The batteries—Stoical tranquillity in blasting rock—Round-hill or fourth parallel—State of the works—Siege materials and expedients—Corporal William Swann—Expedition to Kertch—Second international communication—No. 15 battery on the right—Rope mantlets—Hospital caves—Companies reviewed by General Jones—French officers’ opinion of the corps—Repairing right rifle pit—Arrival of ninth company—Progress of the works—Third bombardment—Bravery in the embrasures—Corporal Stanton in the batteries of the second parallel on the right attack—Casualties—First appearance of ninth company in the trenches—The sailors—Voluntary resolution of Corporal Lockwood and his sappers—The engineers—Inobtrusive devotion in an embrasure—Adam McKechnie—Death of Captain Dawson—Selection of old sappers for front duty; their sterling exertions—Labours in the batteries; platforms—Magazine blown up—Russian plan of extending their trenches—Capture of the quarries and white works—-The lodgment—Death of Lieutenant Lowry; bravery of corporal Stanton—Casualties—Lord Raglan’s approbation of the sappers—Infernal machines in the quarries.

By the 16th May all the batteries as far as No. 14 on the right, and Nos. 10 and 11 on the left, were finished and provided with pieces of heavy artillery. No. 14, founded on a bed of rock, was strongly built in the centre of the second parallel, and the cheeks of its embrasures, formed in the ordinary way with gabions and sand-bags, were lined with hide-bags. No. 10 was partly revetted with stones; and No. 11, from the hard nature of the ground, occasioned considerable difficulty in its construction, inasmuch as mining—a tedious operation under fire—was constantly resorted to to procure cover. It was chiefly revetted with casks and gabions. The two latter batteries were also built in the second parallel, the former to fight the barrack battery, and the latter, rising from a trench which run out at right angles from a backward bend of the parallel to the crest of a precipitous cliff, raked the Picket-House ravine and the cemetery, and plunged its shells into the works at the dock-yard creek.

Soon after commencing No. 11, the firing into it was very hot one morning. Corporal Hollis had charge of 200 men engaged in various details connected with its progress, the bulk of the workmen being scattered over the shelving rocks of the ravine in rear, collecting earth from the nooks and hollows to fill the sand-bags. Shells played on them from the bastion du Mât and an unseen battery near the creek, which killed three men and wounded four others. Grumbling at an exposure which was considered to be uncalled for, 150 of them were withdrawn; and as the 50 that remained scarcely cared to prolong a stay which cost them now and then a casualty, it was pleasant, amid so much hesitation, to see one cool fellow doing his duty. Private Clubb, who was drilling a hole to blast the foundation for a platform, was sitting behind a full gabion that blinded the neck of a partly-cut embrasure, and being intended for a sea-service gun, it had a genoullère only about a foot in height. Presently he was covered with earth by a shot which struck the gabion and passed a few inches over his head into the ravine in rear. “That’s close shaving, Hollis,” said he, looking up with a calm smile without losing his hold of the jumper; and thinking the incident undeserving of any further notice, he retained his seat and resumed the boring with as much unconcern as if he knew nothing of fear.

A batch of rifle-pits on the left attack, commenced in front of Nos. 7 and 8 batteries, subsequently became an extended series of screens, spotting the ridge on its very brow, each connected with the other by an approach, which, in time, encircled the hill and formed a continuous line of intrenchment for musketry fire within fair range of the enemy’s batteries and quarries. As the nights were bright, a heavy cross fire of shells and grape was constantly poured upon the sappers and workmen, that rendered the operation as trying as perilousperilous; but it well repaid the trouble and courage exercised in its construction, as the riflemen picked off the Russian gunners, and thus silenced some of the ordnance which cannonaded the trenches from the Redan and barrack batteries. The round-hill trench—an astonishing achievement of persevering skill and courage, formed, for the most part, through rock at an extraordinary outlay of labour, under very adverse circumstances and interruptions from the galling play of musketry and artillery—was designated the fourth parallel, and though it was at no time armed with a battery, it was mailed at all points with selected light troops.

Every hour made obvious the necessity of hastening the termination of a struggle which had swallowed up an army in its checkered events. The secret of success in a siege, next to good generalship, is expedition in the construction of essential works and attention to their efficiency. This was ever borne in mind; and though opposed by astounding obstacles, never a day passed but a sensible addition was made to the vast network of trenches. Parallels and approaches now covered the hills, and saps daringly progressed in front. Dingy pits filled with groups of prying and fatal marksmen studded the advances and flanks. Caves were augmented in size and number in the sides of the ravines to give safety to the gunpowder, and shell-rooms were constructed to hold the combustibles. All existing batteries were maintained intact and new works by degrees were thrown up in front to grapple with the sturdy formations of the Russians. As they were finished, the masks which blinded the apertures were removed, and heavy guns, peering through them, flashed on the enemy’s works. One hundred and sixty-five guns and mortars of all weights and calibres were in position, and the average distance of the advanced batteries from the Russian lines was, on the right, for 11 guns and 5 mortars, 360 yards; and on the left, for 20 guns and 3 mortars, about 460 yards.

