So went on the works to the 15th, when private Reuben Wiles, one of a few miners employed in cutting rock at the caves on the left attack, in connection with the left boyau, was wounded. During the preceding night, the heavy firing from the Creek batteries had upset several of the gabions and made a wide breach in the parapet. It was when passing this gap, bearing gunpowder and fuses for blasting purposes, that a round shot, striking the broken angle of the trench, tore away a sand-bag, and threw it full at the chest of the miner. Wiles, who was knocked down by the blow, was also covered with a shower of stones; which, besides bruising him in different places, made a gash across his nose, contused one of his eyes, and wounded him in the right knee. A similar accident, the following night, wounded private Edward R. Hodgkinson severely in the head.
1855.
16th May-7th June.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
The batteries—Stoical tranquillity in blasting rock—Round-hill or fourth parallel—State of the works—Siege materials and expedients—Corporal William Swann—Expedition to Kertch—Second international communication—No. 15 battery on the right—Rope mantlets—Hospital caves—Companies reviewed by General Jones—French officers’ opinion of the corps—Repairing right rifle pit—Arrival of ninth company—Progress of the works—Third bombardment—Bravery in the embrasures—Corporal Stanton in the batteries of the second parallel on the right attack—Casualties—First appearance of ninth company in the trenches—The sailors—Voluntary resolution of Corporal Lockwood and his sappers—The engineers—Inobtrusive devotion in an embrasure—Adam McKechnie—Death of Captain Dawson—Selection of old sappers for front duty; their sterling exertions—Labours in the batteries; platforms—Magazine blown up—Russian plan of extending their trenches—Capture of the quarries and white works—-The lodgment—Death of Lieutenant Lowry; bravery of corporal Stanton—Casualties—Lord Raglan’s approbation of the sappers—Infernal machines in the quarries.
By the 16th May all the batteries as far as No. 14 on the right, and Nos. 10 and 11 on the left, were finished and provided with pieces of heavy artillery. No. 14, founded on a bed of rock, was strongly built in the centre of the second parallel, and the cheeks of its embrasures, formed in the ordinary way with gabions and sand-bags, were lined with hide-bags. No. 10 was partly revetted with stones; and No. 11, from the hard nature of the ground, occasioned considerable difficulty in its construction, inasmuch as mining—a tedious operation under fire—was constantly resorted to to procure cover. It was chiefly revetted with casks and gabions. The two latter batteries were also built in the second parallel, the former to fight the barrack battery, and the latter, rising from a trench which run out at right angles from a backward bend of the parallel to the crest of a precipitous cliff, raked the Picket-House ravine and the cemetery, and plunged its shells into the works at the dock-yard creek.
Soon after commencing No. 11, the firing into it was very hot one morning. Corporal Hollis had charge of 200 men engaged in various details connected with its progress, the bulk of the workmen being scattered over the shelving rocks of the ravine in rear, collecting earth from the nooks and hollows to fill the sand-bags. Shells played on them from the bastion du Mât and an unseen battery near the creek, which killed three men and wounded four others. Grumbling at an exposure which was considered to be uncalled for, 150 of them were withdrawn; and as the 50 that remained scarcely cared to prolong a stay which cost them now and then a casualty, it was pleasant, amid so much hesitation, to see one cool fellow doing his duty. Private Clubb, who was drilling a hole to blast the foundation for a platform, was sitting behind a full gabion that blinded the neck of a partly-cut embrasure, and being intended for a sea-service gun, it had a genoullère only about a foot in height. Presently he was covered with earth by a shot which struck the gabion and passed a few inches over his head into the ravine in rear. “That’s close shaving, Hollis,” said he, looking up with a calm smile without losing his hold of the jumper; and thinking the incident undeserving of any further notice, he retained his seat and resumed the boring with as much unconcern as if he knew nothing of fear.
A batch of rifle-pits on the left attack, commenced in front of Nos. 7 and 8 batteries, subsequently became an extended series of screens, spotting the ridge on its very brow, each connected with the other by an approach, which, in time, encircled the hill and formed a continuous line of intrenchment for musketry fire within fair range of the enemy’s batteries and quarries. As the nights were bright, a heavy cross fire of shells and grape was constantly poured upon the sappers and workmen, that rendered the operation as trying as perilous[perilous]; but it well repaid the trouble and courage exercised in its construction, as the riflemen picked off the Russian gunners, and thus silenced some of the ordnance which cannonaded the trenches from the Redan and barrack batteries. The round-hill trench—an astonishing achievement of persevering skill and courage, formed, for the most part, through rock at an extraordinary outlay of labour, under very adverse circumstances and interruptions from the galling play of musketry and artillery—was designated the fourth parallel, and though it was at no time armed with a battery, it was mailed at all points with selected light troops.
