Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/221

 THK BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 199 indeed, had more poignant reason than Lord CHAP. Lucan for knowing what the guns were ; because _ he was the commander of the force which — rightly, perhaps, but not, of course, without mortification — had had to stand by and be witness whilst Liprandi effected the capture. If collated with the third order, the written words brought down by Nolan seem to come with accumulated weight and decisiveness. By the third order, the commander of our cavalry had been directed to advance, and take any oppor- tunity of recovering the heights — those heights, be it remembered, where the enemy was posted with the seven English guns he had captured; and now, by this fourth order, Lord Lucan — being requested to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy from carrying away the guns — was, for the second time, told that he must operate against the Russians on the Causeway Heights, and was furnished with a new and special motive for energy and despatch. Construed singly, the fourth order looks clear as day ; read along with the former direction it lookb equally clear, but even more cogent ; for, when so considered, it appears to visit Lord Lucan with something like an expression of impatience and displeasure for having allowed more than half an hour to pass after the receipt of the third order without trying to recover the ' heights. I am not without means of explaining how it became possible for Lord Lucan to raise a con- troversy upon the subject, but the circumstance