"Hand-to-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... atmosphere of doubt which overhung all, were a poor exchange for the roaring bonfires, the good cheer, the enthusiasm, the merriment of the previous evening. But the Irish peasant, if he be less staunch at the waiting—even as he is more forward in the hand-to-hand than his Scottish cousins—has the peasant's gift of endurance; and in the most trying hours—in ignorance, in doubt, in danger—has often held his ground in dependence on his betters, with a result pitiful in the reading. For too often the great have abandoned the little, ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... resist Boscawen if the British should choose to run in past the demolished Island Battery and attack the French fleet, first from a distance, with the help of the Lighthouse and Royal Batteries, and then hand-to-hand. So the French admiral, des Gouttes, agreed to sink four of his largest vessels in the fairway. This, however, still left a gap; so two more were sunk. The passage was then mistakenly reported to be safely closed. The crews, two thousand strong, were landed and ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... jolted by the bumping of the cart; their throats parched with thirst, despair and terror; unfortunate beings who did not even have, as in the times of Nero and Commodus, the fight in the arena, the hand-to-hand struggle with death. Powerless, motionless, the lust of massacre surprised them in their fetters, and battered them not only in life but in death; their bodies, when their hearts had ceased to beat, still resounded beneath the bludgeons which mangled ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... Punch her!" yelled a chorus from the stairs who came swooping down from above, attracted by the scrimmage, and just in time to see the combatants rush at each other in a hand-to-hand struggle, ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... always been an accepted American conviction that poetry is a thing which may be thrown off at any time as a side issue by highly organized persons, most of whose time and strength and faculties are engaged in a vigorous and engrossing hand-to-hand bout with the wolf on the threshold—a most practical, philistine wolf, moreover, which never heard of rhyme or rhythm, and whose whole acquaintance with prosody is confined to a certain greedy familiarity with frayed ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... considered in the North as well as in the South as a female divinity, the fostering mother of all things; and it was owing to climatic difference only that the mythology of the North, where people were daily obliged to conquer the right to live by a hand-to-hand struggle with Nature, should represent her as hard and frozen like Rinda, while the Greeks embodied her in the genial goddess Ceres. The Greeks believed that the cold winter winds swept down from the North, ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... dangerous companion—they and it alike unable to part company. Their masters know this, and knowing it, are all the more alarmed. A fight is before them; and there appears no chance of shunning it—a hand-to-hand fight, their short-bladed knives against the sharp teeth and claws of ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... gesture of assent. He felt, without in the least knowing why, like a man who had been completely worsted in a hand-to-hand combat. He felt humiliated and unhappy. His first wife, even with her high temper and her ready tongue, had never caused him such a sense of abjectness. He had often felt angry with her, but never with himself. She had never really attacked ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Romans a foothold within the city, and a great quantity of spoil. One thousand talents were taken from the temple of Apollo. Preparations were then made for the attack of the citadel, and for six days there was a hand-to-hand fight between the combatants amid the narrow streets which led to the Byrsa. The tall Oriental houses were only taken one by one and burned, and the streets were cumbered with the dead. The miserable people, crowded within ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... was undoubtedly to make my own living and my own way in the hard hand-to-hand struggle in the shops ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... and the village stretching away to a distance before him, John Bogdan suddenly felt himself a prey to timidity, to a terror that he had not known amid the bursting of the shells, the most violent charges, the most ferocious hand-to-hand encounters. His inert peasant intellect, his nature crudely compounded of wilfulness and vanity, had always been a stranger to deep-going reflections. Yet an instinctive misgiving, the sense of distrust and hostility that overwhelmed ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... indolence is as much their fate as their fault. Any diligence of theirs is surprising to us of northern and free lands, because their climate subdues and enervates us, and because we can see before them no career open to intelligent industry. With the poorest, work is necessarily a hand-to-hand struggle against hunger; with those who would not absolutely starve without it, work ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... good mind to try it," I said; "but in that case, remember, it will probably mean a hand-to-hand fight on the other side, and, unarmed and weak as we are, we shall be pretty sure to get ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... point, they were no longer protected by the taboo. The ascending ridge belonged not to Maunganamu, but to the mountain system of the eastern side of Lake Taupo, so that they had not only pistol shots, but hand-to-hand fighting to fear. For ten minutes, the little band ascended by insensible degrees toward the higher table-land. John could not discern the dark wood, but he knew it ought to be within two hundred feet. Suddenly he stopped; almost retreated. He fancied he heard something in the darkness; ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... dawn broke Byng's men were rushing the outer trenches. These they cleared with the wild cries of warriors whose blood was in a tempest. Bayonets dripped red, rifles were fired at hand-to-hand range, men clubbed their guns and fought as men fought in the days when the only fighting was man to man, or one man to many men. Here every "Boojer" and Rooinek was a champion. The Boer fell back because he was forced back by men who were men ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the crew of the former vessel had shown themselves, no shots had yet been fired, but with the activity of apes the pirates tried to scramble over the side of the larger vessel. Now followed a furious hand-to-hand combat. Blows rained down on the heads and shoulders of the assailants, some of whom dropped back to the deck of their ship, while others drew their pistols and fired right and left at the heads and arms they saw over the rail of ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... who sprang upon Kit, and the two were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, when Quilp appeared and separated them, asking the cause of the quarrel, and was told that Kit had called him, "The ugliest dwarf that could be seen anywheres for a penny." Poor Kit never dreamed that his unguarded ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... a hundred yards, Ethan and Mickey emerged from the cave, shouting and excited, firing at every red-skin they could see, the Irishman occasionally swinging his gun over his head, and daring the savages to a hand-to-hand encounter. ...
