After the embrasure spoken of was cleared Evans quitted it; and private David Thompson, who had just finished the repair of a neighbouring one, came to the assistance of McCaughey. Both were robust men, immovable in danger, and nobly stood the fire of two guns from the Redan, the accurate aim of which sent several missiles into the work. Of one cheek they had replaced the gabions and partly filled them, when a 68-pounder shot swept four of them from the row, and shortly after another whizzed closely over Thompson’s head as he was springing from the sole to avoid the threatened blow. In another instant both were at work again, but as the firing became still warmer, their labour was obviously as fruitless as that of Sisyphus. “You cannot do impossibilities, men,” said Captain Owen, who witnessed their perseverance, and ordered them from the aperture, which, on leaving, they blinded with a gabion. The gun mounted in rear of the opening was a 68-pounder, and a black sailor, considered to be one of the best artillerists in the battery, usually fired it. McCaughey was “considered an able and active sapper for difficult duty in the trenches;” a character he well sustained throughout the siege.
Throughout the following night spirited efforts were made to mend the breaches sustained in the day. There were nearly 700 of the line and 82 of the corps given up to these midnight labours. Great as the force was it scarcely fulfilled the immediate requirements of an exacting siege. Mist and rain fell through the darkness, the men were drenched, and the wind swept with unfriendly chills over the hills; but before the morning the damages were nearly all made good in battery and trench to prolong a contest the end of which was still far distant.
As the morning arose with renewed demands and dangers the engineers for the day were early astir, and the works so gravely handled by the enemy’s fire still looked haughty and imposing. To a working party of 480 linesmen there were 50 sappers, who, for the most part, were detailed to the 21-gun battery, upon which the fire from the Redan had a mischievous effect. Worn and battered as it was the embrasures were repaired without any appreciable interruption of the besiegers’ fire. Between the rounds the sappers leaped into the apertures and built up as much of their cratered faces as the activity they could command permitted. Those working in the left advanced approach towards the crest of the hill overlooking the Woronzoff road were much impeded by discharges of round shot and musketry from the Redan, during which, flying on with the sap, private John Lethbridge and one of the working party were killed. “The conduct of the officers and men,” wrote Major-General Jones, “has been such as to merit the warmest approbation of the Major-General commanding; the duties on which they have been employed being most arduous and requiring the greatest steadiness.”
Next night 87 sappers were in the trenches, and in the succeeding day 60. The 21-gun battery, cleared of its old gabions and fascines, was resuscitated by the morning and fired well in the day’s struggle. Advantages always seem to be chased away or ridden over by catastrophes, for a magazine in the centre of the work, visited by a shell which obtruded at the door, blew up and killed a gunner and wounded eight or nine more. Out of about thirty magazines on the right attack this was the only one, after eight days’ firing, which broke up and collapsed.
Fifty-five sappers were allotted to the left attack, where No. 9 battery, commenced on the 14th April, was in course of completion. It was cut for six pieces of ordnance; the rock cropping up to the surface was blasted by some miners of the corps and the broken stones were built into the parapet. Soil to fill the gabions was brought in basket-loads from a sand cave on the left of the second parallel, which subsequently was converted into a magazine for ammunition. Alderson platforms were laid in the battery by the sapper carpenters on the 16th with so much expedition that their usefulness and skill were noticed with encouraging commendation. The battery was completed and armed by the 23rd.
Passing on to the night of the 17th, when 80 sappers were in the lines—28 being on the right and 52 on the left—corporal Joseph J. Stanton and four leading men, with 200 of the infantry, were detailed for the extension of the left demi-parallel situated between the third parallel and Egerton’s rifle-pit under Captain King of the engineers. The little brigade crept silently to the head of the sap, and after placing the gabions crammed them with sand-bags passed from hand to hand. As the sappers steadily moved on, the working party broke the ground and increased the cover. In this way, though the soil was very rocky, about a hundred gabions obtained a footing before morning. It was hot work to advance even the length of a yard, and gabion after gabion torn from the row was gallantly replaced. Constant volleys from the rifle-pit in front compelled the men to proceed with the greatest caution and silence. Persevering in this way till reaching the brow of the hill, they were stopped by an old Russian rifle-screen, which was immediately reversed by transferring the large gabions and sand-bags forming the original revetment to the opposite side. During the operation Captain King was severely wounded in the thigh and expired a few days after. Three of the sappers were also wounded—privates Alexander McCaughey, John Limming, and George Hobson: the last was wounded in the arm, had three or four bullets through his greatcoat, and the frog of his waist-belt carried away. Among the workmen there were five injured. Best able to judge of the exertions of the party, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden thus wrote of them:—“The conduct of the sappers under Captain King and the working party under Major Welsford, 97th regiment, exposed the whole time to a most galling and dangerous fire, was admirable.”
Private Boyland carried Captain King from the trench to the 21-gun battery, and though such an act might fairly have excused him from further duty that night, he returned with all haste to his post. There were still between fifty and sixty gabions to place. Hobson was at the head of the sap, and the firing was close and destructive, for the enemy’s ambuscades were only about twenty yards in front. In time Hobson was disabled, and it became Boyland’s turn to lead. He was pushing on very successfully, when Colonel Tylden appeared, and seeing that the opposition to progress was excessively sharp, he ordered Boyland to place six gabions at a right angle to keep the enemy’s fire from enfilading the new piece of trench. Ready and fearless, he commenced the work; but, in order that it might be finished with greater expedition, he begged, as all the sappers save the corporal who was superintending had been wounded, to have the assistance of any men of the 88th who would volunteer to join him. One was speedily at his service. The gabions were quickly planted despite an unceasing fusillade; but while filling them with sand-bags, the poor 88th man was shot through the side. Calling for help, an officer sprang up to the gorge, and Boyland and he bore the spirited volunteer under cover. Colonel Tylden, who was never disposed to relinquish a moment’s work if he thought it could be employed to advantage, would not permit the sapper, who had escaped so many perils and whose firmness and exertions received his praise, to return again that night to the head of the sap.
