soldiers passed their days and nights up to the knees in mud and sludge
and sea-water, but they saw that their commander never spared himself,
and having a superfluity of food and drink, owing to the watchful care of
the States-General, who sent in fleets laden with provisions faster than
they could be consumed, they were cheerful and content.

On the 12th March there was a determined effort to carry the lesser
Polder Bulwark. After a fierce and bloody action, the place was taken by
storm, and the first success in the game was registered for Spinola. The
little fort was crammed full of dead, but such of the defenders as
survived were at last driven out of it, and forced to take refuge in the
next work. Day after day the same bloody business was renewed, a mere
monotony of assaults, repulses, sallies, in which hardly an inch of
ground was gained on either side, except at the cost of a great pile of
corpses. "Men will never know, nor can mortal pen ever describe," said
one who saw it all, "the ferocity and the pertinacity of both besiegers
and besieged." On the 15th of March, Colonel Catrice, an accomplished
Walloon officer of engineers, commanding the approaches against the
Polder, was killed. On the 21st March, as Peter Orieselles was taking
his scrambling dinner in company with Philip Fleming, there was a report
that the enemy was out again in force. A good deal of progress had been
made during the previous weeks on the south-west and west, and more was
suspected than was actually known. It was felt that the foe was steadily
nibbling his way up to the counterscarp. Moreover, such was the
emulation among the Germans, Walloons, Italians, and Spaniards for
precedence in working across the canal, that a general assault and
universal explosion were considered at any instant possible. The
governor sent Fleming to see if all was right in the Porcupine, while
he himself went to see if a new battery, which he had just established
to check the approaches of the enemy towards the Polder Half-moon and