Many were the expedients introduced to supply the absence or deficiency of the usual siege materials, or to take the place of established contrivances which had now proved their comparative uselessness. The Madras platform fully gave place to the Alderson invention. Iron-hooped gabions were resorted to with increased favour for revetments, but as it was found that the earth—when its moisture had dispersed—riddled through the hoops and lessened the amount of protection they were calculated to afford, the precaution was taken of packing them with bags filled with sand or small stones. Wicker baskets, which had held an immemorial reputation, still maintained their fame, but the constant drain on them had wholly impoverished the parks. Not a stick could be gathered in the vicinity to augment the supply, and Balaklava and the neighbouring heights and hollows were hopelessly explored for brushwood. Saplings for the purpose were therefore brought from Karani and even from Constantinople and Sinope. Hide-bags now seemed to outvie with the canvas ones, and sheets of tough bull’s skin were picketed to the cheeks of the embrasures to save the gabions and fascines from taking fire. Nevertheless, the sand-bag—the ancient ally of the brushwood gabion—stood its ground, and to economize its expenditure, beef and powder barrels, casks, and tubs were used in the shady parts of the works. Fragile things, too, were the sand-bags, for they frequently burst by concussion or the influence of the weather, and, moreover, required nice adjustment to make them lie effectively. From the pressure behind they sometimes tumbled down. The doctor’s hut, from this cause, fell with a crash and more than astonished the busy occupants; and to obviate the recurrence of similar disasters, a greater slope was imparted to the parapets and walls. Two guns were spread over the space allotted to three, which greatly enlarged the mass of the batteries. The magazines were formed of a triangular shape as being less liable to injury than the quadrangular ones. Splinter proofs were raised in all the works to protect the artillerymen when not working at the guns and afford them shelter from the burning sun or pelting rain. Parados were erected in the batteries to shield the workmen and others from splinters and flying stones set in motion by bounding shot or bursting shells. A crusade was also entered against banquettes except where indispensable for defensive positions. In other situations they reduced the amount of cover which a safe parallel or communication should possess and subjected the besiegers to unnecessary casualty. Copying the Russians, loop-holes were made to the rifle-screens in the body of the parapet, and the simple but hazardous employment of sand-bags for this purpose was in great part abandoned. Other refinements were also introduced by this time. Sun-shades and tentes d’abris were scattered in profusion through the works; but however excellent were the conveniences thus afforded, they did not escape an occasional removal, to convert the props into firewood, and the canvas into long under-gaiters, waistcoats, or towels.

Corporal William Swann, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Giurgevo, was severely wounded on the 20th by a grape-shot while in the trenches of the left attack. His right leg being amputated, his stamina went with it and he expired. He had just been promoted to the rank of corporal for his activity and usefulness in the batteries. At the same attack in the third parallel private Neil Campbell was killed on the 21st May by a round shot, which carried away a portion of his head, while building an abutment on the left of the traverse in No. 14 battery. Private Joseph Finch working by his side, with a bared breast, was hit by a fragment of his comrade’s skull, which stuck like an arrow in his neck.

A division of the army sent to the Sea of Azof, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown, to reduce the Russian strongholds on the coast, took with it 43 men of the seventh company, who embarked in the ‘Bahiana’ at Balaklava on the 22nd May and landed at Kimish-Corum in the neighbourhood of Kertch on the 24th. Captain Hassard commanded the sappers, with whom were Captain Stanton and Lieutenants Murray and Drake. Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon directed the engineering arrangements. After assisting the Land Transport corps in landing and removing the stores and horses, in which their services were most useful, they burnt down the bullet manufactory in the suburbs of Kertch; threw up, with the infantry, a line of intrenchments from the sea to the centre of the position, the French constructing the other moiety; demolished several sea batteries commanding the channel of the Sea of Azof, and made preparations by collecting stores and materials for an attack on Anapa.

