Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/328

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284 THE BATTLE OF INKKKMAN. CHAP, some way, in an almost northerly direction, across ^^' that rib of high ground which ends in the Inker- u Period, man Tusk. XVI. Retrospect In their Struggles thus maintained on the Kit- of the fights -J. 1 1 • 1 J • ^ on the spur agamst hugely overweighting numbers, our ' ^" soldiery passed through a fierce ordeal ; but from almost every one of their fights they came out victorious.* When the enemy appeared on the north they attacked and defeated him ; when he appeared on the east they attacked, defeated, and chased him ; and when at last he appeared on the south (where lay their line of retreat) they at some points turned his flank, at others attacked and cut through him. Though beset by hostile forces in their rear as well as their front, they so well delivered themselves from the usual conse- quences of being cut off, that — far enough from any dream of a surrender in mass — they hardly, it seems, lost a prisoner.^

  • General Adams, with a strength of 700, was pressed back,

after hard fighting, by 4000 ; and Cathcart's attempt to drive oflf a whole Russian battalion with SO men was not crowned with success. But except as regards these two instances, I know of no combat on the Kitspur in which our people failed to achieve their purpose. + The Coldstream, the 41st, the 46th, the 49th, and the 95th had not, any of them, one single man ' missing.' In other regi- ments contributing to the English force on the Kitspur, the ' missing ' were — Grenadiers, 2 ; Fusilier Guards, 4 ; 20th, 6 ; 68th, 8 ; Rifle battalion, 6. No man could have been taken prisoner without coming into the list of the ' missing j ' but men might well be, and undoubtedly were, in the list of the 'missing' without having been taken prisoners.