were far more serious than for the few days previous. The enemy had
ascertained the range of the 21-gun battery with so much exactness that
every shot or shell, falling true at the work, tore up its embrasures
and parapets. Two 13-inch shells, however, fell upon magazines without
breaking through them. From splinters of shells the casualties were
many. In the naval brigade alone about twelve men were killed and
wounded. Captain Crofton of the Engineers was severely injured and died
of his wounds. Private Alfred Jarratt was killed; both of his legs were
carried away: and three privates were wounded. One—Donald McArthur—died
a few days after the amputation of one of his legs, and James Bayne had
his jaw fractured and his left cheek wounded.
A live shell having struck the roof of the magazine near the right
68-pounder gun in the 21-gun battery, some of the sandbags took fire.
Apprehending danger, Captain Peel of the navy begged some soldiers near
him to quench it, who, indisposed to risk an enterprise so perilous,
refused compliance. Two sappers superintending the man-o’-war’s men,
though busy in repairing the embrasures, were then called on by the
Captain to extinguish the burning bags. Without hesitation, corporal
James Wright and lance-corporal William J. Lendrim leaped on the roof,
and, under fire from the enemy, quickly removed them, refilling the
chasm with fresh sand-bags. Captain Peel himself assisted in the work.
The delay of a few seconds might have seen the magazine in the air and
the ground strewed with lifeless artillerymen. In descending, Captain
Peel thanked the sappers for their exertions; but they had scarcely time
to reflect on the service they had accomplished when a ball tearing
through the battery covered them with earth. At this addendum to their
labours the sailors chuckled with their accustomed mirth, and swore that
was the fulsome way in which the Russians always bespattered the British
with praise.
The same day Lendrim was about to enter an embrasure to remove a
sand-bag which was burning on the sole, when the petty officer in charge
of the gun mounted there requested him not to do so until he had fired,
as the piece was already loaded. While waiting, a very young naval
officer approached, and asked Lendrim why he delayed the service. He
soon explained, but the midshipman as quick as thought leaped into the
opening and threw the bag on the merlon. Piqued at this interference,
Lendrim told the officer he did not thank any one for doing a duty for
which he was responsible; and added, “Since you have done so much you
had better finish the job.” With as much good sense as good nature, the
officer, seeing the chafed spirit of the sapper, did not attempt to
supplant him, and so Lendrim sprang into the embrasure. With some water
brought to him by an assistant line soldier he quenched the smoking
sand-bag and patched up the breach in the stricken check. Witnessing the
corporal’s coolness and celerity the officer observed, evidently to
dissipate the unpleasant feeling which his daring had induced, “I would
not have touched the bag had I known you were one of the old sappers.”
Lendrim was more than satisfied with this complimentary apology.
Sixteen extra sappers were sent to the left in the afternoon for exposed
duty, and in two or three hours fixed mantlets across the gaping mouths
of No. 7 battery. Under fire all the time the operation was necessarily
hurried, and did not admit of those nice attentions which unopposed
exertions would have permitted. The mantlets were simply suspended
across the openings on a piece of wood jambed into the parapets of the
embrasures. Four guns of the battery did good service against the
Boulevard works. In the course of the evening two of the mantlets were
blown away, but the battery stood up firmly.
In allusion to the officers and men under this date ‘The Times’ thus
speaks of their unshrinking labours:—“It is impossible to deny to the
Russian engineers great credit for the coolness with which they set
about repairing damages under fire; but words cannot do more than
justice to the exertions of our own men and to the engineer officers and
sappers engaged in this most perilous duty. When an embrasure is struck
and injured it is the business of the sappers to get into the vacant
space and repair the damage, removing the gabions, &c., under fire, and
without the least cover from shot, shell, or riflemen. Our engineer
officers have frequently set the example to their men in exposing
themselves when not called upon to do so; and I believe that, as yet,
there has not been a single instance in which a gun has been silent
owing to damage done to an embrasure. The officers and men charged with
this dangerous work have not waited for the cover of night to effect
repairs, but have carried them on in the face of the enemy.”[178] This
eulogium is corroborated by a conversation held between two officers of
the engineers, in which one exclaimed to the other, “How admirably and
cool these sappers behave under fire. They are really good men and brave
soldiers.”
