At last, attacked by overwhelming numbers, the Guards found themselves outflanked, and with great difficulty effecting an orderly retreat, the battery again fell to the Eussians. Eeinforced however by the 20th regiment, they again dashed cheering towards the battery, Colonel Percy, who had been severely wounded at Alma, rushing gallantly to the front, and setting an example which those around him were not slow to emulate. Ammunition now began to fail, but the undaunted assailants found a ready resource in some large fragments of stone with which the ground was strewed; arming themselves with these, they flung them into the masses of Eussians, who caught the idea, and for some minutes the air was thick with huge stones flying in all directions. It was with some of these eccentric missiles, we believe, that Colonel Percy was now again wounded. The primitive but deadly contest was waged for a time with equal vigour on both sides, but the determined pluck of the British again turned the scale, and once more a melee of Grenadiers, Coldstreams, and Fusiliers held the battery their own, and from it, on the solid masses of Eussians, still poured as good a fire as their ammunition would permit.
Colonel Lindsay now headed a charge with the utmost gallantry on the Eussians, who were soon in full retreat, and the Guards, joined by men of all sorts of regiments, picked up ammunition from the dead and dying foe, with which they fired into the enormous retreating columns, causing them the most fearful slaughter. Cheei'ing one another on, and carried away by an indescribable enthusiasm, the glorious little band pushed on too far, and did
THE EAST.
not discover their false position till some of their men fell shot from behind. For a moment it was believed that the reserves, not perceiving them, were firing into them; but the next, the cry was raised, "The Eussians — we're cut off!" "I could see," says an officer, who was fortunate enough to escape from this fearful giiet a pens, only to share in another and more decisive charge later in the day, where again he seemed to bear a charmed life, "I could see a sea of Russian caps all round me, and the lire was tremendous." Those of his comrades who succeeded, like himself, in gaining their desperate way back again, now joined an ofKcer who was rallying some men, and the whole of them, having been supplied with fresh ammunition, and headed by the Duke of Cambridge, once more advanced to the attack. Here, as before. Guards and Linesmen were mixed up together, and formed as it were one regiment; for in the darkness and confusion caused by the fog, and with every movement hampered by the thick brushwood which at that time covered the whole of the field, it had been impossible for individuals to rally to their respective corps; and the only thought in every heart was in what direction there might be an enemy to attack or a comrade to succour. Five battalions, despatched by General Canrobert under the command of General Bosquet, had now arrived on the scene of action, and took ground to the right of the British. This was the culminating point of the battle. The French Infantry consisted of a battalion of the Zouaves, and of some other curjjs iVclite; and these magnificent troops now vigorously attacked the already wavering Eussians with the point of the bayonet. Thrice and again did they charge with incredible ardour mto the close and ponderous legions of the Muscovite, but it was only after the third charge that the obstinate foe at length beat a sullen retreat, and surrendered the ground, which was covered with his own dead and wounded.
Colonel Gambier had fallen wounded in the very act of bringing up his two eighteen-pounder guns, but their command devolved upon Colonel Dickson, an officer who handled them with such fatal effect, that long lanes were seen to be ploughed through the Eussian columns at each discharge; and the enemy's guns, which attempted to reply, were speedily dismantled and rendei-ed useless.
While these events were going on on the right, the Light Division were not idle. A determined assault was made on the extreme left of the English Army; and for a moment the enemy possessed themselves of four of our guns, three of which were retaken by the Connaught Eangers, while the fourth was speedily re-captured by the 77th, under Lieutenant-Colonel Egerton, an officer of the highest distinction, whose untimely fate in the capture of the Eifle-pits is still doubtless fresh in the memory of every reader. During the thickest of the strife, Sir George Cathcart attempted to make a powerful a: <
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