COLONEL YEA'S ATTACK. 195
still in the pride of attack, yet so closely ap- chap.
preaching misfortune as almost to touch its brink. _
Any answer from him to the question of the
piloting Engineer must needs have been either
one owning his persistent attack to be hopeless,
or else an answer enjoining some wild, frantic
act of the kind that is rather sacrificial than
warlike. Opportune, under such conditions, may
have well been the shot which, before he could
open his lips, laid on him the silence of death.
Except as regards the storm column (from
which clear duty compelled him to exact heavy
sacrifice) Colonel Yea had been chary of the lives
of his men ; for, though holding an extended
authority, he did not direct that the bulk of the
troops he commanded should come up — encoun-
tering slaughter— in close support to the lesser
body of men with which he acted in person. In
that smaller body, however, as may well be sup-
posed, the proportion of loss was huge. Irrespec- ami of other
tive of the Engineers and the sailors, our infantry of men.'" 1 '
sharing with Yea in his onset against the Redan
on its eastern or (proper) left flank lost no less
than fourteen of their officers, and more than
three-fifths of their strength ; * whilst there also
unhappily fell a distressingly large proportion of
the few Engineers and of the sixty seamen who
- Out of the 100 men furnished by the Rifle Brigade and the
400 by the 34th Regiment, making together 500 bayonets with besides some soldiers acting as bearers, there fell 313 either wounded or killed.
