Flights of bullets were levelled at the workmen from musketeers, who,
having crept up among the smouldering houses in the vineyard, and
sheltered themselves in unseen positions, calculated too truly—from
their previous occupation of the place and their foresight—where the
besiegers would be appointed to toil. In the night of the 21st it was
hardly possible, except at a prodigal loss, to employ more than twenty
men and three choice sappers in the lodgment. Covered by a party from
the 4th foot under the command of Captain Dowbiggen, who had judiciously
posted his guard to make the most of any sudden attack, the workmen
repaired the breaches in the trench, and filled as many gabions as it
was found practicable to stake. The linesmen and sappers were directed
by Lieutenant C. G. Gordon of the engineers. A body of Russians advanced
with a cheer towards the cemetery from the vineyard and threatened by
their strength to annihilate the little party; but their fire having
been returned with more warmth by the guard than was anticipated, the
Russians, doubtlessly possessing a delusive notion that the cemetery was
held by a powerful force, retired without personally contesting an
occupation which would have ended to their credit. That the gallant
bearing of the party had deceived the enemy is almost proved by the fury
with which it was plied. During the whole night four mortars played on
them from the garden batteries; and frequent shots and grape raked them
from the Creek and Barrack batteries causing among the steadfast
sentries and the industrious sappers and workmen about twenty-two
casualties.
It behoved the engineers to proceed with caution in so fatal a spot, and
if they could not readily adapt the cemetery to their own purpose, to
make it inoperative to the enemy. At the time, the sacrifice of life in
working it was more than the advantage of its retention; and it was,
therefore, determined to destroy the position and evacuate it. Quietly
and quickly were the entrances from the Russian works into the pits
filled up, and other depredations committed to nullify communication
with the cemetery and little Mamelon behind. In the night of the 22nd,
in order to extend the demolition, five sappers under Lieutenant Neville
of the engineers, crept into the rifle redoubt above the cemetery with
destroying implements. It was a covered loop-holed ambuscade made up of
old doors and window-shutters. No time was lost, for the duty was one of
imminent risk. Mounting the work, the sappers threw down about
thirty-five feet of the splinter proofing, and, hurling it into the
ditch, concealed it from observation by a covering of earth. So hard and
zealously did the sappers work under a heavy fire of grape and shells,
that their names were recorded for the notice of Lord Raglan.
Second-corporal George Henry Collins, and privates David Muir, William
Goddard, John Ford, and William Eddy, were the men engaged in this
intrepid demolition.
The operation was repeated the next night by four sappers under
second-corporal Trimble, who worked for four hours filling up the old
Russian trenches, while a rattling musketry, intermingled with crashing
projectiles, scarcely checked the vigour of their exertions. Though not
wholly destroyed, the ambuscade was abandoned, marked only by one
trifling wound among the men and the breaking of a shovel helve in the
hand of the industrious man who was using it. When the night of the 25th
had well advanced, Captain Belson, unaware that the screen had been
relinquished, told off a working party to augment the ruins; but finding
it unoccupied by a guard, he distributed his men to the general
trenches, and went on with corporal Stredwick and a few cool sappers to
complete what human energy had not time as yet to accomplish. There was
no cover, except what the few standing grave-stones offered, and even
this was questionable from the many sharp-edged fragments which, chipped
from the slabs at every stroke of shot or shell, fell among the party. A
heavy fusillade from sharpshooters in the screens made the situation of
the sappers very critical. They worked, nevertheless, with a manliness
that gave a noble aspect to labour; parapets were thrown down, ditches
filled in, and timbers dislocated; but at length, as a sortie was
apprehended—of which there were unmistakeable indications, for the enemy
was seen moving up in broken bodies to the little Mamelon—the sappers
were withdrawn by Captain Belson from the enclosure without even a scar
to tell of their endurance and danger. It was a lucky escape, for a few
minutes after, the Russians were in the pit.
