Then, with pouches refilled and spirits heightened, they joined in the fray again, and, as the fight went on, the cheers of the British and the shouts of the French rose louder, while the answering yell of the Russians grew fainter and less frequent.

Then the thunder of musketry sensibly diminished.

The Russian artillery-men were seen to be withdrawing their guns, and slowly and sullenly the infantry fell back from the ground which they had striven so hard to win.
It was a heavy defeat, and had cost them 15,000 men; but, at least, it had for the time saved Sebastopol; for, with diminished forces, the British generals saw that all hopes of carrying the place by assault before the winter were at an end and that it would need all their effort to hold their lines through the months of frost and snow which were before them.
When the battle was over, Captain Peel returned to the point where he had left the midshipmen, and these followed him back to the camp, where, however, they were not to stay, for every disposable man was at once ordered out to proceed with stretchers to the front to bring in wounded.
Terrible was the sight indeed.

In many places the dead lay thickly piled on the ground, and the manner in which Englishmen, Russians, and Frenchmen lay mixed together showed how the tide of battle had ebbed and flowed, and how each patch of ground had been taken and retaken again and again.

Here Russians and grenadiers lay stretched side by side, sometimes with their bayonets still locked in each other's bodies.