Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/180

 148 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. chap, challenging.* To say nothing of the nests of ! — riflemen ensconced in its front, the Work was •vanced" so circumstanced as to be looking up into an arc that bristled along its whole bend with well- covered, well -planted artillery. t Of course, it was certain enough that this vast arc of ord- nance array would exert its main strength against other and greater ' objectives ' ; but it is not the less true that the little ' advanced No. VII.' was placed so forlornly as to be openly inviting a fire of almost indefinite power. Thus, if (say on the 13th of April) the garrison by chance should be minded to crush the then lonely as- sailant presuming to approach them so closely, they could pour, and pour down on their vic- tim the fire of a hundred guns — guns all of fortress dimensions, and some of them of the greatest calibre then used in even sea warfare.! The enemy's The enerny had his own settled way of treat- accustomed . ^ j way of deal- mg these advanced batteries. With other huge mg with aii ° advanced tasks on his hands, he did not turn aside lightly, battery. o J ' to bend his giant power on a weak, unoffending adversary ; and, so long as any small ' advanced ' battery ' was suffered to remain strictly silent, he in general did not molest it. If — unmask- ing its guns — the small battery opened against him, he took care to answer the challenge with 'Creek' battery. + See the Plan. t If trying to deal more exactly with the number of guns that could be used against our ' advanced No. VII.,' one might reckon them at 113.
 * From all of them, I believe, except the ' PeYessip ' or