Sergeant William Sargent, who from the first had been employed as a military foreman, in carrying out the works at Constantinople and other places on the Bosphorus, was discharged from the sappers, and confirmed as a civil foreman of works in the royal engineer department.
And to this list must be added the names of non-commissioned officers who were commissioned by Her Majesty into the Land Transport Corps. They were—
| Colour-sergeant | James Falkner[[200]] |  | |
| ” | John Landrey | ||
| ” | James Spry | as Cornets. | |
| ” | George Wohlmann | ||
| ” | Cornelius Godfrey | ||
| ” | William Lambert | as Quartermaster. |
When the honour was conferred on the first two sergeants, Colonel Gordon of the engineers thus alluded to it in his brigade orders of the 1st December, 1855, “These are the first non-commissioned officers of sappers who have been rewarded with commissions for their good and distinguished conduct in the field. Having contributed by good conduct and gallant bearing to raise the reputation of the corps of royal sappers and miners, they carry with them to the honourable positions to which they have been raised, the best wishes of Colonel Gordon and of all the corps under his command.”
The roll of non-commissioned officers and men who deserved substantial appreciation for their merits might have been extended ad infinitum, but the distinctions offered by the Government and the French Emperor were confined to the limits which these few paragraphs detail.
Here may be a fit place to allude to an institution of the war, suggested by Major-General Wylde, which was found an important auxiliary to the army. The field electric telegraph, used for the first time in any campaign, came first into operation a few months after the great storm of November, 1854, and was placed under the direction of Lieutenant Stopford. From him it passed, in the early summer, to Captain F. Du Cane, and in September, 1855, to Lieutenant Fisher, Captain Du Cane having been compelled to relinquish it on account of ill health.
By degrees the ramification of the lines extended to eight stations, each connected with the other by under-ground wires, laid in furrows about eighteen inches deep, and afterwards covered up. The several lines made up an aggregate length of nearly 24 miles of current. The stations were at Head-quarters, Kasatch, the Monastery, Engineer park, Right attack, Light division, Kadikoi, and Balaklava. Various obstacles occurred to delay the establishment of the stations, such as snow storms, hard frosts, and heavy rains; the failure of the plough to dig the trenches in which to deposit the wires, and the consequent resort to the employment of working parties, already weakened by overwork, insufficient diet, a dreadful winter, and unnumbered hardships and trials. These, however, at length, were to some extent overcome; and the first telegraphic communication was opened between Lord Raglan’s head-quarters and Kadikoi, a distance of three miles, on the 7th March. Other stations opened in quick succession, and that formed in one of the caves between the two first parallels of the right and left attacks commenced work on the 8th April, 1855.
The offices were the purest make-shifts—the strongest contrasts possible to the stately establishments of home. Those of the engineer park and light division were in bell tents; that near St. George’s Monastery was at an inn which, when the monks were the occupants of that isolated cloister, formed a sort of refectory for those abstemious celibates. Four others were in huts, and the last was in a small cave in the Woronzoff ravine, partially protected from a daily fire by a traverse of sand-bags. Private East, both night and day, in storm, rain, and wasting heat, occupied alone that dismal recess, sleeping, when he could get the chance, on a shelf of rock. So used indeed had he become to it that few men in camp were more indifferent to comfort, few less disposed to cavil with disadvantages and hardships than he.
Until the beginning of August the telegraph was exclusively worked by sappers selected from the companies in the Crimea, who were taught the use of the instruments and signals by corporal Peter Fraser—a pupil of the establishment at Lothbury. The instruction was necessarily hurried, but the men proved to be so quick and intelligent that they were ready to commence their novel duties when the first station was opened. As manipulators most of them were very good, particularly the buglers, two of whom, John Filkin and William Algar, could read sixteen and a half words in a minute! From the single needle instrument, which was used at all the stations, this was regarded as a feat in telegraphy, and probably the best manipulator in London would scarcely come up to this test of sharpness of sight and fleetness of reading.
Two sappers generally were attached to each station, but two or three corporals and as many buglers attended to the necessities of head-quarters. Each office had a single needle instrument, alarm, and batteries, besides a supply of zinc-plates, acids, &c. The duties of the sappers comprised the manipulation of the instruments, attending to the batteries, sending, receiving, and writing all messages and despatches; recording such as required to be noted, and filing others. Though carried on amid the excitements and turmoil inseparable from war, and the pressure arising from haste and a variety of complicated contingencies and emergencies, the details of the system, including the registry, check, and examination, were, all things considered, very complete. Two orderlies from regiments of the line were allotted to each station to take the messages to their destination; at the head-quarters there were three.