Earle was compelled to march with the rearguard. ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... marched to church in state, be the weather what it might, wet or fine, Dr Hellyer leading the van on these high parade occasions—in full academical costume, and wearing a most wonderful sort of archdiaconal hat that had a very imposing effect—with the two assistant masters acting as the rearguard, and closing ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... found that the main outlet had not been guarded, and that the passage was clear. The march was resumed, but the enemy were not yet weary of the contest. Reappearing in great numbers, they fell furiously upon the British rearguard, and for a time the men thus suddenly assailed were in a state of terrible disorder. The energetic efforts of the officers, however, brought them back to a sense of their duty. Broadfoot, Backhouse, and Fenwick rallied and reanimated them. But the British loss was heavy; upwards of 100 ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... French were leaving a rearguard of four hundred men in a hastily built stockade at La Famine, and the more loose-tongued warriors were already talking of an attack on this force, cutting the Governor's communications, and then turning on him from the rear, leaving it to the Senecas ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... additional importance from the presence on the shores of the Mexican Gulf, on the waters of the river Panuco, north of Vera Cruz, of a prominent branch of the Maya family, the Huastecs. The idea suggests itself that these were the rearguard of a great migration of the Maya family from the north toward ...
— The Maya Chronicles - Brinton's Library Of Aboriginal American Literature, Number 1 • Various
... distributing some slices of black bread to be eaten in the saddle, moved off at the head of his troop, Count Hannibal remained behind, attended by Bigot and the eight riders who had formed the rearguard so far. He had not approached the Countess since rising, and she had been thankful for it. But now, as she moved away, she looked back and saw him still standing; she marked that he wore his corselet, and in one of those revulsions of feeling—which outrun man's reason—she who ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... soil, and were always pressing forward against the Indian. The Englishmen were far away, and if they prevailed in the great war, the march of the American would be less rapid. He would strike once more with the Englishmen, and the Iroquois could deliver mighty blows on the American rearguard. He and his Mohawks, proud Keepers of the Western Gate, would lead in the onset. Thayendanegea considered it a good night's work, and ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... continually happening in the War, everything was left to chance and the Almighty. Luckily General Botha had deemed it his duty to form a rearguard and cover our retreat; otherwise the English would have captured a large number of laagers, and many burghers whose horses were done up. But, whereas we had too little discipline, the English had evidently too much. It is not ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... peers who stood by him. The warriors attack each other in speeches of Homeric fury. Charles preserves his dignity, and Ganelon departs on his mission. He deliberately sells himself, and seals the fate of the peers whom he detests: the surprise of the rearguard under Roland, the deadly battle, and the revenge of Charles make up the rest of the poem. Not even in victory is Charles allowed repose; the trumpet again summons him to war. He is of those whom Heaven has ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... shall become aware that the troops are at the gate of Rome, he shall present to the Cardinal Secretary of State the subjoined note: 'The arrival of General Miollis has for its aim the protection of the rearguard of the army of Naples. On his way, he presents himself at Rome to give force to the measures which the emperor has resolved on taking to purge this city of the scoundrels to whom it has given asylum, and consequently to ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... midst of the troop, a vanguard in front, a rearguard behind them, central objects of care and reverence, moved the sacred camels, tall, powerful brutes, more gigantic in appearance because of their caparisoning and the extraordinary burdens they bore. They too were in full regalia, their faces visored in silk and gold, their ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... so long as it is a fine scenting wind—is the same riding that sent the Six Hundred down in to the blaze of the Muscovite guns; that in our fathers' days gave to Grant's Hussars their swoop, like eagles, on to the rearguard at Morales, and that, in the grand old East and the rich trackless West, makes exiled campaigners with high English names seek and win an aristeia of their own at the head of their wild Irregular Horse, who would charge hell itself at ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... six o'clock the battle had been raging, for the enemy had engaged our rearguard almost immediately. This had happened each day of that unforgettable retreat, begun at the Sambre and pushed beyond the Marne. Each day we had had to fight. Each day the enemy was repulsed. Each day we were obliged ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... passed Wark Castle, which was held by the Countess of Salisbury and her nephew, in the absence of her husband. The young man was loth to let so much English booty be carried off under his very eyes, so he fell upon the rearguard, and succeeded in bringing a number of packhorses to the castle. On this the whole Scottish array turned back, and a siege of the castle began; but the Countess spiritedly held out, and Edward meanwhile drew nearer. Some of the Scotsmen were captured, and from them the Countess's nephew heard that ...
