For a hundred years now no British fleet has engaged the enemy in
line of battle. A hundred years is a long time, but the difference of modern conditions is enormous.
In the first faint gray of the morning, when the swarming advance had paused to resume something of definition as a
line of battle, and skirmishers had been thrown forward, word was passed along to call the roll.
The
line of battle in the edge of the wood stands at a new kind of "attention," each man in the attitude in which he was caught by the consciousness of what is going on.
He told me, "he had for many years been commander of a ship; and in the sea fight at Actium had the good fortune to break through the enemy's great
line of battle, sink three of their capital ships, and take a fourth, which was the sole cause of Antony's flight, and of the victory that ensued; that the youth standing by him, his only son, was killed in the action." He added, "that upon the confidence of some merit, the war being at an end, he went to Rome, and solicited at the court of Augustus to be preferred to a greater ship, whose commander had been killed; but, without any regard to his pretensions, it was given to a boy who had never seen the sea, the son of Libertina, who waited on one of the emperor's mistresses.
The brigade was formed in
line of battle, and after a pause started slowly through the woods in the rear of the receding skirmishers, who were con- tinually melting into the scene to appear again farther on.
This desperate step had a happy effect, broke their
line of battle, and the savages fled on all sides.
Soldiers, armed with bows and arrows, were drawn up in
line of battle; but by this time the balloon was expanding, and rising quietly beyond their reach.
It was not difficult to understand that he had gained the crown of his ambition and that the silver-mounted wand he brandished was in his eyes as honorable a distinction as the marshal's baton which Conde threw, or did not throw, into the enemy's
line of battle at Fribourg.
Meantime, the sun shone fierce and bright upon the polished arms of the knights of either side, who crowded the opposite extremities of the lists, and held eager conference together concerning the best mode of arranging their
line of battle, and supporting the conflict.
At first the tumult of my own thoughts, summoned by the danger-signal and swarming to the rescue from every quarter of my skull, kept up such a hurrah and confusion and fifing and drumming that I couldn't take in a word; but presently when my mob of gathering plans began to crystallize and fall into position and form
line of battle, a sort of order and quiet ensued and I caught the boom of the king's batteries, as if out of remote distance:
'When you know your own Regiment a trifle better you won't confuse the line of march with
line of battle, Kim.