Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/158

 114 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. VI. 1st Period. Their seiziu-e of the work. most battalions had crossed St Clement's Gorge, had ascended the steeps of the Kitspur, and were gathered before the silent parapet — it was the parapet of the now famous Sandbag Battery — and there for some time the soldiers stood shout- ing, with their caps in the air, as though urging the two battalions behind them to come up and take part in the attack. In all four of the bat- talions, meanwhile, the bugles were sounding ; but — dreading perhaps some ambush — the troops remaiued for a time in a state of tumultuous hesitation. Captain Chodasievitch, who stood some way down in rear of the shouting troops, had hitherto laboured to keep his company steady and well collected, but he now laid a spark to the zeal of his people, made them fancy they could see the Grand-Dukes, cried out at last — ' Forward with the bayonet ! ' and when answered by his men with a cheer, he not only led them compactly through the rest of the disordered soldiery and on to the base of the parapet, but himself clambered up to its summit ; and, his example being followed, a multitude of the Tar- outine troops Hooded over and into the work, driving out, as they entered, the six men under a sergeant who, since the relief of the pickets, had been the only force kept at this post.* Colonel Carpenter (the officer in command of the pickets) that Captain Barnston was placed with the main hody of his com- jtany on the upper part of the Kitspur, and directed to post only six men under a sergeant in the Sandhai,' Battery The Colonel's orders tend to show that he understood the ground,
 * Chotlasievitch, 188 ct seq. It was by the express order of