What is "bayonets"

Usage examples of "bayonets".

Like the Spanish the British line was a hundred and fifty yards wide, its four ranks tipped with bayonets, the company officers riding or walking with drawn swords.

All the men had to do was stay still and keep the bayonets firm and the horses would sheer away, flow down the sides of the square, and be blasted by the loaded muskets at the sides and backs of the formation.

With a groan Sharpe watched the Spanish reach the red ranks and beat aside the bayonets as they scrambled to safety.

Sharpe noted that Harper had put a file of Riflemen at each end of the company, the vulnerable flanks which would be the weakest points of his force and where only steady nerves and rigid bayonets would deter the swooping horsemen.

Someone had organised the survivors of the British square, and there was a kneeling front rank, its muskets jammed into the turf, bayonets reaching up at the chests of the horses.

More Frenchmen were fighting on foot, trying to beat aside the bayonets and force their way to the flag-staffs, to glory.

They had been in little danger as long as they stayed in ranks and kept the bayonets steady.

Joining the noise of the insects were the sounds of hundreds of stones rubbing endlessly on bayonets, the countrymen sharpening the blades as they used to sharpen reaping hooks or wide-bladed scythes.

Sharpe walked past the fires, swapping jokes, accepting tots of hoarded spirits, feeling the edges of bayonets, telling the men that the next day would not be bad.

They would start lighting their fires, start cooking a breakfast, and hopefully they would be still eating it when the Spanish bayonets came at them from the west.

Sharpe saw two skirmishers together, their bayonets levelled at him, but he screamed, they faltered, and he cut at one man as he swerved past and disappeared in the night.

The British had heard the firing, seen the musket flashes, and Sharpe could see men grabbing weapons, fixing bayonets, waiting for whatever crouched in the dark.

The bayonets gleamed red in the firelight, the line walked steadily forward, but the enemy skirmishers had disappeared.

British officer saw it and raised his sword, the red ranks cheered and went forward with levelled bayonets and, as suddenly as it had begun, the battle was done.

The men with muskets had little chance of fixing their bayonets in time, but the Riflemen had no need to try.