The same night two privates were out in some advanced works tracing a battery under Major Gordon. When returning by a whistle-signal from the Major, they were mistaken for Russians, and fired upon by a party of the 79th Highlanders. The result was that private James Bland, a good sapper, was struck down by a rifle-shot which passed through both his thighs.
It was not long before the Madras traversing platform, considered to be the specific for a great siege, was shown to be a failure. From the hard and uneven bottom of the trench the platforms were, to save them from injury and secure their efficiency, laid upon sand-bags well tamped, but the violent and sudden action of the guns in their recoil shivered the platforms to pieces. A rude substitute was expeditiously furnished by tearing down some dilapidated wooden houses in the neighbourhood of the camp; and resorting to the old expedient of sleepers and floors, the platforms, so prepared by the sapper carpenters, were found to be far less liable to derangement than the engineering-exotic from Madras.
While the Russians and our allies experienced very heavy losses in the destruction of their magazines, no accident whatever occurred to the English powder-magazines, “although more than once exposed to the test of the fall and explosion of a 12-inch shell.”[[161]] Offering, as the record does, a tribute of credit to the efficiency of the contrivance, it is no less a testimonial to the skill of the sappers, who, in consequence of the special nature of the service, constructed the magazines themselves. The magazines on the left were constructed on the established model, in places assigned to them by the old engineers, but on the right the ammunition was dispersed in sheltered spots in small receptacles attached to the parapets of the different batteries. The large depôts of ammunition were formed in the caves of the neighbouring ravine; and all the magazines were well protected by sand-bags.
On the 25th October was fought the memorable cavalry combat at Balaklava. Sergeant Joseph Morant and six privates, having in charge thirty Turkish arabas drawn by sixty bullocks, had nearly passed the valley with the train when the fight commenced. The escort was moving to the port for stores, and several of the waggons still within the boundary of the battlefield, were swept and pierced by shots from the Russian artillery. As this was no place for a cumbersome train of conveyances, Morant and his men goaded and whooped on the oxen to Balaklava; and speedily loading the arabas, returned, after the action, to the engineer park in front of Sebastopol. These seven sappers and eleven others who were in the vicinity of the battle, were honoured with the distinction of the Balaklava clasp.
There was only one sapper actually engaged in the battle. Sir Colin Campbell, anticipating an attack, ordered an able sapper to be sent to the Turkish redoubts to superintend any repairs that might be needed. Sergeant Dickson despatched private James Lancaster for the duty. At five o’clock on the evening of the 24th, he arrived at No. 4 redoubt, situated close under the hills of the plateau where the corps d’observation of General Bosquet was encamped. All night Lancaster worked with the Turks in strengthening the faces of the redoubt; and in the morning stretched himself in a shallow trench to take a little sleep. He had not long covered himself with a tarpaulin—a cold substitute for a blanket—when the Russians attacked No. 1 redoubt, which was a considerable distance from No. 4. Instantly awakened by some Turks, who seemingly wanted an Englishman to keep alive in them the little valour they possessed, he was quickly among them. There was also a British artilleryman in the redoubt, with whom the sapper, sharing the kin of country, behaved as became their national prestige. While the cannonading was doing its work on No. 1, a Russian battery pushed up to a height opposite No. 4, and opened its guns on No. 3. The attack was sharp, but the Turks wanting spirit and firmness, made a weak defence, and flew from the fort. In time Nos. 1, 2, and 3 were taken. When the guns in No. 3 were silenced, the Russian battery increased its fire on No. 4, which answering with an energy probably emboldened by the nearness of supports, checked the enemy in his career of success; and though No. 4 might easily have been captured, it escaped the fate which sealed the others. It is due to the gallantry of the Turks in No. 4 to acknowledge that while many of the infantry vaulted in alarm over the parapet at the first blush of the fight, and ran from the opportunity to cover themselves with honour, there were not wanting stanch artillerists, firm and courageous, to stand to the guns; and, as instructed by the British gunner, to work them manfully. The Pasha in command was an old but a brave officer, and his worst trouble was to beat back the flying Turks to join in the defence. The enemy now commenced another movement by collecting on the heights overlooking the plain between the redoubts, the whole strength of his cavalry—a solid menacing body, which in its heaviness threatened that day to strike a decisive blow. Meanwhile the Turks in No. 4, regarding any display of courage on their part as useless, and their position untenable, withdrew the two guns to the rear, halting them on the crest of a slope; and after spiking the ordnance and breaking the spokes of the wheels and the shafts of the carriages, tumbled them into the valley. The garrison then retired to the position where the Highlanders were drawn up. The artilleryman and sapper stood by the Turks to the last, but in the retreat each took a different direction. While sitting in the valley a short distance from the redoubt, Lords Lucan and Cardigan with their staff galloped up to the sapper, and grouped round him. Learning the cause of his presence there, he was asked what he knew of the attack. Lancaster answered to the effect that two of the forts had already been taken, and the others, having been abandoned, would, he feared, soon follow. Away rode the commanders and the staff; the trumpets sounded, and removing the cavalry behind a mound, soon after occurred those cavalry dispositions, and that extraordinary conflict, which prevented the Russians from pouring into Balaklava, and capturing the great base of the allied operations. Private Lancaster succeeded in making good his retreat, under a heavy fire, without mischance.