On the 23rd, at night, was begun on the right attack a trench along the track which interposed between our right and the French Inkermann left. The old arm which some time before had been made to grasp the works of the allies, was now enfiladed from the Russian trenches in front of the Mamelon, and many men having been picked off by musketry in passing, it was regarded as too unsafe for future use. The work was divided into two portions. Eight sappers were allotted to the first, and one hundred of the infantry, with eight other sappers, to the second. It was a very exposed quarter, and the men selected to take the lead, accustomed to foremost duty, knew well how to force the work with the least amount of danger. The excavations were pushed on rapidly, re-using from the old communication the gabions which revetted it. A field-piece from the enemy constantly fired on the party, without, however, interrupting the work or occasioning any casualty.

Next night eight fresh sappers and one hundred linesmen were distributed in the communication, who were exposed to so harassing a fire from the Mamelon and other batteries, that Lieutenant James of the engineers had some difficulty in inducing the working party to go on steadily. The sappers, however, urged a-head, dropping gabion after gabion, checked ever and anon by an excess of fire, which caused them to stoop for shelter under the securer parapet. In about an hour, the workmen becoming cool, they handled their tools with unexpected earnestness. Sixty-three gabions—all that were brought from the abandoned parallel—were staked. Thirty-eight of them were filled, for which distance tolerable cover was thrown up. Great as was the cannonading it was singularly harmless; but just as the party were about to leave the trenches, a shell from a howitzer mounted in the works at the left of the round tower, fell into the communication, killing private Richard Walsh and wounding private George Wood and another sapper, as also two of the workmen. Each succeeding relief gave itself to the work with activity, preserving the strictest discipline. Rock had often to be removed to deepen and widen the trench, and it required at times more than usual caution and judgment in placing the gabions. Seldom were fewer than sixty fixed in prolongation of the work, but as this was always done by the flying method, the sappers were necessarily exposed during the whole distance. In returning from the head of the work, it was not an uncommon occurrence to find several of the gabions thrown down by projectiles from the Mamelon. Here, then, was the greatest danger, but not less expert than resolute, the capsized baskets were speedily reset by the overseers and adjusted to the trace. So went on the trench till the night of the 28th May, when the sappers, with admirable coolness, running along the remaining trace planted sixty-six gabions. The last gabion entered a cutting through the old international communication—a part of it free from enfilade fire. It was thus embodied with the new work and that night the confederate parallel was re-established.

On the 24th was commenced No. 15 battery on the right attack for three mortars, by a brigade of sappers and 100 men. It was traced on the crest of the Woronzoff ravine among some quarries, by Lieutenant James of the engineers, 50 feet of which offered a natural revetment. The remainder of the trace was marked by a lodgment of fifteen gabions. Good work was performed though the site was rocky, and before daylight the parapet was well risen. Heaps of stones, which were contiguous, were built into it and both epaulments. Vigilant as was the enemy, he did not discover the battery and it proceeded that night without molestation. By the 2nd June it was ready to join issue in the struggle. It was a solid construction; the communication to it, through an indurated soil, was very strong; and situated on the extreme left of the second parallel, it was the only battery which, for a while, watched the road and ravine. It, moreover, fired into the Redan.

In numbers 7 and 8 batteries on the left, mantlets of tarred cordage were suspended across the necks of the embrasures to mask them from the enemy. This was, apparently, the first time of their employment in the British batteries. Simple as they were, they fulfilled the object of their use. Each of the mats had a narrow cut at the bottom to allow the gun to run out and also a small opening for the artillerymen to take aim. Where all is rough and dependent in some measure upon experience acquired in hazardous situations, and the quick adaptation of the commonest means to different ends, the application of the rope mantlets was forcibly in keeping with the grim and rugged character of the trenches.

One of the hospital caves was in No. 7 battery which had been deepened and widened by the miners’ art into a chamber of approved dimensions. Other huts there were in the trenches in no case exceeding seven feet in height, but the capacity of one or more gave measurements of six by fifteen feet. They were built after the fashion of magazines, but so arranged as to admit more light for the surgeons on duty to carry out those primary remedies which the injuries of the wounded imperatively demanded.

Major-General Jones reviewed the corps in the Crimea on the 25th May. Seven companies passed under his inspection. One, at the time, was with the Kertch expedition. Thinned by the casualty of war, sickness, death, and invalids, the sapper force then paraded, scarcely exceeded 400 bayonets. The major-general’s impressions of the inspection and his opinion of the services and character of the sappers were eulogized in a report to Sir John Burgoyne. “It affords me,” writes the general, “great pleasure to be enabled to state, that the appearance of the men was most satisfactory, and more so than might have been expected after the severe trials they had to undergo during the severity of the winter, and their constant and very laborious duties in the trenches since October last, and which they have performed with a zeal and readiness which reflects the highest credit upon them. Their conduct has, with few exceptions, been exemplary. The officers attached to the several companies evince a strong desire to have them in the best state of efficiency, and pay the greatest attention to the interior economy, &c. It is surprising that the discipline of the companies should be so good as it is, considering the disadvantagesdisadvantages the men labour under from the frequent change of officers attached to them. The eleventh company has had seven commanding officers within a few months.

