Instantly Lord Raglan despatched the world-renowned “fourth order,” the text of which was clear and unmistakable. It ran as follows:--“Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troops of horse artillery may accompany. French cavalry is on your left. Immediate.” To Captain Nolan--“the impetuous Nolan”--was entrusted the carrying of this message, and many have recorded the dangerous and breakneck speed at which he set off upon his errand, riding straight down the steep face of the hill, turning his horse’s head neither to right nor left, on his urgent journey to Lord Lucan. As one who had been with Lord Raglan watching and waiting for the appearance of the cavalry who never came, it may be readily imagined that Nolan was in a temper, and briefly and uncompromisingly he thrust the order into the hands of his superior officer. Once again Lord Lucan conceived the enterprise a dangerous one, and ventured unwisely to say so. Nolan, by this time thoroughly roused, blurted out, “Lord Raglan’s orders are that the cavalry should advance immediately,” and, says Lord Lucan in his narrative, pointed to the north valley, where the Russian guns were dimly seen in battery. It is probable, nay, almost certain, that Nolan merely waved his hand in a general forward direction, but Lord Lucan conceived him to indicate the north valley. Stung by the implied reproach of his inferior, Lord Lucan resolved to carry out the order at once, as he conceived it, and straightway commanded Lord Cardigan that the cavalry were to advance, not, as Lord Raglan had intended, up the Causeway heights, to recapture our own lost guns, but up the deadly north valley, where the enemy’s guns were in position on every side. Well did the Earl of Cardigan know the awful danger of the task thus erroneously allotted to him, but to Lord Lucan’s order he returned a cheerful “Certainly sir!” and, placing himself at the head of his men, quietly gave the order, “The Brigade will advance!” Again and again poets and historians have placed on record the fearless devotion to duty thus called into play, and if the advance of the Light Brigade was one of the gravest military errors ever made, yet its achievement forms one of the noblest pages of the national military history. “Gallop!” came the order, short and sharp, and as one man the 673 of all ranks bent to the saddle, and, with Lord Cardigan at their head, swept over the grassy sward straight to where the Russian guns stood, backed by five and twenty thousand horse and foot.