Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/530

 486 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, must depend in some measure, and for some time, ^"^' upon the mere aspect of their strength, and if the dimness of the atmosphere be such as to make the many invisible, it may do much towards bringing them down to a level with the few. And again, from the effect of the mist every man's field of view was so narrowed as- to forbid all notion of synthesis. In so far as the battle-field presented itself to the bare eyesight of men, it had no entirety, no length, no breadth, no depth, no size, no shape, and was made up of nothing ex- cept small numberless circlets commensurate with such ranges of vision as the mist might allow at each spot. A sentence that Brownrigg heard uttered by a soldier of the Grenadier Guards, tells much of the Inkerman story. The man at the time was advancing against masses numbered by thousands, but the Russians that interested him were those whom he himself might perhaps shoot down or run through, and his delighted estimate was — ' I'm damned if there aren't scores of 'em ! ' That man, multiplied by tlic number of English bayonets in action, was the difficult fou whom the enemy thought to overwhelm by the power and weight of his columns. The attention of a field-officer (until his horse should be shot under him) might take a somewhat wuder range ; but, if such a one could give unity to the weak battalion or wing he commanded, that was commonly the utmost he could attempt. In such conditions, each separate gathering of English soldiery went on fighting its own little battle in happy and