368 THE BATTLE OF INKEllMAN. CHAP. VI. ith Period. Steps taken for obtain- iug small rcSiforco- ments. The succour etitained by Ramsay Stuart. must soon become almost null unless he could have some little succour. The order he thereupon gave conveys of itself some idea of the way in which our people were maintaining this struggle. Saying, ' If we don't ' get support we shall be cut to pieces/ he directed Major Eamsay Stuart — the only mounted officer remaining who was not in command — to gallop back to the 2d Division camp and ' send up the ' "camp-guard," or any other available men he ' could find.' Those words breathed the very spirit of Inkerman. There it was, only there, that an officer with a handful of troops would hang fastened upon the throat of a hostile army, would confess his dire need of reinforcements, and yet somehow think to make shift with perhaps about one hundred more men. Stuart found in the camp when he reached it a little body of in- fantry, of about 150 strong, already drawn up under two or three officers, to whom he gave Goldie's orders, and they at once began moving their force towards the scene of the fight at the Barrier.* Riding back into the heat of the fight with this reinforcement, Ramsay Stuart met a body of some thirty English soldiers walking tranquilly back from the front. He asked them why they were retreating, and they answered (through the sergeant who was one of their num- ber), that they had no one to lead them. Stuart ordering them to align with the reinforcement he
- It is believed that this body of 150 men was a reorganised
portion of what had been the ' spent forces.'
