Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/432

 388 THE BATTLE OF INKEKMAN. C HAP. VI. 5th Period. General cliaractor of the English fore-front. 'The gap.' Bosquet'.s erroneous iniiiression. exerting the same kind of })ower and performing the same kind of dnty as if they had been the men of the pickets not yet driven in. They combated upon a front which — by help of the Barrier — was riveted fast at its centre, but shiftinfr at all other points. Our people had ceased to be under that stress which was felt by Pennefather when in the earlier hours of the morning he used to speak of the ' gap.' It is true that the ground some way off on the right front of the Baiiier was still (as it always had been) without troops undertaking to guard it ; but this circumstance was no longer a source of danger ; for when our people abandoned their error of maintaining a force at the Sandbag Battery, they freed themselves of course from the burthen of having to cover its left flank. Yet if Bosquet, as he was now minded to do, should bend off to his right front, there w^as likely to be an ugly interval between his left and any other Allied troops. In such case, the void wf)uld again be a ' gap,' and again there might follow some such troubles as those that resulted from the same cause in the Second Period of the fight. From the recurrence of the same error at differ- ent times it may be fairly surmised that there was something in the aspect of the battle-field or in the sound of its tumults which tended to deceive. Just as numbers of our people, when fighting at the Sandbag Battery, made sure that Pennefather must be holding the ground in strength on the right front of the r>ari-i(M-, so also now General