Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/47

 THE BATTLK OF BALACLAVA. 25 The officer appointed to the command of the chap. Heavy Dragoons was Brigadier - General the ' Honourable James Scarlett. He was fifty - five ^&iml. years of age, and he too, like Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, had never done service in the field ; but besides those soldierly qualities of which we shall be able to judge when we see him engaging the enemy, he was gifted with two quiet attributes, which enabled him to appreciate the deficiency, and do all that man could to supply it. He had modesty as well as good sense ; and knowing that experience, valuable in almost all undertakings, is especially valuable in the great business of war, he did not for a moment assume that, by the magic virtue of his mere appointment to a command, he became all at once invested with the knowledge or the practical skill which men acquire in the field ; and he therefore deter- mined, if he could, to have men at his side who knew of their own knowledge what fighting was, and had even won high distinction. The officer whom Scarlett chose as his aide-de- camp, was Lieutenant Alexander Elliot. Before the period of his entering the Boyal Army, Elliot had served five years in India. He was in the Gwalior campaign, and at the battle of Punniar commanded a troop of the 8th Bengal Light Cavalry. With the same regiment he went through the whole of the eventful and moment- ous struggle which we call the first Sutlej cam- paign. He commanded a squadron at the great battle of Ferozeshah; and at a time when the