A new battery—No. 18—for six heavy guns was reared under many
difficulties, to rake the middle ravine and throw its metal into the
Redan and the Malakoff. It was built on the swell of a trench a little
in advance of a group of zig-zags and lateral excavations issuing from
the second parallel of the right attack. The work was commenced on the
23rd June, and does not appear to have been wholly completed till the
7th July. Strong parties worked in it at each relief, and when finished,
its revetments, standing up in the most solid and approved forms,
resisted with some tenacity the crashing cannonade brought to bear upon
it.
In the advance trench on the right of the quarries, the sappers, for
three or four nights, had to watch with more than usual solicitude in
making way against the perils which threatened them. It was good work to
place as few as twenty-six gabions in this exposed situation, for the
moon shining brightly in the heavens discovered to the enemy the true
character of the progress effected; and being within about 300 yards of
the Russian batteries, it needed that the men entrusted with the
operation should be as collected and brave, as resolute and dexterous.
As the moon rose with its meek but tell-tale face, the four sappers were
obliged to quit the head of the sap and retire where the cover was
thick, to protect them from the projectiles, which frequently overturned
the baskets; but when the luminary was dimmed by a passing cloud, which
made the gabionade appear indistinct, the sappers rushed forward, reset
the overturned gabions, and staked as many more as the duration of the
obscurity permitted. In this way was completed a line of initial
revetment extending to about 45 feet. No pickaxe could be used or
blasting resorted to in the vicinity of the sap. The gabions were,
therefore, filled by fits and starts with earth gathered at a distance,
brought to the work by thirty linesmen.
On a subsequent night the sky was almost cloudless, and the moon gleamed
with so much clearness, that the danger of working the sap was as great
as if conducted at noon-day. There were four sappers in the advance and
fifty of a working party. When only a gauzy cloud moved between them and
the moon, the former, bounding as from a lair, leaped a-head with the
gabions and employed the transient intervals in giving them a place.
Their exertions were carried on in paroxysms, and a night’s vigilance
and ardour only counted the lodgment of nine gabions! So fearful was the
risk of achieving even this trivial progress, that none but sappers
could be confidently allotted to it. The line was, nevertheless,
beneficially tasked in strengthening the cover of less exposed works.
Activity was the order of the trenches. Proud instalments of progress in
every direction showed how well the men toiled, and how expeditiously
they converted the enemy’s formations into terrible constructions for
the future siege. On the right, the quarries, far in advance, were
turned into formidable defences. They were strong by nature but vastly
improved by art. The high gabions and flour barrels which faced the
enemy’s revetments, were made to serve similar purposes in the
besiegers’ works. Those quarries became the park for the front, in which
was erected the engineer hut—scarcely bullet-proof—from whence orders
were dispersed with cool despatch by the officers charged with the
execution of the several works. From thence issued the fourth
parallel—partly a Russian entrenchment—which cut up the hill and
extended as far as the middle ravine; while approaches shot out daringly
in front from the left of the old ambuscade in hazardous contiguity to
the Russian lines and pits. Against the incessant firing of
clear-sighted sharpshooters it was difficult to stand and persevere; yet
on went the sap, sneaking stealthily forward like a huge snake, till
branching off on either hand, it stretched its length in another
parallel in front of the Redan. Three boyaux, cut on the crest of the
hill in advance of the quarries, led to the fifth parallel; which,
pushed along by energetic men, joined an abandoned Russian trench that
breasted the left flank of the Redan, and run along ridge and glen to
the famed Mamelon. Old magazines evincing signs of decay were revived,
new ones constructed, and traverses, platforms, and the unending
appurtenances of a gigantic siege, were made, repaired, or reformed.
Instances of instability in the batteries had occurred, which caused the
embrasures, &c., to be rebuilt by experienced hands. The 21-gun battery
had past its day as a depôt. It was no longer the heart of the system,
communicating life by its supplies to the arteries of the hills.
Stupendous as it was, it lost everything but vitality, and the
importance it had once acquired was now possessed by the quarries.
