Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/219

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 175 seven hundred yards distant from their Home chap. VI Ridge, and thus not only wasting a huge propor- L_ tion of their scanty strength, but suffering their ^'' ^***^' front of battle to become distorted and forked, nay, divided, one may say, into two. Adams, still near the Sandbag Battery, was The force ' o </ ' near the joined, before long, by Bellairs with his three ^^^^^^ companies of the 49th, and had thus altogether a force of 700 men ; * but perceiving that the Annstrong-g '- ° _ cominunica- numbers against him were huge as compared with J'|°°t^',*-^ , o o ^ the Duke of his own, he ordered his Brigade-Major — Captain, Cambridge now General Armstrong — to ride back and learn whether any supports were at hand. Armstrong found the Duke of Cambridge with two battalions of the Guards already drawn up in line on the right of Hill Bend, and was at once assured by His Eoyal Highness that he would advance in support. General Adams meantime held his ground, and 9^°"*^ o ' Adams : soon became engaged with the masses approach- ing his position. He did not, it is believed, at hisposuior <-'■'■ ' as against the moment apprehend the whole truth ; but, as the ap- •t^r ' •" preaching we now know, he was opposing 700 men in an forces- outlying position to an enemy advancing against the English centre and right with more than 10,000 fresh troops, and this at a time when there were no forces present on either his right or his left which could undertake to secure him from the peril of becoming enfolded — enfolded by masses ind the three companies of the 49th had come into action was 710.
 * The strength with which the seven companies of the 41st