Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Fusillade   /fjˈusɪlˌeɪd/   Listen
Fusillade

noun
1.
Rapid simultaneous discharge of firearms.  Synonyms: burst, salvo, volley.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Fusillade" Quotes from Famous Books



... upon the Galt House where Cook Humphrey, Howard Logan, Mat Carey, and others were staying. There wasn't a windowpane left in the place when they finished. The doors were splintered to smithereens. In the midst of the fusillade of bullets Cook Humphrey grabbed up a hymn book from the organ in the musty parlor, held it over his heart, and thereby saved his life. A bullet lodged in the thick leather cover of ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... as reports of these murders came in one by one, till at last the desire for vengeance could no longer be repressed, and they were clamorously insisting on being led against the ramparts and the towers, when without warning a heavy fusillade began from the windows and the clock tower of the Capuchin monastery. M. Massin, a municipal officer, was killed on the spot, a sapper fatally wounded, and twenty-five of the National Guard wounded more or less severely. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... whole outline loomed indistinctly, suddenly close to them. She lay to across a little heaving strip of sea, and presently the pilot was being pulled across to them by a couple of men and was coming nimbly up the Nauru's ladder, hand over hand. He nodded cheerily at his welcome—a fusillade of greetings from every "digger" who could find a place at the railings, and a larger number who could not, but contented themselves with shouting sweet nothings from behind their comrades. A lean youngster near Jim Linton looked down enviously at ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... Ruth sprang to the pony, lifted from its back a rifle. Then into the mass of their pursuers Drake and she poured a fusillade. They huddled, wavered, broke ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt

... breast, she was dimly conscious of some mysterious terror without that awaited him. She listened to the furious onslaught of the wind upon the sycamores beside their cabin, and thought she heard it there; she listened to the sharp fusillade of rain upon roof and pane, and the turbulent roar and rush of leaping mountain torrents at their very feet, and fancied it was there. She suddenly sprang to the window, and, pressing her eyes to the pane, saw through the misty turmoil of tossing boughs and swaying branches the scintillating ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... de Fauborg Sainte Antoine Dere comed a fusillade, Und dyin groans und fallin dead Vere roundt dat parricade, But der song of Revolution From a tousand voices round, Made a fearful opera gorus To de deat' gries on ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland

... justice they may expect from the enemy, and, patriotism or the love of independence aside, it is better for them to die in the field than to risk the other alternative; a lingering life in an African penal settlement or the fusillade against the east wall of Cabanas prison. In an island with a soil so rich and productive as is that of Cuba there will always be roots and fruits for the insurgents to live upon, and with the cattle that they have hidden away in the laurel or on the mountains they can keep their troops in rations ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis

... under the boxes, Jerry sprang after, missing his enemy by inches. Tossing overboard bits of wood, bottles and empty tins, Captain Van Horn ordered the eight eager boat's crew with rifles to turn loose. Jerry was excited and delighted with the fusillade, and added his puppy yelpings to the noise. As the empty brass cartridges were ejected, the return boys scrambled on the deck for them, esteeming them as very precious objects and thrusting them, still warm, into the empty holes in their ears. Their ears were perforated with many ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... Lucy answered this fusillade in detail. "You know, aunt, dressmakers bring us their failures, and we, by our hints, get them made ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade

... thick bunches of Japanese troops who were passing along the track over which we had just advanced. Even the Eastern temperament has limits to its serenity. For a moment the Japs were completely off their guard, but they soon recovered, and dropping flat in the grass, they opened a brisk fusillade. The Magyars were protected by the plated sides of their wagons, and were making sad havoc amongst the soldiers of the Rising Sun. Taking in the situation at a glance, a Japanese officer gave the order to charge. Every man instantly bounded forward, and, like a disturbed ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward

... the moment we appeared on the ridge, opened a heavy rifle fire upon us. We answered with as severe a fusillade as theirs. Whilst we were shooting, twenty of Commandant Nel's men joined us and helped us to hold our ground. When we had been engaged in this way for some time we saw that the only possible course was to fight our way from position to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet

... the passengers—who, when the train pulled to a sudden stop that was followed by a fusillade of shots, believed it had been halted by bandits—had recovered from their confusion and were pouring out of the coaches, swarming toward the locomotive. A stout woman, whose short hair straggling to her bare shoulders indicated ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson

... Caesar's tombstone! just think of going camping again!" And in his joy the youth turned a handspring on the grass. As he arose Giant threw an apple core that took him in the ear. Then Whopper threw a core in return, hitting Shep. A general fusillade of cores followed, and the lads ended by chasing each other around the orchard. Then they trooped ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill

... free speech and all that, reprinting the thesis in full. And in the controversy that followed, young Adams was always a prominent figure. He was not an orator in the popular sense, but he held the pen of a ready writer, and through the Boston papers kept up a constant fusillade. ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... have had little stomach for fighting to-day. Sniping has gone on, of course, and occasionally a regular fusillade, but to us the day on the whole has been peaceful. From 5 a.m. we have been very busy among the Australian wounded, these being the principal sufferers in yesterday's fight, owing, it is said, to their charging with the bayonet at an inopportune moment. Many of their senior officers passed through ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson

... of fisher-folk at the mouth of the Batu Kring branch of the estuary. The river, which had been closed so long, was open then, and Stein's little schooner, in which I had my passage, worked her way up in three tides without being exposed to a fusillade from "irresponsive parties." Such a state of affairs belonged already to ancient history, if I could believe the elderly headman of the fishing village, who came on board to act as a sort of pilot. He talked to me (the second white man ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... threw off their suits simultaneously and fired at the same instant; Bradley with his Lewiston, Costigan with a heavy automatic pistol whose bullets were explosive shells of tremendous power. But the man in gray, surrounded by an impenetrable wall of force, only smiled at the fusillade, tolerantly and maddeningly. Costigan leaped fiercely, only to be hurled backward as he struck that unyielding, invisible wall. A vicious beam snapped him back into place, the weapons were snatched away, and all three captives were ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith

... was made to Les Facons, a straggling village outside Bethune. Here on quiet nights one could easily hear the fusillade in the trenches while the distant gun flashes lit up the night sky. The terrors of ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... necessary by the horse transports, one of which rolled in line ahead of us. Occasionally a stir would be noticed on her decks and a horse that had succumbed to mal-de-mer would be unceremoniously dumped overboard. Such occasions were marked by a fusillade of pistol shots from each ship as the carcase drifted past, for, contrary to traditions, most of us carried revolvers for the first time in our lives and were ...
— From the St. Lawrence to the Yser with the 1st Canadian brigade • Frederic C. Curry

... soon discovered that the British were still in front of him; for the English regiments were directed to clean their arms by firing them off, and the heavy fusillade reached Napoleon's ears. At eight o'clock Wellington, who was anxiously looking over in the direction from which he expected the Prussians to appear, saw a body of mounted men in the distance, and soon afterward a Prussian orderly rode in and informed him that they ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty

... had given up the fight for the time being. In fact, she had no weapon with which to respond to a fusillade from her rival. Tom hastened forward and informed his ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton

... observe behind you a window, which, as the weather is warm, I shall leave open. On the outside is a great ivy vine that will bear your weight. You will have to dare the spines of the cacti behind you; make a great leap to the window and take your chances of escaping the fusillade of pistol shots, by flying in the darkness, into the garden. I will show you the grounds so that you will not be lost in them, if you get that far. If caught, you will have to pretend to be a burglar ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... through the smoky medium with which they were surrounded, while an occasional "thud" evinced the fact that one of their assailants had fallen:—"ping, ping, ping!" it was a regular fusillade;—and the miners delivered their fire like trained soldiers from behind the breastwork that had so providentially ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson

... consider it some new kind of game and run barking after the missiles. I therefore shot so far beyond that the pebbles fell over the hedge, till my grandmother, whose sole method was an ungainly cross between a hurl and a jerk, took up the fusillade on her own account, with the result that Crazy was wrought up to the highest point of excitement, and, as I had foreseen, brought each stone back to my grandmother, barking joyously and pulling at her skirts for her to ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett

... the sudden rush Of the rain, and the riot Of the shrieking, tearing gale Breaks loose in the night, With a fusillade of hail! Hear the forest fight, With its tossing arms that crack and clash In the thunder's cannonade, While the lightning's forked flash Brings the old hero-trees to the ground with a crash! Hear the breakers' deepening roar, Driven like a herd of ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke

... heads. All the braves who had returned at the time of the armistice had again taken flight. Soon people had to hide or to fly to avoid being incorporated in the battalions of the Commune. Night and day, around the walls, the fusillade rattled, ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau

... by the patrol and the panic-stricken throng tumbled through them and scattered like sheep behind the high, sheltering walls. Once more the massive gates were closed and the bolts thrown down, just in time to avoid a fusillade of bullets from the outside. It was all over in a minute. A hundred throats emitted shouts of rage, curses and threats, and then, as if by magic, the forest became ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon

... hear Bob's fusillade from the other side of the cab and the return volleys from the enemy, but he did not worry about his friend, the engineer, for he knew full well that he could take care of himself. It was the other fellows who would have to look out. But Jim saw a figure leap in behind a rock, ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt

... This brought a fusillade of paper pellets from the student sitting opposite. She bore it patiently for a minute or two, and then angrily demanded why he did not get on with his lessons and let her do the same, and threatened ...
— That Scholarship Boy • Emma Leslie

... a sand-storm, a fusillade from Bedouins, a mirage, and a race for water, if Abdullah and Ali could grasp these lanyards, the caravan was saved, since the other camels followed the dun leader and the black racer ...
— The Turquoise Cup, and, The Desert • Arthur Cosslett Smith

... to them punctuated by faint, far yells. The shots did not come in a fusillade. They were intermittent, died down, popped out again, yielded to whoops ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine

... first dawn firing began, and we went into action at once, as did the whole line of infantry. A tremendous fusillade of shells and bullets is now being poured upon the position in front, and chiefly on the central conical kopje. My waggon is halted, waiting to go up. The sun is just getting strength, warming our numbed feet, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... thankless task. First of all there was the usual ceremony of "cosseting" and drying tears. Then with a pin I had to mend the rent in Mamie's frock. Then I had to kiss both of Gladys's elbows to make them well, and finally I had to stand a fusillade of chaff and jeers from the Philosophers, which made life a heavier burden ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed

... full-length silhouette upon a panel of palms and tree-ferns. I see the silhouette grow tall and straight again before my eyes, the door open, and Raffles listening with an alert lift of the head. I, too, hear something, an elfin hiss, a fairy fusillade, and then the sudden laugh with which Raffles rejoined us in ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung

... and sat there for a moment. The old man saw him, but evinced no surprise. He just said, "Here, Mister Who-ever-you-are, kitch hold of that rope." Their united forces were too much for the steer, and he was hauled in by main strength under a fusillade of bamboo on his stern. Once in the small yard, he abandoned the struggle, and charged wildly at his captors. The old man slipped nimbly to one side, Gordon darted up the nearest fence, while Carew and the black boy got tangled up with ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson

... The enemy then considered the advisability of concealment, and he disappeared from view. Small parties of his infantry meanwhile had dribbled forward, considerably helped by old systems of trenches which extended down into the low ground. Our men were ready, however, and met them with a heavy fusillade whenever they ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson

... we learned what had happened in those first wild moments. All the tows had almost reached the beach, when a party of Turks intrenched almost on the shore opened up a terrible fusillade from rifles and also from a Maxim. Fortunately most of the bullets went high, but, nevertheless, many men were hit as they sat huddled together 40 or 50 ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... there were at least a thousand men crowded into the dip of ground within a few yards of us, whence those of them who had guns kept up a continued fusillade upon the koppie. They killed two of my bearers in this way, and wounded a third, for being at the top of the koppie these men were most exposed to the fire from the dip at its base. Seeing that the situation was growing most ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... expectation followed. Then a shot was fired from the boat and one of the strikers fell to the ground mortally wounded. A howl of fury and a volley of bullets came back from the line of the strikers, and a wild fusillade was opened on both sides. In vain did the strike leaders attempt to pacify the men and to stop the carnage—the strikers were beyond control. The struggle lasted several hours, after which the Pinkertons retreated from the river bank and ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter

... some time by a thunder-storm, and finally wheel away southward in the face of threatening heavens. Several villages of gypsies are camped on the banks of the Maritza, just outside the limits of Tatar Bazardjik; a crowd of bronzed, half-naked youngsters wantonly favor me with a fusillade of stones as I ride past, and several gaunt, hungry-looking curs follow me for some distance with much threatening clamor. The dogs in the Orient seem to be pretty much all of one breed, genuine mongrel, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... minor dangers are also the province of the hamaca. Once, in the tropics, a great fruit fell on the elastic strands and bounced upon my body. There was an ominous swish of the air in the sweeping arc which this missile described, also a goodly shower of leaves; and since the fusillade took place at midnight, it was, all in all, a somewhat alarming visitation. However, there were no honorable scars to mark its advent; and what is more important, from all my hundreds of hammock nights, I have no other memory of any actual or threatened danger which was not ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe

... thrown aside and Collins' curly head thrust out of the window. Presently the head reappeared, simultaneously with the crack of a revolver, the first of a detonating fusillade. ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine

... fell back, but was unable to force his way inside. With each upward rush he made, waves of fear surged over us. At first, at such times, most of us dashed inside; but some remained outside to hammer him with stones, and soon all of us remained outside and kept up the fusillade. ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... courage, and the conference presently broke up, the visitor amusing himself by strolling around the village, discreetly wrapped in his cloak, and taking a malicious delight in encountering Helen Billington, who never failed to greet him with a fusillade of suppressed wrath, to which he listened attentively, as if desirous of storing up some of the objurgations for his own future use. As night fell, and the guest showed no intention of departure, some of the more cautious ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin

... gained his own post, with Private Kelly on his right hand, when a furious fusillade ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock

... are as clean as the sea-gust Uproarious round those poppied headlands high Where huge green seas beneath, in billows upthrust, Scatter snow-amethysts to the bright sapphire sky,— Or music on which fusillade the hoof-beats by Of screaming valkyr-steeds, to exalted strife! You are love's seal and love's nobility, And the burning flame, the ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet

... about to speak, to assure her there was no danger that Graham's men would fire upon the cabin—when hell broke suddenly loose out in the night. The savage roar of guns answered Sokwenna's fusillade, and a hail of bullets crashed against the log walls. Two of them found their way through the windows like hissing serpents, and with a single movement Alan was at Mary's side and had crumpled her down on the floor beside Keok and Nawadlook. His face was white, ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood

... like a Hessian. This meeting they advertised extensively, and the Socialists advertised it too—with the result that about a thousand of them were on hand that evening. The "pitchfork senator" stood their fusillade of questions for about an hour, and then went home in disgust, and the balance of the meeting was a strictly party affair. Jurgis, who had insisted upon coming, had the time of his life that night; he danced about and waved his arms in his excitement—and at the very climax he broke loose from ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair

... The sound had seemed to come from across the passage. She hurried to the door and opened it. As she did so, from behind the door of the apartment opposite there came a perfect fusillade of crashes, each seeming to her strained hearing louder and more appalling ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... there came a sudden roar of musketry and a cloud of smoke drifted up from the barracks right below us—then a rattling fusillade of shots. We could see soldiers running along the walls firing at men below and often in our direction. Bullets hummed in the air like angry bees and we rushed for cover, but in a few moments the firing ceased ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews

... the Rumanians themselves, in order to prevent their use by the enemy, and the systematic looting of the country by the invaders, there seems to be no lack of money in Bucharest, for the restaurants are filled to the doors nightly, there is a constant fusillade of champagne corks, and in the various gardens, all of which have cabaret performances, the popular dancers are showered with silver and notes. In fact, a customary evening in Bucharest is not very far removed, in ...
— The New Frontiers of Freedom from the Alps to the AEgean • Edward Alexander Powell

... the plain of Senlis from 10 o'clock till about half-past 2, and it was ended by the bombardment of our beautiful cathedral and a part of the city. The enemy entered the city about half-past 3 and were received at the end of the Faubourg St. Martin by a fusillade directed against them by delayed soldiers and a company armed with machine guns, charged with arresting the pursuit of the French Army, which ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... came in a fusillade. He was more than surprised; he was vaguely alarmed. Wade had said nothing about having placed one of the C.L.S. detectives at Sparrow Lake and the knowledge that such a course had been deemed advisable was disturbing. Why was it necessary to watch ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... a loud shriek on the pass, far overhead, followed almost immediately by a fusillade of shots. Then a silence, followed by more shots. Then a solitary horseman rode over the edge of the pass and, spurring his horse, rode recklessly down the precipitous trail. Aggie exclaimed that it was ...
— Tish, The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... advancing upon the enemy. Old Prince Ludwig paced back and forth behind them, apparently oblivious to the rain of bullets about him. Every moment he turned his eyes toward the wooded ridge from which there now belched an almost continuous fusillade of shells upon the ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... got within a hundred yards or so of the helpless vessel, the suspicions of the crew were aroused. The captain warned the Moors not to approach any nearer; a volley of bullets was returned by way of reply, followed by a regular fusillade as the boats advanced. There were only three revolvers on board the schooner, and with these the crew prepared to defend themselves. Soon, however, their supply of ammunition became exhausted, and the pirates boarded the schooner without further opposition. The vessel was at once ransacked, even ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... be foolish enough to fire at those of the allies when they come our way. This one was clearly German, and the Garde Civique and others were firing at it with their rifles, but without any success. Our Legation guard, which consists of about twenty-five men, banged away in a perfect fusillade, but the airman was far too high for them to have ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... close aboard a scattered fusillade of small arms broke out from the brig's poop, wounding one man, a Portuguese, but for the most part striking harmlessly against the bulwark. The buccaneers held their fire till they were scarce a boat's length distant. Then at ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... clatter which brought a bevy of waiters and maids on the scene, while the laundress rushed in, all dripping with soapsuds. This so irritated the head waiter that he seized a teacup and threw it at the unlucky tray man. Then followed a fusillade of broken crockery and promiscuous dodging of ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... had been a Frenchman I would have kissed his ugly old mug for the sheer pleasure of seeing it. I knew now that Blythe had kept up the long distance fusillade in order to distract the attention of the defenders while Gallagher had crept close from the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine

... the cabin, falling over each other and swearing awfully. The shot Davidson let off down the skylight had hit no one; but he ran to the edge of the cabin-top and at once opened fire at the dark shapes rushing about the deck. These shots were returned, and a rapid fusillade burst out, reports and flashes, Davidson dodging behind a ventilator and pulling the trigger till his revolver clicked, and then throwing it down to take the other in his ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad

... The fusillade commenced, and all the Indians that could run stampeded. The only American killed was Lennon, a half brother of Ammi White, my Indian ...
— Building a State in Apache Land • Charles D. Poston

... dropped, they seemed paralyzed; but he never left off pumping his gun. By this time canoes and the two boats arrived from shore, armed with Sniders, and with Winchesters which they had captured in the boats. The fusillade they let loose on Saxtorph was tremendous. Luckily for him the niggers are only good at close range. They are not used to putting the gun to their shoulders. They wait until they are right on top of a man, and then they shoot ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London

... and a half distant, he could see Mrs. Haxton sitting between two huge boulders. Von Kerber was near her, and the few Arabs with them were scattered among the rocks in positions whence they could return the incessant fusillade poured on them from the hills. Their camels were huddled in a hollow between the two westerly mounds, and, so far as Royson could judge, the little party had not yet sustained many casualties. But the tactics of their assailants were quite obvious. ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy

... awakened by a tremendous knocking at the front-door. Resolutely turning on to his other side, he tried to ignore it, but the fusillade continued and swelled. Only when it appeared likely to do permanent and irreparable damage to the building did he rush out on to the landing. There he met Kit, half awake, with his eyelids tightly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various

... his family, and all the staff of the factory, and, during the three hours which the engagement lasted, made them walk in a parallel line to themselves in order to protect themselves against the fusillade which was catching them on the flank. Among the twenty-five people who were thus exposed to grave danger were women and children. A work girl, Mme. Jeansenne, was killed, and a foreman, Courtois, had a bullet through his left arm. At 10 in the evening, the enemy returned in force to the village. ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... the weary shiftings of that dreadful flight. They are now near the spot where they had met Porter's pickets in the morning. The sounds of battle had died out at intervals, renewed now and again by an outcry of cheers, a quick fusillade, then more cheers, and then an ominous silence. But now there is a continuous roll of musketry near the knoll, back of the Warrenton road. The two wanderers, breathless, with torn uniforms, swollen faces, halt, gasping, to take their bearings. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... of high pressure he stuttered slightly, grinding and whirring over a sibilant like a stalled tire. Upon one occasion that was to be memorable Lilly sat between the brothers, notebook in lap, her head bent to dodge the fusillade of ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... I had already seen a movement on its farther side, like the motion of a cornfield in the wind, and the thought struck me that the Russians, with their lances and sabres, were there, although I could scarcely believe it. But when our skirmishers reached the hedges, the fusillade began, and I saw clearly the glitter of their lances. At the same instant a flash like lightning gleamed in front of us, followed by a fierce report. The Russians had their cannon with them; they had opened on us. I know not what noise made me turn my ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... our camps for the next few days was extreme. Regiments seemed to have lost their colonels, colonels their regiments. Men of all arms and all commands were mixed in the wildest way. A constant fusillade of small arms and singing of bullets were kept up, indicative of a superfluity of disorder, if not of ammunition. One of my men was severely wounded in camp by a "stray," and derived no consolation from my suggestion that ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor

... the intruder; that the wounded soldier, still armed, could not always distinguish friend from foe or from the ghouls of camp followers who stripped the dead in the darkness and struggled with the dying. A shot or two heard somewhere in that obscurity counted as nothing with the long fusillade that had swept it in the daytime; the passing of a single life, more or less, amounted to little in the long roll-call of the ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... All this fusillade of telegrams made but small impression on the recipients, who found in them nothing new. As one of the British delegates regretfully observed, "Denique nullum est jam dictum quod non ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay

... visit of strangers. Confused by the sound and blinded by the red dust which, filling our ears and irritating our eyes, made us sneeze and cough continuously, we beat a hasty retreat, entirely forgetting the duck we had come to seek. Not until we had got clear of the fusillade directed against us by the fungi, did we stop in our flight, when, clearing the dust from our eyes, and shaking it off from our heads and clothes, Lejoillie burst ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... a fusillade of questions in a dozen tongues, jostled by a clamoring, curious throng, the lucky owner of 8838 fought his way back into the lottery building, and, as he went, the news ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach

... strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, he insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly from him, shouting, "Long live Marshal Ney!" Two of Durutte's regiments go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best, Pack, and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to-hand conflicts is the defeat; friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions break and disperse against each other, like the tremendous foam of battle. Lobau ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... pitch of vicious fury, that I felt convinced we should have to succumb to overwhelming numbers. The air was thick with missiles, and the soldiers suffered severely, although we three prisoners were not often struck. The soldiers tolerated the fusillade with the best grace they could command for some time, but even their endurance had its limits, and at last they turned. But the crowd was by no means daunted. By hook or by crook they intended to prevent us reaching ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... a knife, child? It is best that you—" There was a fusillade from the brush, and his voice was lost in the uproar. "You must wait below, on the beach. They cannot get ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... the body fell back and posted themselves under cover wherever the street offered facilities, and the siege of the house began; the bullets pelted on the front like rattling hail. For nearly ten minutes the fusillade continued without cessation, damaging the stucco, but not doing much mischief otherwise, until one of the men whom the lieutenant had taken with him to the garret was so imprudent as to show himself at a window, when ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... environmental phase of salvation and to undertake this broader task in addition to the "cure of souls" may be to expose the minister to the cross-fire of economic sharp-shooters and a fusillade of sociological field guns. Besides, some of the supporters of the church will object and many will assert that the minister cannot qualify to speak with first-rate intelligence and authority upon the complex social problems of ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... closed his eyes expecting a fusillade to follow. It did not come. From his pit, Watusk hissed ...
— The Fur Bringers - A Story of the Canadian Northwest • Hulbert Footner

... steps. There were a great many family groups, with here and there a chaperoned party from the suburbs. A sound of scraping and squealing and grunting from the stage announced the orchestral preliminaries. There was a scattering fusillade of applause as the tall conductor appeared. Looking through the trees, Harvey could see him rap his stand and raise both arms. The concert was on. Harvey's glance shifted back to the stairway, and ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster

... be the result of it. He nervously raised his rifle, took deliberate aim at the advancing figures, and fired. There was a sickening thud, a heavy fall, and low, deep moans. The men were aroused and manned the fort. The Sergeant ordered a general fusillade. The regiment was in the trenches in a moment ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... can not come among us dripping with human blood, showing us your fangs, and expect from us anything except a fusillade. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... the most notorious Jacobins, were ordered to give their opinion on the guilt of these victims, who were brought out into an open field for that purpose. With such judges the sentence was soon passed, and a fusillade took place on the spot.—It was on this occasion that Tallien made particular boast of his humanity; and in the same publication where he relates the circumstance, he exposes the "atrocious conduct" of the English at the surrender of Toulon. The cruelty of these ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... lady addressed, as she hurled the cup that she was drinking tea out of at Pat. Then a torrent of language burst forth which could be heard far down the Lane as they drove quickly through; but not fast enough to escape the fusillade of decayed fish and every other missile, even to the head of a barrel, which could be hurled by Mrs. Olahan and her sympathizing friends. When they emerged from the Lane, Pat turned around ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... asleep, pressed as many of them as he had room for, and with them returned to the ship. Meanwhile, the master of the Triton armed what hands he had left and met Rudsdale's second attempt to board him with a formidable array of handspikes, hatchets and crowbars. A fusillade of bottles and billets of wood further evinced his determination to protect the brig against all comers, and lest there should be any doubt on that point he swore roundly that he would be the death of every man ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... all great plans—was simple; a dozen guns were trained on Kenilworth, where browsed the precious bullocks upon whose safety hung the fate of Kimberley. To kill them all was the end in view. Inspirited by the thought of the hunger and the "fall" that would follow, the enemy poured forth a liberal fusillade upon Kenilworth. The cattle-guards, exposed to grave danger, never shirked their duty. It was not until the Boers had well warmed to their work that we managed by the play of a Maxim to cool their ardour. The new departure was a ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... living man were profoundly ignorant of her moving principle. The one was radiant with self-satisfaction under her fusillade. The other, ignorant of it so far, would have been furious ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens

... man! we'll bring the boat," and leaving the pilot to keep up a fusillade at the monster with the carbines, we darted back. I shall never forget the efforts we made to launch the boat, but she was immovable, and every moment the tide was rising, the little ripples expending themselves in bubbly foam against the thirsty sand. We strained, we ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... where they rise The soldier rests. Now round him undismayed The cannon thunders, and at night he lies At peace beneath the eternal fusillade.... ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke

... now beginning to steal up alongside, though about a hundred yards still separated the combatants, and the firing became general on both sides. Indeed, so determined and persistent was the fusillade, that there was a continuous roar and rattle of sound; while the silvery sheen of the moonlit night was reddened by the glare of ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood

... voice called back to us: "Wo pu shih; wo pu shih," which merely means, "I am not," leaving us to infer that he was referring to the Boxers; and then without waiting for an answer the night wanderer, whoever he might be, scampered away hurriedly. The immediate result was that we opened a terrible fusillade in the direction he had fled, our men firing at least a hundred shots. Many mocking voices then called back to us from the shadows. There was laughter, too. It was obviously hopeless trying to do anything in this dark; so when a bugler trotted ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... the impetuous youth raised his gun and fired, wounding one of the men who had climbed the gate and was preparing to leap down into the court-yard. Imprecations broke forth anew and the combat began. Nothing could be heard but a vigorous fusillade, accompanied by the shouts of the besiegers and the besieged. These last were so few in number that they dare not dispatch one of their little company to Remoulins for aid. Besides, they were not sure that the band now assailing them would not be followed by others that would waylay ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet

... Potchefstroom he, with four followers, took up a position on a kopje about six miles out of town, and a thousand yards from the Johannesburg road. Whenever a convoy or a body of British came along Jonas and his merry band would open a furious fusillade, causing the unhappy enemy no end of inconvenience. It is a fact that he carried on this ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar

... short second between his shot and an answering fusillade from outside. The panes in the other windows shattered and Hatch, gurgling incoherently behind his gag, kicked to roll himself behind the flimsy protection of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton

... very lively fusillade this afternoon between troops in the Bois de Boulogne and the Insurgents, who fired from houses and other shelter behind the enceinte between Passy and Auteuil. Mortars were also ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy

... memory that stood out in vivid relief from amongst the crowded events of the day was not the triumph of the afternoon, nor the merry evening which succeeded it, when "the coming prima donna" had been toasted amid a fusillade of brilliant little speeches and light-hearted laughter, but the remembrance of a pair of passionate, demanding blue eyes and of a low, ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler

... all around me whipped out their revolvers and commenced a rattling fusillade, the mark being the body of the ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties

... you later,' he cried, and was off, persuading the enormous beast under him to describe a semicircle in the narrow street backing, forcing forward, and backing again, to the accompaniment of the continuous fusillade. At length he got away, drew up within two feet of an electric tram that slid bumping down the main street, and vanished round the corner. A little ragged boy passed, crying, 'Signal, extra,' and Mr Brindley ...
— The Grim Smile of the Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... taken, that little cane was looked upon as Gordon's magic wand of victory. He seemed to have a charmed life, and was never disconcerted by a hailstorm of bullets. Occasionally, when the Chinese officers flinched and fell back before the terrible fusillade, he would quietly take one by the arm and lead him into the thickest of the enemy's fire, as calmly as though he were taking him in to dinner. Once, when his men wavered under a hail of bullets, Gordon coolly lighted his cigar, and ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... were lucky enough to be in the balconies above hurled down missiles on the crowd beneath—peas, eggs, potatoes, and bags of flour or of sulphur; while those below, wherever they found room to swing an arm, returned the fusillade with interest. The doctor's views of academical serenity and the high converse of pallid students vanished into thin air as he gazed upon the mad tumultuous scene. Yet, in spite of his fifty years, he laughed ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... leg. There was no fight left in Lip-lip, and he ran away shamelessly, his victim hot on his heels and worrying him all the way back to his own tepee. Here the squaws came to his aid, and White Fang, transformed into a raging demon, was finally driven off only by a fusillade of stones. ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... battle round them, Swiftly flew the iron hail, Forward dashed a thousand bayonets, That lone battery to assail. From the foeman's foremost columns Swept a furious fusillade, Mowing down the massed battalions In the ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)

... But what can one man, however headstrong and however angry, do against two hundred, when his own followers refuse to support him. The valour of the peasants was distinctly of that quality whose better part is discretion. The thunder of that fusillade had been enough to shatter their nerve, and to Souvestre's exhortations that they should become martyrs in the noble cause, of the people against tyranny, in whatsoever guise it came, they answered with the unanswerable logic ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... point-blank range, howling maledictions, he hurled a murderous fusillade at the Master of the now swiftly ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... house came a rapid volley in reply. Whoever was in there was not going to surrender without a fight. One after another I plugged away with my shots, now bent on making the most of them. With the answering shots it made quite a merry little fusillade, and I was glad enough to have the shelter of the staunch oak which two or three times was hit squarely at about the level of my shoulders. I had never before heard the whirr of so many bullets about me, and I cannot say ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve

... head. He was listening to the fusillade of taunting, threatening yells, with his forehead knitted. Then all at once he understood. Over and over, with every pitch possible to the boyish threats, the cry intermingling and crossing until all ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... the British bugles were singing the sad call of "Retreat"; the French trumpets wailing "Sun-down," and their rifles firing a rapid fusillade to speed the departing day. Meanwhile the heat had died into a refreshing coolness; the wind had dropped, leaving the dust undisturbed on the ground; and the flies were roosting in the tops of ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond

... assignment as rear-end brakeman on a passenger train places him in the observation car, where he is the target for an almost unceasing fusillade of questions from tourists who insist upon having the name, and, if possible, the history, of all the mountain canons and points ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... "for the next movement in the battle." She indicated the letters. "There's our ammunition, Anna," she said. "Mail them. I've picked you for a great honor. You're to open the engagement with a fusillade ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks

... three inches in width around the tree. There was one further test that he had not yet made; but he felt sober now and he drew a bottle from his hip- pocket and pulled at it hard and long. The old nag grazing above him had paid no more attention to the fusillade than to the buzzing of flies. He mounted her, and Gray, riding at a gallop to make out what the unearthly racket going on in the hollow was, saw the boy going at full speed in a circle about the tree, firing and yelling, and as Gray himself in a moment more would ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.

... only the opening events of the day's programme. In the afternoon Smoke and Henderson fell foul of each other, and a fusillade of shots came up from the steerage, followed by a stampede of the other four hunters for the deck. A column of thick, acrid smoke—the kind always made by black powder—was arising through the open companion-way, and down through it leaped Wolf Larsen. The sound of blows ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London

... a general charge was necessary. Highlanders and Royal Americans, acting under the directing eye of Bouquet, again drove the Indians back with the bayonet. Scarcely had this been accomplished when a fusillade was heard in the rear. The convoy was attacked, and it was necessary to fall back to its support. Until nightfall, around a bit of elevated ground—called Edge Hill by Bouquet—on which the convoy was drawn up, the battle was waged. About the pack-horses and ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis

... Thus it is that war seems vague and casual, because a mere fragment of it defeats the imagination, and the bits of even the fragment cannot be fitted together. Why, I have stood in the first-line trench itself and heard a fusillade all round me, and yet have seen nothing and ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett



Words linked to "Fusillade" :   discharge, firing, fire



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com