On the Sebastopol front, on the other hand, nothing of importance happened till, between nine and ten o’clock, a resolute sortie under General Timovieff took place, and the attention of Prince Napoleon was so occupied with this attack, which at one time met with some measure of success, that his troops were unable to reach Mount Inkerman in time to take part in the main fight.
Thus it will be seen that in this part of the field the enemy attained his object and made a successful division. All other troops available were despatched with speed to the scene of the main action on Inkerman.
Of Mount Inkerman itself it may be said that it is in the shape of a long narrow triangle, with base towards the Russians and joined towards the Chersonese by its apex to the high ground of the British camps—this narrow neck being known as the Isthmus. Shell Hill forms its highest point, whilst on either hand, but nearer the allied camp, are lesser heights or shoulders called respectively Home Ridge and English Heights, and lying north and south of the central peak of Shell Hill, and separated from it by a ravine. A lower ridge between these two was called the Fore Ridge, upon which at either end were the slight defences of the Barrier and Sandbag Battery, both destined ere long to become famous—“the scene of one of the bloodiest combats in history.”
For now once more the Russians swarmed up in front of our already hard-pressed outposts, the clearer atmosphere revealing their true and overwhelming numbers.
By this time the Grenadiers and Scots Fusiliers, under the Duke of Cambridge, were rapidly approaching. And now began that terrific struggle over the Sandbag Battery which resulted in that comparatively worthless entrenchment, situated as it was some yards in advance of the British position, being taken and retaken many times with awful slaughter on both sides.
Pennefather’s brave fellows, General Adams and his brigade, the Guards, and some of the French infantry waged in turn a fierce war round the comparatively worthless position, and soon its shallow trench was heaped with dead and dying. Time and again the Russians would sweep into the battery, with murder in their eyes and brain, and bayonet any hapless wounded left behind perforce by our outnumbered men. A few brief moments would elapse, our gallant fellows would re-form, and, tooth and nail, with cold steel and even fist to face they would drive out the invader and hunt the Russians down the slope, thence only to return with dogged pertinacity again and again to the assault.
The 56th Westmoreland, the 41st Welsh, the 49th Herefordshire, the 20th and 95th, the Grenadiers, Scots Fusiliers and Grenadiers again—each in turn occupied for varying intervals of time the worthless battery, and then were either forced by weight of numbers to retire or else abandoned the battery themselves, having discovered its incapacity for shelter. Seven times in all was the battery captured by the Russians, and seven times retaken by our men.
Says the great historian of the war:—“The parapet of the Sandbag Battery—it stands to this day—(1869) is a monument of heroic devotion and soldierly prowess, yet showing, as preachers might say, the vanity of human desires. Supposed, although wrongly, to be a part of the British defences, and fought for, accordingly, with infinite passion and at a great cost of life by numbers and numbers of valiant infantry, the work was no sooner taken than its worthlessness became evident, not indeed to the bulk of the soldiery, but to those particular troops which chanced to be posted within it.”
And so the mistaken fight raged on, and heavy indeed were the losses around the fateful battery. The dead lay around in heaps.
Here General Adams died, his ankle shattered by a Russian bullet, and General Torrens was here so grievously wounded that he died later. As he lay upon the ground, General Sir George Cathcart rode down to him, crying, “Well and gallantly done, Torrens!” only to fall himself within the hour, a bullet through his heart.