I'.ATTLE OF Tin: ALMA. 1 1 7 For a little while every gun in the great battery c ii A P. above remained dark and silent. 1^ Amongst the Eussians who were plying their field-glasses from the parapet of the Great Ee- doubt there was a question meet for debate : — ' If the scarlet men of the sea were presumptu-
- ously bent upon storming the work, where was
' the great column of attack, and where the great ' column of support, and where the great columns
- of reserve that must needs have been formed for
' such an enterprise ? Yet, if they had no such ' purpose, wdiy were so many men coming up ' under the guns within grape-shot range ? And
- unless those English were really attacking in
' force, why, in the name of the Holy Virgin and ' our own blessed Sergins,* why, riding forward ' even in front of the skirmishers, should there ' be that superb-looking horseman on the grey ' charger,' — they meant, of course, Sir George Brown — ' whose visible rage no less than his
- general's hat clearly showed that he held high
- command ? '
Upon the whole, it seemed that the advance of the red-coated soldiery must be an irruption of skirmishers preparatory to an attack in force, but still an irruption so strong as to be worthy of all that artillery could do to crush it. So, the Pais- sian sharpshooters having now for the most part
- The troops in and near the redoubt belon^t^ed to the 16th
Division — a body which carried with it the ' Icon,' or pictured image of St Sergius. This venerated image had been solemnly entrusted to the Division bj' the Bishop of Moscow.