— Northumberland Yesterday and To-day • Jean F. Terry
... silenced, and their troops were pouring across the river in a steady stream in pursuit of the Belgians. The grumble of field-guns, which continued throughout the night, told us that they had overtaken the Belgian rearguard. ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... until the rains should have set in, when the French would have found themselves struggling through a sodden, water-logged country, through bridgeless floods and a land bereft of all that could sustain the troops. Still, what could be done Wellington did, and did it nobly. Fighting a rearguard action, he fell back upon the grim and naked ridges of Busaco, where at the end of September he delivered battle and a murderous detaining wound upon the advancing hosts of France. That done, he continued ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... who had been in command of Wad Ibrahim's rearguard, had joined the Emir and the Moolah; the three consulted together, with occasional oblique glances towards the prisoners. Then the ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... Charlemagne, it guarded his army, passing victoriously through the unknown country of the enemies. But the sad day of Ronceval, so often sung by German and other poets was yet to come. Separated from the main body of the army, Roland's brave rearguard was making its way through the dusky forest. Suddenly wild shouts sounded from the heights, and the cowardly Moor pressed down on the little band, threatening them with destruction. But the noble Franks ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... space; we readjusted the litter-poles, Tanno climbed in, Hirnio and Murmex and I mounted, Tanno's extra litter bearers led my farmers' horses and mules and we set off on our retreat, my nine tenants, even with two of them half scalped, forming a rearguard of entirely competent bludgeoners; certainly they must have impressed the Vedians as adequate, for no face so much as showed at a doorway until we were clear of the village and my tenants remounted. Then came ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... was to commence. The second division, made up for the most part of the heavier, Diesel-motored vessels, was to lay to in V formation about the fishermen to protect them from interference in the direction from which the fish were running. The remainder of the fleet were to stand by as a rearguard, cover the extreme flanks and maintain ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... of provinces even after the fall of the monarchy, and were only divided into brigades in 1794. Pontmercy fought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard's rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corps of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and only rejoined the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had opened a breach from the cord of the parapet ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... fivepence and the half-penny represent the rearguard of the seven pounds," said Comus; "the rest have fallen by the way. If I can pay the two pounds to-day I daresay I shall win something more to go on with; I'm holding rather good cards just now. But if I can't pay it of course I ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... way, while Buck and Jim formed a rearguard behind the ponies. Looking ahead, Jack saw that the path began to descend very rapidly and fell out of sight. He ran forward and found himself on the lip of a ravine with steep sides. At the foot of the ravine flowed the river, and Jack gave a shout of ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... penetrated as far as Derby, from which place he retreated on learning that regular forces which had been hastily recalled from Flanders were coming against him, with the Duke of Cumberland at their head; he was pursued, and his rearguard overtaken and defeated by the dragoons of the duke at Clifton, from which place the rebels retreated in great confusion across the Eden into Scotland, where they commenced dancing Highland reels and strathspeys on the bank ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... bestriding a mule. The procession looked so ludicrous, that Major Danvers and Mr. Franklin espying it, laughed outright, though not so loud as to disturb his Excellency, who was asleep by this time, bade the whole of this queer rearguard move on, and leave the Commander-in-Chief and his escort of dragoons to follow at their leisure. There was room for all at Castlewood when they came. There was meat, drink, and the best tobacco for his Majesty's soldiers; and laughing and jollity for the negroes; ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... carried out in the dark, and at dawn the new position was reconnoitred and the dispositions completed. At 7 a.m. the startling orders were received that the Fifth Army was about to withdraw to the west of the Somme, and detailed instructions as to the rearguard action were issued. The Battalion was to cover the retirement of the 5th Durham Light Infantry, which would in turn cover a further withdrawal. Accordingly the village of Cardigny was occupied with a view to a temporary stand. No sooner was this done than the enemy were on the ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... Chris to himself; but he was wrong; the echoes of the rocky walls had not ceased, though greatly softened down, for two dozen more of the savages came tearing along like a