For weeks, while the Russians were so close, Sir Colin never relaxed his activity and vigilance. Not for an hour did he leave the position. He was awake and about all night and the little sleep he took was by snatches in the daytime. By constant industry and with many devices he laboured to strengthen and improve his defences. The first relief from toil and anxiety which he experienced was when on December 5th the Russian field-army withdrew across the Tchernaya to Tchorgoum. "Then," writes Shadwell, "that night for the first time Sir Colin lay down with his clothes off in the house; but even with a roof over his head he was restless; and such was the tension of his nervous system from the continuous strain of long weeks of anxious watching, that an officer who shared his room was startled in the middle of the night by his chief jumping up and shouting, 'Stand to your arms!'" Towards the end of December the Seventy-First Highlanders arrived and joined his command, and on Christmas Day he received the notification of his appointment to the colonelcy of the Sixty-Seventh regiment. Towards the end of January, 1855, Sir Colin was able to have nearly all his troops hutted. Before the end of the first week in February the whole brigade was comfortably in huts; and he was able to spare daily large fatigue-parties for the carriage of shot and shell to the front. An experience he underwent on February 20th illustrates the risks and vicissitudes attending an attempt to effect a combined movement in the darkness of a winter night. Sir Colin had received instructions to support, with four infantry regiments and a force of artillery and cavalry, the movement of a considerable body of French troops under General Bosquet, with the object of surprising the Russian troops on the right bank of the Tchernaya behind the Traktir bridge. It was a bitter night of snow and frost, but the English details duly rendezvoused and marched to the named point without seeing anything of Bosquet's people. Sir Colin covered the bridge and left bank with a couple of battalions, holding the rest in reserve; his troops were in position before daybreak. He was not entitled to take the offensive save in combination with the French, of whom there was no appearance. The Russians as day broke were seen taking up positions, but they remained on the defensive. Sir Colin stood fast until 8.30 A.M. expecting the arrival of Bosquet; then, concluding that the expedition had been countermanded, he prepared to return. His conjecture was correct; a countermand had been despatched which had duly reached Bosquet, but the messenger charged with the countermand for Campbell had lost his way and did not arrive. As the British force was about retiring the French general Vinoy appeared with his brigade. He had learnt at daybreak that no countermand had reached Kadikoi, whereupon the gallant Frenchman, unsolicited and on his own responsibility, hurried with his brigade to support his