— The Huge Hunter - Or, the Steam Man of the Prairies • Edward S. Ellis
... sign to one of his men, and he shut the door fast. Then the captain sprang like a tiger at the big savage who had laughed at him, and snatching his long knife from him, he plunged it into his heart. A hand-to-hand fight followed between the white men and the Indians. The Pilgrims gained the victory, and carried back the head of the Indian chief in triumph to Plymouth. Captain Standish's bold action saved both of the English ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... padded chamber, and a shiver of repulsion ran over him. Was he a captive in the hands of, and at the mercy of, a gang of conjurers and mesmerists? The thought was horrible to him. He had courage enough to defend himself in a hand-to-hand encounter, but he felt powerless to contend against such diabolical influences as he ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... now very near the end of the corridor; I heard his feet strike some boards that I remembered lay on the floor there, and I was nerved for a shot and a hand-to-hand struggle, ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... his comrades watched and waited anxiously. The stormers came with the dawn, and were over the stockade before the Whites could rouse the sleepers. Then, however, after a desperate tussle—one of those sturdy hand-to-hand combats in which the Maori fighter shone—the assailants were cut down or driven headlong out. With heavy loss the astonished Waikatos recoiled in disgust, and their retreat did not cease till ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... however, was but momentary. The troops instantly rallied, and before those cruel guns, or even all the rifles, could be reloaded, the Chinese were among the rebels, the cold steel got to work, and a scene of sanguinary, relentless, hand-to-hand fighting ensued, the memory of which was to remain with Frobisher for many a long day. Before the end was reached he could no longer bear to look on, but, climbing down from his perch, seated himself on the floor and covered his face with ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... bayonet. He relies mainly on fire action to disable the enemy, but he should know that it is often necessary for him to cross bayonets with the enemy. Therefore he must be instructed in the use of the rifle and the bayonet in hand-to-hand encounters. The present European War is demonstrating the importance of this instruction. If you did not receive instruction in bayonet fighting at a federal training camp, it was not because it is unimportant, but because there was no available time to give it. Any ...
— The Plattsburg Manual - A Handbook for Military Training • O.O. Ellis and E.B. Garey
... nothing could check him. He shook off his father, and advanced towards me, apparently with the intention of making an end of me. I raised the heavy bat, and looked him steadfastly in the eye. I was the cooler of the two, and the experience I had had in a hand-to-hand fight with Mr. Parasyte gave me both courage and ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... strongly fortified enemy main position, and through this opening stormed an enemy trench on a front of 2,000 meters (about a mile and a third). In the course of the day the wedge was widened and pushed forward, with tenacious hand-to-hand fighting, far into the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... long maintain such exhausting efforts, and consequently tactical movements could continue but for a limited time;[1] and again, during the galley period offensive weapons were not only of short range, but were almost wholly confined to hand-to-hand encounter. These two conditions led almost necessarily to a rush upon each other, not, however, without some dexterous attempts to turn or double on the enemy, followed by a hand-to-hand melee. In such a rush and such a melee a great consensus of respectable, even eminent, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... forbidden on either side. It is true that many of them were expert fighters both with ax and with sword, but they were unused to carry heavy armor, and a half-armed man would have short shrift in such a hand-to-hand struggle as ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... In hand-to-hand work one lunged with the bayonet in a vicious, swinging up-thrust, following through with an up-thrust of the ax-blade as one rushed in on one's opponent, and then a down-thrust of the butt-spike, developing into a down-slice of the bayonet, and a final upward jerk of the bayonet at ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... not have