On the 23rd, at night, was begun on the right attack a trench along the track which interposed between our right and the French Inkermann left. The old arm which some time before had been made to grasp the works of the allies, was now enfiladed from the Russian trenches in front of the Mamelon, and many men having been picked off by musketry in passing, it was regarded as too unsafe for future use. The work was divided into two portions. Eight sappers were allotted to the first, and one hundred of the infantry, with eight other sappers, to the second. It was a very exposed quarter, and the men selected to take the lead, accustomed to foremost duty, knew well how to force the work with the least amount of danger. The excavations were pushed on rapidly, re-using from the old communication the gabions which revetted it. A field-piece from the enemy constantly fired on the party, without, however, interrupting the work or occasioning any casualty.
Next night eight fresh sappers and one hundred linesmen were distributed in the communication, who were exposed to so harassing a fire from the Mamelon and other batteries, that Lieutenant James of the engineers had some difficulty in inducing the working party to go on steadily. The sappers, however, urged a-head, dropping gabion after gabion, checked ever and anon by an excess of fire, which caused them to stoop for shelter under the securer parapet. In about an hour, the workmen becoming cool, they handled their tools with unexpected earnestness. Sixty-three gabions—all that were brought from the abandoned parallel—were staked. Thirty-eight of them were filled, for which distance tolerable cover was thrown up. Great as was the cannonading it was singularly harmless; but just as the party were about to leave the trenches, a shell from a howitzer mounted in the works at the left of the round tower, fell into the communication, killing private Richard Walsh and wounding private George Wood and another sapper, as also two of the workmen. Each succeeding relief gave itself to the work with activity, preserving the strictest discipline. Rock had often to be removed to deepen and widen the trench, and it required at times more than usual caution and judgment in placing the gabions. Seldom were fewer than sixty fixed in prolongation of the work, but as this was always done by the flying method, the sappers were necessarily exposed during the whole distance. In returning from the head of the work, it was not an uncommon occurrence to find several of the gabions thrown down by projectiles from the Mamelon. Here, then, was the greatest danger, but not less expert than resolute, the capsized baskets were speedily reset by the overseers and adjusted to the trace. So went on the trench till the night of the 28th May, when the sappers, with admirable coolness, running along the remaining trace planted sixty-six gabions. The last gabion entered a cutting through the old international communication—a part of it free from enfilade fire. It was thus embodied with the new work and that night the confederate parallel was re-established.
On the 24th was commenced No. 15 battery on the right attack for three mortars, by a brigade of sappers and 100 men. It was traced on the crest of the Woronzoff ravine among some quarries, by Lieutenant James of the engineers, 50 feet of which offered a natural revetment. The remainder of the trace was marked by a lodgment of fifteen gabions. Good work was performed though the site was rocky, and before daylight the parapet was well risen. Heaps of stones, which were contiguous, were built into it and both epaulments. Vigilant as was the enemy, he did not discover the battery and it proceeded that night without molestation. By the 2nd June it was ready to join issue in the struggle. It was a solid construction; the communication to it, through an indurated soil, was very strong; and situated on the extreme left of the second parallel, it was the only battery which, for a while, watched the road and ravine. It, moreover, fired into the Redan.
In numbers 7 and 8 batteries on the left, mantlets of tarred cordage were suspended across the necks of the embrasures to mask them from the enemy. This was, apparently, the first time of their employment in the British batteries. Simple as they were, they fulfilled the object of their use. Each of the mats had a narrow cut at the bottom to allow the gun to run out and also a small opening for the artillerymen to take aim. Where all is rough and dependent in some measure upon experience acquired in hazardous situations, and the quick adaptation of the commonest means to different ends, the application of the rope mantlets was forcibly in keeping with the grim and rugged character of the trenches.
One of the hospital caves was in No. 7 battery which had been deepened and widened by the miners’ art into a chamber of approved dimensions. Other huts there were in the trenches in no case exceeding seven feet in height, but the capacity of one or more gave measurements of six by fifteen feet. They were built after the fashion of magazines, but so arranged as to admit more light for the surgeons on duty to carry out those primary remedies which the injuries of the wounded imperatively demanded.
Major-General Jones reviewed the corps in the Crimea on the 25th May. Seven companies passed under his inspection. One, at the time, was with the Kertch expedition. Thinned by the casualty of war, sickness, death, and invalids, the sapper force then paraded, scarcely exceeded 400 bayonets. The major-general’s impressions of the inspection and his opinion of the services and character of the sappers were eulogized in a report to Sir John Burgoyne. “It affords me,” writes the general, “great pleasure to be enabled to state, that the appearance of the men was most satisfactory, and more so than might have been expected after the severe trials they had to undergo during the severity of the winter, and their constant and very laborious duties in the trenches since October last, and which they have performed with a zeal and readiness which reflects the highest credit upon them. Their conduct has, with few exceptions, been exemplary. The officers attached to the several companies evince a strong desire to have them in the best state of efficiency, and pay the greatest attention to the interior economy, &c. It is surprising that the discipline of the companies should be so good as it is, considering the disadvantages[disadvantages] the men labour under from the frequent change of officers attached to them. The eleventh company has had seven commanding officers within a few months.
“No medals,” concludes the general, “have been sent out for the royal sappers and miners for distinguished conduct. The strength of the corps serving with the army is equal to any regiment of the line, and, therefore, the sappers and miners should be considered entitled to the same number, at least, as have been sent out for a regiment; and by the conduct of so many men who have distinguished themselves, there will not be any difficulty of finding men entitled to them under the terms of the royal warrant.”
A French officer of high rank who had served before Sebastopol and possessed opportunities of studying the organization and soldierly attributes of the British army, communicated his opinions of the service to a brother officer at Paris. Publicity was given to his views in a free translation by a retired British officer in the ‘Daily News.’ That concerning the engineers and sappers appeared in its columns—strangely enough—on the very day the inspection just noticed was made, and forms an apposite counterpart to the handsome acknowledgment of Major-General Jones. “I will begin,” says the writer, “with the English engineers, a corps which, from what I have seen of its working, can never have been excelled and seldom equalled in any army in the world. The education of the officers, the training and intelligence of the men, the activity of the whole corps, and the manner in which they carry on their works, are fully equal to the same qualifications in our own regiments of engineers. Of the courage of these troops I need not speak—they are like the rest of the English, brave almost to a fault. If ever there was a corps of which a nation should be proud it is that of the English engineers, or sappers and miners as the men are called, whilst the regiment itself and the officers are called the royal engineers.”
On the 31st at night the sappers on the right were thus dispersed. Eight in No. 15 battery; six in the 21-gun battery taking down one of the naval magazines injured by a shell bursting on it; and four in the new right boyau. After the working party had left the trenches, the sappers, sent in advance to the right rifle pit, restored before day-break, the parapet which had been thrown down by the fire of the enemy, and also effected indispensable repairs in the communication leading to the field-gun emplacement.
Between the 24th and 31st only one casualty had occurred—private George Clubb wounded in the right hand by a round shot when repairing an embrasure.