"Hand-to-hand" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with his staff, was in the middle of the melee, and the lads found themselves engaged in hand-to-hand combats with the French troopers. All was confusion. Peter was unhorsed by the shock of a French hussar, but Tom shot the trooper before he could cut Peter down. Free for a moment, he looked round, and saw a French lancer charging, lance at rest, at Lord Beresford. "Look out, sir!" ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... it was, it was excusable, I think. All of you have learned how to behave in hot hand-to-hand engagements, and you don't need to be ashamed of your record in that matter; but to walk along in front of death, with one's hands idle, and no noise, no music, and nothing going on, is a very trying situation. If I were you, De Conte, I would name the emotion; ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... from the pilot-house and followed, not to be left out in the cold when it came to strafing the boches. From the engine room companionway came the engineer and stockers, and together we leaped after the balance of the crew and into the hand-to-hand fight that was covering the wet deck with red blood. Beside me came Nobs, silent now, and grim. Germans were emerging from the open hatch to take part in the battle on deck. At first the pistols cracked amidst the cursing of the men and the loud commands of the commander and his ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... taking advantage of every opportunity of protection, every natural advantage or artificial device, vast quantities of ammunition are wasted on the empty air, every ball that finds its quarry in human flesh being mayhap but one in hundreds that go astray. In the old-time wars actual hand-to-hand fighting took place. Almost every stroke told, every thrusting blade was directly parried or came back stained with blood. In modern wars fighting of this kind has ceased. A battle has become a matter of machinery. The strong arm and stalwart heart are replaced by the bullet-flinging ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... the conflict had come. It was no longer to be a duel at a distance—no more a contest between rifle-bullets and barbed arrows; but the close, desperate, hand-to-hand contest of pistol, knife, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... like tired animals to sleep the night through, while Barrett and 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 they reached ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... other gallant knights were left dead on the field. But personal exploits could not atone for his want of generalship, and while the marquis and his immediate followers were engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight with the foe, a large body of his reserve remained inactive on the banks of the Taro, and his Stradiots were engaged in plundering the French camp. The result was that, in spite of their superior numbers, the Italian ranks were broken and many of the Venetians fled in confusion towards Parma, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... were numerous and exciting enough to demand an entire volume to do justice to them. It must suffice to say that during that eventful period the youngster saw enough fighting to satisfy him for the remainder of his life—desperate, ferocious, hand-to-hand fighting, in which neither side ever dreamed of asking or giving quarter, in which a disabling wound was immediately followed by death upon the spear-points of the enemy, and the salient characteristics of which were continuous ear-splitting yells, the shrill ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... retreat through the snow after the battle of Taskosen; the neck-and-neck race with the Russians down the valley of the Maritza; finally, the hot little battle on the river-bank, and the two days of hand-to-hand struggle in the vine-yard of Stanimaka—this was a campaign to break the constitution of any soldier. Days without food, nights without shelter from the mountain blasts, always marching and always fighting, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... Woolen-Acre, Old and infirm, there lived a great king with a beautiful daughter. See, from the depths of the forest there cometh a giant misshapen, Higher in stature than man, a monster ferocious and shaggy, Boldly demanding a hand-to-hand ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... that had been in the mind of the good man from the moment he paddled away from the flatboat was fully assented to by The Panther. If the latter overcame Simon Kenton in the hand-to-hand encounter, he would return to camp and put innocent Mabel ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis
... already slipped out of his trenches and were feeling their way through the tangled vines and underbrush with sure, ominous tread. In this wilderness Hooker's four hundred guns would be as useless as his own hundred and seventy. It would be a hand-to-hand fight in the tangled brush. The gray veteran was a dead shot and he was creeping through his own native woods. On this beautiful May morning, Lee, Jackson, and Stuart met in conference before the battle opened. The plan was chosen. Lee would open the battle and hold Hooker at close range. Jackson ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... trench, 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 bombs lying about a trench, it is difficult to give ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... shades the soldiers met one another face to face and furious struggles hand-to-hand ensued. Bushes and trees, set on fire by the shells, burned slowly like torches put there to light up the ghastly scene of man's bravery and folly. Jenkins, a Confederate general, was killed and colonels and majors fell by the dozen. But neither side would yield, and Grant hurried help ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... withering volley, were ordered to charge. Scarcely were 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 ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... ammunition was running low. These experienced and brave, though rascally Indians, soon surmised the cause of this sudden change of affairs. Rallying their forces, they turned upon their assailants in right good earnest and a desperate hand-to-hand engagement ensued. The white men now had an opportunity to use their small arms, which told with such terrible effect upon their foes that they were soon driven back again. They, however, rallied once more and charged so manfully that the trappers were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... 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 ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... direction, Struggling, seeking to escape them, Fleeing from the Regimentals. Dunlap found himself confronted By a single Lincoln Cornstalk, (Dr. Huffman, a "Militia,") Who essayed at once to take him. Hand-to-hand in duel comic, They careered with flintlocks rusty, They embraced with bayonets blunted, Dunlap all the while retreating, Huffman all the while pursuing, Till a wide ravine arrested, Stopped their wild, ferocious progress. Not for long the pause, ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... 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 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, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... 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 ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... The men in front had no time to reload, those behind could not fire because their friends were before them. It was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, such as might have taken place on the same ground in the middle ages, before gunpowder was in use. Bayonets and clubbed muskets, these were the weapons on both sides, while dismounted troopers—for horses were worse than useless here, mixed up with the infantry—fought with swords. On ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... of January, 1915, between these forces and the Eleventh Corps of the Turkish army a fierce battle, lasting several days, opened. The struggle was of the utmost intensity, at times developing into a hand-to-hand combat between whole regiments. On January 14 the Fifty-second Turkish Regiment was put to the bayonet by the Russians. At Genikoi a regiment of Cossacks charged, during an engagement with a portion of the Thirty-second Turkish Division, and ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... The shooting had been of a blind sort, and few shots did more than wound; but the natives were venting the pent-up hate of three years and would give no quarter. From musketry volleys the fight had become hand-to-hand butchery. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Fatherland, notwithstanding their severe laws and heavy penalties. These Indians, though they live without laws, or fear of punishment, do not (at least, they very seldom) kill people, unless it may be in a great passion, or a hand-to-hand fight. Wherefore we go wholly unconcerned along with the Indians and meet each other an hour's walk off in the woods, without doing any harm ...
