By the 27th of June, the covered-way, termed by the sappers the “stone double sap,” to protect the two large caves or “ovens” where a strong day picquet was posted, was completed. Like a terrace it run along the slope of the picket-house ravine among steep and jutting rocks, for about 300 feet, and was hollowed, every inch of it, by mining. Its face was between three and four feet high of solid rock, and above was placed a revetment of gabions, powder-cases and bread-bags filled and backed by fragments of stone blown up in the blasts and macadamized. Sand-bags were also used, and earth brought from the rear was shovelled among the stones to make the mass compact. To protect the trench from enfilade, six traverses of rock were formed as the work proceeded; but a bold one, seven feet in altitude, facing the mouth of the first cave, pushed across the trench for 22 feet, and possessed a breadth adapted to the object it was intended to serve. A curved continuation of the trench, stretching up the hill for 100 feet, rounded the second cave, whose enlarged mouth opening on the Russian batteries required strong cover to shield the chamber from the enemy’s fire. A parapet was therefore risen like a butt, some 16 feet broad at the crown, which stood well against grape and shot and averted dangers it seemed incapable of meeting. The revetment started from a foundation of rock built up to the necessary height with sand-bags. Subsequently it was thickened with earth and stones six feet broad, and faced inwardly by a row of large beef barrels crammed with rock and clay and crested by sand-bags. The caves themselves were connected by a cutting effected by four hard-working sappers under lance-corporal Simon Williams. Two cut from one cave, two from the other, descending on either side into easy soil to avoid the rock. Where the latter occurred, it was removed by points and hammers. The passage, about 26 feet through, was five feet six inches high and three feet three inches wide, and was completed in ten hours. A free communication was thus open from one to the other without the necessity of passing into the trench. Avenues were opened from the covered-way to the rear, and forward by a long arm, which, joined to a succession of saps like so many prodigious limbs or joints, skirted the ridge overlooking the ravine, and then connected with the fourth parallel. The approach from the caves to the communication leading to the parallel was by a natural opening in the surface of the hill, widened into a man-hole by the jumper and mining. At its base there were five or six stairs hewn out of the rock, on which was super-added an oaken ladder slanting to the top of the shaft; the entrance to which was screened by a semicircular revetment of beef barrels loaded with stones. This covered-way was of great importance, extremely difficult of execution, and as hazardous as laborious in working it. When finished, it was so perfect a cover, that the picquet quartered in it sustained a daily fire with impunity. Corporal Joseph T. Collins under Major Bent, was its plodding and steadfast overseer. He had with him six picked sappers and three miners of the 68th regiment, who were specially allotted to the task. More than three months were spent in its accomplishment, during which, and the forming of the correlative communications, corporal Collins was daily in the trenches. In that time many a bullet whizzed near him, and many a shell burst, splintering the rock and tearing down the barrels and sand-bags in his front and rear, but he neither dropped his head nor slackened his hand. Ardent, cool, and efficient, his example and exertions were of undisguised advantage in the prosecution of the sap, and his resolution to be compassed by no obstacle had the effect of establishing among his comrades a spirit to persevere and succeed. Once only was he struck while driving the sap. A blast went off unexpectedly, setting a shower of stones in motion, one of which hit him above the eye, and another, of crushing size and weight, hurtled past his breast. At last he was overtaken by a serious wound. On the 2nd of July he was passing through No. 14 battery left attack, when a rifle bullet pierced his thigh and took him from the trenches. Three months, save one day, 18th June, when he was granted the luxury of a little extra repose, he was daily under a fire of varying fierceness, and for his intrepid conduct in the “stone double sap,” coupled with other conspicuous acts of skill and fearlessness, he received two steps of promotion, was granted a gratuity of five pounds, decorated with a “distinguished service” medal, and also with the star of the French Legion of Honour.[[189]]
