BATTLE OF THE ALMA. 221 iiieu coiuiiiii" down from the Great Itedoubt. Then Cii a r. 1 iiie battalion neatly opened -its ranks for the pas- L_ sayc of the retreating soldiery, and afterwards formed wp anew. * This done, it marched on. MeanwhiK>, General Codrington had been la- codrington bouring to bring together the remnant of his someinenof l>rigade. Sergeant 0'Ct)nnor, despite his grievous Division; wound, still bore the colour of the Ifoyal Welsh, which he had been carrying Mith loving care throughout the worst stress of the tight. The missing colour of the Iloyal Fusiliers, now com- mitted to the honour of the Welsh regiment, was borne by Captain Pearson. Around these two standards General Codrington rallied such men as he could gather, and made them open out and form line two deep. The body thus formed num- an 1 Ti • 1 (■ the Guards. lynig quite open m tJie centre ot the l)rigade ot Guards.-}- But it occurred to him — for he was himself a Guardsman, and he knew the feelings of the corp.s — that to place soldiers of the line abreast of the Grenadiers, and in the room of the broken regiment, might give pain to a battalion of
- ' Our 6th ami 7th companios opened out to let them pass,
' and closed up us coolly as if in Hyde Park.' — Colonel Hood, jirivatc letter. t Of course it is not intended that these words ' cliasni ' and
- interval ' (which occur in several places) shouUl be taken as
iudicatini^ that the Scots Fusilier Guards were far away, but merely that, for the moment, the main body of the battalion had lost its foruuition, and was rc-forining upon an alij^nmcnt a little in rear of that on which the Grenadiers were standinjj.
