154 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. chap. Captain Oklershaw 'to work the battery to ex- ' ' tremity.' As on the former occasion, when only directed to go and try to overcome teasing obstacles, so now, charged with desperate service, Captain Oklershaw answered once more with the same captain ready, cheerful 'All right, sir.' Oldershaw ; «" o Of rather small stature, compact, fearless, quietly resolute, an accomplished artillery officer endowed with powerful energies, Captain Older- shaw was a man always bent upon carrying his warlike zeal to the extreme of devotion, yet so persistently firm in abstaining from self-celebra- tion that (as sometimes occurs in such cases) the people around him in camp proved all the more ready to see his genuine worth ; * and — whether governed by whim, or by inference from close observation — there were numbers of our gunners who persistently thought that the ' Zouave ' — for so, amongst themselves, they used to like calling their favourite — was a man they would gladly have over them in any hard -fighting battery. ( 5 ) Considering not only the confidence he was known to inspire in men under him, but also what he had done on the night of the 11th towards arming this very same battery, one might be easily led to imagine that he was singled out personally, on account of his well- known qualities, for the obviously adventurous
- A characteristic instance — and proof — of the 'abstinence
• from self -celebration ' will be seen j>ost, p. 173.
