and guns with broken muzzles or irreparable vents were in great part
replaced by serviceable ordnance. The magazines were firm and full,
platforms sufficient and steady, and the traverses stood with scarcely a
shot-hole unplugged. On the right the new field structures to rake the
Redan and collateral works were in clusters of threes. In front of the
famed quarry, and near the fourth parallel, were batteries 16, 17, and
20, facing the salient of the Redan; and 18, 19, and 21, were formed in
some trenches in advance of the second parallel, and in rear of the
small quarry contiguous to the middle ravine. All the rest of the
batteries rose up in natural positions in the parallels and zigzags.
Parapets were now formed in both attacks for rockets, which played with
brilliant effect on the Russian works, throwing into flames a building
in the Karabelnaia faubourg. A well with a clear spring in the third
parallel was protected by a stone wall and ditch, and the parched
trenchmen drew in safety from its depths. Bread-bags now almost wholly
supplanted the sand-bags. Though ill-adapted for hard service, exigency
regarded with favour any device that could be made to do duty in a siege
which had more than exhausted the trench materials of our parks and
arsenals. To save it from enfilade fire, the left of the fourth parallel
of the Chapman attack was altered by cuttings and traverses into the
form of a serpentine sap.
With vigour quite as conspicuous, the Russians were toiling. Their
immense lines of works, of unequalled strength, were in admirable
condition; and rising tier above tier were armed at all points with the
heaviest artillery, to bear with harassing results on all our most
imposing works and approaches. While fires gleamed from different
buildings, and others were breached and broken from base to coping, the
enemy, fully alive to the chances of defeat, employed all their
disposable tradesmen in constructing a wooden bridge of great length, to
span the harbour from Fort Catherine to Fort Nicholas. Signs of activity
for this undertaking were first perceived on the 29th July. The wharfs
were crowded with stores of all kinds, and many small craft were moored
along the quay to assist in the service. As by degrees the vast heaps of
timber disappeared, the floating bridge assumed proportions of
increasing vastness; and by this time—ponderous, like everything
Russian—the causeway was completed for the passage of the troops, when
the extremity should arrive to necessitate such an operation.
Extremely brilliant was the night of the 26th; nevertheless, an average
quantity of progress was made in the foremost trenches. Grape and shell
fell so truly into the saps, that the men were in frequent alarm; and of
the 90th regiment alone, 30 men were killed and wounded. Corporal
McMurphy was in charge of 130 men of different regiments scattered in
the advances. Thirty of the number, allotted to the approach from the
fifth parallel to a rifle-pit on the right, were under the foremanship
of privates Moncur and Joseph Fitzgerald. The work was about 200 yards
from the proper right of the domineering Malakoff, and the left of the
ambitious Redan. From the latter an active fire was opened on the little
batch of pioneers, and also from four embrasures on the right flank of
the Malakoff. For a time nothing touched them. Shells and grape whizzed
over the works, shaking many a nerve and swimming many a head. Few could
keep cool in such danger, and picks and shovels were used with timid
vigour; but the steadiness of the two overseers was the record of the
day. At length the range of the trench was so accurately obtained, that
the shells plunged into the very gabions the sappers were filling, and
broke them up in the explosions. The wavering of the party was now very
apparent, and corporal McMurphy, an old soldier who before had been in a
hot siege of thirty days at Natal, exerted himself manfully to keep the
men at their tasks. A few tardy efforts was the measure of their
reluctant obedience, when one of the party being killed by the
corporal’s side, the entire detachment ran from the trench, leaving the
three sappers ahead bent to their work. McMurphy followed, entreating
them, if they intended to abandon their posts, at least to return and
carry away the dead body of their comrade. Too craven to perform even
this touching duty, the corporal repaired with an undismayed pace to the
sap, and with the assistance of his two intrepid overseers, bore the
shattered corpse to the rear amid a tempest of fire, escaping without a
stroke. For their gallantry on this occasion the commander-in-chief
presented the privates with two sovereigns each and the corporal with
three, who, subsequently, was decorated with the French military war
medal. Private Moncur also obtained a “distinguished service” medal and
a gratuity of 5_l._, for throughout the siege he proved himself to be a
dauntless man under the heaviest fire, and one of the most efficient
sappers for conducting difficult work in the advances and in repairing
embrasures.
