178 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. CHAP. VI. Simultane- ous en- gagement of the No. VIII. bat- tery, under Captain Walcott, on the morning of the 14th. ' to see the No. VII. battery, and found it quite a ' wreck. I always wondered how Henry and his 1 detachments could have stood up to it as they ' did for so long.' * ' Stand up to it,' however, they did with an ad- mirable valour and persistency during a period of nearly eight hours, never ceasing their fire until — at half -past one o'clock — the reliefs came down to succeed them.t Manned by Captain Walcott J of the Eoyal Artillery, with under him Lieutenant Torriano,§ Assistant -Surgeon Cockerill, and the requisite number of gunners, the ' advanced No. VIII.' was on the right of the ' advanced No. VII.,' and in the same — that is, the 3d — Parallel. Armed with six 32-pounders, it courted the fire of those same hundred guns which — potentially — opposed the sister battery ; and by some indeed of those guns — guns arming the (proper) right face of the great Kedan — it could be even more effectively searched. Thence accordingly, and (in an opposite di- rection) from the Garden Batteries as well as from other works, our ' advanced No. VIII.' was brought and kept under a strong fire — fire, some of it, enfilading, and some bestowed on its front.
- Letter of 30th Oct. 1883.
f Lord Raglan's warm appreciation of the services of Captain Henry and the officers and men under his command will be shown post, p. 180. J Now no more. § Now Colonel Torriano, R.A.. commanding the Royal Artil- lery at Sheeruess. To the best of his memory, the armament of the No. VIII. was as I state it.