Neglecting to erect earth-works to defend the right of the position towards Inkermann led to an attack by the Russians, which was met and repulsed with vigour on the 26th October, by the division under the command of Sir De Lacy Evans. The sappers turned out and marched to Victoria Hill, in readiness, if required, to take part in the action. A portion of them was posted behind a rubble wall in “Water” Valley, which was loopholed during the fight; and four men were in the 5-gun battery. The usual parties were also distributed to the trenches, working away in the different batteries as if the combat were at a distance. The fire on the 21-gun battery was very sharp, but under its fierceness a brigade of carpenters, directed by corporal Kester Knight, repaired a platform no less than five times in the course of two hours. It was broken each time by the heavy recoil of the gun. Once, while mending it, a shot plunged through the embrasure and shattered a wheel of the carriage; but looking upon the incident almost as one of the civilities of the siege, the carpenters continued to work vigorously till they had obtained something like the desired solidity.
Another attack followed on the 5th November, in which the English and French, numbering about 14,000 bayonets, were opposed by an army of nearly 60,000 fighting men. For upwards of ten hours the conflict lasted, and ended in a victory to the allies, while the Russians, driven from the hills at all points, took refuge in flight. The losses in the Anglo-French ranks were very severe, but those of the enemy, incredible as it may seem, far exceeded the total force of the allies engaged. This splendid achievement, in which the soldiers stood against overwhelming odds with unconquerable firmness and bravery, will ever rank in the annals of war as one of the most remarkable struggles of modern times. Occupied in the trenches, and forming a guard over the engineer park, the sappers and miners did not fire a shot in either of the engagements. They were, however, drawn up while the fight at Inkermann was raging, prepared to defend the siege depôt had the Russians penetrated to the engineer plateau. Being in position during the battle, the sappers and miners have been considered entitled to the Inkermann decoration, and 341 non-commissioned officers and men of the corps present on the occasion had the honour of receiving the clasp.
Though the night was thick and foggy, the Russian columns were seen surging towards Inkermann from the Mamelon. None of our siege guns could be brought to bear on them; and as it was considered an object of the first moment to rake the masses, orders were given to alter the embrasure of a gun in the old right Lancaster battery, beyond the right of the first parallel. Lance-corporal Trimble, a young and agile soldier, had charge of the two embrasures in the battery, and had with him four men of the 47th regiment to assist in the repairs. No sooner was the decision communicated to the corporal, than he leaped into the opening, followed by his party. Gabions, barrels, fascines, and sand-bags, quickly disappeared; all were thrown or pushed into the ditch in front of the battery, as the readiest means of performing a service from which so much was expected. Then commenced the reformation of the splay by cutting away full half of the merlon on the right cheek, which separated the 24-pounder from the Lancaster gun. When finished, the embrasure had a skew form, with a widened mouth; but as the service was pressing, and the artillerymen impatient—for twice did they stop the work to try the effect of a few rounds—it could not be revetted, and the parapet was necessarily left without a gabion to bank up the earth. The 47th men took a bold and active part in the service, and within an hour, under a fire that would have made many a head reel, the corporal and his men completed the alteration. Barely had they jumped from the opening, when the gunners recommenced a cannonade from the Lancaster which made deadly gaps in the Russian battalions, as in winding round the Mamelon they retreated to their own lines. For their assistance in this hurried duty, one or two of the linesmen were made corporals and decorated with medals; and Trimble, though his rewards were deferred, was promoted to be second-corporal, and honoured with a special gratuity of ten pounds and medal for gallant conduct.
From the stern grandeur of the battle, it was not improbable the attack would be repeated, when, in some degree, the Russians had recovered from the shock. To render an approach less likely to succeed, Lieutenant Ravenhill and a party of sappers repaired to the heights to destroy the road winding from the head of Sebastopol harbour up the ravine to Inkermann. This was simply as a first defensive resource, to be followed by regularly planned works. The hill-top and its slopes were covered with killed and wounded, among whom perhaps the sappers might have performed any amount of duty without accident; but possessing a settled distrust of the honour of the Russians, they first collected all the arms they could see within sixty yards of their work, and broke them in pieces. Thus relieved from a temptation to which the vanquished in their hatred have been known treacherously to yield, the sappers moved to the site of their work, and in eight hours dug a trench across the road eight feet deep and twelve broad.
A few nights later, privates Charles Harris and Nicholas Garrett revetted an embrasure in the 21-gun battery, which had been torn to pieces in the early part of the morning. Shot and shell frequently fell into the work, but the sappers swerved not from the peril it seemed impossible to escape. Lieutenant Murray stood himself in the aperture to relieve the men of the necessity for watching, and warned the two gallant fellows when projectiles were approaching. In such instances, to lessen the chances of risk, all three threw themselves on the sole of the work, and, when the danger passed, resumed the revetment, quitting it only when the embrasure was finished.