218 TlIK 15ATTLK oK liNKKKMAN. ciiAi'. aud iH'esence of mind in the individual men. VI. From what I have called the 'knotted' part of "^ " the string, men would come to ' bear a hand/ as they phrased it, at any weak threatened point, and there was a great intermixture of troops. If a man chanced to find himself planted amongst the soldiery of another regiment, he would not only work heart and soul alongside them, but even perhaps grow to think that he had won for himself a specially good fighting berth ; and in such case, being true Anglo - Saxon, he would become tenacious of his supposed advantage, much as though, after pushing his way in some sight-seeing crowd at home, he had found at last
- a good place.' What struck the mind of an
officer newly coming into the midst of the strife maintained in this part of the field was — not merely the evident confidence of our men but — the good humour, and even the mirth, which seemed to be reigning amongst them.* The Coldstream at first could not get their wet rifles to speak, but they dried them after a while by snapping off numbers of caps, and soon the fire of our people extended along their whole line. The strife raged. Sometimes heavy masses thronged howling against the face of the dismantled Battery, sometimes against the part of our line which looked down on St Clement's Gorge, sometimes against that which faced eastward towards the valley of the Tchernaya, and sometimes again they • The ofiBcer alluded to is Colonel Cadogan of the Grenjidiere, See a/nte, chap, iv., sec. ii.
