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- After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet’s detachment being obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a kasbah.
- “How many men do you want, Perenna?”
- “None, sir.”
- “What! Surely you don’t propose to cover a retreat all by yourself?”
- “What pleasure would there be in dying, sir, if others were to die as well as I?”
- At his request, they left him a dozen rifles, and divided with him the cartridges that remained. His share came to seventy-five.
- The detachment got away without being further molested. Next day, when they were able to return with reinforcements, they surprised the Moors lying in wait around the kasbah, but afraid to approach. The ground was covered with seventy-five of their killed.
- Our men drove them off. They found Private Perenna stretched on the floor of the kasbah. They thought him dead. He was asleep!
- He had not a single cartridge left. But each of his seventy-five bullets had gone home.
- ***
- The Teeth of the Tiger, Chapter 5
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