— Narratives of New Netherland, 1609-1664 • Various
... which is perhaps even more strange, like it, and follow it. Withal, the General is the most modest of men. In his youth he was a mighty man of war. It was only the other day that I heard (not from his own lips, you may be sure) the thrilling stories of his hand-to-hand conflict with two gigantic Russians in the fog of Inkermann, and of his rescue of a wounded Sergeant at the attack in the Redan. With women, old or young, the General uses an old-fashioned and chivalrous ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... there's any kind of fighting I haven't seen," he declared; "hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets, grenades, gun butts. I've seen 'em on their knees in the mud choking each other, beating each other with their bare fists. I've seen every kind of airship, bomb, shell, poison ...
— The Deserter • Richard Harding Davis
... I lit my cigar and started for what I felt was to be the tomb or the forcing-house of all the air-castles I had cherished from boyhood. At last I was to meet the real champion; I was to tussle hand-to-hand with the head of the financial clan, the man of all men best fitted to test to the utmost the skill and quickness which I had picked up in the rough and tumble of a hundred fights on State and Wall streets—Rogers, wary, intrepid, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... arcualia—artillery. Arblast, arquebuse, blunderbuss, mark a 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 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... Hungarian plain country flooding down on him, 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 him, told him plainly ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko
... tenant farms which his father or brothers leased. At the age of fifteen, he was worked beyond his strength in doing a man's full labor. He called his life on the Ayrshire farms "the unceasing toil of a galley slave." All his life he fought a hand-to-hand fight with poverty. ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... archers, rode for Newcastle and Durham, with James Earl of Douglas for one of their leaders. These were already pillaging and burning in Durham when the Earl of Northumberland first heard of them, and sent against them his sons Henry and Ralph Percy. In a hand-to-hand fight between Douglas and Henry Percy, Douglas took Percy's pennon. At Otterburn the Scots overcame the English but Douglas fell, struck by three spears at once, and Henry was captured in fight by Lord Montgomery. There was a Scots ballad ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... as many tricks of hand-to-hand fighting as the other, perhaps a few more. And then he was, no doubt, in far better condition. At all events the fellow was presently at his mercy, in a hold that gave one the privilege of breaking his back at will. A man of mistaken scruples, Duchemin failed to do so, but held the other ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... discharged its load of immigrants matters were hardly mended. Perpetual discord became the law. Smith fled from the tumults which he had no power to quiet, and a long succession of soon-discouraged officers waged a species of hand-to-hand conflict with the wild elements that made up the Colony. One poet, George Sandys, whose name and work are still of meaning and value to the student, found leisure, borrowed from the night, for a translation of Ovid's "Metamorphoses," commended by both Dryden and Pope, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 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 ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... of narratives—the life-stories of the British soldiers captured in the early days of the war, their gross ill-treatment, their escapes, and attempts at escape. I claim to be the only unofficial neutral with any large amount of eye-witness, hand-to-hand knowledge of ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... the Falls against thousands of Arab raiders. Most of the caps in his rifle cartridges were rendered useless by dampness and the Captain and his second in command, Lieutenant Dubois, a Belgian officer, fought shoulder to shoulder with his men in the hand-to-hand struggle that ensued. Subsequently practically all the natives deserted and Deane was left with Dubois and four loyal blacks. Under cover of darkness they escaped from the island on which the Station was located. On this journey Dubois ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... provided each of their vessels with a drawbridge. As soon as a Carthaginian ship came near enough to a Roman vessel, this gangway was allowed to fall upon the approaching galley; and the Roman soldiers, rushing along the bridge, were soon engaged in a hand-to-hand conflict with their enemies, in which species of encounter the former were unequalled. The result was a complete ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... King Lochlainn, sent a challenge to Domhnall, son of Emhin, High Steward of Mar. The battle commenced at daybreak. Plait came forth and exclaimed three times, "Faras Domhnall?" (Where is Domhnall?) Domhnall replied: "Here, thou reptile." A terrible hand-to-hand combat ensued. They fell dead at the same moment, the sword of each through the heart of the other, and the hair of each in the clenched hand of the other. And the combat of those two was the first combat of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... the worst fight. Far worse than all these Hittites and Hivites, and the other tribes with their barbarous names, far worse than all external foes, are the foes that each man carries about in his own heart. In that slow hand-to-hand and foot-to-foot struggle I do not believe that there is any conquering power available for a man that can for a moment be compared with the power that comes through submission to Christ's command and acceptance of Christ's help. He has fought every foot of the ground before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... requiring their assistance, without coming to their aid. Some jumped down into our boats from the chains, into the midst of our men; others darted cold shot at us, either to kill us or to sink our boats; and thus did one of the most desperate hand-to-hand conflicts take place that ever was witnessed. But it was soon decided in our favour, for we were the stronger party and the better armed; and when all opposition was over, we jumped into the privateer, and found not a man left on board, only a large dog, ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... presentation of his spirit; and as he went over the ground he was almost overwhelmed to think how little had been really accomplished. This time he came before the church with the experience of nearly three weeks' hand-to-hand work among the people for whose sake he had moved out of the parsonage. As usual an ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... the brig. What can they do against these rocks? And, as we shall not fire from the windows of Granite House, the pirates will not think of causing irreparable damage by throwing shell against it. What is to be feared is, the necessity of meeting hand-to-hand, since the convicts have numbers on their side. We must therefore try to prevent them from landing, but without discovering ourselves. Therefore, do not economize the ammunition. Fire often, but with a sure aim. We have ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... minutes the attack slackened in spots; that is, parts of the 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 ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... apprehensively no doubt, the shadowy mass that hovered under the night sky. They did not like this kind of thing, these little houses—they remembered five or six years ago when their cabbages had been trampled upon, their palings torn down, even hand-to-hand contests in the passages and one roof on fire. Where were the police? The little eyes watched anxiously. There was no sign of the police. . ...
