th this body
went the Royal Picts. The Second Division benefited greatly by this
advance, for the Russians were now absolute masters of the crest of
the Inkerman hill, where they established their batteries, and poured
forth volley after volley, all of which passed harmlessly over the
heads of our men. Meanwhile the alarm spread. A continuous firing,
momentarily increasing in vigour, showed that this was no affair of
outposts, but the beginning of a great battle. The bulk of the allied
forces were under arms, and notice of the attack had been despatched
to Lord Raglan at the English headquarters.

In less than a quarter-of-an-hour, long before 7 a.m., Lord Raglan was
in his saddle, ready to ride wherever he might be required most.

But whither should he go? The battle, as it seemed, was waging all
around him, on every side of the allied position. A vigorous fire was
kept up from Sebastopol; down in the Tchernaya valley the army,
supposed to be still under Liprandi, but really commanded by
Gortschakoff, had advanced towards the Woronzoff road, and threatened
to repeat the tactics of Balaclava by attacking with still greater
force the right rear of our position; last of all, around Mount
Inkerman, the unceasing sound of musketry and big guns betrayed the
development of a serious attack.

Lord Raglan was not long in doubt. He knew the weakest point of the
British position, and rightly guessed that the enemy would know it
too.

"I shall go to Inkerman," he said. "That is their real point, I feel
sure. And we must have up all the reinforcements we can muster. You,
Burghersh, tell Sir George Cathcart to move up his division and
support Pennefather and Brown. You, Steele, beg General Bosquet to
lend me all the men he can spare."

Pennefather had his hands full by the time Lord Raglan arrived. With a
paltry 3,000 odd men he was confronting 25,000; but, happily, the
morning was so dark and the brushwood so thick that his men were
hardly conscious that they were thus outnumbered.

Not that they would have greatly cared; they were manifestly animated
with a dogged determination to deny the enemy every inch of the
ground, and with unflagging courage they disputed his advance,
although they were so few. Once more it was the "Thin Red Line"
against the heavy column: hundreds against thousands, a task which for
any other troops would have been both hopeless and absurd.

But Pennefather's people stoutly held their own. On his