Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/162

 140 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. I. might be waged by armed horsemen when not closely locked. The column, which every moment had been more and more heavily swaying, now heaved itself up the hillside, and, this time, with- out being commensurately lifted back, as before, by the reaction of the moving power. But the time has now come for observing the manoeuvres of those two deployed Russian wings which, on the right hand as well as the left, pro- longed the front ranks of the column. The man- oeuvres of the two Russian wings. At the time when Scarlett's 'three hundred,' after closing upon the front of the column, had hardly done more than begin their labour of man- to-man fighting, the commander of the Russian cavalry made bold to undertake one of those new manoeuvres for which the peculiar structure of his winged column is supposed to have been specially fashioned. Remembering, it would seem, the teachings of St Petersburg, he resolved to surround the three squadrons which were charging through the front of his column, and enfold them in the hug of the bear. Therefore on the right hand and on the left, the wings or fore-arms which grew out from the huge massive trunk began to wheel each of them inwards. There was many an English spectator who watched this phase of the combat with a singular awe, and long remembered the pang that he felt when he lost sight of Scarlett's ' three hundred.' To such a one the dark-mantled squadrons over- casting his sight of the redcoats were as seas