Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/439

 VI. th Feriod THE MAIN FIGHT. 395 troops. That one liallucinatiou, however, will chap hardly suffice to account for the extraordinary measure of forming a line of battle upon the Inkerniau Tusk. The troops there arrayed had no Eussian infantry before them. With a deep ravine in their front, and the batteries of the East Jut beyond, with deadly precipices on their right, and their uncovered left standing helpless on the very edge of the lair from which the enemy had been accustomed to spring, they were so circumstanced as to be themselves in grave peril without means of doing to the enemy any manner of harm. Bosquet, separating himself from his infantry thus strangely arrayed on the Tusk, and having with him Colonel Fourgeot, Captain Minet, an aide-de-camp, and a small escort of horse, rode some way aside towards the bank of the Quarry Eavine as though wishing to have a look at the English force which he thought must be there, and perhaps to exchange words of counsel with its imagined chief.* For the English his eyes searched in vain, but upon coming to the edge of the Eavine and looking down into its bed he saw a Eussian column ascending to- wards the part of the ground where he stood. He instantly sent for artillery, and before many minutes, Boussini^re came up in person with Fay, the author of 'Souvenirs de la Guerre de Criniee,' an able work from which — more especially as regards this part of the narrative — I have derived material aid.
 * I believe that the aide-de-camp with Bosquet was Captain