Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/192

 1G0 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. chap, against five batteries, and undergoing the con- . — centrated fire of their twenty heavy guns. However unequal this strife, our four guns were worked so effectively that after two hours, they had silenced the far-famed ' Crow's Nest ' battery;* and — a spectacle always enchanting to gunners who compass the change — its disabled guns stood tilted up, making public confession of ruin. But in vengeance, as it seemed, for this con- quest, the enemy then brought to bear on Older- shaw's little battery a greater weight of metal than ever. It might seem that, if not long before, the time had now come when a conflict so un- equal should cease ; but Oldershaw remembered the order to ' work his battery to extremity ' ; and — not choosing to let his obedience under such a command fall short of being exact, whilst happily sure that his men were still in good heart — he resolved to hold on. For a while, the chiefs losses in men went on faster than the disabling of his guns ; and there soon came a time when, with three pieces still undisabled, he could barely find unstricken men in number sufficient to work them. Still, all who could toiled heart and soul, and one of those seen (with coat off) to be labour- ing thus, hard as any, was Oldershaw's subaltern Lieutenant Simpson, a zealous and valiant officer. that time become familiar, and Oldershaw only designated the battery his gunners had silenced as the one that was ' circular ' ; but there is no doubt that the ' Crow's Nest ' and the ' Circular ' battery ' are identical.
 * The afterwards famous nickname of the Work had not at