Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/149

 BATTLE OF TllK ALMA. 123 Englishman — or many, perhaps, at the same cilAP. moment — looking keen through the smoke, saw ' teams of artillery-horses moving, and there was a sound of ordnance- wheels. Our panting soldiery broke from tlieir silence. ' By all that is lioly ! ' Stole away ! Stole away ! Stole away I ' The glacis of the Great Eedoubt had come to sound more joyous than the covert's side in England. The embrasures were empty, and in rear of the work, long artillery-teams — eight-horse and ten- horse teams — were rapidly dragging off the guns. Then a small child-like youth ran forward be- fore the throng, carrying a colour. This was young Anstruther. He carried the Queen's col- our of the Royal Welsh. Eresh from the games of English school-life, he ran fast ; for, heading all who strove to keep up with him, he gained the redoubt, and dug the butt-end of the flag- staff into the parapet ; and there for a moment he stood, holding it tight, and taking breath. Then he was shot dead ; but his small hands, still clasping the flagstaff, drew it down along with him, and the crimson silk lay covering the boy with its folds. His successor in charge of the colour, namely, centre sergeant Luke O'Con- nor, was brought down at nearly that moment by a shot which struck his breast ; but William Evans, a swift -footed soldier, ran forward, and had caught up the fallen standard, when O'Con- nor (finding strength enough to be able to rise) made haste to assert his right, and then proudly
 * he is limbering up!' 'He is carrying off his guns!'