As the night crept on 900 of the line and 89 sappers marched into the
trenches, who, scattered among the batteries, left no point
unstrengthened, no embrasure unequal to its wonted work. Everywhere the
platforms obtained fixity, and the gaps which had been made in the
parapets for the passage of cumbersome guns were filled up before the
darkness sped. Much shattered was the Gordon battery, and its fascines,
broken at the bands, were strewn in waste about the gorges, while the
sand-bags were ripped up and disembowelled by every telling shot and
tearing splinter. Iron gabions and fresh sand-bags were pressed into the
embrasures to patch up their furrowed cheeks, and the shot-holes behind
were plugged up with earth. A new sand-bag battery for four guns on the
right attack was founded this night in rear of the left communication
from the 8-gun battery to the left boyau. Much would have been done to
raise it, but the night was dismally dark, and as rain was falling the
men straggled on the road and loitered in their tasks. With fruitless
effect the engineers and sappers tried to awaken in the workmen
something like passable animation. Nevertheless 1,600 sand-bags reached
the site and the sappers tossed and packed them in their places with
nonchalant dexterity. Though much annoyed by fire from opposing
rifle-screens, four men, superintending 100 of the infantry, made good
progress in rendering defensible the advanced works on the left of the
second parallel across the Woronzoff road, and six sappers in the 8-gun
battery first relieved it of the debris which choked up the embrasures
and then masked them. Early in the morning private Joseph McAsh was
killed.
The fifth day’s bombardment commenced on the 13th April, and No. 9
battery on the right attack opened for the first time on the Malakoff
and Mamelon. Until ready to fire its embrasures were blinded with hide
bags filled with hay, which effectually answered the intention of their
employment. No. 7 battery on the left was silenced by overpowering
discharges upon it from the Upper Garden batteries. It was, moreover,
much broken and its salients knocked into grotesque forms. Ninety-four
sappers were in the trenches eleven hours giving heed to the
quickly-recurring urgencies of the siege. In the following night No. 7
battery was again in battle order, and No. 8, which had been delayed
from untoward vicissitudes in weather, was also provided with its
equipment of heavy guns. About this time the scaling-ladders at the
parks were prepared and held in readiness with selected parties of
sappers to take advantage of any event that might turn up by tactics or
strategy to render an assault desirable.
In a despatch dated 14th April Lord Raglan remarked:—“Our parapets and
batteries continue to stand remarkably well, notwithstanding the very
unfavourable state of the weather. Although the duties have been
unusually severe and arduous both by night and day during the week they
have been carried out with the utmost cheerfulness and zeal, reflecting
much credit both on officers and men.” The necessity for these repairs
and exertions were constant, and never more so than on the date of the
despatch.
Captain Burnett of the navy, who narrowly watched the efforts made to
execute the repairs in the 21-gun battery, was impressed with the
steadiness and intelligent activity of privates Robert Crawford Cowan
and William Baker, seventh company, while working at the embrasure for
the Lancaster gun. It was mended with gabions, fascines, and sand-bags.
Completing the restoration before quitting the opening, their gallant
perseverance, despite the bursting of shells and the flight of Miniés,
was recorded by Major-General Jones in brigade orders. Indeed the cheeks
were thrice patched up during the day by these intrepid men who also
attended to the lesser damages in Nos. 15 and 16 embrasures. With No. 17
embrasure, these three constituted, in the homely phraseology of the
sailors, “the slaughter-house.” Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden also observed
that he could mention other sappers who were zealous and unflinching
under fire; “but,” he proceeds, “I am glad to be able to report that the
men generally do their duty so well that there are few who can be named
as exceptions.” Private William Smale was severely wounded this day in
the right leg by the splinter of a shell while repairing a platform in
the 21-gun battery.
