At the distance of twelve hundred yards the whole line of the enemy belched forth from thirty iron mouths a flood of smoke and flame, through which hissed the deadly balls. Their flight was marked by instant gaps in our ranks, by dead men and horses, by steeds flying wounded or riderless across the plain. The first line is broken-it is joined by the second-they never halt, or check their speed an instant. With diminished ranks, thinned by those thirty guns, which the Russians had laid with the most deadly accuracy; with a halo of flashing steel above their heads, and with a cheer which was many a noble fellow"s death-cry, they flew into the smoke of the batteries: but ere they were lost from view the plain was strewed with their bodies, and with the carcasses of horses.
They were exposed to an oblique fire from the batteries on the hills on both sides, as well as to a direct fire of musketry. Through the clouds of smoke we could see their sabres flashing, as they rode up to the guns and dashed into their midst, cutting down the gunners where they stood. We saw them riding through the guns, as I have said: to our delight we saw them returning after breaking through a column of Russian infantry, and scattering it like chaff, when the flank fire of the battery on the hill swept them down, scattered and broken as they were. Wounded men and riderless horses flying towards us told the sad tale. Demi-gods could not have donewhat they had failed to do.
At the very moment when they were about to retreat, an enormous mass of Lancers was hurled on their flank. Colonel Shewell, of the 8th Hussars, saw the danger, and rode his few men straight at them, cutting his way through with fearfulloss. The other regiments turned, and engaged in a desperate encounter. With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns which enveloped them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilized nations.
The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them; and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin!
It was as much as our heavy cavalry brigade could do to cover the retreat of the miserable remnants of the band of heroes as they returned to the place they had so lately quitted. At thirty-five minutes past eleven not a British soldier, except the dead and the dying, was left in front of those guns.
- W. H. RUSSELL
NOTES
① Quartermaster-General, the chief of that department of an army which provides quartersfor it, and all that that implies,-as provisions, clothing, transport, &c.
② Don Quixote, the hero of a famous Spanish mock-romance by Cervantes; one of whose exploits, that of running a tilt against a windmill, has become proverbial for hare-brained folly. Hence "Quixotic" as a synonym for rash, precipitate.
③ Discretion, a reference to the well-known proverb, "The better part of valour is discretion." (See Shakespeare , Henry IV. Act v. Scene 4.)QUESTIONSWhat position did the Russian cavalry take up after retiring? How many guns were drawn up along their line? What order did Airey send to Lucan? How did Nolan explain it? To whom did Lucan give the order to advance? What maxim of war was violated in this? What took place at the distance of twelve hundred yards from the enemy? Where did the light cavalry then make their way? To what were they exposed on their way back? Of what act of atrocity were the Russian gunners guilty?