172 THE APKIL BOMBARDMENT. chap, time to prevent any baneful confusion;* but it . — happily remained in force long enough to elicit the manful petition of which I am going to speak. From the moment of becoming apprised of the order ' in orders ' until he received the counter- mand at 4 o'clock the next morning, Captain Oldershaw followed a course which was character- istic of the man and of the soldierly bent of his mind. He did not judge it his duty to inter- change explanations with the ' authorities,' but — in silence — to obey their commands ; and accord- ingly in the early morning of the 14th, he was preparing to go on parade and to march down once more with the men there already assembling to the scene of yesterday's havoc, when he re- and the ceived a message so touching that it ought to be cidentto known and remembered — a message trulv illus- which it . ° J gave rise, trative ol the quality of our soldiers, and the love, the trust, the devotion with which they range under an officer who, whilst able in other respects, seems instinctively prone to hard fighting. The score of undisabled survivors who had fought under Oldershaw might be few, yet were many enough to have an aggregate sentiment — the sentiment of a body proved staunch by the ordeal of a long, hearty fight; and these brave men believing that the direction set out 'in orders ' must import a resolve to go on, as it were, with their fight, they were filled with an eager desire to be once more amid the ' mad sand- bags ' of
- It would have clashed with the order which was given, as
will be afterwards seen, to Captain Henry.
