Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/217

COLONEL YEA'S ATTACK. 187 those further east extending home to the Mala- chap. ■ «- V1L koft. These works, as already we know, had been re- The works stored under cover of darkness to the giant strength fronted, they could wield before the opening of the bom- bardment, and were not only amply garrisoned by artillerymen and bodies of infantry, but also put on the alert by the French attacks further east. So, the moment our men showed their heads The fire in- curred by above the two parapets, they were greeted by a this column storm of mitrail that seemed more than searching enough to prevent even Fortune herself from cleaving a way for her favourites betwixt the paths of the grape-shot. Yet, although many fell, the men remaining unstricken did not cease to advance — to advance, one may say, on Sebas- topol, for what our people, this time, assailed (by an onset they strove to maintain across an un- sheltered zone of from four to five hundred yards in breadth) was — not (as on the 7th of June) a mere outwork, or counter-approach, but — the glorious fortress itself, fully armed, fully manned, and expectant. It chanced that Lord Eaglan — a veteran in war, and accustomed to measure his words — was all the while standing himself in the line of that torrent of fire that greeted Colonel Yea's column, and he wrote of it thus : ' I never 'had a conception before of such a shower of ■' grape as they poured upon us from the Eussian ' works. Some of them must have been thrown 1 from very heavy guns.' * But great as it seemed
 * To Lord Pamnure, Private Letter, 19th June 1855. The