rearguard to pass through, and even then more were to come, for a couple raced up, shouting at and beating the flanks of their ponies angrily, as if in fear of ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... acquainted with the selected road. Therefore, as soon as the violence of the storm abated and the moon shed a faint radiance through the murky clouds, he renewed his march as rapidly as the rain-soaked ground permitted. Fires were lighted along the ridge to deceive the enemy, and a rearguard left to ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... retreat; I had lost my command; I was following as a volunteer. It is useless to weary you with details; we were in retreat; a shower of stones and bullets poured upon us, as if from the moon. Our column was slightly disordered; I was in the rearguard—whack! my horse was down, and ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet
... and butterflies. The looking-glass tree (HERITIERA LITTORALIS), with its large, oval, glossy, silver-backed leaves and boat-shaped fruit, stands with the river mangrove along the margin farthest from the sea, not as a rearguard, but to perform the function of making the locality the more acceptable to the presence of plants which luxuriate in sweetness and solid earth. Another denizen of the partially reclaimed area of the mangrove swamp ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... drew up his men in the form of a tertia, the vanguard led by Lieutenant-Colonel Lawrence Prince and Major John Morris, in number 300, the main body 600, the right wing led by himself, the left by Colonel Edw. Collyer, the rearguard of 300 commanded by Colonel Bledry Morgan."—Morgan's Report. ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... enemy's camp to ask from Francesco di Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, generalissimo of the confederate troops, a passage for his king's army and provisions at a reasonable price; and secondly, he despatched a courier to Charles VIII, pressing him to hurry on his march with the artillery and rearguard. The confederates had given an evasive answer, for they were pondering whether they ought to jeopardise the whole Italian force in a single combat, and, putting all to the hazard, attempt to annihilate the King of France ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... science. Fifth: that of regnant reason, as art.] But there are no locked gates between these periods; they overlap and mingle; each may have some of the characteristics of another; and in each there is a vanguard leading the way and a rearguard ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... outpost line well in front of the wood, and had dug short section trenches. Through the night desultory rifle fire could be heard in front where the mounted troops were still in touch with the retiring enemy. Next day a serious conflict took place between the cavalry and the Turkish rearguard at Oghratina, and rumours were prevalent that we had to continue the forward movement. We were not sorry, however, when it was found that we were to remain in Katia. During the succeeding days hostile ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... having been shattered and torn by the artillery was become much inferior. Wherefore after they had sustained for some time, more by stoutness of heart than by strength of arms, the fury of the enemy, Yves d'Allegre with the rearguard and a thousand foot that were left at the Montone under Paliose and now recalled charging them in flank, and Fabrizio Colonna, fighting valiantly, being taken prisoner by the soldiers of the Duke of Ferrara, they turned their backs, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... succeeded in his object as to get in advance of the Redskin rearguard. By riding obliquely down the slope towards them, he might now hope to place himself ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... near Raleigh. I was determined, however, to give him as little time for organization as possible, and accordingly crossed Cape Fear River, with all the army, during the 13th and 14th, leaving one division as a rearguard, until the arsenal could be completely destroyed. This was deliberately and completely leveled on the 14th, when fire was applied to the wreck. Little other damage was done ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Brigade remained out-spanned by the mud-holes, while the other column passed through it and bore away in search of the Prieska Road. The rearguard of the moving force was brought up by a Colonial corps, which had originally been raised in Natal by the brigadier of the New Cavalry Brigade. Of course the personnel in the ranks had long since changed. Changed, be ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... were Imperial Light Horse, Carbineers, Natal Police of the Frontier Field Force, and Border Mounted Rifles, numbering only one hundred and seventy, under Major Mackenzie. They had pushed forward after the last feeble resistance of the Boer rearguard was overcome, and Lord Dundonald brought to Sir George White the good news that ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... the Chanson de Roland deserves to be named the Iliad of the Middle Ages. On August 15, 778, the rearguard of Charlemagne's army, returning from a successful expedition to the north of Spain, was surprised and destroyed by Basque mountaineers in the valley of Roncevaux. Among those who fell was Hrodland (Roland), Count of the march of Brittany. For Basques, the singers substituted a host of Saracens, ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the same afternoon, in great disorder. He halted only long enough for the rearguard to come up, and then hastened on, six miles farther, to Castleton, leaving Warner,[24] with three regiments, to cover his retreat. Instead of keeping within supporting distance of the main body, Warner ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... 