— The Prelude to Adventure • Hugh Walpole
... few seconds, whilst his hand lay across her eyes, the lazy, idle fop of fashionable London was fighting a hand-to-hand fight with the bold leader of a band of adventurers: and his own passionate love for his wife ranged itself with fervent intensity on the side of his weaker self. Forgotten were the horrors of the guillotine, the calls of the innocent, the appeal of the helpless; forgotten the ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... was no friendly resource for posterity, no object of careful economy. He must wage a hand-to-hand war upon it, cutting and burning a little space to let in the light upon a dozen acres of hard-won soil, and year after year expanding the clearing into new woodlands against the stubborn resistance of primeval trunks and matted roots. He made war against the rank fertility of ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... features of the men were dimly visible. Nearer they came, and nearer; a shout, a crash, one or two shrill cries of anguish—a score of men and horses rolled upon the ground, the others passed through each other's ranks, and then again turning, commenced a furious hand-to-hand contest. The leader of the Carlists, a dark-browed, powerful man, singled out Herrera for a fierce attack. The fight, however, lasted but a few moments, and was yet undecided when the Christino infantry came up. A few of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... Potherie and Oldmixon; in Jeremie, Relation de la Baie de Hudson; and in N. Y. Col. Docs., IX. 796-802. Various embellishments have been added to the original narratives by recent writers, such as an imaginary hand-to-hand fight of Iberville and several Englishmen in the blockhouse of ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... pocket;" picked up a dead man's musket, and ran to the aid of a tall, powerful rebel who was parrying with a sword the bayonets of three British privates. The tramp of the retreating rebels, invading British, and hand-to-hand fighters raised a blinding dust. Harry and the tall American, gaining a breathing moment, strode together with long steps, guarding their flank and rear, to the passageway and out of it; and then ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... 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, and the Northern races, in addition, added that they were produced by ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... two. Even as his opponent crumpled, they were upon him, coming in from each side. And at least one of them, he could see now, had been in hand-to-hand combat before. In short, another pro, ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... be crowded to the outside, Browning gave the signal for them to break and make it a hand-to-hand affair. Then he ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... keeping watch and ward. If an intruder approached, they would dart at him spitefully. These fish have the air of bantam cocks, and, with their sharp, prickly fins and spines and scaly sides, must be ugly customers in a hand-to-hand encounter with other finny warriors. To a hungry man they look about as unpromising as hemlock slivers, so thorny and thin are they; yet there is sweet meat in them, as we ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... as himself. The Apaches saw Coronado coming up on their rear, and they knew that they must make short work of the hunter, or must let him escape. While a score or so faced about to meet the Mexicans, a dozen charged with screeches and brandished lances upon the Texan. Now came a hand-to-hand struggle which looked as if it must end in the death of Smith and perhaps of several of his assailants. But cavalry fights are notoriously bloodless in comparison to their apparent fury; the violent and perpetual movement ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... opinion of the country, it was impossible to resist, was the appointment of a Royal Commission to report upon the health of the Army. The question of the composition of the Commission then immediately arose; and it was over this matter that the first hand-to-hand encounter between Lord Panmure and Miss Nightingale took place. They met, and Miss Nightingale was victorious; Sidney Herbert was appointed Chairman; and, in the end, the only member of the Commission opposed to her views was Dr. Andrew Smith. During the interview, Miss Nightingale made an important ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... means, it is the FIGHT. However diversified this may be in form, however widely it may differ from a rough vent of hatred and animosity in a hand-to-hand encounter, whatever number of things may introduce themselves which are not actual fighting, still it is always implied in the conception of War that all the effects manifested have their roots in ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... general. The Indians attacked furiously, and for a few moments those five men bore the brunt of the assault. With his own hand Robert Edmiston slew six of the more forward of the enemy, Morrison nearly as many, and then Moore became engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand fight with an herculean chieftain of the Cherokees. They were a few paces in advance of the main body, and, as if by common consent, the firing was partly suspended on both sides to await the issue of the conflict. "Moore had shot the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... hand-to-hand combat with a chimpanzee, a strong man would have but little chance of success, and Mok, under the influence of two glasses of beer, was a man-chimpanzee. When Banker swore, and when he turned so that the light of the street lamp fell upon his ...
