To describe all that occurred would be beyond us. Let us follow our hero, though, and see what happened in his direction. Tom was one of the forlorn hope. Shouldering his hay pack, and gripping his sword, he dashed at the breach before him when the alarm was given. The stunning discharge of a cannon to his front almost swept him from his feet, and cleared a lane through the comrades before him. A fireball danced down the steep slope of the breach and blazed brightly, showing the faces and figures of the enemy plainly, the muskets they were levelling, and an appalling _chevaux de frise_ erected at the top of the breach. Composed of naked sabre blades secured to logs of wood, this obstacle awaited the stormers before they could come to hand grips with the enemy. But that was not all. Tom stumbled over a boulder, floundered on to his face, and was then lifted boldly and flung aside by a mighty concussion. "A mine," he thought. "Am I alive or not? What's happened to the others?" He might well ask that. The poor fellows were swept out of existence almost to a man; but behind them were the noble five hundred, and in rear again the gallant Light Division. Before them was the breach; that terrible breach, with its defenders, its guns, its awful obstacle, and the hundred-and-one means there for the destruction of the stormers. Time and again did men dash at it. Gallant souls, driven crazy by the hazard they endured, and filled with fearful determination, clambered to that _chevaux de frise_ and were there slaughtered. Officers stood in full sight of the enemy calling to their men, leading them upward. And yet none could enter.