Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/257

TIIK MAIN FIGHT. 213 pet which sloptul away low at each Hank. Before chap. long, there came venturesome men, who not only ' climbed up the parapet, but stood for a while on ^'^ ^™^- its top overlooking our people below, and begin- ning to fire down upon them. Colonel Percy, not brooking the sight of this trespass, clambered up from his side of the parapet in order to drive off the intruders, but was himself thrown down backwards by the weight of a stone heaved against him whilst turning to give an order ; and when in spite of his hurt he again climbed the parapet, he was so heavily struck on the brow by a fragment of rock from the hand of some Russian Ajax, that again, as before, he fell down backwards, and, this time, the blow laid him senseless. Those of the Grenadiers within the Battery False posi- who had found berths for themselves near one of Gnniidiers within the its shoulders, or by one of its two embrasures, work, could engage more or less in combats ; but the great proportion of the troops, though exposed every instant to the chances of an overwhelming attack on either flank, had to stand almost passive at the foot of a parapet some ten feet high, and to listen meanwhile with what patience they might to the raging yells of a multitude fended off by no physical obstacle except on one front, and there, only by a pile of earth revetted with sand- bags and gabions, which any one who chose might climb.