beguiled the Scottish leader. The Scots then knelt for a moment of prayer, as the Abbot of Inchafray bore the crucifix along the line; but they did not kneel to Edward. His van, under Gloucester, fell on Edward Bruce's division, where there was hand-to-hand fighting, broken lances, dying chargers, the rear ranks of Gloucester pressing vainly on the front ranks, unable to deploy for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... through the metal framework of the great chair; he moved a little farther back and stood on guard. There was a glitter in the old man's eye that was disquieting, and Constans did not relish the idea of a hand-to-hand struggle in this contracted space with these wicked-looking wires running in every direction. One of them had been broken, and from the dangling end, which hung close to a metal wall-bracket, a continuous stream of sparks ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... line advanced, others could not. After a quarter of an hour the French on our left wing, which I could see, reached our trenches, shot and stabbed from above, and finally jumped in. Now we could plainly see the hand-to-hand combat: heads bobbing back and forth, guns clubbed (they seemed to be only trying to hit, not kill), glistening bayonets, and a general commotion. On the right wing, things progressed slower, almost at a standstill. In the middle a group jumped forward now and then, and into them the ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... clustered maidens. "You!" And this monosyllable followed the tug of conquest, the blows which were equivalent to a momentary title of possession, all the extremes of a crude, ancestral predilection, of a gallantry inherited from remote forbears of the dark epoch when the club, the stone, and the hand-to-hand struggle were the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... himself. "Aye, you are indeed worthless, compared with some of the English villains I have hunted down and fought for life or death. I could die like a man if I only had to die in a fair hand-to-hand fight with such a man as Birmingham Bill, the very first murderer I ever coped with; but I'll show them ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... savages. The vessel broached to, and the sails caught aback. All this time, the Rancocus was steadily drawing nearer, with an intent to board; but, unwilling to expose his people, most of whom were unpractised in strife, in a hand-to-hand conflict with ferocious savages, the governor ordered a gun loaded with grape to be discharged into the brig. This decided the affair at once. Half a dozen were killed or wounded; some ran below; a few took refuge in the top; but most, without the slightest hesitation, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... be sinkin'," he said; "but the rest of the divvies are comin' for us like mad, wid their sweeps churnin' up the wather like the paddles of one av your London tugs. Shtop 'em from layin' us aboard, if ye can, bhoy. We want no hand-to-hand fightin' wid thim, for they'll outnumber us ten to one, I calculate." He added this last item in ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... gunner, accepting this frightful hand-to-hand conflict, challenged the cannon, some chance rocking of the sea caused the carronade to remain for an instant motionless and as if stupefied. "Come, now!" ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... panes; his head was bowed into his hands. From time to time he drew deep, deep, shuddering breaths. The struggle going on in that human breast beside the window, the priest knew to be a terrible one—a spiritual and a mental hand-to-hand combat, against almost over-powering odds, in the arena of ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... saw a German wearing a perfect rosary of Iron Crosses; the fellow was boasting of having bayoneted more babies than any other man in the regiment. Listen to this: 'The enemy attacked the outskirts of the village of What D'you Call'em, and engaged our troops in hand-to-hand fighting.' Think of it, and we used to say they were a civilised race. At the point of the bayonet, it says—isn't it atrocious? 'The enemy were finally repulsed at the point of the bay—' oh well, of course that may be different. I don't pretend to ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... been made of the farmer's hand-to-hand grapple with a capricious and at times frustrating Nature. This emphasis is deserved, for the farmer is out upon the frontier of human control of natural forces. Even modern science, great as is its service, cannot protect him from the unexpected and the disappointing. ...
