Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/179

THK MAIN I'lGHT. 135 using their firelocks because the thickness of the brushwood was so great in several places as to keep the assailants and the assailed some distance asunder. The officers acting with this wing of the 77th had sprung to the front at the moment of commencing the charge, and each of them now in the melley became the leader of some group which instinctively followed his guidance; but also there was many a cluster of men toiling hotly in the wake of a sergeant, a corporal, or some trusted comrade, and upon the whole the force proved itself apt in combining individual energy with as much of joint action as the conditions of the tumult would allow. Towards this end, the mounted officers brought powerful aid, because overlooking the melley from the vantage-height of their saddles they could see at what points it might be at the moment most useful to press the pursuit, and it was owing in great measure to this guidance that the victors were able to cling so fast to their prey. On the other hand, the overthrown column, which only a little before had been an aggregate unit obedient to the word of command, was now a variously- willed multitude ; for numbers of them were prone in retreat, whilst many, like their comrades before them in the company columns, dropped down in the brushwood and feigned to be dead ; but others again gathering together into groups, or even small masses, and perceiving, perhaps, with a natural indignation that after all they were many, although hunted down by a few, Itt t'eriod