562 A RECOLLECTION OF BALAKLAVA. 
turbed and bewildered their vision and it was in vain that they sought 
around for some tangible enemy. The repeated flashes, however, 
which darted continuously out of the dense mist that hung on the hill- 
sides revealed the presence of a long line of guns ranged, seemingly, 
between Mount Hasfort and the Fedioukine Heights and whose fire 
appeared to be directed principally against No. 8 Redoubt. The 
rapid cannonade now opened by the troop against this line of flashes, for 
the guns were completely invisible, soon attracted the attention of the 
Russian gunners and they began quickly to pick up the range. 
Standing out boldly on the skyline the 6-pounders of “1” Troop pre- 
sented an admirable target. 
The enemy’s fire became hot. The detachment horses were with- 
drawn behind the reverse slope of the Causeway (where the Greys 
were drawn up) ; but for the limbers there was no shelter from the 
merciless rain of shot and shell under which the horses were falling (in 
No. 6 gun alone five were struck down); several spokes too were 
knocked out of the limber wheels. The men around the guns seemed 
to bear charmed lives, for though the gun carriages were scored and 
injured by the shell which burst around them and this was especially 
the case in the left half troop, yet the round shot passed harmlessly 
over or between the sub-divisions, and at this period there were no 
casualties of any consequence amongst the gunners though there were 
some remarkably narrow escapes. 
The troop might have been in action some fifteen or twenty minutes 
when Captain Maude, whilst calling attention to the advance of some 
grey-coated infantry skirmishers through the brushwood that lay 
in front of and below the troop and directing the howitzers to open on 
them with shrapnel, had his horse killed by a shell which bursting at 
the moment of impact brought that fine soldier to the ground desperately 
maimed in the arm and leg besides inflicting a wound in his face. 
A tourniquet which he fortunately had in his holsters was placed on 
his arm, the artery of which was lacerated ; and four men conveyed 
him on a limber blanket to the rear where his wounds were properly 
attended to, but for some days his recovery was doubtful. 
The command of the troop now devolved on Lieutenant Dashwood 
the senior of the two subalterns present. He at once mounted his 
horse but it was soon killed by a round shot. Barely was he in the 
saddle of a second when that too was shot. 
It was at this juncture that Lord Lucan appeared on the scene. 
Finding how completely the troop was overpowered by a superior 
artillery—superior numerically and in weight of metal—that its front 
was now assailed by infantry, that nearly every round in its limbers 
had been expended in maintaining this useless and unequal combat, 
and seeing dead on the field a third of its magnificent gun horses he 
gave orders for it to limber up and withdraw to the lower plain. As 
it retired a round shot dashed Gunner McBride of No. 4 Sub-division 
dead out of the saddle and slew the two centre horses of No. 4 gun. 
When the troop came into action the Heavy Brigade, which had 
accompanied it to the foot of the Causeway, detached the Scots Greys 
