Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/423

 THE MAIN FIGHT. 379 to go Oil destroying and still destroying. Whether chap tearing direct through a clump of the enemy's ' gunners or ligliting upon some piece of rock, and *'^ ^'^rioA flinging abroad, right and left, its murderous splinters ; whetlier bounding into a team of artil- lery-horses, or smashing and blowing up tum- brils, the terrible eighteen- pounder shot never flew to its task without ploughing a furrow of ruin.* The havoc was fast becoming so dire as to be more than the enemy's gunners could steadfastly endure. It may be that their officers did not yet harbour even a thought of altogether aban- doning the struggle, but they soon began longing to shift their positions, and battery after battery was moved from one spot to another in the hope that the fell eighteen-pounder might not come to search out its prey on the new and less exposed ground. From the moment when the enemy resorted to this flinching method his artillery power on Shell Hill began to wane fast ; for the gunners of any battery which had shifted its place proved always unable to recover their former efficiency. Within half an hour from the time when he brought into action the two eighteen -pounders, Colonel Col- lingwood Dickson had made his ascendant coin- by our people after the battle with much interest, and even — 80 great was the devastation — with surprise. It was probably by the violence of the friction that the eighteen-pound shot had power to blow up a tumbril of ammunition. Of the fact that it did this there is no room for doubt.
 * The traces of the ravages left by these shot were observed