to the proverb that "onlookers see most of the game," detailing capable persons with something of the duty of the subordinate umpire of a sham fight, to be answerable each for a given section of the field, the historian himself acting as the correlative of the umpire-in-chief. [Illustration: MAP OF BALACLAVA PLAIN. EXPLANATIONS. * * * * * Figures 1 to 6 indicate Redoubts. A. Point of collision. B. "C" Troop R.H.A.'s position during combat, in support Heavy Cavalry. C. "C" Troop in action against fugitive Russian Cavalry about D., range about 750 yards. E. Lord Lucan's position watching advance of Russian Cavalry mass. F. Position "C" Troop when approached by Cardigan and Paget after Light Cavalry charge. G. Position "C" Troop in support Light Cavalry charge. H. Russian Cavalry mass advancing at trot up "North" valley. HH. Russian Cavalry General and Staff trotting along Causeway heights, with view into both valleys. K. Line of Light Cavalry charge. L. Light Brigade during Heavy Cavalry charge. M. "I" Troop R.H.A. during ditto. N. Lord Raglan's position (approximate). O. Scarlett's five squadrons beginning their advance. P. Russian Cavalry mass halted.] It is true that the battle of Balaclava was fought to "a gallery" consisting of the gazers who looked down into the plain from the upland of the Chersonese. But of close and virtually independent spectators of the battle's most thrilling episodes, so near the climax of the Heavy Cavalry charge that they heard the clash of the sabres, so close to the lip of the Valley of Death that they discerned the wounds of our stricken troopers who strewed its sward and could greet and be greeted by the broken groups that rode back out of the "mouth of hell," there was but one small body of people. This body consisted of the officers and men of "C" Troop, Royal Horse Artillery. "C" Troop had been encamped from 1st October until the morning of the battle close to the Light division, in that section of the British position known as the Right Attack. When the fighting began in the Balaclava plain on the morning of the 25th, it promptly started for the scene of action. Pursuing the nearest way to the plain by the Woronzoff road, at the point known as the "Cutting" it received an order from Lord Raglan to take a more circuitous route, as by the more direct one it was following it might become exposed to fire from Russian cannon on the Fedoukine heights. Pursuing the circuitous route it came out into the plain through the "Col" then known as the "Barrier," crossed the "South" or "Inner" valley, and reached the left rear of Scarlett's squadrons formed up for the Heavy Cavalry charge. Here it received an order from Brigadier-General Strangways, who commanded the Artillery, with which it could not comply; and thenceforward "C" Troop throughout the day acted independently, at the discretion of its enterprising and self-reliant commander.