With the morning relief of the 3rd, 60 sappers were sent to the trenches, who in addition to the duty of overseers laid platforms in No. 14 and the 21-gun batteries. Sergeant Philip Morant, while superintending on the right, was slightly wounded in the shoulder by a rifle bullet, which, being almost spent, bounded back after delivering the blow. This was his first day in the trenches. No. 1 battery on the left attack, which was much cut up, was completely renovated by thirteen sappers; and four miners performed good service in blasting a communication to the ammunition caves. In the ensuing night the advance boyau to rifle-pit on the right attack was prolonged and strengthened, and a strong party of the corps worked with acknowledged energy in constructing No. 12 mortar battery on the left. Some also were with a line party adding solidity to the broad parapet of No. 8 battery, who, however, were subsequently removed, as the clear moon, shining in a cerulean sky, exposed the men to an annoying fire of grape from the Redan. Two nights later, there were forty-three of the corps in the trenches; twenty being scattered in the right works, and twenty-three in the left. A sortie on the left sap of the Gordon attack interrupted the operations, but the enemy was driven back without effecting any serious detriment to the works. A heavy fire of shells was also directed against the 21-gun battery, and though the casualties for the night amounted to 4 killed, 18 wounded, and 2 missing, none of the sappers were touched. At the time of the attack eight rank and file of the corps were in No. 14 battery repairing embrasures, 1 in the second parallel making loop-holes and patching up the parapet, 2 in No. 8 battery replacing dislodged sand-bags, and 2 in the 21-gun battery filling up the chasms in the fourteenth embrasure and altering the features of the twentieth.
About an hour after midnight on the 8th, sergeant Drew had dismissed a working party under charge of second-corporal Fraser employed in forming rifle-pits in advance of the third parallel. Retiring together, they resolved to visit the caves known by the name of the “Ovens,” then the post of the advanced picquet, to see a communication, which had been much talked of by the sappers, cut through the solid rock by private Simon Williams, by which an unexposed track was open from cave to cave. They were dressed at the time in Mackintoshes, fur caps, and long boots. The officer in charge of the picquet at the “Ovens,” apparently unaware that works were in progress in his front, was struck with the intrusion of the visitors and captured them as spies. Speaking good English was no proof they were not Russians, and accordingly they were sent to the field-officer of the trenches, Lord West, under a strong sergeant’s escort. Trying to guide it by a nearer way than the one it was taking, was received as a certain indication of their character, for the guard fancied “the spies” were planning to beguile them into Sebastopol. Indeed they had some misgiving that the two sappers were a couple of clever desperadoes, ready for any cruel work that their evil natures might prompt them to perpetrate. The escort therefore marched, brimful of caution, with the prisoners, and were only too glad, on reaching the goal, to be rid of such a pair of suspicious adventurers. On being confronted with his lordship, he asked them many searching queries, to which they gave remarkably accurate replies; but the question of their identity was at length settled by Captain Armit, the engineer officer on duty for the night who had just returned from the rifle-pits by another route. Of course they were at once released, and many a good laugh was enjoyed at the pardonable blunder of capturing two honest sappers as Russian spies.
Water in the trenches had now become scarce; indeed, the cisterns in the 21-gun battery, formed of barrels, were dry. This gave rise to the prudent precaution of sending the working parties to the lines with full canteens. New wells were immediately sunk by the sappers in the quarries of the 21-gun battery, and cans, barrels, and metal powder cases deposited in promising spots along the parallels, to allure the springs to the desired outlets. Very limited was the area for exploring, and the water therefore was never sufficiently plentiful to relieve the workmen from the necessity of filling their water-bottles prior to entering the batteries. About a fortnight later, the well in the second parallel on the right attack yielded a fair supply. It was a sort of pool of Siloam for the weary and thirsty, and to shield them from casualty in their pilgrimage to it, the assiduous efforts of 4 sappers and 20 linesmen threw up a parapet with sufficient altitude, to afford them convenient shelter.
During the darkness of the 9th, a sortie was made by the Russians which was gallantly repulsed by the guard of the trenches on the right. The Russians left many dead on the field, while the casualties among the besiegers did not exceed 13 wounded. There were 20 sappers in the right works at the time, who, as soon as the sortie terminated, were doubled up to the left advance saps, and before the coming relief, replaced the gabions and sand-bags which had been capsized and plugged up all the gaps and shot-holes in the parapets. That night a new communication was begun from the second parallel to the right advanced trench. Eight sappers were employed in heading the sap and lodging the gabions, of which no less than 150 were firmly fixed; and the cover obtained was such that the exertions of the workmen were justly praised. The work was on the slope of a hill exposed to an oblique fire; and though difficult to form the parapet at the extremity from the presence of rock, it yielded at length to perseverance which was as constant as intrepid.
The tenth company under Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon and Major Stanton of the engineers, were afloat in the ‘William Jackson,’ with the expedition to the Sea of Azof from the 3rd to the 8th of May. Without attempting operations, the troops were suddenly recalled, and landing at Balaklava on the 8th, the sapper contingent marched two days later to their old places in the trenches.
