History of the Royal Sappers and Miners, Volume 2 (of 2) / From the Formation of the Corps in March 1712 to the date when its designation was changed to that of Royal Engineers

by T. W. J. Connolly

The messages were on every class of subject from the affectionate inquiries of anxious parents and friends to the stern orders for bombardment or assault. Nothing that was required to be communicated rapidly—from those who had authoritative access to the offices—was conveyed by any other agency than the field telegraph. All despatches to and from the Commander-in-chief on matters in which secrecy was essential were in numeral cypher; all else were couched in brief but expressive English. An exposition of all the vouchers and messages which passed in and out of the different offices would form a curious episode in the history of the war. In August, 1855, one of the months of the siege in which the cannonading was the hottest, the number of messages received at head-quarters was 464, and the number sent 402, being an average respectively of 15 and 13 a-day. The station in the caves of the Woronzoff ravine, which opened on the 8th April, 1855, received, up to the conclusion of the siege, 160 messages, or one a-day. To keep on perpetual watch for this singular dispatch was enough to wear out the most exemplary patience; and when to this tiresome experience was added the miseries of a dank vapoury hole in winter and a broiling furnace in summer, it may occasion but little wonder that the occupant of the cave was not very remarkable for sobriety. Sergeant Anderson, the senior non-commissioned officer at the instruments, was stationed at St. George’s Monastery. He received the despatches from England through the submarine line from Varna, and telegraphed them to head-quarters. In like manner he received those from Lord Raglan and the staff, and also the Sardinian Commander-in-chief, through the head-quarter office, and conveyed them to the submarine line for communication by way of Varna to England and elsewhere. Corporal Fraser, the chief telegraphist, was in charge of the manipulators at the head-quarter office. The extra allowances paid to the sappers for this duty ranged from 1s. to 5s. a-day. Those who received the last rate in succession were sergeants Anderson and Montgomery and corporal Fraser.

Every day the sappers were at the instruments, and each, turn about, continued at work throughout the night. It was, however, permitted to the men on night duty to snatch, if they could, any intervals which might offer for rest; and so rolling themselves up in their blankets they commenced a series of forty winks in front of their apparatus. No dependence could be placed on a single minute for tranquillity; for in all probability just as the sapper had made himself as comfortable as his limited means allowed, and he was beginning to close his drowsy lids in grateful unconsciousness, he was again forced to his seat by the alarm bell, which continued its shrill noise until the disturbed manipulator communicated with the station from whence the ringing originated. This however was barely regarded as a hardship; but it really amounted to one when the sappers who had been relieved from duty were driven from their slumbers to assist their comrades. Delays were inadmissible, and no inconvenience, circumstance, or right of remission from labour, could be pleaded as an excuse to stave off applications which pressed for communication. Disturbances like this occurred as many as three or four times in a night, and to shake oneself from sleep when nature was well nigh spent for the want of it, demanded a strength of effort and purpose which few men would be willing to exercise. And yet the operators were seldom indisposed to give their services however unreasonable or litigious were the calls for them. What with constant watching, the irritating interruptions of sleep, the tedious care to prevent error, coupled with the anxieties which each felt for the success of a new and rather tender undertaking, it is somewhat remarkable that none of the sappers broke down from their vigils and overwork.

It not unfrequently happened that the gutta-percha covered wire which carried the electric stream from station to station became broken. The causes were various and even curious. Digging in the neighbourhood to find roots for fuel, or by traffic, was a common cause of interruption; burying horses’ offal, &c. was another. Often the line was cut by designing men, who, having abstracted a few yards of it, withdrew the wire from its covering and used the hollow gutta-percha tubing for pipe stems! Once the current was stopped on the Kazatch line by the industry of an insidious field mouse. With great difficulty the site of the disconnection was detected, when baring the line, it was found that the wire, which passed through a nest of mice, was bitten in two by the matron of the haunt. Occasionally accidents to the line took place during bombardments by round shot and splinters of shells. Not without some trouble were the lines repaired. Two interesting instances have already appeared in the narrative.

