198 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap. Airey, and its words were in General Airey's . handwriting. rim ' fourth The order ran thus : ' Lord Raglan wishes the 1 order. '
- cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow
' the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carry- ' ing away the guns. Troop of horse-artillery may ' accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Im- ' mediate. (Signed) R Airey.' Whether taken alone, or as a command rein- forcing the one before sent, this order has really no word in it which is either obscure or mislead- ing. By assigning ' the guns ' as the object, Lord Eaglan most pointedly fixed the line of the Turkish redoubts as the direction in which to advance ; and it must not be said that the ex- pression left room in the mind of Lord Lucan for a doubt as to what guns were meant. He well knew that the guns indicated by the ' fourth ' order ' were the English guns taken in the forts — in the forts crowning those very ' heights' which, more than half an hour before, he had been ordered to retake if he could ; * and no one,
- In the controversies arising out of the Light Cavalry
charge, it was sometimes argued that there was a doubt as to what were ' the guns ' to which the fourth order pointed ; and that circumstance makes it convenient to say and to prove, once for all, that Lord Lucan at the time knew very well what 'the guns' were. In his despatch addressed to Lord Raglan, on the 27th of October 1854 — the day next but one after the battle— he writes : 'The Heavy Brigade having now joined the ' Light Brigade, the division took up a position with a view of
- supporting an attack upon the heights ; when, being in-
• structed to make a rapid advance to our front to prevent the ' enemy carrying the guns lost bi/ the Turkish troops in the 4 morning, I ordered,' &c.
