"
"I can't help that," said Lord Lucan; "Lord Raglan will have it so.
You have no choice but to obey."
Lord Cardigan saluted with his sword; then, rising in his stirrups, he
turned to his men, and cried aloud in a full, firm voice--
"The brigade will advance!"--to certain death, he might have added,
for he knew it, although he never quailed. But, settling himself in
his saddle, as though starting on a promising run with hounds, and not
on a journey from which there was no return, he said, with splendid
resignation, as he prepared to lead the charge--
"Here goes for the last of the Brudenells!"[2]
[Footnote 2: The family name of the Earls of Cardigan was Brudenell.]
All this had passed in a few minutes, and then three lines of
dauntless horsemen--in the first line, Dragoons and Lancers; in the
second, Hussars; in the third, Hussars and more Dragoons--galloped
down the north valley on their perilous and mistaken errand.
They were already going at full speed, when a single horseman, with
uplifted arm and excited gesture, as though addressing the brigade,
crossed their front. It was Nolan, who thus seemed to be braving the
anger of Lord Cardigan by interfering with the leadership of his men.
What brought Nolan there? The inference is only fair and reasonable
that at the very outset he had recognised the misinterpretation of
Lord Raglan's orders, and was seeking to change the direction of the
charging horsemen, diverting them from the Russian battery towards the
redoubts, their proper goal.
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