“The proportion of good platforms and stuff for magazines embarked, was too insignificant to be worthy of notice: these objects had to be prepared (and for a very heavy description of ordnance) from the irregular masses of timber and plank that could be procured from buildings pulled down. Notwithstanding all these difficulties, the work has been pushed on with rapidity, the substantial nature of the parapet has been proved by the few casualties incurred, and the embrasures and platforms have required, during the very heavy cannonade of yesterday, less repairs and adjustment than I have ever been witness to on similar occasions; and no accident has occurred to any magazine, although some shells have been observed to explode on them, all proving the substantial goodness of the works performed.”
1854.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
18th October-31st December.
A corporal guides the field officer to the 21-gun battery in open day—The last shot—Two sappers mend a gap of some magnitude in a mortar battery—Scarcity of soil and materials for carrying on the works—Picket-house battery—Mishap to a tracing party—Platforms—Magazines—A detachment with arabas moves from the valley during the battle of Balaklava—Private Lancaster the only sapper engaged in it—Steady conduct of the sappers at the platforms during Sir De Lacy Evans’s combat—Battle of Inkermann—A corporal gallantly alters the splay of an embrasure while the fight rages—Sappers trench the road leading to the heights from the harbour—Two privates repair an embrasure under a severe fire—Submarine divers—Progress of the works—Hurricane of the 14th November; wreck of the ‘Prince’—and the ‘Rip Van Winkle’—Effects of the storm on shore—Lines of Inkermann—Mode of proceeding with the construction of the general works—Strength of corps at the siege and detached—Field electric telegraph—Sergeant Anderson—Casualties—Sergeant Drew—Arrival of second company; its colour-sergeant taken for a Pacha—Incentives to induce the Turks to work—The Navvies—Army Works Corps—The sappers, though under a seeming cloud, are upheld by a vigorous vindication in Parliament.
Next day the bombardment continued to rage, and Colonel Hood of the Grenadier Guards, the field-officer of the trenches on the right attack, was killed. He was succeeded by Colonel Walker of the Scots’ Fusilier Guards. Corporal George H. Collins, chosen as a sure guide, went off with the colonel, passing from the engineer park by the sailor’s camp into the ravine. They then took the Woronzoff road at a run for nearly half-a-mile, and arrived at the foot of a rocky watercourse leading to the hill on which was situated the 21-gun battery, where the colonel dismissed the corporal, and dashed on alone into the work. In going, shot and shell fell furiously into the valley, requiring a sharp look-out to keep clear of splinters. It was even worse in returning; for as the corporal’s back was turned to the fire, he barely allowed himself time to see what were his chances of life and death. Considering that his risks increased by delay, he bounded along the tortuous and broken road, stopping now and then to take breath and cover under some low rocks which jutted from the hill side; and then, pushing up the other slope of the ravine, marched into the camp unhurt. One might have thought that a service of this nature would have excused the corporal from a tour in the trenches; but such was the pressure for sappers, it could not be. At night he was on duty in the Gordon parallel, and four days later was grazed in the back by a shot, which, after striking the earth, rushed past him, and knocked him senseless.[[160]] He was superintending at the time a party working in the right Lancaster battery, clearing away the rock for a platform.
Lance-corporal Rinhy, a ready and spirited sapper, was in No. 3 battery of the left attack on the 19th. Well had he worked that day in the embrasures; and at dusk, as the order was given to cease the cannonade, he went up to No. 6 gun to see the last shot fired. The sailors manned the gun, loading it with a Russian 26-pounder ball, which had hopped among the shot piled in rear of the parapet. The ball stuck in the muzzle, and while Rinhy and the seamen were vainly trying to withdraw it, another shot whisked through the embrasure, cut the man-o’-war’s man in two, and striking the trunnion from the gun, the 24-pounder fell and smashed the sailor underneath it. The same shot passed so close to Rinhy, that it rasped a button from his jacket, and the ferocity of its wind knocked him against a traverse some five yards away. In the same battery, two or three days later, he repaired an embrasure no less than twenty-one times during his tour of duty, and kept the cheeks in such serviceable order, that the 68-pounder which fired there, discharged before nightfall as many as 198 shells and 84 shot into the Russian works, dismounting, according to nautical calculation, no less than six guns in the Redan.
Private William Denham was killed this day, while repairing a platform in the 21-gun battery. A shot carried away the back of his head.
Among the instances of well employed zeal that occurred in this bombardment, was one in which privates Jenkins and John Wallace signalized themselves under the eye of Major Biddulph, of the artillery, assistant engineer. They were stationed on the 22nd in No. 3 battery left attack, against which the fire of several guns was concentrated with so ruinous an effect, that about fourteen feet of the parapet was broken down before ten o’clock in the morning. To venture into so exposed a gap in broad day, under a frightful fire, needed a courage which few men could prevail on themselves to exercise; but with a willing promptitude which spoke of their resolution and daring, these two stern sappers passed into the breach, each working for a quarter of an hour at a spell, with the strength of a giant. In seven hours the damage was mended, during which the battery continued in action, though a mortar or two was necessarily silent until sufficient cover was obtained to shield the seamen fighting there.
Everywhere the soil was scanty, and the materials for gaining cover scarce. The few houses that existed in the vicinity of the camp had early been demolished, and the old timbers borne away for fuel. Brushwood and young trees, wherever they could be found, were also taken away; and when the cold became extreme, and the ration wood reduced to a few sticks, the ground was turned over in every direction, by perishing men, to collect the roots for firing. Earth was brought from the rear, in baskets, to fill the gabions; and sand-bags, ready for use, were also brought from the park, or wherever the earth could readily be obtained. As they frequently caught fire and burst on the explosion of the guns, a substitute was found for a time by making the bags from the skins of sheep and from bullocks’ hides, which stood remarkably well, but they could not be procured in sufficient quantity for the work. The inner necks of the embrasures were revetted with sand-bags and the cheeks lined with fascines. The basis of all the works was the gabion. In places not opposed by artillery, stones were used for lining the trenches, which gave them the appearance of ancient walls. The traverses were revetted with old gabions, discarded casks, worn biscuit-bags from the fleet, and ammunition cases. Indeed every material was pressed into the siege that could be turned by ingenuity to any useful purpose. On all sides the works exhibited a curious employment of rude expedients and adaptations to meet the straits and difficulties of an unexampled attack.
With all these shifts, from the inadequacy of material resources to carry on the works, such was the recklessness of the soldiers in seeking means to afford them a modicum of comfort, that the sand-bags were constantly abstracted from the trenches to line their trousers and gaiter their legs; and when wood could not be readily procured, they made no scruple in frosty weather, of purloining fascines and gabions to light their fires. Mandates against such practices were disregarded, and vigilance was no match for men driven by cold to such extremities.
On the 24th October, a battery for three guns and a 10-inch mortar was opened on the left above the picket-house to destroy a two-decker lying snugly in the inner harbour. A few red-hot shot being sent into her, she hastily moved off, and the battery was quickly turned to swell the general armament against the enemy’s land works.