Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/317

 VI. 2d Period THE MAIN T'VGHT. 273 this moment were falling back very fast, but still chap. he did not despair of being able to rally them and get them to charge. He had no brother oflficer near him ; but Ban- croft — the hero of the fight on the Ledgeway — stood yet at his side, as did also a sergeant of the Line who had mingled with the Guards, and was doing splendid service. Isaac Archer, Joseph Troy, John Pullen, Edward Hill, and William Turner were near. With these, besides ten or twelve more — some Guardsmen, some men of the Line — 'there gathered and fronted under Burnaby's appeal some eighteen or twenty men.* Burnaby told them to close together, and then said, ' Are ' you ready ? ' The men answered by their act. They sprang forward. In front of them all at that moment, giving splendid example to others, were Isaac Archer and the sergeant of the Line. There were some Eussians in loose order advanc- ing in front of the column, but our people, as Archer expresses it, ' knocked them out of the ' way,' and then there was nothing except air and smoke between the solid column and the little knot of its English assailants. Men in the foremost of the enemy's ranks brought their firelocks down to the charge, but did not spring forward ' at the double ' in advance of their comrades. The whole column, however — and of course the front ranks along with it — continued to advance against the English. Yet no one gives any other numbers as his estimate. VOL. VI. 8
 * One man says about eighteen, another about twenty, and