Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/189

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 146 of the troops sent out to support them, who, after chap. long and tough fighting, were now suffering them ! — selves to be driven in quickly because they had exhausted their cartridges ; but the number of the fugitives visible within a small space was so great that an observer might easily fail to recog- nise them as men coming in from the outposts unless he understood how the progress of the enemy's attack upon a triangular wedge of ground like Mount Inkerman was compressing what had been a widely extended chain of pickets into a narrow space. The men, when questioned, said, growling, that they had used up all their car- tridges, showed no disposition to make a stand, and hastened off to the rear. The column more immediately pressing upon the fugitives was that Kolivansk battalion which had diverged, as we know, from the main body of the regiment. It was seen working up through the brushwood. Bellairs not only thought that the mere sight Beiiairs. of the strong eddy thus setting in from the front tionofthe might of itself work mischief, but saw, too, that the advance of the column was placing the guns on his left in no little danger, and already, it seems, he was forming his resolve when Captain Adams {the aide-de-camp of General Adams, his brother, then cominanding the brigade) rode up, and said, ' I think you had better advance, Bel- lairs.' The heads and shoulders of the advancing Russians now seen above the brushwood showed that the column was within about eighty yards. Bellairs gave the order to ' fix bayonets ' — for this VOL. VI. K