Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/346

 31 G THE CAKNONADK OV II A P. XIII. State and tfiniwr of llic infantry dct.'iiiifiil under fire : tlii^ir finn- ucss shaken iiiea-suros in conse- quence. with such work in hand as was more than enough ibr the utmost of human energy, sLill persisted and stood to their guns, the bodies of infantry drawn up in rear of the bastions to meet the expected assault had been subjected to a different, nay, almost an opposite, kind of trial. They had had to remain still and passive under a fire of heavy artillery — for the most part a ricochet fire — which, for some time, had been more or less working havoc in their I'anks. There were symj")- toms of a commencing panic. Some combatants of the inferior sort — including, it seems, a body of convicts — began to move off' in disorder from the comparatively unimportant positions in which they had been placed ; and although the troops posted by the gorges of the assailed bastions did not thus give way, their firmness was plainly undergoing too heavy a trial. The chief judged it necessary to reduce to a very small number the force of infantry thus detained under fii'e, and to endeavour to compensate for the effect of the change by providing that at several chosen points there should be posted an aide-de-camp, having orderlies and hoi'ses in readiness, who was to hurry up reinforcements of infantry to any point threatened with immediate assault. Upon the whole, therefore, it must be acknow- ledged that there was some approach to a fulfil- ment of the hope which the Allies had suffered ' soldiors in these last days, nnd lie found it indispensable tc • animate the men, who were not accustomed to the heavy ' naval shot. 1 did not dare to speak more'
 * iiloi)tcd