Dramatic Cavalry Charges.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6265, 29 September 1891, Page 4

Dramatic Cavalry Charges.

[BY CAPTAIN C_AB_E3 KING.]

No. I.—THE HEAVY BRIGADE

(Continued)

By 6 o'clock the high crest behind the cavalry camp was covered by French auri English staff officers and generals who had heard the sounds of battlo over in the Balakiava Valley and had mounted in hot hastito see what was going on. And presently Lord Raglan himself appeared, and then it ■was that Lucan got his orders to move to the support of the Highlanders. The Heavies were nearest, sd, leaving Lord Cardigan with the Light Brigade sitting in

saddle in front of their camp, Lord Lucan trotted over to General Suurlett and bade him move by his right flank in the direction of the distant battle. Away they went, the bearskin shakos of the Grays ("those terrible gray horsee!" eaid Bapoleon at "Waterloo, looking at tbat same regiment) .and the brass helmets of the Inniskillens well to the front, the Royals and the Fourth and Fifth jogging , along in rear. They opened out to pass a little vineyard and then, heading for Balaklava, rode jingling out en the rolling, open prairie and were presently well over in what was called the South Valley, with a. low ridge—that of tho Causeway Height*—separating them from the North Valley where at thievery moment their comrades of tho |Light Brigade were placed in position,at its western end and - in •full view of what they, the Heavies, could not see at all—a dense mass of Russian horeemen, 3,000 of them at least count, in their flat caps and heavy gray coats riding ■westward up the valley. An English light battery had trotted out to the crest of the Chersonese, unlimbered there, and the moment it caught sight of these gray masses let drive a few shells right over the heads of Cardigan's troopers, and no sooner had the Russian leader found himself under fire of the guns than he sounded "By the left flank" on his bugles, and away swung the ■whole mass directly in front of the Light Brigade—moved steadily up the Causeway slops beyond which Yorke Scarlett was trotting townward with the red-coated dragoons, and the nest thing he and Lieutenant Eliot knew the whole ridge to their left was alive with the " banneroles " of Bussian lancers ; and then, in magnificent order, solid, massive, sixteen deep, those great battalions of Mutcovite horse came surging over the crest and down the gentle slope directly at his alender column. Why !if the Prussians had suddenly sounded the gallop and charge they •would have come thundering down that broad, open tract an avalanche of resistless force, and by sheer weight and inertia, without striking a blow, could have swept the brave British from the field. They were just about ten to his one at the instant Scarlett oaught eight of them, and how many more there might be behind that low ridge a quarter of a mile away, he never stopped to aak. Seeing the preponderance of metal against him any cavalryman would have been justified in wheeling to tho right and scampering under the shelter of the guns on the Ohersoneee, where at this moment Raglan and all his officers eat mad with anxiety as to the probable fate of the little brigade of red coats. Everybody expected to see him scurry off to the right, but Yorke Scarlett was a glorious fellow. Like a bulldog he whirled to the left and flew straight at the throat of his foe, Francs and England looking on from the crest behind. TLink of it! " Left wheel into line !" was his order, and the instant the Russian leader saw it, he proved his incompetence by sounding " halt," and then, as though utterly aghast at the nerve and pluck of those brilliant ranks, there he sat in saddle, amazed, irresolute, wondering what to do next. Scarlett settled all tbat for him. The Russian horse batteries, with more cavalry, I ■where popping up on that Causeway crest, but if there had been a million there inside of a minute it wouldn't have checked him now. "Gallop." "Charge?" he ordered the instant the troop leaders had aligned their ranks, and ever waiting for the Royals or the Fourth and Fifth to come up, or the leading squadron of the Inniskillings to get hack, in he went, Eliot and a big trumpeter at his heels, the Scots' Grays thundering hehind them, all riding straight as a dart for the centre of the Russian division. Up on the heights men held their breath and ■watched in amaze yet thrilled with admiration and delight. In front of them sat the Euasians, stolid, almost stupefied, as ■with the savage, Celtic,yell of the Inniskillings, the deep, guttural roar of the Scots, and later the ringing cheer of the Saxon Soyals the four nearest squadrons came dashing up the slope. Nd time to think now I A splendid looking officer— the Colonel probably—sat in saddle in front of the Russian centre. Scarlett's brass helmet and red coat under the light surtout deceived him. . Ho took Eliot, in chapeau and blue frock, for a general, and his last act in life «vaa a furious cut at the aide-de-camp which did no harm for Eliot's blade transfixed him and whirled him dead under tho horse's hoofs, nearly wrenching the sword from even Eliot's grasp. The next instant Scarlett and his staff officers had jhot deep into the Russian mass, and now, ■wedged in solidly on every eide, were battling for their lives. The two light ranke of British troopers had dashed upon the solid phalanx of Muscovite horse and could n-1 budge it. And then arose a din ovsr which no

orders could be heard. The clang of steel, the rattle of fierce blows, the wild shouts of the combatants, the neigh and scream of terrified horses many of whom bowed their heads to escape the rain of blows, while others, furious with the crush, bit and kicked with savage strength. Lance and sabre, pistol and fist. Never had the mild mannered Muscrvites known such assailants as those wild Irishmen or brawny Scots ■who lashed about like madmen and drew blood with every blow. Dozens of these docile riders, terrified at the vim and fury of the islanders, slipped from their saddles and took refuge under their horses' bellies. Others fought and prodded the best they knew how, but such savage fighting they had never dreamed of—such mad audacity. Three hundred dragoons charging three thousand solid lancers up hill was something never before heard of. The foremost horses of the Bassian ranks backed against those in rear. The 300 red coats were swallowed' up among 3,000 gray. Scarlett and KJiot ■were by this time so far in the heaving mass as to be beyond help of any hand, and there was no telling hew things might have ended when with resounding cheers the beiated squadrons of the Fourth and Fifth came dashing in on the Russian right. The advance of the Inniskillings came tearing back to the scene and charged home on the opposite flank, and then—then—to the enthusiastic delight of the spectators on the heights—after seven minutes of the most exhausting fighting ever known the whole Kussian mass began heaving backward up hill, and then dribbled, frittered, and clattered away in squads and bevies until presently Ryjofi's guna and lancers made a disorderly rush for the other end of tbe valley, whither their handful of conquerors were too breathlesn and exhausted to pursue. This was the timo for the Light Brigade to pitch in. Tbia was Cardigan's grand opportunity, hut he sat still and looked on Why? It will take anether chapter to tell. But one thing of a thousand interesting details must always remain uppermost in the minds of American soldiers who road oi this glorious exploit of the Heavy Brigade. Tho man of all others who had rnos? distinguished himself—who killed the Russian Colonel, fought his way to the very centre ef the Kussian square (for such it was) aud •was finally picked up sonseleaa with fourteen sabre and lance wouuds was Lieutenant Eliot. Scarlett, who was five times wounded, named the daring trooper in hia report as especially " entitled to the notice of the commander of the forces," but my Lord Lucan "pigeon-holed" hia brigade commander's earnest recommendation and named instead his own ttide-de-c-arap— a youDg aprig of tho nobility wno never drew a sabre in either fight. It was more than enough to disgust the cavalry with Lucan, even if he had cot done worse and more of it an hour or so later as we shall' eeo in the next chaptei