Alma. Nolan spent the battle as a liaison due to his fluent French, and was often galloping between the two allied armies. They resumed marching on 26 September and entered the plains of Balaclava, near Sevastopol. Balaclava The British camp in Balaclava was on a plateau, with two approaches – the South and North valleys – and a small hill, known as the Causeway Heights, between them. At Balaclava, the force waited for supplies while the allied ships bombarded the forts surrounding Sevastopol, starting on 17 October. The forts proved to be particularly strong, but some damage was caused and Admiral Kornilov killed. From then on, time and time again, the allied navy would bombard the forts, causing damage, which the Russians would then repair each night. While the allied armies waited to strengthen their positions and increase their resources, Prince Menshikov, commander of the Russian forces, had a desire to provide a victory to the Tsar following his defeat at Alma. He formed a plan to cut the British Army off from the harbour at Balaclava, with a secondary objective of capturing the harbour itself. The Russian forces assembled on 24 October, and attacked at around 7am on the 25th. General Gribbe covered the Russian left flank, with Semiakin, Levoutsky and Scudery on his right: General Ryzhov waited behind them, prepared to support any individual force that came under trouble. The Turkish forces in the first redoubts were quickly overwhelmed and forced to flee. At 8am Raglan ordered the Heavy and Light cavalry brigades, under Lord Lucan, to move into line with the second set of Turkish-occupied redoubts. The order confused and infuriated Lucan – there was only one set of redoubts that had been occupied by the Turks, and it was now abandoned. Doing so also meant leaving the Turks and 550 British infantry to meet the Russian charge alone, without any cavalry support. Despite Raglan's "lackadaisical wording", Lucan interpreted the order (correctly) to require him to place the Light Brigade at the mouth of the North Valley to Balaclava, a position that left the cavalry dangerously exposed: because of the terrain, they would not be able to see advancing Russian troops until they were less than 50 feet away. As Raglan watched the cavalry form up at the mouth of the North Valley, 30 minutes after giving the order, he changed his mind and had them returned