Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/334

 312 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. CHAP, and overwhelm them at the moment oi passing. The direction in which the English moved was such that, supposing it to continue unchanged, the Eussian column would have a distance of about thirty yards to go through in order to come down upon the flank of our horsemen at the intended moment. When he saw this manoeuvre and detected its purpose, Lord George Paget determined that he would endeavour to oppose some semblance of a front to the new front the enemy had formed ; and accordingly he shouted to the men, ' Throw ' up your left flank ! ' But in the din which prevailed, his words, it would seem, were but little heard ; and, instead of attempting, as they moved, to form up a front towards their right, our people, in the course the}' now took, inclined somewhat to their left. Advance At a moment which seems to have been rightly halt of the" enough chosen, the Russian column commenced its advance, and descended at a trot to the very verge of the point where the two hostile forces thus moving at right angles with one another seemed going to meet ; but then all at once the column was halted, and again the Eussian horse- men displayed that same air of hesitation and bewilderment which our people had observed several times before on that day — hesitation and bewilderment not apparently resulting from any want of firmness on the part of the men, but rather from their not knowing what to do next. When a body of cavalry has been moved for- column.