I'.ATTLE OF TIIK ALMA. lo9 a livuok— as a brook which a soldier must pass CHAP. without picking his way * — the battalion niarchcd J_. tlirough it in line ; f and though there were some points where a passage was easy, others where the soldiers had to wade deep, and some few — so they say — where the men were put to their swimming, still each file kept its place in the line with a near approach to exactness. At length — but after a painful lapse of time, for Codrington's dis- ordered battalions were clinging all this while to the parapet of the Great Eedoubt — the brigade of Guards stood halted, and formed anew under cover of the bank on the llussian side of the river. Their people were sheltered ; but the heads of their colours, protruding a little above the top of tiie bank, could be seen by men look- inff down from the redoubt. The Highland brio-ade at this time was not Advance of under a heavy fire, and Sir Colin Campbell land Biigida •^ to the lelt effected the operation of passing the river very bank of u.e simply ; for, without attempting formal evolutions, each of his regiments, whilst it advanced, tried to keep np, as well as the nature of the ground would allow, the rudiments of its line-formation ; and when it gained the opposite bank, its array was carefully restored. As soon as one of the regiments was duly formed on the Russian side of
- For very good reasons, soldiers iii marching are called ujton
to go straight through brooks and pools of water withont pick- ing their way. t With the exception of one (the 2d) company, commanded by Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, which, happening ti he near the bridge, filed over it.
