Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/261

 TIIJ') MAIN FKJHT. 217 and again, they yet could not finally quell him CHAP. without almost annulling themselves, because it ' was plain that to pursue beaten troops far down 2d Period, the acclivities, and into the thicket below, would be in efi'ect to disband. So, although the fresh troops of the English General extended their line on each Hank, and perhaps fight  1 -r> accession change the mam tenor or course oi the nght. Kus- of the rein- siau troops in vast herds might be falling back after defeat, or rallying under the shelter of the steeps, or formed once more for attack, and heav- ing their painful way upwards under the torment of fire, but always in one way or other they thronged the hillsides, and always on the crest above them there somehow remained adhering the long, knotted string of our English infantry with still that same bend in their line which from almost the first had enabled them to show a front to the north as well as a front to the east. Like the force they had come to support, our fresh troops were soon rudely disordered by the peculiar exigencies of a close, ceaseless fight on rough ground ; and it must not be supposed that the entire English line now engaged on the crest was susceptible of being wielded as an aggregate body by any man's word of command ; but in the components of the force, and especially in its several companies, the principle of military co- herence survived, and again if the ' company,' or any less organism, broke up at last into units, there was still a magnificent reserve of bravery