— The Adventures of Captain Horn • Frank Richard Stockton
... 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 ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... waited at the foot of the stair with the calm determination to slay those four men, or be slain by them. Two, he knew, he could dispose of by his arrows, ere they could get near him, and Gerard and he must take their chance hand-to-hand with the remaining pair. Besides, he had seen men panic-stricken by a sudden attack of this sort. Should Brower and his men hesitate but an instant before closing with him, he should shoot three instead of two, and then the odds would be on the ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... "At the thought of a hand-to-hand battle with a vortex my brain froze solid. Fear—the sheer, stark, natural human fear of death, that robs a man of the fine edge of control and brings on the very death that he is trying so hard to avoid. That's what had ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... glance showed a man of thirty-odd years, tall, slightly built, inclined to stoop, with a long, clean-shaven face, large dark eyes, and dark hair which covered the head in short curls of almost African profusion. But a second glance revealed all the characteristics that give the hand-to-hand touch with the common people, without which no man can hope to lead a ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... the slope, where the drift crossed the spruit, Boers were dragging cannon into position, and in among the waggons which had become congested in the road, burghers and soldiers were engaging in fierce hand-to-hand encounters. A stocky Briton wrestled with a youthful Boer, and in the struggle both fell to the ground; near by a cavalryman was firing his revolver at a Boer armed with a rifle, and a hundred paces away a burgher was fighting ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... fought gallantly, and in numbers were enormously superior; but the contest was between skill and courage, sturdy discipline and wild valor; and it concluded as such contests always must. In these hand-to-hand engagements there were no wounded. Half the fighting men of the Swiss were killed; their camp was stormed; the survivors, with the remnant of the women and children, or such of them as were capable of moving (for thousands had perished, and little more ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... was engaged in a hand-to-hand encounter with five thugs who had marked him as their prey. A well-dressed young man like Merry was sure to attract attention in such a quarter, and these ruffians had singled him out ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... mine, but they almost invariably produce in my brain mental phenomena of a pugnacious character, which are nothing modified by palace cars and steel rails. This particular night there was a perfect revelry of dreams in my brain. I was on the frontier with our corps, engaged in a glorious hand-to-hand conflict with men our equals in number and valor. We were having the best of it, giving it to them hot and heavy, crash! through the beggars' skulls, and plunge! into their abominable abdominal regions. "No quarter!" It was a pity, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... at Baltimore on the seventeenth of September, and endorsed Fillmore and Donelson; but a dissatisfied portion of the convention afterward nominated Commodore Stockton and Kenneth Raynor. All these factions were destined soon to political extinction, but in a hand-to-hand fight with the slave power they yet formed a considerable obstacle to that union and harmony in the free States ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... some bringing in their game, some empty-handed. The French officers 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, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... may not," said Ellerey. "Believe me, I am not unmindful of your kindness; but as I have said, we fight with different weapons. You wield the power of the politician; I have only my sword. We cannot therefore meet in hand-to-hand encounter. I should hesitate to use my sword against my countrymen, but until British soldiers hold the heights above Sturatzberg there is no need to consider that question; and your work, I presume, lies in preventing any chance ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... point. But he observed that after this 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 ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... struggles within gangways so narrow that nothing but daggers could be used, so obscure that the dim lanterns hardly lighted the death-stroke. They seemed the conflicts, not of men but of evil spirits. Nor were these hand-to-hand battles all. A shower of heads, limbs, mutilated trunks, the mangled remains of hundreds of human beings, often spouted from the earth as if from an invisible volcano. The mines were sprung with unexampled frequency ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... her, Celie! 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, punctuated with ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... used to find fault with my mild temper: 'I would not put up with this! I would not put up with that.' If I had listened to her, Monsieur le Prsident, I should have had at least three hand-to-hand ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... the war, of its causes and its vicissitudes, yet she remained 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 faces and the watchful ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... compilation out of respect to her opinion and also because the boys to whom I have read it said it was "great," The lesson in it is certainly fine. Men who are true men want to settle their own disputes by a hand-to-hand fight, but they will always help each other when a third party or the elements interfere. Humanity ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... unawares, Jack North did not allow his enemy to get very much the advantage of him. As the other rushed forward, expecting to overpower him by sheer force, he met him squarely in a hand-to-hand ...
— Jack North's Treasure Hunt - Daring Adventures in South America • Roy Rockwood
... While there were more than 200,000 Helots and 120,000 Perioeci, there were never more than 9,000 Spartiate heads of families. In a matter of life and death, then, it was necessary that a Spartiate be as good as ten Helots. As the form of battle was hand-to-hand, they needed agile and robust men. Sparta was like a camp without walls; its people was an army ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... onward they rushed and then they were in the midst of the battle. And yet not exactly in the midst, for the actual conflict was rather of longer distance than that. Hand-to-hand fighting had not yet occurred. But they advanced, firing as they rushed on, not in close formation, for that offered too good a target, but separated. They would fire, rush on, drop to earth, rise again, fire and rush on. And so ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... the van, quickly bade his men to return the fire, and passed the word back for the other divisions to hasten up. The fight soon became a hand-to-hand one. The creek was close by, but it could not be crossed in the face of the enemy, and Putnam bade his men to hold their ground. A sharp fight ensued, now in the open, now from behind trees, in Indian fashion. Putnam had discharged his piece several times, and once more ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... "seems invidious, for it is my belief that throughout the whole of the Japanese army such a thing as fear did not exist. They simply did not know what the word meant. But I shall never forget that the only piece of hand-to-hand fighting I saw during the whole time was a cavalry charge led by Prince Maiyo against an immensely superior force of Russians. Duchess," the General declared, "those Japanese on their queer little horses ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... followed by his troop, he rode at the Constable; who, with a thousand horse, had taken his post behind the infantry. Before this body of cavalry could advance to meet the Huguenots, the latter were among them, and a desperate hand-to-hand melee took place. Gradually the Huguenots won their way into the mass; although the old Constable, fighting as stoutly as the youngest soldier, was setting a ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... those human eyes after being trapped into the 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 had ...
