of the Isthmus that re-entering line was prolonged by the pickets of the Guards.
The Guards. The Brigade of Guards lay camped at a distance of about three quarters of a mile in rear of the 2d Division, and was under the immediate command of Major- General Henry Bentinck ; but H.R.H the Duke of Cambridge was present in person with this portion of his division. The Guards performed a twofold duty ; for being near the crests of the Sapounè Ridge they watched the approaches of the Chersonese from the east, and were also charged with the more momentous task of supporting the 2d Division in its resistance to attacks from the north.
Posted thus to defend the Chersonese at its most assailable part, the 2d Division and the Guards had to furnish and maintain on the watch night and day as many as fourteen pickets, each consisting of an entire company, and on account of the stress put upon them by this heavy amount of outpost duty, had been lately dispensed from the additional task of supplying working parties and guards for the trenches.[1]
- ↑ Before this change, the double exigencies of outpost duty and duty in the trenches had absorbed so large a proportion of the troops that there were times in the day when the number of men left in camp was most perilously small. Sir De Lacy Evans, writing, I suppose, at one of those hours when the working parties, and both the reliefs and the old pickets, were absent on duty, said: 'I have but 600 men on this front position. The troops are completely worn out with fatigue. This is most serious.' And so early as the 25th of October Sir George Brown had even reported 'that at daylight, instead of having any one in camp for the defence of the position,
