June, the ninth month of the siege, had arrived, but the end of the struggle was still distant. Many a hard day’s work and many a furious fight was in store for the antagonists. Difficult and harassing as was the enterprise and frightful the carnage that month after month had occurred, there was no ground for the confederates to be dismayed, no reason for lessening that ardour, which, if steadily persevered in, was sure to win the game.
As the works were spreading, it was clear that to carry them on with expedition and success a reinforcement of sappers was essential. Appeals, not without anxiety, were made for them, which were met by efforts of corresponding solicitude. The ninth company, almost reorganized, sailed from Liverpool in the ‘Resolute’ steamer on the 9th May and landed at Balaklava, 118 bayonets strong, on the 4th June. Captain Dawson, of the engineers, commanded it. Several men were in it who had served through the Kaffir war and were present in that murderous razzia which swept off half the detachment in the Konap Pass. The kind of warfare suited to contend with a barbaric race and to which they had been accustomed, was ill adapted for the scientific and open field hostilities practised by civilized nations. The sapping attainments, therefore, of the company fell short for a time of the requirements of the siege. Added to the right attack it passed a day or two in camp and then defiled into the trenches.
Considerable advancement had been made in the British works, in which an average of about sixty sappers for the day duties and forty for the night accompanied the several reliefs to the trenches. On the 1st while laying gabions in the left advance sap on the right attack private John Wright was killed by the explosion of a shell. A magazine in the 21-gun battery being damaged by the enemy’s fire six zealous men were turned into it to render it serviceable. This they achieved in the open day amid the bursting of shells; and the powder was replaced before nightfall. A couple of sappers also assisted to make good the repairs to the picket-house battery; others improved the tub revetment round the shaft of the ammunition caves; others fixed additional chevaux-de-frise across the Woronzoff road to block up the ravine; and a moving force repaired by night the breaches which daily were made in the various batteries. These were cleared of broken gabions, shattered bags and loose earth, and the embrasures were again finished with visages so stern and solid they seemed as if no harm had ever befallen them. Nos. 12, 13, and 14 batteries were hourly growing into the required stature. No. 12 was on the curve of the second parallel at a point from whence issued a rocky communication to No. 11. Nos. 13 and 14, with No. 8 between, were situated on the crescent of the third parallel, and communicated with No. 15 on the right and 7 on the left. The circuitous trench or fourth parallel was strengthened in parts by a double gabionade, and everywhere the sappers and line miners were blasting the rock to obtain stones for cover. On the 5th at night a solitary sapper mounted the roof of the magazine in No. 14 battery on the right attack, cleared away some superabundant earth, and after he had completed the service proceeded to one more dangerous. It was the right rifle pit in advance of the third parallel. The parapet had only just been thrown down by a round shot and wounded a man. The next shot might have wounded him, for the screen was accurately in range, but no consideration was so paramount as the execution at all hazards of a necessary restoration. Warily, and by degrees, he filled up the gap while the fire was upon him, and before day-break finished his fatiguing task.
It was arranged among the generals to make another assault preceded by an uninterrupted cannonade of some hours’ duration. Accordingly at three o’clock on the afternoon of the 6th began the third bombardment. The French opened with a crashing array of ordnance, and the British had 158 pieces of artillery in vigorous play, to which the Russians replied from more powerful armaments in the Mamelon, Redan, the barrack and upper garden batteries, and those also from the town and creek. Admirably was the fire maintained. Projectiles of every weight crossed in showers, but so dense was the smoke—resting like storm-clouds on the terrible scene—that neither side could take better aim than what the flashes of the guns afforded. At dusk the cannonading waned on both sides, at which time the enemy confined his demonstration to a few guns only. All the Russian works were much injured, the batteries broken up, and parapets and embrasures, in part, demolished. Those of the British, on the contrary, presented effects so disproportionate as to make the contrast between them and those of the besieged almost marvellous. Nos. 9 and 14, two contiguous batteries, seated on the swell of the second parallel on the right attack, however, fared less fortunately than the rest: they were knocked into strange shapes and three of their guns were disabled. Shot and shell flew into them so accurately that the revetments fell as if shaken by an earthquake into hopeless ruins. All else stood nobly up, escaping with only trivial injuries, which a little sagacity and expertness in the sappers soon made sound and efficient.
There were told off for the batteries and trenches this day twenty-eight sappers for the right attack and sixty-one for the left, who gave attention to the damages as they occurred, and also in blowing up the rock in the new advanced trenches. Even while the bombardment was at its highest the miners were busy in the approaches to the fourth parallel, turning with tedious process the jumper in the rock, loading the holes which had been sufficiently deepened, and firing them one after another in open day. Eight other sappers were employed in rebuilding the electric telegraph station in one of the dismal caves on the right attack. All the men behaved with steadiness in their several duties, and some showed so much confidence and daring in re-forming the shattered embrasures, despite the firing, that their names were brought to the notice of Lord Raglan. These were corporal Joseph J. Stanton, second corporal Samuel Cole, and private Alexander McCaughey, to whom was presented by his lordship’s order, a donation of two pounds each in acknowledgment of their gallantry; and subsequently each was honoured with the badge of a silver medal for “distinguished service in the field,” accompanied by gratuities of ten pounds each to the two former and five to the last.[[184]]
Corporal Stanton had to look after the batteries of the second parallel on the right attack, having under him a small party of the Buffs and two sappers of the ninth company, none of whom had been in the trenches before. His superintendence was therefore irksome and laborious. By his steadfastness and the vigour of his actions, he gradually dissipated their hesitation, and following where he led, they assisted to remove obstructions from the embrasures, particularly the broken hide mantlets stuffed with wool, which, with their fastenings, had dropped across the openings and choked up the gorges. Moving from battery to battery, Stanton was repeatedly in the embrasures and even where the mantlets were sound, cut them down with a strong arm—for he was a powerful man—as the advantage of their retention as shields was far outweighed by the terrible hazards of clearing them away should they fall in the embrasures. While these deeds were in progress, showers of grape and groups of shot and shell poured into the batteries causing accidents of a very singular character. A shell came over into No. 13 battery, and striking another shell which was being loaded, an explosion took place wounding the captain and the sergeant of artillery engaged in the service. The right gun of the battery had become useless from one of its trunnions breaking; and so to prevent unnecessary casualty one of the sappers filled up the neck of the embrasure with a mask of sand-bags. While so employed a shot just passed over his head and entered the disabled gun sticking fast in the muzzle. Narrowly, on two occasions, he escaped during the day, but his comrade was severely wounded in the head by the bursting of a 10-inch shell.
Among the troops the casualties were considerable, but in the sappers three only were wounded:—
Colour-sergeant Alexander M. McLeod—slightly, in the head, by a shell splinter.
Private John Peterson—slightly, in the face and head, while blasting.
” John Patterson—severely.