Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 6.djvu/420

37G rilE BATTLl-; 01 INKERMAN. CHAP. VL ith Period. Engagement between these two guns and the bat- teries on Shell HiU. that the accession of only two heavy guns should suddenly enable his adversary to work a cardinal change. The truth is that, as compared with the heaviest of the enemy's ordnance on Mount Inkerman, these two English guns had a mastery which was not of such kind as to be measured by the difference between eighteen and twelve. They were long iron guns, weighing each 42 hundred- weight, bearing very strong charges of powder, and — at any such ranges as those now about to be tried — they threw their eighteen-pound ball with precision and terrific power. Of these two eighteeu-pounders the first was under Sinclair, the second under D'Aguilar and Harward ; and at half-past nine o'clock, the one first in readiness opened. That first shot was fired to try the distance, and fell short, but the next one found out the enemy, and tore into one of his batteries. The aggression of course did not fail to provoke counterfire, and from battery after battery a storm of round-shot and shell came pelting at the crest of Hill Bend. From some unexplained causes it happened that a large proportion of all this iron and lead flew at just such a height as to come striking against the embryo parapet in front of the two eighteen-pounders, and a great deal of slaughter was thus warded off by an obstacle no more than about two feet high. Still there were quantities of the enemy's artillery missiles which shot clear of this dwarf gabionade, and some besides which broke through it. From moment