“No medals,” concludes the general, “have been sent out for the royal sappers and miners for distinguished conduct. The strength of the corps serving with the army is equal to any regiment of the line, and, therefore, the sappers and miners should be considered entitled to the same number, at least, as have been sent out for a regiment; and by the conduct of so many men who have distinguished themselves, there will not be any difficulty of finding men entitled to them under the terms of the royal warrant.”

A French officer of high rank who had served before Sebastopol and possessed opportunities of studying the organization and soldierly attributes of the British army, communicated his opinions of the service to a brother officer at Paris. Publicity was given to his views in a free translation by a retired British officer in the ‘Daily News.’ That concerning the engineers and sappers appeared in its columns—strangely enough—on the very day the inspection just noticed was made, and forms an apposite counterpart to the handsome acknowledgment of Major-General Jones. “I will begin,” says the writer, “with the English engineers, a corps which, from what I have seen of its working, can never have been excelled and seldom equalled in any army in the world. The education of the officers, the training and intelligence of the men, the activity of the whole corps, and the manner in which they carry on their works, are fully equal to the same qualifications in our own regiments of engineers. Of the courage of these troops I need not speak—they are like the rest of the English, brave almost to a fault. If ever there was a corps of which a nation should be proud it is that of the English engineers, or sappers and miners as the men are called, whilst the regiment itself and the officers are called the royal engineers.”

On the 31st at night the sappers on the right were thus dispersed. Eight in No. 15 battery; six in the 21-gun battery taking down one of the naval magazines injured by a shell bursting on it; and four in the new right boyau. After the working party had left the trenches, the sappers, sent in advance to the right rifle pit, restored before day-break, the parapet which had been thrown down by the fire of the enemy, and also effected indispensable repairs in the communication leading to the field-gun emplacement.

Between the 24th and 31st only one casualty had occurred—private George Clubb wounded in the right hand by a round shot when repairing an embrasure.

June, the ninth month of the siege, had arrived, but the end of the struggle was still distant. Many a hard day’s work and many a furious fight was in store for the antagonists. Difficult and harassing as was the enterprise and frightful the carnage that month after month had occurred, there was no ground for the confederates to be dismayed, no reason for lessening that ardour, which, if steadily persevered in, was sure to win the game.

As the works were spreading, it was clear that to carry them on with expedition and success a reinforcement of sappers was essential. Appeals, not without anxiety, were made for them, which were met by efforts of corresponding solicitude. The ninth company, almost reorganized, sailed from Liverpool in the ‘Resolute’ steamer on the 9th May and landed at Balaklava, 118 bayonets strong, on the 4th June. Captain Dawson, of the engineers, commanded it. Several men were in it who had served through the Kaffir war and were present in that murderous razzia which swept off half the detachment in the Konap Pass. The kind of warfare suited to contend with a barbaric race and to which they had been accustomed, was ill adapted for the scientific and open field hostilities practised by civilized nations. The sapping attainments, therefore, of the company fell short for a time of the requirements of the siege. Added to the right attack it passed a day or two in camp and then defiled into the trenches.

Considerable advancement had been made in the British works, in which an average of about sixty sappers for the day duties and forty for the night accompanied the several reliefs to the trenches. On the 1st while laying gabions in the left advance sap on the right attack private John Wright was killed by the explosion of a shell. A magazine in the 21-gun battery being damaged by the enemy’s fire six zealous men were turned into it to render it serviceable. This they achieved in the open day amid the bursting of shells; and the powder was replaced before nightfall. A couple of sappers also assisted to make good the repairs to the picket-house battery; others improved the tub revetment round the shaft of the ammunition caves; others fixed additional chevaux-de-frise across the Woronzoff road to block up the ravine; and a moving force repaired by night the breaches which daily were made in the various batteries. These were cleared of broken gabions, shattered bags and loose earth, and the embrasures were again finished with visages so stern and solid they seemed as if no harm had ever befallen them. Nos. 12, 13, and 14 batteries were hourly growing into the required stature. No. 12 was on the curve of the second parallel at a point from whence issued a rocky communication to No. 11. Nos. 13 and 14, with No. 8 between, were situated on the crescent of the third parallel, and communicated with No. 15 on the right and 7 on the left. The circuitous trench or fourth parallel was strengthened in parts by a double gabionade, and everywhere the sappers and line miners were blasting the rock to obtain stones for cover. On the 5th at night a solitary sapper mounted the roof of the magazine in No. 14 battery on the right attack, cleared away some superabundant earth, and after he had completed the service proceeded to one more dangerous. It was the right rifle pit in advance of the third parallel. The parapet had only just been thrown down by a round shot and wounded a man. The next shot might have wounded him, for the screen was accurately in range, but no consideration was so paramount as the execution at all hazards of a necessary restoration. Warily, and by degrees, he filled up the gap while the fire was upon him, and before day-break finished his fatiguing task.

