Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/165

 I'.ATTLE OF TIIK ALMA. lo9 a livuok— as a brook which a soldier must pass CHAP. without picking his way * — the battalion niarchcd J_. tlirough it in line ; f and though there were some points where a passage was easy, others where the soldiers had to wade deep, and some few — so they say — where the men were put to their swimming, still each file kept its place in the line with a near approach to exactness. At length — but after a painful lapse of time, for Codrington's dis- ordered battalions were clinging all this while to the parapet of the Great Eedoubt — the brigade of Guards stood halted, and formed anew under cover of the bank on the llussian side of the river. Their people were sheltered ; but the heads of their colours, protruding a little above the top of tiie bank, could be seen by men look- inff down from the redoubt. The Highland brio-ade at this time was not Advance of under a heavy fire, and Sir Colin Campbell land Biigida •^ to the lelt effected the operation of passing the river very bank of u.e simply ; for, without attempting formal evolutions, each of his regiments, whilst it advanced, tried to keep np, as well as the nature of the ground would allow, the rudiments of its line-formation ; and when it gained the opposite bank, its array was carefully restored. As soon as one of the regiments was duly formed on the Russian side of to go straight through brooks and pools of water withont pick- ing their way. t With the exception of one (the 2d) company, commanded by Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, which, happening ti he near the bridge, filed over it.
 * For very good reasons, soldiers iii marching are called ujton