Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/329

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 307 pursuers, it was becoming known to our officers chap. and men that the enemy had interposed a fresh ' body of horse in a new, and indeed opposite ^^7 quarter. Roger Palmer — that young Lieutenant ^^T* 11 of the 11th Hussars to whom the Russian colonel acr^the had delivered his sword — was singularly gifted retreat. with long sight, and casting his glance towards our left rear, he saw in that direction, but at a distance of several hundred yards, a considerable body of cavalry, which he assured himself must be Russian. He reported this to his chief. Colonel Douglas at first scarce believed that the squadrons thus observed could be Russian; and, it being perceptible that the force consisted of Lancers, men were able, for a while, to indulge a pleasant surmise, and to imagine that the Lancers descried in our rear, at a distance of several hundred yards, must be our own ' Seventeenth.' Presently, how- ever, Roger Palmer convinced Colonel Douglas that the head-gear of the cavalry descried was Russian ; and in another moment all doubt was at an end; for our officers and men could then see that the newly-interposed troops were formed up across the slope of the valley, with a front to- wards the Russian rear, as though barring the re- treat of our people. So, there being then certain knowledge that the English were between two powerful bodies of Russian cavalry, it became necessary to use the very next moments in de- termining how to meet the emergency. Seeing Means for Major Low close to him on the left, Lord George emergency. Paget, it seems, exclaimed : 'We are in a desper-