Two days later sergeant Jarvis was again in the trenches of the left
attack, having under him 3 sappers and 50 men draining the fourth
parallel and making banquettes for riflemen. Sailors were, for some
days, cutting a communication from the first parallel to No. 10 battery
in the second parallel, and sometimes, to carry on the approach
effectually, they turned miners and blew out patches of rock that
impeded them. Nothing was amiss to the men-o’-war’s men. In ship,
battery, and trench, they were alike English and welcome. Broad-backed,
mature, and potent, with beards that fell deep on their breasts, and
whiskers that nearly concealed their honest faces, it seemed as if some
difficulty would be felt in controlling their energies; but though they
defied in their exertions the set rules of procedure, none were more
easily led. Working for their own honour they were not jealous of any
fame which others might acquire; and knowing nothing of those bickerings
and rivallings which in other services often operate mischievously in
conducting an enterprise, they laid themselves out cordially to the
tasks, and toiled with as much interest and vigour under the engineers
and sappers as under their own officers. In ordinary works one sapper
was enough for their superintendence, and even when the boring and
blasting were in operation the number of overseers among them seldom
exceeded two. Indeed they were splendid fellows. Such is the testimony
of every sapper who had the pleasure to labour with them.
Going over to the right attack on the night of the 28th, the working
parties were seen pushing on in the advanced trenches so sedulously that
early developments were promised. Four sappers and forty men were in the
boyau stretching towards the Redan. Too light to approach by flying sap,
the overseers adopted the method of lodging one gabion and filling it
before staking another. In this way the trench was extended twelve
gabions. Next night the same number of workmen widened the trench and
improved its cover, while eight sappers fixed the gabions and reset
those which were occasionally capsized. Every step ahead was
treacherous, for the moon was high and clear, and constant vigilance was
needed to save the sappers from incautious exposure. To work in day-time
in so perilous a spot required bold spirits to make the venture. The
engineers would not order the linesmen into it: it was therefore left
for volunteers to choose the service. Only ten men offered, who at the
morning relief moved to the far front, and superintended by a sapper,
“worked well and steadily.” Passing on to the night of the 30th, eight
men of the corps were in the trench continuing it by flying sap. Fifteen
gabions were pitched and filled by them. Very hard was the soil: the
rock had to be split and rent from the ground for cover, while a heavy
fire of shot sometimes made gaps in the new parapet by overturning the
gabions. It was a night of toil to these ten sappers, and the result of
six hours’ patient perseverance only extended the boyau some thirty
feet. Eighty linesmen followed deepening and widening the trench. In the
night of the 31st eight sappers and ten of the line were again in the
Redan advance. So deadly was the approach considered, that the brave men
before entering it bade adieu to their comrades. Marvellous indeed it
seems that close as it was to the beleaguered defences so few casualties
were counted among the working parties. Ten gabions were that night
placed and filled by the brigade while the ten linesmen sunk the trench
and strengthened the parapet. This was recorded as very excellent
progress.
During the same period the new zigzag up the little ravine was steadily
advancing on the extreme left flank of the Redan. Major Campbell,
assistant engineer, had under his orders on the night of the 28th two
sappers and 30 men, who attended so well to their work, that besides
improving the trench 30 gabions were planted and made bullet-proof.
Fifty more were added the next night by four sappers; and 80 linesmen
filled them with stones, bread-bags, and loose earth, persisting in the
duty notwithstanding that two of their number were killed and four
wounded.
The coolness of different detachments in the foremost trenches was
unaccountably dissimilar. Some, though in terrible danger, held by
particular enterprises with unrelaxed industry, while others at the
moment of alarm took refuge in flight. Many instances of both kinds have
been given; here follows another.