— Rural Problems of Today • Ernest R. Groves
... of being very faithful friends, but very bitter enemies. It was said they never forgot a favor, and never forgave an insult. They were cunning rather than brave. It was seldom that an Indian could be induced to meet a foe in an open hand-to-hand fight. But he would track him for years, hoping to take him unawares and to brain him with the tomahawk, or pierce his heart with the ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... out of a crew of 320. She came out of action, therefore, with 67 effective men more than her conqueror. It is highly creditable to the Nymphe's crew, that they beat a ship like the Cleopatra by gunnery, notwithstanding their inexperience; and carried her by a hand-to-hand ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... fiercely true to England and the Allies, and could never accept the Japanese detachment. Above all, the thought of her husband's danger haunted her. Waking and sleeping she could see him, sword in hand, leading his men to desperate hand-to-hand struggles, like those portrayed in the crude Japanese chromographs, which Sadako showed her to play upon her fears. Poor Asako! How she hated Japan now! How she loathed the cramped, draughty, uncomfortable life! How she feared the smiling ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... at an average of twelve and one half miles an hour, including all stops. When the war started, Frey enlisted in the Union army under General Blunt. His short but worthy career was cut short in 1863 when he fell in a hand-to-hand fight with rebel bushwhackers in Arkansas. In this, his last fight, Frey is said to have killed five of his assailants before ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... Normandy and even in Paris, without falling into one of the thousand traps set for him by Fouche. Bruslart arrived at his mistress's house at night, his belt bristling with pistols and poniards, and "always ready for a desperate hand-to-hand fight." ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Carlo Goldoni, one of the first of the realists, but antedating conscious realism so long as to have been born at Venice early in the eighteenth century, and to have come to his hand-to-hand fight with the romanticism of his day almost before that century had reached its noon. In the early sixties of our own century I was no more conscious of his realism than he was himself a hundred years before; but I had eyes in my head, and I saw ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... speaking, Ling remained in deep and funereal thought for some time. In spite of his mild nature, the words which he had heard filled him with an inextinguishable desire to slay in hand-to-hand fighting. He regretted that he had placed the decision of the matter ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... they may meet the enemy's soldiers running out of their dugouts for hand-to-hand battle. The traverses are so narrow that the length of the rifle makes it a clumsy weapon, and the adversaries in modern war, whose guns carry twenty miles, engage hand to hand, using knives, bombs and even their fists. With discarded rifles and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... professor went down into his flooded room to doctor his ankle and attend to his instruments, I raided the slop chest, and armed every man of us with a sheath knife and belt; for while we could not see the creature, we could feel it—and a knife is better than a gun in a hand-to-hand fight. ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... open place or street, High Street, or Corso—Aphetais by name, lined, irregularly again, with various religious and other monuments. It radiated on all sides into a mazy coil, an ambush, of narrow crooked lanes, up and down, in which attack and defence would necessarily be a matter of hand-to-hand fighting. In the outskirts lay the citizens' houses, roomier far than those of Athens, with spacious, walled courts, almost in the country. Here, in contrast [209] to the homes of Athens, the legitimate wife had a real dignity, the unmarried woman a singular ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... forward to stay, by his presence, the panic which had taken possession of his army. All his efforts were in vain. Immense stones continued to be hurled upon them as they advanced, bearing men and horse before them; and those who succeeded in forcing their way to the top were met hand-to-hand by the Turks, and cast down headlong upon their companions. Louis himself fought with the energy of desperation, but had great difficulty to avoid falling into the enemy's hands. He escaped at last under cover of the night, with the remnant ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... chief squarely in the mouth with the back of his fist. He could have used his knife, but he chose to play awhile with this boaster. He delivered his blow so quickly that the Blackfoot, accustomed as he was to fierce hand-to-hand fighting, had no time to dodge or parry, and the next instant the Shawanoe was ten feet away, weapon still grasped, and grinning at the slightly ...
— Deerfoot in The Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... outgeneraled, were beaten off with the loss of several giant U-boats. The Monitor played a very important part in the engagement and had the satisfaction of sinking one of the enemy ships by gunfire, coming up at close range right beside the U-boat and engaging her in an old-fashioned hand-to-hand conflict. ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... him, and the two fought together for some time. They were well matched in a hand-to-hand combat. Hako, who was carefully watching the fray, saw that Eiko began to tire, and fearing that his companion would be ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... was recognizable as coming from the poop, the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress on the fore deck. Tollemache, Frascuelo, and three Chileans were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with nearly a score of savages; the doctor could distinguish the cries of the combatants, the irregular stamping ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... guard at the cottage, which was no very great distance away. Random sent a bullet into the midst of the boatload, and immediately the mate fired also. The bullet whistled past his head, and, crazy with rage, he felt inclined to jump in amongst the ruffians and have a hand-to-hand fight. But De Gayangos stopped him in a voice shrill with anger. Already the shouts and noise of the approaching policemen could be heard. Cockatoo gripped the green mummy case desperately, while the sailors tried to ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... intrenchments guarding the mouth of the defile, found himself in contact with Merci, who was now able to concentrate his