302 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. chap, squadron coining down to the support of theii 1 comrades. Therefore, having now cut open a re- treat not only for themselves, but also for such of the other remnants of the Light Brigade as might be near enough to seize the occasion, Shewell's regiment and the men who had joined it continued to pursue the direction in which they had charged, in other words, to retire. Colonel Shewell, it seems, did not judge that the condition of things was such as to warrant any attempt at the usual operation of governing a retreat by fronting from time to time with a portion of the force; and those who remained of the seventy had only to withdraw up the valley with such speed as they could. In this movement they were followed by Captain Jenyns and the few men of the first line — men chiefly, it is supposed, of the 13th Light Dragoons — who had been acting under his guid- ance, or riding, at all events, near him. When our retreating horsemen had ridden clear of Jeropkine's discomfited Lancers, they began once more to incur severe fire from those batteries on the Causeway Heights, and those rifles in the same part of the field, which had thinned their ranks during the advance ; but they were not molested by cavalry, and they observed, without knowing the cause of the change, that there was silence on the Fedioukine Hills* It happened, as might be expected, that, in the trail of our small body of retreating horsemen, This result, aswc know, was owing to I V All on villi's attack with tin' Chasseurs d'AMque.
