Murphy, clubbing his rifle, was bawling to his comrade, Elerson:

“To hell wid this, Davey! Av we don’t pull foot we’re a pair o’ dead ducks!”

“For God’s sake, Boyd!” I shouted. “Break through there beside the Yellow Moth!”

Boyd, wielding his clubbed rifle, cleared a circle amid the crowding savages; Sergeant Parker ran out into the yelling crush; the two gigantic riflemen, Murphy and Elerson, swinging their terrible weapons like flails, smashed their way forward; behind them, using knife, hatchet, and stock, I led out the last men living on that knoll — Ned McDonald, Garrett Putnam, Jack Youse, and a French coureur-de-bois whose name I have never learned.