It will not, perhaps, be misplaced to mention here the names of privates
Samuel Evans and James Callaghan of the 19th regiment. Seeing a
sapper—private Alexander McCaughey—toiling by himself in the difficult
repair of a broken embrasure—No. 17 of the 21-gun battery—the former
voluntarily went into the opening and shared with the overseer the duty
of removing the debris. The latter received a blow on the head from a
stone sufficient to draw blood, and certainly sufficient for ninety-nine
men out of a hundred to get excused from a working party, but he
nevertheless remained steadily at work.[179] These instances of devotion
were noticed in general orders and praised by Lord Raglan.
After the embrasure spoken of was cleared Evans quitted it; and private
David Thompson, who had just finished the repair of a neighbouring one,
came to the assistance of McCaughey. Both were robust men, immovable in
danger, and nobly stood the fire of two guns from the Redan, the
accurate aim of which sent several missiles into the work. Of one cheek
they had replaced the gabions and partly filled them, when a 68-pounder
shot swept four of them from the row, and shortly after another whizzed
closely over Thompson’s head as he was springing from the sole to avoid
the threatened blow. In another instant both were at work again, but as
the firing became still warmer, their labour was obviously as fruitless
as that of Sisyphus. “You cannot do impossibilities, men,” said Captain
Owen, who witnessed their perseverance, and ordered them from the
aperture, which, on leaving, they blinded with a gabion. The gun mounted
in rear of the opening was a 68-pounder, and a black sailor, considered
to be one of the best artillerists in the battery, usually fired it.
McCaughey was “considered an able and active sapper for difficult duty
in the trenches;” a character he well sustained throughout the siege.
Throughout the following night spirited efforts were made to mend the
breaches sustained in the day. There were nearly 700 of the line and 82
of the corps given up to these midnight labours. Great as the force was
it scarcely fulfilled the immediate requirements of an exacting siege.
Mist and rain fell through the darkness, the men were drenched, and the
wind swept with unfriendly chills over the hills; but before the morning
the damages were nearly all made good in battery and trench to prolong a
contest the end of which was still far distant.
As the morning arose with renewed demands and dangers the engineers for
the day were early astir, and the works so gravely handled by the
enemy’s fire still looked haughty and imposing. To a working party of
480 linesmen there were 50 sappers, who, for the most part, were
detailed to the 21-gun battery, upon which the fire from the Redan had a
mischievous effect. Worn and battered as it was the embrasures were
repaired without any appreciable interruption of the besiegers’ fire.
Between the rounds the sappers leaped into the apertures and built up as
much of their cratered faces as the activity they could command
permitted. Those working in the left advanced approach towards the crest
of the hill overlooking the Woronzoff road were much impeded by
discharges of round shot and musketry from the Redan, during which,
flying on with the sap, private John Lethbridge and one of the working
party were killed. “The conduct of the officers and men,” wrote
Major-General Jones, “has been such as to merit the warmest approbation
of the Major-General commanding; the duties on which they have been
employed being most arduous and requiring the greatest steadiness.”
Next night 87 sappers were in the trenches, and in the succeeding day
60. The 21-gun battery, cleared of its old gabions and fascines, was
resuscitated by the morning and fired well in the day’s struggle.
Advantages always seem to be chased away or ridden over by catastrophes,
for a magazine in the centre of the work, visited by a shell which
obtruded at the door, blew up and killed a gunner and wounded eight or
nine more. Out of about thirty magazines on the right attack this was
the only one, after eight days’ firing, which broke up and collapsed.
Fifty-five sappers were allotted to the left attack, where No. 9
battery, commenced on the 14th April, was in course of completion. It
was cut for six pieces of ordnance; the rock cropping up to the surface
was blasted by some miners of the corps and the broken stones were built
into the parapet. Soil to fill the gabions was brought in basket-loads
from a sand cave on the left of the second parallel, which subsequently
was converted into a magazine for ammunition. Alderson platforms were
laid in the battery by the sapper carpenters on the 16th with so much
expedition that their usefulness and skill were noticed with encouraging
commendation. The battery was completed and armed by the 23rd.
