Page:Memorials of Capt. Hedley Vicars, Ninety-seventh Regiment by Marsh, Catherine, 1818-1912.djvu/215

Rh Fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore at God's right hand. Around thee, in a few moments, may be a host of foes; but the air is filled with chariots and horses of fire to carry thee home, to be numbered with God's saints in glory everlasting.

Soon after ten o'clock that night a loud firing commenced, and was sustained in the direction of the Victoria redoubt, opposite the Malakhoff tower. Taking advantage of the darkness of the night, a Russian force of 15,000 men issued from Sebastopol. Preserving a sullen silence they approached from the Mamelon under cover of the fire of their ambuscades, and effected an entrance into the French advanced parallel, before any alarm could be given by the sentries. After a short but desperate struggle, the French were obliged to fall back on their reserves.

The column of the enemy then marched along the parallel, and came up the ravine on the British lines, for the purpose of taking them in flank and rear. On their approach being observed, they were supposed to be the French, as the ravine separated the Allied armies. Hedley Vicars was the first to discover that they were Russians.

With a coolness of judgment which seems to have called forth admiration from all quarters, he ordered his men to lie down until the Russians came within twenty paces. Then, with his first war-shout "Now, 97th, on your pins, and charge!" himself foremost in the conflict, he led on his gallant men to victory, charging two thousand with a force of barely two hundred. A bayonet wound in the breast only fired his courage the more; and again his voice rose high, "Men of the 97th, follow me!" as he leaped that parapet he had so well defended, and charged the enemy down the ravine.