Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/226

 204 THE BATTLE OP BALACLAVA- CHAP, the Lieiiteiiant-Geueral aud the Aide-de-camp, L they were neither of them on ground from which any Russians could be seen ; for a messenger, who was so blindly placed at the moment as not to have a glimpse of the enemy, could hardly have so trusted to his own and his hearer's recol- lection of the local bearings as to think of attempt- ing to designate a particular object of attack by pointing to its supposed position. The haze that was at one time engendered by controversy carried on with imperfect materials is yet further cleared off by observing the angle of difference between the route of the Causeway Heights, which Lord Eaglan had enjoined, and the fatal way down the North Valley. Vast and terrible as was the contrast in point of conse- quences between taking the right way and taking the wrong one, the divergence of the one route from the other at the spot where Nolan made the gesture is represented by an angle of little more than twenty degrees. How is it possible that, where the difference of direction between the two routes at the point of departure had so moderate a width, and where also there was no sight of a Russian battalion or squadron to guide the eye or the hand, the aide-de-camp could have even seemed to forbid the one route or to enjoin the other, by the way in which — burning with anger — he tauntingly pointed to the 'enemy ' ? Nolan was one of the last men in the whole army who would have been capable of sending our squadrons down the North Valley instead of