"Front line" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... three deep, with himself, Monckton, and Murray in command, faced the rear of Quebec about three quarters of a mile from what was then the wall. To his left was the wooded road now known as St. Louis. He posts Townshend facing this, at right angles to his front line. Another battalion lay in the woods to the rear. There were, besides, a reserve regiment, and a battalion to guard ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... reposeful little valley a hundred feet wide, he chose the most rugged branch he could find, the one with the steepest and highest banks, and up that dry bed, with many a twist and turn, he painfully limped his way. At last he found himself in a snug and safe ditch, precisely like a front line trench seven feet wide, with perpendicular walls and zig- zagging so persistently that the de'il himself could not find him save by following him up to close quarters, and landing upon his horns. There, without food or water, the wounded animal would ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... a letter to Joab and sent it by Uriah. In the letter, he said, "Place Uriah in the front line where there is the fiercest fighting, then draw back from behind him, that he may be struck down and die." So Joab, in posting guards over the city, sent Uriah to the place where he knew there were brave men. When the men of the city went out to fight against Joab, ...
— The Children's Bible • Henry A. Sherman
... are relieving a regiment that has a name second to none out here; and I want you to have the same kind of a name. The food is fine—in fact, we were surprised to see so much and of such good quality in the front line. Above all, I want you to trust your officers as I trust them, and I'm sure they trust you. If at any time you think you are suffering any injustice, don't talk and grumble amongst yourselves, but let's hear about it, and ...
— Into the Jaws of Death • Jack O'Brien
... had places in the front line of the spectators, and with them was the woman who had given the cloth for the miracle; and who stood staring at the stuff, which she had known so intimately in every thread and fiber, with an air ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... passion, procured to be made a poursuivant. Oh! how curious they are! Henry seizes an alderman who refused to contribute to a benevolence: sends him to the army on the borders; orders him to be exposed in the front line; and if that does not do, to be treated with the utmost rigour of military discipline. His daughter Bess is not less a Tudor. The mean, unworthy treatment of the queen of Scots is striking; and you will find Elizabeth's jealousy of her ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... forward to look into the front line of the large composition crowded with life-size figures on which Watson was engaged. It was an illustration of some Chaucerian lines, describing the face of a man on his way to execution, seen among ...
— Fenwick's Career • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... straight, the front should be undulating, having long sweeping bays and promontories. No short curves should exist. They interfere with the lawn-mower. When it is desirable to face a boundary border with a walk, then, of course, the front line of a bed ...
— Making a Garden of Perennials • W. C. Egan
... fire guns, and I will now tell you how we must fight them, if it is necessary. I will stand in the center of the front line, with the guns, and on each side of us will be the ones I shall select. All those in front will have bows and arrows, but you will not need them, unless they come up too close. We must now march to the right, as fast as we can, and get between ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... made in characteristic Ranger manner, Allison was in the front line and was the last to turn back, though there were several bullet holes in his clothes. Another charge, and again he was in the lead. A big redcoat was upon him before he could reload. He clubbed his rifle, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... days passed. They made us mount guard with the pickets, we drank a great deal of eau-de-vie, and the drink-shops of Mourmelon were full without let, when suddenly Canrobert {4} passed us in review along the front line of battle. I see him now on his big horse, bent over the saddle, his hair flying, his waxed mustaches in a ghastly face. A mutiny was breaking out. Deprived of everything, and hardly convinced by that ...
