Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/261

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 235 rear with the part of his Division theii on the field. On the extreme left and left rear of the whole force there was the cavalry under Lord Lucan. These troops were going to take part in the The nature first approach to close strife which men had yet nowab^out* seen on that day between bodies of troops in a plaSnthe state of formation deliberately marshrdled against hX^'^"^ each other.* The slender red line which began near the bridge, and vanished from the straining sight on the eastern slopes of the Kourgan^ Hill, was a thread which in any one part of it had the strength of only two men. But along the whole line, from east to west, these files of two men each were strong in the exercise of their country's great prerogative. They were in Eng- lish array. They were fighting in line against column. After the rupture of the peace of Amiens, Sir Arthur Wellesley, being then in India, became singularly changed, growing every day more and more emaciated, and seemingly more and more sad. He pined ; and was like a man dying with- out any known bodily illness, the prey of some sort, for, though the liead of Canrohert's Division confronted formed troops for a moment at a distance of a few hundred yards, it dropped Lack, as we saw, without lighting. Evans's struggle had been in thick ground, not allowing regular array. Cod- rington's people (including Lacy Yea's Fusiliers as well as the stormers of the redoubt) had had hard fighting, and against troops in peifect order, but they had gone through their strug- gles without the advantage of being themselves in a state of formation.
 * The French had not been engaged in any conflicts of this