Through the mists of the cold November morning the Russians, stirred to the highest enthusiasm by the priests, advanced on Inkerman, and a fight of the most desperate character ensued. Our Second Division, sore pressed by overwhelming numbers, was suffering heavily, when, notwithstanding the fog, the enemy's strategy became apparent, and the Rifle Brigade were sent hurrying up from the field to their assistance. The 50th followed, and the battle round Inkerman, now a trifle less unequal, eddied and swirled and locked, turning now in favour of one side and now the other. All sides belched flame and in turn were bespattered with lead. Here a heap of Russian slain, and there, through a rift of the mist, a fitful gleam of serried bayonets. The British broke ranks and formed squares, and, in this formation, every square found work of its own in repelling the fierce and sudden rushes of the enemy. A couple of 18-pounders were brought up and long gaps were hewn out of the deep ranks of the attacking host. Small groups found antagonists by instinct in the mist and fought to a finish on their own. Commanders became fighting-men, and every fighting-man his own commander. It rested with each and all who had in common, not only the fog, but a general purpose, to see that they kept their place between anything Russian and the summit of Inkerman; and, in the process of this, hand-to-hand combats as heroic as any in the Trojan War were joined. "A series of dreadful deeds of daring," says Davenport Adams, "of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing rallies, of desperate assaults in glens and valleys, in brush-wood and glades and remote dales, from which the conquerors issued only to engage fresh foes, till the old supremacy, so readily assailed, was again triumphant and the battalions of the Czar gave way before our steady courage and the chivalrous fire of France." _Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading._ End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of British Regiments at the Front, The Story of Their Battle Honours, by Reginald Hodder