The weather had settled with intolerable heat, and a blazing sun beaming
in a sky of unbroken blue, bronzed the lean faces of the workmen, and,
sweating their spare frames, affected the stamina of all. A thunderstorm
interposing, cooled the air and moistened the rock. It was an auspicious
visitation, for it lessened the oppression and parching to which the
workmen were subjected. The rain fell in torrents, and gushing down the
ravines in floods, tumbled over balls, fragments of shells, and clods
like so many cascades. Young trenches were inundated and older ones in
some places covered with water ankle deep. Fears were entertained for
the stability of the works and the efficiency of the drains, but when
the tempest had ceased, so little was the damage done to the batteries
that the necessary repairs were executed in a few hours. The water
channels, on the contrary, were much impaired and became one of the
chief difficulties in conducting the siege. At this period the number of
the corps available for trench duty was 351 only. The sick present were
110 and those at Scutari, &c., were 51. The force detached to different
places to carry out the multifarious services for which sappers were
constantly demanded was 160. The total strength in the Crimea and in
Turkey, as these details show, was 672 of all ranks.
On the left attack the Mamelon Vert above the Cemetery having been taken
by the French, the post in the graveyard which had been abandoned was
reoccupied in the night of the 27th by a British picquet to protect the
right of the allies. The works in it were speedily turned and traverses
constructed to ward off the firing from the Flagstaff batteries; while
the enemy, confined within the main line of his defences, scarcely dared
pit a rifleman beyond the chain. A brigade of sappers followed by a
working party descended the side of the ravine warily pushing on gabion
after gabion, and then trenching along its bottom and driving through
rocks and unsheltered ground, at length reached a wall through which a
breach being quickly made, on went the trench in the direction of a lone
house in the valley, and in time was extended by blasting to the
cemetery.
By the 27th of June, the covered-way, termed by the sappers the “stone
double sap,” to protect the two large caves or “ovens” where a strong
day picquet was posted, was completed. Like a terrace it run along the
slope of the picket-house ravine among steep and jutting rocks, for
about 300 feet, and was hollowed, every inch of it, by mining. Its face
was between three and four feet high of solid rock, and above was placed
a revetment of gabions, powder-cases and bread-bags filled and backed by
fragments of stone blown up in the blasts and macadamized. Sand-bags
were also used, and earth brought from the rear was shovelled among the
stones to make the mass compact. To protect the trench from enfilade,
six traverses of rock were formed as the work proceeded; but a bold one,
seven feet in altitude, facing the mouth of the first cave, pushed
across the trench for 22 feet, and possessed a breadth adapted to the
object it was intended to serve. A curved continuation of the trench,
stretching up the hill for 100 feet, rounded the second cave, whose
enlarged mouth opening on the Russian batteries required strong cover to
shield the chamber from the enemy’s fire. A parapet was therefore risen
like a butt, some 16 feet broad at the crown, which stood well against
grape and shot and averted dangers it seemed incapable of meeting. The
revetment started from a foundation of rock built up to the necessary
height with sand-bags. Subsequently it was thickened with earth and
stones six feet broad, and faced inwardly by a row of large beef barrels
crammed with rock and clay and crested by sand-bags. The caves
themselves were connected by a cutting effected by four hard-working
sappers under lance-corporal Simon Williams. Two cut from one cave, two
from the other, descending on either side into easy soil to avoid the
rock. Where the latter occurred, it was removed by points and hammers.
