Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/363

THE MAIN FIGHT. 319 The assailants were advancins^ in strength chap. VI against both the front and the right front of ! — Boothby's guns, but it was from another direction ^^ ^^°^' that the enemy delivered his home thrust ; for one of his columns, which had made a bend round by its right in order to approach unobserved, now all at once flooded in from the west upon the left flank of this half-battery, and in an instant Henry's gun was surrounded by Eussians. From the other part of the half-battery men found time to fire a round of case,' but not, it would seem, with any great result, for the weight of the attack was in the flank. I cannot undertake so broad a negative as to assert that no English infantry were witnesses of this attack, but it is certain that none came up in time to avert the capture. An order was given to limber up, but the drivers, it then appeared, had already retreated with all the limbers and teams ; and Eussian troops then breaking in upon the two upper guns, the officers and artillerymen present with that part of the demi-battery fell back several paces, or rather moved up by their right to a higher part of the Eidge. When the foremost of the enemy's troops had so closely surrounded Henry's gun as to be already but a few paces off, they charged in with loud shouts, undertaking to bayonet the gunners ; but by Henry himself, and one at least of his people, they were encountered with desperate valour. Henry called upon his men to defend the gun. He and a valiant gunner named James Taylor