5).—The Confederate rearguard, now reinforced from Johnston's army at Richmond, stopped in the forts at Williamsburg to gain time for the baggage train and a fierce ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... held themselves firmly like a hard-pressed garrison waiting for re-enforcements. Re-enforcements came, and then they went out from their works, and setting their faces westward moved slowly forward. The vanguard were men with pikes and musketoons and axes; the rearguard were women who kept watch and ward over the household treasures. Sometimes in trying hours the rearguard ranged itself and fought in the front ranks, falling back to its old position when the crisis ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... When ROLAND'S rearguard turned at bay, and from the furious press The scuppered Paladin sent forth his famous S.O.S., Scared Roncesvalles rang loud with war, as misty legends tell, But echo's ear was spared the shriek and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... for a day and a half had been fighting a constant succession of rearguard actions with Kitchener's infantry, took his measures promptly to meet this new dilemma. He first tried to seize positions of command which would give him control of the ford. In this French was the quicker, and headed ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... at once. We will lie down for two hours, and see you off before daybreak. I do not know whether la Rochejaquelein, who must now be considered in command, since d'Elbee and Bonchamp are both desperately wounded, will gather a force to act as a rearguard. If so we must stay with him; but I do not think that even his influence would suffice to hold any considerable body of peasants together. All have convinced themselves that there is ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... the rapid movement of the horsemen who guarded him, soon traversed the space which divided them from their companions; and ere the front of Claverhouse's column had gained the brow of the hill which they had been seen ascending, Bothwell, with his rearguard and prisoners, had united himself, or nearly so, with the main body led by his commander. The extreme difficulty of the road, which was in some places steep, and in others boggy, retarded the progress of the column, ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... right wing, and in Moreau's invasion of Bavaria in the following year he held an equally important command. In the retreat which ensued when the archduke Charles won the battles of Amberg and Wrzburg (see FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS) Desaix commanded Moreau's rearguard, and later the fortress of Kehl, with the highest distinction, and his name became a household word, like those of Bonaparte, Jourdan, Hoche, Marceau and Klber. Next year his initial successes ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... uninterrupted as in a waking state. It is true, that some persons assert that they never dream; and others that they dream occasionally only. But there is a third class, to which I myself belong, who continually dream, and who always, on waking, distinctly discern the fugitive rearguard of their last sleep thoughts. The simplest view of these diversified instances, is to suppose that all persons in sleep are always dreaming, and that the spaces seemingly vacant of dreams, are only gaps in the memory; that all persons asleep always dream, but that all persons do not always ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... Admiralties made a supreme effort to refit and reinforce their fleet, but it lay in two portions; eighty-five sail under Tromp in the Maas, thirty-one under De With in the Texel. Monk with about 100 ships lay between them to prevent their junction. On August 4 Tromp sailed out and, after a rearguard action off Katwijk, out-manoeuvred the English commander and joined De With. He now turned and with superior numbers attacked Monk off Scheveningen. The old hero fell mortally wounded at the very beginning of what proved to be an unequal fight. After a desperate ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... that meant ninety miles back to Kut over a baked billiard table. The enemy pressed all the way. Once they surrounded our rear brigade. Two officers broke through their front lines to recall the front lot. Another evening we pitched a camp and left it empty to delay the enemy. Daily rearguard actions were fought. Five feverish days got us back to Kut, without disorder or great loss of men; but the loss in material was enormous. All possible supplies had been brought close up to the firing line to facilitate our pursuit: mainly in barges, the rest in carts. The wounded ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... domineering. For instance, having a respect for the Germans, it pained and indeed disgusted me to hear a colonel of the German staff, in answer to my question whether the evacuating force would march out with a rearguard as in war time, reply, "Pho, a field gendarme with a whip is rearguard