Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/231

 r.ATTLI-: OF THE AU!A. 205 killed, ami was covered by a musket or rifle ; Lut cii a p, the marksman Avas so fastidious about Lis aim. that, before lie touched the trigger, a quick-eyed English corporal found tinre to intervene and save his colonel's life, by shooting the careful Kussian in the midst of his studies. 'Thank you, my ' man,' said Lacy Yea ; 'if I live through this you ' shall be a sergeant to-night.' "Whilst this long fight went on, it sometimes ha]ipcned that the fire and impatience of one or other of the Fusiliers -would carry a man into closer quarters with the column. Of those who M-ere spurred by sudden impulses of this kind, Monck was one. He sprang forward, they say, from his place on the left of the Fusiliers, and. saying, ' Come on, 8th company ! ' rushed up to the enemy's massed battalions, ran his sword through a man in the front rank, and struck another with his fist. He was then shot dead I)y a musket fired from the second rank of the column. Personal enterprises of this kind were incidents varying the tenor of the fight; but it was by musket or rifle ball at the distance of some fifty yards that the real strife between the two corps was waged. It was not always against the enemy that Lacy Yea v.'as labouring. ]Ie came to know or imagine that some of his Fusiliers had remained behind in the valley finding base shelter. That this .'should be, and that even for a few minutes this should pass, was to him not tolerable ; and in the fiercest heat of his strife with the column, one of