“There was a small two-gun sandbag battery on the crest of the hill, into which the remnants of the Brigade were retiring; the Grenadier Colours were already there: the Russians had been driven out of it just before.[277] There were perhaps a hundred men of the three Regiments in the little battery, and crowds of Russians hemmed us nearly all round; we extended men on the left and rear to prevent their cutting off our retreat and getting in behind us. Column after column kept pouring up the hill, and every moment our chances of retreat looked worse and worse. The parapet in front of us was too high to fire over, and the enemy kept climbing into the embrasures and up the exterior slope of the parapet; but one after another they fell, shot by our men as they showed.... We could see lines of bayonets outside the parapet, and could hear them howling and cheering one another on; it was now _fearfully_ exciting.... We kept them at a respectable distance; our line extended some way in the rear and left: but they kept getting nearer, and our men fell very thick.... Vesey Dawson I saw shot by a Russian creeping into the embrasure; Sir R. Newman of the Grenadiers was also killed, and some other Grenadier Officer fell wounded. Our ammunition was beginning to fail, some of the men had not had a round of their own for a long time: the dead furnished the living; but now even that began to fail, and the men in their excitement threw stones, lumps of earth, anything they could see, over the parapet among the Russians, and they came back again amongst us with interest. One of the most remarkable things about Russian troops is the noise they make in action, and I think it is catching, as I never heard our men make such a yelling as they did all this day; I know I was as bad as the rest, because I could not speak for hoarseness that evening and the next day. How long the game of throwing stones lasted I cannot say, but it seemed a long time. There was a visible diminution of bayonets outside the battery, and we had really driven the enemy back a great deal on our left; it was more that they ceased coming on than that we were driving them back. We were still surrounded by them, and they were firing into us as hard as they could. ----- Footnote 277: For their gallantry upon this occasion, Colonels Lord Henry Percy and Sir Charles Russell, Grenadier Guards, got the Victoria Cross. -----