— Mona • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... not able to reach the German front line owing to wire being undestroyed and too thick to cut. A gap was thus made between 1st and 4th Gordons. The enemy pushed bombers through, thus getting behind 4th Gordons. Desperate hand-to-hand fighting ensued. O.C. "A" Company was forced to defend his left flank. A German counter-attack moving N. to S. by C.T. across the Menin Road, The Royals' machine-gun did great execution. Terrific bombardment by German ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... body of the vicomte on his shoulders and carried it back to the lines. The advantage was, however, pursued, the regiments took the reserve with them, and the enemy's palisades were utterly destroyed. At three o'clock the fire of the Arabs ceased; the hand-to-hand fight lasted two hours; it was a massacre. At five o'clock we were victorious at all points; the enemy had abandoned his positions, and M. le duc ordered the white flag to be planted on the summit of the little mountain. It was then ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... daring ride across the battlefield, and for the quick rallying and leading into action of a command whose officers were all down. With Ewell at Dispatch Station, he had volunteered for duty at the crossing of the Chickahominy, and in a hand-to-hand fight with a retiring Federal regiment he and his detachment had acquitted themselves supremely well. As far as this warfare went, he had reason to be satisfied. But he was not so, and as he rode he thought the ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... young ruffians, for you are nothing else! These hand-to-hand fights between boys seldom finish well. Some disaster is sure ...
— Pinocchio - The Tale of a Puppet • C. Collodi
... to the master—to instruct he monkey-house at the Zoological Gardens. The few workers (scarcely one of whom, by the way, was in his own house) formed a little coterie apart, and grabbed up whatever morsels of wisdom and learning their master could afford to let drop in the midst of his hand-to-hand combat with the forces of anarchy and lethargy. But he had little to say to them. His appeals were addressed to the body of gaping, half- amused, half-bored loungers in the middle of the room, who listened pleasantly ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... and onset; extraordinary fortitude under suffering; undaunted heroism in death; the roll of fame and story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, Hand-to-Hand Encounters, Startling Surprises, Ingenious Strategy, Celebrated Tactics, Wonderful Escapes, Comical and Ludicrous Adventures on Land and Sea; Wit, Drollery and Repartee, Famous Words and Deeds of Women, Sanitary and Hospital Scenes, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... front line, however, charged well up to the points of the lances, against which they hewed with their sharp scimiters, frequently severing the steel top from the ashpole, and then breaking through and engaging in hand-to-hand conflict with the knights. Behind the latter sat their squires, with extra spears and arms ready to hand to their masters; and in close combat, the heavy maces with their spike ends were weapons before which the light-clad horsemen went down like ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty
... he became conscious of a shock and swaying movement, like the commencement of a Rugby scrimmage. He turned, and saw in a moment what had happened: by sheer weight of numbers, the overpowering rush of Arabs had forced back the thin line of "Heavies," and a fierce hand-to-hand fight was in progress. What had been the interior of the square was now covered with a confused mass of struggling combatants, dimly seen through clouds of dust and smoke. Desperate fanatics hacked and stabbed with their heavy swords and long spears, while burly giants of the Guards returned ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... clutching by its roots as a limpet clutches to a rock. As I fought him, I bettered some verses in my poem, the WOODMAN; the only thought I gave to letters. Though the kuikui was thick, there was but a small patch of it, and when I was done I attacked the wild lime, and had a hand-to-hand skirmish with its spines and elastic suckers. All this time, close by, in the cleared space of the garden, Lafaele and Mauga were digging. Suddenly quoth Lafaele, 'Somebody he sing out.' - 'Somebody ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hand-to-hand encounter with the cripple; mine was much the same; I was a child in his grip. But with his weapon useless, and Larry rushing into the room, Tugh must have felt that for all his strength and fighting skill ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... long the former might be able to sustain life in the vitiated atmosphere of the mine, when ventilation was no longer possible. I reached Hartley a few hours after the breaking of the beam, and in the hand-to-hand encounter with death at that forlorn and desolate spot I first became acquainted at close quarters with the tragic realities of life. For a full week in that bitter January weather I may be said to have lived on the pit platform. ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... THE AZTECS FOUGHT. The Mexican warriors, though they fought fiercely, were no match for the Spaniards. The Mexicans were experts with the bow and arrow, using arrows pointed with a hard kind of stone. They carried for hand-to-hand fighting a narrow club set with a double edge of razor-like stones, and wore a crude kind of armor made from quilted cotton. But such things were useless against Spanish bullets shot ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... an air of truth pervading every page which chains the veteran to it until he is stared in the face with 'Finis.' The details and influences of camp-life, the preparations for active duty, the weary marches to the battle-field, the bivouac at night, the fierce hand-to-hand strife, the hospital, the dying volunteer, the dead one—buried in his blanket by the pale light of the moon, far, far away from those he loves—the defeat and victory—every scene, in fact, familiar to the eye and ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... them. The enemy had pressed through the first wire entanglement, and a terrific hand-to-hand conflict was in progress. Then men charged with bayonet on gun in the right hand, a short, keen knife in their teeth, and on their left hands a band set with spiked steel knuckles. They leaped into the trenches, struck once with the bayonet, let ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... important, if not the most important means of grace and spiritual enlightenment. The power of sustained attention and consecutive thought is greatly lacking in all untrained minds; hence the superiority of the hand-to-hand question-and-answer method of the class-room over the sermon as a means of informing the mind and clearing away the rubbish of superstition and the misapprehensions of meaning, derived from the ignorant preachers who have been in many cases ...