— Sac-Au-Dos - 1907 • Joris Karl Huysmans
... his search and like a madman commenced to run through the passages, when a sudden idea struck his blood cold. He inquired where the exit for the artists was and as soon as it was pointed out, he hurried there. He was not mistaken. In the front line of the crowd that waited to see Annouchka come out he recognized Natacha, with her head enveloped in the black mantle so that none should see her face. Besides, this corner of the garden was in a ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... Sometimes the advance is made in a series of lines, with the men well opened out at five or six paces interval; at other times it is made in a line, with the men almost shoulder to shoulder, followed in all cases by supports in close formation. The latter either waver when the front line is checked, or crowd on to it, moving forward under the orders of their officers, and the mass forms a magnificent target. Prisoners have described the fire of our troops as pinning them to the ground, and this is certainly borne out ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... filling up a crater. Then there's a lorry full of bits of an old corduroy road they're going to lay down somewhere over a marshy place. There are two sausage balloons sitting up aloft, and some aeroplanes coming and going. Our front line is not more than a mile away, and the German line is about a mile and a quarter. Far off to my right I can just see a field with tanks in it. Ah—there goes a shell on the Hun line—another! Can't think why we're tuning up at this time of day. We shall be getting some of their ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... First Army has pierced the enemy's line on a total front of over three miles. Of this the entire hostile front line system of trenches has been captured on a front of 3,200 yards, and of the remaining portion the first and second lines of trenches are in ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... been in these dug-outs for about half an hour when we were told to fall in and each man to carry two boxes of bombs. We then went into the communication trench of the old front line. At this stage ...
— One Young Man • Sir John Ernest Hodder-Williams
... Baccarat that I met West again, running his car, transporting newspapers or moving-picture machines, or canteen supplies, or itinerant entertainers such as I, out over any sort of road toward the front line. His glimpses of the great war were from an angle of vision that makes what he has to say in this book well worth reading. His duties took him into every sort of billet, and brought him into close touch with many branches of the army, as well as with all sorts of welfare work and workers. ...
— The Fight for the Argonne - Personal Experiences of a 'Y' Man • William Benjamin West
... prayed to her he poised his spear and hurled it. He hit Eupeithes' helmet, and the spear went right through it, for the helmet stayed it not, and his armour rang rattling round him as he fell heavily to the ground. Meantime Ulysses and his son fell upon the front line of the foe and smote them with their swords and spears; indeed, they would have killed every one of them, and prevented them from ever getting home again, only Minerva raised her voice aloud, and made every one pause. "Men of Ithaca," ...
— The Odyssey • Homer
... ferocious individual hand-to-hand fighting a counter-attack was launched against the captured trench. A swarm of the enemy leaped from the next trench and rushed across the twenty or thirty yards of open to the captured front line. But the counterattack had been expected. The guns caught the attackers as they left their trench and beat them down in scores. A line of riflemen had been installed under cover of what had been the ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... back. For myself, I thought that a situation had arisen in which Irish members who were serving had a more imperative duty at home, and I went to discuss the matter with Willie Redmond, whose battalion was then holding the front line ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... of the Yankees' hill. There was no molestation from the rebels. The firing from the vessels and batteries protected the hillside and shore. The troops were promptly formed in three lines. Harry's place was in the left of the front line. Then there was long waiting. The barges went back to the Boston side. Was General Howe, who had command of the movements, sending for more troops? Many of the soldiers ate of their stock of provisions. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... in the Roman legion, the best soldiers, those whose courage had been proved by experience in battle, waited stoically, kept in the second and third lines. They were far enough away not to suffer wounds and not to be drawn in by the front line retiring into their intervals. Yet they were near enough to give support when necessary or to finish ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... formed in 1949: the western Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the eastern German Democratic Republic (GDR). The democratic FRG embedded itself in key Western economic and security organizations, the EC and NATO, while the communist GDR was on the front line of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. The decline of the USSR and the end of the Cold War allowed for German unification in 1990. Since then Germany has expended considerable funds to bring eastern productivity and wages up to western standards. In January 1999, Germany and ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... an infantry regiment and the three youths, like the men, were on foot. They filed off to the left behind the front line of the Southern army, and marched steadily westward, inclining slightly to the north. Many of the men, or rather boys, not yet fast in the bonds of discipline, began to talk, and guess together about their errand. But Colonel Talbot and Lieutenant-Colonel ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... precipitately—so hurriedly, in fact, that my helmet fell off, and, as I replaced it, I was not sorry to see that this trench was very deep and narrow. As we progressed, very slowly by reason of clinging mud, F. informed us that this trench had been our old front line before we took Beaumont Hamel; and I noticed many things, as, clips of cartridges, unexploded