V.

CHAP. ought to take ground to his left, and the change was effected with a briskness and precision which wrung admiration from some of our best cavalry officers.

Its ad

So soon as the column had taken all the ground that was thought to be needed, it fronted once more to the English. Then presently, at the sound of the down the trumpet, this huge mass of horsemen, deep-charged slope. with the weight of its thousands, began to descend the hillside.

vance

Making straight for the ground where our scanty three hundred were ranging, and being presently brought to the trot, it came on at a well-governed speed, swelling broader and broader each instant, yet disclosing its depths more and more. In one of its aspects, the descending of this thicket of horsemen was like what may be imagined of a sudden yet natural displacement of the earth's surface; for to those who gazed from afar the dusky mass they saw moving showed acreage rather than numbers.

All this while, the string of the 300 red-coats were forming Scarlett's slender first line in the valley beneath, and they seemed to be playing parade. At the moment I speak of, the troop officers of the Greys were still facing their men; and their drill rules, it seems, had declared that they must continue to do so till the major of the regiment should at length bring them round by giving the order, 'Eyes right!' Not yet would the Greys consent to be disturbed in their ceremonies by the descending column.

It was with seeming confidence that Scarlett sat eyeing the approach of the Russian mass, whilst the

V.

three squadrons ranging behind him went composedly CHAP. on with the work of dressing and re-dressing their front; yet the moment seemed near when, from the great depth of the column and the incline of the ground, the front ranks of the Russians would have less to dread from their foe than from the weight of their own troops behind them; and unless the descent of the column should be presently stayed, even the enemy himself (though by chance his foremost squadrons should falter) might hardly have any choice left but to come sweeping down like a torrent, and overwhelming all mortal resistance.

The Rus

sian cav

alry be

gan to

But before the moment had come when the enemy, whether liking it or not, would find himself condemned to charge home, he began, as it seemed, to slacken falter. He slackened the pace. He still slackened pace, and -his trumpets were sounding-he slackened, and came to a halt.

at length

came to a

halt.

to the

cause of

the halt.

Our cavalry-men, so far as I know, have failed to Surmise as hit on any solution of what they regard as a seemingly enormous mistake on the part of General Ryjoff; and the Russians, not caring to dwell on the story of their conflict with our Heavy Dragoons, have never thrown light on the question. It, however, seems likely that a commander leading down his massed thousands with design to attack may have judged that he was met by a formidable obstacle when he saw extending before him a camp imperfectly struck, where some of the tents were yet standing and where also some horses were picketed.*

* Sick horses.

V.

CHAP. If such was General Ryjoff's apprehension, he may well have been strengthened in it by observing the deliberately ceremonious preparations of the scanty red squadrons below: because he would be led to infer that their apparent sense of security must be based on knowledge of the ground in their front, and the hindrances with which it was strewed.

Deployment effected by the Rus

sians on each flank of their column.

Or, again, it may be that, from the first, the enemy had intended to halt at what he judged a fit distance, for the purpose of executing and perfecting the manoeuvre which must now be described.

Either whilst the mass was descending, or else as soon as it halted, a partial deployment was effected, which brought the force, taken as a whole, into a state of formation not new to St Petersburg, though but little affected elsewhere. In prolongation of the two front ranks of the column both to the right and to the left, two wings or fore-arms were thrown out, and this in such way that whilst the trunk-if thus one may call it was a huge weighty mass of great depth, the two limbs which grew out from it were constituted by a formation in line. In this way, the appalling effect of great weight was supposed to be combined with the advantage which belongs to extension of front; and evidently the designer imagined that, by the process of wheeling them, the two deployed lines might be made puissant engines for defence or for counter-attack. By inclining them more or less back the arms might be made to cover the flanks of the column; whilst, by folding them inwards, they might be so wielded as to crush all

V.

close comers with an easy and pitiless hug. The CHAP. mass which acted in support had a front commensurate with that of the column it followed, but without any deployment from the flanks. It advanced so exactly on the track of the body in front, and soon showed so strong a tendency to close upon it, that virtually it added its weight to the weight of the great mass it followed, without attempting to aid it by any independent manoeuvres. So although, whilst these horsemen were marching, and even during part of the conflict, a space could be seen still existing between the first mass and the second, yet, so far as concerns their bearing upon the fight, the two columns were substantially as one.

Around the serried masses thus formed there circled a number of horsemen in open or skirmishing order.

now was

not only

enormous

ly overweighted by the

column in

his front,

but also

When the extension of the Russian front had de- Scarlett veloped itself, Scarlett failed not, of course, to see that, enormously as his thin line of two ranks was overweighted by the vast depth of the column before him, the extent to which he was outflanked both on his right hand and on his left was hardly less over- enormouswhelming; but whether he still expected that the 5th Hanked Dragoon Guards would align with the Greys, or whether versaries. he by this time understood that it would be operating Looking on their left rear, he at all events looked trustfully to the help that would be brought him by this his own regiment as a means of resistance to the forces which

ly out

by his ad

to the 5th

Dragoon

Guards to

help him Scarlett

on his left,

sought to

a force

were outflanking him on his left. Towards his right, provide however, he equally saw the dark squadrons far, far which overlapping his front; and, for the checking of these, some mea

VOL. IV.

K

might in

V.

CHAP. he knew not that he had even so much as one troop close at hand, for he supposed at that time that his sure coun- first line included the whole of the Inniskillings.

teract the

forces

flanked

him to

which out. Scarlett, therefore, despatched Major Conolly, his brigade-major, with orders to bring forward one or other wards his of the two regiments which had not marched off with Step taken the rest, and oppose it to the enemy's left.

right.

for that

purpose. Importance of

occasion

It seemed evident that, for the English, all rational hope must depend upon seizing the occasion which seizing the the enemy's halt was now proffering; and to the truth which the of this conviction the Divisional General and his Brienemy's gadier were both keenly alive. Lord Lucan, indeed, Anxiety of grew so impatient of delay that he more than once

halt pre

sented.

both Lord

General

Lucan and caused his trumpeter to sound the charge;' but Scarlett and all his people were much busied in preparing; and, so far as I have heard, no attention was awakened by the sound of the divisional trumpet.

Scarlett for the commencement of the charge at the ear

liest prac

moment.

en (without effect) by Lord

Lucan for accelerating the

Though our people saw clearly enough that at all ticable hazards, and notwithstanding all disparity of numbers, Step tak the enemy's impending masses must be attacked by Scarlett's scant force, they still had no right to imagine that they could achieve victory, or even ward off disaster, by means of the kind which a General of Cavalry movement. is accustomed to contemplate. When an officer underlessness of takes a charge of horse, his accustomed hope is, that seeking to shake the he will be able to shatter the array of the foe by the column by momentum and impact of his close serried squadrons led thundering in at a gallop; and, indeed, it is a assailants main part of his reckoning that the bare dread of the shock he thus threatens will break down all resistance

The hope

Russian

the means

in which cavalry

are accustomed to trust.

beforehand. For Scarlett, there could be no such hope.