It was arranged among the generals to make another assault preceded by an uninterrupted cannonade of some hours’ duration. Accordingly at three o’clock on the afternoon of the 6th began the third bombardment. The French opened with a crashing array of ordnance, and the British had 158 pieces of artillery in vigorous play, to which the Russians replied from more powerful armaments in the Mamelon, Redan, the barrack and upper garden batteries, and those also from the town and creek. Admirably was the fire maintained. Projectiles of every weight crossed in showers, but so dense was the smoke—resting like storm-clouds on the terrible scene—that neither side could take better aim than what the flashes of the guns afforded. At dusk the cannonading waned on both sides, at which time the enemy confined his demonstration to a few guns only. All the Russian works were much injured, the batteries broken up, and parapets and embrasures, in part, demolished. Those of the British, on the contrary, presented effects so disproportionate as to make the contrast between them and those of the besieged almost marvellous. Nos. 9 and 14, two contiguous batteries, seated on the swell of the second parallel on the right attack, however, fared less fortunately than the rest: they were knocked into strange shapes and three of their guns were disabled. Shot and shell flew into them so accurately that the revetments fell as if shaken by an earthquake into hopeless ruins. All else stood nobly up, escaping with only trivial injuries, which a little sagacity and expertness in the sappers soon made sound and efficient.

There were told off for the batteries and trenches this day twenty-eight sappers for the right attack and sixty-one for the left, who gave attention to the damages as they occurred, and also in blowing up the rock in the new advanced trenches. Even while the bombardment was at its highest the miners were busy in the approaches to the fourth parallel, turning with tedious process the jumper in the rock, loading the holes which had been sufficiently deepened, and firing them one after another in open day. Eight other sappers were employed in rebuilding the electric telegraph station in one of the dismal caves on the right attack. All the men behaved with steadiness in their several duties, and some showed so much confidence and daring in re-forming the shattered embrasures, despite the firing, that their names were brought to the notice of Lord Raglan. These were corporal Joseph J. Stanton, second corporal Samuel Cole, and private Alexander McCaughey, to whom was presented by his lordship’s order, a donation of two pounds each in acknowledgment of their gallantry; and subsequently each was honoured with the badge of a silver medal for “distinguished service in the field,” accompanied by gratuities of ten pounds each to the two former and five to the last.^[184]

Corporal Stanton had to look after the batteries of the second parallel on the right attack, having under him a small party of the Buffs and two sappers of the ninth company, none of whom had been in the trenches before. His superintendence was therefore irksome and laborious. By his steadfastness and the vigour of his actions, he gradually dissipated their hesitation, and following where he led, they assisted to remove obstructions from the embrasures, particularly the broken hide mantlets stuffed with wool, which, with their fastenings, had dropped across the openings and choked up the gorges. Moving from battery to battery, Stanton was repeatedly in the embrasures and even where the mantlets were sound, cut them down with a strong arm—for he was a powerful man—as the advantage of their retention as shields was far outweighed by the terrible hazards of clearing them away should they fall in the embrasures. While these deeds were in progress, showers of grape and groups of shot and shell poured into the batteries causing accidents of a very singular character. A shell came over into No. 13 battery, and striking another shell which was being loaded, an explosion took place wounding the captain and the sergeant of artillery engaged in the service. The right gun of the battery had become useless from one of its trunnions breaking; and so to prevent unnecessary casualty one of the sappers filled up the neck of the embrasure with a mask of sand-bags. While so employed a shot just passed over his head and entered the disabled gun sticking fast in the muzzle. Narrowly, on two occasions, he escaped during the day, but his comrade was severely wounded in the head by the bursting of a 10-inch shell.

Among the troops the casualties were considerable, but in the sappers three only were wounded:—

For the two attacks there were fifty sappers provided at dusk to shore up the works and mend the breaches in the parapets during the night. Some of the troops who occupied a dangerous post in front to guard the trenches fell asleep, and thus failed to fire into the embrasures of the Redan. This arose from a misconception of orders. It is worthy of record, nevertheless, to show how cool were those brave men who, only a bow-shot from danger, as if in undisturbed possession of an English barrack-room and unaffected by care, reposed on the banquettes. The working party on the right attack in No. 9 battery evinced great want of spirit in the measures necessary to repair it. A ruinous fire had broken it up and knocked down its embrasures. Much exertion was needed to make it equal to the struggle, and the party quitted at the time for relief, without having made that progress which it was calculated would result from the number of men appointed to make good the damages. The corporal of sappers in charge of the workmen who was consequently involved in their inactivity, was subjected to the penalty he merited. Lieutenants James and Somerville were the engineers responsible for the restorations on the right, and they had under their orders thirty-two sappers. Half of the number had been taken from the ninth company newly arrived from England. This being their first time in the trenches they scarcely understood their duty in the impromptu way in which war teaches it; but yet, they left the advance that night with approbation. Corporal David Simpson of the ninth company, was conspicuous for his tact and coolness in mending an embrasure at grey light in the morning, while shells fell wide of the devoted man who filled up the gap. Lord Raglan awarded him two sovereigns in token of his satisfaction. Throughout the night the cannonading was continued principally by vertical fire and additional damage was done to the works; but, with few exceptions, the injuries were repaired, and all the embrasures supplied with sound gabions and sand-bags before daybreak. Even the batteries which kept up their fire were attended to, and the shattered baskets and tubs, and the torn hides and sand-bags, were replaced during the intervals of the several rounds. No time was lost, no exertion withheld, to give an appearance to the general works of freshness and strength. The sapper carpenters repaired the various platforms in the 21-gun battery and the roof of the right magazine of No. 9 battery, which, struck by a shell, was much shaken. Alexander Montgomery, the sergeant in executive charge of the sappers on the right—who had served in many a fight as a military adventurer in maintaining the royal cause both of Portugal and Spain against insurgents ranked on the side of powerful pretenders—was commended by Major-General Jones for his zealous conduct and intelligent assistance to his officers.

A party of sailors thrown into the trenches worked exceedingly well. Indeed, without their help the repairs to the 21-gun battery could not have been completed. The man-o’-war’s-man labours in his own way, and does it with so much heartiness that, however singular and incautious may be his modes of proceeding, he achieves his end in time. Five of the seamen were wounded, but none of the sappers, though equally exposed, were hurt.

Just as the sappers were paraded at the engineer hut in the first parallel to return to camp, an artillery officer appeared and represented that the embrasures of No. 11 battery—the only work which raked the picket-house ravine—needed immediate attention. The news was not pleasant to men who had performed a fatiguing night’s labour. Feeling the hardship of this extra duty, the engineer officer was disinclined to order any of his sappers to undertake the repairs, and so, calling for volunteers, his wishes were instantly met by several willing men offering for the service. Such unhesitating renunciation of themselves was deservedly applauded. Corporal Joseph Lockwood, lance-corporal Samuel Varren, and privates John Jaffray and Charles Carlin, passing from No. 5 by the trench which rounded No. 9, pushed onwards by the continued communication into No. 11, and leaped into the embrasures. In about two hours, with such old materials as they could find, they patched up the shapeless cheeks in as solid a form as the urgency of the occasion permitted. The repairs were necessarily of a rustic character, for wooden and iron gabions, sandbags, fascines, earth, and loose stones—the available litter of the battery, in fact—were all employed in tinkering the breaches. From the moment the Russians perceived the sappers in the openings, a steady fire of Miniés was maintained against them, and a couple of furious shells burst in their rear; but they passed untouched from the trenches, and their exertions and resource were acknowledged by Major-General Jones in brigade orders.

The works of the adversary which had been uprooted by the fierceness of the besiegers’ fire were rebuilt and rearmed in the night. There were some, however, which seemed to totter on their bases. Wondrous must have been the energy employed to give completeness to such a series of extensive formations as comprised their defences. There was, let it be acknowledged, a Vauban in the fortress. Todleben was he, an ardent and skilful general and engineer, whose genius made him equal to any pressure and capable of compassing any amount of devastation. We, too, had Vaubans, disciples of the most approved military masters; and the solid field structures founded by their talent and directed by their skill and sleepless industry, prove their worthiness to rank with the best engineers of any country. It only wanted this unprecedented siege to make clear that which, for forty years, was an open question.