Day and night the companies furnished parties equivalent to their strength for the inexhaustible wants of the siege. Batteries misshapen and tottering, put on stubborn and threatening aspects after a few hours’ toil. New armaments were made up, new batteries opened; and to ensure their stedfastness, one at least boasted of a parapet 26 feet thick. This was No. 13, a sand-bag battery on the right attack. Approaches by the stealthy boyau were cautiously cut, but invariably opposed by vigilant sharpshooters who held positions in screened defences. For any one work, few only of the sappers could be spared. Half a brigade was in this sap, half in that; two or three were in the right rifle-pits, two or more in the left; nine in the most advanced trenches placing gabions and protecting themselves by heaping up earth from the tops of barren rocks; four at the communication between the caves at the advanced post, and others deputed to an infinite variety of field employment. So passed on the siege to the 19th April; and taking the interval from the 17th, only one sapper, private James Queen, was killed. He was shot through the head by a rifle-bullet. “Up to this time,” says the record, “the repairs to the batteries injured by the enemy’s fire have throughout been performed in a very satisfactory manner by the sappers, many of whom have been particularly active and zealous.” To the list of names already honourably mentioned, must be added that of private James Lancaster of the 3rd company. Being a powerful man, whom no amount of exertion could tire, he was conspicuous for his very good work and coolness in forming a communication from the left of No. 7 battery to the “Ovens.” He was the leading sapper in scarping the rock under corporal Joseph T. Collins, and continued with abiding zeal at this heavy service, though a constant rifle firing was maintained on the work.
The rifle-pits on the left advance sap of the right attack had fatally annoyed the besiegers in their foremost works, and it was determined either to destroy or seize them. With this object they were attacked at half-past nine o’clock in the evening of the 19th April. There were 600 bayonets of the 77th regiment engaged in this nocturnal assault, commanded by Colonel Egerton. When the orders were given, the troops rushed forward, and after a warm engagement for about half an hour, were masters of the pits, with a loss of two officers and several men. Colonel Egerton also sustained a contusion of the thigh. As soon as the covering sentries were posted, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden advanced with the working party of 150 men, headed by colour-sergeant Henry McDonald and six sappers, under the personal orders of Captain H. C. C. Owen and Lieutenant Baynes of the engineers. The Russian gabions were quickly faced about, the sand-bags thrown down, and after reducing the earth, the enemy’s pits were incorporated with a communication which led to the boyau in rear. The lodgment was achieved in about two hours, under a roar of missiles from rifles and ordnance, with so little confusion and so much gallantry, that the affair deserves to be characterized as a dashing exploit.
Colour-sergeant McDonald took the lead in the sap, followed by private Thomas Ewen and other sappers who planted the gabions as fast as they could be handed up. The officers of engineers assisted pressing in their turn to the very head. At intervals they and the sergeant moved among the workmen, instructing them how to fill the gabions and where to lodge the sand-bags. As the sergeant was pushing up the trench, he stumbled over a prostrate officer; and on inquiring, found that Captain Owen was at his feet, dangerously wounded. McDonald proposed to bear him from danger on his back, but the captain, preferring a stretcher for the purpose, one, after a little time, was brought by the sergeant. On this field convenience Lieutenant Baynes and McDonald carried the wounded officer bleeding from the pit. His left leg was afterwards amputated and he lived to obtain the honours due to his heroic efforts. Finding some sappers in the old trench sending up the gabions, Lieutenant Baynes relieved the sergeant and sent him again to the pits, following himself as soon as he had despatched the captain to the camp; but in forcing to the front, this young officer was mortally wounded in the chest and arm. In retracing his steps, McDonald was astonished to find the working party running from the lodgment. Asking the reason, he was informed that the Russians, in some strength, had driven up to the work and forced them back. At once McDonald ordered them to stand, and after facing them to the right-about, drew his sword and placed himself at their head. Ewen was there ready to second his authority with any amount of daring he might find it necessary to command. Seeing the Russians still creeping over the works, the sergeant desired the workmen to kneel, and after firing a volley, to charge. Strictly obeyed were the orders; the charge was gallantly made, and the enemy having vanished before the cool volley and the bayonet point, the pits were reoccupied and the lodgment resumed. The commanding officer and Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden now appeared, the covering party being about 200 yards away; and on learning what had happened, Colonel Egerton praised the sergeant for his energy and valour. To protect the linesmen from further molestation, the colonel distributed a portion of the covering party in front of the lodgment. Next in command of the workmen, McDonald aided Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden in directing the new trench. Moving to the gorge, still followed by Ewen, he quickly fixed the gabions one after another, intermixing with them the Russian baskets and sand-bags. Just as he had completed the curve at the vent of the sap, Colonel Tylden again appeared, and laid with his own hands the last gabion. The steady and zealous demeanour of the sergeant attracted the notice of Colonel Egerton, who, standing over him, encouraged his exertions by commendations and promises; but he too at last fell back severely wounded by a grape-shot in the right side. Colonel Egerton was near at the time and administered his brandy-flask to sustain, in a measure, the drooping head of that brave soldier.