Quickly the sound of firing roused the camp, and a battery was at once established on a shoulder known as Home Ridge, to check the enemy’s advance by firing more or less at random into the mist. Shortly afterwards, Lord Raglan and General Camobert appeared on the scene and placed an increased battery at General Pennefather’s disposal.
By intermittent firing, stubborn resistance, and occasionally a bayonet charge, the advancing Russian columns were thrown back behind their guns, which were by this time posted on Shell Hill.
The respite was not for long. A force of more than 10,000 Russians under General Sornionoff in person next swarmed up in front of Pennefather’s devoted troops now slightly augmented by General Adams and the 41st regiment. Again and again did overwhelming masses of Russians pit themselves, with hoarse cries, against numerically insignificant bodies of our troops. Reports have it that the Russian soldiers had been sent into battle inflamed by large quantities of raw spirit, and certainly the extraordinary violence and pertinacity of their attack tends to support this belief. Be this as it may, their most determined onslaughts proved unavailing. With sword, bayonet, and, where the brushwood was too thick to admit of hand-to-hand fighting, with rifle ball, did our brave fellows drive them back, and many a Victoria Cross was won in the detached, but none the less effective fighting of this the first stage of the long Inkerman fight.
Here was Townsend’s battery lost and recaptured. Here Lieutenant Hugh Clifford won his cross “for valour,” leading some seventy men right into the heart of a column which threatened to turn his flank. Here Nicholson and many another gallant officer was killed; whilst, in this part of the field, Colonel Egerton, with some 260 men, totally routed and relentlessly pursued 1500 of the famous Tomsk regiment.
Kinglake tells the story briefly:—“‘There are the Russians, General,’ said Egerton to General Buller, as the great grey mass loomed before them in the mist; ‘what shall we do?’ ‘Charge them!’ retorted Buller tersely. And charge them he did with a will, hurling them down the hillside with loud hurrahs, and following their confused and broken ranks with sword and bayonet.”
Thus again were the Russians beaten back from the slopes of Inkerman, and in the melee General Sornionoff himself was killed.
The next attack came from another quarter, but still the brunt of the fighting fell on Pennefather’s troops.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the field, the Russians had carried out their admirable and well-laid plan of attack. Gortschakoff’s forces had threatened Bosquet and the Guards who were opposing him. The Duke of Cambridge, however, who commanded in that part of the field, was not long deceived by the feints of the enemy. Leaving only the Coldstreams to face Gortschakoff (and withdrawing even these before long), he hurried the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers to Pennefather’s assistance. Bosquet also perceived Inkerman to be the real point of attack, and while still facing Gortschakoff with his troops, held them in readiness to march thither should the need arise, as it very soon did.
Sir Colin Campbell’s forces, however, were detained near Balaclava in a state of inaction, to protect that important port; as it happened an unnecessary, but very wise, provision.
Says one of the garrison under Sir Colin:—“We remained in the trenches under arms for three or four hours. The whole Balaclava force was under arms in the same manner, while Sir Colin was riding along the line of trenches and keeping an eye on the enemy in front, which (sic) appeared to be threatening an attack on us. We heard a heavy musketry fire from the front, and it was well on in the day before it slackened, and the enemy were seen to move backwards, out of sight—all but their sentries. We remained the same, however, not knowing what was up.”