Page:Clyde and Strathnairn.djvu/108

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CLYDE AND STRATHNAIRN

distinguished himself both at the Alma and at Inkerman. In 1885 Sir Robert Morier, now Her Majesty's Ambassador at St. Petersburg, told the present writer that he had recently met the officer who had commanded the Russian pickets along the Inkerman heights. This officer mentioned, as one of the most remarkable incidents of the day, that he had seen through the mist a tall, gaunt figure riding leisurely down the Tchernaya road under a withering fire from the whole line of pickets. The horseman turned neither to the right nor to the left, nor could the Russians hit him. Suddenly they saw him fall headlong with his horse. After a few minutes, paying no attention to the firing, the mysterious horseman got up, shook himself, patted his horse, and led the animal leisurely back up the road. The Russians were so awe-struck, that an order was sent along the line to cease firing on the man, who we 'afterwards learnt,' said the Russian officer, 'was Colonel Rose.'

Lord Clarendon warmly commended 'the way in which Colonel Rose maintained the best relations with the French Commander-in-Chief and his Staff, and the advice he had tendered at different times in a highly becoming tone and spirit, in conformity with the wishes and opinions of Her Majesty's Government.' For his services in the Crimea he was promoted to be a Major-General, was made a Knight of the Bath, and a Commander of the Legion of Honour.

Such were the antecedents of the man whose work in India we have now to record. Ever at the post of