Private John Malcolm, an hour after, was sent into the same embrasure to clear the sole, as the gun in its rear could not be sufficiently depressed to fire with advantage. Stripped to the work, he was shovelling away the debris, when a splinter from a shell struck him severely on the head. At the instant, he fell from the aperture to the platform, and the next moment a shower of fierce stones fell on him, fretting his flannel shirt as if a rasp had torn it up and wounding him in both shoulders.
In the night following there were 59 sappers in the front, who were succeeded next morning by 71 men. Many laboured at the different batteries and privates John Sykes and William Orr, in charge of No. 10 battery, left attack, were named to Lord Raglan as having behaved with conspicuous zeal and coolness in removing the debris of broken gabions and split-bags from the disfigured embrasures and rebuilding the cheeks. So heavy was the fire at the time, that one gun was disabled in the battery and some of the artillery carriages injured. General Jones was an eye-witness of the manly way in which Orr entered the embrasures between the rounds of fire, and of his unruffled exertions to clear the soles and mend the revetments; and when the general had it in his power to mark, in a substantial manner, his appreciation of the private’s intrepid demeanour, he obtained for him a “distinguished service” medal and a gratuity of five pounds.
Before nightfall the lodgment was made completely defensible, and a chevaux-de-frise was fixed, in the shape of a half moon, by a few sapper blacksmiths, some distance in front, to protect the working parties from sudden assaults.
It was about this time that the companies, in the midst of their exertions and trials, eked out sufficient leisure from their camp duties to show their reliance upon that religion which alone could sustain and console them in vicissitude and peril. The edifice they erected in which to offer up their devotions was characteristic, and the following account of it, transcribed from the ‘Daily News,’ gives a fair view of the details of this improviséd and unique military cathedral:—
“One among the many interesting objects in the British camp before Sebastopol is the Sappers’ church, ‘right attack,’ where the Rev. Mr. Taylor officiates. Its structure affords an excellent example of the adaptation of local circumstances to a particular object. It is built wholly of siege apparatus; but these are neither injured nor rendered unfit for their ultimate purpose; on the contrary, the materials are so arranged that they are only in store, as it were, ready for use as soon as required. The articles employed in the construction have been scaling-ladders, gabions, fascines, timbers ready cut and shaped for gun-platforms, a few planks, and some pieces of rope. Two scaling-ladders locked into each other at the top, so as to give and derive mutual support, form, at certain intervals, the columns which separate the aisles from the body of the church, and bear the roof. The framework of the outer wall is made by long upright timbers, which lean against the summits of each set of ladders respectively, and are secured by cords. Across these a few joist-beams are lashed, and the outer wall of gabions, though thicker at the base than above, in a great degree rest against these horizontal supports. To form the wall the gabions are placed end to end, one above the other, until they reach the height of the roof. Nothing can be more agreeable, during the heat of the day, than the sensation produced by the air entering through this gauge-work of twigs; it passes freely, but is so sprinkled, as it were, in its passage—its force is so broken, that, however strong without, it fails to cause any unpleasant disturbance within. The sun’s light is broken with an equally pleasing effect, for the rays which find their way in are so refracted and disturbed, that all glare and dazzle are prevented. The roof is made by the platform timbers laid between the tops of the ladders on each side, and at right angles to these the fascines are laid in regular rows, until a complete covering is formed. The roof is light, admits of course of free ventilation, and gives a perfect protection against the direct rays of the sun. At the end opposite the entrance into this truly military church, a semicircular sweep is given to the gabion wall, and in the recess thus formed several sacks stuffed with straw are arranged, to form a reading-desk and kneeling-cushion for the preacher. Planks are laid on each side from ladder to ladder, resting at a convenient height on the lower rails, and these benches are appropriated for the use of the weak and convalescents from the hospital; the other soldiers stand during the service.
“When the Union-Jack has been thrown over the primitive reading-desk above mentioned, and the clergyman is in his usual robes, and the engineers and sappers are filling the space in their military costume, all seems so appropriate and in such harmony, that should a visitor be among the number of the congregation, he soon ceases to feel the peculiarity of the place, and forgets, while engaged in the service, that he is not in one of the ordinary churches, with its stoned walls and steepled roof, in his own mother-country. Now and then the attention of the listener to the “mission of peace and good-will among men” may be distracted for a moment by the heavy thunder of a gun, or the bursting of a shell; for the Sappers’ church is on one side of the ravine leading to Careening Bay, and since the Russian redoubts and French works have been established on the heights above, such sounds have become frequent on all days, and at all hours of the week. But the sappers themselves know that their yard is out of range, though only just out of it, and habit in this, as in other matters, produces its usual effect. The gun is discharged, the shot whizzes through the air, and the shell explodes; but the sounds, if heard, are not heeded, for the attention is otherwise occupied.”
