Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/284

 262 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP. I. Lord Cardigan's return through the battery : his pre- dicament : When Lord Cardigan had withdrawn himself from the reach of his Cossack assailants, he still continued to retire, and passed once more through the battery into which he had led his brigade. He then saw men of the 13th Light Dragoons and the 17th Lancers retreating in knots up the valley, and he apparently imagined that the horsemen whom he thus saw retiring constituted the entire remnants of his first line. There, however, he erred. So far as I have learnt, there was no group of English horsemen still remaining ' effective ' which, at this time, had moved to the rear ; and indeed I have never yet heard of any one ascer- tained exception of either officer or man which ought to forbid me from saying in general terms that the Light Dragoons and the Lancers whom Lord Cardigan saw retreating were, all of them, men disabled — men either disabled by their own wounds, or else by the wounds of their chargers. It must be remembered, however, that the num- ber of men thus in one way or other disabled was so huge in proportion to the whole strength of the regiments, as to give a seeming though falla- cious ground for the wrong impression which their appearance produced upon Lord Cardigan's mind. It is certain enough, as we shall afterwards learn mure fully, that effective remnants of the l:')tli Lighi Dragoons and of the 17th Lancers Morria answered, 'Quih; so; just as it ought to be — in short, ' like a gentleman 1 — 'an expression from his lips conveying ' much,' so says the narrator of the conversation, 'to any one • who knew liim.'