On the 17th April twelve rank and file of the eleventh company, detached to Constantinople, joined the ‘Fury’ steamer for service in the Black Sea, and were present at the bombardment of Odessa. The squadron was hotly engaged when the ‘Fury’ arrived, and after firing a few rounds, was signalled from the action by the Admiral. On the 23rd April she was again in the fight for two hours, but her presence in the action is not noticed in the official despatches.
Meanwhile the six men with Captain Chapman, R.E., who in the course of a few months had been in six different vessels, were, during the intervals, employed under their officers, surveying Fort St. Nicholas, on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles, and the country from thence as far as the gulf of Saros. A few weeks later they assisted in a similar service at Boulair and Gallipoli, and then sailing again up the Bosphorus to Beicos Bay, landed at Therapia, from whence seven days after they removed to Constantinople, pushing out a party of four men under Lieutenant De Vere to survey Buyuk Tchekmedjie, a district some twenty miles from the port.
When Sir John Burgoyne was in the country prior to the arrival of the troops, private James Cray was his orderly, and accompanied him to Varna and Shumla. Majors Dickson and Wellesley, with Lieutenants Burke and the Honourable George Wrottesley and lady, were of the party. From rough roads and inclement weather the journey was not without its trials; and at night the little expedition rested by the road-side in any nook or hovel where they could find shelter.
Subsequently private Cray was orderly to the heroic Lieutenant Burke, R.E. With him he passed a few days at Silistria, and then took horse to a small town on the banks of the Danube nine miles from Rustchuk. Major Wellesley had given him a sword, but this was not considered sufficient for his defence, and he was provided from the Turkish armoury with a Minié rifle and revolver. Thus armed, he joined the Ottoman forces in an action against the Russians, who under cover of a fusillade from a strong body of riflemen, were endeavouring to cross the river. Met by a fire it was impossible to stand against, they faced about and retreated in their boats to land. Cray was thus the first soldier of the British army engaged in the common cause, and for his conduct on the occasion was presented by Lieutenant Burke to Omar Pacha. His next ride was to Sistova. At the time the party entered the town an engagement was going on, and the Turks were again victorious. Journeying onwards they crossed to an island, where Lieutenant Burke and his orderly at imminent risk laid out new works, and traced batteries to complete the defences of the place. On that occasion private Cray exchanged between twenty and thirty shots with the enemy, who kept up a sharp fire upon the party from the opposite bank. In all his tours of inspection and survey, from the Danube, across the Balkan chain to Adrianople, and back again by another route to Constantinople, private Cray accompanied Lieutenant Burke, and for his usefulness and spirited conduct was made lance-corporal and afterwards attached as orderly to the Brigade-Major.
The detachment at Gallipoli erected piers at the port, for landing stores, guns, &c., and prepared hospitals for the sick. The companies at Boulair assisted to form the lines on the left of the position allotted to the British troops to execute. About 1,500 men of the infantry were daily distributed for some months to the trenches and roads, and performed their tasks with ardour and cheerfulness. One man detached to Ibridgi, about fifty miles distant on the north side of the gulf of Saros, superintended the Greeks in felling and collecting brushwood and timber, for the construction of magazines, platforms, log-huts, &c. A fluctuating party, numbering at one time nine men under a corporal, was afterwards detached on this duty.
When Sir George Brown, who commanded the division, took his departure for the frontier, he communicated in orders of the 6th May “his entire approbation of the general conduct, zeal, and industry of the royal sappers and miners on the works, both at Gallipoli and the camp at Boulair.”
Two other companies were quickly reorganised to reinforce the corps in the East. These were the tenth under Captain Bent, to form the pontoon train, and the eighth from Gibraltar, under Captain Bourchier. The former embarked at Woolwich in the ‘City of London’ steamer, on board of which was Lieutenant-General Sir De Lacy Evans and staff, and the staff of the Duke of Cambridge. Sir De Lacy Evans was well pleased with the conduct and services of the company on board, for they had much to attend to in strengthening the horse-boxes. Landing at Constantinople on the 24th April, the company was quartered in Scutari barracks, as was also the eighth on debarking from the ‘Albatross,’ on the 9th May. The pontoons sent out in the ‘Melbourne’ in charge of corporal William Dickson, an able and intelligent non-commissioned officer, reached Constantinople on the 13th May.
The sappers attached to Her Majesty’s ship ‘Fury’ being transshipped to the ‘Agamemnon,’ bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Lyons, served with the squadron in a obsolete’[obsolete’] on the coasts of Circassia, Georgia, and Anatolia, and were present on the 19th May in the reduction of Redout Kaleh.
Next morning the party landed, and were employed for two days as overseers in the defensive occupation of the place, under the orders of Lieutenant H. Cox and H. B. Roberts, of the royal marine artillery. Parties from all the ships were ashore at the works. The Turks, utterly unacquainted with the mode of protecting themselves by intrenchments, were instructed by the sappers. A Russian barrack was speedily loopholed, a stone building in a commanding situation was converted by massive planks into a block-house as an outwork, and a parapet was formed, flanked by a deep marsh. Houses, too, that could not aid in the defence were thrown down, whilst others, well sited, were turned into points of security and resistance. The old fort on the land side was also strengthened with additional works. When these services were sufficiently advanced, the Turks with two sappers were left to complete the defences, and the Anglo-French working parties, with the remainder of the sappers, returned to their ships.
Renewing its cruise, the squadron anchored off Bardan. Landing Captain Brock, R.N., Captain Stanton, R.E., a doctor, and four sappers, they started, guided by an escort of Circassians commanded by Ismail Bey, over the mountains, to communicate with the prophet-warrior Schamyl.