Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/352

 330 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, exception — were men whose horses had been T. killed or disabled. enemy. The small Another strange circumstance of this combat is loss bus- the comparative impunity which the remnants of our troops our Light Cavalry were suffered to enjoy after if ter closing i-i-ii-ni at with the once they had closed with the enemy. A de- tailed statement of the casualties which occurred after the seizure of the battery could hardly be furnished, but I am persuaded that they were few. It was in descending the valley that our people incurred the main loss. who Who brought the first line out of action ? If firsUme out an unwary civilian were to put this question to a soldier, he might find that, without knowing it, he was using a phrase so technical as to bring upon himself a technical and somewhat illusory answer.* But if it be asked who gave to the main fighting remnants of the first line that guidance and help by which they were ultimately extricated from the enemy's gripe, the answer must be based upon a knowledge of those occurrences which I have sought to record. From this I imagine it words and phrases with an exclusively technical import; and the result is that soldiers find themselves ohliged to affix tech- nical meanings to ordinary expressions — a practice insuring ambiguity, and tending, of course, to misconceptions. When a military man speaks of a regiment, or any other iorce, ami says that he 'brought it out of action,' he does not mean that he did anything particular ; all he means i.s, that he came out senior officer. In thai. I be merely technical sense of the phrase, Lord ' irdigan, of course, was the officer who ' brought the firs! ' line out of action.'
 * In the military art there is a very inconvenient want of