Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/266

 222 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, less of agony and wavering would turn and fall ' back, dropping quickly down out of sight. But td Period, sometimes the enemy's masses would persist with a greater obstinacy, neither turning nor halting till they had forced a part of the English line to bend for the moment before them, and, if not to break asunder, at all events to yield ground a little and begin to bulge inwards ; but, in every such emergency, our people gave proof — and this was an almost new teaching — that if the column (having been spared for some special reason from the ordeal of a charge) has thus far prevailed against the line, its task even then may not be near its accomplishment ; for when it chanced that the enemy thus pressed his attack almost home, men would come from some neighbouring part of our line to strengthen the defence at its point of tension, or else a few of our people gathering hastily together would spring with their bayonets low at the front or the flank of the intruding mass. Whether fended back I'rom the crest by tough, sober resistance, or brilliantly charged and routed, all the columns one after an- other were driven back down the hillsides. In the course of these struggles, it here and there happened that opposing bayonets clashed, that the sword of the officer was put to proof of its quality in some close personal conflict for his life, and that men struck at men with the butt- ends of rifles or muskets ; * but these collisions • Swords furnished by tailors disclosed the frailty that mif,'lit be almost considered appropriate to them if regarded as articles