Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/225

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 181 combatants, from the thickness of the brushwood, chap. and the dislocating effect of the efforts to resist ^^- flank attacks, the English line, before long, ceased 2(f Period. to show any trace of formation. The interior of Third cap- the Sandbag Battery having before it a parapet sandbag'*' ten feet high without any banquette, kept the '^ ^^^' bulk of any soldiery placed there in a state of impotence, and was really of less worth to infan- try than any other strip of land on the crest. Its fate was not governed, this time, by any specific struggle for the possession of the work itself, but rather by the general result of the combat which Adams maintained on the Kitspur ; and when our people, overborne by weight of numbers in front, and attacked at the same time in flank, began at last to yield ground, the Battery, as a necessary consequence, passed again into the enemy's hands. The loosened knots and groups now constitut- xhe force ing the remains of the 700 men under Adams, Adams still contested the ground foot by foot with the towa^ds'^^ advancing thousands, and thus caused them at Head, last to desist from pressing their ascendant ; but our people, when disengaged from their combat with infantry, came under artillery-fire. Carrying with them their wounded, they fell back to the side of Mount Head. The commander we saw in his saddle over- Adams towering the eddies of the fight, had hitherto woumied. seemed to ride proof against all the missiles of war; but during the lull which now followed. General Adams received a shot in his ankle.