140 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. CHAP, battalions had vacated, they could there see no ' Russians before them except men l^ing wounded ui Period, or dead. In the course of their recent advance those two Catherinburg battalions, as we saw long ago, had overflooded the ground where three of Townsend's The enemy's guns stood ; but having captured neither limbers mentof' uor teams, the enemy did not now, when retreat- Bngiish iug, find means to take ofi' his prize, and accord- ingly, the ebb of the receding soldiery left the cannon — all three of them — standing on the site recovery of of the fray with our gunners. There the men of them by oui- "^ *^ people. the Connaught Eangers and of the 47th regiment foimd our three guns, remaining deserted ; * and the discovery, even to them, was an interesting and grateful surprise; but to the young Lieutenant Miller (who was with them), the moment was one of rapture ; and immense, a little while later, was the joy of many a gunner belonging to Town- send's battery, when he clasped his nine-pounder once more, and found, as he presently did, that the endeavour to spike 'her' had failed. -f-
- In his private Report addressed to Headquarters, the day
after the battle, General Buller, I see, states that the three guns 'were speedily recaptured by the 88th regiment.' The use of the word ' recaptured ' was objectionable, because it might be ti-eated as meaning that the 88th companies had re- covered the guns vi et armis, and that was not the fact. They found the deserted guns, and our people thenceforth had undis- puted possession of them ; but of course the troojia which virtually 'recaptured' them were those which won and pressed the victory, resulting in the retreat of the captors. + In the language of gunners a piece of field-artillery is en dearingly treated as feminine. The Russians had endeavoured
