Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/149

THE 11KAVY TASK KEMAINING. 119 ing the Work, Colonel Campbell accepted and chap. throughout retained supreme command in the . Quarries, not only of the original attacking force campbeivs „ 11 , -i • o i command. and supports, but of all the reinforcements brought up in the course of the night. The commander of the working-party of the 49th Regiment, which the 2d Division had fur- nished, was Colonel Thornton Grant, whom we have known, if so one may speak, since the morn- ing of the Inkerman day. Whilst overlooking colonel his men, Grant found himself at the side of Col- meeting with Col- onel Tylden, the gifted Engineer officer whom oneiTyiden again and again we have seen where the fighting was thickest. Even he, even Tylden himself was for one instant doubting whether under the fire — the murderous fire — of artillery which now swept the site of the projected constructions, it would be possible for mortal men to execute the task or- dained ; but convincing himself the next moment that, unless a communication and lodgment could be made good before morning, the victory achieved by our stormers would prove to be all in vain, he resolved that at even a sacrifice so great as to seem appalling, the needed work must be done. What he followed — unknowingly — was the logic of him who once said : " It is necessary to sail : it is not necessary to live." Grant warmly concur- ring, and trustful in the valour of his 49th men, undertook to propel the execution of the work which was to connect the newly won ground with our system of trenches at the point called ' Eger- ' ton's Pit.'