V. no more than a small knot or group of horsemen, they CHAP. turned upon their assailants; and the little band of Lancers then beginning at last to retreat, came back intermixed more or less with the enemy's grey-coated horsemen. Presently they were met by some men of their own regiment who turned with them, and joined their retreating movement.* The united groups of these 17th Lancer men were pursued by the Russian cavalry, and soon found also that they were threatened on their flank by a large number of Cossacks.† To avoid being cut off by those Cossacks, they inclined sharply towards their then left, but in vain, for the Cossacks closed upon them. They, however, fought their way through their assailants, and made good their retreat, passing up the valley obliquely towards the ground where Scarlett was posted. The rest of the first line, having broken straight into the battery, had either engaged themselves in the task of spearing and cutting down the obstinate artillerymen, or else had pushed forward betwixt the limbers and the tumbrils to assail the cavalry in rear of the guns. These men of the first line, however, were all The broken up into small groups and knots, or else acting, combateach singly, as skirmishers. One of these groups had in it some of those very few men of the 13th Light Dragoons who yet remained The men they thus met were those who (as will be presently mentioned) were acting under Sergeant O'Hara. + These apparently were the Cossacks who had poured in from the flank and were able to take prisoners as already described whilst the Lancers who charged under Morris were passing on in pursuit. groups of ants con stituting the main remnants line. of the first CHAP. undisabled, and Captain Jenyns, then in command of V. the regiment, endeavoured to keep it together; but The group Captain men of the 17th Lan cers. the largest fraction of the first line consisted of that part of the 17th Lancers, which, not having been engaged in Morris's charge, and not having yet pressed on against the enemy's cavalry, was engaged with the Russian artillerymen in the battery. Morris himself, as we saw, having first been cut down, had fallen into the hands of the enemy; and, there being but few other officers at this time who remained alive and undisabled, the men knew of nothing better to do than to try to complete their capture of the battery. At the part of the battery which had been entered these men of the 17th Lancers, the Russian artillerymen were limbering up and making great exertions to carry off their guns, whilst our Lancers, seeing this, began to busy themselves with the task of hindering the withdrawal of the prey, and in particular the leftermost portion of them, under the direction of Sergeant O'Hara, were stopping the withdrawal of one of the guns which already had been moved off some paces, Mayow's when a voice was heard calling,' Seventeenth! Seven assumption of command over these. teenth this way! this way!' The voice came from Mayow, the officer who held the post of brigade-major; but also it chanced that, with the first line, Mayow was the officer next in seniority to the commander of the brigade (whom he could not, he says, then see), and it was in that condition of things that he took upon himself to direct the operations of this still fighting remnant. Mayow judged that if these men remained combat V. Mayow's ing in the battery they would be presently over- CHAP. whelmed by the cavalry which he saw in his front, and that, desperate as the expedient might seem, the course order to really safest and best was at once, with any force that the men. could be gathered, to attack the Russian horsemen whilst still they were only impending, and before they became the assailants. Therefore warning the Lancers that if they remained in the battery they would presently be closed in upon and cut to pieces, he called upon them to push forward. He was obeyed; but from the way in which, at the time, he chanced to be carrying the pistol then held in his hand, his order was in part mistaken; for O'Hara supposed that the brigade-major, by pointing, as he seemed to be doing, towards his left front, must be intending to order an advance in that direction. Accordingly O'Hara, with The the Lancers acting under his immediate guidance, the 17th moved off towards his left front, and there then only which remained about fifteen men who continued to act off under under Mayow. group of Lancers branched O'Hara. group of the 17th acting un personal Putting himself at the head of these last, Mayo led The them against a body of Russian cavalry which stood the men of halted in rear of the guns.* With his handful of Lancers Lancers he charged the Russian horsemen and drove der the them in on their second reserve, pushing forward so guidance far as to be at last some five hundred yards in the of Mayow. rear (Russian rear) of the battery, and in sight of the charge. bridge over the aqueduct on the main road which His adled to Tchorgoun. *This was probably the body which went about and fronted when Lord Cardigan in person approached it. Mayow's vance in pursuit. СНАР. V. His halt. Opera tions of the forces It may well be imagined that, intruding, as he was, with less than a score of horsemen, into the very rear of the Russian position, and dealing with a hostile cavalry which numbered itself by thousands, Mayow was not so enticed by the yielding, nay, fugitive, tendency of the squadrons retreating before him, as to forget that the usefulness of the singular venture which had brought him thus far must depend, after all, upon the chance of its being supported. He halted his little band; and whether he caught his earliest glimpse of the truth with his own eyes, or whether he gathered it from the mirthful voices of his Lancers saying something of the Busby-bags coming,' or 'the Busby-bags taking it coolly,' he at all events learnt to his joy that exactly at the time when he best could welcome its aid, a fresh English force was at hand. The force seen was only one squadron, but a squadron in beautiful order; and, though halted when first discerned, it presently resumed its advance, and was seen to be now fast approaching. It will now be convenient to observe the operations of the troops which were actively supporting Lord supporting Cardigan's first line, and to take them in the order of from left to right. actively the first line. The feel- It was with a generous admiration, yet also with a ings with which the thrilling anxiety, and with a sentiment scarce short *The 'Busby-bag' is the familiar name for the head-gear of the English Hussar, and-upon the pars pro totâ principle-for the Hussar himself. V. French saw our of horror, that the French saw our squadrons advance CHAP. down the valley, and glide on, as it were, to destruction; but especially was strong feeling aroused in that warlike body of horse which stood ranged, as we know, on the left rear of the ground whence our Light Brigade had advanced. alry addown the Light Cav vance North Valley. seurs d'Af brated 4th of the Though originating in arrangements somewhat The Chassimilar to those by which our Irregular Cavalry in rique. India is constructed, and though mounted on Algerine horses, the horsemen called 'the Chasseurs d'Afrique' were French at the time now spoken of, and they constituted an admirably efficient body of horse; but The celeif all the four regiments which composed it were equal Regiment the one to the other in intrinsic worth, the one which Chasseurs d'Afrique. had had the fortune to be in the greatest number of brilliant actions was the Fourth.' From the frequency with which the corps had chanced to be moved in Algeria, it went by the name of the 'Traveller' regiment. From the period of its merely rudimentary state in 1840, home down to this war against Russia, the career of the regiment had been marked by brilliant enterprises. When the Duc d'Aumale performed that famous exploit of his at Taguin, overruling all the cautions addressed to him by general officers and resisting the entreaties of his Arab allies (who implored him to wait for his infantry), it was with this Fourth' regiment of the African Chasseurs, supported only by some Spahis or native horsemen, that the youthful Prince broke his way into the great esmala of Abdel Kader, swept through it like a hurricane, overtook and defeated the enemy's column, cut off its VOL. IV. U |