Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/138

 116 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, to pick their way as best they could through the i. impediments of the camp ; and although Colonel Dalrymple White with the 2d squadron of the Inniskillings had clear ground before him, he was too good an officer to allow the fiery troops he was leading to break from their alignment with the obstructed regiment on his left. progress of But when the Greys got clear of the camping- vance. g roun( ^ ^c^n they and the Inniskilling squadron on their right began to gather pace ; and when the whole line had settled into its gallop, there began to take effect that spontaneous change of structure which often attends cavalry charges, for involuntary the front rank began to spread out, and from ourHne 11 time to time the rear-rank men, as opportunities Tdvancing. offered, pushed forward into the openings thus made for them. This change was carried so far that in large portions of the line, if not through its whole extent, the two ranks which had begun the advance were converted by degrees into one. The 'three hundred,' whilst advancing as they did at first in two ranks, were enormously out- flanked by the enemy, and it seems that from this circumstance men were instinctively led to give freer scope to the impulses which tended to a prolongation of front. There was now but small space between our slender line of 'three hundred' and the dark serried mass which had received their leader into its depths ; and the Russian horsemen — because h^™-n an so ill-generall»'»l as to have in band no graver toSS?* task — were here and thine tiring their carbines.