Testing the authenticity of some Russian plans concerning the docks—Force employed in the demolition—Situation of the docks—Their magnitude and strength—The operations—Difficulties encountered in their execution by storms and frosts—Labours and hardships of the miners—The explosions—Destruction of the docks—Accidents; intrepid exertions of corporal Cray—Poisonous gas in a gallery; prompt efforts to rescue the sufferers—Shelling the docks while the demolitions were proceeding—Sir William Codrington’s dispatch reporting the success of the operations—Also Colonel Lloyd’s report—The White Barracks—Their destruction—Death of Major Ranken; notice of conduct of second corporal Baker.

Meanwhile the mining of the docks proceeded. On the 13th September, one sergeant and nine sappers with some line miners only were employed; but their efforts were mainly directed to prove the authenticity of some Russian plans which had fallen into our hands when the allies first ascended the heights. A few shafts had been excavated in different places behind the revetments when, on the 19th, a subaltern of engineers and forty-two sappers having been detached from the camp, the works spread over a larger area, and were continued till the 24th September, when the service was suspended.

Whether or no these preliminary exertions verified the information which had fallen by the chances of war to the assailants it is needless to inquire, but the resolution had gone forth which doomed the docks to destruction. Accordingly on the 24th October, the sinking of shafts was resumed by forty-eight sappers commanded by a subaltern, who took possession of the large storehouse vacated by the previous detachment. A few companies of the 18th foot were also appointed to assist, a portion of whom from the 2nd of November was domiciled with the sappers. Another reinforcement of forty-eight men of the corps under a subaltern was, about this time, turned into the shafts; and as the demolition progressed, and the line miners began to show expertness in the duty, some of the best of them toiled equally with the sappers in the pits and galleries.

Late in November a demand for more help was met by the addition of sixty sappers to the docks. There were now 156 men of the corps and 150 of the line in the Karabelnaia. A party of linesmen was also sent up daily from the camp, so that the working means at the disposal of the engineers was swelled to a force of about 500 of all ranks. This perhaps was the greatest number employed in the demolitions. Nine hours the men worked daily; but on the 24th November, as important events were evolving which seemed to urge a rapid completion of the service, the whole 24 hours saw reliefs of sturdy men in the mines. Each relief was on duty eight hours. Now it was that serious impediments occurred from the presence of water in the shafts and galleries, but the chief result of these untoward obstacles was the exercise of an energy as extraordinary as continuous. When, however, about the 17th December, the frost set in and the miners suffered severely, night duty, except on pressing occasions, was given up; but to make up for this remission, the sappers and infantry miners toiled in reliefs thirteen hours a-day. In the middle of January, 1856, the 18th foot was relieved by an equal number of the 48th, and the ninth company, brought from Kamara, took the place of the 11th. The second, fourth, and eighth companies of the corps also shared in the operations. Major Nicholson was the superintending engineer.

The docks were situated on the southern extremity of the Karabelnaia creek, and their destruction was a mutual operation between the French and English. For their share the allies took the two outer or northern locks with the three interjacent locks; while that apportioned to the English were the three inner or southern docks. Between these structures was an immense quadrangular fitting-basin rising nearly 30 feet above the level of the Black Sea, supplied with water from the Tchernaya, pouring into the reservoir through aqueducts and tunnels. Thus provided, it fed the five docks; and the outlet for the waste run between the two French docks by a channel with a series of prodigious locks into the sea. Of this basin the French was charged with the destruction of the half contiguous to the northern docks, and the English that adjacent to the southern.