bombs, Lewis-gun magazines, parts of a broken machine gun, and various odds and ends of accoutrements. In some ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... Communist units were shooting each other up in mutual mistaken identity. The result would be about the same in either case—reserve units would be disorganized, and some men would have been pulled back from the front line. His dozen-odd UN regulars and Turkish partisans had done their best to simulate a paratroop attack in force. At least, his job was done; now to execute that classic infantry maneuver described as, "Let's get the hell outa here." This was his last patrol before rotation ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... America" Division passed through England on its way to France and the first real fighting they had was in the St. Mihiel Salient. From there they went to the Argonne Forest, where the division was on the front line of the battle for twenty-six days and ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... Turkish attack was not going to materialise. I stood upon the firing-step and looked over the parapet. In the moonlight I could see the black sand-bags of the Turks' front line, and the desolate waste of No Man's Land.... Then my hand sprang to the butt of my revolver. Something had moved in No Man's Land. "Look out!" I said. "They're coming!" just as from behind a bit of rising ground a figure rose on to its hands and knees. I pointed my ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... being doubtful, carries off great numbers on both sides, particularly the men of greatest courage; nor did victory declare itself, until the second line of the Romans came up fresh to the front, in the place of the first, who were much fatigued. The Etrurians, because their front line was not supported by any fresh reserves, fell all before and round the standards, and in no battle whatever would there have been seen less disposition to run, or a greater effusion of human blood, had not the night sheltered the Etrurians, who were resolutely ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... most difficult form of attack. The long range of modern weapons, of guns that kill at two miles and of rifles that kill at a mile—to take a moderate estimate of their power—enables the defender to concentrate upon any attack against his centre the fire of all the rifles in his front line for a couple of miles, and of all the guns standing on a length of four miles. A similar concentration of fire is only occasionally and temporary possible for the assailant, though if it should happen that the ground exposes a point of the defender's line to such concentric fire, while ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... Wilkins I found my ball and reviewed the situation. The driver and hockey stick were hopeless for mashie shots, but Wilkins reported a practicable C.T. a few yards to the right, leading to the front line, and some gently sloping revetting from thence to the level. Luckily the C.T. had plenty of length to each traverse, and when I emerged in the open with my sixty-seventh Laxey was only just getting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... a nice little 'ouse up in the front line, well hidden by trees. It wasn't a house, Jerry, I wish you to understand; it was merely a little 'ouse standing in its own grounds like, with a brace or so of chickens and a few mangel-wurzels a-climbin' round the place. You know ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... arrive—perhaps Bullivant—and read me the riddle. But whatever it was, I was ready for it, for my whole being had found a new purpose. Living in the trenches, you are apt to get your horizon narrowed down to the front line of enemy barbed wire on one side and the nearest rest billets on the other. But now I seemed to see beyond the fog ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... every officer goes behind the line of battle, and the higher the officer's rank, the farther behind he goes. Not because he is any the less brave, but because the laws of war require that to be done. If the general came up on the front line and were killed you would lose your battle anyhow, because he has the plan of the battle in his brain, and must be kept in comparative safety. I, with my "shining sword flashing in the sunlight." Ah! There sat in the hall that day men ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... life," chaffed Tom. "You fellows have a picnic here away back of the lines, while we chaps in the front line do all the work ...
— Army Boys in the French Trenches • Homer Randall
... marvel afterward but, at that moment, Crittenden hardly noted that the poor fellow was blown into a hundred fragments. He was in the front line now. A Brigadier, with his hat in his hand and his white hair shining in the sun, run diagonally across in front of his line of battle, and, with a wild cheer, the run of ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... shot under him, again was in the front line of the Southern troops that followed the mass of fugitives down the road toward the Chancellor House. In the mad rush he lost sight of Jackson for the time, and found himself mingled with the Invincibles. Both the colonels were bleeding from slight wounds, but with fire equal ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... us to the American Ambulance men who were with the French army. Generally when they were at work they were quartered near a big base hospital; and their work took them from the large hospital to the first aid stations near the front line trenches. Our way from Paris to these men led across the devastated area of France. As the chief activity of the French at the time of our visit was in the Verdun sector, we spent most of our first week at the front near Verdun. And one ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... expression that of those who dreaded something worse to happen; the suggestion of tension, as though the Last Trump were expected at any moment, filled me with vague alarm. The only place where that incipient panic is not usual is the front line, because there the enemy is within hail, and is known to be another unlucky fool. But I allayed my anxiety. I leaned over one of the still figures and scanned the fateful document which had given its reader the aspect of one who was staring at what the Moving Finger had done. Its message was ...
