Three days’ incessant firing had considerably injured the enemy’s works, and loosened the whole fabric of the lines; but the guns of the Redan and various batteries, peeping from beneath strong rope mantlets, triply plied and tarred, were still serviceable. The apertures through which the missiles were disgorged—small as possible for the purpose—were further blinded by a tarred rope disc matted round the muzzle of the gun just in front of the trunnions, which interposed between the sight of the English riflemen in the trenches and the unseen gunners in the Redan. Ragged and deformed as were the batteries, they, nevertheless, bore up with veteran fronts, and as but few of the Russian artillery were silent, it was expected that the resistance would be obstinate.
At twelve o’clock the French, emerging from their saps—which were about 20 yards from the edge of the Malakoff ditch—bounded into the tower and the little Redan. With a display of heroism which befitted their ancient prestige they captured the Malakoff; but though the little Redan was penetrated by a portion of the column, it was met by a solid mass of the enemy, which sprang on the allies with a fierceness so irresistible it was in vain they contended; and a few minutes more saw them hastily retreating to their lines. Meanwhile the attack on the tower proceeded with desperate violence. Few struggles for triumph were more determined and terrific. At last the Malakoff was won; but the achievement cost a shuddering sacrifice of the best troops of the Emperor.
Now came the signal for the English to advance. When the column knew that the French had conquered, excitement was at its highest, and eager to show how the Redan could be captured, the skirmishers vaulted unexpectedly over the parapet from the advance saps before the party with the ladders had time to debouch from the head of the trench. This was an anxious moment for Lieutenant Ranken. Equal, however, to the difficulty, he run out the sappers, carrying crowbars, axes, and a few intrenching tools, with all speed to the front, and flew on with the foremost ladders under a close fire of musketry and grape. The distance between the gorge of the sap and the ditch at the salient was 197 yards, and in striding on with the ladders across the open slope many a brave man fell. Nevertheless there was no halting, for the stormers were selected for the duty on account of their approved courage; and the column pressed on to the abbattis, which was instantly trodden down or pulled aside by the foremost men with as much ease as if the boughs had been faggots of sticks. Through the gaps the assailants pushed, followed unswervingly by the leading ladders, each 24 feet long, which were quickly planted against the counterscarp of the ditch, the height of which was barely 15 feet. The first one was planted by sergeant Leitch and private Harris, and the latter was the first man to descend by it into the ditch. Scrambling down, many tumbling headlong from the surge behind and many more in the heat of desire jumping into the moat, the stormers quickly tossed the ladders across to the escarp, up which ascended a stream of daring fellows into the body of the work. So skilfully were the ladders placed around the salient, that the troops in sinking into the ditch or climbing into the Redan were but little exposed to the flanking fire of its faces. The first portions of the column moved on steadily to the attack, but succeeding parties running to the head of the sap were so blown, they waited for a few minutes to recover breath. This done, they started in fitful batches, assailed by a withering mitraille. No longer in the orderly formations which characterize the battle-field, the troops in independent groups or sections reached the ditch, where, swelling around the salient, they dived into the fossé, and ascended or descended the ladders, as the events in the Redan fed their courage or starved their ardour. General Windham, whose valour and marvellous escapes on that day have astonished Europe, made his way into the place with some 80 or 100 men, but such was the virulence of the fire, such the carnage, a few only of the bold men who had had the temerity to mount the parapet could be induced, though the General himself walked amid the deadly storm, to rush from the traverse behind which they had shielded themselves.
Meanwhile the sappers, one of whom was appointed to every two ladders, after assisting to rear them in the most secure and advantageous situations, were collected by Lieutenant Ranken and set to work to form a practicable entrance into the Redan by means of a ramp. Wherever else their discipline failed, here it was perfect; and not a pulse of fear seemingly beat in any breast. Earth for the ascent was tumbled from the parapet above by a few of the party. Harris was the foremost sapper. Under a horrible fire he bravely tried to dig himself down behind the escarp revetment in order to push the gabions into the ditch, but the soil had been so strongly tamped, and was otherwise so solid with shot and shell which had poured into it from the breaching batteries that he gave up the attempt, and employed himself in efforts which, though they promised less, were in the end more certain of success. At this time there was only one shovel with the party; the few intended to come up with it had failed through casualties and accident. The hulk of the tools were with the lodgment party still in rear. Much depended on the use of this one shovel, but it was soon shattered to atoms in the hands of the workman, private Oldham.
