From the laborious nature of the duties in the trenches, the sappers were absolutely ragged, and as the frost had set in, late in December, with unusual rigour, it is surprising they possessed stamina and spirit enough to bear up against the exposure to which they were subjected. Nevertheless the sickness was trifling compared with the appalling details of casualties reported in other corps; for on the 1st January, out of a strength of 639 non-commissioned officers and men, only ninety-two were in the field hospitals and at Scutari. Diarrhœa, fever, and frostbite were, however, very prevalent during the month, and the increase in the sick was considerable. In that period no less a number than 273 had been under treatment, exclusive of the invalids sent to the hospitals on the Bosphorus. The number available for the siege, including the sick present, was 519. The remainder were detached to Balaklava, the Monastery of St. George, Gallipoli, Scutari, Constantinople, and Bucharest.

As soon as it was determined to provide the troops with winter clothing, an ample supply was furnished for the sappers and miners at an expense of 4,260l., which enabled the following articles to be issued to each man:—

All the articles were excellent in quality, strong, warm, and adapted to the Crimean climate. Previous to the supply arriving, the sappers, to a certain extent, were furnished with buffalo skins for beds, heavy Turkish gregos with hoods for trench duty, rugs, Jerseys, &c.

Driven for men to send to the war, some of the stations by degrees were either wholly denuded of their forces or considerably reduced. The half company at Hong Kong was first removed, landing at Woolwich on the 3rd January. During its service in China its character was so uniformly exemplary that Sir John Burgoyne complimented the men in a general order. On embarking for England Captain Whittingham, the commanding royal engineer, made a flattering report of their conduct. “The proofs,” he wrote, “are patent in the few deaths, in the few cases of intermittent or other climatal diseases, and in the absolute cessation of courts-martial, although the ratio of exposure to a tropical sun—the engendering cause of disease and drunkenness—has been far greater than those of other troops and has almost exhausted the stamina of the men.” “Their extreme good conduct” was also the subject of a report from Lieutenant and Adjutant Lloyd, 59th regiment, who commanded the troops on board. A few years ago three privates superintended under the colonial clerk of works the erection of the Government offices. From December, 1852, three other men were employed under Mr. Cleverley, the surveyor-general, as overseers in building the Government-house; and on quitting the island, he testified to the very great benefit that had been derived from their supervision of the works. For more than eleven years a small force of the corps had served in China, the first party having landed in October, 1843. The total number which had been sent there amounted to 113, of whom 33 died, 27 were invalided, 1 was discharged in the colony and died, 7 deserted, 23 returned to England by reliefs, and 22 reached home on the final removal of the detachment from Hong Kong.

The small party at Spike Island was withdrawn the same month. Four months later the Melbourne detachment returned to England; then followed the seventeenth company from the Cape in July; and gradually Gibraltar, Corfu, and Bermuda were left with only invalid nuclei unfitted for the stern vicissitudes of campaigning but able for the works of the stations. A detachment of unmarried men was also ordered from the remote settlement of the Swan River, but arrived too late to share in the glories of the siege. This shearing, however, furnished but a unit of accessible sappers—for it brought to this country a number of men who required to be physically renewed before sending them on a hard service, where the trials of weather alone were likely to break them up without subjecting them to the severities of the trenches.

Two sapper divers landed at Balaklava from the ‘Robert Lowe,’ on the 4th January, under the command of Captain De Moleyns, having in charge Mr. Rendel’s loaded cylinders to be applied for blasting the sunken ships at the mouth of the harbour.[[165]]

The small detachment under Major Bent, of the engineers, joined at the camp about this time from Bucharest, marching with the Turkish army; and the following dispatch from his Highness Omar Pasha, so complimentary to its efficiency, was communicated by Lord Raglan to the Minister of War:—

“My Lord,

“Varna, January 8, 1855.