Of the nature of the duty which had devolved on the assailants some idea may be gleaned from a consideration of the dimensions of the docks. Stretching a line longitudinally from end to end the mean distance was 205 feet. The width was 92 feet; the depth 29 feet. The floors measured 190 feet long, compressed at the sides into a width of 40 feet. The revetments at the top were nearly 7 feet. The French docks were each 188 feet long and 92 feet broad. All the works were of the most solid kind. The hills out of which they were hollowed were of clay abounding with rock. They were thus in great part embedded in rock or hewn out of it at every point where the geological strata favoured the adaptation of natural expedients to a great end. Hard limestone was abundantly used in the work; so also was a material of a softer kind in unexposed situations. Granite of different colours in heavy blocks was used in all parts where resistance and impregnability were essential. In their massiveness and durability both docks and basin seemed likely to tire the patience of old Time himself. The steps—of the heaviest masonry—cut around the elliptical hollows, forming them, as it were, into amphitheatres, were “fit for a giant’s staircase.” But what seemed impenetrable to the wear and tear of ages and innocuous to those influences which insidiously eat away vitality from the mightiest fabrics was, in a few short months, torn up by mines and dashed into ruins as prodigious perhaps as those of Nineveh. Curved iron gates, unrivalled for size and strength, and covered with thick iron sheets overlapping each other and rivetted like the plates of a leviathan boiler, closed the entrances to the several docks. They might have served to turn back the sea in some turbulent strait; and when it was required to move a single pair of them as memorials of Russian greatness and our own energy, it took no less than 140 artillerymen under a skilful engineer, Lieutenant-Colonel Bent, to lift them from their position, not in their entirety, but rib by rib and sheet by sheet.^[203]

To accomplish the overthrow of such stupendous works shafts and galleries were sunk and driven in various places to different depths and lengths. The shafts behind the revetments were at least 30 feet deep; those running along the floors not less than 12, whilst others sunk in salient spots varied between the extremes. The shafts were more than 70; the mines not less perhaps than 150. Culverts were also employed as galleries where their use promised to be of advantage. All the chambers held specific charges calculated with extreme nicety. In each case the result was a more than tantamount destruction with the least possible show. The English docks being four feet below those of the French were never free of water. There the land-springs, seeking the lowest levels, emptied themselves. To cope with a difficulty of such magnitude it needed more than the resource of the bucket and pulley; and yet these simple means were not less serviceable than more ambitious appliances. Pumps of various kinds were employed, but failing in the deep shafts to raise the water to the summit, their use was confined to the pits of the floors, where they seemed more successful. In the deep shafts the run of the bucket was incessant, for a suspension of labour, however short, was likely to be attended with an influx that would have overmatched any exertion. “The sappers,” observed ‘The Times,’ “experienced great difficulty in firing the mines in consequence of the water running in on them from the clay, but with their usual energy they worked away and formed the mines.”^[204]

The works pressed on satisfactorily till the 16th December, when there occurred a storm which had been ushered in by two or three days’ heavy rain. As may be expected, the shafts were inundated; those behind the revetments were filled nearly to the surface; some had twenty feet of water in them, while the bottoms of the docks were covered with the tempest rain to the height of two feet and more. Against such obstacles who could bear up? And yet none concerned in the works succumbed. To clear the water from the deep shafts with the means at command was impracticable. It was therefore permitted, in great part, to waste away; while the primitive service of the bucket and pulley aided somewhat to reduce the quantity. On the floors of the docks coffer-dams were constructed to detach the several shafts from the general flow, and pumps were worked by stout hearts to draw off the water; but the pressure for progress did not allow of this tedious process, and luckily the expedient was hit upon of cutting a channel through the revetment wall of the entrance into the feeder of each dock. The French miners made the desired opening, and the docks were almost drained. Still the shafts were full, and it was only by a sustained outlay of unrelaxed effort that the water was sufficiently reduced to enable the sappers to go below and fashion the galleries.