No working party was furnished for the left attack on the 7th. There were, however, 54 sappers in the trenches who mended the embrasures and threw up the rock by mining in different places in the third parallel. Private Walter Conning, a delicate man but of robust purpose, was noticed by Major Bent for his calm activity while mending an embrasure in No. 4 battery on the left attack. His duty was to attend to the repairs of the platforms; but as these were in a serviceable state and he did not choose to remain idle, he leaped into an embrasure and assisted his comrades to rebuild it. While doing so he was struck down by a spent shot which knocked him from the aperture against the traverse. This self-imposed employment, an instance of unobtrusive devotion, coupled with his uniform steadiness and zeal in working the advanced trenches, gained for him promotion and the decoration of the Military War Medal of France.

Adam McKechnie—a private—was no less conspicuous in No. 9 battery repairing with sand-bags two embrasures which had been knocked to pieces. A blaze of fire was upon him during the whole time, but he continued his exertions for more than two hours with a bearing so manly, that Lieutenant Oldfield of the royal navy and his seamen, looked on with as much admiration as surprise.

Among those who were the most praised was private Andrew Fairservice. He is stated to have been “exceedingly active in repairing embrasures under heavy fire;” so much so, indeed, that his valour and perseverance gained him the honour of a “distinguished service” medal and a gratuity of five pounds.

For the right attack the numbers detailed—about forty—were told off to their posts by sergeant Donald McFarlane. Captain Dawson of the engineers, the officer on duty, was killed early in the morning in the 21-gun battery. He was the captain of the ninth company and this was his maiden tour in the trenches. In little more than two hours after leaving the camp he was borne back dead, his head having been shattered by a round shot. Incessant repairs to the embrasures and parapets kept the sappers constantly exposed, and they toiled with all the ardour for which they had now become famous.

Some men of the ninth company in the 21-gun battery were unequal to the hard work of the embrasures, and Captain Peel of the navy urged the necessity of sending some old sappers—meaning men who had been at the siege from the commencement—to be allotted to the duty. Second-corporal George H. Collins and a brigade of eight men were at once sent to the front, and so incessant were their labours, they were never clear of the embrasures for five minutes during the ten hours they served in the battery. All day long the sun was hot and burning, the sky clear, and not a man that thrust himself into the shattered apertures could reckon for an instant on his safety. Not a shadow was thrown to conceal him from observation, and he trusted to his agility to escape, when the “look-out man” warning him of approaching shot or shell, gave him the chance of making a desperate leap from the opening.

Most assiduous were the carpenters in strengthening the platforms, for the continued friction of the guns in their heavy and irresistible recoil injured not a few of them. A platform on the right of the 21-gun battery required in haste for an effective piece of ordnance was rapidly refitted; but before the mortar could be shifted on it, a 13-inch shell from a battery in rear of the Redan struck the flooring and broke it in pieces.

In the afternoon, the strongest and most secure magazine on the right attack was blown up. It was on the left of the 8-gun battery. A shell plunged through the roof and bursting, all that remained of the magazine was a smoking ruin. Private John Heaton who was returning to his party after mending a platform at a distance, was killed by the explosion and not an atom of his remains was ever discovered. Privates George Wright and Stephen Gossage were wounded by fragments of the scattered timber. On hearing the report—ominous of loss both of material and life—the Russians jumped on their batteries and parapets, and, intimating their joy at the calamity by a fiendish yell, quickly disappeared behind their revetments.

Wherever the Russians had established screens, they opened communications to them, and then connecting each with the other, so formed a parallel. One of this kind stretched its length 150 yards in front of the British trenches which was nightly strengthened, widened, and improved. The line, extending from the Mamelon to the Quarries, formed the enemy’s exterior defence, beyond which except the rifle-pits he was never able to advance. As the besiegers flung out their boyeaux and breasted them with batteries or filled them with sharp-shooters, the Russians, equally pushing, spent their arts and energies in rendering their works both formidable and inaccessible. This advanced parallel having greatly annoyed the besiegers and laid many a brave section low, a combined attack was determined on,—the French to assault the Ouvrage Blancs and the Mamelon; the English, the Quarries and its appended works facing the left of the right attack.