— The American Missionary — Volume 38, No. 06, June, 1884 • Various
... assistance. The Afghans were seen, in great numbers, in the broken ground ahead. The Ghoorkas and the little body of Rangers pushed on against them. Presently the enemy gathered, and made a rush down upon them; and a desperate hand-to-hand fight took place, for a few minutes. The men were scattered among the trees, ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... making this statement, I should not hesitate for one moment in what I have to say, but others agree with me in this, among them being United States District Attorney Sims, who has written much on the subject of white slavery. One reason for reaching this conclusion comes from the personal hand-to-hand and heart-to-heart touch with these girls themselves. The country girl is more open to the enticements of city life, being more truthful, perfectly innocent and unsuspecting of those whose business it is to seek their prey from ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... Roxbury company, was killed while on the log. But death had no terrors to that army. The centre and rear divisions pressed up to support the front and fill the gaps; and all equally shared the glory of the hour. Enough survived the terrible passage to bring the Indians to a hand-to-hand fight within the fort. After a desperate struggle of nearly three hours, the savages were driven from their stronghold; and, with the setting of that sun, their power was broken. Philip's fortunes had received a decided overthrow, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... had recognized the personal nature of the assault, Emerson found himself engaged in a furious hand-to-hand struggle where a want of room hampered the free use of his cudgel, and he was forced to rely mainly upon his fists. Blows were rained upon him from unguarded quarters, he was kicked, battered, and flung about, his blind instinct finally leading him to clinch with whomsoever ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... here was made up of a series of isolated and desperate hand-to-hand combats with bayonet and hand grenades, and, since the Germans were, at many points, outflanked and enfiladed, their losses were very heavy, for in the narrow trenches there was often no room for escape, and the only alternative was death or surrender. In some places ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... despoiled; the stumps are ugly; the bushes are scorched; the pine-leaf-strewn earth is trodden into mire; the landing looks like a cattle-ford; the ground is littered with all the unsightly dibris of a hand-to-hand life; the dismantled shanty is a shabby object; the charred and blackened logs, where the fire blazed, suggest the extinction of family life. Man has wrought his usual wrong upon Nature, and he can save his self-respect only by ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the nearest group, followed by all his men, who formed a compact mass; round which the three corps of royal troops closed. Then there was everywhere a hand-to-hand battle there was no time to load and fire; swords flashed and fell, bayonets stabbed, the royals and the Camisards took each other by the throat and hair. For an hour this demoniac fight lasted, during which Cavalier lost five hundred men and slew a thousand of the enemy. ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... begun, inherits a work, and is Elijah's 'Timothy' and 'son in the faith.' The same Spirit was on him, though the form of his character and gifts was in strong contrast to the stormier genius of his mightier predecessor. Elisha had no such work as Elijah—no foot-to-foot and hand-to-hand duels with murderous kings or queens; no single-handed efforts to stop a nation from rushing down a steep place into the sea; no fiery energy; no bursts of despair. He moved among kings and courts as an honoured guest and trusted ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... however, destined to be very sorely taxed. He had fallen into a light sleep, and was dreaming of a hand-to-hand struggle with Long Robin, when some unwonted sound smote upon his ears, and he started up all alert ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... which it caused Mrs. Tutts real suffering to suppress was upon the tip of that lady's tongue, but it was gradually being borne in upon her that the first families were not given to actual hand-to-hand conflicts, so she checked ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... 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 mercy on their poor souls." And then ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... already demonstrated that neither urban life, nor the 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. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... invaders, or to acquire new territory, or to exact tribute from weaker nations. We do not read of military discipline, or of skill in strategy and tactics. A battle was lost or won by individual prowess; it was generally a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the strongest and bravest gained ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... wooden bridge sank under the weight of the artillery and fighting men. Crowded together upon a narrow causeway where they could not use their fire-arms, deprived of their cavalry who had not room to act, mingled with the Indians in a hand-to-hand combat, not having strength to kill, and surrounded on all sides, the Spaniards and their allies gave way under the ever renewed numbers of the assailants. Officers and soldiers, infantry and cavalry, Spaniards and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Russian captain, when he was pulled back by the collar by Mr Hawkins, the chaplain, who rushed in advance with a sabre in his hand. The opponents were well matched, and it may be said that, with little interruption, a hand-to-hand conflict ensued, for the moon lighted up the scene of carnage, and they were well able to distinguish each other's faces. At last, the chaplain's sword broke: he rushed in, drove the hilt into his antagonist's face, ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... a shower of short spears, (assagais), before them, which, however, fell short. Regardless of the havoc in their ranks, they still came on, and the foremost men were seen to break short their assagais, with the evident intention of using them more effectively as daggers in hand-to-hand conflict. This was deliberately done by Makana's orders, and showed his wisdom, for, with the great bodily strength, size, and agility of the Kafirs, and their overwhelming numbers, the attack, ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... instruction the young officers broke for the officers' tent to get their swords. As this night might see rousing hand-to-hand work with rioters the swords might ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... attracted to him the attention of the dwarf savages. The hunter took to a tree, and so escaped. Then, carefully marking the trail, he came away in the morning. When near home, a lion had attacked him, but he speared the beast to death, after a hand-to-hand struggle in ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton
... improvement in military arms there has necessarily been a corresponding modification in the method of supplying ammunition and in the quantity required to be supplied. When hand-to-hand weapons were the principal implements of battle, there was, of course, no such need, but even in the middle ages the archers and crossbowmen had to replenish the shafts and bolts expended in action, and ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on a strong hill, and he put in front heavy-armed soldiers, next the javelin slingers and stone throwers, and behind all the archers. His purpose was that the foremost might thrust back such as assailed them in hand-to-hand conflict, while the others from a distance might be able to bring their force into play over the heads of the others. The detachment on the left and that on the right were defended by the sea-crags ...