— Waiting for Daylight • Henry Major Tomlinson
... stand. On the morning of the 20th of August, Wayne, now so crippled by gout that he had to be lifted into his saddle, gallantly led an assault. The Indian fire was murderous, and a battalion of mounted Kentuckians was at first hurled back. But the front line of infantry rushed up and dislodged the savages from their covert, while the regular cavalry on the right charged the enemy's left flank. Before the second line of infantry could get into action the day was won. The ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... squadrons when their own flanks were exposed by this evolution. While Alexander thus met and baffled all the flanking attacks of the enemy with troops brought up from his second line, he kept his own horse-guards and the rest of the front line of his wing fresh, and ready to take advantage of the first opportunity for striking a decisive blow. This soon came. A large body of horse, who were posted on the Persian left wing nearest to the centre, quitted their station, and rode off to help ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... those screams ringing in my ears. I can say that I never took the life of a man or woman. Of course I had to help to load the cannon, and when the time for boarding came would wave my cutlass and fire my pistols with the best of them; but I took good care never to be in the front line, and the others were too busy with their bloody doings to notice what share ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... entered the German lines. Several casualties were sustained during the operations. When our men returned to their trenches, it was discovered that one of the raiding party was missing. When the noise of the counter-barrage had died down, a cry for help was distinctly heard by our front line troops. It came from 'no man's land.' A couple of stretcher-bearers and two men went out in search of the one in distress. While groping about amongst the wire in the darkness, they heard the Germans assuring the man for whom they were searching ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... of the century, but ran round the corner of the house, and came face to face with the east wind, which took her with such force as to momentarily stay her progress. Her skirts were blown out horizontally, her ankles were exposed, and the front line of her shape (beginning to bud like spring) was sketched against the red brick wall. She laughed, but the strong gale filled her throat as if a hand had been thrust down it; the wind got its edge like a knife under her eyelids, between them and the eyeballs, and seemed ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... on the caterpillar system of traction used for heavy guns were to crawl across No Man's Land, enfilade the enemy front line with quick-firing and machine guns, and hurl bombs on such of the works and emplacements as they did not ram to pieces,—thus a confidential adjutant, who seemed to think he had admitted me into ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott
... a few comrades were in a front line trench, "Jerry" placed a high explosive "plump in the middle of it." When S. recovered consciousness, he found himself half covered with dirt and debris of all kinds, and when he crawled out and brushed himself off, he saw that of all his comrades ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... clay-coloured rectangles that moved evenly, like brown caravans, represented the marching units of United States troops. The columns of bluish-grey that passed them with shorter, quicker steps, were companies of those tireless Frenchmen, who after almost three years of the front line real thing, now played at a mimic war of make-believe, with ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... well be so delighted with soldiering, free from the annoyance of enemy action, that they would wish to make a long stay and experience all its variations, beginning perhaps with the P.B.I, (or Pretty Busy Infantry) in a mud-hole in the front line, and passing through all the stages of the normal military career till they arrived at the Divisional Chateau. Should anyone desire to survey life from the altitude of an R.T.O. (Railway Transport, not Really Tantalising Officer, as supposed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... a somewhat casual visitor was present when a vagrant shell smashed the refreshment dug-out where a young Red Cross man was handling some comforts for the khaki-clad boys near the front line. And when the alarmed visitor explained to the dispenser of refreshments, "I would not stay here for a hundred dollars a day," the answer came back swiftly but kindly, "Neither would I." He was not there for the hope of gain, but out of a sense of duty and adventure so strong that both ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... to the great battle of Saturday, is farther out by many miles, and does not lie within our lines. But, if the left of the army be at Dinwiddie, and the right at Petersburg, Little Five Forks will be first on the front line, though when Sheridan fought there, it was neutral ground, picketed but not possessed. Very early in the week, when the Rebels became aware of the extension of our lines, they added to the regular force which ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... relieved. This had been arranged owing to the shortage of officers in our Ambulance. I therefore left the Lancs. yesterday morning, Touhy, an Irishman, taking my place. I was enjoying myself thoroughly with