At about six in the evening—just as the sun was setting—the assault was made by half a battalion of infantry from the light and second divisions headed by Lieutenant Lowry of the engineers and a small party of royal sappers and miners. The whole were commanded by Colonel Shirley. Divided into two columns of 200 each, the half battalion dashed on to the flanks of the Quarries, and supported by a reserve of 600 men, fought nobly against odds which threatened to overwhelm them. A tremendous cannonade had swept the Quarries until a few minutes before the encounter, when all the batteries turned their venom on the Russian lines and broke them up one after another. Repelled once, the assailants soon recovered themselves and drove the Russians before them; but, contending against an enemy almost invincible, the stormers again and again were forced back. At this moment, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden of the engineers, who had a working party of 800 men under his orders, let loose his armed pioneers, and three-fourths of them rushed into the quarries—those impregnable hollows, hemmed in by walls of rock and paved with broken stones and boulders—to share in the contest. This timely help, giving fresh vigour to the assault, the stormers, renewed in spirit, bravely seconded the stern efforts of the reinforcements; and a withering musketry, close and telling, struck down their antagonists to the earth, leaving chasms in their masses which a stream of troops from the Redan as quickly refilled. Swoop following swoop levelled section after section, succeeded by a temporary wavering which augured a retreat. The quivering, however, passed, and the enemy yet stood in the pits which so long had shielded them and worried the assailants as if the last man intended to die in the ambuscade. Already the immolation showed how desperate was the strife; the Russians at length, were well nigh exhausted; but a few minutes more, and the besiegers, struggling over the debris of old explosions and amid rocky traverses and huge fragments of stone, pressed the enemy’s columns at all points and drove them bewildered into the Redan. The Ouvrage Blancs and the Mamelon by this time were gallantly taken by the French.

As soon as the seizure had been accomplished, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden moved up from the right-ravine communication his working party of 200 eager men led by a few sappers with corporal Joseph J. Stanton. There was no confusion; no complexity of detail; and at once, under Lieutenant Elphinstone of the engineers, the lodgment was commenced, while the zigzag from the quarries, to connect with the left advanced sap adjoining Egerton’s rifle-pits, was opened under Captain Wolseley of the 90th regiment, assistant engineer. Every nerve was strained to perfect the works before morning; the trenches were quickly reversed; and the earth and stones belonging to the old revetment were built into the new parapet which was faced with gabions, 200 of which, all that were brought in by the working party, were laid by Lieutenant Elphinstone, corporal Stanton, and the sappers. Bold efforts were ineffectually made by the Russians to regain their loss, even carrying away, in their desperate prowess, some of the lumbering gabions; but the victors, indisposed to yield an inch, retook the baskets and held the ambuscade with intrepid tenacity, while the working party, saved by the vigilance of the stormers from material interruption in their exertions succeeded, before the arrival of the new relief, in giving to the lodgmentlodgment and communication sufficient cover for immediate defence. All this being effected in a dark night, with thick dangers around, was creditable to the endurance and industry of the officers who directed and the soldiers who toiled. Captain Browne of the engineers had the general superintendence of the works under Colonel Tylden.

Lieutenant Lowry, a young officer, led the storming party most gallantly and was killed while rallying the men after having been repulsed. He was carried away by some sappers, who, working on the parapet of the quarries saw him fall. His sword was delivered to corporal Stanton, of which he made good use. A Russian was outside, behind a gabion, bent on his knee. Observed while in the act of levelling his musket, Stanton waved the sword, and with one blow struck him down. Lieutenant Elphinstone and corporal Stanton were working side by side at the time, but the former was unaware of his danger till the deadly act of the latter had removed the cause.

Lieutenant Anderson of the 96th regiment, assistant engineer, was wounded early in the night. The sappers present in the storming were about 12, divided between the two assaulting columns; 40 were with the reserve battalion and the working party, and other brigades were distributed to the batteries. The casualties among the parties were eight wounded:—

“Notwithstanding,” wrote Lord Raglan, under date the 9th June, “the frequency of the endeavours of the Russians to regain possession of the quarries, and the interruptions to the work to which these attacks gave rise, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden was enabled to effect the lodgment, and to establish the communication with the advanced parallel; and this redounds greatly to his credit and that of the officers and men employed as the working party; and I cannot omit this opportunity to express my approbation of the conduct of the sappers throughout the operations.”

With remarkable skill the quarries had been entrenched by the Russians and novel schemes adopted to render them successful against an assault. About twenty yards in front of the works there were hidden dangers intended to throw advancing columns into hopeless confusion. It was well that the troops had no knowledge of their presence or they might have shrunk from an attack which yielded them such important advantages. Entering the quarries by the flanks, they were preserved from calamities that awaited them had they made the attack direct. Cubical boxes, filled with gunpowder, were buried in the ground with glass tubes attached to them containing an explosive composition. Delicately adjusted, though roughly constructed, these infernal machines only required the tread of hasty feet to produce combustion and blow up the stormers. Luckily, no accident occurred during the attack; and although forty or more of the boxes had subsequently been extracted from the soil, only two or three, bursting by pressure, occasioned any accident.