Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/337

 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 311 All this while, the Allied armies were quietly chap. bivouacking upon the banks of the Ahna, at a ^' distance of several miles from the enemy ; and, the Staff of the Russian army having ascertained that no pursuit was going on, mounted officers and Cossacks were sent to announce to the wandering battalions that the Katcha was the rendezvous. But some of the messencjers liavimr received these directions before they crossed the river, carried on the very words entrusted to them with the servile exactness of a Chinese copyist, and told the troops which had long ago forded the stream, and were thence march- ing southward, that they were to 'go on to the ' Katcha.' Orders thus conveyed led to a belief that the stream already passed was not the Katcha; and although, in reality, the troops had overstepped the place of rendezvous, they imagined that they had not yet reached it. Thus confusion was prolonged; but the halt began after a time to produce good effects. The officers called for men who could undertake to find the way back to the Katcha. Some were found. These acted as guides; and at midnight the wearied troops regained the river. For about two hours they rested ; but then — by panic, it is believed, in the first instance, the banks of the Katcha, and he told me that he thouglit the panic may have been occasioned by the appearance of his patrols ; but I have never heard from any other source that our cavalry patrolled to the neighbourhood of the Katcha on the evening of the battle ; and I imagine that Lord Raglan must have epokeu rather from what he inferreil than from what he linew.