With that menacing horde of grey-coated, black-bearded Russians, poised like a hawk about to swoop upon its prey, there was no time for pause. Shrill on the air the “Charge!” rang out, and with Scarlett leading them, the little advance body of “Heavies”--300 men of the Scots Greys and Inniskillings--dashed off to meet the foe. We have no such details of the fight as were forthcoming after the Charge of the Light Brigade, but we know that it was a most desperate affair. For every one of that handful of men, flung into a mass of the enemy that outnumbered them many times over, it was a hand-to-hand struggle for life of the most heroic kind. For a few moments they were lost to sight. Then out of the heaving, surging multitude the black bearskins and brass helmets of the Scotsmen and Irishmen broke into view here and there, while their sabres flashed in the sun as they hewed their way through. It was a battle of giants. What wonder that the Russians gave for a brief moment under the fierce onset? “There’s fear in their faces; they shrink from the shock; They will open the door, only loud enough knock; Keep turning the key, lest we stick in the lock! Dear England for Ever, Hurrah!” “Scarlett’s Three Hundred,” Gerald Massey. At this juncture the other squadrons that had been left behind came galloping to the rescue. Into the swaying mass they plunged, and soon afterwards “Cossack and Russian,” reeling from the sabre-stroke as they did again a little later, fell back in confusion. The peril was past, the day won. Of how Brigadier-General Scarlett, Lieutenant Elliot, Captain Williams and Major Clarke of the Scots Greys, and the other officers who led that fierce charge, bore themselves, the regimental records tell more than do the history books. Very few escaped unscathed, and there were many like Elliot, who had no fewer than fifteen wounds, sword cuts and lance thrusts. And as with the officers, so was it with the men. There was not one but proved himself a hero that day. We can well understand how old Sir Colin Campbell was for once moved to emotion, as bareheaded he greeted the victors with the words, “Greys, gallant Greys! I am an old man, but if I were young again I would be proud to ride in your ranks!” Where all men are brave it is not easy to single out any for special distinction. But in that terrible death-ride there were two who merited honour above their comrades, Sergeant-Major Grieve and Sergeant Ramage. The former in the heat of the engagement saw an officer in imminent danger of being cut down. Riding to the rescue, he swept like a whirlwind upon the Russians, cutting off the head of one at a single blow and scattering the rest by the fury of his onslaught. For this deed he won a well-deserved Cross.