Rain set in on the night of the 10th and turned the lines into wet ditches. Working parties, furnished as usual, persevered in vain to make way against the drenching storm and the strong wind that blew. Every step buried them over their shoe-tops. Returning to camp, wet and miserable, with soaked beards swabbing their breasts, not a few seemed by their bemired appearance, as if some catastrophe had rolled them in a marsh. Throughout the day of the 11th the rain continued to pour; the mud had much increased, and sheets of water stood in the batteries and parallels at places where hollows or uneven ground favoured such accumulations. The soles of the embrasures were ankle deep, and seams were made in the merlons and roofs of the magazines by the wearing flow of the rain. The sappers and working parties again held their places in the batteries, for nothing excused them as long as there was a chance of making progress, however trivial. Much was attempted, but little succeeded beyond replacing some overturned gabions and patching up rifts in some of the more important constructions. Sergeant Kester Knight, and a small force of carpenters on the right attack, toiled with exemplary zeal at one of the magazines of No. 14 battery; but their progress was at length interrupted by a considerable portion of the timber prepared for the work having been abstracted. Some of the beef barrels, likewise, wanted for revetments in other parts of the trenches, were unhooped, and the staves captured for camp uses by the working party. Strange that men should sacrifice to personal objects the very means provided to give efficiency and success to the operations for defending them!
On the night of the 11th no working party was provided the weather being fearfully stormy. There were, however, 24 sappers, heavily clothed in long boots, overcoats, and waterproofs, dispersed in the right trenches under Lieutenant Graves of the engineers, who worked through the darkness unsheltered from the rain. One brigade was extended in the new communication on the right, in front of No. 8 mortar battery, blasting the rock and building the loosened boulders into the parapet; another brigade was in No. 14 battery, attending to the magazines and embrasures and clearing the choked-up channels for the passage of the water into the ravine. Eight carpenters were engaged for awhile in laying platforms in No. 12 battery, but the rain fell with such heaviness, that the spaces prepared to receive the sleepers were soon inundated. In this extremity the men made furrows in the sloughy ground, and thus drained the sites to permit them, when the storm should abate, to resume their tasks.
Nothing, it would seem, was enough to induce the Russians to seek repose; rather, indeed, the presence of storms, the more angry the better, whetted their spirit for activity and assault. Two hours before midnight they opened a sharp fire of musketry, accompanied by a cannonading of shells upon our works, which was stoutly met by incessant volleys from the guard of the trenches and five guns in the 21-gun battery. On the left attack, where Captain Hassard was on duty, there were only four sappers to carry out his orders. But little could be expected from such initial means in such a supremely dismal night. In about two hours, however, under a constant torrent, they altered the flank embrasure of No. 8 battery, to enable its gun to play into the extreme Russian rifle-pit on the right. Just as they had finished, corporal Thomas Kirkwood, who had subordinate charge of the party, heard the bustle of an approaching sortie. Communicating the intelligence to his officer, Captain Hassard flew through the zig-zags and parallels and had the guard of the trenches in readiness to meet it. This was barely accomplished when the enemy tore up the hill from the rifle-screens in the Woronzoff ravine. Now they were near the parapet, and about to enter at its most accessible points; but so close and prompt was the resistance they received from the works that a hasty retreat was the consequence. Light balls, thrown from a Cohorn mortar in No. 7 battery, discovered a second column pressing to the centre of the advanced parallel. A few, more daring than the rest, even jumped into the trenches; but the vigour of the besiegers pushed back the assault with severe loss to the enemy. No. 1 battery opened on the quarries, No. 2 on the Redan, and some effective rounds were fired from the flank gun of No. 8 battery by Captain Collingwood Dickson of the artillery. The loss sustained by the British was 1 officer and 5 men killed; 1 officer and about 30 men wounded. The four sappers being unarmed, were withdrawn to preserve them from danger.
Where sand-bag revetments had been used, the havoc committed by the tempest was general. Want of slope was the cause. Being early constructions, they had not shared in the improvements which experience had subsequently introduced. Some of the works, loosened by degrees, fell down and encumbered the trench. The surgeon’s hut was a ruin. Sixty-four sappers were appointed to the trenches on the 12th May, to make good the damages. In a day or two the medical quarter in No. 2 battery on the left was rebuilt by 17 sappers; the huts for the generals were repaired and strengthened; the embrasures and magazines mended, and all the revetments strongly bolstered up and properly battered. The draining, moreover, was enlarged and considerable advancement made in all the details of the new batteries. Blasting rock on the left was a special feature in the day’s labour. Twelve sappers were employed in the duty in No. 11 battery, and in front of the inner ammunition cave, from which they also constructed a ladder to the shaft leading to the trench above.
Showers were frequent during the day and heavier in the following night. No working party was provided, but 20 sappers under Lieutenant Drake, who seemed to be invulnerable against inclemency, were far away in advance draining the approach to the right rifle-pit in the Gordon attack. Against the darkness and rain they endured with commendable resolution, and though restricted by the storm in their exertions, nevertheless afforded an instalment of relief to the screen. A few of the most energetic and skilful also rebuilt, in the 21-gun battery, an embrasure which had been washed down by the rain.