heights of Mount Inkerman, where at six o'clock he began to form order of battle. For some reason never explained, he disregarded that part of the plan which prescribed that he should combine with Pauloff, and act under the orders of Dannenberg. Waiting for neither, he at once commenced the attack. Spreading 300 riflemen as skirmishers across his front, he formed his first line of 6000 men, and the second, in immediate support, of 3300. The advance of these would cover the heavy batteries, numbering twenty-two guns, which he had brought from the arsenal of Sebastopol. These, corresponding to our eighteen-pounder guns and thirty-twopounder howitzers, were posted on Shell Hill, and the high slopes which buttressed it right and left. Behind them came his 9000 remaining infantry, as a general reserve, and the light batteries (sixteen guns) which formed the remainder of his artillery. These operations were completed by about seven o'clock, when the heavy batteries opened fire, and his lines of columns descended the hill. The pickets of the Second Division, each of a company, and numbering altogether 480 men, were at once pressed back fighting. But the main body of the Division, not ranged on the crest as in Evans's recent action, was pushed in fractions at once down the hill to support the pickets, by Pennefather, who commanded in the temporary absence of Evans, then sick on board ship. He was probably less impelled to this mode of action by any tactical reasons, though these, too, favoured it, than by his fighting propensity, which always led him to make for his enemy. Consequently, the crest was
Effects of the Fog. 1 4 1
held only by the twelve nine-pounder guns of the Division, and a small proportion of its infantry. The large Russian projectiles not only swept the crest, but completely knocked to pieces the camp on the slope behind it, and destroyed the horses tethered there.
The morning was foggy, the ground muddy, and the herbage dank. The mist did not, however, envelop the field. Shell Hill was frequently visible, as well as Codrington's troops across the ravine, and columns could sometimes be descried while several hundred yards off. It was chiefly in the hollow that the mist lay, but even here it frequently rose and left the view clear. No doubt it was favourable to the fewer numbers, hiding from the Russians the fact that there was nothing behind the English lines, which came on as boldly as if strong supports were close at hand. It needs some plausible supposition of that kind to account (however imperfectly) for the extraordinary combats which ensued, where the extravagant achievements of the romances of chivalry were almost outdone by the reality.
On reaching the point of the plateau where it was narrowed by the glens, the Russian battalions halted to give their guns time to produce their effect. When they resumed their march, the battalion columns on the right passed first, and thus our left was the part of our line which received the first attack. It is to be noted as a feature of the field that at the point where the postroad enters the Quarry ravine, and where we had a picket, a wall of loose stones, crossing the road and stretching into the coppice on each side, had been thrown up as
142 Soimonojfs Right in Advance.
a slight defence, and to mark the ground, and this was known as "the Barrier."
Here it must be remarked that the indefatigable inquiries of Kinglake, and the care with which he arranged the information thus obtained, first disentangled the incidents of the battle from the confusion which long hid them, and rendered them intelligible, as they had never been before, even to those who fought in the action.