The earth was now literally pushed from the parapet, and a rough incline in a few minutes was executed. So easy indeed was the ascent by this simple means, that the stormers rushed up the slope, steep and yielding as it was, in preference to climbing the ladders. As the workmen, waiting for the signal to advance had not yet come up, Lieutenant Ranken now appointed his sappers, aided by a few men of the assaulting column, to throw up a breastwork to the left of the salient across the ditch, to counteract the raking fire of the enemy. Well was it that the moat was only eight feet broad. Had it been a yard or two more the service might have been attended with a sacrifice of life appalling to contemplate. Gabions and fascines and boughs of trees and small rough timbers which had been used as binders by the Russians, were torn by some strong and impetuous sappers from the face and crest of the counterscarp to form the caponnière. Earth too was thrown on the rising mound from the parapets above, and the gabions, by extraordinary zeal, were loaded with sand and stones dislodged from the revetment and grubbed up from the bed of the ditch. In this way partial cove was obtained, but it was yet too shallow to protect the troops from the sharp peals of musketry which poured up the fossé. For about twenty minutes the work was persevered in when the impossibility of proceeding, temporarily suspended its progress.
By this time a working party of fifty men of the 77th regiment arrived. No signal for advancing had been given to them, for the almost hopeless state of affairs in the Redan did not warrant the step; but corporal Baker, a trustworthy sapper of known intrepidity and judgment, properly anticipating there would be occasion for the services of a working party, led the detachment to the salient, and driving into the ditch was soon engrossed in the construction of a caponnière across its bottom, a little on the right of the salient. While these engineering details were being stubbornly executed, the troops in the Redan, vainly waiting for two hours to seize an opportunity to dash into the town, many falling in the stand they had made around the traverse, commenced the retreat. With it retired the working party, the ladder-men and sappers; and in passing the open—till the gorge of the foremost sap was reached—so hot was the fire upon the repulsed stormers, that the ground was covered with slaughtered hundreds.
The names of the storming party of sappers were—
| Company. | ||
| Sergeant Peter Leitch | 2nd | —wounded severely in the head. |
| Corporal James Curgenven | 10th | |
| 2nd corporal David S. Osment | 1st | |
| Lance-corporal William Baker | 7th | |
| Private John Stephens | 1st | |
| ” David Boyd | 1st | |
| ” William Bennett | 1st | |
| ” Peter Delany | 1st | |
| ” Thomas Whyte | 1st | |
| ” David Carswell | 1st | —wounded dangerously in the head, died 18th September, 1855. |
| ” John T. Harris | 2nd | |
| ” Samuel Hammett | 2nd | —wounded by grape-shot in left leg, and while hobbling back to the 21-gun battery, was killed in the trenches by a round-shot, which carried away his head. |
| ” James Broad | 7th | |
| ” James Aitcheson | 7th | —wounded slightly in the right arm. |
| ” Christopher Digweed | 9th | |
| ” John Whitford | 9th | |
| ” William Clark | 9th | |
| ” John Oldham | 9th | |
| ” John Wotherspoon | 10th | |
| ” Peter Ruthven | 10th | |
| ” Robert Garrett | 10th |
“The sappers,” writes Lieutenant Ranken, “all behaved well and exerted themselves in carrying out my orders to the best of their power.” He then proceeds, “I beg especially to call your attention to the conduct of sergeant Leitch who was wounded, and corporal Curgenven who, with privates Harris and Wotherspoon were up with the leading ladders and who worked hard in pulling down gabions and placing and filling them according to my instructions, and of lance-corporal Baker who came up subsequently with the working party of the 77th, and who showed coolness, zeal, and activity in executing my orders.”
Singular were the escapes of corporal Baker. A musket-ball passed through his cap carrying it a few yards in his rear, and another bullet knocking both heads out of his water-bottle struck him in the hip as if a stone had been thrown at him. Had it not been that his canteen was full of water, the ball in all probability would have inflicted a dangerous wound.