Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/220

 176 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, which of necessity would largely outflank him ' so soon as they should come up abreast of the w Period gyg foremost battalions. English troops, indeed, were still holding the Barrier ; but between their right and the left of Adams there lay that un- occupied space which Pennefather a little later began to call the Gap. For the moment, it is true, the five nearest battalions with their strength of little more than 4000 men* were the only part of the approaching force which had come within fighting distance ; but a present numerical supe- riority of five to one, with the prospect of quickly doubling the odds, was enough to warrant flank movements against Adams, as well as attacks on his front ; and if any one ask why our people allowed a small body of soldiery to linger on such a spot and there stand at bay under conditions thus glaringly adverse, it must be answered that their determination resulted from the mistake of imagining the Sandbag battery to be a link in the existing system of the Inkerman defences, and one which they thought marked the value of the ground on which Science had placed it. From that cause, as well as from the natural inclination of our people to remain fastened upon an object for which they had once contended, the dis- mantled parapet continued to exercise a ceaseless fascination — not indeed lastingly upon the very same troops, for any soldiery who had once entered the Sandbag Battery soon learned to un- 4292.
 * Taking the Sappers at 750 and including the 360 Riflemen,