Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/193

 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. 161 At this period of the fight (when still he had chap. three guns in action) Captain Oldershaw sent off. — a messenger to the 1st Parallel with directions to ask for reinforcements. Great and greater with every minute was the havoc thenceforth being wrought in his hugely overmatched battery. Soon, another of his guns was disabled ; and — insatiate of destruction — the enemy's mighty ship cannon-balls never ceased to come crashing in at a rate computed by some at no less than ten in the minute. He who happily escaped actual contact with one of these missiles might still not escape its power, for the sand-bags set going by round-shot struck and swept men before them with a terrible violence, inflicting now and then what at first might be easily taken for death - blows, and leaving a man for the time in an utterly pros- trate state. We observed the immense weight of metal by which, if so minded, the enemy might repress the lone battery of only four 32-pounders ; but with all that command of power, how far was he deigning to use it for a small special purpose ? Engaged in defending the Fortress on a front of several miles, he of course did not bend all the energies of a hundred guns upon one diminutive battery ; but against it, whether acting deliber- ately, or, as sometimes occurred, in hot anger, he brought to bear what power he chose. And, the power he thus chose to exert against our little lone battery was not at all narrowly stinted. VOL. VIII. L