Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/365

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 321 The enemy had been in possession of the demi- chap. battery about three minutes when there all at ' once appeared on the left rear of the Home Eidge 3<*-f'«"o«'- a truant little body of Zouaves.* These brave, ofthetiiree 11 111 f 1 • English lawless men had stolen away irom their camp — guns by 1 • 1 • 1 1 ^ triiiuit or even perhaps irom their duty in the trenches body of Zou.'ivcs — that they might take part in the fight they heard raging on Mount Inkerman ; and there is reason to believe or surmise that in the earlier stage of their onset they were led by Sir George Brown in person.-j- What we know with full certainty is that, whether obeying Sir George, or spontaneously seizing their moment, they sprang at the Russians they saw in possession of the demi - battery, thrust them out at the point of the bayonet, passed on between the probably the same whom we shall presently see at the side of I'ennefather, and the number of that body was computed by him at about 60. t Sir (Jeorge Brovii was a rigid disciplinarian, and would have been horrified to learn, that whilst making himself the leader — the ringleader, may one not say?— of this brilliant at- tack, he was abetting a body of soldiery who were ' absent from ' their post without leave.' In his private despatch to Head- quarters, 12th Nov. 1854, after speaking of the English position as 'greatly denuded of troops,' he says : ' It was that circum- ' stance which enabled a few of the enemy to break through to ' take temporary possession of three or four of our guns, which ' rendered the arrival of the French infantry so opportune. It ' was in leading on them that I received a musket-ball in the ' left arm, which compelled me to quit the field.' Supposing Sir George's language to have been strictly appropriate, this must have been the French advance which he led ; but he does not say that the troops were Zouavca. I have never seen any one who observed him at the time when he received hf wound. VOL. VI. X
 * I cannot give the strength of these Zouaves, but they were