Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/232

 20G BATTLK OY TliH ALMA. CH A r. his best officers was sent back that lie might turn ^- the drove out of their sheds, and force them to come instantly into the presence of the enemy, — into the presence, more terrible still, of their raging colonel. The fight lasted. AVhen Codrington's people were scarce beginning their lush towards the fnce of the Great I'edoubt, the lioyal Fusiliers— rudely and hastily gathered, but contriving to hold to- gether — were beginning this battle of their own. When the storming battalions came down, the regiment was fighting still. AVhen the despon- dency of the French army was at its worst — • when the head of Canrobert's Division was pushed back down the hill by the 'column of the eight 'battalions' — when, along the whole line of the Allies, there was no other regiment fighting — Lacy Yea and Ins people were still at their work. "When Evans, having crossed the river, was lead- ing his three battalions to the site of the Cause- way batteries, it was the battalion of the lioyal Fusiliers that stood fighting alone on his left ; and nearly at the ver}^ time when disastei befell the centre of the brigade of Guards, Lacy Yea and his Fusiliers were gathering at last the reward ot their soldierly virtue. For by this time death and wounds, making cavities and comi)elling small changes in the great living mass, had injured the symmetry of the spruce Paissian column. As a piece of mechanism, it was no longer what it had been when the fight began, but the spirit of the brave and obedient