Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/44

 14: THE FLANK MARCH. CHAP. Airev surveyinir them from his saddle, they must II "^ '' ' liave heard the rumble of Maude's horse-artillery, and learnt that an enemy's force was close upon them. If two liostile forces tints came, as it were hy an accident, to strike, one against the other, in marching, the result was owing to two causes — to mere negligence on the part of the Russians, and, on the part of the Englisli, to that mistake, already explained, which had led our recon- The surprise uoitriug coluinu iuto the wrong path. To each of the bodies thus brought almost into contact the sudden presence of the other was a surprise; but the gravity of the danger they respectively incurred was far from being the same. A train of artillery marching up through a woodland lane, and the string of horsemen forming the Headquarters Staff, must needs have been almost helpless under the fire of a few foot-soldiers mov- ing briskly into the wood. ]kit between the Paissian battalion and the head of the English column thus by strange chance coming together, there was the difference that the Russian battalion, at the time, was ap- parently without the guidance of an officer hav- LordRag. iug prescucc of uiiud ; whilst the English Com- sence'^or mander-in-Chicf, who happened, as we have seen, to be present in person with this part of liis army, was one whom Nature had gifted with the power to do at the moment just that which His orders, the momcut requires. In a tranquil, low voicf^, Lord Raglan gave orders to bi-ing up some of his