Six sappers in the 21-gun battery repaired each an embrasure, all of which were in a very shattered state. Fierce and gusty was the wind at midnight, collecting the dust and light sand in its vortex, and blowing it in the faces of the workmen. The trenches were swept as if a hurricane were passing. Difficult to hold up against an annoyance of this kind, the progress made in every direction was, nevertheless, satisfactory. “I may,” writes Lieutenant Ranken, who was the engineer on duty for the right attack, “take this opportunity of reporting very favourably of the manner in which the sappers and men employed in repairing the embrasures of the batteries performed their work, in spite of a high wind and blinding dust;” and Sir Harry Jones, in seconding the commendation, thus wrote to the Commander-in-chief, “I should recommend that notice be taken in general orders of the conduct of the sappers and 90th regiment.”
On the 7th, 55 sappers remained a long day of fourteen hours under fire. On the right the linesmen were relieved four times; on the left twice in the day. The carpenters, 16 in number, were chosen men under sergeant Leitch, the master-carpenter of the right attack, who had been daily in the trenches from the end of June. With energy never before surpassed they laid four gun platforms in No. 22 battery and built there a magazine, as well as one in the quarries for small-arm ammunition. In the following night there was a similar force of sappers at work, who, having had an ample supply of sand-bags and gabions, made good all the breaches in the embrasures and parallels. Accustomed to encounter danger, they worked steadily and manfully, as if the point of hazard and duty were the place of safety. The distribution of the workmen on the right attack was as follows:—
| Sappers. | Line. | |
| No. 22 battery | 4 | 60 |
| Magazine in quarries | 1 | 10 |
| Fifth parallel | 6 | 160 |
| Repairing embrasures | 14 | 70 |
| Sap on Redan | 4 | 80 |
| Total | 29 | 380 |
The working party and sappers on the left, were confined in great part to the bombarding batteries.
No. 22 battery was completed during the night, its embrasures opened, ramps cut and guns brought into it; but this formation, pushed on with so much zeal, was never armed. Near Egerton’s pit it stood, the creation of many hours’ strenuous toil, as impotent as a ruin.
The sap leading to the Redan was improved in cover by heaping sand-bags on the gabions. It had been run out about 600 feet, and stopped 197 yards from the salient. As far as it went it was complete, and banquettes were built along its length as also in the fifth parallel for sharpshooters. A hundred men of the Highland brigade built the steps, of old casks, broken gabions, and fascines, under private George Harvey, whose spirit and steadiness never relaxed for the eighteen hours he was on trench duty. Nothing was left undone to be ready for an attack, which it was arranged should take place the following morning.
Next day—8th September—17 sappers and 50 men of the infantry were in the left works, mending the breaches as they occurred in battery and trench; and one man of the corps was wounded. No working party was given for the night attack, as the assault on the Redan by the English, and the Malakoff by the French, was ordered to take place at midday. A number of scaling ladders had been carried to the sap approaching the salient during the preceding night, and all the engineering details for the storming were fully prepared by daybreak.
For the assault a column from the second and light division was formed as under:—
| Men. | ||
| Covering party | 200— | to keep down the fire from the enemy’s embrasures. |
| Armed party | 320— | to carry and place ladders, with 21 sappers under Lieut. Ranken, R.E. |
| Main body of assault | 1000 | |
| Armed working party | 200— | with entrenching tools under Captain Sedley, R.E., to follow when a lodgment had been effected. |
| Supports | 1500 | |
| Gunners | 20— | under an officer with spikes to spike guns, or turn them if necessary. |
| Additional supports | 3000— | drawn up in 3rd parallel, in communication with the French right attack, and in the middle ravine. |
The whole were under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir William Codrington and Major-General Markham, but the storming party was directed by Brigadier-General Windham. Sir Harry Jones, the chief engineer, though suffering from an attack of sciatica, and barely recovered from his wound, was borne to the sap on a litter to witness the assault.