Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/242

212 P&LISSIER. chap, ordnance powers they had wielded before the 1_ bombardment. In that very Dockyard Ravine where the enemy had failed to arrest the advanc- ing head of a column, his almost insuperable power was quickly proved with great clearness ; for, though (owing to some inadvertence) the battalion of French Chasseurs and the 80 French Engineers had been suffered to reach the defences on the western flank of the Malakoff, and had then broken through them, those troops in their rear that formed the bulk of the column were so per- emptorily stopped or fended back by the enemy's restored batteries as to be debarred from perform- ing what must otherwise have proved the glad task of moving into the fortress by paths already laid open, and there reinforcing the men who had brilliantly shown them the way. The sudden change of design which brought General Pelissier to send infantry encumbered with ladders across distances of several hundreds of yards in the teeth of great batteries restored to their full power of destructiveness was an error on so huge a scale that, when once it had taken effect, no skill unaided by Fortune could well have averted discomfiture. Fortune once — only once — seemed to smile. First, lulling the enemy's gunners, she gave her hand to brave men thus enabled to move down unscathed, and carried them into the fortress, where, after overthrowing their adversaries, they long maintained a firm hold of the ground they had won ; but — perhaps