whole force against him. The combat was a furious one. The troops were engaged at but forty paces apart, and sometimes had hand-to-hand encounters. Merci brought the whole of his cavalry into play, but Turenne was unable to use his, as they were behind his infantry and could not make their way out through the mouth of ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... rear for a line on which to make our main resistance. As soon as the enemy saw this withdrawing he again charged in front, but was again as gallantly repelled as in the first assault, although the encounter was for a short time so desperate as to have the character of a hand-to-hand conflict, several groups of friend and foe using on each other the butts of their guns. At this juncture the timely arrival of Colonel Hatch with the Second Iowa gave a breathing-spell to Campbell, and made the Confederates ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... instant—matches would light their way. It would be all over in much less time than it takes to tell it, and it might well happen but for two things—the Apache's dread of the dark and his fear of a possible hand-to-hand fight. ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... extraordinary way, had burst out from there and started shouting in Piccadilly, had, after collecting a crowd, disappeared and not been seen until the next morning, when he had been found, nearly killed, after a hand-to-hand fight with the market men ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... village lad in the charge of some Germans who were holding their bayonets to his breast. His face was colorless, with the whiteness of a wax candle. His shirt, blackened with soot, was so badly torn that it told of a hand-to-hand struggle. On one temple was a gash, bleeding badly. A short distance away was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding a baby, and surrounded by four children all covered with black grime as though coming from ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... desperation in it, than of prudent conduct. However, he persisted obstinately to gain the passage, and at last with much ado making his way up the banks, which were extremely muddy and slippery, he had instantly to join in a mere confused hand-to-hand combat with the enemy, before he could draw up his men, who were still passing over, into any order. For the enemy pressed upon him with loud and warlike outcries; and charging horse against horse, with their lances, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... humbler collateral descent in the same verbal family. The ballista, or fifty-man-power bow, constituted the heavy, and the individual article the light, artillery of twenty centuries ago. Slings and javelins, being for hand-to-hand fighting (David was near enough to hold an easy conversation with Goliath before bringing him down), can hardly be brought within the designation. The twang of either heavy or light was but a thin contribution to the orchestra of battle compared to "the diapason ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... by the sight of his lists of arrears. And preaching! what a luxury preaching was when I had on Sunday the whole result of an individual, personal week, from which to speak to a people whom all that week I had been meeting as hand-to-hand friend! I never tired on Sunday, and was in condition to leave the sermon at home, if I chose, and preach it extempore, as all men should do always. Indeed, I wonder, when I think that a sensible people, like ours,—really more attached ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... Indian now rushed in and a hand-to-hand struggle followed. Dick fought valiantly, but was no match for the tall redskin, and a well-directed blow laid him senseless upon the prairie grass. "You have killed him!" screamed Nellie. She was about to kneel at Dick's side, when Yellow ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... slaughter them like rats; but they know better than to be caught on the open field, except they are pretty sure of an advantage. They steal upon you like thieves, shod with moccasons which have no sound; they think it equally brave to shoot a man from behind a tree as to sabre him in a hand-to-hand encounter. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... would still rather die than do, and he roamed about the grounds, making a little mental calculation whenever a clock struck in the heavy afternoon stillness: 'In so many hours from this I shall be fighting hand-to-hand with real Indians!' ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey
... the troops pushed on in quick time without firing a gun, and when within four or five hundred yards of the enemy's line broke out in loud cheers, and with a rush went up to and over the breastworks. Barlow and Birney entered almost simultaneously. Here a desperate hand-to-hand conflict took place. The men of the two sides were too close together to fire, but used their guns as clubs. The hand conflict was soon over. Hancock's corps captured some four thousand prisoners among them a division and a brigade commander twenty or more guns with their horses, caissons, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... placed himself before me and spat in my face. In a moment my calmness and self-control were gone, and in a minute more we were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight. The devil that my hatred for my brother had aroused now showed itself, and I fought with all the fury of a demon. My opponent was as big as I, and as strong, or would have been had he not abused his strength by evil habits; and in addition to this, he knew many tricks of fighting unknown to ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... his cutlass was forced from him, and it became a hand-to-hand struggle, of which, from the difference in numbers, it was not difficult to foretell the result. Yet Kinraid made desperate efforts to free himself; he wasted no breath in words, but fought, as the men said, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... awaited Galiczin with a portion of his troops, while the remainder occupied Orenburg. The Russian general approached the hiding-place of the mock Czar cautiously. The thick fog was of service to him, and the two opponents only perceived one another when they were standing at firing distance. A furious hand-to-hand fight ensued. The best of the rebel troops were there. Pugasceff was always in the front and where the danger was greatest, but finally the Russians climbed the ice-bulwarks, captured his guns, and drove him out of the forest. This victory cost the life of 1,000 ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... accompanied by General Longstreet, had ridden from his headquarters, on the Nine-mile road, to the scene of action, and now witnessed in person the fighting of the troops, who charged under