Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/144

 122 THE BATTLE OB' BALACLAVA. chap, a column extending far up the hillside, they more .. . or less shivered or sundered the front rank of the mass, and then, by dint of sheer wedge-work and fighting, they opened and cut their way in. It was in the nature of things that at some parts ol the line the hindrance should be greater than at others ; * but, speaking in general terms, it can be said that, as Scarlett had led, so his front line righteously followed ; and that, within a brief space from the moment of the first crash, the ' three hundred,' after more or less strife, were received into the enemy's column. Lord Eaglan was so rich in experience of the great times, and so gifted with the somewhat rare power of swiftly apprehending a combat, that he instantly saw the full purport, and even divined the sure issue, of what our dragoons were doing ; but it was not without some dismay on the part of other English beholders, that Scarlett and his ' three hundred ' were thus seen to bury themselves in the enemy's masses. And with every moment, the few thus engulfed in the many seemed nearer and nearer to extinction. For awhile, indeed, the Inniskillinger and the Grey — the one by his bur nished helmet, the other by the hue of his charger and both by the red of their uniforms — could be so followed by the eye of the spectator as to be easily seen commingling with the dark-mantled a few of our troopers may have chanced to be clumped together for some moments. Amidst all the stoics of information on which I rely, I find no proof thai any of our people were detained on the outside of the column by stress of combat
 * Such hindrances must have chiefly 01 I spots where