When the French had captured Fort Tzee the Brigadier-General gave an order for sergeant John Jones to make a plan of it. He had a note to the officer commanding the garrison requesting the service to be permitted. Taking with him privates John S. Rowley and George Peters to assist, he started on the morning of the 15th, but contrary to expectation found the French had abandoned the work and taken shelter in an advanced trench. Presenting the request to the French Commandant, the sergeant awaited authority to proceed. The fort was on fire, having been shelled by the Russians the previous evening. The Commandant and several French officers advised Jones not to venture into the place, but with soldier-like firmness he persevered in urging the performance of the duty; and permission being granted, he and his assistants went on. Going through one of the embrasures, which was on fire, and the gun-carriage burning, they pushed into the tower. Loose powder, broken cartridges, and five shells were lying about; the flames had nearly spread to the principal magazine, the remainder of the building had more or less fire in every casemate, and the smoke in thick columns was streaming from the crackling apertures. With difficulty they gained the first floor, and then, finding the stairs, penetrated to the roof, not without being almost suffocated, and losing, for a time, private Rowley in the smoke. From floor to floor and embrasure to embrasure they moved, in hopes of stealing the barest chance of taking even a few measurements, but their efforts were unavailing; and so, compelled to quit the tower, they had scarcely reached their own camp, about 1,200 yards away, when the flames having communicated with the magazine, it exploded, and the fort blew up.
Without attempting to chronicle the different incidents of the campaign, in which the fleet and the French troops so gallantly participated, it will be sufficient to note that Bomarsund, the principal fort of the Aland Islands, capitulated without material opposition, and the Russians were marched out prisoners of war. The sappers and miners and royal marines formed in line, faced by a force of the French infantry; and through their divided ranks, the Russians moved pensively away to the point arranged for their departure.
No sooner were the forts in possession of the allies than measures were taken to disable the guns and dismantle the works. The sappers only were employed in carrying out the mining operations under the direction of their officers. In this duty they worked with so much energy, that their exertions were scarcely checked by the fatigues to which they were necessarily subjected. Forts Prasto, Nottich, and Bomarsund all fell in turn—blown up by mines skilfully laid and fired. The magazines also were exploded, the shot and shell removed, and stores of timber, prepared for use in the contemplated fortifications, were burnt. The work of destruction extended even to the garrison chapel; it was sacked and then destroyed, and all the unfinished forts and buildings, rising from foundations which marked the extent of a stupendous engineering design, were torn up by mines and thrown down. The stone landing-pier was likewise demolished, and not a slab of granite which promised to be of service in future works was left unbroken. But a few weeks, and what a change! This proud maritime position—this formidable outport of the yet impregnable Cronstadt, studded with forts and bristling with ordnance, was one widespread area of ruin and desolation!
Brigadier-General Jones and the officers of the corps were well pleased with the military bearing and exertions of the company, and commended the “cheerful and willing manner in which they performed the laborious duties” assigned to them. Besides the non-commissioned officers and men named above, there were others noted for their services. Privates John Williams,[[138]] John Veitch,[[139]] and Francis Enright, for their boldness, resolution, and zeal. Corporal George Luke,[[140]] for his ability and usefulness as a miner in the demolition of Bomarsund. Sergeant John Jones,[[141]] for his assistance as a draughtsman; and sergeant Richard P. Jones,[[142]] for his general diligence and intelligence, as well in the general operations as in the special one of diving. The ‘Penelope’ having run ashore on an unknown rock off Bomarsund, was compelled to throw fifteen of her guns overboard to float and save her. Several naval divers attached to the fleet were afterwards employed to bring them up; but as some submarine difficulties prevented as speedy an accomplishment of the undertaking as was desired, the co-operation of sergeant Richard Jones was found to be an acquisition, inasmuch as he recovered five 8-inch guns and one 10-inch.
There was much sickness among the sappers during the brief campaign, and on one day no less than forty-seven men out of a company not a hundred strong, were on the sick-list with choleraic symptoms; but owing to the attention of the naval surgeons, only two died. Quitting the Baltic Sea in the ‘Cumberland,’ the company rejoined the corps at Woolwich on the 16th October, and before two months had intervened, was despatched in all haste to Turkey.
It is now time to turn to the East, to trace the movements and services of the corps in that interesting quarter. The van of the army sent thither under the command of Lord Raglan, was a small party of six rank and file of the sappers and miners under Captain Chapman of the engineers. They belonged to the fourth company, at Malta, whence they sailed in the ‘Banshee’ on the 25th January, and having arrived four days after in Beicos Bay, were the first British soldiers landed on the Ottoman shores.
To meet the calls for its services in the coming struggle, the corps, by order of Lord Raglan under date the 23rd February, was augmented from an establishment of 2,218 of all ranks to 2,658 officers and men, by enlarging the organization of each of the twenty-two companies with one sergeant, one corporal, one second-corporal, and seventeen privates. The corps was now fixed according to the following details:—
| Colour | Ser- | Cor- | 2nd | Pri- | General | |||||
| Sergeant. | geants. | porals. | Corp. | Bugl. | vates. | Total. | Total. | |||
| 17 | general service companies, each | 1 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 100 | 120 | = | 2040 |
| 1 | company for Corfu | 1 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 68 | 82 | = | 82 |
| 3 | survey companies, each | 1 | 7 | 8 | 8 | 2 | 99 | 125 | = | 375 |
| 1 | survey company | 1 | 5 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 100 | 120 | = | 120 |
| Sydney mint detachment | . | 1 | 1 | 3 | . | 11 | 16 | = | 16 | |
| Van Diemen’s Land detachment | . | 1 | 2 | . | . | 12 | 15 | = | 15 | |
| -—— | ||||||||||
| 2648 | ||||||||||
| Staff—1 brigade-major, 1 adjutant, 3 quartermasters, 2 sergeant-majors, 2 quartermaster-sergeants, and 1 bugle-major | 10 | |||||||||
| —— | ||||||||||
| Total | 2658 | |||||||||
| ==== | ||||||||||
To concentrate the available force for active duty, the seventh company, employed in services of a secondary character only, was withdrawn from Hurst Castle, and removed to Woolwich. While at the castle the company had assisted in strengthening the place by constructing two batteries for ten and twelve guns respectively, and also three loopholed caponniers, built of brick and cement in the moat of the castle. Quartered as it was upon an exposed shore, in a spot that was isolated and dreary, the conduct of the company was anything but satisfactory, and in the short space of eighteen months, out of a strength that scarcely exceeded ninety non-commissioned officers and men, no fewer than twenty-three privates deserted.
On the 24th February the eleventh company, under Captain Hassard, embarked at Southampton for Turkey on board the ‘Himalaya’ steamer, in which was shipped a store of intrenching tools for field operations. At Malta they landed on the 8th March, and were temporarily quartered at Floriana. The seventh company—Captain Gibb’s—joined them on the 27th March, and brought with them a further supply of tools and implements. Two days later both companies embarked in the ‘Golden Fleece,’ and steamed off with the rifle brigade to Gallipoli, where they landed with Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown on the 8th April. About forty non-commissioned officers and men of the corps were left at Gallipoli, and the remainder, marching nearly nine miles, took up a position not far from the village of Boulair, from which the camp derived its name.