In the darkness of the 30th there was a mixed community of 62 linesmen
in the approach in charge of two sappers, who, as overseers, moved along
the exposed trace and staked nearly 50 gabions. The operation of filling
them was about to commence, when some twenty-five Russians, jumping in
at the head of the sap with a cheer, so terrified the working party and
sentries that they decamped in utter disorder, despite the efforts to
rally them of Captain Wolseley, assistant engineer. The trench, now left
to itself, was traversed in its whole length by the Russians, who
removed the unfilled gabions,threw down much of the finished sap, and
retreated, taking with them several muskets which had been left behind
by the timid workmen. “Shortly after this, Captain Pechell of the 77th,
at the head of a body of his men, rushed up the trench, drove the
Russians in from a small rifle-pit, and held it for the night.”[195] The
artillery fire from the Malakoff, and rattling discharges of musketry
from the ravine, occasioned twelve casualties among the workmen and
wounded Captain Wolseley severely in the face and leg. The two
sappers—privates B. Murray and Patrick Nelles—it is noted stood by their
captain to the last; but their steadiness behind the imperfect cover of
some overturned gabions—the one firing, the other working—had not the
effect of provoking the recreants to re-enter the trench.
It was an adventurous sap this, menaced at every point of its progress
by shells and Miniés, and checked by reiterated attacks of Russian
detachments, who, surging over the parapet, burst in the trench itself.
In the night of the 31st it was again assailed. Eight sappers and 50 men
of the line were allotted to extend the approach, with corporal Taylor
in charge. Sergeant Castledine was directed to superintend both
advances, but from necessity his exertions were chiefly confined to the
sap in question. He had been in this boyau before and knew its danger,
for he had seen as many as five shells blazing in it at one time.
Private John Bramley being the oldest sapper took the lead. He had to
place two gabions, and after filling them fall to the rear. Before,
however, completing his task, which was about half an hour after the
workmen had been distributed, the enemy—more than a company
strong—appeared on the high ground near some rifle-pits, and firing on
our sentries the latter hastily retired. As soon as they were calmed,
sergeant Castledine, by order of Captain Fraser of the 95th regiment,
who commanded in the sap, reposted them in the most desirable positions.
A desultory firing was kept up for a while without again alarming the
sentries or disturbing the labours of the trench; but when another
half-hour had elapsed the enemy suddenly pushed up the slope, attacked
the sentries, and driving them into the trench, the workmen and covering
party took fright and retreated in confusion. Castledine and private
McKellar of the ninth company, who were at the head of the sap, alone
stood firm; and before the enemy had approached too far, the sergeant
sent his steady assistant to recall the sappers from the fifth parallel,
into which they had hastened to recover their arms. At this moment a
sergeant of the 3rd Buffs, who had heard the firing, ran across the open
and voluntarily joined Castledine. In a few seconds the sapper brigade,
with that manly fellow McKellar in front, flew into the work, and with
this small force the sergeant bounded over the parapet, poured a volley
into the hesitating Russians, and then for two or three minutes, while
retiring to the sap, continued an independent discharge, which kept the
enemy at bay till the covering party, rallied by Captain Fraser,
returned and increased by its fire the efficiency of the defence. In the
struggle Captain Fraser, who had publicly acknowledged the valour of
sergeant Castledine, fell deeply wounded; the other officers were also
struck down, and the command of the parties now devolved on Castledine.
His force of character gained the noblest support from his brigade as
well as from the sergeant of the 3rd Buffs, and even held together the
young men who for the first time were entrusted with duty in so perilous
a sap. Though the fire of artillery and musketry was sharp enough to
make the stoutest hearts quiver, Castledine retained the trench and
resumed the work; but, as every missile that entered the sap drove the
workmen to their arms, very little resulted from energies so harassed
and so capriciously employed. Still, such was his high respect for
authority, the sergeant would not take on himself the responsibility of
ordering the workmen to retire, and so sending corporal Taylor to the
engineer officer—who was directing the progress of other works—he
requested permission to remove them. This was acceded to soon after
midnight, the party taking with them eleven of their comrades and three
of the four officers wounded. The sappers now had the run of the deadly
trench, and, undisturbed by the fears and clamours of timid men,
laboured with so much dexterity, that, by the hour of relief—two in the
morning—they had succeeded to admiration not only in strengthening a
portion of the old trench, but in resetting and filling sixteen of the
gabions capsized by the Russians the previous night.