It was a great blow to the works was this storm. Everything was put back by it. Some of the shafts were given up as beyond all power to continue them, and many of the galleries, almost completed, had to be driven anew. Choked up with mud, the difficulties of working them were tenfold more trying than before. To master them the labour was as unsparing as incredible. Even in home works, away from the annoyance of an enemy, to overcome such obstacles would have been regarded as extraordinary. In such circumstances it needed artificial stimulants to maintain the strength and spirit of the men and offer an antidote against ills to which they were constantly exposed. An extra half-gill of rum was therefore issued daily to the sappers and linesmen, under the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief. But it did little to check the sickness which the miseries of the enterprise gave rise to. A nipping frost having succeeded the storm added greatly to their risks. Working in wet shafts in a close atmosphere, with vapour rising in streams from the depths, weakened the men by excessive perspiration. It is also recorded that many of them on reaching the surface from the galleries became frozen. Colds were so frequent and coughs so general that the barrack was like an hospital. Dredging-boots were scarcely any protection to the sappers and line miners, for the water poured in over the thigh tops and kept the limbs in perpetual slop. The few who were covered in miners’ suits were hardly better off than their comrades. To them was assigned the most laborious portions of the work. Driving wet and muddy galleries was a relief compared with the operation of stowing away the powder in the chambers. Inclosed in three or four boxes or casks, the charge—sometimes weighing with its cases as much as 320 lbs.—was pushed on skids to the extremity of the narrow gallery. It required a series of plunges to move the burden to its place and give it a compact standing in a safe corner; and this frequently was done while the miners were up to their waists in water. Soaked to the skin, and coated with clay, it was a wonder that the workmen did not flinch from such hardships and break up under such trials. He indeed was a strong man who had worked his way through the entire demolition without a chest complaint or a pulmonary disease!

The blowing up of the docks was controlled by circumstances. It was hoped to level at a crash the entire works by a simultaneous burst of the whole magazines. The intention, however, was shown to be abortive by the constant intrusion of water into the mines, which necessitated the less striking resort to a piecemeal demolition. The explosions were numerous, but three or four large ones were ventured which amply repaid by their success the risk of the experiments. Several failures took place, as was natural in an undertaking so great, from the unavoidable dampness of the powder and accidents to the agencies of ignition. The quantity of powder used was 49,384 lbs. or more than 22 tons! On the 6th of February the last explosion took place, and the memorable docks of Sebastopol were numbered with the structures of the past.

Who could look over the ruins without melancholy reflections on the insignificant origin of such a catastrophe? At an outlay of treasure that would have made an ordinary kingdom bankrupt those once superb docks were built. It took years to construct them, but a few months were more than enough to blot them out of the roll of Russian wonders! Uprooted from their foundations and tumbled over in the hollows, scarcely any two blocks maintained their former fellowship. Counterforts, copings, quoins, steps, and the general masonry were broken up and hurtled into strange heaps. Mingled with the tumuli were fractured beams and timbers, massive frames, and portions of the ponderous gates. Here and there were torn sheets of iron, splintered pintels, fragments of heavy posts, broken ribs, and bolts like crowbars, with clump heads as large as sledge-hammers. Sticking up in the confusion were the angles of mammoth blocks of granite, some red, some blue, which by their garish aspect in the midst of so much devastation gave a play of vividness to the desolation. All that remained were a few dingy cantles of wall smoked by the explosions tottering upon the corners of some broken steps, waiting for a gustgust of wind to blow them down. As if to remind one of the incalculable loss to which the aggressive pride of Russia had given rise, there in all their vastness stood the scarps of the hills in which the overthrown docks had been reared. Fissured and caved they resembled frowning cliffs eaten away by a surging sea and the wear of centuries. Blackened craters and chasms intervened among the piles of fallen greatness and helped to augment the sternness and solitude of a demolition which was as complete as engineering skill could make it.

