What is "firestep"

Usage examples of "firestep".

The eastward-facing bank of the cutting provided a firestep for riflemen, who could, if overwhelmed, retreat across the wide entrenchment into the woods on the western side.

A building stone, dropped from the firestep, would kill a man as effectively as any bullet, yet the piled masonry seemed a pathetic weapon to prepare against whatever might come from the east.

The German sergeant had his shako upended on the firestep and half-filled with cartridges.

A howitzer shell cracked on the firestep beside Sharpe and span into the courtyard where its explosion made a ball of filthy smoke shot through with red flames.

Sharpe, standing on the captured firestep, could at last stare down at the spires and towers and pinnacles and roofs of Toulouse.

The unwounded prisoners were gathering in the central courtyard, but they left on the ramparts, on firesteps, beside guns, a grisly remnant of the garrison.

One doorway was barricaded with a child's cot while another had a pair of benches as a firestep.

Further difficulties were caused by the defenders firing from the inner wall's sheltered firestep, and it was not until Captain Goodall, the commander of the 12th Regiment's Light Company, had led his men across the buttressing cross-wall and so began the capture of the inner ramparts that the defence collapsed.

Patterson's men were spitting bullets into rifles, shoving ramrods down barrels, and scrabbling for percussion caps in the upturned hats placed conveniently beside the firestep.