enough against such canaille!" But in the mouths of Hans and Carl and Johann, the stout Kerle of the ranks, there were no such words of bitter scorn for their compulsory hosts. The honest ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... lightning followed by explosions, slipping, falling, and forced at times to halt. Pascalon crossed himself and invoked aloud, as at Tarascon: "Sainte Marthe and Sainte Helene, Sainte Marie-Madeleine," while Excourbanies swore: "Coquin de sort!" and Bravida, the rearguard, looked back ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... against the villages of Vyk and Pchetchniak were repulsed with success. West of the Omulew our troops, retiring progressively toward a bridgehead on the Narew, delivered on the evening of the 17th a rearguard action of a stubborn character near the town of Mahoff. Near the village of Karnevo ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... word from their leaders, began to get in line along the stream, where they had been when we halted last night. But we had no thought of falling on them until we had had some parley with the king or the Earl of Chester. And now it was plain that with the grim rearguard behind us we outnumbered the men of ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... disappearance. At eight miles from Goliad begins an extensive and treeless prairie, known as the Nine-mile Prairie; and across this, towards three in the afternoon, we had advanced about four or five miles. Myself and some of my comrades, who acted as rearguard, were about two miles behind, and had received orders to keep a sharp eye upon the forest, which lay at a considerable distance to our left; but as up to this time no signs of an enemy had been visible, we were riding along in full security, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... and the thousands of men Kemp had got together for his desperate move. Our staff returned before dark, reporting an eventless day, with intermittent fighting. On the 28th the Staff went out in motors as far as Rooidam. They returned with bad news in the early afternoon. After a prolonged rearguard action Kemp had succeeded, taking over to the Germans with him a force which was said to be far greater than had been supposed. (Need I add that after events showed there ...
— With Botha in the Field • Eric Moore Ritchie
... and the hull was so full of water that the ship was with difficulty kept afloat. M. de Sabran—his name is worthy to be remembered—had received eleven wounds in this gallant resistance, by which he illustrated so signally the duty and service of a rearguard in retarding pursuit. That night two of the French ships hauled off to the westward, and so escaped. The other four continued their flight as before; but the next morning the commodore, despairing of escape, headed for the Portuguese coast, and ran them ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... gentleman, he's in the rearguard, I left him four leagues off, at the fortress of Huningen, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... this, a plot was laid to massacre the "Christian dogs" as they passed through the streets of Tangier, on their free passage to the harbour which the treaty secured them. Henry got wind of this just in time, and instantly embarked his men by boats from the shore outside the walls, but his rearguard was set upon just as they were leaving the land and about ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... The story of the surprise of the rearguard of Charlemagne by the Moors and of the death of Roland (Orlando in the Italian poems) is told in the Chanson de Roland (end of the eleventh century), the finest of the old French heroic poems. 19. FRAZONA ; this ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... order on the flanks, and in front goes the chief ALCAID with about thirty horsemen having canes in their hands like porters; the chief ALCAID bears a different wand; he who is now the chief ALCAID of this King is called Chinapanaique. Behind with the rearguard goes the Master of the Horse with two hundred horsemen, and behind the cavalry go a hundred elephants, and on their backs ride men of high estate. He has in front of him twelve destriers, saddled, and in front of these horses go five elephants, ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... in effect, dropped back into the Lords. So far as the Empire was concerned, he was in the impressive rearguard, and this was a little company ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... their assistance, he stated to them the importance of advancing and securing Rob Roy, if possible, before these auxiliaries should come up to divide with them the honour, as well as the reward which was placed on the head of this celebrated freebooter. He therefore ordered the rearguard to join the centre, and both to close up to the advance, doubling his files so as to occupy with his column the whole practicable part of the road, and to present such a front as its breadth admitted. Dougal, to whom he said in a whisper, "You dog, if you ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... which appeared from a distance to be one hill, but which in reality was two, Wynne's Hill and Horseshoe Hill, which were separated by a donga. On the morning of February 21 he signalled his intentions to White, saying that he thought he had "only a rearguard before him"[29] and that he hoped to be in Ladysmith ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... the