Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/138

 IOG PROGRESS OF THE COUNTER-APPROACHES. .-hap. such a belief, it is hard to feel sivre that for IV ' any purpose so small as that of merely upset- ting gabions, or doing other like mischief, the enemy would really have brought himself to plunge into outer darkness with the thousands of men he thus hazarded ; and perhaps one may fairly surmise that in secret he harboured some greater, some much more ambitious design than the one he avowed — some design of which — since it was frustrated — he did not feel bound to speak. Conjecture points to an enterprise which, if com- passed, and well followed up by the proper ul- terior measures might have forced the Allies to give battle — give battle by daylight — under des- perately adverse conditions. IX. Great ex- "Whilst continually strengthening the armament given by of his three new creations, Colonel Todleben at Todleben to his counter- this time fore-trenched them by connecting some approaches. . of the lodgments already protecting each Work ; and moreover he added and added to those an- nexed lines of defence which prolonged right and left the front shown by his now strong Lunette. When the first week of April was end- ing, he had fastened his counter-approaches on a front (in advance of the Mamelon) which from ground so far east as the bed of the Careenage Eavine stretched far away towards the south- west, and at last crossed the WoronzofT Road *
 * Todleben, vol. ii. p. 80 et seq. The gorge which carried the