Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/214

 182 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. C H A P. VI. Losses of men sus- tained by the Allies in the artillery conflict. Large pro- portion of the losses sustained by our sailors. Their ways whilst manning a battery. some 130,000 shots, and to have been answered by the Russians with about 88,000.* Though inflicting on the Russians huge losses, of which we shall afterwards hear, the mere artil- lery conflict provoked by this lengthened bom- bardment cost the French and the English to- gether no more than a few hundred men. Of this loss in killed and wounded a large pro- portion, as usual, was borne by our sailors. They had whims of their own so deep-rooted that authority did not like to disturb them, or else — for this too is possible — the young naval officers present were themselves prone to share in the joyous, dare-devil spirit which always gave life to a combat maintained by those men of the sea. A landsman observing the numbers in which they liked to work a great gun might almost suppose them determined by some such gay rule as that of 'the more the merrier'; and, when they had loaded, they did not deign to move aside in such way as to obtain the shelter of the parapet, but maintained instead a 'look-out' through the em- brasure open before them. They were masters of the art of bantering the enemy by making humor- ous signs to him ; and, too often a Russian officer, when seen to be bending his field-glass on one of these batteries, was destined to find himself mocked by some kind of raillery, as for instance, by a seaman standing up on the top of the para- pet to tease his observer by gestures, or perhaps nalvoes — French, English, and Russian — see ante, p. 136.
 * Todleben, vol. ii. p. 169. As to the weight of the respective