Instructional operations—Embarkation for the Crimea—The landing—The sappers sink wells—Attempt to erect a pier for landing the horses—Bed of the Bulganak improved with reeds for the passage of artillery—The Alma—Services of the sappers during the battle—They repair the Buliack timber bridge—March to Balaklava; Sir John Burgoyne; services of the third company—The corps encamps at Balaklava—Then removes to the heights before Sebastopol; misery for want of tents—Parties assist to reconnoitre the positions and trace the lines—An instance given—Two sappers carrying the mail miss their way, are wounded and benighted—Destruction of Upton’s aqueduct—Positions on the heights; staff engineers—The attacks; parks—Sapper brigades—Reliefs—Breaking ground—Duties of the sappers—Their deficiency of tact in working the skilled portions of the batteries—Progress of the works; a party wanders from the trace—Sergeant Morant misses his way, and only discovers his mistake when encountered by a Russian guard—A mistrusted guide restores confidence by his conduct—State of the works on the night before the first bombardment—The batteries and parallels—Siege operations—Restoration of the works—Sir John Burgoyne’s remarks on them.

Preliminary to active operations in the Crimea, the companies of the corps at Varna superintended contingents of the line in preparing a park of gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms for siege purposes. Each sapper at the duty had charge of fifteen men of the line, divided into three squads of five in a squad. The troops were also practised in the hasty formation of field-works; and these instructional services were not without profit to the men of the corps, who, as overseers, superintended their execution.

Early in September the allied forces embarked for the Crimea, and the naval arrangements for the occasion, though vast and complicated, were comprehensive and perfect. To each of the British divisions was attached a body of sappers and miners, bearing with them intrenching tools. Up to this time there had landed in Turkey six companies of the corps, mustering a force of 513 non-commissioned officers and men, which had been reduced to 492 men by the decease of 21 non-commissioned officers and privates, chiefly from cholera and exposure. Leaving the seventh company at Gallipoli, also detachments at Varna, Redout Kaleh, and Bucharest, and the sick on board the transports and at Scutari, the force of sappers and miners that landed near Lake Tuzla in Kalamita Bay on the 14th and 16th September counted a total of 308 of all ranks.

Under a teeming rain, two of the companies debarked, and without tents or covering, took up a miserable bivouac with their divisions. In the night they lay huddled together for warmth, while the storm beat ceaselessly upon them, and turned their selected resting-places into pools and quagmires. The returning day found them drenched, stiff, and comfortless; but in none, except those poor enfeebled fellows still suffering from the pest that had proved so fatal to the troops at Varna, was there wanting a cheerfulness to work, a spirit to master hardship, and a determination to endure. Unsheltered as they were, that fearful weather brought on many aggravated cases of cholera.

Water, the first want felt after landing at Lake Tuzla, caused several wells to be sunk by the sappers on the strip of land which stretched between the lake and the Black Sea. The supply thus obtained was too brackish for human use, and the duty of furnishing the troops, therefore, depended on the fleet.

At noon on the 15th, a detachment of the fourth company commenced to erect a temporary pier for landing the horses, with timbers furnished by the fleet. For a considerable distance to seaward, the water was shallow, but it swelled to the beach, and broke there with great violence. Trestles fixed and braced were held for a time in their places by sturdy men, but the driving breakers rushed to the shore with so resistless a force it was impracticable to proceed; and men and timbers borne away in the surge, only escaped by grasping at ropes which were laid conveniently to the site in anticipation of such accidents.

When the army was put in motion, and the Bulganak stream was reached, its bed was found to be too muddy for the passage of the artillery with the 4th division. Early in the morning of the 20th a portion of the fourth company was told off to make a track through the water for the guns. Collecting the reeds which grew there in abundance, the sappers tied them faggot fashion into long bundles, and placing them in the bed of the stream from bank to bank, the artillery, in twenty-two minutes from the time of commencing, was crossing the river with clean wheels in comparative ease.

On the 20th was fought the battle of the Alma, which was gained in three hours by the allies, with a loss to the British exceeding 2,000 killed and wounded; whilst the carnage amongst the Russians was even greater. The sappers and miners during the action were thus distributed:—

The fourth division was not engaged, being in reserve; but the sappers with the other divisions, though not called upon to participate to an extent that placed them in much danger, were under fire. The companies were held back, ready with their intrenching tools, to perform any service for which they might suddenly be required; but the daring advance and overpowering prowess of the British rendered a resort to field-works as a means of defence wholly unnecessary. The tenth company crossed the river by the ford and bridge while the battle raged. The eighth company, attached for the moment to one of the field-batteries, assisted in dragging through the river some field-carriages belonging to the royal artillery, one of which, having become disabled, capsized in the stream.

The eleventh company, under the direction of Captain Montagu of the engineers, rapidly repaired the broken timber bridge of Buliack, part of the sheeting of which had been removed by the Russians, leaving the end on the side of the British untouched. Had this artful contrivance not been discovered, the troops would doubtless have suffered fearfully in their attempt to pass over the bridge. Its restoration was of great service, as it enabled the whole of the baggage to be up with the army the same evening. For six hours there was an uninterrupted stream of well-laden carts and other vehicles crossing it, which tested to the utmost the efficiency of its renewal, and corroborated in part the encomium of Captain Montagu that it was “done right well and very quickly.” The fourth company was stationed about a quarter of a mile away from the Alma, and the third was with the baggage in rear.

On the night of the 20th the companies bivouacked on the site of the battle, where one of the privates, worn out by disease and fatigue, covered himself with his blanket and died. Resuming the march, the allies passed the Katscha on the 23rd September, on which day the third company, attached to the head-quarters of the army, was reinforced by the arrival from Woolwich of 66 non-commissioned officers and men under Captain W. M. Inglis of the royal engineers. Two days later the march was continued across the Belbec, and on the 26th to Balaklava by a bold flank movement through a difficult and thickly-wooded country. Sir John Burgoyne passed a night in bivouac with the company, and all that could be got for him to rest upon was an old door. Upon that the aged warrior stretched himself with a composure and satisfaction that showed how well he had braced himself to the vicissitudes and hardships of war. On the way the baggage of a Russian division, spreading over a vast extent of road, fell a prize to the British army. The third company was hurried to the front with artillery to remove it, and tumbling the waggons over the hill they broke in fragments in the valley. When the army pushed forward, the third company remained, blew up a magazine of thirteen barrels of gunpowder which was found with the train of baggage, and then hastened to Balaklava. All the companies arrived there on the 27th September, and were at once disposed of in making roads, sinking wells, and repairing shattered waggons, while the third company made good a rough pier at Balaklava, at which were landed the heavy ordnance, ammunition, and siege stores.

The royal engineers formed their encampment on the S.S.E. of the harbour of Balaklava, whither the siege material was conveyed. With great promptitude, guns and ammunition, gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and tools of all descriptions, unsurpassed in magnitude, were collected, and then despatched to the depôt about four miles nearer to the scene of operations.

By the 30th September a strong force of sappers moved to the ground, and soon commenced those services which the public, too enthusiastic in its anticipations, expected would reduce a fortress of unexampled strength in a few days. Full twenty days the company were without tents, their camp equipage having been left in the ships which conveyed the sappers from the shores of Bulgaria; and, exposed as they were in bivouac to the damp and chills of night, many robust and able men fell a prey to cholera at Balaklava, or predisposed, by these early trials and rigours, to disease, were struck down by suffering and exhaustion in the camp before Sebastopol.

Next night some sappers, pushed forward under their officers, assisted to examine the ground in front of the fortress towards Chersonese Bay; and although at times within rifle-range of the walls, were unmolested by the Russians. It was at first intended that the English troops should occupy this position, but in consequence of the tools of our allies being too light to carry out the heavy intrenchments assigned to them on the right, the disposition of the forces was altered to adapt them to the situations for which their material seemed to render them adequate. This change in the arrangements was followed by the preliminary duty of tracing the sites of the required trenches and batteries inland, in which some sappers were permitted to participate.

Among those who first left the camp to reconnoitre were lance-corporal McKimm and private Jenkins, in whose resolution and discipline reliance could be placed. They were apt men and sufficiently acute in comprehending orders not to worry their officers with strings of fatiguing questions about small details; and such was their stamp and bearing, they were not likely, in danger, to leave their officer unshielded. To Captain Montagu’s party of six sappers they were attached. In the darkness of the morning of the 1st October, the whole moved on in advance of the outlying pickets for nearly a mile and a-half, and quietly and in whispers, wandered over a country guarded by pickets in ambuscades as yet unknown. On their way they passed some posts which were alive with Cossacks, one of which they unwittingly approached so closely, that a couple of shots were fired at them. This was simply tendered as a warning to depart, for the Cossacks made no attempt to follow the explorers, and so continuing to give the points of ground and intersections to the Captain to enable him to form his sketch of the position of the left attack, the delineation was, in three or four hours, finished. With a careful pace yielding no perceptible sound, and a sharp look out, the party in returning crossed hill and ravine and passed pickets and sentries, reaching the camp safely at six o’clock in the morning.

It being necessary to despatch the mail from the first division at Balaklava to that of General Cathcart’s on the heights S.W. of Sebastopol, corporal John McQueen and private James Brennan volunteered for the duty. Cheerfully they jogged along the lonely road, and having delivered the letters at the camp commenced to return with that easy abandon so becoming soldiers. McQueen had been out on a coasting expedition, and prided himself with the belief that because he knew Sebastopol from the sea, he must as a consequence know every step of the road to Balaklava. He, however, soon found out his mistake. Losing their way, the letter-carriers struck on a road which took them into the Picket House ravine, up which they strode at a steady pace, straining their eyes through the darkness to discover a clue which should enlighten them as to their situation. Presently they were hounded by some dogs led on by a horseman with a glimmering lamp attached to his girdle. Luckily a cavern was near, and the sappers bounding into it, the dogs and the Cossack passed on. Allowing sufficient time to elapse to confuse the rider and his canine attendants, the comrades emerged from the cave, and regaining the road, turned in the direction of Sebastopol, impressed with the conviction that they had taken the correct route for the port. Allured by a fire which was burning on the hill to the left of the ravine, they began to ascend the slope to join the picket—supposed to be a Turkish one—who, grouped around the blazing sticks, were enjoying their pipes—an enviable pastime in which McQueen was anxious to participate. The night was still black; nothing could be seen, especially in the valley, for the picket-fire spread its capricious illumination over so small an area, that beyond the guard, the faint outline of objects only could be traced, and a little further on the dimness thickened into impenetrable darkness. So, suddenly coming on a pair of sentries concealed under some overhanging rocks, the sappers as suddenly stopped without losing their coolness. “Give me light, Turco?” said McQueen, placing a pipe between his teeth and pressing its bowl near the sentry’s chibouk. The sentry shrunk back: he was a Russian; and without word or challenge, in a moment the bayonet flashed, and the next it was plunged through the corporal’s body, while the companion sentry stabbed Brennan in the left shoulder. At the instant McQueen shot up in the air, then fell; but deadly wounded as he was, his entrails bursting through the puncture, he started from the ground, and, accompanied by Brennan, both ran at a furious speed pursued by the swift-footed sentinels. A wide ditch interrupted their course, into which McQueen and Brennan tumbled, but the cowardly Russians—for such they were to attack two unarmed men—gave up the pursuit.

McQueen moved not from the spot where he fell, for the shock he had received had doubled him up, and though his agonies were deep, he retained his consciousness. Brennan, suffering himself, set to work to alleviate, if possible, those mortal pains which at times made the corporal writhe and groan. His hand came on a well of blood, which told him, if the flow were not immediately stopped, the closing scene would soon be over. His plan of action in this extremity was quickly fixed, and taking off his shirt he tore it in strips, and tying them into one length bound it round his comrade. This, however, was not enough, for the blood still oozed through the bandage, and tearing away as much as he could of the corporal’s shirt without increasing his pangs, he knotted this also, as he added shred to shred, and plied it over the wound. This was the most he could do, except to encourage his spirit to bear the trial with the manliness his comrades would expect to hear he had exercised. “My head feels cold,” said he faintly. Both had lost their caps in the violent run they made to the ditch. Brennan instantly took off his coatee and turbaned it round the poor fellow’s head. “Here is a little bag with fourteen shillings in it,” said the corporal, as he released it from his neck. “Give it to my wife. It will never be my happiness to see her or the children.” This he said with an affectionate but choked utterance. “Tell her,” he added in a stronger voice, “I’m sorry I shall not see Sebastopol fall.”

“Why not? there’s plenty of skill in the camp to cure you,” returned Brennan in a tone of mingled sympathy and confidence.

But McQueen had become absorbed in his thoughts, and his agonies giving him but little disposition and energy to hear with attention anything that Brennan might say, the latter proposed to reconnoitre in the hope of discovering some means of bringing in succour or of escaping. The corporal assented, and Brennan stole away bare to the waist with a streaming wound bitten by the cold of a raw night. The battery above them was an earthen one well armed, but no gunners were in it. From its ditch he proceeded by a sort of ramp towards the Garden batteries, and came upon a strong structure built, as it seemed, out of a ship’s side. It was near the Flag-staff battery, and mounted many guns, forty-five of which he counted—some of very large calibre. Clear it was that he was in the heart of the Russian outworks. In that direction there was no escape, and as every step towards the creek bore the aspect of seeking danger when there was still a chance of evading it, he returned to the ditch, and threw himself by the side of the corporal. Time wore on sluggishly; moments were minutes, minutes hours. At length the morning broke; still he waited till it had sufficiently opened, to guide himself, to the best of his reason, aright; when, gathering up the wounded man, he bore him in his arms to a broken wall in front of a wine-press where had lived a Scotchman for more than twenty years before the war had driven him from his chosen homestead. Here Brennan, overpowered, laid down his comrade, for he was a massive man and deadly heavy. Concealing him in a secure place, and binding up his head with a handkerchief, Brennan dressed himself again in his worn coatee, and darted off for assistance, keeping well under the rocks which, overgrown with broom and wild vegetation, helped to cover him from observation. At last he made the bend of the ravine, and climbing up the steep, gained the top, where, crawling onwards among the heather and scrub he saw at the back of the hill the red points of six English tents—distant about fifty yards. It was a grateful sight, but he had not time fully to enjoy it; and so dashing up to the encampment, breathlessly demanded help for his suffering comrade. A few words to explain the nature of the painful adventure which had occasioned his unexpected appearance was more than enough for the officer of the 60th rifles in command. With two men of his regiment bearing a stretcher they hastened along the ravine guided by Brennan, now running, now walking to recover breath. It was a bright morning; hazard was in every step, but the errand was one of humanity, and they pushed on. At length they made the broken wall, from whence they carried the corporal for more than two miles to the tents of the rifle guard. In a few minutes medical aid was doing its best for the sufferer, but though his wounds were laved and dressed, the air had caught his torn bowels and gangrene was irretrievably at work. He was now borne to the camp at Balaklava, where, gradually sinking, he was the first of the siege army to die by the hand of the enemy before Sebastopol.

Meanwhile a party of twelve armed sappers, with sergeant James H. Drew, directed by Lieutenant Ravenhill of the royal engineers, repaired to the Inkermann ravine, and cut off the main aqueduct which supplied the docks in the Karabelnaia with water. This was known as Upton’s aqueduct. It was situated in a hollow of the plain which stretched onwards, and at its extremity were some well-appointed horsemen or Cossacks watching for chances to display their prowess. When they retired, the sappers, concealed by some bushes which clothed the slopes of the valley, crept from the underwood and stole on to the reservoir, advancing two sentries to look out from among some trees to give warning of impending peril. The sluice of the aqueduct was arched with stone. All the machinery by which it was manipulated was destroyed; the gate driven into the channel to stop the supply, and coping-stones, key-bricks, and earth jammed into the well and against the now useless gate. Without opposition the demolition was effected, and the little party returned to camp after being out seven hours in this preliminary adventure.

Charged with the right attack, the British held the position which approached the Tchernaya valley, while the French spread in a curve to the left, as far almost as Chersonese Bay. The ground was a sterile waste, wild, rocky, and undulated; bleak in winter, burning in summer. Sir John Burgoyne conducted the British portion of the siege, supported by Colonel Alexander, Major J. W. Gordon, and many officers of the corps. Colonel Alexander, from overwork and anxiety, soon died, and the executive direction of the works devolved on Major Gordon. In time the veteran engineer Sir John Burgoyne, recalled to England to discharge the responsible duties of his home appointment, was succeeded by Major-General Jones, who had received honour and promotion for his distinguished services in the capture and destruction of Bomarsund. Major, now Colonel, Gordon commanded the companies in the Crimea as a regiment; Captain, now Major, C. B. Ewart filled the appointment of adjutant, and Lieutenant A. Leahy that of quartermaster, afterwards that of Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General.

The British force was divided into two attacks, called “right”^[157] and “left,”^[158] their contiguity being broken by a deep ravine through which passed the Woronzoff road. The right abutted on the heights overlooking the middle ravine, and the left leaned away to the position of the allies, but separated from it by the precipitous sides of the Picket House ravine, which debouched on the head of the inner harbour. No longer attached to divisions, the fourth, eighth, and tenth companies of sappers were appointed to the right, and the third and eleventh companies to the left. The united strength of the companies amounted to a force of about 386 non-commissioned officers and men, 32 of whom were sick and 21 at Balaklava. On the high road leading from Sebastopol, and near the windmill, was stationed the engineer depôt for the right attack; while that for the left occupied an area in rear of the third division, on a plateau adjacent to the artillery depôt. At both the parks, the carpenters, sawyers, and blacksmiths of the companies carried on the mechanical requirements of the operation unprotected from the weather, or at best in scanty sheds of the most primitive character. In order that the sappers might be easily distinguished in the trenches, they were ordered to wear a band of white tracing tape round the forage-cap.

The strength of the brigades of sappers altogether depended upon the exigencies of the duty, and the numbers available for work. As a general rule, however, each brigade of sappers comprised a non-commissioned officer and eight privates; and each brigade of carpenters a non-commissioned officer and three privates. Whatever may have been the changes in the distribution of the men, there were seldom less at work, on the right, than three brigades of sappers and two of carpenters by day; and two of sappers and one of carpenters by night; while on the left, where a diminished force was employed, the arrangements only permitted for the daily routine two brigades of sappers and one of carpenters; and, for the night duty, one brigade of each.

Usually, the brigade remained twelve hours in the trenches, being relieved at daybreak and soon after dusk; but this period of duty, on many occasions, was necessarily prolonged, when any pressure required particular works to be completed in haste. Some of the most reliable men were on duty in the front eight nights out of nine. Fatigue and sickness caused very inconvenient fluctuations in the numbers disposable for the operation; but when less vigour was demanded in the formation of the lines, the men were relieved from duty in the trenches for three or four days at a time—the interval being filled up with labours in the camp, and in the performance of a variety of services subsidiary to the siege.

At nightfall, on the 8th October, ground was broken before Sebastopol. It commenced at the Greenhill battery left attack; and on the right attack at the 5-gun battery in front of Victoria hill, and at the picket-house for the right Lancaster-gun. By order of Lord Raglan, the working-parties, after receiving the necessary tools and instructions, were marched from the park, guided by engineer officers and sappers, to the trenches. This proceeding was followed throughout the siege; and it was also a practice to send both sappers and operatives into the batteries unarmed, to prevent the paramount work of the lines being neglected for the more natural one of resorting, on any slight instance of alarm, to measures of personal defence.

Acting as overseers, it was the province of the sappers and miners to instruct the line and the Turks in forming the trenches and batteries, attending themselves to the more constructive portions of the works requiring art and skill;—such as laying the gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms; erecting the splinter-proof magazines, and sloping and lining the embrasures. Formidable obstacles occasionally offered serious impediments to the progress of the excavations, for the soil was rocky: to overcome the difficulties, the sappers led the way with an earnestness and zeal that stimulated the workmen to activity and exertion; but such was the sacrifice of useful energy, that many a brave fellow, already enfeebled by overwork, scanty rations, and hard weather, faltered from the trenches never more to return.

Singular as it may appear, the sappers at first were somewhat at a loss in carrying out their more ordinary duties. The details were easy enough in peaceful practice; but in a siege where every effort required the utmost care and caution to make the work strong and durable and to avoid danger, it was much more difficult. A little earnest experience however in actual conflict, taught them the secrets of their art, gave them confidence and cunning, and rendered them, as far as their numbers permitted, quite equal to the emergencies of the enterprise.

Everywhere the lines continued to be prosecuted with commendable rapidity, and to claim even the fastidious attention of the sappers with regard to the smoothness and accuracy of the slopes of the interior revetments and the sharpness of the angles. The Madras platforms, to which a high reputation was attached, were quickly laid for the general siege-pieces, and common ones were fixed for the naval guns. There were times, however, when, from the guiding sappers missing their way to the appointed hill, the works were somewhat retarded in their execution. An instance of this kind occurred on the 10th October, when some sappers, sent to throw up a battery in front of the right of the light division, could not discover the position. The night was densely dark, foggy, and close. For more than two hours they endeavoured to find the points marked previously by Major Gordon, but finally seeing the fruitlessness of their efforts, they quitted the front and returned to camp. The working parties were retained in rear under cover; the only men exposed on the hill-top that night were two captains of engineers, and sergeant Coppin and lance-corporals Stupple and Kerr.

A more serious mistake occurred, the next night. Ground had been broken at eight o’clock by a working party of 400 men on the brow of a hill to the left of the light division. Sergeant Joseph Morant, who had received instructions as to the direction he was to take to reach the work, started at midnight with seventeen sappers to relieve the men of the corps whose tour of night-duty had expired. Marching along the Woronzoff ravine, he passed a huge boulder on which was carved a cross, and shortly after reached a large shell which had stuck in the middle of the road. These, for want of better indications, were two of the points on which he relied for the accuracy of his course. Having still to press on for another half-mile and more, and the night being dark, he missed the hollow up which he was to move to the site of the parallel. On he went with his men, when, seeing at length on either height a picquet, he hesitated under an impression he had gone too far; but private George Harvey, apparently priding himself upon his knowledge of the locality, persisted in saying that the picquets were British. Unable to trust to his own sight, for his vision was defective, the sergeant, thus assured, pushed forward steadily with the party, till he observed a few yards in his front, an outpost drawn up across the road. The sappers now halted, and the two parties strained their eyes in surprise at this unexpected proximity. Morant, who was intently looking about him, struck against a wooden pillar of some altitude, streaked with painted bands of alternate black and white-supposed to be a milestone. By this his conviction was settled that the Russians were facing him. Alarmed at the visit, the enemy’s picquet fell back on the main body, and Morant just then gave orders for his men, who were unarmed, to retire stealthily. This was done for a short distance, when turning about, the whole batch, as if winged for the occasion, run the gauntlet for their lives between the two hill picquets, relieving themselves as they fled of such encumbrances as were likely to impede their haste. In this way their greatcoats and wooden canteens, in part, were left behind; and as the distance between the parties was inconsiderable, and the fire from the different picquets sharp upon the sappers, it is somewhat extraordinary, that not a man was wounded so as to draw blood, Several had their greatcoats, trousers and jackets perforated or torn by bullets, and a few were grazed on the legs and arms, while the sergeant had a choice lock of his hair clipped off, and a slight touch in the cartilage of the left ear.^[159]

This mishap was not without advantage, for it frustrated the execution of a sortie which was then preparing. From the flashes of the Russian fire, strong battalions of infantry could be seen moving towards our works, to repel which the second and light divisions at once turned out; the riflemen too, always ready, poured a destructive fusillade into the advancing battalions, and the artillery, never from their posts, saluted them with volleys of shot and shell. For nearly an hour the combat lasted, when the enemy, flying before the rush and cheer of the 88th, took shelter under the walls of the fortress, keeping up, however, for the rest of the night, a desultory fire upon the works. The loss in the trenches was trifling, and our batteries, which were much exposed, remained intact.

Notwithstanding this attack, the new battery was considerably advanced in its construction before the morning, for no less than 840 gabions had been laid in it during the night by lance-corporal George H. Collins.

A few nights after the mishap stated above, the non-commissioned officer just named was selected to conduct a working party to the 21-gun battery. It was exceedingly dark, and the men moved on cautiously. The “valley of the shadow of death” had been crossed; the picket-house passed; indeed the greater part of the journey had been marched when the field-officer in charge expressed his doubts that the proper track had been taken. To remove the officer’s misgivings and to prove the correctness of his own conduct, the corporal offered to go alone to the battery, which, regarded as the wiser course, was at once approved of. Off started the guide, and having reassured himself by a visit to the work, that his direction was right, returned to the officer within a quarter of an hour. To regain the party was more difficult than he anticipated. He knew not the relative position of the point where the halt was called, and on coming back bore away to the right about 200 yards. He judged by the time he was absent that he must be near the workmen, and so hailing them by whistling signals, which were recognized and answered, he was extricated from a dilemma it would probably have taken the night to solve. Satisfied with the integrity of his guide, the field-officer now readily moved on the column as Collins led, and soon reached the battery. The work was afterwards known by the name of the “Gordon Battery.”

By the 16th October the vigilance of the working parties had placed the lines in so forward a state that, on the following evening, orders were issued to the troops respecting the bombardment. No exertions were spared throughout the night to complete the works in every detail, and the sappers, being told off into storming parties of twenty men each under an officer of the corps, were attached to the several divisions of the army to lead the way in any enterprise in which their professional services might be demanded. For this purpose they were furnished with picks and shovels to form lodgments; crowbars, felling-axes, and sledge-hammers to remove impediments; bags of gunpowder for blowing in gates; and scaling ladders with which to storm walls and towers.

Eight or more distinct works had been erected, mounting above sixty guns, including Lancasters, which, during the siege, were increased or diminished according to circumstances. They were connected with a line of excavations exceeding a mile in length on the right, and 1,200 yards on the left, including deviations offered for acceptance by the undulations of the hills. The chief batteries—named after the officers of engineers who superintended their construction, held a position on the heights at a distance exceeding 1,350 yards from the Russian lines, while the French, working in easy soil, pushed up much nearer to the fortress by the usual process of sapping and mining. On the part of the English the plan of attack was necessarily a departure from recognized rules, owing to the rocky character of the ground and the deep glens which separated the works.

On the morning of the 17th, there were, including the sick, 351 non-commissioned officers and men in camp and in the trenches. As many as could possibly be collected were sent to the batteries to share in the first day’s bombardment. Under cover of the darkness, the embrasures of the batteries, blinded with gabions, were quickly unmasked by the sappers, and before the dawn had fairly opened, sixty-three guns belched their fire upon the fortress. By a preconcerted signal the French, hurling destruction from fifty-six pieces of ordnance, commenced the siege simultaneously with the English, and the allied navies took part in the contest. This was the first day’s firing on the part of the besiegers; and although the garrison kept up a warm cannonade upon the allies from the moment that any show was made in the construction of the trenches, the Anglo-French never once attempted, by the discharge of a single piece of ordnance, to lessen the interference of the enemy, or to interrupt the progress of their defences.

From both sides the cannonade was continued with more or less vigour according to the nature of events, and the result evidenced only too plainly the devastating effect of the firing. Our batteries were much damaged; those of the allies were scattered, whilst two of their magazines blew up with mournful results. The works of the enemy were in some places almost demolished: their firing varied as they found cover to stand to the guns; but the day’s fury was at length terminated by the terrific explosion of a magazine behind an earthen redoubt, which threw a feeling of awe even among the besiegers. There was much skill, however, in the Russian engineers, and before morning, by extraordinary exertion, the works were restored and replaced with guns. No less energetic were the English sappers in strengthening the lines and repairing the batteries; for although erected with admirable solidity, the shells from the fortress ploughed up the works and tore down the embrasures. In all such cases, if the restoration could not be deferred till night, the sappers, with a daring equal to their usefulness, would spring into the openings, and while exposed to the hottest of the fire, make good the breaches. One of the bravest and best in this exposed service was corporal John Paul. Fortunately, in the early stages of the siege, repairs in open day were seldom imperative. The damages done in the day by the cannonading of 155 guns were expeditiously made good at night; and so efficiently, that each morning the batteries stood up as compact and bold as they did before the firing opened on the 17th October.

After the first day’s firing, Sir John Burgoyne thus wrote to the Commander-in-chief. “I would call Lord Raglan’s attention to the great and successful exertions of the royal engineers and sappers under very trying circumstances. The very rocky soil presents the extreme of difficulties to the establishment of trenches and batteries; the very act of obtaining cover in one night in such soil, which was done on every occasion, requires a great effort, and to construct in it substantial batteries, still more.

“The proportion of good platforms and stuff for magazines embarked, was too insignificant to be worthy of notice: these objects had to be prepared (and for a very heavy description of ordnance) from the irregular masses of timber and plank that could be procured from buildings pulled down. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the work has been pushed on with rapidity, the substantial nature of the parapet has been proved by the few casualties incurred, and the embrasures and platforms have required, during the very heavy cannonade of yesterday, less repairs and adjustment than I have ever been witness to on similar occasions; and no accident has occurred to any magazine, although some shells have been observed to explode on them, all proving the substantial goodness of the works performed.”