Orders were received that some squadrons of cavalry should at once try and get in touch again with the enemy and find out where he was and what he was doing. Without bite or sup the Lancers mounted and moved off in the darkness. The road was easy to follow. Arms, accoutrements, and dead or wounded men strewed the way. They had not got very far when daylight overtook them, and advancing with great caution they accelerated their pace. Helmets, shakos, greatcoats, arms of every description littered the ground, and the practised eye of Captain Norreys told him that it had been a panic-stricken crowd which had passed along there a few hours before. As the sun came out the men got cheerier and threw off something of the depression which seemed to have fallen upon them. They left the road and crossed the undulating grass-covered plains that led up to the heights. Several times during the early morning small parties of Cossacks had been seen; but these, on observing the British troops, turned and galloped off as if for their lives. Presently the reconnoitring cavalry came in sight of the defeated Russian army, which had evidently encamped for the night on a river which the English afterwards found was named the Katcha. It was clear that the alarm had been given, for on the north side of the river cavalry and artillery could be seen trotting rapidly away, while strings of infantry and baggage all mixed up together streamed along after them. The troops still on the British side of the river were straining every effort to get across, for it was plain they imagined the handful of Lancers they saw was but the advanced guard of the British army. On the little bridge a terrible jam had taken place. Men, horses, wagons were all mixed up in an inextricable mass, and it was clear to Jack that the army beneath him was only a panic-stricken mob. Men could be seen using whips, officers the flats of their swords, while a confused murmur of voices ascended to the hills. Hundreds of Russians, throwing away the heaviest part of their kit, could be seen dashing into the river and wading across, joining their countrymen on the other side in their mad rush for Sebastopol. The Alma had been a terrible lesson! Captain Norreys with one or two other officers dismounted and surveyed the scene through their glasses. Jack was holding their horses. His captain looked long and earnestly at the scene below him, then said in regretful tones, ‘What a mistake we’re making, lying inactive on the Alma with a beaten foe but a few miles from us! With a dozen squadrons and a horse-battery I’d engage that not one of those Russians ever entered Sebastopol.’