Extra exertions were made in every work for an impending bombardment. All the sappers available for duty, including those even who had been relieved from the front at six o’clock in the morning, were dispersed through the batteries, mending the soaked embrasures and parapets.

The weather had been tempestuous, and the rain, which fell as in a storm, flooded the trenches. The winds were howling and driving, and the cold very great. To work under such disadvantages was exceedingly hard. “Man or beast,” says ‘The Times,’[[174]] “could not remain without some shelter. Not a man is now out, except the shivering camp sentinels and the men employed in the batteries.”

1855.
9th to 19th April.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

Second bombardment—Gallant exertions of individual sappers—Repairing a magazine—Assistance to a comrade in an embrasure—Fatal meeting of schoolfellows—Cheerfulness in suffering—Slippery platforms—Repairing telegraph wire—Resistance of the magazines—Inkermann lighthouse battery—Progress of the siege—Mud in the trenches—Battery for two light field-pieces—Magazine on fire—Burning sand-bag on a merlon—Fixing mantlets—Unshrinking labours of sappers—Damages and repairs—Progress of the siege and works—Gallantry of two sappers—and two linesmen—Noble perseverance in an embrasure—Exertions at the batteries—Explosion of a magazine—No. 9 battery, left attack—Gallant extension of left advance sap, right attack—Devotion and firmness of the last leading sapper in it—Progress of the works—Capture of the rifle-pits—Gallantry of sergeant McDonald—Casualties—Devotion of corporal Coles—Acknowledgment of services of sappers in the attack.

As most of the works were ready it was considered advisable not to delay the second bombardment, which, on the morning of the 9th April, commenced on our side from 101 guns and mortars. Nearly all our batteries were in full play, whilst the Russians, opening by degrees a powerful array of ordnance from their extensive defences, checked the otherwise irresistible vigour of our well-served armaments. On the left attack, after blocking up a gap made for the passage of artillery, the workmen were withdrawn to the first parallel to place them out of immediate danger, leaving thirteen sappers with Captain Belson to attend to the urgent details of the fighting batteries. On the right attack there were 28 men of the corps dressed like their comrades on the left, in waterproofs and long boots. During the cannonading, 90 soldiers of the line fed the sappers with sand-bags for the 21-gun battery, and assisted them in covering the roof of a magazine in 12-mortar battery. Other sappers worked in No. 10 battery in providing channels for clearing away the mud which obstructed the artillerymen at the guns. The damage done by the enemy’s fire was comparatively trifling, and the breaches, in all vital cases, were promptly restored. Iron gabions made of the hoops of barrels and the bands of trusses of compressed hay, were, for the first time, opposed to discharges of heavy metal, and proved their excellence for defence. The Madras platform, still in use, only added to the cumulative facts of its inutility. The Russians fired about one shot to the besiegers’ three; yet the result of this battering fell marvellously short of what was expected. “The sappers behaved remarkably well” this day, and second-corporal James Edward McKimm and private Neil McInnes, of the corps, were mentioned in brigade orders for their energy and ardour in repairing the works in exposed situations.

The corporal was in charge of eight sappers and a detachment of the line in the 21-gun battery, and, by his example, excited so strong an emulation among his men, that the repairs were executed with beautiful rapidity. Late in the day, when his parties—which had toiled for many hours with scarcely a minute’s rest—began to show signs of exhaustion, his conduct was marked by an energy which seemingly rekindled with his straits. Moving from embrasure to embrasure, he worked upon the tired powers of the men by his own manly labours, aiding them, when, from lack of strength or spirit, they were unable to cope with the quickly-recurring damages. McInnes and John Harris, his most willing assistants, kept up to the last, but McInnes was the most distinguished sapper of the day. He had charge of the repairs of three embrasures; two of them did not require much attention, but the one numbered 17 was pressing in its wants. The firing upon it was very hot, and while McInnes occupied the opening, building its cheeks with sand-bags, six men were killed, and several wounded. Captain Crofton witnessing his extreme exposure, desired him to suspend work, but the solid man with a calm smile declined, observing, “I want to make a good job of it.” He was, however, not permitted to do this, for Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden soon after appeared, and ordered him from the embrasure. A private of the 47th helped McInnes as long as he needed sand-bags, bravely persisting in the duty, though he had been wounded in the head.

In the course of the day a shell entered a magazine in the vicinity of McInnes’s work, which sheared away a portion of the roof. To wait for adventitious chances to apply his skill in such cases was not his maxim, and so walking up to the point of danger, commenced the repair, assisted by private Patrick Nelles and two or three men of the 47th regiment; and though another shell struck the roof, and threw the sand with violence in his face, he gave himself up to the work with so noble a pertinacity that Captain Peel of the navy, eulogized his exertions to Captain Crofton; and when the time arrived for showing the estimate made of his soldier-like bearing and activity, he was awarded a medal for distinguished service accompanied by a gratuity of five pounds.

“The country,” wrote Lord Raglan, “was covered with water, and the ground was again very deep. The trenches were likewise extremely muddy, and their condition added greatly to the labours of the men employed in the batteries, chiefly of sailors, artillerymen, and sappers. They conducted their duties admirably.”[[175]]

In the 21-gun battery the revetment of an embrasure had tumbled down and covered the muzzle of a gun. Corporal McGinn at once jumped into the aperture to remove the debris. Seeing him unassisted sergeant Joseph Morant forced among the rubbish, and while the corporal laid the bags, the sergeant shovelled up the earth and packed it to give firmness to the structure. The day was very wet, and the earth which had fallen on the sole of the embrasure, had become so muddy and greasy, they found it difficult to prevent themselves slipping into the ditch. Trying and hazardous as was the duty, the orifice was restored before the adventurers quitted it.

In the same battery, Morant was speaking of by-gone times to two seamen, one of whom, named Soper, had been “a school and form fellow” of the sergeant. “This,” said he to Morant, “is not such a cricket-match as we used to have at Portsmouth, and I’d advise you to look well to your stumps.” Scarcely had he uttered the caution when a shot carried away his head, and scattered his brains over the breast of his old schoolfellow.