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The offi

CHAP. their places; and of these Major Clarke, the leader of the right squadron, was the senior officer, but he did not yet know that he had acceded to the temporary command of the regiment, and continued to lead the right squadron.

cers who charged with the Greys.

The officers who charged with the 2d squadron of the Inniskillings.

Besides Major Clarke, thus leading the 1st squadron, and being in command of the regiment, the officers who now charged with the Greys were these: -Captain Williams led the 2d squadron; Manley, Hunter, Buchanan, and Sutherland were the four troop-leaders of the regiment; the adjutant was Lieutenant Miller; the serre-files were Boyd, Nugent, and Lenox Prendergast. And to these, though he did not then hold the Queen's commission, I add the name of John Wilson, now a cornet and the acting adjutant of the regiment, for he took a signal part in the fight.

Besides Colonel Dalrymple White, who was present in person with this moiety of his Inniskillings, the officers who charged with this, the 2d squadron of the regiment, were Major Manley, the leader of the squadron; Lieutenant Rawlinson, and Lieutenant and Adjutant Weir.

I believe that after General Scarlett and the three horsemen with him, who had already engulfed themselves in the dark sloping thicket of squadrons, the next man who rode into contact with the enemy's horse was Colonel Dalrymple White, the commander ple White of the Inniskillings, and then acting in person in front of his second or left-hand squadron. Straight squadron before him he had a part of the enemy's column so

Colonel
Dalrym-

at the

head of the 2d

of the In

niskillings. far from where Scarlett went in as to be altogether

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new ground (if so one may speak of a human CHAP. mass), whilst, by casting a glance in the direction of his right front, he could see how enormously the enemy was there outflanking him; but he followed in the spirit with which Scarlett had led, and drove his way into the column.

Clarke.

Whilst Major Clarke was leading in the right Major squadron of the Greys without knowing that he had acceded to the command of the regiment, an accident befell him, which might seem at first sight-and so indeed he himself apparently judged it-to be one of a very trivial kind, but it is evident that in its effect upon the question of his surviving or being slain it trebled the chances against him. Without being vicious, his charger, then known as the 'Sultan,' was liable to be maddened by the rapture of galloping squadrons, and it somehow resulted from the frenzy which seized on the horse that the rider got his bearskin displaced, and suffered it to fall to the ground. Well enough might it appear to the pious simplicity of those Russian troopers who saw the result, and not the accident which caused it, that the red-coated officer on the foremost grey horse rode visibly under the shelter of some Satanic charm, or else with some spell of the Church holding good, by the aid of strong faith, against acres upon acres of swords; for now, when Clarke made the last rush, and dug 'Sultan' in through their ranks, he entered among them bare-headed.

of the three

The difference that there was in the tempera- The charge ments of the two comrade regiments showed itself hundred.

VOL. IV.

L

V.

CHAP. in the last moments of the onset. The Scots Greys gave no utterance except to a low, eager, fierce moan of rapture-the moan of outbursting desire. The Inniskillings went in with a cheer.

With a rolling prolongation of clangour which resulted from the bends of a line now deformed by its speed, the three hundred' crashed in upon the front of the column. They crashed in so weightily that no cavalry, extended in line and halted, could have withstood the shock if it had been able to shrink and fall back; but whatever might be their inclination, the front-rank men of the Russian column were debarred, as we saw, from all means of breaking away to the rear by the weight of their own serried squadrons sloping up the hillside close behind them; and it being too late for them to evade the concussion by a lateral flight, they had no choice-it was a cruel trial for cavalry to have to endure at the halt-they had no choice but to await and suffer the onslaught. On the other hand, it was certain that if the Russian hussar being halted should so plant and keep himself counter to his assailant as to be brought into diametric collision with the heavier man and the heavier horse of the Inniskillings or the Greys whilst charging direct at his front, he must and would be overborne. It might, therefore, be imagined that many of the troopers in the front rank of the Russian column would now be perforce overthrown, that numbers of our dragoons would in their turn be brought to the ground by that very obstacle-the obstacle of overturned horses and horsemen-which their onset seemed

V.

about to build up, and that far along the front of the CHAP. column the field would be encumbered with a heap or bank of prostrated riders and chargers, where Russians would be struggling for extrication intermingled with Inniskillings or Greys. Such a result would apparently have been an evil one for the 'three 'hundred,' because it would have enabled the unshattered masses of the enemy to bring their numbers to bear against such of the redcoats as might still remain in their saddles.

It was not thus, however, that the charge wrought its effect. What had first been done by Scarlett and the three horsemen with him, what had next been done by Dalrymple White, and next by the squadronleaders and other regimental officers whose place was in front of their men, that now, after more or less struggle, the whole of these charging 'three hundred' were enabled to achieve.

The result of their contact with the enemy was a phenomenon so much spoken of in the days of the old war against the French Empire, that it used to be then described by a peculiar but recognised phrase. Whether our people spoke with knowledge of fact, or whether they spoke in their pride, I do not here stay to question; but in describing the supposed issue of conflicts in which a mass of Continental soldiery was assailed by English troops extended in line, it used to be said of the foreigners that they accepted the 'files.'* This meant, it seems, that instead of oppos

* It was to infantry, I believe, that the words used to be applied; but it has been adjudged that they describe with military accuracy the

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CHAP. ing his body to that of the islander with such rigid determination as to necessitate a front-to-front clash, and a front-to-front trial of weight and power, the foreigner who might be steadfast enough to keep his place in the foremost rank of the assailed mass would still be so far yielding as to let the intruder thrust past him and drive a way into the column.

Whatever was the foundation for this superb faith, the phrase, as above interpreted, represents with a singular exactness what the front rank of the Russian column now did. These horsemen could not fall back under the impact of the charge; and, on the other hand, they did not so plant themselves as to be each of them a directly opposing hindrance to an assailant. They found and took a third course. They accepted 'the files.' Here, there, and almost everywhere along the assailed part of the column, the troopers who stood in front rank so sidled and shrank that they suffered the Grey or the Inniskillinger to tear in between them with the licence accorded to a cannon-ball which is seen to be coming, and must not be obstructed, but shunned. So, although, by their charge, these few horsemen could deliver no blow of such weight as to shake the depths of a column extending far up the hillside, they more or less shivered or sundered the front rank of the mass, and then, by dint of sheer wedge-work and fighting, they opened and cut their way in. It was in the nature of things that at some parts of the

reception which was given by the Russian column to Scarlett's 'three 'hundred.' Lord Seaton-Colonel Colborne of the illustrious 52d Regiment was one of those who handed down the phrase to a later generation.