openings as coolly as though they were firing at a painted bull's-eye.
The man who first did this, the moment his rifle was empty, ran for
cover and was tumultuously cheered by his hidden audience. But in
order to surpass him, the next man, after he had emptied his gun,
walked back very deliberately, and the third man remained to refill
his magazine. And so a spirit of the most senseless rivalry sprang up,
and one man after another darted out into the plaza to cap the
recklessness of those who had gone before him.

It was not until five men were shot dead and lay sprawling and
uncovered in the sun that the madness seemed to pass. But my charging
the embrasure was always supposed to be a part of it, and to have been
inspired entirely by vanity and a desire to do something more
extravagantly reckless than any of the others. As a matter of fact I
acted on what has always seemed to me excellent reasoning, and if I
went alone, it was only because, having started, it seemed safer to go
ahead than to run all the way back again. I never blamed the men for
running back, and so I cannot see why they should blame me for having
gone ahead.

The enemy had ceased firing shrapnel and were using solid shot. When
their Gatlings also ceased, I guessed that it might be that the guns
were jammed. If I were right and if one avoided the solid shot by
approaching the barricade obliquely, there was no danger in charging
the barricade. I told my troop that I thought the guns were out of
order, and that if we rushed the barricade we could take it. When I
asked for volunteers, ten men came forward and at once, without asking
permission, which I knew I could not get, we charged across the plaza.

Both sides saw us at the same instant, and the firing was so fierce