On the right the sapper carpenters erected a splinter-proof hut for the general of the trenches in the new zigzag from the left of the second parallel. The struts and timbers were strong and braced, to resist, as far as contrivance could ensure safety, the shocks of heavy projectiles. Its roof was formed of fascines resting on rafters, thickened by three layers of sand-bags with earth riddled in among them to fill up the vacuities. The hut was nine feet six inches long by six feet broad and about seven in height, with a passage into it just ample enough for a good sized man to enter. There was no royal road to safety; no means of isolating this interesting quarter from the chances of danger. Sunken as it was, bringing its roof only a few feet above the level of the trench, and protected by traverses and parapets, splinters of shells and large shot were lying in its environs in dismal corroboration of the fact that the siege was no respecter of persons nor recognised any spot as entitled to the privilege of escape.
Seeing a collection of gabions idle, some French soldiers of the 20th and 27th regiments of the line, carried off about a hundred from the store and broke them up for firewood. Private Calderwood in charge of them, failing to make his bad French understood, remonstrated with the depredators by an extravagant display of gesture and grimace. The allies were humourous and treated the appeal of the irate sapper with more risibility than was agreeable. Lieutenant Darrah of the engineers appearing, he spoke of the abstraction to one of their officers, telling him the gabions were British property; and as if to add weight to his assertion, pointed out the unarmed soldier who had charge of them. Without attempting to excuse the appropriation, the French officer shrugging his shoulders, merely observed, that as the sapper had no carbine to show the nature of his authority, he could not be regarded as a sentinel; and so the gabions were borne away to cook French soup!
Next night 2 privates and 50 of the line were deputed to the right advance of the Gordon attack, who, in the face of light-balls and grape, staked no less than 79 gabions. Under the circumstances this was a feat in war. Nevertheless, from the briskness of the fire, there was an unwillingness to continue the sap, and the private in charge withdrew the party for a time to the left advanced trench, reporting the arrangement to Lieutenant Graham, who indisposed to spare the labour of a moment from the work, repaired himself to the spot. No sooner had he and the sapper arrived, than a shot bounded before them, and scattering the stones with great force, wounded Lieutenant Graham so severely that the trenches for a while were deprived of his services. The fire on the party in its new position, being still unrelaxed, the line-officer who commanded felt it his duty to take his men away, telling the sapper left in charge, that he regarded the place too perilous for line-men to work in. Inferentially, it was not too dangerous for sappers; but as a solitary individual could not hope to do much in so exposed a situation, he was removed by the assistant-engineer, Captain Wolseley, 90th regiment, to other work in the foremost trenches. Private Bernard Murray was this night wounded in the right hand, and next day privates James Mehan in the right ankle and Peter McNulty slightly by rifle bullets. The last had done good service in repairing an embrasure under fire at the request of a naval officer; and besides being in brigade orders for his conduct was given a donation by Lord Raglan.
On the night of the 10th, 18 sappers provided for the Gordon attack were told off to the following works under Captain Cooke of the engineers and Major Campbell, 46th, assistant-engineer:—
| Sappers. | Men. | |
| 3 | 200— | new trench in front of No. 18 battery; placed and filled 143 gabions. |
| 1 | 38— | building 18 battery. |
| 1 | 41— | building traverses in 19 battery, and trenching an approach to it. |
| 1 | 21— | carrying platforms. |
| 2 | 50— | left advanced trench; placed and filled 14 gabions and improved old part of trench. |
| 2 | 80— | right advanced trench; placed and filled 42 gabions, and connected the cutting with end of new wall. |
| 4 | 60— | wall in continuation of right advanced trench; built it up four feet high and two feet six inches thick, grape proof. |
| 3 | 90— | turning the advanced Russian trench into a parallel, in which considerable progress was made. |
| 1 | 20— | excavating for small arm ammunition magazine and engineer hut. |
The above detail, taken with all its precision from the diary of the siege, may be regarded as the type of employment and distribution of the sappers at this era of the struggle.