Equally dangerous was the double sap forming the central communication
between the two foremost parallels on the left attack. Not without great
toil and watching was it completed. In aspect it bore a wild crenated
outline, as if the miners, in struggling to make a direct approach, were
so oppressed with difficulties that, defying the energy and capacity of
art, they were forced to make progress by running into sidings and
notches. The last gabion to connect the sap with the parallel was fixed
by corporal Lendrim. The whole way was broken up by mining, and the
planting of every gabion was attended with imminent risk. Stones blown
from the rock were built into the parapets and compacted with earth and
clay thrown among the blocks from sacks and bread-bags. So fierce at
times was the firing and so clear the moon, that the extension of the
trench throughout an anxious night was confined to the placement of only
four gabions. Some nights the sap was pushed ahead as much as ten yards,
which was regarded as an exemplary effort. “For every three gabions
fixed during the night two were knocked down at daylight by round shot;”
and not unfrequently one has been struck from the hands of the sapper
essaying to stake it. Such gaps and such violence sufficiently mark the
trials of the undertaking and account for its slow and wearying
progress. Up to the close of the siege the sap demanded the labour and
vigilance of small parties to patch up the broken revetments and replace
the shivered gabions. Never were there less than two sappers in this
zigzag; seldom fewer than 20 of the line.
Perhaps one of the hardest services during the whole operation was the
working of the fifth parallel on the left attack. Sweeping round the
brow of the hill, it dropped down the cliff towards the
_chevaux-de-frise_, and ended at a cave which served as a place of arms.
To the left it extended, with diminished cover, towards the direct
double sap. The boyau communicating with the right of the parallel was a
trench about forty yards long, and from the parallel itself issued
several small covered ways in advance, with pits at the extremities for
riflemen. No trace was followed in the execution of these lines; no
breadth, no width uniformly adhered to. All depended on the nature of
the obstacles encountered and the stern intricacies of the work, which,
giving rise to many deflexions to meet the broken contour of the ground,
resulted in a line of sap so irregular in form, as to require many stout
traverses and auxiliary cuttings and parapets to prevent certain parts
being raked and exposed to cross fires. The labour in executing it was
immense, for every inch of the way was driven through rock by the
irksome processes of boring and blasting. The hazards were unmitigated;
the firing at times terrific; but guided and managed by the experience
and judgment of corporal Paul—to whom was entrusted the superintendence
of the parallel and its branches—the casualties were so few as to excite
surprise. Only one man of the blasting party was killed in the parallel.
He was a brave and pushing miner of the 20th regiment. Seldom were less
than twenty mines fired in a day, frequently as many as forty. The
stones thus broken up were mostly worked into the parapets during the
night, but the facing of the work and the formation of the banquettes
were left for the miners to attend to in day-time. All the large stones
were employed for these purposes; and on one occasion, when building the
revetment in the portion of the parallel which descended the hill, one
huge block required the united strength of the overseer and the 20th man
to fix it firmly. It was a stubborn task, executed only by risking
danger; and at frequent intervals for nearly a quarter of an hour they
were exposed from the waist upwards in doing it. Immovably calm, always
fresh in vigour though constantly at work, a better overseer than Paul
could scarcely have been provided for difficult employment, and as a
consequence, his example—of zeal, perseverance, and coolness,
approaching even to placidity—had the best effect on his parties. So
wrapt up was he in the progress of the trench—indeed it was said he was
never happy out of it—that his comrades termed the work “Paul’s
parallel!” Let not this be an aggravation of the charge preferred in
jealousy and ill-feeling against the engineers, because certain works,
by common consent, were called after the names of engineer officers—now
memorable in history. In this case the application of the designation
was simply a sapper one; and if among his comrades who knew of his
soldierly qualities and exertions in that trench, which but for his care
would perhaps have become a human shambles, he was considered entitled
to this very natural honour, who will write an angry pamphlet and say
the distinction is unbecoming and should be borne by some one of another
corps? From the beginning of the siege he performed severe duties in the
front. Before his worth as a sterling sapper was known he was commonly
four or five nights in the trenches out of six, and was one of the
surest guides to the works when the positions and the roads to them were
as yet ill understood by the troops. Selected by Major Bent to be one of
his foremen of miners, he was daily in the saps from the middle of May.