populace and the Place, the cloud of curious and idle were minded to follow them. Quasimodo then constituted himself the rearguard, and followed the archdeacon, walking backwards, squat, surly, monstrous, bristling, gathering up his limbs, licking his boar's tusks, growling like a wild beast, and imparting to the crowd immense vibrations, with a look or ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... charge of seventeen donkeys and their loads; Selim, my interpreter, in charge of the donkey and cart and its load; one cook and sub, who is also to be tailor and ready hand for all, and leads the grey horse; Shaw, once mate of a ship, now transformed into rearguard and overseer for the caravan, who is mounted on a good riding-donkey, and wearing a canoe-like tepee and sea-boots; and lastly, on, the splendid bay horse presented to me by Mr. Goodhue, myself, called Bana Mkuba, "the "big master," by my people—the vanguard, the reporter, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... went into position, and as soon as the enemy appeared, opened on them and so continued to fire on their advancing lines until ordered to leave the position, and away we went at a gallop to the next available point and into battery again. So we continued all that afternoon, assisting the infantry rearguard of the army on that road, contesting the enemy's advance as much as possible. When night came we continued in a slow retreat, the road being blocked with wagons and artillery and in terrible condition with mud and ruts. A mile or two per hour being the best ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... In all rearguard actions among the mountains the employment of artillery is imperative. Even two guns may materially assist the extrication of the infantry from the peaks and crags of the hillside, and prevent by ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... depths might we not sink? So, in all Christian hearts there should be profound consciousness of their own weakness. The man 'who fears no fall' is sure to have one. It is perilous to march through an enemy's country in loose order, without scouts and rearguard. Rigorous control is ever necessary. Brotherly judgment, too, of others should result from our consciousness of weakness. Examples of others falling are not to make us say cynically, 'We are all alike,' but to set us to think ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... Joan de Cuevas, Don Rodrigo de Mendoca, Pasqual de Alarcon, Joan de Cervantes, Captain Vergara, and Cristoval de Villagra, with their companies. The other captains were in the body of the squadron. The rearguard was under command of Captain Delgado, while the master-of-camp aided in all parts. The army came up within range of the enemy's artillery, which suddenly began to play. The governor came to see how the troops were formed, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... the beaming Goodchild followed, the mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the ...
— The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices • Charles Dickens
... steel panoplies, and armed with long spears, by large bodies of archers, and even by a powerful corps of elephants. This grand army was under the command of a general whom the Roman writers call Meranes, and of two sons of Sapor. It pressed heavily upon the Roman rearguard; and Julian, after a little while, found it necessary to stop his march, confront his pursuers, and offer them battle. The offer was accepted, and an engagement took place in a tract called Maranga. The enemy advanced in two lines—the first composed of the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... enemy was hovering near, and the general and staff went their rounds to see that every precaution of real warfare was observed. On the line of march Metellus was everywhere, now in the van, now with The rearguard, now with the central column. His eye criticised every disposition and detected every departure from the rules; he saw that each soldier kept his line, that he filled his due place in the serried ranks that gathered round a standard, that he bore the appropriate burden of his ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... being arranged two abreast per row, there being ten rows. Bernibus and myself were partners, for we had become close friends in the few days that I had spent among the Canitaurs, while Wagner was once again the leading guide and Taurus the rearguard. ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... their inhabitants quiet, but it hadn't that effect. All their friends came down to help in cutting us off as we went home and I'm still surprised that they didn't succeed. They sniped our camp every night and had a number of brushes with the rearguard as we hurried back through the hills; but it wasn't until we were nearly clear that things got badly threatening and we had to make a stand. I believe the idea was that we must hold our ground until help arrived. But ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss
