Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/400

 378 COMBAT OF THE 26TH OF OCTOBER. chap and partly too on each bank. Whilst thus left !_. for the moment without their commander, Good- lake's men were suddenly confronted by the sight of the Eussian column thronging up round the corner below. The hostile force seemed like a mob, numbering about six or eight hundred men, and was pressing forward along the bed of the ravine, but also along each of its banks.* Good- lake's people retreated firing. Goodlake himself, with Sergeant Ashton at his side, was still by the caves. Hemmed in by as- sailants, and debarred by the craggy and difficult ground from any possibility of effectual retreat, he thought that he and the sergeant must needs submit to be made prisoners. Sergeant Ashton, however, suggested that, if the captain and he were made prisoners, they would be assuredly put to death, in vengeance for one of their recent exploits ;-f- and, all notion of surrender being thereupon discarded, the alternative of course was resistance. The Russians, whilst closing in upon their two adversaries, fired at them numbers of shots, which all, however, proved harmless. On the other hand, Goodlake and the sergeant fired each of them once into the nearest my impression is that it was a battalion of marines, or of sea- men. They wore dark-^rey coats, with black belts and caps (rather like those of our Greenwich pensioners), with red bands round them, and leather peaks. t What the sergeant said was: 'They would kill us over under Goodlake had lately attacked a Russian picket, taking au officer and some of the men prisouers
 * The Russian military authorities ignore this column, and
 * that picket job.' He alluded to the fact that this little force