By the 10th June, on which date there were 94 sappers in the front, the batteries were all in admirable order, another screen overlooking the Woronzoff road was finished, and the lodgment and its communications looked grim with details which promised to be formidable when completed. On that day, fifty men of the line had been thrown into the quarries to assist in converting them to the besiegers’ will; but after a while, so accurate and fierce was the fire upon them from a mortar and a gun on the right of the tower, that the party was necessarily withdrawn. “Whistling Dick,” from the mortar alluded to, was doing its best to thin the workmen; but luckily its terrific presence was unaccompanied by any serious disaster. Still the sappers, twelve in number, were retained at this dangerous spot; and working away amid descending shells bursting in all directions and splinters driving even into obscure angles, they strengthened the parapet by building stones into the revetment, made loopholes, and continued the formation of the banquette. At three o’clock in the afternoon, Captain Browne of the engineers, persevering in his endeavours to work the lodgment, sent other fifty men into it who laboured in the quarries till regularly relieved. More than fifty casualties occurred in and about the quarries during the day; among these was private William Lang who was dangerously wounded by a shell which carried away his arm. A group of his comrades, who were near at the time, threw themselves down to avoid its splinters. Awful moments followed, each expecting, but hoping to escape the death that seemed inevitable. Fortunately the shell buried itself in the earth, then fizzed in paroxysms for a few seconds, when, grinding further into the soil, the fuze providentially was smothered. Another sapper, name unknown, was wounded in the left attack.
Seventy men of the corps were in the trenches during the night of the 10th scattered over the works of the two attacks. The lodgment, still offering occasion for anxious solicitude, progressed with energy and a new trench was formed on a segmental trace in front of the quarries, taking the captured ambuscade as the base of the figure. The spring of the bow issued from the right of the lodgment, then, bending away in an arch, abutted on the left of the quarries. The trench was clear of the salient of the Redan, but intersected the Malakoff abattis at a point where a gap had recently been made by a round shot from the besiegers. All the gabions, 180 in number, which lined the excavation, were staked and filled before the morning. Not a shot or bullet came in the direction during its progress. Twelve sappers were appointed to this new trench, who, receiving the gabions from the line, placed them on the sweep of the curve with a rapidity and sprightliness so marked, it seemed as if the men were chasing each other to the goal. The workmen were chiefly of the 19th regiment, by whom, and a party from the light division, about 180 in all, the gabions were filled.
Next day there were 103 sappers in the lines, and 74 at night. At daybreak on the 12th, there were 81 men in the front. Considerable exertions had been made in mining on the left attack, principally in the round-hill parallel, where, stopped by rock at every step, not a move could be made ahead, till by great bodily exertion, and patient coolness against inevitable personal risks, the obstruction was blown away. Laborious and fatiguing as were these duties, they were executed with no abatement of care; and it may be mentioned that from the first, out of thousands of blasts fired successfully throughout the works, and many more which failed in critical situations, only two accidents by mining had occurred. A more striking proof of the proficiency of the men need scarcely be adduced. The sufferers were private John Stancombe who lost the sight of one of his eyes, and lance-corporal William Eastley who was severely wounded by a stone of about 14 pounds weight striking him in the back. The former was blown up, and receiving the blast full in his face, blood poured from a hundred punctures, and when the wounds were healed, his skin was thickly speckled with blue marks as if elaborately tattooed by some unskilful mariner.
Leaving a party of fourteen rank and file at Yenikale, the remainder of the company with Sir George Brown’s expedition re-embarked on the 11th June under Captain Hassard and landed at Balaklava on the 14th. Lieutenant Anderson was located at Yenikale with six sappers, and Captain Stanton and Lieutenant Drake proceeded with the rest to Cape St. Paul. The works to defend these captured positions were commenced respectively on the 15th and 18th June, the French superintending one portion, the English the other, both assisted by strong parties of Turks, sometimes as many as a thousand a-day at each fort. At Yenikale some old houses were pulled down which furnished timber for the works, and when this source failed, planking and nails were obtained from some stranded vessels in the channel. The lines consisted of a cordon of trenches with a strong lunette in rear and a series of rifle-pits in front. The stockades, platforms, and the folding loopholed gates of the lunette were chiefly executed by the sappers, who, after the 14th July, worked in concert with the French in continuing the covered way on the right to the sea. On the 4th August, Lieutenant Anderson and his sappers reappeared in the trenches before Sebastopol.