Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/454

 424 THE CANNONADE OF CHAP, linued to tell upou the liedau as to be gradually ' annulliug its batteries. By about three o'clock in the afternoon, one- third of the pieces which armed the work had been dismounted; and even where guns were ytit in battery, the cheeks of the em- brasures lay in ruins. The loss in men had been heavy. Twice over, the gunners of several pieces had had to be replaced by fresh hands. Of 75 men sent to the Redan from on board one of the ships, so many as 50 were killed or wounded. And against the artillery which was inflicting these losses upon them the Russians could do but little; for their batteries were here overmatched by the more com- manding position and the greater weight and numbers of the guns which assailed them from the Green Hill and the Woronzoff Height. Yet under stress of the decisive and increasing ascen- dant tlius established against them by the English, the gunners in the Redan stood lirm. They had l)een exalted, it seems, into so high a state of devotion by the example of their chiefs, Captain Ergominischeff, Captain Leslie, and Captain Kat- chinsky, that, however appalling the slaughter, the men yet remaining alive and unstricken worked on and worked on at the defence with a courage which did not droop. They strove hard to do what was needed for maintaining a fire in spite of all the havoc that had been wrought in the batteries ; and, to that end, they kept on banking up the end,:)rasures which were continu- ally falling to pieces. The officers did not hesi- tate to give the example of this kind of devotion.