Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/167

 BATTLE OF TIIK ALMA. 141 oncG with the two battalions which remained chat. under his control. He therefore sent an order. to Colonel Egerton directing him at once to move forward with the 77tli, and he himself prepared to advance at the same moment with the 8 8 til. Colonel Egerton was a firm, able man, and he felt the momentous importance of the duties at- taching upon an officer who had charge of the extreme left of our infantry line ; for it was ob- vious that a successful flank attaclc upon the one battalion which he commanded would Ijring into grievous jeopardy the whole array, English and French. The dips and liollows which marked the hill-side towards his left, made it hard for him to see what the enemy was intending to do ; and he failed to infer that the Czar's renowned forces were really abstaining from the enterprise which seemed to be almost forced upon them by the nakedness of our left wing, and by their strength in the cavalry arm. At the moment M'hen Buller's order was brought to him, Colonel Egerton was so deeply impressed with a sense of the danger which he had to withstand in this part of the field, that — deliberately, and with a firmness which might have won him great praise if the actual course of events had brought him his justification — he took upon himself a grave burthen.* He took upon himself to say that, in the circumstances in which four companies of his 77th Kcgimcnt, proved able to rxert a strong sway over the issue of the great Inkorman battle.
 * Colonel Egerton was the brilliant officer wlio, with only