“Turn out, mate,” cried one of the soldiers, shaking George vigorously by the shoulder, and the boy sprang up to find everybody astir.

“How I do sleep in this hot country!” he yawned, to which the sergeant replied with a laugh, “It’ll be hotter still before long, my lad, never fear.”

It was a long time before the first shot was fired, however, the disposition of the troops and the guns not being complete.  At length a movement was made.  The Dorsetshire, with Captain Whitaker in command, was sent to capture a French privateer with twelve guns, which lay at the Old Mole, and the boom of cannon rose in the air.

Presently, from near the spot where Lieutenant Fieldsend and his little company were posted, a shot was fired into the fortifications; then another, and afterwards a third.  Work had begun at last.

A puff, a boom in the distance, and there came screaming through the air a big round shot, striking the ground, ploughing it up, and covering those near with dust and dirt.

“Quite near enough, eh, sir?” George observed to his lieutenant, as they shook the earth from their clothing.  “And, by Jove, there’s another of them!” A second shot flew just overhead, to do its deadly work on the unfortunate men who stood immediately behind.  George Fairburn’s first task in the siege was to help to carry to the rear two or three badly wounded men.  On the ground lay a couple who needed no surgeon.

As yet only a few preliminary shots had been fired into the fortress, but the defenders were evidently quite ready with their reply, and the order for a general attack rang out.  Within a few minutes the fight was raging in terrible fashion.  From land and sea alike the shot poured into the town; sailor and soldier joining, and often standing side by side.  As George afterwards expressed it, “any man set his hand to any job there was to do.”  Sailors were to be seen on land in many places, while not a few soldiers helped with the firing on board the ships.

All that long morning, however, George Fairburn worked at the gun to which he had been assigned.  Black with smoke, powder, dust, perspiration, the lad toiled among his companions.  For an hour or two none of the enemy’s shots fell very near the spot.  But at length, and almost suddenly, the balls began to fly in too close proximity to be pleasant.  Shot after shot fell within a yard or two of the gun, and not a few gallant fellows dropped to earth dead or wounded.

“By Jupiter!” cried the lieutenant, who was assisting, “they have got our measure at last!  I wonder what it is that makes us so conspicuous.”

Then, looking round, he beheld behind them, and not five yards distant, a small clump of elder on which some man had tossed the flaming red shirt he had thrown off in the broiling heat.

“Ah!” Fieldsend ejaculated, “there’s the offender.”

He sprang away and whipped the tell-tale garment from its bush.  Just as he seized it another shot came, striking the gun in front, entirely disabling the weapon, and then bounding off.  When the men, hastily scattered by the mishap, looked for the lieutenant, he was observed lying in front of the bush.