... the Valley, advance and main column, and rearguard, artillery and wagon train, came down the moon-lighted road, having marched twenty miles since high noon. On either hand stretched pleasant pastures, a running stream, fair woods. Company by company the men left the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... after month, recklessly, with prodigal, spendthrift haste; when those boys were mown down in swaths by machine-guns, blown to bits by shell-fire, gassed in thousands, until all that country became a graveyard; when they went forward to new assaults or fell back in rearguard actions with a certain knowledge that they had in their first attack no more than one chance in five of escape, next time one chance in four, then one chance in three, one chance in two, and after that no chance at all, ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and presents no obstacles to the passage of troops of all arms. The steep cliffs rising abruptly from the river-beds afford good defensive positions suitable for rearguard actions, obliging an advancing force to ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... with much difficulty in reaching the foot of the mountain, with such a small remnant of his followers as could keep in his track. [21] Fortunately, he there found the count of Cifuentes, who had crossed the river with the rearguard, and encamped on a rising ground in the neighborhood. Under favor of this strong position, the latter commander and his brave Sevillians, all fresh for action, were enabled to cover the shattered remains of the Spaniards, and beat off the assaults of ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... in the ashes of a fire for a light to his pipe moved very swiftly towards that cry, as the rearguard, facing about, began to fire at the puffs of smoke from the hillocks around. Gradually the scattered white cloudlets drew out into the long lines of banked white that hung heavily in the stillness of the dawn ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... and harnessed, but it was almost dawn before our unwieldy convoy creaked and groaned into motion. We are rearguard to-day, with some Yeomanry, Australians, and Buffs, but just now we were ordered up to the front, trotted past the whole convoy, and are now in action; limbers and waggons halted behind a rise. The Boers have guns in action to-day, and a shell of theirs has just burst about 400 ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... command with Sherman's troops to pursue the enemy on the 26th. The latter, on the morning of that day advanced by the road through Chickamauga Station, while Thomas ordered the command under Hooker and Palmer to push on by way of the Greysville and Ringgold road. At the former place the rearguard of the rebels was surprised after night, and three cannon and a large number of prisoners captured. On the next day another piece of artillery was captured at Greysville, and later in the day Hooker's advance ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... by a couple of the boys. Then came Yetsko, dragging the sleeping bag in which Chester Pelton was packed like a mummy. Prestonby himself followed, pushing on his future father-in-law's feet, and Claire crawled behind, with the rest of Ray's schoolmates for a rearguard. ...
— Null-ABC • Henry Beam Piper and John Joseph McGuire
... servant entered the library to arouse me from a refreshing sleep with the news that some one desired to speak with me upon the telephone. Heavily I made my way to the lobby and put the receiver to my ear, but the first sentence I heard drove the lingering rearguard of Slumber headlong from ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... said the captain. "The enemy's scouts will be looking up stragglers," and after a hasty meal he, with Neville and Zenas, rode away in the darkness, to join the rearguard ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... darkness of the night Iskander, the pride and boast Of that mighty Othman host, With his routed Turks, takes flight From the battle fought and lost On the day of Pentecost; Leaving behind him dead The army of Amurath, The vanguard as it led, The rearguard as it fled, Mown down in the bloody swath Of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... camels, provided a mounted screen half a mile in front. Fenshawe, Royson and Irene, with some of the sailors, formed the advance guard. Then came the kafila proper, with the remainder of the Aphrodite's crew, under Stump's charge, as a rearguard. They had halted for breakfast, and were preparing for another long march before the heat of the sun enforced a rest, when Hussain overtook them. At eight o'clock Alfieri had not visited the rendezvous, nor was he to be seen an hour later from the summit ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... had not been mistaken in supposing that he was already missed and sought, though his imagination had corrupted certain savage cries into the well-known sounds that composed his own latinized name. The truth was simply this. The warriors of the rearguard had not failed to apprise those in front of the mysterious character, with which it had pleased the trapper to invest the unsuspecting naturalist. The same untutored admiration, which on the receipt of this intelligence had driven those in the ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... till within a pace or two of them, when he doubled suddenly, and amid the shouts of our partisans slipped past them and was seen heading straight for the Craven goal. But although he had escaped their forwards, he had yet their rearguard to escape, which was far harder work, for was not one of that rearguard the celebrated Slider himself, who by his prowess had last year carried defeat to our school; and the other, was it not the stalwart Naylor, who only ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... scarcely pointed my attention to the movement, when the whole body of the rearguard was in