Hourly the assailants encroached on the area which separated them from the besieged, beset in their industry by strange and incessant difficulties. Almost within hail of the Russians, the miners day and night carried out their tedious labours. As many as forty sappers were frequently thus employed in the advanced parallels and boyaux. A number of the line, between 80 and 100—practical quarrymen—afterwards joined them, who, directed by experienced corporals of the corps, worked with unwearied exertion. In sets of threes they carried out the operations, one turning the jumper while the others struck it blow for blow as in a smithy with hammers of about seven pounds’ weight. The constant clashing of these heavy tools, which could even be heard at the camp, made the lines as alive with din and rattle as an arsenal, and brought on the miners a fire at time so furious, that to see them, amid casualty and death holding to their employments, was a scene not to be surpassed by any spectacle of endurance in the trenches. Excavations cut by the pickaxe or blown into trenches by blasting, completed, so far, a series of communications which, like so many ligatures, tied together the several works in front and rear. Elaborate with entrenchments and batteries, the ground with its mammoth parallels, subordinate approaches and passages, places d’armes, rifle pits and screens, appeared like a vast labyrinth puzzling to the last degree; but to provide against chances of miscarriage, the engineers and sappers, forming a corps of guides, so led the workmen by night and by day, that few parties failed to reach the sites where they were appointed to toil. Yet with all this duty and peril, only two sappers were wounded between the 19th and 30th June. These were sergeant Philip Morant severely in the right cheek, the ball passing through his nose and escaping from the other cheek; and corporal James Douglas slightly in the head. The former who was the sergeant of the trenches on the right attack was working in the quarries when struck; the latter had just told off a brigade of sappers and 200 of the line to the works.
July found the siege a fixed employment, increasing in magnitude and approaching nearer to the Russian batteries. On the 1st, there were 24 sappers on the right and 57 on the left blasting in the fourth parallel, as also in No. 15 battery and the reserve ammunition magazine. With these they carried out various services in connection with batteries 13, 14, and 15, situated on the third parallel, which, from their prominence, shared largely in the hostile attention of the Russians. Their parapets which had been riven and loosened by the cannonade and washed down by the rain, were raised and strengthened; and their cheeks insufficiently sloped when originally built, were taken down and reconstructed; terrepleins were also formed in them and new magazines reared, with passages cut round the sites; while a strong body of miners improved the old road communication from No. 5 battery in the first parallel to No. 9—the left end battery—of the second parallel. On the right, Nos. 14 and 18 batteries had large parties appointed to them. The latter, a new formation, had no less than 160 men shovelling earth on the parapet, and eight sappers fixed the frames and splinter-proofs to its magazines. No. 14, occupying nearly a central position in the second parallel, had two of its embrasures cut and formed by the sappers. Others were widening approaches and communications, draining the second parallel, making a rifle pit in front of it, constructing sea-service mortar platforms on left of the 21-gun battery, repairing the parapet in the left communication to No. 18 battery, and removing revetting stores from No. 6 battery in the first parallel to the new works in front. The working parties consisted of 600 men; and though shelled with some briskness during portions of the day, all left the trenches unharmed.
Next day at dawn, 56 sappers, chiefly miners and carpenters, were sent into the foremost trenches on the left to blast the rock and lay platforms in the new batteries. They were unassisted by the line workmen, for a drenching rain confined them to camp. As from waterspouts the torrent fell, choking up the channels, inundating the works, and beating down some of the more fragile batteries. In such weather it was out of the question to continue the mining; but every man though wet and smoking with heat, exerted himself in clearing the standing water from the different formations. On the right attack there were 310 men in the trenches during the storm with 28 sappers under Captain De Moleyns. The second relief, at 3 o’clock, gave 200 men with 20 sappers, while the numbers furnished for the left attack were 400 under Major Chapman, assistant engineer.
In the following night 800 men, guided by 24 sappers, were sent into the right attack, and 150 of the infantry and 25 sappers into the left. The chevaux-de-frise in the Woronzoff ravine, which did good service in checking the advance of the enemy’s riflemen, was now moved from its original position to one in line with the memorable quarries, so that the rear works were not likely to be attacked by Russian columns stealing up the valley. A banquette was also made behind the iron barricade for a row of sharpshooters to pick off the artillerymen serving the Russian guns. The firing on various parts of the works was heavy through the night, and bouquets of shells were discharged with no better effect than slightly wounding three or four men, one of whom was private Thomas Luscombe.
