Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/137

THE MAIN FIGHT. 93 The rest of Soimonoff's force were meanwhile chap. ascending Mount Inkcrman, but not with that 1_ absolute freedom from hostile interruption which ^"^ ^""^'^ had been enjoyed by the head of the column. A part of his infantry was ascending by the West Sapper's Eoad, and still a mile distant from the foremost sentries thrown out by our established chain of pickets, when the march of the silent battalions was discovered by Captain Goodlake, captain 11- -ii 1 • on Goodlake's then posted where we observed hnn with his 6U interposi- men of the Guards. Though seeing was dithcult, and no decisive noises were audible, he became, as he expressed it, 'aware' that columns of in- fantry were ascending the steeps of the hill. Thereupon he at once despatched one of his soldiers with orders to go up along the bed of the Careenage Eavine, and give our people due warning of the approaching attack; but the man for some reason ascended by the bank on his left to the topland of Mount Inkerman, and was there taken prisoner by the advancing masses. Goodlake plied the discovered columns with fire, and the combat he provoked cost him a loss of six or seven men, but in one way proved advan- tageous ; for this, it seems, was the firing which led General Codrington to infer that an attack was beginning, and to put his troops in camp under arms. The enemy's reserves when brought up were so There- placed in the rear and right rear of the assailing forces that they could quickly begin, when needed, t/O take their part in the light.