his eye, closing in in a nearly hand-to-hand conflict with the enemy. This was, no doubt, the first occasion on which a considerable portion of the men had seen him—certainly in battle—and that air of supreme calmness which always characterized him in action must have made a deep impression upon them. He was ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and stirrup-leathers. They flung their throwing-spears with great dexterity. They tried every device of cool, determined men practised in war and familiar with cavalry; and, besides, they swung sharp, heavy swords which bit deep. The hand-to-hand fighting on the further side of the khor lasted for perhaps one minute. Then the horses got into their stride again, the pace increased, and the Lancers drew out from among their antagonists. Within two minutes of the collision every living man ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... cloth—let him come in, and then suddenly cut off his retreat by caulking that one also, I should have him in the trap. But this would be placing myself in an awkward situation. I should be in the trap as well as he, and he no nearer destruction than ever, unless I finished him by a hand-to-hand tussle. Of course, I knew I could conquer and kill the rat. My superior strength would enable me to squeeze him to death between my hands, but not without getting a good many severe bites, and the one I had got already hindered ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... more formidable enemy. It was a large black bear. In his scuffle with the serpent he had lost his bundle of clothes and had nothing but a large knife, which was buckled around his waist. Drawing his knife, he rushed forward and was met by the bear, when a regular hand-to-hand fight was commenced. He did not wrestle long before he found an opportunity to use his knife, and plunging it up to the hilt, he soon had the bear lying prostrate at his feet. Having lost all his clothes, it became necessary that he should do something in his nude state. The ...
— The Dismal Swamp and Lake Drummond, Early recollections - Vivid portrayal of Amusing Scenes • Robert Arnold
... and Teutones, and the frightful struggles in which after superhuman endeavors the Roman Marius destroyed his German enemies is one of the heroic pages of all history. It was a hand-to-hand contest, and torrents of human blood ran that day. Menzel tells us, (Germany, p. 85), that the place of battle enriched by a deluge of blood and ultimately fertilized by heaps of the slain, became in after years the site of vineyards whose wines were eagerly ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... beforehand that there is good reason for so doing. How carefully their observations had been made and how well they had taken advantage of their opportunities, which were, of course, very frequent in those warlike times when firearms were unknown, hand-to-hand conflict common, and blunt weapons were often used, can be appreciated very well from some of the directions. For instance, they knew of the possibility of fracture by contrecoup. They say that "quite frequently though the percussion ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... Montenegrin makes a question of amour propre in attacking his enemies face to face and by preference with the cold steel. Enemies who fall in the general mle by rifle-shot he never considers his "heads;" he claims only those he has killed in hand-to-hand combat. This Albanian was the standard-bearer of his clan, i.e. the hereditary chieftain, and to kill him in hand-to-hand combat was the ambition of the three who attacked him in succession, the shooting from behind being ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... accumulations were not so great as to be tempting, and their modes of warfare were not excessively destructive. Armed with clubs and spears and bows and arrows, war could be prosecuted only by hand-to-hand conflict, and depended largely upon individual prowess, while battle for plunder, tribute, and conquest was almost unknown. Such intertribal wars as occurred originated from other causes, such as infraction of rights relating ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come." Plainly, and in the most emphatic manner, Christ refuses to recognize Mary as intercessor or director. A third instance is still more marked. Jesus is talking to an immense multitude, and is making a hand-to-hand fight with Pharisees and Scribes. "While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him." Evidently Mary had no idea of the character or the mission of the Man ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... is not like mutiny—not like the conventional mutiny I absorbed as a boy, and which has become classic in the literature of the sea. There is no hand-to-hand fighting, no crash of cannon and flash of cutlass, no sailors drinking grog, no lighted matches held over open powder-magazines. Heavens!—there isn't a single cutlass nor a powder- magazine on board. And as for grog, not a man has had a ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... middle of January came, Lady Arthur, who had never had an illness in her life, was measuring her strength in a hand-to-hand struggle with fever. The water was blamed, the drainage was blamed, various things were blamed. Whether it came in the water or out of the drains, gastric fever had arrived at Garscube Hall: the gardener took it, his daughter took it, also ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... followers had rushed in and the moment would have been Lathrop's last but that Billy drove his fist into the fellow's face with a crashing blow that knocked him on the top of his fallen comrade. It was hand-to-hand fighting then with a vengeance. Billy seized hold of the muzzle of an Arab's revolver as it was thrust into his very face, and twisted it upward as it was discharged. Seizing up a camp chair Lathrop swung it round his head like a club and scattered ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... to her that if hand-to-hand fighting were necessary he would depend more upon a crowbar than a rifle to sweep the ledge clear. She might ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... State every adult white male is a full burgher, having a vote for the President, who is chosen for five years. The Transvaal Republic has no woman suffrage amid its hand-to-hand struggles. ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... guns and their enormous superiority in strength, though not in handling, of artillery, the Germans have failed to keep the Allies at the theoretical safe distance. They have been forced to accept hand-to-hand fighting, and in every encounter at close quarters there has never been a moment's doubt as to the result. They have shriveled up in the presence of the bayonet, and fled in disorder at the first glimpse of naked steel. It is not that the Germans lack courage. "They are brave enough," our soldiers ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... pale little woman to do? With one boy crawling about the floor and two others in a hand-to-hand fight, with the rest in a giggle, of what use to try to talk to them about Moses? You should have seen Gracie Dennis eyes by that time! Horror and disgust were about equally expressed, and rising above them both, a look of actual fear. Mr. Durant came over ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... he cried, grasping his visitor's hand, "I thought you were that rascally proctor, and was really preparing for a hand-to-hand ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... some of the loads, or with such piles of loose stones as could be collected in time. The part allotted to the Wangoni was that of a reserve force, in the event of the enemy carrying any given point, and thus necessitating hand-to-hand conflict. The slaves, firmly secured, were placed in the center of the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... fought a hand-to-hand battle with want; a lonely battle, with no one to care or to comfort, and now it was meat, and drink, and health, and sunshine, to find herself of a sudden the most precious object on earth to one faithful heart! Although the General had given ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... merchantmen on their way home from Flanders. At break of day the battle began, off Cape St. Vincent, and lasted till nightfall. The privateer commanded by Columbus grappled a huge Venetian galley, which, after a hand-to-hand struggle, caught fire, and the flames spread to the privateer. Friends and enemies alike sought safety in the sea, and Columbus, supporting himself on an oar, succeeded, when nearly exhausted, in gaining the land, which was at some ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... silent. There seemed, indeed, no reason to keep them speaking, as the road to the Oasis was clear. When the trees back of us should be reached more shots would ring out, closer, always getting closer; eventually would come the hand-to-hand fight, and then—forgetfulness. Yet I swore with a burning rage in my heart that whoever of those fiends were left to gloat over their victory would remember until their dying day the price I had collected ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... spoken on the Tuesday of the Passion Week. It was a day of hand-to-hand conflict with the Jewish authorities and of exhausting toil, as the bare enumeration of its incidents shows. It included all that Matthew records between verse 20 of this chapter and the end of the twenty-fifth chapter—the answer to the deputation from the Sanhedrin; the three parables occasioned ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... campaign had been freer from the provincial bickering which was a prominent feature of the State election, and made it more a hand-to-hand contest, where every elector was worthy of consideration; and though women were debarred from entering the State Parliament, yet they were now beings worth fawning upon for a vote, and their addition to the ranks of the electors gave matters a ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... had been introduced, and now the fights began. Several hand-to-hand combats were presented, most of which resulted fatally, and excited different degrees of interest according to the courage or skill of the combatants. Their effect was to whet the appetite of the spectators to a keener relish, and fill them with eager desire for the more exciting ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... the bayonets lowered, when the head of the advancing column broke and fled, while Mackenzie's brigade, overlapping the flank, pushed boldly forward, and a scene of frightful carnage followed; for a moment a hand-to-hand combat was sustained, but the unbroken files and impregnable bayonets of the English conquered, and the French fled, leaving six guns ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... factory system, nor yet corroding luxury has caused in them any physical or moral deterioration which interferes with their fighting capacity. The soldiers of these civilized peoples are just as ready for hand-to-hand encounters with cold steel as any barbarians or savages have ever been. The primitive combative instincts remain in full force and can be brought into play by all the belligerents with facility. The progress of the war should have removed any delusions on this subject which ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... with thrilling hand-to-hand conflicts, the three greatest during the eighteen days' battle being between Karna and the eldest Pandav, between the eldest Kuru and Bhima, and between Karna and Arjuna. During the first sixteen days of battle, countless men were slain, including Arjuna's son by one of ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... in the assault, then a rush forward, and the distant sound of a cheer, which those on the hill could not help repeating. But from the red coats on and behind the bridge, proceeded a perfect cloud of smoke, which hid everything, and when it began to clear away on the wind, there seemed to be a hand-to-hand struggle going on upon the bridge, smaller puffs, as though pistols were being used, and forms falling over the parapet, at which sight the men held their breath, and the women shrieked and cried "God have ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... flag retreats; I must carry it myself." And snatching it from the hands of those who held it, he was the first to rush forward again, half enveloped in its folds. The balls whistled round him, and pierced the flag with a hollow sound. A long hand-to-hand fight ensued, above all the uproar of which M. de Vezin's voice was heard crying, "Barricade the streets! let trenches be dug! and the ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... suddenly as it had commenced. I judged that the enemy was storming the city, for the sounds we heard were the sounds of hand-to-hand combat. ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... friend and foe being fairly intermingled, was fatal to his purpose; the venerable culverin remained silent, and the gunner met hand-to-hand a figure that sprang from the incoming host. Simultaneously the rapid firing of a new wave of besiegers from the other side of the castle threw once more a pall of smoke over the scene, and, beneath its mantle, the two men were like figures struggling in a fog, feeling rather than seeing ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... free. The dogs were bound by harness, and thus fettered were no match for the big, wild creatures. Andy's rifle was lashed upon the komatik. It was out of the question to free it in the moment before the wolves were upon them, and it was to be a hand-to-hand fight. ...
