Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/219

COLONEL YEA'S ATTACK. 189 storm it was hard to see how it could happen chap. that, unless by some mystic protection, he still L_ might remain alive ; for the air all around him was boisterous with the rushing flight of war missiles, whilst the ground in his front did not cease to throb under the impact of grape-shot, and the lighter touch of the bullets that came thickly pattering down to swell the leaden torrent. A man moving steadily forward under a fire of this kind when only in quest of the means by which to begin a fair fight, and un- heated as yet by the rapture of striking at him who strikes may loftily use his sheer reason, and tell himself that the moment is one fit enough, after all, for that assured meeting with death which can never be finally shunned; or perhaps he may find it more simple to suspend for a while the dominion of his reasoning faculty, and borrow a lesson from beings which rather are governed by temperament. Some, for instance, moved for- ward, head down, and ' butted,' as though in hot wrath, at the storm of iron and lead. A time at last came when what remained of The remains ., . , . . , of the Rifle- the covering party made good its advance to the men coming p i i up to the verge of the Abattis — an outwork of sharpened Abattis; branches which covered the Redan at a distance of some 80 yards from its front. The natural irregularities of the ground in this and ciin g - part of the field, and the hollows dug out by the ground thej impact and explosion of shells, gave here and there some little shelter to any survivor of the covering party, if lying down closely, and ensconc-