Three hours after the pits had been captured the enemy in strong force made a sortie to recover them. So far had they succeeded, that the sentries and workmen occupying the further screen were driven back into the nearest trench; but the lodgment there had been so well managed and its details so well carried out, that the troops holding it made sure work of the defence, and the Russians, pressed at all points, hastily retreated. Now it was that the valiant Colonel Egerton was killed. His promises, however, were caught up by Colonel Tylden, who failed not to make such a representation of sergeant McDonald’s conduct as earned for him substantial reward and honour. After the hopeless abandonment of the pits, the enemy, from the furthest screen, which was still in his possession, kept up a constant rifle fire on the sappers and line in the lodgment. Lieutenant James, royal engineers, directed them in their final efforts till daylight, and received, as a sign of his presence, a ball through his cap. He arrived just as McDonald fell; and himself, with that good and constant man Ewen, assisted to bear the sergeant to the rear.

The casualties in the assault were 6 officers and about 40 men. Of these, three were sappers—the colour-sergeant before named, lance-corporals John Evans, killed, and Peter Towell, dangerously wounded. The right arm of the latter was broken, and the amputation which followed ended in his death. This non-commissioned officer had only been wounded a few nights before.

It should be noted to show the ardour of the man, though perhaps in many cases such conduct would be imprudent, that corporal Samuel Cole left his post at the sand-bag battery without orders and pitched into the thick of the fight. In reversing the trench he laboured with great zeal, and while endeavouring to place a gabion in a difficult spot, Evans, a fearless soldier, not to be outdone in prowess, leaped outside the trench and pressed the basket in the line. In this act of devotion he fell by the blow of a grape-shot.

The following complimentary order was promulgated to the corps relative to the assault:—

“Brigade orders before Sebastopol, April 23, 1855.

“It was with much satisfaction that the Major-General Commanding received Lieut.-Colonel Tylden’s report of the able manner in which, on the night of the 19th instant, a lodgment was effected in the enemy’s rifle pit immediately in front of the left advance, ‘right attack,’ under Captain Owen and Lieutenant Baynes, R.E., whose zeal and gallantry were most conspicuous, while the conduct of colour-sergeant McDonald, royal sappers and miners, on the same occasion, when, in consequence of the above-named officers being severely wounded, he was left in charge of the working party, was not only highly creditable to that non-commissioned officer, but so distinguished as to attract the notice of the field officer commanding in the trenches; and the Major-General is glad to find, that the sappers engaged, exerted themselves with their accustomed energy.”

1855.
20th April-15th May.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.

First day’s work in the lodgment—Improviséd grenades—Polish fusilier—Capture of the third rifle pit—Preliminary incidents connected with it—Saps issuing from the pits—No. 13 sand-bag battery—No. 9 battery, left attack—Building a magazine in day-time—Constancy of sappers in the trenches—But little relief afforded them—Apparent want of ingenuity in their camp arrangements—Reason why so few sappers die—Their miserable condition—Regimen; its effects—Care of the baggage animals—The means employed to preserve them becomes a vexed question—Rifle holes—No. 11 battery, left attack—Generals’ and engineers’ huts—Diversified engagements of the sappers—Death of Lieutenant Carter—Progress of the works—Wells—Repairing the advance saps after a sortie—Expedition to the sea of Azoff—Storms of rain, and consequent difficulties in carrying on the works—Sortie—Effects of the rain—Endurance of the men exposed to it—Casualties.

Twenty armed men from the 7th foot were appointed to labour in the captured pits on the 20th April, into which for about thirty yards they crawled on their hands and knees. Sergeant Joseph Morant was with them, so also was Lieutenant Sheehy, of the 64th, assistant-engineer, who directed their exertions. Many of the gabions had only been partly filled the previous night, and spaces of a few inches occurred here and there between the baskets. Barely had the linesmen placed their muskets at the back of the trench, when a provoking fire from the near pit and quarries, knocked over four or five of their number. Unaccustomed to work in such slight cover, very little progress was made in improving the trench, and Lieutenant Sheehy withdrew the men. Waiting a short time, twelve sappers arrived; and with four or six volunteers from the 7th regiment, the work in the approach was resumed. In four hours much had been done to strengthen it, and the parapet, in great part, was made defensible with banquettes. Finding that the trenchmen pertinaciously held to their work, the Russians tried the effect on them of a couple of great guns. The first rounds pitched high; but the next, better aimed, hurled the gabions from the trace, and dividing the parapet by an ugly chasm, separated the workmen into two parts. Those in the left of the pit, struck with stones and half blinded with sand, not seeing their danger, were about to join the main body by crossing the gap; but the warning of their comrades stopped their precipitation and confined them for a time behind a few feet of insecure revetment. Had they attempted to move, not a man would have escaped, for the muzzles of the Russian rifles, only a few yards off, would have struck them down. Hot as was the place, the sappers and volunteers continued to work, and the breach quickly filled up with sand-bags, soon extricated the men at the end of the zigzag from hazards to which less alacrity and courage would have committed them. So jealous was the enemy of any progress in this quarter, it was not an easy, matter to throw a few shovels-full of earth over the parapet without a visit from a pair of round shot. That so little harm was done to the workmen was due to the nearness of a Russian screen to the captured pit. Generally the practice was high. To have struck the new approach and not the Russian pit, would have been a nice achievement in gunnery. At last Captain Browne of the engineers, removed the line party, but left the sappers at the end of the trench with orders not to throw anything over the parapet. No exertion being now visible to the enemy, the fire from screen, quarry, and fortress was, in great part, discontinued, and the sappers quietly improved the revetment till nightfall, when another party relieved them.[[180]]

Before daylight on the morning of the 21st, the furthest screen in the Russian series, about fourteen yards in front of the captured pits, was taken by a detachment of 100 men from the guard of the trenches, under an adjutant, accompanied by a small band of twelve volunteers as a working party consisting of four men of the 19th regiment, four of the 90th, and three of the sappers, under the direction of corporal George Cann of the 7th company. The covering party was directed not to fire but to use the bayonet. All having mustered on the open, the adjutant gave the word to advance. On went the stormers at the charge, and jumping into the screen, which fortunately had been vacated, they took possession of it unassailed by a single shot. Quietly the destroying party set to work, and before returning to the trenches, completely uprooted the ambuscade. The parapet had been formed of discarded casks, crested with large sand-bags made of old sails, specimens of which were brought away by the men to show the expedients adopted for Russian protection. The names of the sappers who shared in the sortie were lance-corporal William J. Lendrim, and privates William Harvey and Alexander Hosie.