— Dio's Rome, Volume V., Books 61-76 (A.D. 54-211) • Cassius Dio
... the table-cloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down the glasses and salt-cellars as if she were knocking at the door, and clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive of hand-to-hand conflict. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various
... 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 ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... discipline before the common discursive man could be converted into the steady soldier. Even to-day traditions work powerfully, through extravagance of uniform, and through survivals of that mechanical discipline that was so important in the days of hand-to-hand fighting, to keep the soldier something other than a man. For all the lessons of the Boer war we are still inclined to believe that the soldier has to be something severely parallel, carrying a ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... day; it was fiercest on our left flank, where General French and his cavalry charged the positions of the Ermelo and Bethel burghers again and again, each time to be repulsed with heavy losses. Once the lancers attacked so valiantly that a hand-to-hand fight ensued. The commandant of the Bethel burghers afterwards told me that during the charge his kaffir servant got among the lancers and called upon them to "Hands up!" The unsophisticated native had heard so much about "hands up," and "hands-uppers," that he thought the entire English ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... ground that the enemies found in advancing, after having driven in our right, enabled our them to rally and to resist. But this resistance was of short duration. Every one had been engaged in hand-to-hand combats; every one was worn out with lassitude and despair of success, and a confusion so general and so unheard-of. The household troops owed their escape to the mistake of one of the enemy's officers, who ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... gaudy quilts, which goad a man to drink and death. While I am proud to belong to a farmers' club and "change works" with a hearty, whole-souled ploughman like George William Curtis, I hope that at all County Fairs or other intellectual hand-to-hand contests between outdoor orators and other domestic animals, I may be excused, and that when judges of inflamed slumber robes and restless tidies, which roll up and fall over the floor or adhere ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... 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
... and a fierce hand-to-hand conflict ensued. The slaves greatly outnumbered their opponents, of whom there were probably not more than fifty or sixty, but nearly all these had muskets. Some of the firearms, I observed, did not go off, probably because ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... it?" sang out a deriding voice that set the crowd jeering anew. "You'll git promoted, you will! See it in all the evenin' papers—oh, yus! ''Orrible hand-to-hand struggle with a desperado. Brave constable has 'arf a quid's worth out of an infuriated ruffin!' My hat! won't your missis be proud when you take her to see ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... oriental Rome, it is true, equally with Persia, was liable to sudden inroads and incursions. But the difference was this—Persia was strongly protected in all ages by the wilderness on her main western frontier; if this were passed, and a hand-to-hand conflict succeeded, where light cavalry or fugitive archers could be of little value, the essential weakness of the Persian empire then betrayed itself. Her sovereign was assassinated, and peace was obtained from the condescension of the ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... lifting my hand from his arm into his for a second and then handing it firmly back to me, "that garden was just a dream you and I have been having this evening. It can't be. Don't you see, dear, I am in a hard hand-to-hand struggle with my land, which is all I possess, for—for bread for myself and the kiddie, and I—I can't have a woman's flower-garden. It looks as if you and old Petie can do a real literary stunt together. Just get at it, and God bless you ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Major von Othegraven to his battalion of the Brandenburg regiment, "if we cannot shoot them, we can club them!" And amid loud cheers the soldiers turned their muskets, and struck their enemies with the butts. A terrible hand-to-hand struggle ensued—howls of pain, dreadful abuse and imprecations burst from both sides; but at length they ceased on this part of the field: the Brandenburg soldiers had killed a whole French battalion with the ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... out at some one. They say in the regiment that some fool of a palmist told him to beware of cholera; and I believe the old chap's in a blue funk. Queer thing, funk. Put that man on an unbroken horse, or in the thick of a hand-to-hand scrimmage, and he wouldn't know the meaning of fear. Yet now ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... by a quick and silent dash you may be able to board her. If You are successful in getting aboard, your first duty will be to prevent the firing of one of the big guns. Luckily, we are still far from shore, so the sounds of a hand-to-hand struggle are not likely to be overheard. Are you willing to ...
— The Boy Allies Under Two Flags • Ensign Robert L. Drake
... lips, however, another of Muley-Hassan's 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 ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... 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 conflict, notwithstanding ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... Moreover, there were such formidable makeshift weapons as capstan-bars, marline-spikes, belaying-pins, and other instruments accessible to them at a moment's notice. If, therefore, it should come to a hand-to-hand fight, our antagonists were likely to ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... step by step. With the pistol he could bury two or three balls in the body of the redskin before he could suspect where they came from, and thus completely clear the path before him. But there were doubts in the way. The revolver might miss fire, in which case all hope would be gone. In a hand-to-hand tussle the Apache would be more than a match for a dozen such lads. True, the weapon had not failed when he pulled the trigger in the cave, but there was no certainty that it would not do so ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... to desperation 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 to their clergy than they were in the lost days, when the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... forward, attended by a few followers as fearless as himself, in search of Richmond. He penetrated the enemies' lines in the direction where he supposed Richmond was to be found, and was soon surrounded by foes, whom he engaged desperately in a hand-to-hand encounter of the most furious and reckless character. He slew one or two of the foremost of those who surrounded him, calling out all the time to Richmond to come out and meet him in single combat. This Richmond would ...