Every hour made obvious the necessity of hastening the termination of a struggle which had swallowed up an army in its checkered events. The secret of success in a siege, next to good generalship, is expedition in the construction of essential works and attention to their efficiency. This was ever borne in mind; and though opposed by astounding obstacles, never a day passed but a sensible addition was made to the vast network of trenches. Parallels and approaches now covered the hills, and saps daringly progressed in front. Dingy pits filled with groups of prying and fatal marksmen studded the advances and flanks. Caves were augmented in size and number in the sides of the ravines to give safety to the gunpowder, and shell-rooms were constructed to hold the combustibles. All existing batteries were maintained intact and new works by degrees were thrown up in front to grapple with the sturdy formations of the Russians. As they were finished, the masks which blinded the apertures were removed, and heavy guns, peering through them, flashed on the enemy’s works. One hundred and sixty-five guns and mortars of all weights and calibres were in position, and the average distance of the advanced batteries from the Russian lines was, on the right, for 11 guns and 5 mortars, 360 yards; and on the left, for 20 guns and 3 mortars, about 460 yards.
Many were the expedients introduced to supply the absence or deficiency of the usual siege materials, or to take the place of established contrivances which had now proved their comparative uselessness. The Madras platform fully gave place to the Alderson invention. Iron-hooped gabions were resorted to with increased favour for revetments, but as it was found that the earth—when its moisture had dispersed—riddled through the hoops and lessened the amount of protection they were calculated to afford, the precaution was taken of packing them with bags filled with sand or small stones. Wicker baskets, which had held an immemorial reputation, still maintained their fame, but the constant drain on them had wholly impoverished the parks. Not a stick could be gathered in the vicinity to augment the supply, and Balaklava and the neighbouring heights and hollows were hopelessly explored for brushwood. Saplings for the purpose were therefore brought from Karani and even from Constantinople and Sinope. Hide-bags now seemed to outvie with the canvas ones, and sheets of tough bull’s skin were picketed to the cheeks of the embrasures to save the gabions and fascines from taking fire. Nevertheless, the sand-bag—the ancient ally of the brushwood gabion—stood its ground, and to economize its expenditure, beef and powder barrels, casks, and tubs were used in the shady parts of the works. Fragile things, too, were the sand-bags, for they frequently burst by concussion or the influence of the weather, and, moreover, required nice adjustment to make them lie effectively. From the pressure behind they sometimes tumbled down. The doctor’s hut, from this cause, fell with a crash and more than astonished the busy occupants; and to obviate the recurrence of similar disasters, a greater slope was imparted to the parapets and walls. Two guns were spread over the space allotted to three, which greatly enlarged the mass of the batteries. The magazines were formed of a triangular shape as being less liable to injury than the quadrangular ones. Splinter proofs were raised in all the works to protect the artillerymen when not working at the guns and afford them shelter from the burning sun or pelting rain. Parados were erected in the batteries to shield the workmen and others from splinters and flying stones set in motion by bounding shot or bursting shells. A crusade was also entered against banquettes except where indispensable for defensive positions. In other situations they reduced the amount of cover which a safe parallel or communication should possess and subjected the besiegers to unnecessary casualty. Copying the Russians, loop-holes were made to the rifle-screens in the body of the parapet, and the simple but hazardous employment of sand-bags for this purpose was in great part abandoned. Other refinements were also introduced by this time. Sun-shades and tentes d’abris were scattered in profusion through the works; but however excellent were the conveniences thus afforded, they did not escape an occasional removal, to convert the props into firewood, and the canvas into long under-gaiters, waistcoats, or towels.
Corporal William Swann, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Giurgevo, was severely wounded on the 20th by a grape-shot while in the trenches of the left attack. His right leg being amputated, his stamina went with it and he expired. He had just been promoted to the rank of corporal for his activity and usefulness in the batteries. At the same attack in the third parallel private Neil Campbell was killed on the 21st May by a round shot, which carried away a portion of his head, while building an abutment on the left of the traverse in No. 14 battery. Private Joseph Finch working by his side, with a bared breast, was hit by a fragment of his comrade’s skull, which stuck like an arrow in his neck.
A division of the army sent to the Sea of Azof, under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir George Brown, to reduce the Russian strongholds on the coast, took with it 43 men of the seventh company, who embarked in the ‘Bahiana’ at Balaklava on the 22nd May and landed at Kimish-Corum in the neighbourhood of Kertch on the 24th. Captain Hassard commanded the sappers, with whom were Captain Stanton and Lieutenants Murray and Drake. Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon directed the engineering arrangements. After assisting the Land Transport corps in landing and removing the stores and horses, in which their services were most useful, they burnt down the bullet manufactory in the suburbs of Kertch; threw up, with the infantry, a line of intrenchments from the sea to the centre of the position, the French constructing the other moiety; demolished several sea batteries commanding the channel of the Sea of Azof, and made preparations by collecting stores and materials for an attack on Anapa.