The passage, about 26 feet through, was five feet six inches high and
three feet three inches wide, and was completed in ten hours. A free
communication was thus open from one to the other without the necessity
of passing into the trench. Avenues were opened from the covered-way to
the rear, and forward by a long arm, which, joined to a succession of
saps like so many prodigious limbs or joints, skirted the ridge
overlooking the ravine, and then connected with the fourth parallel. The
approach from the caves to the communication leading to the parallel was
by a natural opening in the surface of the hill, widened into a man-hole
by the jumper and mining. At its base there were five or six stairs hewn
out of the rock, on which was super-added an oaken ladder slanting to
the top of the shaft; the entrance to which was screened by a
semicircular revetment of beef barrels loaded with stones. This
covered-way was of great importance, extremely difficult of execution,
and as hazardous as laborious in working it. When finished, it was so
perfect a cover, that the picquet quartered in it sustained a daily fire
with impunity. Corporal Joseph T. Collins under Major Bent, was its
plodding and steadfast overseer. He had with him six picked sappers and
three miners of the 68th regiment, who were specially allotted to the
task. More than three months were spent in its accomplishment, during
which, and the forming of the correlative communications, corporal
Collins was daily in the trenches. In that time many a bullet whizzed
near him, and many a shell burst, splintering the rock and tearing down
the barrels and sand-bags in his front and rear, but he neither dropped
his head nor slackened his hand. Ardent, cool, and efficient, his
example and exertions were of undisguised advantage in the prosecution
of the sap, and his resolution to be compassed by no obstacle had the
effect of establishing among his comrades a spirit to persevere and
succeed. Once only was he struck while driving the sap. A blast went off
unexpectedly, setting a shower of stones in motion, one of which hit him
above the eye, and another, of crushing size and weight, hurtled past
his breast. At last he was overtaken by a serious wound. On the 2nd of
July he was passing through No. 14 battery left attack, when a rifle
bullet pierced his thigh and took him from the trenches. Three months,
save one day, 18th June, when he was granted the luxury of a little
extra repose, he was daily under a fire of varying fierceness, and for
his intrepid conduct in the “stone double sap,” coupled with other
conspicuous acts of skill and fearlessness, he received two steps of
promotion, was granted a gratuity of five pounds, decorated with a
“distinguished service” medal, and also with the star of the French
Legion of Honour.[189]
Hourly the assailants encroached on the area which separated them from
the besieged, beset in their industry by strange and incessant
difficulties. Almost within hail of the Russians, the miners day and
night carried out their tedious labours. As many as forty sappers were
frequently thus employed in the advanced parallels and boyaux. A number
of the line, between 80 and 100—practical quarrymen—afterwards joined
them, who, directed by experienced corporals of the corps, worked with
unwearied exertion. In sets of threes they carried out the operations,
one turning the jumper while the others struck it blow for blow as in a
smithy with hammers of about seven pounds’ weight. The constant clashing
of these heavy tools, which could even be heard at the camp, made the
lines as alive with din and rattle as an arsenal, and brought on the
miners a fire at time so furious, that to see them, amid casualty and
death holding to their employments, was a scene not to be surpassed by
any spectacle of endurance in the trenches. Excavations cut by the
pickaxe or blown into trenches by blasting, completed, so far, a series
of communications which, like so many ligatures, tied together the
several works in front and rear. Elaborate with entrenchments and
batteries, the ground with its mammoth parallels, subordinate approaches
and passages, _places d’armes_, rifle pits and screens, appeared like a
vast labyrinth puzzling to the last degree; but to provide against
chances of miscarriage, the engineers and sappers, forming a corps of
guides, so led the workmen by night and by day, that few parties failed
to reach the sites where they were appointed to toil. Yet with all this
duty and peril, only two sappers were wounded between the 19th and 30th
June. These were sergeant Philip Morant severely in the right cheek, the
ball passing through his nose and escaping from the other cheek; and
corporal James Douglas slightly in the head. The former who was the
sergeant of the trenches on the right attack was working in the quarries
when struck; the latter had just told off a brigade of sappers and 200
of the line to the works.
July found the siege a fixed employment, increasing in magnitude and
approaching nearer to the Russian batteries. On the 1st, there were 24
sappers on the right and 57 on the left blasting in the fourth parallel,
as also in No. 15 battery and the reserve ammunition magazine. With
these they carried out various services in connection with batteries 13,
14, and 15, situated on the third parallel, which, from their
prominence, shared largely in the hostile attention of the Russians.
Their parapets which had been riven and loosened by the cannonade and
washed down by the rain, were raised and strengthened; and their cheeks
insufficiently sloped when originally built, were taken down and
reconstructed; terrepleins were also formed in them and new magazines
reared, with passages cut round the sites; while a strong body of miners
improved the old road communication from No. 5 battery in the first
parallel to No. 9—the left end battery—of the second parallel. On the
right, Nos. 14 and 18 batteries had large parties appointed to them. The
latter, a new formation, had no less than 160 men shovelling earth on
the parapet, and eight sappers fixed the frames and splinter-proofs to
its magazines. No. 14, occupying nearly a central position in the second
parallel, had two of its embrasures cut and formed by the sappers.
