Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/202

 VI 170 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. °H a p. ldershaw, and sent away out of the battery with orders to bear off wounded men ; so that thus the number of gunners destined to be in the battery, without being sent away from it in the course of the fight, was no greater than 47. Of those 47, the enormous proportion of 44 were either killed or wounded ; and so on the whole it occurred that the remnant of the original body of 65 gun- ners with which Oldershaw at last marched out of the battery had a strength of only three men.( 9 ) However, along with these three, the 18 men we saw charged with duties outside of the battery made up a strength of 21 gunners not only surviv- ing but unwounded, and of the warlike spirit of this score of men we are presently going to hear. The fairest parallel to this engagement of Old- ershaw's might be found, I believe, on board ship — on board some ship of war close beset in the fiery ' heart of oak ' days ; for it would be hard to say where — on dry land — a like concourse of shot and shell ever had such a five hours' revelry in one small, yet still lighting battery as the one that fate reserved for our advanced No. VII. on the 13th of April ; and in truth, to bring about what took place, there was needed a concurrence of circumstances that may never before have been joined : — 1. A small and weakly armed battery brought and kept all alone for some hours beneath the fire at close range of a mighty artillery command- ins it from higher ground: