274 THE BATTLE OF INKERMAN. UHAP. down to this moment, the little bevy of English • was still advancing against the column. Of the uperua. i-^yQ^ which would halt or hold back? Not the Ptussians; for, this time, at least, with English colours retreating before them, they came on with set purpose ; and, whilst their people in front gave a voice to the eagerness of the force by their shouts and fierce yells, the whole mass was kept in glad consciousness of its overwhelming num- bers by the multitudinous strains of a hymn roaring up from its depths. Must it then be the eighteen or twenty English who, as was natural, would have to yield ? Not they, if their Captain could choose, for his shout was now again heard : ' Get close together and charge them once more,
- my men ! ' Desperate as his appeal might sound,
he was obeyed. ' I thought it perfectly useless,' says Bancroft, with his soldierlike simplicity ; ' I ' thought it perfectly useless so few of us trying ' to resist such a tremendous lot ; but, for all that, ' I did so.' In modern war the clash of two hostile forces does not often occur at a moment when each is advancing against each ; but here, certainly, the still persisting column was met in its onward course by the still continuing onset of the small English band, and for once, troops whilst charg- ing were charged. Could a score of men survive hostile contact like this with a strong, well- ordered, and resolute battalion ? To one looking back as did Richard Minor from ground close beside the Queen's colour, the small English
