six o'clock
`` The Blood Be on Your Heads . '' A bright , hot sun shone upon us the next morning -- the never-to-be-forgotten 6th . There would have been small need for any waking rattle of the drums ; the sultry heat made all willing to rise from the hard , dry ground , where sleep had been difficult enough even in the cooler darkness . At six o'clock the camp , such as it was , was all astir . Breakfast was eaten in little groups squatted about in the clearing , or in the shade of the trees at its edges , members of families or close neighbors clustering together in parties once more , to share victuals prepared by the same housewives -- it may be from the same oven or spit . It might well happen that for many of us this was the last meal on earth , for we were within hearing of the heavy guns of the fort , and when three of these should be fired in succession we were to take up our final six-miles ' march . But this reflection made no one sad , apparently .