HE Heavy Brigade-General Scarlett's "Three Hundred "-had made its charge. The horde of grey-coated horsemen, into which it had so gallantly pierced, had broken, turned, heaved up the slope of the Causeway Heights, over the ridge and down into the North Valley behind, and were now scampering up it in full retreat, their artillery lumbering after. The victors re-formed upon the slope. In a few moments of glorious life they had turned the fortune of the day, and to the penetrating eye of Lord Raglan, as he sat amid his staff high on the ledges of the Chersonese upland, the Battle of Balaclava was as good as won. For affairs stood thus:-Below on the plain to his right lay the small sea-port of Balaclava, behind its inner line of field-works. This town, the main object of the Russian attack (for upon it the Allied forces besieging Sebastopol depended for all their supplies), was now out of danger. In the valley before it the South Valley-and on the slopes that led up to the low ridge of the Causeway Heights, no enemy was to be seen. For a few minutes the dusky cavalry had gathered there to swoop down on it as on a sure prey, but now, riven and scattered by the red-coated Heavies," they had melted away, and the little force stationed about the inner line of works saw them no more.

The Causeway ridge-the outer line of fortification-was, it is true, still mainly held by the Russians. The three redoubts to westward, captured from the Turks on the first advance, were, with their guns, in the enemy's hands.

brilliant chance offered itself for their recovery.

But now a

On the other side of the Causeway Heights, between them and the acclivity of the Fedioukine Hills, lay another valley-the North Valley, as it was called -running roughly parallel to the South Valley. A few minutes before, this

hollow had been full of cavalry and artillery; but now, with these in full flight towards the eastern end, it was left more and more empty of troops.

As a consequence, the Russian infantry and gunners that lined the heights on ⚫ either side were left protruding--two weak and assailable heads-to any attack that the Allies might choose to make. According to Kinglake's apt comparison, the Russian array had resembled the closed fist of a pugilist: it was now rather like an open palm with the middle fingers bent back, and the fore and little fingers impotently protruding, these two fingers being the battalions on the Fedioukine Hills and those occupying the captured redoubts on the Causeway Heights.

Obviously the Allies were mainly concerned with these latter-to recapture the outer line of the fortifications with the lost guns. Indeed, before this, Lord Raglan had made his arrangements for such an attempt, ordering Sir George Cathcart to advance upon the redoubts with the 4th Infantry Division, and H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge to support him with the 1st Division upon the southern slope. The Duke of Cambridge was in time, but Sir George, for some reason, was not. Fearing, therefore, to lose the precious moments which the fortune of war had given him, Lord Raglan bethought him of his cavalry.

The cavalry camp stood at the western extremity of the North Valley, just under the heights where Lord Raglan sat. The whole of the cavalry was under Lord Lucan; under him General Scarlett commanded the Heavies, Lord Cardigan the Light Brigade. Of these two brigades, the former was just re-forming after a charge that would vie with any in the annals of war. But the Light squadrons stood ready; chafing, indeed, at the inactivity to which they had been condemned throughout the morning. Close to their right rose the Causeway slope -its line of redoubts inviting recapture. Naturally Lord Raglan's thoughts turned to them. He wrote off an order and despatched it to Lord Lucan.

The order ran :-" Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity to recover the heights. They will be supported by the infantry, which have been ordered to advance on two fronts."

II.

Minute after minute passed. The precious opportunity was slipping from the grasp of the Allied Generals, and yet the order was not obeyed. From the heights, indeed, Lord Raglan and his staff saw the cavalry squadrons set in motion for a minute-then halted again. All that Lord Lucan had done was to move his Light Brigade to another position facing down the North Valley, and to halt the Heavies on the slope, there to await the infantry which, as he afterwards explained, “had not yet arrived."

