Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/346

 302 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, maiutained for some time by an industrious use ^^' of the firelock, and Colonel Horn's people at length sd Period, j^g^^ g^ nearly exhausted their cartridges as to be driven to the expedient of taking ammunition from the pouches of the dead. But a change of temper came on ; and at the thought of the bayonet, these men of the 20th seemed all to have but one will. Despite the hostile masses on their flanks, they were glowing with that sense of power which is scarce other than power itself To men of their corps and none other had been committed the charge of a sacred historic tradition ; and, if they were to use the enchantment, they must not, they knew, endure that, in their time, its spell should be broken. The air was rent by a sound which — unless they be men of the initiated regiment — people speak of as strange and 'unearthly.' After nearly a century from the day when their cry became famous, and forty years after the time when last it resounded in battle, these men of the 20th once more had delivered their old'Minden ' yell.' * Disregarding alike the force on their right and the force on their left, they sprang at the mass in their front and drove it down the hillside. In pursuit, they inclined to their left, the art and mystery of the ' Mindcn yell ' had been faithfully preserved. The elder officers of the regiment had generally an idea that tho practice might be regarded as 'irregular' at Head- quarters, and they did not openly sanction it, but the young officers did. In England— so o]>posite in that respect to the Continent— youtli is strongly tcn:icious of custom.
 * It was of course by steady practice in the regiment that