Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/127

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 105 whether hussars, or lancers, or Cossacks, whether chap. officers or troopers, were enveloped alike in the ' murky grey outer-coats which, by this time, had become familiar to the eye of the invaders. The grey was of such a hue that, like the grey of many a lake and river, it gathered darkness from quan- tity; and what people on the Chersonese saw moving down to overwhelm our ' three hundred,' were two masses having that kind of blackness which belongs to dense clouds charged with etorm. The English dragoons, on the other hand, were in their scarlet uniform, and (with the exception of the Greys, who had the famed ' bearskins ' for their headgear) they all wore the helmet. The contrast of colour between the grey and the red was so strong that any even slight intermixture of the opposing combatants could be seen from the Chersonese. *So great had been the desire of the English in those days, to purchase ease for the soldier at the expense of display, that several portions of our dragoon accoutrements had been discarded. The plumes of the helmets had been laid aside, and our men rode without their shoulder-scales, without the then ridiculed stock, and, moreover, without their gauntlets. Whilst the gazers observed that troop-officers The group in front of our first line were still facing to the horsemen men, still dressing and re-dressing the ranks, they lected in also now saw that, in front of the centre of the the Greys Greys, and at a distance from it of five or six horses' length, there was gathered a group of four