Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 3.djvu/74

 48 BATTLE OF THE ALMA. CHAP, down.* This sort of trial is well borne by our ! troops. They are so framed by nature, that, if only they know clearly what they liave to do, or to leave undone, they are pleased and animated, nay, even soothed, by a little danger. For, besides that they love strife, they love the arbitrament of chance ; and a game where death is the forfeit has a strange, gloomy charm for them. Among the guns ranged on the opposite heights to take his life a man would single out his favourite, and make it feminine for the sake of endearment. There was hardly perhaps a gun in the Great Eedoubt which failed to be called by some cor- rupt variation of 'Mary' or 'Elizabeth.' It was plain that our infantry could be in a kindly humour whilst lying down under fire. They did not perhaps like the duty so well as an animat- ing charge with the bayonet; but if they were to be judged from their demeanour, they pre ferred it to a church parade. They were ic their most gracious temper. Often, when an officer rode past them, they would give him the fruit of their steady and protracted view, and advise him to move a little on one side or the other to avoid a coming shot. And this the men would do, though they themselves, how- ever well their quickened sight might warn them of the coming shot, lay riveted to the earth by duty. our line, but the exact incident described in t'le text wa^ observed in the 30th Rogiment.
 * Casualties of this sort were going on here and there along