All the batteries were again fresh and capable, and trunnionless guns 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 5l., 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.