Beyond the ailments induced by wet, cold, and fatigue, the sappers quitted the docks, having suffered but triflingly from accidents. Private William Harvey was injured while at the bottom of a shaft by a man of the 18th regiment falling on him. A private of that regiment fell, on the 10th December, at night, into a pit upwards of thirteen feet deep and three parts full of water. His breast struck against an obstruction, which took away his consciousness. Corporal Cray, whose recklessness of self repeatedly gained him praise, descended the shaft to rescue the miner. The water was thick and discoloured with clay. Unable to feel the man, he was obliged to come up to recover breath. The second descent took him to the end of one gallery without success, and the third gave him the only hope of finding him in the other gallery. The struggles of the linesman had carried him in that direction, and Cray, almost exhausted, bore him to the top of the shaft, but life was extinct. Cray—poor fellow—ready in every danger, and foremost in many, was not, though he had escaped often and strangely, invulnerable against exposure, and the result of his gallant efforts was an attack which, reducing his voice to the feebleness of a whisper, sent him an invalid to England.

A fatal accident occurred to a private of the 48th regiment working at the bottom of a shaft close to the ruins of a culvert which had only a few hours before been blown up. It was near a dock-gate, and the gas from the explosion having penetrated the intervening earth diffused through the gallery, which had been driven in about twenty-eight feet. The 48th man was at its end and private Neville of the sappers at its mouth. Both becoming insensible, “with infinite alacrity and courage,” wrote ‘The Times,’ “non-commissioned officers and soldiers descended the shaft, braving a danger which seemed the greater because its extent and nature were unknown, to succour their comrades, and as they got down they in turn were overpowered by the offensive gas. Major Nicholson and Lieutenant Graham also went down and suffered in consequence.” The former was insensible when, supported by his men, he reached the top of the shaft, and it was some time before he recovered.^[205] Besides the 48th man who perished six or eight other miners were seriously affected, particularly private Neville. The sappers who behaved so nobly were second-corporal Alexander Gray, who had charge of the shaft and was the first to descend; lance-corporal Marks, who got out Neville and Gray, and was himself thrown down by the poisoned air; and lance-corporal Normansell, who sent up corporal Marks and recovered the 48th man. Normansell had a rope round him, and feeling the gradual loss of power in his wrists and arms rushed to the end of the gallery, quickly tied the rope round the miner, dragged him to the mouth of the shaft, when, calling for help, both were borne to the surface. The corporal was unconscious, and remained so for some time, but the poor linesman was irretrievably gone.

While the operations were progressing the enemy fired at times with some briskness. Many shells pitched into the docks and exploded, but generally they fell short or wide of the shafts; “and though,” says the official record, “the working party had some extraordinary escapes, only one sapper was wounded, and a private of the 18th regiment lost his arm.” The sapper alluded to was second-corporal William Eastley, who was severely struck on the 19th January, 1856, in the right shoulder by the splinter of a shell. He was, however, returned as only slightly injured. This was the third time that the corporal was wounded during the siege.

Well may the corps refer to the destruction of these docks as a proof of their usefulness and of their capacity to undertake any skilled employments which war might suddenly throw in their way. Among the many operations of difficult and hazardous labour which have been achieved by their intelligence and industry, none, perhaps, will display in the chronicles of military engineering a more creditable page than this—the great concluding event of the struggle with Russia. At every stage of the work their movements were known to those whose commendation it was an honour to merit; and when all was over their conduct and exertions were alluded to in terms of praise in a dispatch of the 2nd February from the Commander-in-Chief to the Minister for War.

“Amid great difficulties of cold and wet,” wrote Sir William Codrington, “a very severe frost at one time and perpetually recurring pressure at another, the work went steadily on; and great praise is due to all those concerned—the engineers and sappers, parties of the royal artillery, the 18th regiment, and latterly the 48th. These parties return to their duties to-morrow after constant and laborious work.^[206]

“The casualties have been but six, of which two only have been fatal; and one man of the 48th was lost by foul air in a shaft; after several vain attempts by Major Nicholson, other officers, and men—themselves descending at great risk—the poor fellow’s body was brought up, but life was gone.”

