Into the valley of death rode the six hundred. And as the ill-fated Charge of the Light Brigade began, a young Norfolk Cavalry officer was there to witness the slaughter.
Now, more than 150 years on from the Crimean War, his previously-unseen war diary has come up for auction.
Captain Michael Stocks of the Royal Dragoons kept a journal of life as a serving officer fighting the Russians in 1854 and 1855.
The then 29-year-old, from Hilgay, near Downham Market, witnessed events on October 25, 1854, when the British light cavalry armed with sabres and lances charged at Russian cannons during the Battle of Balaclava.
Some 118 fell as they were caught in the cross-fire, their bravery commemorated by the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson in his poem the Charge of the Light Brigade.
"Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew someone had blundered," Tennyson wrote.
"Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of death rode the six hundred."
Capt Stocks' diary recorded the event more prosaically, but just as graphically.
"It was near 12 O'Clock and all remained at status quo for a couple of hours, when an order from Lord Raglan was brought to Lucan to attack the enemy which he did by sending the light cavalry into the greatest trap that ever was made.
"We and the Greys advanced first and then somebody said let the light cavalry go on, and on they went to take some guns in front.
"We followed at a trot, they went at a gallop and we saw nothing more of them until we saw them coming back by ones and twos some mounted but mostly dis-mounted, such a smash never was seen, they were murdered it seems."
The diary is among items belonging to the Stocks family of Wood Hall in Hilgay. Capt Stocks survived the war and died in 1895 at the age of 70.
Auctioneers Cheffins expect it to fetch from £1,000 to £2,000 when it comes up for auction at Clifton House, Cambridge, on June 22 and 23 (10am).
Director Charles Ashton said: “This is a rare, true-life account of one of the most fabled events in British military history.
"Whilst being some 170 years old, the diary is still in remarkably good condition, having been meticulously stored away with papers at Wood Hall."
THE CRIMEAN WAR
The conflict, which lasted between October 1853 and February 1856, was fought over the rights of Christians in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire.
It saw an alliance including the United Kingdom, France, the Ottomans and Sardinia ranged against the Russians.
It was one of the first conflicts in which military forces used modern technologies such as explosive naval shells, railways and telegraphs.
The war was also one of the first to be documented extensively in written reports and in photographs.
It ended with the Treaty of Paris, in 1856, which diminished Russian influence in the region.
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