92 THE BATTLE OF INKEliMAN. CHAP, burg battalions, and having with them 22 heavy ^^- 12-poundei- guns, constituted the more advanced iitPtriod portion of Soimonoffs force; and at six o'clock, these foremost troops, having a front which stretched freely across the toplands from north- east to south-west, were silently advancing along the spine of Mount Inkerman in their favourite order of battle. First marched the Eifles in ex- tended order, then on the right two battalions of the Tomsk, and on the left, in the same alignment, two battalions of the Kolivansk regiments; but each of these four battalions had been broken up into four ' compauy columns,' three marching in front upon the same alignment, with intervals between them, and the fourth coming on in support. So, that which followed next to the Eitles was a line of small columns twelve in number, with four other like columns in their immediate rear.* In support to all these troops the four Catheriuburg battalions advanced in close One of the battaliou columns; but one of them diverged Dmsion for a whilc from the general line of march, Srised descended into the bed of the Careenage Kavine, MptS^d.^ and there surprising a picket of the Light Divi- sion took prisoners its commanding officer with a sergeant and eleven men.f The 22 guns, covered by the infantry, moved in double column of route ; but when brought into battery, were to take the centre of the line of battle.
- As regards the actual state of the battalions thus broken up
into ' coiiipauy columns,' scu ^joa<, p. 116.
The picket mentioned, ante, p. 58, as having been surprised.
