Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/202

 180 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. I. The message added, that Lord Lucan would always be ready to give a like support to Lord Cardigan.* I have traced the fault up to its sources. If ever there were to be uttered a taunt which should impute the inaction of Lord Cardigan to any cause worse than mistake, this short, cogent answer would follow, ' He led the " Light Cavalry '" charge." '-f- of the new phase into which the battle had passed. VIII. Lord Rag- From the easternmost ledges of the Chersonese, stantaneous the chiefs of the two allied Armies, together with great numbers of their people, had been keenly looking down, as we learned, upon the combat ot Scarlett's dragoons ; but the bulk of these spec- tators — first anxious and afterwards enraptured — were content to regard the encounter as a trial of cavalry prowess resulting in proportionate glory ; and, so far as I know, Lord Eaglan was the only officer in the field whose swift instinct informed him at the moment of the way in which this isolated engagement of horsemen might be brought hut to add, that proof which I must regard as conclusive is in my possession. t There is a curiously strong chain of testimony which to show that at or towards the close of the Heavy < lavalry fight, the Light Brigade was moved down into the South Valley, and brought into the rear of the ground from which our Heavy Dragoons had made their attach ; but counter-te timony of a very cogent kind opposes itself to this conclusion. The decision of the question, although it might have a personal bearing of some interest, is not important in any other point of view.
 * Tt is right to say that Lord Cardigan has questioned this,