About this time was finished No. 15 mortar battery in the third parallel. It was commenced on the 24th June, under the foremanship of second-corporal James Hill, who since the middle of May had been employed as one of Major Bent’s permanent day overseers. The way to it, from No. 14 battery, was driven through rock when occurred a good stiff clayey soil, upon which the new formation was founded. Wholly built of earth accessible at the spot, without a single sand-bag to assist its solidity, it was reckoned to be the boldest construction on the left attack. Stretching along the trench for 200 feet, with a parapet about 10 feet deep and 26 to 30 broad, it covered an armament of twelve 10-inch mortars, which were fed from three strong magazines and a shell-room. Free from the annoyance of cross-fires, there were no traverses in the work; and it was remarkable that during its progress only three shells pitched into it in day-time. One killed a line-man at the mouth of a magazine, another burst in the distance, and the third passed between Major Bent and the corporal. It was near enough to be alarming, but both were instantly prostrate, and on exploding the splinters flew high above them. When the battery opened fire, the earth shook down in various places, especially at the angles; to remedy which powder-barrels were added to the revetment. No work perhaps throughout the siege cost less labour in repairs and less casualties than No. 15 battery.
On the 14th July was commenced the fifth parallel of the Gordon attack on most intricate ground. The pioneers were horribly exposed to a cannonading from the Redan, Garden batteries, and Bastion du Mât. Hours of dogged labour failed to show an excavation which was worth the trouble of calculating its dimensions. Earth was collected with as much care as flour in a famine and brought on men’s shoulders from a distance to give quality to the cover. Every stone dislodged by the miners, treasured as if it possessed intrinsic value, was pitched into the gabion or added to the parapet behind. Upon the tier of gabions forming the revetment, sand-bags were laid in courses as fast as they could be delivered by the line. The trials of this foremost work were incalculable; the placement of every gabion was opposed, and every inch of progress furnished its obstacles. On one occasion several of the baskets were thrown down and not a few were broken and rendered useless. Difficult to labour under such circumstances, most of the working party were withdrawn; but all the breaches nevertheless were made good before the morning at a cost of two sappers and six of the line wounded.
Blanched bones buried for years in the Russian cemetery turned up in the excavations, took their places in the parapets with blocks of rock, broken tombstones, shattered coffins, and consecrated earth. It was not a time to care about memories, or removing marks fixed with hallowed care to point out the sites of favoured remains, but an innate feeling of reverence for the dead prevented the sappers and workmen, as much as in them lay, from disturbing the dread repositories of the dead or defacing the memorials, rude as many of them were, which filled the graveyard with melancholy records of the departed. This consideration for the relics of poor humanity did not produce among the workmen any false sentiment with regard to the living; and on every side powerful works and engineering stratagems were in operation to weaken the vigour and hauteur of a brave but insolent enemy.
Ceaseless perseverance drove on the works and sustained valour kept the men at their posts. One trench after another was added to the vast net-work of defences, which, crowding on the edges of the hills, descended the valleys as if pushed down by some capillary law. In this way the glens were crossed more than twice with saps. New approaches were thrown out in front like so many antennæ striving to clutch the enemy’s works. Still the progress was slow, for the oolitic rocks out of which the hills were formed obtruded everywhere, defying from their hardness all arts but those of blasting. Rifle-pits on the right were constructed on the very rim of the hill in front of the fourth parallel, to which they were connected and each to the other by long zigzags and passages. One built in a secluded nook or gorge commanded the chevaux-de-frise which stretched across the Woronzoff road. About this time the use of hay-band hurdles was resorted to with fair success as screens to the embrasures, to cover the artillerists at the guns. The pressure in front for materials caused some of the field-battlements in the rear to be dismantled, and the stores and armaments to be employed in the new works, while a few coopers augmented the stock by recovering the staves of broken casks and rehooping, them with iron.