Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/239

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 217 extra aide-de-camp to Lord Cardigan, were, it chap. seems, the only officers present.* ' Although the part of the enemy's line which Lord Cardigan meant to attack lay as yet very distant before him, it was evident, from the posi- tion of the flanking batteries betwixt which he must pass, that his brigade would not long be in motion without incurring a heavy fire ; and, upon the whole, he seems to have considered that almost from the first his advance was in the nature of a charge. Followed immediatelv by his first line, and, at Advance of ■■11 • ^ t • LordCar- a greater distance, by the other regiments ot Ins digan and b J ° the Light brigade, Lord Cardigan moved forward at a trot, Brigade, taking strictly the direction in which his troops before moving had fronted, and making straight down the valley towards the battery which crossed it at the distance of about a mile and a quarter. Before Lord Cardigan had ridden a hundred paces in advance, he encountered a sight which was aide-de-camp to Lord Cardigan) has thrown difficulty in the way of knowing where he was during a considerable period of the combat, except its very last phase ; and there is an idea (not confirmed by Lord Cardigan or by Maxse) that he was carrying a message from his chief at the time when the advance began. In a letter addressed to the ' Times ' newspaper, Maxse says that at the commencement of the advance, and again when the first line was 'three parts of the way down,' he observed Lockwood in his place some five or six horses' lengths to the right rear of Lord Cardigan, and that that was the last time he saw him. Colonel Mayow, the brigade-major, had been on the sick-list, and although, as we shall learn, he found strength enough, upon seeing the prospect of an engagement, to join the brigade and take a signal part in the combat, he was busied, in general, with the troops, and did not ride much with the Staff.
 * The death of Captain Lockwood (an excellent officer, who