Passing on to the night of the 17th, when 80 sappers were in the
lines—28 being on the right and 52 on the left—corporal Joseph J.
Stanton and four leading men, with 200 of the infantry, were detailed
for the extension of the left demi-parallel situated between the third
parallel and Egerton’s rifle-pit under Captain King of the engineers.
The little brigade crept silently to the head of the sap, and after
placing the gabions crammed them with sand-bags passed from hand to
hand. As the sappers steadily moved on, the working party broke the
ground and increased the cover. In this way, though the soil was very
rocky, about a hundred gabions obtained a footing before morning. It was
hot work to advance even the length of a yard, and gabion after gabion
torn from the row was gallantly replaced. Constant volleys from the
rifle-pit in front compelled the men to proceed with the greatest
caution and silence. Persevering in this way till reaching the brow of
the hill, they were stopped by an old Russian rifle-screen, which was
immediately reversed by transferring the large gabions and sand-bags
forming the original revetment to the opposite side. During the
operation Captain King was severely wounded in the thigh and expired a
few days after. Three of the sappers were also wounded—privates
Alexander McCaughey, John Limming, and George Hobson: the last was
wounded in the arm, had three or four bullets through his greatcoat, and
the frog of his waist-belt carried away. Among the workmen there were
five injured. Best able to judge of the exertions of the party,
Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden thus wrote of them:—“The conduct of the
sappers under Captain King and the working party under Major Welsford,
97th regiment, exposed the whole time to a most galling and dangerous
fire, was admirable.”
Private Boyland carried Captain King from the trench to the 21-gun
battery, and though such an act might fairly have excused him from
further duty that night, he returned with all haste to his post. There
were still between fifty and sixty gabions to place. Hobson was at the
head of the sap, and the firing was close and destructive, for the
enemy’s ambuscades were only about twenty yards in front. In time Hobson
was disabled, and it became Boyland’s turn to lead. He was pushing on
very successfully, when Colonel Tylden appeared, and seeing that the
opposition to progress was excessively sharp, he ordered Boyland to
place six gabions at a right angle to keep the enemy’s fire from
enfilading the new piece of trench. Ready and fearless, he commenced the
work; but, in order that it might be finished with greater expedition,
he begged, as all the sappers save the corporal who was superintending
had been wounded, to have the assistance of any men of the 88th who
would volunteer to join him. One was speedily at his service. The
gabions were quickly planted despite an unceasing fusillade; but while
filling them with sand-bags, the poor 88th man was shot through the
side. Calling for help, an officer sprang up to the gorge, and Boyland
and he bore the spirited volunteer under cover. Colonel Tylden, who was
never disposed to relinquish a moment’s work if he thought it could be
employed to advantage, would not permit the sapper, who had escaped so
many perils and whose firmness and exertions received his praise, to
return again that night to the head of the sap.
Day and night the companies furnished parties equivalent to their
strength for the inexhaustible wants of the siege. Batteries misshapen
and tottering, put on stubborn and threatening aspects after a few
hours’ toil. New armaments were made up, new batteries opened; and to
ensure their stedfastness, one at least boasted of a parapet 26 feet
thick. This was No. 13, a sand-bag battery on the right attack.
Approaches by the stealthy boyau were cautiously cut, but invariably
opposed by vigilant sharpshooters who held positions in screened
defences. For any one work, few only of the sappers could be spared.
Half a brigade was in this sap, half in that; two or three were in the
right rifle-pits, two or more in the left; nine in the most advanced
trenches placing gabions and protecting themselves by heaping up earth
from the tops of barren rocks; four at the communication between the
caves at the advanced post, and others deputed to an infinite variety of
field employment. So passed on the siege to the 19th April; and taking
the interval from the 17th, only one sapper, private James Queen, was
killed. He was shot through the head by a rifle-bullet. “Up to this
time,” says the record, “the repairs to the batteries injured by the
enemy’s fire have throughout been performed in a very satisfactory
manner by the sappers, many of whom have been particularly active and
zealous.” To the list of names already honourably mentioned, must be
added that of private James Lancaster of the 3rd company. Being a
powerful man, whom no amount of exertion could tire, he was conspicuous
for his very good work and coolness in forming a communication from the
left of No. 7 battery to the “Ovens.” He was the leading sapper in
scarping the rock under corporal Joseph T. Collins, and continued with
abiding zeal at this heavy service, though a constant rifle firing was
maintained on the work.