— Richard III - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Seventh, as the report goeth, commanded all such curs to be hanged, because they durst presume to fight against the lion, who is their king and sovereign. The like he did with an excellent falcon, as some say, because he feared not hand-to-hand match with an eagle, willing his falconers in his own presence to pluck off his head after he was taken down, saying that it was not meet for any subject to offer such wrong unto his lord and superior, wherein ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... bent on winning here. They know now about how many men I have, and they know that my men are regulars. The Moros have plenty of rifles, and I judge that they're well off in ammunition, but they can't shoot as well as American regulars. On a charge, however—in close, hand-to-hand fighting—these Malays are not to be despised. They always fought hand-to-hand in the old days, and ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... Orange Free 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
... 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 ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... fight, both boys had shown more than once. Jack, because of his huge bulk and great strength, was, of course, harder to beat in a hand-to-hand struggle than was Frank; but what the latter lacked in this kind of fighting, he more than made up in the use of revolver, rifle ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... art of hiding and of shielding themselves from harm. The hostile lines, though about a mile and a quarter in length, were so close together, being never more than twenty yards apart, that many of the combatants grappled in hand-to-hand fighting, and tomahawked or stabbed each other[33] to death. The clatter of the rifles was incessant, while above the din could be heard the cries and groans of the wounded, and the shouts of the combatants, as each encouraged his own ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... until, faint and bleeding, he fell. Tahakooch was close behind; but the villain's hand shook, and four times his shots missed the wounded wretch upon the ground. Summoning up all his strength, the Sircie sprung upon his assailant; a hand-to-hand struggle ensued; but the desperate wound was too much for him, he grew faint in his efforts, and the villain Tahakooch passed his knife into his victim's body. All this took place in the same year during which I reached Edmonton, and within sight of the walls of the fort. Tahakooch ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... not an outstanding quality of the New York gangsman. His personal preference is for retreat when it is a question of unpleasantness with a stranger. And, in any case, even when warring among themselves, the gangs exhibit a lively distaste for the hard knocks of hand-to-hand fighting. Their chosen method of battling is to lie down on the ground ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... Indians met in a log cabin. Standish made a 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 ...
— The Beginner's American History • D. H. Montgomery
... harangued every one about religion in the most 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 ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... No, they are not murderers. In a hand-to-hand conflict they might do it, as I might do the same to them. This very morning my men shot at the captain of all smugglers, Robin Lyth, of Flamborough, with a hundred guineas upon his head. It was no wish ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... was not a very strong affair; and right from the start it gave way in one place after another as the enemy thronged and crowded against it. Then the Doctor, Long Arrow and Bumpo would hurry to the weak spot, a terrific hand-to-hand fight would take place and the enemy be thrown out. But almost instantly a cry of alarm would come from some other part of the village-wall; and the Three would have to rush off and do the same ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... ahead, then?" The sharp bark of rifles, the rat-a-tat of machine guns, the boom of bursting grenades, and the yells, groans, screams and shouts of the hand-to-hand conflict came through the curtaining smoke in a mad ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... examination of the Confederate works, pronounced capture impossible and refused to sacrifice his men in a useless attack. Nevertheless the attempt was renewed January 12, when General Alfred Terry had charge of the land forces. The garrison made one of the bravest defences of the whole war, and the hand-to-hand fight was of the most furious character. It lasted for five hours, when the fort was obliged to surrender, the garrison of 2,300 men becoming prisoners of war. It was in this fearful struggle that Ensign ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... crime, and killed the captain with his own hand. Obtaining command of the ship, they put her about, and commenced a piratical raid. One vessel they succeeded in disarming, despoiling, and then leaving her to her fate. But the next vessel they attacked proved a more formidable enemy, and there was a hand-to-hand struggle for the mastery, and for life or death. The Morning Star was sunk, with the greater portion of her living freight. A few, only some four or five, were saved by the other ship, and conveyed ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... fire; and the rocks themselves were heightened wherever necessary with 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 ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... obliged to follow their prey into places where horses could not easily penetrate; then a hand-to-hand conflict was inevitable. The lion would rise on its hind quarters and endeavour to lay its pursuer low with a stroke of its mighty paw, but only to fall pierced to the heart by his lance ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... shouting "Seminary! Seminary!" he led his division across the terrace and fell upon McIntyre's behind the guns. It was a short, sharp scrimmage, during which Dunc levelled the leader of McIntyre's, and then the enemy began to retreat slowly down the terrace, with many a hand-to-hand encounter and scuffle on the snow. As soon as Dunc's division had cleared the front, Jock Howieson collected his lads and started along the terrace in the opposite direction at a sharp run, carrying ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... recorded the debates of the Virginia convention, to understand just how such a person could have made the speeches which are there attributed to Patrick Henry, or how a mere rhapsodist could have thus held his ground, in close hand-to-hand combat, for twenty-three days, against such antagonists, on all the difficult subjects of law, political science, and history involved in the Constitution of the United States,—while showing at the same time every quality of good generalship as a tactician ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... without official leave, and was wounded at El Teb when acting as an intelligence officer under General Valentine Baker. This did not deter him from a similar course when a fresh expedition started up the Nile. He was given a post by Lord Wolseley, and met his death in the hand-to-hand fighting of the battle of Abu Klea (17th ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the revolver, had been found; and it was evidently not heavy enough to produce such a wound. There must, then, necessarily, have been a hand-to-hand struggle between the pretended soldier and the murderer; and the latter, seizing his adversary by the throat, had dashed him violently against the wall. The presence of some very tiny but very numerous spots of extravasated blood about the neck ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... struggles between the Christian knights under the banner of Ferdinand, and the Moorish cavaliers under the standard of Mahomet; of fields covered with silken canopies; of cavalcades of warriors in jeweled armor and nodding plumes; of hand-to-hand conflicts and daring exploits; of the siege and capture of the city and expulsion of the Moors from Spain. As we thought of the unfortunate Boabdil, the noble queen mother Ayxa, and the beautiful Zoraya, driven into exile, ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob |
