Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/84

 62 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA, CHAP. I. Tlieir flight under fire of artillery, and pursued in some places by Cossacks. The enemy entering four of t lie redoubts ; simply caught fear, as people catch plague, by contagion, they at all events loosed their hold.* Without waiting for a conflict with the three Ukraine battalions, then already advancing to the assault, or the four Odessa battalions, then also advancing, they at once began to make off, taking with them their quilts and the rest of their simple camp treasures. Coming west with these burthens upon them, they looked more like a tribe in a state of migration than troops engaged in retreat. In their flight they were followed for a while by the fire of the Eussian artillery ; and although Lord Lucan sought to cover their retreat with his cavalry, the Cossacks, at some points, pursued, and were able to spear many of the fugitives. Captain Tatham, however, the senior naval officer in the harbour of Balaclava, now chanced to come wp, and although he knew no Turkish, he yet by his peculiarly cheery voice and gesture was able to rally the fugitives who most nearly approached him, and cause them to align with their brethren on the right of the 93d. Rustem Pasha had a horse shot under him. The enemy not only established a portion of his forces on Canrobert's Hill, but likewise in the Number Two Eedoubt, as well as in the Arabtabia or Number Three ; and he took possession of the seven iron 12-pounder guns with which the three works had been armed. He also, with the Odessa battalions, marched into the Kedoubt Number artilleryman present in each is said to have spiked the #uns.
 * In those redoubts, as in the Number One, the English