Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/208

 lion of it. 180 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap. Whilst directing that actual attacks against the • enemy on the heights should he made to depend upon opportunity, this order, it should be observed, was peremptory and unconditional in requiring that our cavalry should advance ; and since it came, not from a distant commander, but from one who looked down upon the whole field, and had before his eyes all the requisite ingredients of a positive resolve, it is difficult to see how the words could become open to misconstruction. Lord Lord Lucan, however, so read the order as to construe- conceive it his duty to do no more for the mo- ment than mount his cavalry, move the Light Brigade to another position hard by across the North Valley, and cause his Heavy Dragoons to remain on the slope of the rise there awaiting the infantry, which, to use his own language, ' had ' not yet arrived/ Having made these disposi- tions, Lord Lucan kept his cavalry halted during a period which he has computed at from thirty to forty minutes.* If it be asked why, when ordered to advance, he kept his cavalry halted during a period of from thirty to forty minutes, the answer is that he reasoned. By choosing his way of proceeding — not because it was enjoined in terms, but — because he imagined it to be ' the ' only way that could [have] been rationally in- tended,' he effected an actual inversion of Lord for the purpose of proving the tenor of the instruction really conveyed to the mind of Lord Lucan, the copy is evidently more authentic than the original. tended to fifty or fifty-five minutes.
 * By computations upon another basis this period is ex-