When the Russians learnt that a descent was to be made on the Crimean coast, they sank several of their large war vessels and blocked up the passage into the harbour of Sebastopol. Since nautical skill and manœuvring were confessedly unequal to master the difficulty, submarine blasting was proposed as the readiest and most effectual method, and four sapper divers, selected from volunteers at Chatham, accompanied by the necessary apparatus and stores, sailed in the ‘Prince’ on the 27th October, and arrived in the harbour of Balaklava on the 7th November. Several other sappers, then before Sebastopol, who had been practically trained in the art by actual service in the demolition of the wreck of the ‘Royal George,’ were to have been engaged in the perilous duty.
On the 11th November was commenced the second parallel on the left attack, 360 yards in advance of Chapman’s battery. The ground presented a surface of interminable rock, which caused the soil, as before, to be brought from a distance to form the parapets. The labours of the sappers were confined chiefly to mining the hill and blasting the rock, and also placing the gabions in position. Some 350 yards in front of the new parallel a row of Russian riflemen was established, who picked off the guard of the trenches with fatal rapidity. A dash was made for the pits on the 20th, which, after a smart little combat, were captured and occupied by our light troops. The holes were afterwards connected by boyaux to the second parallel. On the right attack a place of arms was formed to shelter the troops when drawn up for assault. A long boyau was run out half way to the intended spot, and the centre portion of the parallel was thrown up by flying sap. Communications being also effected with the rear by means of a double set of approaches, guns and cohorns were mounted in the batteries to defend the stormers and play on the works. This new formation afterwards took its place in the series of trenches for the second parallel.
For two or three weeks the weather had been unpropitious. Snow was upon the ground, and sometimes rain, sleet, and hail varied the inclemency, while frost intervening, nipped the men with its cold grasp, and added to their sufferings. The prevailing aspect of the clouds was gloomy and lowering, but there was nothing to indicate the approach of that memorable storm, which on the 14th November, swept over the Black Sea and the Crimea. Early in the morning the hurricane began its portentous howling, and it was not long before it committed terrific havoc at sea. Ingenuity and precaution did much to save the ships from disaster, but many of the transports, too soon becoming unmanageable, were engulfed as by a spell in the raging surf, or broken to pieces on the shore. Among these was the ‘Prince,’ a magnificent steamer of heavy tonnage, freighted with winter clothing for the army and the diving machinery. For two hours she stood bravely against the storm, but at length driven against the rocks at Balaklava, her timbers were rent in every direction, and she went down. The four sapper divers on board of her, sergeant William Carne, and privates Samuel Lewis, Thomas Price, and Thomas Toohey, sank in the wreck, as also Captain W. M. Inglis, who had been observed on a spar struggling to gain the shore, when a wave of foam broke over him, and he was seen no more.
A like fate attended the ‘Rip Van Winkle;’ and the two sapper photographers—corporal John Pendered, and lance-corporal John Hammond—well educated and trained at great expense in the art, perished in the foundered vessel. The knapsacks and kits of the eighth company were also lost.
On shore the hurricane was not so calamitous, but the tents were all torn up and blown to a distance. Only one solitary marquee remained to mark the site of the encampment. In common with the army the sappers and miners felt the shock of the storm, and were left shivering on the heights, unclad and comfortless. Those in the trenches experienced equal misery, but their zeal in the prosecution of the works was only checked by the fury of the raging wind and the deluging rain. The road to Balaklava soon became one long morass, and both man and horse, in travelling to the port, had to wade the distance up to their knees in mud. From this time the suffering and privations of the troops considerably increased in extent and severity; but, borne with uncomplaining endurance and fortitude, earned for them the abiding admiration and sympathies of their countrymen.
Two days after the conflict at Inkermann, parties of the corps were allotted for the duty of raising appropriate field-works to protect the right, which, shortly after, were increased by the fourth company encamped on the heights. Ill able to spare the men from the general works, the seventh company under Captain Gibb was removed from Gallipoli to take part in the operation. Arriving at Balaklava on the 28th November, the company reinforced the camp before Sebastopol on the 2nd December. Until the 17th, it was employed in the work of the trenches forming the ‘right attack,’ but on the following day it moved to the heights of Inkermann to complete the approaches against the town, and to erect batteries to oppose those of the enemy on the side of the Tchernaya. The fourth company being relieved, was returned to the operations of the right attack. At these lines the sappers, whose numbers varied between 58 and 31, worked only by day, except in a few special instances when the firing of the enemy was too hot and accurate to admit of day labour being carried on with any chance of success. The chief of their work was performed in the parallel, Redoubte du 5me Novembre, and the Mortar and St. Laurent’s batteries. They also laid the platforms, formed the embrasures and traverses, and restored them when injured. Two magazines in the St. Laurent’s battery, constructed by the French of indifferent rubble, were so damaged by shells that both were rebuilt by the English sappers in a serviceable style, with a roof of sand-bags and fascines, covered with a thick substratum of well-tamped earth. Relieved from duty one afternoon, the party was thrown into the trenches at night to level the top of the parapet. Though few in number, they worked with so much energy, that the object of their employment was fully accomplished in the darkness. Another night they crept down into the glen on the right, and tearing down some Russian houses, the timber brought away with them was afterwards turned to account for platforms, &c. In the general business of the trenches they were much impeded by the severity of the weather. The depth of the snow almost baffled them; but by removing it day after day from the interior of the lines, they made commendable progress in the batteries. Blasting rock was one of their ordinary duties; and after the 21st January, when the line troops were wholly withdrawn, the sappers were the only British soldiers working in concert with the allies. A 24 lb. shot struck one of the tents of the seventh company on the 4th February, and, singularly enough, glanced off the canvas without occasioning any casualty. After completing the Mortar battery and perfecting the details of the St. Laurent, the company, on the 7th, quitted the heights, leaving the works solely to the French.
As the siege wore on, it was found advantageous to make each relief commence its allotted labour at the most advanced point, and work backwards. The infantry parties usually opened ground as far as practicable, using straw baskets to gather earth for cover in places where it was insufficient. Wherever the pick was used it struck upon rock, which offered an unfailing obstruction to the progress of the lines. The sappers invariably followed these surface pioneers, and blasted or removed the stony portions. “In this service,” it is recorded, “these men’s exertions have been altogether invaluable, and such as could not be supplied from any other part of the army.”
On the 1st December the strength of the corps in the East was as follows:—
| No. | |
| Present at the siege and effective | 401 |
| Sick in field hospitals | 40 |
| Balaklava | 23 |
| Bucharest | 14 |
| Varna | 17 |
| Gallipoli | 11 |
| Constantinople and Scutari | 18 |
| Total | 524 |
A feeble force compared with the extreme exigencies of the period.