— Troop One of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace
... 1804, by a stratagem, got alongside the Philadelphia with seventy-four brave young sailors like himself and carried the ship by the board after a terrible hand-to-hand conflict. The Tripolitans were defeated, and the Philadelphia was burned. The American seamen continued to bombard Tripoli and blockaded their ports, until the terrified Bashaw made ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... parent birds had heard the cries of their little ones and come to their rescue. They were chasing us, while we followed the birds. It was really a perilous encounter! Our strong bows finally gained the victory in a hand-to-hand struggle with the angry cranes; but after that we hardly ever hunted a crane's nest. Almost all birds make some resistance when their eggs or young are taken, but they will seldom attack ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... of running bound, coming upon the Indian with a panther-like spring, that nearly drove him backward off his feet. There was a clashing of knives, the scintillation of steel against steel, the deadly embrace, and hand-to-hand struggle; and, as the Rifleman recoiled clear of his fallen adversary, he reached out to ...
— The Riflemen of the Miami • Edward S. Ellis
... Indian was tall and "a most strong stout Salvage"; the red-headed man was short but a most strong, stout Englishman. The Indian was Wowinchopunk, chief of the Paspaheghs; the red-headed man was Captain John Smith. A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued. We remembered that fight in the school-books, but we had never expected to really see it. Our sympathies were of course largely with the Captain, but more with the isthmus. We had raised it out of the water for temporary purposes only, and with no idea of its being subjected ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... in answer to the question, the smoke cleared. Through the whirling rifts they caught glimpses of the sky, the tree tops, and finally of the blockhouse itself. An awful cry arose from the women. The walls were partly down, and a terrific hand-to-hand struggle was taking place between friend and foe. There followed a few moments in which attackers and attacked were indistinguishable. Then, high above the clash of pike and bayonet, sounded ...
— Peggy Owen and Liberty • Lucy Foster Madison
... themselves for years of misery and suffering. In the midst of that surging throng of humanity, in the glitter of day and of fire, shone the helmets of pretorians, under whose protection the more peaceable population had taken refuge, and who in hand-to-hand battle had to meet the raging multitude in many places. Vinicius had seen captured cities, but never had his eyes beheld a spectacle in which despair, tears, pain, groans, wild delight, madness, rage, and license were mingled together in such immeasurable chaos. Above this heaving, ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... storm, when their attention was drawn elsewhere by the arrival of fresh troops led by a Spanish sub-lieutenant. Under the mistaken impression that these were the vanguard of a formidable corps, Sioco sounded the retreat. A bloody hand-to-hand combat followed, and with great difficulty the Chinese collected their dead ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... saw that escape was impossible. Neither had they any thought, but for a passing moment, of fighting for their liberty. The Ouvertures were completely armed; and there never was an occasion when a man would lightly engage, hand-to-hand, with Toussaint or ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... base, whilst the summit-platform was raised more than 150 feet above the level of the streets and square. Here was set the great image of the Aztec war-god, the idol of the abominable Huitzilopochtli which Cortes and his men, after their frightful hand-to-hand struggle with the Aztecs on this giddy platform, tumbled down the face of the pyramid into the streets below, among the astonished Indians. The grandeur, architecturally, of the ancient City of Mexico has probably been somewhat exaggerated by the Conquistadores ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... enemy's infantry approached, and, after desultory fighting, succeeded in penetrating our position, when many hand-to-hand combats ensued. Towards the afternoon, officers and men having displayed great gallantry, we drove the enemy from the ground which they courageously disputed with us, and from which they eventually retreated to Bayonne. Every day there ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow |
