Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/138

 112 BATTLE OF TIIK ALMA. C IT A P. I. KfTect of the converging tendency which had trovemed tilt troops. lip, and in nnmbcrlcss waves began to break over the bank. When once on the top of tlio bank, the ' five battalions ' there gathered had no physical ob- struction before them, but were grievously want- ing in elbow-room ; for that tendency to converge, of which we have spoken already, had contracted the front they presented to what was only a frac- tion of the line they would have formed with their ranks deployed in due order ; and the opera- tion of taking ground and opening out into line was not one that could well be performed by a crowd of soldiery gathered under the guns of the Great Itodoubt, and besides in the presence — close presence — of powerful liussian columns. It is true that the Eoyal Fusiliers, being on the ex- treme right of the brigade, and not finding them- selves cramped at that time by any pressure from the troops of the 2d Division, had room to de- ploy ; and, though numbers of soldiers belonging to other corps were mixed up with his regiment, Lacy Yea, using violent energy, was able in some degree to make the men open out. Colonel Endeavours LUike, too, of tlic 33d v/as so circumstanced as to to form line 1)0 able after a while to make his regiment open oftiicbank. out, and in all the regiments our soldiers strove hard to put themselves in their English array ; but to almost all of them space was wanting ; and the silence which is the pride of the Eng- lish army could not at that moment be pre- served, fur numbers of men, separated from their companies and their regiments, yet eager to follow