Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 9.djvu/201

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GENERAL CAMPBELL'S ATTACK. 171


Battery, and this with a force unimpaired by the chap. bombardment of the previous day. With before ! — them Sebastopol in all its strength at a distance nowhere less than 400 yards, and trained to take advantage of ground, the Eiiles getting together hung back for a while under such little shelter as was afforded by the westward slope of the spur.* Thence they plied the Redan with a fire that seemed to produce no effect. Of course this halt of the Rifles forced Murray also to halt with his few Engineers ; but Graham had still work to do in bringing up his wool-sack and ladder parties. The ladder. Already he had lost several men. It was found that the soldier — foot soldier — seemed averse more or less from the service of carrying burthens across a vast space under torrents of fire without having his hand on the weapon — the weapon be- loved and trusted — which in fights of the kind he is most accustomed to contemplate forms almost a part of himself ; but the sailors proved dauntless. The vast stature of the young Engineer who Gerald l , . , Graham directed their energies made him strangely con- and the ^.ii saUors - spicuous in the field, and it was on Gerald Graham and the sailors that the praises of ob- servers converged. Murray at this time was mortally wounded, and Murray J J mortally the command of the Engineers devolved upon wounded. Graham. Then the brave, the hot-tempered Colonel Tyl-

  • The distance of 400 yards was from the Quarries to the

salient of the Redan. The distance from its re-entering angle —the chosen point of attack — was 470 yards.