It only remains to close the mention of this signal service by appending the copy of a letter from the commanding royal engineer at Sebastopol, affording some details of the demolition and eulogizing the corps among others for its exertions:—

As the last efforts were being made to overthrow the remnants of the docks, the engineers sent a force of 180 sappers with 100 men of the line under Major Ranken to destroy the White Barracks, built of stone, situated to the west of the Karabelnaia. In their magnitude they were nearly equal to the artillery barracks at Woolwich. The east and west ranges were almost a quarter of a mile in length, while the north and south ranges measured each 582 feet long. The area enclosed within the pile was a rectangle. The two latter ranges had three stories, the west two, the east one. Many other buildings for offices and domestic purposes occupied the interior of the rectangle, starting inwards from the eastern range, leaving a wide street adapted for parades towards the west. The clock tower stood over an arched entrance in the centre of a group of miscellaneous buildings. Heavy vaults were in the principal structures, in which were several sets of apparatus for warming the rooms. In most cases the walls were four feet thick. The west range rested upon two rows of strong pillars, and heavy masonry occurred in situations where taste and artistic development were desirable for strength and display. During the siege some of the walls and roofing had been pierced and torn by shot and shells. Much of the timber had been burnt, and a great quantity abstracted for war emergencies; but injured and dismantled as were some of the buildings enough remained to excite the destructive action of an army bent upon humbling the military greatness in the Crimea of a stiff-necked and aggressive people.

No end of mines were made by the sappers in the piers of the windows, dead walls, vaults and cellars, and in pits underground. Innumerable were the charges varying in each chamber from 15 lbs. to 600 lbs. of gunpowder. The largest charges were placed in the vaults. Always tedious were the processes; the labour in many instances considerable, and the hardships experienced were those which arose out of intense cold, snow-storms, thaws and frost. The first charges were fired on the 30th January, the last on the 1st March, when the six largest vaults each loaded with 600 lbs. of powder were demolished. The great result of the operations was the complete destruction of the barracks. Here and there, however, were broken clumps of wall gravely standing as so many monuments of the general wreck, creaking upon shattered bases, all sufficiently dangerous to render the removal of every stone and plank from the site essential before attempting the re-establishment of such another pile.

The only drawback to this service—and a lamentable one it was—was the death of Major Ranken of the engineers on the 28th February. Sergeant Coppin went forward to ignite some mines which were ready for exploding. Four of them were in the angle of the south building, seven in adjacent windows and one outside. These he commenced to fire, passing on rapidly from one to the other, when to ignite the last he had to jump out of the window. In applying the light a rather large heap of powder in its vicinity caught the flame, which caused the hose prematurely to go off with luckily no other damage than burning his hand. Four of the mines missed. To repair the failure promptly was the major’s determination, and so the charges were relaid in the gable to be fired from one focus, consisting of a three-feet length of fuse attached to the powder-hose. The major took with him second-corporal Baker, a man of tried intrepidity, who assisted in adjusting the fuses and hoses for explosion, and then passed out of the window already much shaken by two explosions, through which the major intended to escape after firing the charges. In front of the opening the corporal stood to attract the attention of the major, so that should any mishap occur he might readily find his way out. The corporal saw the match applied, he saw the danger—the mines suddenly went off! In one fall down came the gable wall and angle of the building with the roof, and before the major could escape he was caught by the breaking mass and mangled under the ruins. Baker run at the instant, struck as he flew in several places, and was miraculously saved. Expecting that the major was following he looked back with a foreboding impulse to see how he fared; but his excitement and sorrow were great, when, seeing nothing behind him but the thick dust settling slowly over the ruins, it became his unhappy duty to bear the harrowing tale of the major’s untimely death to those who were awaiting their return. With melancholy anxiety the sappers and others turned over the mound of rubbish to extricate the officer possibly with life. All night the duty was continued, and his remains were not discovered till eight o’clock the following morning. In this sad way was lost to the corps and the service as good and brave an officer as ever drew sword. His death was the last tragic event of the war!