Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/148

 118 THE HEAVY TASK REMAINING. CHAP, the Russians were soon driven out from every ! — part of the field-work, and they fled back into the PSi l0 fortress with a loss of two officers and a hunt lied pursued l>y -i-», •■ <. . . ., ourtroops. men. rursuing the fugitives eagerly, our few !."" '"';'" '" soldiers pressed their way forward to spots where cue extreme A */ x front. ^] 1G ground offered something like shelter against the guns of the Fortress, and thence searched the embrasures of the Great Redan in their front with a keenly sustained rifle-fire. Far from proving to be a sheer blessing, the de- feat of the enemy's troops laid open the counter- approach to a fire of great guns more destructive The tasks than the efforts of Russian infantry ; and on the ingour whole it was plain that, although for the moment people. ... . victorious, heavy tasks yet awaited our people ; for, if striving by work carried on under the fire of great batteries to effect — to effect before morn- ing — a fairly tenable lodgment on the ground that their stormers had won, and to connect it with their system of trenches, they also would have, if they could, to withstand all such efforts to re- cover his counter-approach as the enemy might make in the night-time. Major Though disabled in body — not mind — by his dangerous wound, Major Armstrong was so good a soldier as to be carefully thinking already of this last imperious exigency. His men wan ting- to carry him to the rear, he forbade them, saying firmly: — 'No, no; lay me down at the bottom of ' the Ditch ; for we can't spare a man till we know 'whether the enemy will attempt a recapture. '(*) Notwithstanding his wounds received in storm- l IN .1 I 0J3g.