Everywhere the lines continued to be prosecuted with commendable rapidity, and to claim even the fastidious attention of the sappers with regard to the smoothness and accuracy of the slopes of the interior revetments and the sharpness of the angles. The Madras platforms, to which a high reputation was attached, were quickly laid for the general siege-pieces, and common ones were fixed for the naval guns. There were times, however, when, from the guiding sappers missing their way to the appointed hill, the works were somewhat retarded in their execution. An instance of this kind occurred on the 10th October, when some sappers, sent to throw up a battery in front of the right of the light division, could not discover the position. The night was densely dark, foggy, and close. For more than two hours they endeavoured to find the points marked previously by Major Gordon, but finally seeing the fruitlessness of their efforts, they quitted the front and returned to camp. The working parties were retained in rear under cover; the only men exposed on the hill-top that night were two captains of engineers, and sergeant Coppin and lance-corporals Stupple and Kerr.
A more serious mistake occurred, the next night. Ground had been broken at eight o’clock by a working party of 400 men on the brow of a hill to the left of the light division. Sergeant Joseph Morant, who had received instructions as to the direction he was to take to reach the work, started at midnight with seventeen sappers to relieve the men of the corps whose tour of night-duty had expired. Marching along the Woronzoff ravine, he passed a huge boulder on which was carved a cross, and shortly after reached a large shell which had stuck in the middle of the road. These, for want of better indications, were two of the points on which he relied for the accuracy of his course. Having still to press on for another half-mile and more, and the night being dark, he missed the hollow up which he was to move to the site of the parallel. On he went with his men, when, seeing at length on either height a picquet, he hesitated under an impression he had gone too far; but private George Harvey, apparently priding himself upon his knowledge of the locality, persisted in saying that the picquets were British. Unable to trust to his own sight, for his vision was defective, the sergeant, thus assured, pushed forward steadily with the party, till he observed a few yards in his front, an outpost drawn up across the road. The sappers now halted, and the two parties strained their eyes in surprise at this unexpected proximity. Morant, who was intently looking about him, struck against a wooden pillar of some altitude, streaked with painted bands of alternate black and white-supposed to be a milestone. By this his conviction was settled that the Russians were facing him. Alarmed at the visit, the enemy’s picquet fell back on the main body, and Morant just then gave orders for his men, who were unarmed, to retire stealthily. This was done for a short distance, when turning about, the whole batch, as if winged for the occasion, run the gauntlet for their lives between the two hill picquets, relieving themselves as they fled of such encumbrances as were likely to impede their haste. In this way their greatcoats and wooden canteens, in part, were left behind; and as the distance between the parties was inconsiderable, and the fire from the different picquets sharp upon the sappers, it is somewhat extraordinary, that not a man was wounded so as to draw blood, Several had their greatcoats, trousers and jackets perforated or torn by bullets, and a few were grazed on the legs and arms, while the sergeant had a choice lock of his hair clipped off, and a slight touch in the cartilage of the left ear.[[159]]
This mishap was not without advantage, for it frustrated the execution of a sortie which was then preparing. From the flashes of the Russian fire, strong battalions of infantry could be seen moving towards our works, to repel which the second and light divisions at once turned out; the riflemen too, always ready, poured a destructive fusillade into the advancing battalions, and the artillery, never from their posts, saluted them with volleys of shot and shell. For nearly an hour the combat lasted, when the enemy, flying before the rush and cheer of the 88th, took shelter under the walls of the fortress, keeping up, however, for the rest of the night, a desultory fire upon the works. The loss in the trenches was trifling, and our batteries, which were much exposed, remained intact.
Notwithstanding this attack, the new battery was considerably advanced in its construction before the morning, for no less than 840 gabions had been laid in it during the night by lance-corporal George H. Collins.
A few nights after the mishap stated above, the non-commissioned officer just named was selected to conduct a working party to the 21-gun battery. It was exceedingly dark, and the men moved on cautiously. The “valley of the shadow of death” had been crossed; the picket-house passed; indeed the greater part of the journey had been marched when the field-officer in charge expressed his doubts that the proper track had been taken. To remove the officer’s misgivings and to prove the correctness of his own conduct, the corporal offered to go alone to the battery, which, regarded as the wiser course, was at once approved of. Off started the guide, and having reassured himself by a visit to the work, that his direction was right, returned to the officer within a quarter of an hour. To regain the party was more difficult than he anticipated. He knew not the relative position of the point where the halt was called, and on coming back bore away to the right about 200 yards. He judged by the time he was absent that he must be near the workmen, and so hailing them by whistling signals, which were recognized and answered, he was extricated from a dilemma it would probably have taken the night to solve. Satisfied with the integrity of his guide, the field-officer now readily moved on the column as Collins led, and soon reached the battery. The work was afterwards known by the name of the “Gordon Battery.”
By the 16th October the vigilance of the working parties had placed the lines in so forward a state that, on the following evening, orders were issued to the troops respecting the bombardment. No exertions were spared throughout the night to complete the works in every detail, and the sappers, being told off into storming parties of twenty men each under an officer of the corps, were attached to the several divisions of the army to lead the way in any enterprise in which their professional services might be demanded. For this purpose they were furnished with picks and shovels to form lodgments; crowbars, felling-axes, and sledge-hammers to remove impediments; bags of gunpowder for blowing in gates; and scaling ladders with which to storm walls and towers.
Eight or more distinct works had been erected, mounting above sixty guns, including Lancasters, which, during the siege, were increased or diminished according to circumstances. They were connected with a line of excavations exceeding a mile in length on the right, and 1,200 yards on the left, including deviations offered for acceptance by the undulations of the hills. The chief batteries—named after the officers of engineers who superintended their construction, held a position on the heights at a distance exceeding 1,350 yards from the Russian lines, while the French, working in easy soil, pushed up much nearer to the fortress by the usual process of sapping and mining. On the part of the English the plan of attack was necessarily a departure from recognized rules, owing to the rocky character of the ground and the deep glens which separated the works.
On the morning of the 17th, there were, including the sick, 351 non-commissioned officers and men in camp and in the trenches. As many as could possibly be collected were sent to the batteries to share in the first day’s bombardment. Under cover of the darkness, the embrasures of the batteries, blinded with gabions, were quickly unmasked by the sappers, and before the dawn had fairly opened, sixty-three guns belched their fire upon the fortress. By a preconcerted signal the French, hurling destruction from fifty-six pieces of ordnance, commenced the siege simultaneously with the English, and the allied navies took part in the contest. This was the first day’s firing on the part of the besiegers; and although the garrison kept up a warm cannonade upon the allies from the moment that any show was made in the construction of the trenches, the Anglo-French never once attempted, by the discharge of a single piece of ordnance, to lessen the interference of the enemy, or to interrupt the progress of their defences.
From both sides the cannonade was continued with more or less vigour according to the nature of events, and the result evidenced only too plainly the devastating effect of the firing. Our batteries were much damaged; those of the allies were scattered, whilst two of their magazines blew up with mournful results. The works of the enemy were in some places almost demolished: their firing varied as they found cover to stand to the guns; but the day’s fury was at length terminated by the terrific explosion of a magazine behind an earthen redoubt, which threw a feeling of awe even among the besiegers. There was much skill, however, in the Russian engineers, and before morning, by extraordinary exertion, the works were restored and replaced with guns. No less energetic were the English sappers in strengthening the lines and repairing the batteries; for although erected with admirable solidity, the shells from the fortress ploughed up the works and tore down the embrasures. In all such cases, if the restoration could not be deferred till night, the sappers, with a daring equal to their usefulness, would spring into the openings, and while exposed to the hottest of the fire, make good the breaches. One of the bravest and best in this exposed service was corporal John Paul. Fortunately, in the early stages of the siege, repairs in open day were seldom imperative. The damages done in the day by the cannonading of 155 guns were expeditiously made good at night; and so efficiently, that each morning the batteries stood up as compact and bold as they did before the firing opened on the 17th October.
After the first day’s firing, Sir John Burgoyne thus wrote to the Commander-in-chief. “I would call Lord Raglan’s attention to the great and successful exertions of the royal engineers and sappers under very trying circumstances. The very rocky soil presents the extreme of difficulties to the establishment of trenches and batteries; the very act of obtaining cover in one night in such soil, which was done on every occasion, requires a great effort, and to construct in it substantial batteries, still more.