Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/362

 318 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP. VI. Hd Period. kindle any more of those long and obstinate fights near the Barrier which had so gloriously signalised his former struggles, he now all at once found himself assaulted on his own denuded heights by great masses brought up with despatch, and in solid unbroken strength, from the Quarry Ravine to Home Ridge. The enemy's vanguard : the attacks it delivered. Attack on Bootliby's demi-bat- tery at the western ex- tremity of the Home Ridge. IV. The troops of the enemy's vanguard were not moving upon a front so closely connected and straight as to be in the order for making an absolutely single attack along their whole line, but at nearly, if not quite the same time, they might burst upon the threatened hillside in several waves ; and the onset now first to be witnessed is the one which broke over the western extremity of the Home Ridge. It was there, as we saw, that a demi-battery under Second-captain Boothby, which formed part of Captain Turner's command, had been placed by Colonel Fitzmayer. For want of room on the crest, the leftmost of the three pieces — the one under Sergeant - major Henry — had been placed upon the westward slope of the Ridge, where it not only stood lower down than the rest of the demi-battery, but upon ground en- compassed by tall brushwood, which indeed at the first reached so close to the mouth of the gun that, until the oak-boughs had been, some of them, lopped, it could not be biought into action.