Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/237

 15ATiI-E OF THE ALMA. 211 tho enemy, aiul icniained safe in charge of sonic chap. soldiers belonging to the JJoyal Welsh * '. — A regimental officer engaged in a general action cannot often at the time compute the relative importance of the duty which he is performing ; but on the morrow of the battle, or even perhaps much later, he may learn that the fortune of the day was hinging upon the conduct of his single regiment. Lacy Yea vas a simple-hearted, straight-going man, with a wholesome ardour for fi^htina. and a great care f(jr tlic honour of his regiment, but not looking I'ar beyond it. Around him the battle had been flowing and ebbing. With the watching of those changes he did not much ve.x his mind — he hardly, perhaps, remark- ed them, lie was too busy with the fight to be able to contemplate the battle. Except when he yearned to unearth the people wliom he believed to be skulking, and to have them dragged before him, he thought of nothing but that the corps he commanded should stand fighting and fighting till it got the victory. He went through with his re- solve, and hardly knew at the time the full worth of his constancy. He hardly knew that, whilst he fought, the whole of the English front line — first on his left hand and then on his right — had been getting the support it grievously needed from the tenacity of his 7th — the Pioyal — Fusiliers.f but how that came to happen I do not know, and I liave not thought it necessary to find out, because the colour was never for a moment ' lost.' t See Plan. When Codrington's people were storming the
 * The colour, I bi'lievc, was found lying upon the ground,