Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/252

 208 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP VI. 8d Period. Devolution of the command to Colonel F. Seymour. The measure he took. Relinquish- ment of the Sandbag Battery by the English. Their change of position. Struck in the jaw by a musket-ball, he all at ouce learut the warmth of his fast - streaming blood, and, being now hardly able to speak, was forced at last to confess that this, his third wound, was disabling. He found means, though not without effort, to signify a message, handing over the com- mand of the regiment. It was upon Colonel Francis Seymour — though he did not yet know of his elevation — that the command of the regiment devolved. Notwith- standing the onsets made again and again from the east by the troops of the Selinghinsk regi- ment, Seymour judged that the heaviest of the Russian attacks was the one aimed against our north front, and perceiving (as his chief had just done before him) that the parapet of the dis- mantled battery must neutralise both the fire and the steel of the infantry sheltered behind it, he laboured to get the men out of the work, and bring them more to tlieir left, in order to strengthen the line which confronted the Okhotsk battalions. When this object had at last been attained, the instincts of the men on either flank of the work made them seek to refasten their line ; whilst, on the other hand, the advancing thousands exert- ed their natural pressure upon a thin string of soldiery, undertaking to change their array whilst the enemy was coming upon them. From the com- position of these diverse forces there resulted num- berless movements — not all of them voluntary, but yet on the whole opportune ; for within a brief compass of time the remains of the two bat-