Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/351

 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 329 retreat of Lord Cardigan, and indeed at a moment chap. when all the remains of the brigade had already ' come out of action, Captain Lockwood rode up to Lord Lucan, and, speaking in a way which disclosed anxiety and distress as though for the fate of his chief, said, 'My Lord, can you tell me ' where is Lord Cardigan ? ' and that, upon Lord Lucan's replying that Lord Cardigan had passed him some time, Lockwood rode away. It is ima- gined that he must have mistaken the meaning of the answer, and that, regarding it as an intimation that Lord Cardigan had again advanced, he must have galloped down the fatal valley, and there met his death ; for he was never afterwards seen in the English camp, either dead or alive, and the Russians did not number him among their prisoners. He was an excellent officer, much val- ued in the 8th Hussars, the regiment to which he belonged. Seeing that our squadrons drove into the heart, nay into the very rear of the enemy's position, and they had no means of retreat unless they could cut their way back through his interposed forces, the strangest feature in the statistics of the battle is the list of prisoners. With our cavalry Thesmaii so completely in their fangs as to have it a mile prisoners and a quarter deep in their position, the Russians Russians, took hardly one prisoner who had not been dis- abled by his own wounds or those inflicted upon his horse. They took but fifteen unwounded prisoners altogether ; and I believe that almost all these — if not indeed all, without even a single