THE APKIL BOMBARDMENT. 147 With a view to the morrow, however, this be- chap. ginning of a fight did some harm. It withdrew !._ from our ' advanced No. VII.' the shelter of that blank indifference with which the enemy's gun- ners were wont to treat every dumb battery, and invited them to perfect their 'ranges.' More- over, though by what exact means no one seems to have learnt, it caused the new mantlets to vanish.* An official narrator has stated that our gun- Decision . . , said to have ners on the 12th of April were very soon or- been based ... on observa- dered to cease firing, and this tor the reason turn of this i i i c encounter. that — unsupported — the battery could be or no service;! but, if any such judgment then held the ascendant, it was— not merely changed, but — reversed. V. The advanced No. VII. of our Left Attack The two . . advanced was the battery destined to be fought on the batteries of i -i ~ -i - our Left 13th of April by Captain Oldershaw, and on Attack. the 14th by Captain Henry. It was one of two batteries rooted in the 3d Parallel of our Left Attack, and was not only in a position of great comparative proximity to the enemy's frowning defences, but moreover so very low down as to be commanded from most of the ramparts which it seemed to be audaciously
- They apparently were either ' shot away ' by the enemy's
guns or ' blown away ' by our own. — Journal Royal Engineers, vol. ii. p. 135. t Journal of the Royal Artillery, p. 80.
