Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/308

 264 THE BATTLE OF INKEKMAN. CHAP. VI. 2d Period. Buinaby's measures. Critical position of the Duke of Cambridge and tlic colours of the Grenadier Guards. Captain Burnaby also had witnessed the ap- proach of these Okhotsk battalions ; but it hap- pened that at the moment of making his discovery he was not so far down on the Kitspur as Percy had been, and he judged that, by dint of hard climbing, it might be possible for him, with the twenty or thirty men of his company still gathered about him, to regain the high ground behind him before the Russians could seize it. He did not misreckon ; for, after a short, though severe exer- tion of bodily strength, both he and his people were up on the ledgeway, and much nearer to the front of the Sandbag Battery than the Russians yet were to its flank. No other collected body of men came back from the chase in time to co- operate with the remnant still holding together under the Duke of Cambridge. Upon the whole, then, the predicament of the Duke of Cambridge was this : Still remaining near the gorge of the Sandbag Battery, with about one hundred men and the colours of the Grenadier Guards, he had a lakoutsk battalion established on the high ground behind him, that is, on the slopes of Mount Head, whilst the two Okhotsk battalions were advancing upon him from his left front ; and (except from the accession of perhaps ten or fifteen stragglers attracted towards the colours) the only help within reach was that which Burnaby might be able to give him with some twenty or thirty more men. The three Russian battalions had together a