Others were widening approaches and communications, draining the second
parallel, making a rifle pit in front of it, constructing sea-service
mortar platforms on left of the 21-gun battery, repairing the parapet in
the left communication to No. 18 battery, and removing revetting stores
from No. 6 battery in the first parallel to the new works in front. The
working parties consisted of 600 men; and though shelled with some
briskness during portions of the day, all left the trenches unharmed.
Next day at dawn, 56 sappers, chiefly miners and carpenters, were sent
into the foremost trenches on the left to blast the rock and lay
platforms in the new batteries. They were unassisted by the line
workmen, for a drenching rain confined them to camp. As from waterspouts
the torrent fell, choking up the channels, inundating the works, and
beating down some of the more fragile batteries. In such weather it was
out of the question to continue the mining; but every man though wet and
smoking with heat, exerted himself in clearing the standing water from
the different formations. On the right attack there were 310 men in the
trenches during the storm with 28 sappers under Captain De Moleyns. The
second relief, at 3 o’clock, gave 200 men with 20 sappers, while the
numbers furnished for the left attack were 400 under Major Chapman,
assistant engineer.
In the following night 800 men, guided by 24 sappers, were sent into the
right attack, and 150 of the infantry and 25 sappers into the left. The
chevaux-de-frise in the Woronzoff ravine, which did good service in
checking the advance of the enemy’s riflemen, was now moved from its
original position to one in line with the memorable quarries, so that
the rear works were not likely to be attacked by Russian columns
stealing up the valley. A banquette was also made behind the iron
barricade for a row of sharpshooters to pick off the artillerymen
serving the Russian guns. The firing on various parts of the works was
heavy through the night, and bouquets of shells were discharged with no
better effect than slightly wounding three or four men, one of whom was
private Thomas Luscombe.
On the 4th at night, four sappers and fifty men in the right portion of
the trench in front of the quarries, pushed the sap to the right and
widened and deepened the passage that led to it. Two light balls sent
among them fell so near, one in front the other in rear, that, enclosed
for nearly a quarter of an hour within a blaze, they were compelled to
bend under the low parapet to save themselves from the effects of a
furious shelling. Relays of grape succeeded, intermingled with Miniés,
all striking the work but none injuring the workmen. Stout as was the
opposition no less than twelve gabions were fixed by the sappers, and
more would have followed, but the moon, appearing with a steady light
uneffaced by driving clouds, caused the party to be withdrawn from the
trench.
As cover could not be procured with sufficient expedition in the saps,
earth was brought in baskets from a distance to make screens for the
miners whilst blasting the rock. Excessive was the labour necessary to
form the foremost trenches, and the perils attending the exertions of
the miners, who made head against extraordinary difficulties, were only
mitigated by wiles which experience and vigilance had taught them to
employ. It was a subject of astonishment how the rock—that giant
obstacle which appeared in every trench—could, in the face of a keen
enemy, be thrown up and worked into solid mounds of parapet. A passage
was cut that night in a novel manner with as much design and
self-possession as on an English railway. One party descended the hill,
the other forced up from the valley; and though the labourers
encountered no end of trials from the obtrusion of rock, they effected a
junction, building as they proceeded, a parapet two feet six inches in
height. The miners were brawny fellows—each, in truth, a Hercules.
Nothing overmatched their strength and industry; every foot driven in
advance was full of interest; and in a few nights more, an uninterrupted
communication of 250 yards with sufficient cover was completed from the
left of the round hill parallel into the sombre graveyard. This parallel
was a wonderful work. Its most advanced point was a place of arms. From
its form and strength it was called by the sappers “the double elbow.”
Jealous of the gradual development of our colossal system of saps and
batteries, the enemy poured streams of grape and canister into the
advances, causing many casualties. Hand balls in groups of forty or
fifty thrown from mortars, were added to the roll of deadly agencies
employed to pick off the miners.