The rifle-pits on the left advance sap of the right attack had fatally
annoyed the besiegers in their foremost works, and it was determined
either to destroy or seize them. With this object they were attacked at
half-past nine o’clock in the evening of the 19th April. There were 600
bayonets of the 77th regiment engaged in this nocturnal assault,
commanded by Colonel Egerton. When the orders were given, the troops
rushed forward, and after a warm engagement for about half an hour, were
masters of the pits, with a loss of two officers and several men.
Colonel Egerton also sustained a contusion of the thigh. As soon as the
covering sentries were posted, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden advanced with
the working party of 150 men, headed by colour-sergeant Henry McDonald
and six sappers, under the personal orders of Captain H. C. C. Owen and
Lieutenant Baynes of the engineers. The Russian gabions were quickly
faced about, the sand-bags thrown down, and after reducing the earth,
the enemy’s pits were incorporated with a communication which led to the
boyau in rear. The lodgment was achieved in about two hours, under a
roar of missiles from rifles and ordnance, with so little confusion and
so much gallantry, that the affair deserves to be characterized as a
dashing exploit.
Colour-sergeant McDonald took the lead in the sap, followed by private
Thomas Ewen and other sappers who planted the gabions as fast as they
could be handed up. The officers of engineers assisted pressing in their
turn to the very head. At intervals they and the sergeant moved among
the workmen, instructing them how to fill the gabions and where to lodge
the sand-bags. As the sergeant was pushing up the trench, he stumbled
over a prostrate officer; and on inquiring, found that Captain Owen was
at his feet, dangerously wounded. McDonald proposed to bear him from
danger on his back, but the captain, preferring a stretcher for the
purpose, one, after a little time, was brought by the sergeant. On this
field convenience Lieutenant Baynes and McDonald carried the wounded
officer bleeding from the pit. His left leg was afterwards amputated and
he lived to obtain the honours due to his heroic efforts. Finding some
sappers in the old trench sending up the gabions, Lieutenant Baynes
relieved the sergeant and sent him again to the pits, following himself
as soon as he had despatched the captain to the camp; but in forcing to
the front, this young officer was mortally wounded in the chest and arm.
In retracing his steps, McDonald was astonished to find the working
party running from the lodgment. Asking the reason, he was informed that
the Russians, in some strength, had driven up to the work and forced
them back. At once McDonald ordered them to stand, and after facing them
to the right-about, drew his sword and placed himself at their head.
Ewen was there ready to second his authority with any amount of daring
he might find it necessary to command. Seeing the Russians still
creeping over the works, the sergeant desired the workmen to kneel, and
after firing a volley, to charge. Strictly obeyed were the orders; the
charge was gallantly made, and the enemy having vanished before the cool
volley and the bayonet point, the pits were reoccupied and the lodgment
resumed. The commanding officer and Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden now
appeared, the covering party being about 200 yards away; and on learning
what had happened, Colonel Egerton praised the sergeant for his energy
and valour. To protect the linesmen from further molestation, the
colonel distributed a portion of the covering party in front of the
lodgment. Next in command of the workmen, McDonald aided
Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden in directing the new trench. Moving to the
gorge, still followed by Ewen, he quickly fixed the gabions one after
another, intermixing with them the Russian baskets and sand-bags. Just
as he had completed the curve at the vent of the sap, Colonel Tylden
again appeared, and laid with his own hands the last gabion. The steady
and zealous demeanour of the sergeant attracted the notice of Colonel
Egerton, who, standing over him, encouraged his exertions by
commendations and promises; but he too at last fell back severely
wounded by a grape-shot in the right side. Colonel Egerton was near at
the time and administered his brandy-flask to sustain, in a measure, the
drooping head of that brave soldier.