full and rapid advance. The plain was literally covered with those irregulars, who swept on like a surge, or rather, from the diversity of their colours, and the vast half-circle which they formed on the ground, a living ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... of our lost positions remaining in the hands of the Turk. The tide had now turned definitely in our favour and the Turk was in full retreat. An attempt was made to encircle his southern flank and to cut him off with our cavalry, but his rearguard actions were fought stubbornly, and the pursuing cavalry had to be withdrawn. During the night of the 5th/6th, the enemy evacuated Katia, which was occupied by us on the following morning. By the 8th, he had abandoned ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... daybreak and awfully cold. We marched off to Newcastle, the fine Lancashire Fusiliers, my father's old regiment, doing rearguard just behind our guns. Met Archie Shee of the 19th Hussars who recognised me from old Britannia days, where he and I were together. He told me that my cousin Ernest St. Quintin of the 19th had gone home with enteric after the Ladysmith siege. On getting to the top of the hills overlooking ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... action. The activity of Vendome, however, baffled his design. He made his men, weary as they were, march all night and cross the Dender at several points, breaking down the bridges between Alort and Oerdegun, and the Allies only arrived in time to make three hundred prisoners from the rearguard. Scarcely had they recovered from this disappointment, when intelligence arrived of the surprise of Ghent and Bruges; while, at the same time, the ferment in Brussels, owing to the near approach of the French to that capital, became ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... He was Rand's assistant, and also Kathie's lover. He was five or six years older than his employer, and slightly built. His hair, fighting a stubborn rearguard action against baldness, was an indeterminate mousy gray-brown. It was one of his professional assets that nobody ever noticed him, not even in a crowd of one; when he wanted it to, his thin face could assume the weary, baffled expression of a middle-aged book-keeper ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... ride Ned and Dick Warrener were on rearguard—that is to say, they rode together some two hundred yards behind the rest of ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... wounded in Ladysmith and the provisioning of the troops and the town. A part of Sir George White's force is, no doubt, still fit for action so soon as its supply of cartridges can be renewed. The most effective plan would probably be to leave a strong rearguard at Nelthorpe, and to push on with the main body and the bulk of the artillery through Ladysmith to the assault of one of the Boer positions on the north side of the town. This would compel the Boers to abandon Bulwana, perhaps ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... the ranch road now. She knew the general lay of the land well enough to recognize it, and she could trust Sunbeam to keep it. A dense black cloud, the rearguard of the storm, had covered the moon, but there were stars enough to light ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... rearguard,' said the Major. 'Some of your infernal thieves have got lost. They're at the head of the squadron, and you're a ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... troops rearguard our trenches. Mabolo and San Jose warn us that they will fire on us when the time comes. Impossible to remain there without disagreeing with them. Since 5 o'clock this morning we have been furiously attacking. Americans ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... haste to all his emirs and his barons to assemble a mighty army, and in three days he gathered four hundred thousand men to Roncesvalles, and there lay in wait for the rearguard ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... know, morality is fundamentally custom, the mores, as it has been called, of a people. It is a body of conduct which is in constant motion, with an exalted advance-guard, which few can keep up with, and a debased rearguard, once called the black-guard, a name that has since acquired an appropriate significance. But in the substantial and central sense morality means the conduct of the main body of the community. Thus understood, it is clear that in our time war still comes into contact with morality. The pioneers ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... said Marah to me. "We must bring them clear off. Ride, boys—Strete road," he called; and the smugglers of the rearguard clattered off by the back road, or broken disused lane, which leads to Allington. Still Marah waited, the only smuggler now left on the beach. The preventive officers were clattering down the hill to us, less than a quarter of a mile away. "It's the preventives right enough," ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... down the river, which Alan always thought afterwards tried him more than any of the terrible events of his escape. For although there was but little fighting, only rearguard actions indeed, every day the Asiki sent messengers renewing their offers of peace on the sole condition of the surrender of himself and Jeekie. At last one evening they came to that place where Alan first met the Ogula, and once ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard |
