Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/176

 150 BATTLE OF TIIK A1..M.V. CHAP, (especially lliose near to either flank of the re- il doubt), if they stood up i'or a moment to gain a wider view, could see a whole field of bayonet points, ranged close as corn, and seeming to grow taller and taller. And though none of our men knew the strength of the column which was clos- ing upon them, yet, sometimes from what he him- self saw, but more commonly by hearsay, almost every man came to know that towards the part of the parapet where he lay there was a mass of Eussian soldiery coming. The great Vladimir column at lengtli emerged from the dip, and still withholding its fire, con- tinued to move slowly f(jrward, so that present- ly our men lying down, with their rifles levelled across the parapet, and their eyes a little above its top, were face to face with the approaching mass. Whether owing to any high quality of the soul, or to a want of imagination, or only, after all, to a certain hardness of temperament, it is certain that the slow approach of massed infantry does not weigh on the hearts of our people as it does on the troops of the Continent ; and, when our soldiers are formed in their English array, they see in a column opposing them a sensitive, frail human structure which, although indeed strong potentially, is nevertheless for the moment, and until broken up or deployed, a mere victim, a manacled giant, against men firing into its depths from a largely extended front. Even now, though our men lay in clusters without formation, they