Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/478

 434 THE BATTLE OF INKEKMAN. CHAP. VI. 6th Period. Hetreat of the assailed battery. Men drawii forward by Armstrong. Advance over ground forming part of the Shell Uill position. The effect this incideii was calcu- lated to produce. ineut lost horses aud men, but went valiantly on with their task, and proved able to carry off every gun of the battery, including even the one that had been dismounted. When Acton and his people ran up into the site of the battery, their prizes were only one gun-carriage and a couple of artillery tumbrils. Opportunely, as though he were seeing into the enemy's heart at the moment of his bitterest trouble, an English staff officer — Armstrong — came galloping up towards the ground which Acton had reached, and by gesture and voice, as he rode, drawing forward all the bodies or clusters of troops he was able to find in his path. Amongst these was a whole company of his own — the 49th — regiment, well led by Lieutenant Astley. Col- onel Horsford, with his forty or fifty men, was already high up the hillside. Altogether, perhaps, before long, though in small and separate bodies, there were some three hundred of our wearied soldiery toiling on with what strength they had left to reach the site of the battery, and afterwards advancing beyond it in eager, though feeble pur- suit. That a battery when left unsupported should be driven from its position by the kind of attack we have witnessed — this might not have been in itself an incident of any great moment ; but the guns we have thus seen withdrawn had been so disposed on Shell Hill that to strike them back (Jilt of the line was to break a set front of battle ; and the insult was one scarce to be borne by a