Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/302

 280 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP, silent battery; but upon their nearer approach, ' the Czar's burnished brass pieces of ordnance were almost suddenly disclosed to view; and our Light Dragoons saw that, at the part of the bat- tery they confronted, the mounted men there appearing were artillery drivers trying to carry Their off the guns. Then an officer of the regiment — into the and one, too, strange to say, who had hitherto bftttcrv been most inexorably rigid in enforcing exactness — brought his hand to the ear, and delivered a shrill ' Tallyho! ' which hurled forward the hither- to well-ordered line, and broke it up into racing horsemen. In the next instant, with an ungov- ernable rush, our dragoons broke into the battery. The combat There, with the artillery teams, brought up followed! 616 f° r the purpose, and by means of the lasso har- ness, the Eussiaus were making extreme exertions to carry off their guns; and, since these people were not only bold, strong, and resolute, but con- tending for an object very dear to them, a fierce struggle began. In their eagerness to be putting forth their bodily strength by cutting and slashing, very many of our men neglected the use of the point; and, for the most part, the edge of the sabre fell harmless upon the thick grey outer-coats of the Eussians. In the midst of the strife, one young cornet — Cornet Edward Warwick Hunt — became so eager to prevent the enemy from hauling off one of the pieces that, after first 'returning' his sword, he coolly dismounted, and at a moment when the six wretched artillery horses and their drivers were the subject of a raging combat,