His permanent duty commenced with the boyaux between the second and
third parallels and only terminated a day or two before the fall of
Sebastopol. So much for the bravery and spirit of a non-commissioned
officer, who, deserving great rewards, became a sergeant, received a
gratuity of 10_l._, a silver medal for “distinguished service in the
field,” and the proud decoration of the Legion of Honour.
Here it may be remarked that for all the foremost works only experienced
hands, upon whom reliance could be placed for qualification and
constancy, were selected to lead the work-men. Young soldiers lacking
strength and patience in toil and danger were unfitted for the hardships
and vicissitudes of the front. So scattered at times were the working
parties over the embarrassing meshes of trenches that a private of the
corps at different points of the works has been nominated to oversee two
small detachments of the line. Wanting rank as non-commissioned
officers, they were often resisted, and as supineness in the pioneers
sometimes followed, the service naturally suffered. In most cases,
however, the sapper privates gained the compliance of their men more by
their own earnest example and exertions than by any exercise of
authority. Corporals and sergeants frequently controlled the energies of
very heavy parties, but when they had any trying or dangerous works to
execute entailing the necessity of close observation and personal toil,
the workmen under them were usually limited in number. In the latest
weeks of the siege, sergeant Jarvis, who was almost daily in the
trenches, had with him a force of between forty and fifty men and three
or four sappers. His duties were then mostly confined to the fourth
parallel on the left, and included the drainage and repairs to
banquettes, traverses, and parapets. A firm soldierlike man, with strong
physical powers, his conduct throughout the siege in the execution of
hard and critical services attracted the notice of his officers, and his
bustling activity and usefulness, coupled with his bravery, gained him
the decoration of the Legion of Honour. Corporal Cray shared largely in
the concluding operations in mending and re-forming embrasures and
batteries, assisted sometimes by as many as eight sappers and fifty
workmen. His chief work in the trenches was overseeing the rebuilding of
No. 8 battery, left attack, so as to alter its line of fire; and the
creditable manner in which it was executed was recorded by Major Chapman
as one of the incidents of his brave and useful services in Bulgaria and
the Crimea. Corporal Hanson is also named in connection with services
discharged in 19 battery of the Chapman attack, in which, aided by two
sappers and fifty men, he mined the rock and thickened the parapet with
the stones thrown up in the blasts. These instances, officially
recorded, and, hence, here preserved, may be taken as the average
measure of command meted to non-commissioned officers of sappers in the
closing throes of this great struggle.
Between the 30th August and 2nd September the following casualties
occurred:—
Left attack.—30th. Private Thomas A. Eccles—wounded severely in the
head.
31st. Private William Thompson—wounded slightly in right
shoulder.
Right attack—2nd Sept. Lance-corporal Charles Bell } killed, while
2nd ” Private John Morrison } fixing the last
splinter proof timber to the magazine of No.
21 battery, by a shell—the first that
dropped there from the Malakoff. The former
was struck in the side; the latter in the
head, besides which a fragment shattered one
of his arms, and another exposed his bowels.
2nd ” Private Joseph Fitzgerald—wounded dangerously;
his head was fractured by the blow of a
stone, which drove a portion of the peak of
his cap into his skull. Persevering and cool,
he was a man in whom dependence could be
placed for progress under difficulties; and
for his valiant conduct on the 26th August
was noticed in the orders of General Jones,
and rewarded by the Commander-in-Chief.