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was considered to be uncalled for, 150 of them were withdrawn; and as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 perilous; 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 disadvantages 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.