168 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. chap, mony with the reasons adduced for undertaking ' the venture*) there was given him any support from other English batteries.! Captain Oldershaw had maintained the con- flict nearly five hours, when at length Captain Shaw — an officer his superior in rank — came down into the battery, pronounced it untenable, and directed him to retire.( G ) He however was allowed, before moving, to in- dulge a whim characteristic of the Artillery Arm. Of his guns — all disabled — there were three de- ranged only so far that they could not be ' laid ' for an aim ; and these last, although useless of course for anything like fighting purposes, and 'pointed' grotesquely from under the superin- cumbent ruins, could still be fired — could still therefore be made the means of bantering the enemy's gunners. This last quaint object achieved by a mocking salute of three guns which proved not to be dumb, although ' silenced ' in the Artillery sense, Captain Oldershaw withdrew his small remnant of men from the ruins of what, if for hours, that day, a hard-fighting battery, had since become rather the scene of an almost romantic self-sacrifice. Captain Oldershaw's lengthened persistence had been sanctioned of course — because dictated
- See ante, pp. 149, 150.
t Whether it was possible that he might have been receiving some little support from other and distant batteries without being able to discern it, artillerymen will judge.
