Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/194

 150 THE BATTLE OF INKEllMAN. CHAP, vauced along the Fore Eidge to Mount Head, descended thence to the Kitspur, and (after first st Period, uieeting the soldiery of our pickets there driven in from the front) was at last face to face with the Taroutine regiment, and the stray Catherin- burg battalion, troops numbering altogether 4000 men.* For the first time on that day the Rus- sians were met by a whole English battalion, or one at least nearly complete ; and it seems that at the very sight of this force approaching, the buglers of the Taroutine regiment began to sound ' Left about !' -f* But, whether obeying their bugles, or yielding rather under the fire which presently crashed through their ranks from the extended front of the 41st, the loosened company columns of the Taroutine regiment made haste to turn ; and, Adams pressing on his advance, it not only re- sulted that those subdivided masses fell back in confusion, and abandoned the site of the Sand- bag Battery, but that the three solid columns which had stood in support were carried away with the rest down the sides of the nearest Tiie defeated declivitics. Adams warily marking the density finally of the copscwood, and the steepness of the de- fromthe sccnt by which the throng flooded down, would battle. not suffer his men to pursue except with their fire, and the enemy, finding cover from the rifle-balls of our people in the fall of the ground, dropped quickly out of their reach ; but panic then took up the chase and made the retreat a sheer flight. Thus the whole of the force which (including the • 4150. t Chodasievitch, p. 198.