On the 4th at night, four sappers and fifty men in the right portion of the trench in front of the quarries, pushed the sap to the right and widened and deepened the passage that led to it. Two light balls sent among them fell so near, one in front the other in rear, that, enclosed for nearly a quarter of an hour within a blaze, they were compelled to bend under the low parapet to save themselves from the effects of a furious shelling. Relays of grape succeeded, intermingled with Miniés, all striking the work but none injuring the workmen. Stout as was the opposition no less than twelve gabions were fixed by the sappers, and more would have followed, but the moon, appearing with a steady light uneffaced by driving clouds, caused the party to be withdrawn from the trench.
As cover could not be procured with sufficient expedition in the saps, earth was brought in baskets from a distance to make screens for the miners whilst blasting the rock. Excessive was the labour necessary to form the foremost trenches, and the perils attending the exertions of the miners, who made head against extraordinary difficulties, were only mitigated by wiles which experience and vigilance had taught them to employ. It was a subject of astonishment how the rock—that giant obstacle which appeared in every trench—could, in the face of a keen enemy, be thrown up and worked into solid mounds of parapet. A passage was cut that night in a novel manner with as much design and self-possession as on an English railway. One party descended the hill, the other forced up from the valley; and though the labourers encountered no end of trials from the obtrusion of rock, they effected a junction, building as they proceeded, a parapet two feet six inches in height. The miners were brawny fellows—each, in truth, a Hercules. Nothing overmatched their strength and industry; every foot driven in advance was full of interest; and in a few nights more, an uninterrupted communication of 250 yards with sufficient cover was completed from the left of the round hill parallel into the sombre graveyard. This parallel was a wonderful work. Its most advanced point was a place of arms. From its form and strength it was called by the sappers “the double elbow.” Jealous of the gradual development of our colossal system of saps and batteries, the enemy poured streams of grape and canister into the advances, causing many casualties. Hand balls in groups of forty or fifty thrown from mortars, were added to the roll of deadly agencies employed to pick off the miners.
No longer of use, the old engineer hut in the first parallel was pulled down and the barrels which made it splinter proof, were turned to account in improving the revetments of Nos. 14 and 16 batteries on the left attack. The picket-house battery, No. 6 armed with three heavy guns and three 10-inch mortars, posted on the French side of the ravine, was also demolished, and its serviceable materials used in the advanced works. The battery took its name from a deserted residence that stood in the glen a little below it, and which, from the commencement of the siege was occupied by a picket. The picket-house, known as such, par excellence, was situated on the crest of the Woronzoff ravine to the rear of the 21-gun battery. It was first the look-out place of the generals, and lastly the rendezvous of officers and amateurs of all countries; but even that interesting quarter yielded to the devastating necessities of the siege and was razed to the ground by some sappers. Its rafters, planks, and doors, torn by many a shell, were converted into platforms and splintering for magazines and huts. By degrees the walls were removed, chiefly for building hospitals; and fragments of wood, turned into articles of taste, were retained by the curious as memorials of the picket-house. Nothing was left of that celebrated structure, associated with so many exciting reminiscences, but the crumbled vestiges of its humble stateliness designated by the French “La ruine des Anglais.”
Corporal Lockwood on the 7th had charge of fifty men and three sappers forming a parapet with stones in the communication leading from the fourth parallel to the graveyard. The sappers attended to the building of the wall and the line handed to them the blocks and fragments. In time not a stone could be found not even as large as a walnut; and in order to keep the builders at work, the corporal spread a few of his party over the hill side in front to collect materiél. In this situation they were uncovered. Just then a fire-ball dropped among them, and on came discharges of grape and shells which struck down the corporal wounding him severely in the right thigh by the splinter of a shell.
About this time the sapper carpenters built a wooden bridge across the communication from the fourth boyau to No. 14 battery on the left attack. The battery rose out of the centre of the third parallel, and the approach stretched obliquely across the hill. This and one or two other similar constructions were the only instances during the siege of bridges being thrown under fire. The ramps formed out of the solid rock were blasted and shaped by six miners. Indeed the entire communication, about sixty feet, was driven through rock with no little skill.