THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 141 where a ship has gone down, were as earth closing chap. over a grave. One of the ablest of our Light ' Cavalry officers has striven to record the feelings with which he looked down on this part of the fight : — ' How can such a handful resist much ' more make way through such a legion ? Their ' huge flanks overlap them, and almost hide them • from our view. They are surrounded, and must
- be annihilated. One can hardly breathe ! '
Yet if any observer thus trembling for the fate The circum- of Scarlett's ' three hundred ' had had his gaze under which i n i tit *^ e y were less closely rivetted to one spot, he would have attempted. seen that, however desperate might be the con- dition of this small body of horsemen now seem- ingly lost in gross numbers, there was no fresh ground for alarm in this singular manoeuvre of the Eussian cavalry. General Scarlett had at- tacked the great column with so small a propor tion of his brigade, that, when the ' three hundred ' had engulfed themselves in the column, there still remained four distinct bodies of Heavy Dragoons (consisting altogether of seven squad- rons), which, sooner or later, the English might bring to bear upon all the fresh exigencies of the combat ; and it is plain that to some, nay, to most, of these seven squadrons, the enemy's in- wheeling flanks were offering no common occa- sion. On the other hand, the Eussians, notwith- standing their great numerical strength, had so committed themselves to the plan of acting in mass as to be virtually without ' supports ; ' for although, as we saw, there was a part of the force
