Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/315

 THE MAIN FKUIT. 271 for the colours in the teeth of an interposed force, chap, their other and even more formidable adversary ' 2d Period. was api)roacliiug them from the opposite quarter. ^,, , T -IT- • Tlio double The two Okhotsk battalions by this time had pcnito which the neared the left shoulder of the Sandbaff Battery, colours ^ were now and were now moving forward with a great alac- exjiosed. rity, for their soldiery saw the colours retreating with only a small band around them. Captain Burnaby, however, as we know, with Bumaby , . , - . , . and liis men Ins twenty or tnirty men, had succeeded in climb interposing ing up to the now deserted Sandbag Battery before the two Okhotsk battalions could reach it, and thus found himself able to interpose between the retreating colours and the enemy advancing to overtake them. The bodily effort he made to effect this rapid ascent had been so violent that, when at last on the crest, he allowed himself to sink to the ground and rest his lungs for some moments. He had not yet overtaken his comrades, when their service already he saw that the small clumps of men bating rear round the colours were without any rear-guard in the folds of a hostile battalion, and that the prospect of their saving the standards by means of their own was almost null. So, to cover their retreat, and if possible ward off the impending disaster, he called out to the twenty or thirty men near him, and drew them more closely together. Then he told them the purpose for which they must fight. By firmly retarding their own retreat they must win time for the retreat of the colours. They were to be in effect a diminutive rear-guard,