Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/137

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. Ill to elude or overcome all obstacles, is singulnrly cjiap. strengthened by the education of the hunting- '. field, and Lacy Yea had been used in early days to ride to hounds in one of the stiffest of all hunt- ing-counties. To him this left bank of the Alma crowned with Eussian troops was very like the wayside acclivity which often enough in his boy- hood had threatened to wall him back and keep him down in the depths of a Somersetshire lane whilst the hounds were running high up in the field some ten or fifteen feet above. His practised eye soon showed him a fit ' shord ' or break in the scarped face of the bank, and then, shouting out to his people, ' Never mind forming ! Come on, men ! Come on, anyhow ! ' he put his cob to the task, and quickly gained the top. On either side of him, men of his regiment rapidly climbed up, and in such numbers that the Russian skirmishers who had been lining it fell back upon their battalions. And now, in the masses still crowded along the tho iicann- foot of the bank, there rose up that murmur of I'oneaurt'hc' prayer for closer fighting which, coming of a sud- '"'"''■ den from men of Teuton blood, is the advent of a new and seemingly extrinsic power — the power ascribed in old times to the hand of an Immortal. From the first company of the Royal Fusiliers to the left of the 19th Regiment, the deep, angry, gathering sound was 'Forward!' 'Forward!' ' Forward ! ' The throng was heaved ; and pre- sently the whole 1st brigade of the Light Division, with the other troops th.at had joined it, sui'ged