From August the telegraph was mutually worked by civilians and sappers. The Government having sent out a civil superintendent and ten civil telegraph clerks to the Crimea, they were added to the staff under Captain Du Cane, who distributed them to the several stations—one sapper and one civilian to each. The men whose services were thus dispensed with, and who had assisted to give efficiency by their care and attention to a delicate experiment, were sent into the trenches. It was a needless arrangement this, for the sappers at the time were performing the duty with every satisfaction. Whatever may have induced the incorporation of the civil element with an undertaking that had been organized and carried out as a military duty, it is enough to show the interest with which this scientific appendage to the army was held by the Ministry at home; and whatever success may have resulted from the combination of the two elements in working the field telegraph, is due equally to the intelligence and efficiency of each, but more so to the officers whose anxious superintendence and incessant watchfulness, gave vigour and all but perfection to the system they devised and directed. In time the entire charge of the field telegraph was confined to the sappers, and the civilians on being removed joined the submarine branch.

The officers who commanded the sappers on this duty have thus spoken of their aptitude and labours:—

Lieutenant Stopford writes: “The sappers showed great quickness in learning the use of the instrument, although not one of the men, except corporal Fraser, had any knowledge or indeed had seen the single needle instrument before; therefore to him is due the credit of teaching all the manipulators. Sergeant Anderson was in charge of the telegraph party and one of the first to learn the use and working of the instrument.” When reporting upon the operations generally, Captain Du Cane commended them for their exertions in these words: “I consider great credit is due to the sappers for the prompt manner in which the repairs”—to the wires—“were executed.” Elsewhere in his report he mentioned, “that the sappers evinced considerable intelligence in working the telegraph, and although in one or two instances misconduct occurred, yet on the whole they discharged their duties in a satisfactory and efficient manner.” “The working of the telegraph,” says Lieutenant Fisher, “was done in the most satisfactory manner by men of the royal sappers and miners, many of whom, more especially the buglers (four), showed a very great aptitude for learning the manipulatory process. Fifteen of the corps had been wholly initiated in the art, and,” continues the officer, “from the great pains taken by corporal Peter Fraser in their instruction many of the men and boys have become excellent telegraphists.”

Early in the morning of the 9th two sappers actuated by an inquisitive feeling approached within a short distance of Fort Nicholas, which was still in possession of the enemy. One was a bugler, the other a private. The latter had armed himself with a Russian musket. Having satisfied their curiosity they were waiting a chance conveyance to take them over to the English side of the dock-yard creek. Private George Fox descrying a well-laden boat in the distance went in its direction. It pulled towards him, and the sailors stepping to land courteously gave him a place among them. They turned out to be Russians, and Fox was thus a prisoner of war. After seeing the boat push off and waiting about an hour the bugler returned to camp. Rejoining the corps by exchange on the 26th January, 1856, Fox went into hospital five days after and died on the 14th February. Worthless as a man from his dissipated habits, Colonel Gordon however placed it on record that he “was a most valuable sapper in the trenches.” He was the only sapper taken prisoner during the war.

After the troops had occupied the Redan, small parties under Major Montagu and Lieutenant Lennox of the engineers, and Captain Penn of the royal artillery, were employed in examining the ground for explosive machines and searching for galvanic wires leading to magazines. Several were discovered in different places where it was expected the assailants would enter in storming the works.

Detachments of sappers, assisted by working parties and sailors, commenced on the evening of the 11th the construction of a battery for two ninety-five cwt. guns on the right of St. Paul’s battery. Some little progress had been made in rearing it, when the work was abandoned. A fortnight later a more extensive battery near the ruins of Fort Paul was begun, for ten guns to sustain a contest with Fort Sivernaia on the opposite side of the harbour. It was built in a bakery, the rear wall having been thrown down, leaving the under portion of it as a parapet, while the front wall, retained as a mask which a few shots would have crumbled into ruins, concealed the nature of the battery from the enemy. The firing from the northern works was nevertheless pretty brisk, but harmless, and the work proceeded steadily. Other objects, however, being determined on, the battery, though its embrasures were partly cut and revetted, was never armed.

In the meantime the eighth company and a detachment of the 3rd Buffs moved into the Karabelnaia to be employed in the destruction of the docks, and were quartered in the storehouses of the dockyard, which being exposed to the Russian fire from across the water, was occasionally visited by the intrusion of shot. Two or three of these missiles plunged into the barrack-room but providentially not a man was injured by them.