Now the order had unmistakably and unconditionally ordered the cavalry to advance. The infantry was only spoken of as a support; and in delaying as he did, Lord Lucan deliberately sat in judgment on the command he had received from headquarters, and condemned it. On such a course two obvious comments must be made-In the first place, it was an offence against discipline; secondly, it was

an offence against common sense. Subsequently Lord Lucan explained his conduct thus: that, having taken up his position, he was " prepared to carry out the remainder of his instructions by endeavouring to effect the only object, and in the only way that could rationally have been intended, viz., to give all the support possible to the infantry in the recapture of the redoubts, and subsequently to cut off all their defenders."

Thus by weighing Lord Raglan's order in the scales of his own judgment he actually inverted its meaning. Being told that the infantry would support his advance, he waited to support the infantry. And by his theory of what was "rationally intended" he sinned against common sense. For how could he upon

the plain have the same opportunity of judging what was necessary as Lord Raglan, who from the ledges of the Chersonese could overlook the whole field of battle?

The murmurs of the staff around the Commander-in-Chief may be imagined as the minutes went by and still the cavalry did not budge. And now some of them, sweeping with their field-glasses the ridge of the Causeway Heights, perceived-or so they thought-some teams of Russian artillery horses, with the lasso tackle attached, coming along it. Clearly before the enemy retreated he meant to carry off as trophies the English guns in the redoubts taken from the Turks.

Lord Raglan's patience was worn out. He determined to repeat, more imperatively, his order for the advance of the cavalry. Turning to the Quartermaster-General at his side, he asked him to write such an order at once; and General Airey, placing a slip of paper on his sabretache, scribbled it with a pencil; but, before the paper went, Lord Raglan read it and dictated some further words,

which were at once inserted. This slip of paper was what has afterwards been known as the "fourth order."

A Major Calthorpe, one of Lord Raglan's aides-de-camp, was standing ready for the mission, but the Commander-in-Chief called for General Airey's own aide-decamp, Captain Nolan, and desired that the order should be carried by him. The young soldier took it, and, spurring his horse, dashed down the slope.

III.

While he is on his way it will be worth while to inquire for a moment what kind of man this young aide-de-camp was; for it happens that on his character the history of what is to follow greatly depends. To eliminate the individual in the soldier when executing an order of his superior; to evoke it in the highest degree when the same soldier is dashing into the enemy and grappling hand to hand-this is the first problem of military discipline. We have seen that Lord Lucan was anything but a machine in executing an order; let us see what Captain Nolan was like in delivering one.

He was, to begin with, a young man; he was an ardent lover of his profession; he was an enthusiast, with a theory and a blind devotion to it; and he was a superb horseman.

His youth and his zeal for warfare did not, however, prevent his holding the commands of his superior officers at their highest value. Rather, he had a reverence for tacit obedience that was, if possible, overstrained; and for the last forty minutes, like many another on the heights, he had been secretly boiling with indignation at the neglect of Lord Raglan's authority which was implied in the inaction of the cavalry arm.

The enthusiasm-the faith to which he had sworn his judgment-served to inflame this indignation still more. He believed that the fate of battles turned upon the right use of cavalry. Proud beyond measure of that arm of the service to which he belonged, holding that from the moment when he met the enemy the English trooper was an unequalled warrior, he steadfastly believed that the true value of cavalry had always been stupidly underrated, and that if intelligently used it could work miracles. He had watched with burning joy the feat of Scarlett's "Three Hundred "-a feat that confirmed his theory, and even did more than confirm it. He had watched with burning scorn the vacillation (as he thought it) of Lord Lucan, a General whom he secretly held in unmitigated contempt, and to whom, in his private journal, he attributed the inactivity of our troopers throughout the invasion. It may be conceived with what inner joy such a man bore down the message of reproof and urgent command to the plain below.

And he was a superb rider. Afterwards men who foreboded nothing at the time had little difficulty in remembering how that messenger rode upon his errand. The slope of seven or eight hundred feet which divided the staff upon the heights