Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/405

 COMBAT OF THE 26TH OF OCtOBF,R. 383 to climb up its left bank in order to make good chap. their retreat by thus bending off to the west ; but IL upon their attaining the high ground, they came under the eyes of our gunners for the second time, were overtaken by round-shot and shell, and pur- sued, too, by obstinate skirmishers still pressing them in flank and rear.* The Eussians still en- gaged with our pickets could now be distinguished from their adversaries ; -f- and being accordingly visited by artillery as well as by infantry fire, they began to fall back. They took care to avoid His entire undue haste, and to turn round and fire as they Mount° n went ; J but the men of the pickets sprang for- Inkerman - ward in pursuit. Already the enemy's guns had limbered up and retreated. Colonel Federoff, the The retreat commander of the Eussian force, was struck down, and pursmt grievously wounded, and — occurring almost sim- ultaneously with a cluster of other misfortunes — this incident, as may well be imagined, increased the consternation they caused ; but it is plain that the ruin of the three columns stricken by the artillery of Home Eidge in front, and in flank by Captain Singleton's guns, was itself, without more, the ruin of the whole enterprise^ The whole of testifies that the three columns broke before they retired. He writes : ' They lost their formation — the columns broke before ' they retired. I saw them.' t There was by this time a visible admixture of red coats, caused mainly, I suppose, by the accession of the two rein- forcing companies. J Colonel Hamley, p. 83. § The effect of the shells thrown from Captain Singleton's half-battery could be well discerned with a field-glass from the
 * Haniley, p. 83.