Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/288

 244 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, paces when grievously wounded by a second • assailant, he still kept his eye on the man, and 2d Period, presently shot him dead. His third assailant he killed by running him through. A fourth and a fifth assailant then set upon Bancroft at the same moment ; and, one of them bayoneting him in the right side, he fell ; but the next moment he was again on his feet and driving his bayonet through one of the two last assailants. The Eussian thus pierced fell to the ground, but without being killed or subdued ; and by clutch- ing, it seems, at Bancroft's legs, he strove to hamper him in his hand-to-hand struggle with the other assailant. Bancroft — fighting for his life with one upstanding antagonist, and clutched at the same time round his legs by the one who had fallen — could only repress the fierce energy of the man on the ground by stunning him with kicks on the head. Curiously — and one welcomes the sentiment, even if it be wrongly applied — the sight of kicks given to a man on the ground brought out, in the midst of the combat, an English- man's love of ' fair play ; ' for, though Bancroft was but one defending his life against two, Sergeant Alger called out to him, from a spot some way off, and forbade him to ' kick the man ' that was down.' It is believed certain that by fire, by steel, and by the sole of his boot Bancroft killed altogether five men. Fighting thus — one or two of them singly, the rest in very small knots — a few men of the Guards proved able at length to break up the opposing