Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/407

 THE 17TII OF OCTOBER. 377 Tkttery, slie enraged lier assailant. Her fire was chap, XTTI altogetlier in vain. Without being able to harm '_ the battery, she was soon struck by numbers of shells. Of these, some struck the ship near her water-line, and some of them, bursting on the orlop deck, set fire to the ship in several places. In her masts, in her rigging, and in the part of lier hull near the water-line, the ship suffered havoc, and the fires which had laid hold upon her having rendered it necessary to close the maga- zine, her broadside was by consequence silenced. Altogether, she was in such a pliglit as to make it the duty of Commander Eogers, who was in charge of her,* to haul out ; and accordingly she slipped her cable; but the missiles hurled from the cliff had shot away the lashings which joined the Firebrand to her side, and, for a time, the two ships became unmauageable.i" Whilst the Fire- brand laboured and laboured to move out the Albion, the two ships were not only under the ceaseless fire of the cliff batteries, but at one time were raked by tliem ; and as they could not en- shroud themselves in smoke, they stood out a fair target for the enemy's gunners. Moreover, they were so close upon the edge of the shoal, that any effort of the steam-ship which might cause the Albion to turn or to move, even slightly, in the wrong direction would suffice to ground her. All Lushington, who commanded the naval brigade acting ashore. t The Firebrand, the Albion's towing steam-ship, was coro« manded by Captain Stewart.
 * Rogers commanded in the ship, in the absence of Captain