The fourth company from Malta, under Captain Craigie, reinforced the corps at Varna on the 14th August, and a detachment of the third company at Corfu was also sent thither, arriving at the head-quarters on the 25th August. They were ordered from their respective stations to the seat of war by Lord Raglan.[[156]]
1854.
CRIMEA.
September—18th October.
Instructional operations—Embarkation for the Crimea—The landing—The sappers sink wells—Attempt to erect a pier for landing the horses—Bed of the Bulganak improved with reeds for the passage of artillery—The Alma—Services of the sappers during the battle—They repair the Buliack timber bridge—March to Balaklava; Sir John Burgoyne; services of the third company—The corps encamps at Balaklava—Then removes to the heights before Sebastopol; misery for want of tents—Parties assist to reconnoitre the positions and trace the lines—An instance given—Two sappers carrying the mail miss their way, are wounded and benighted—Destruction of Upton’s aqueduct—Positions on the heights; staff engineers—The attacks; parks—Sapper brigades—Reliefs—Breaking ground—Duties of the sappers—Their deficiency of tact in working the skilled portions of the batteries—Progress of the works; a party wanders from the trace—Sergeant Morant misses his way, and only discovers his mistake when encountered by a Russian guard—A mistrusted guide restores confidence by his conduct—State of the works on the night before the first bombardment—The batteries and parallels—Siege operations—Restoration of the works—Sir John Burgoyne’s remarks on them.
Preliminary to active operations in the Crimea, the companies of the corps at Varna superintended contingents of the line in preparing a park of gabions, fascines, sand-bags, and platforms for siege purposes. Each sapper at the duty had charge of fifteen men of the line, divided into three squads of five in a squad. The troops were also practised in the hasty formation of field-works; and these instructional services were not without profit to the men of the corps, who, as overseers, superintended their execution.
Early in September the allied forces embarked for the Crimea, and the naval arrangements for the occasion, though vast and complicated, were comprehensive and perfect. To each of the British divisions was attached a body of sappers and miners, bearing with them intrenching tools. Up to this time there had landed in Turkey six companies of the corps, mustering a force of 513 non-commissioned officers and men, which had been reduced to 492 men by the decease of 21 non-commissioned officers and privates, chiefly from cholera and exposure. Leaving the seventh company at Gallipoli, also detachments at Varna, Redout Kaleh, and Bucharest, and the sick on board the transports and at Scutari, the force of sappers and miners that landed near Lake Tuzla in Kalamita Bay on the 14th and 16th September counted a total of 308 of all ranks.
Under a teeming rain, two of the companies debarked, and without tents or covering, took up a miserable bivouac with their divisions. In the night they lay huddled together for warmth, while the storm beat ceaselessly upon them, and turned their selected resting-places into pools and quagmires. The returning day found them drenched, stiff, and comfortless; but in none, except those poor enfeebled fellows still suffering from the pest that had proved so fatal to the troops at Varna, was there wanting a cheerfulness to work, a spirit to master hardship, and a determination to endure. Unsheltered as they were, that fearful weather brought on many aggravated cases of cholera.
Water, the first want felt after landing at Lake Tuzla, caused several wells to be sunk by the sappers on the strip of land which stretched between the lake and the Black Sea. The supply thus obtained was too brackish for human use, and the duty of furnishing the troops, therefore, depended on the fleet.
At noon on the 15th, a detachment of the fourth company commenced to erect a temporary pier for landing the horses, with timbers furnished by the fleet. For a considerable distance to seaward, the water was shallow, but it swelled to the beach, and broke there with great violence. Trestles fixed and braced were held for a time in their places by sturdy men, but the driving breakers rushed to the shore with so resistless a force it was impracticable to proceed; and men and timbers borne away in the surge, only escaped by grasping at ropes which were laid conveniently to the site in anticipation of such accidents.
When the army was put in motion, and the Bulganak stream was reached, its bed was found to be too muddy for the passage of the artillery with the 4th division. Early in the morning of the 20th a portion of the fourth company was told off to make a track through the water for the guns. Collecting the reeds which grew there in abundance, the sappers tied them faggot fashion into long bundles, and placing them in the bed of the stream from bank to bank, the artillery, in twenty-two minutes from the time of commencing, was crossing the river with clean wheels in comparative ease.
On the 20th was fought the battle of the Alma, which was gained in three hours by the allies, with a loss to the British exceeding 2,000 killed and wounded; whilst the carnage amongst the Russians was even greater. The sappers and miners during the action were thus distributed:—