Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 5.djvu/125

i III*: BATTLE OS BALACLAVA 103 and all his people were much busied in preparing ; chap. and, so iar as I have heard, no attention was ' awakened by the sound of the divisional trumpet. Though our people saw clearly enough that at all hazards, and notwithstanding all disparity of numbers, the enemy's impending masses must be attacked by Scarlett's scant force, they still had no right to imagine that they could achieve victory, or even ward off disaster, by means of the kind which a General of Cavalry is accustomed to contemplate. When an officer undertakes a charge of horse, his accustomed hope is, that he will be able to shatter the array of the foe by the momentum and impact of his close serried squad- rons led thundering in at a gallop ; and, indeed, it is a main part of his reckoning that the bare dread of the shock he thus threatens will break down all resistance beforehand For Scarlett, there could be no such hope. The scantiness of his numbers was not of itself a fatal bar to the prospect of conquering by impact ; but he was so circumstanced as to be obliged to charge uphill and over ground much impeded in some places by the picket-ropes and other remains of the camp. Nor was this the worst. The vast depth of the column forbade all prospect of shattering it by a blow ; for even though the troopers in front might shrink, and incline to give way under the shock of a charge, they would be physically prevented from making a step to the rear by the massiveness of the squadrons behind them. But, however desperate the task of Sdarlett's