the Lancs., and regretted this change as we were going into the front line in a day or two. Colonel Pearson is very popular with every man in his Battalion and is a most charming man, and I regretted ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... morning the bombardment of the front line gave way to a rolling barrage. Close behind this, hugging it, as the men said, came gray waves of the enemy. It was quieter after the barrage had passed: only the tack-tack of machine guns and ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... picture boys could get into real action on the front line trenches, there were certain formalities to go through, and they had to undergo a ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... originally occupied. For a time the battle raged furiously without superiority on either side. The Scotch possessed the great advantage that, standing close together in ranks four deep, every man was engaged, while of the mounted knights and men-at-arms who pressed upon them, only the front line was doing efficient service. Not only, therefore, was the vast numerical superiority of the English useless to them, but actually a far larger number of the Scottish than of themselves were using ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... the German gunners knew the British line had advanced and held the captured trench, they pelted it, the open ground behind it, and the trench that had been the British front line, with a storm of shell-fire. The rifle-fire was hotter, too, and the rallied defense was pouring in whistling stream of bullets. But the captured trench, which it will be remembered was a recaptured British one, ran back and joined up with the British lines. It was possible therefore to ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... enclosing walls. Many a worth-while scene is acted out in a space no bigger than that which is occupied by an office boy's stool and hat. If there is a table in this room, it is often so near it is half out of the picture or perhaps it is against the front line of the triangular ground-plan. Only the top of the table is seen, and nothing close up to us is pictured below that. We in the audience are privileged characters. Generally attending the show in bunches of two or three, we are members of the household on the screen. Sometimes ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... entire command, "in order in the line," their six shining pieces and dark caissons and their twice six six-horse teams stretching back in six statuesque rows; each of the three lieutenants—Bartleson, Villeneuve, Tracy—in the front line, midway between his two guns, the artificers just six yards out on the left, and guidon and buglers just six on the right. At the commander's back was the levee. Only now it had been empty of spectators, and ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... you are going with the regiment; very glad. Every good surgeon in the Confederacy should hasten to the front line of our armies. Since you leave home, I am particularly glad that you are going to Manassas, where you can be ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... of interest the walks round the great majority of our seaside towns, pass harmlessly over the valley of the Sid, where the vegetation is as bright and luxuriant as if the ocean lay leagues away, instead of breaking on the shore within a few feet of the front line of houses. ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... Headquarters Staff, the Generals of division, and others. To his left, formed up at right angles, were the representative detachments of the Egyptian army, the 11th Soudanese, with their red heckles in their fezzes, in the front line. Upon the Sirdar's right were the detachments of Gatacre's division, each in its regimental order of seniority. Standing a few paces in front of the Sirdar, but facing him, upon a mound of earth and bricks, were the four chaplains attached to the British infantry—Presbyterian, ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... few regiments, which the bravery of their colonels Gotz, Terzky, Colloredo, and Piccolomini, compelled to keep their ground. The Swedish infantry, with prompt determination, profited by the enemy's confusion. To fill up the gaps which death had made in the front line, they formed both lines into one, and with it made the final and decisive charge. A third time they crossed the trenches, and a third time they captured the battery. The sun was setting when the two lines closed. The strife grew hotter ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... together, so as to form a complete covering, resembling the back of a tortoise, and under shelter of this they advance to the attack. When they reach the foot of the wall all remain immovable save those in the front line, who labour with iron bars to loosen the stones at the foot of the wall, protected from missiles from above by the shields of their comrades. From time to time they are relieved by fresh workers until the foundations of the wall are deeply undermined. As they proceed they erect massive props ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... right wing. Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Caius Claudius Nero, lieutenant-generals, commanded the wings, Marcellus gave vigour to the centre by his presence, as an encourager and a witness. On the part of Hannibal, the Spaniards, who were the flower of his whole army, occupied the front line. After the battle had continued doubtful for a long time, Hannibal ordered the elephants to be advanced into the front line, if by that means any confusion or panic could be created. At first, they threw the troops into confusion and broke their ranks, and treading some ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... and event of the onset were, throughout, quite as dreadful as the mental emotion which urged it. Notwithstanding that the three files of the front line of English poured forth their incessant fire of musketry—notwithstanding that the cannon, now loaded with grapeshot, swept the field as with a hailstorm—notwithstanding the flank fire of Wolfe's regiment—onward, onward went the headlong Highlanders, flinging themselves into, rather than rushing ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... burned. There the temple was built and dedicated August 18, B.C. 29. An altar had been erected on the spot where Caesar's body had been burned, and the new temple was so placed that the altar was included in its boundaries, occupying a niche in the centre of the front line of the substructure. The temple had the usual history of destruction and rebuilding in antiquity until in early Christian times it was used for secular purposes, and the eyesore of the pagan altar was removed by building a wall across the front, the diameter ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... stood eight trains, stacked with rows and rows of cylinders, and he contemplated them grimly. Each train was drawn by an ugly-looking petrol electric engine. The whole eight would shortly run at close intervals to the nearest point to the front line. Then Vane, with a large pushing party, could man-handle the trains into the position decided on—a few hundred yards behind the outpost line. And as a method of fighting it struck ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... at the distance of thirty or forty paces. The effect was so great as to produce something of a recoil. The fire was returned; and the light infantry made two attempts to charge, but were repulsed with loss. The Highlanders next were ordered up, and rapidly advancing in charge, the American front line gave way and retreated through an open space in the second line. This manoeuvre was made without interfering with the ranks of those who were now to oppose the Highlanders, who ran in to take advantage of what appeared to them to be a confusion of the Americans. The second line threw ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... as the day passed, the slender garrison in that part were forced to abandon whatever protection the ground had previously given, and, retiring before the enemy, to fight a rear-guard action in the open. Some three or four miles of country behind that front line was indeed searched by the enemy guns; some indication of the enormous expenditure of shells indulged in by the Kaiser. The French left, resting on the River Meuse and the centre, was thus forced backward, though the gallant garrison of Herbebois still held on, together with a force of men on ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... splendid order steadily to the front, sweeping every thing before it, and at 4 p.m. we stood upon the ground of our original front line; and the enemy was in full retreat. I directed my several brigades to resume at once their ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... their general is doing it to bring large numbers of his troops close up to the stockade; partly perhaps to keep up the spirits of the front line, by their company; partly to render impossible any attempt, on our part, to make our way out by a sudden rush. Of course, they don't know what our strength is; but they have had so sharp a lesson, today, that they will take ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... command a halt. They instantly spurred off, one to the front and the other to the rear, commanding the leaders to halt their banners. Those in advance at once obeyed, but those behind still pressed on, declaring that they would not halt until they were in the front line. All wanted to be first, in order to obtain their share of the honour and glory of defeating the English. Those in front, seeing the others still coming on, again pressed forward, and thus, in spite of the efforts of the king and his marshals, ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... wish to return via Richmond, whose names begin with D and E, will be discharged upon taking the oath of allegiance to the United States on to-morrow—12th June." So, before sunrise, I was on the front line of the penitents and on my knees awaiting for the blessing of being transformed from a rebel of the deepest dye into the marvelous light and liberty of a free, full-fledged, loyal American citizen—with ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... went out with the half-company to which he belonged, to relieve their comrades who had been for the last three hours in the front line. They had been some little time on duty when Pierre Leroux, who was in charge of the half-company, said to Des Valles, who commanded ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... timber on the green sward facing the lake, in such a way that it corresponded with the front line of a large square which had been traced on the turf ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the front line that had cheered his coming in; the men so ready to forget themselves for a little spectacle, and the thrill that had come to his own breast from their shouting. He loved them and knew why. And those ...
— Red Fleece • Will Levington Comfort |
