So well, indeed, were the extensive and complicated requirements of the siege attended to, that Major-General Jones, a close observer of the exertions of his force, commended it in these encouraging words on the 16th July. “The officers of engineers and the men of the royal sappers and miners continue to perform their duties in a very zealous manner.” None flinched, none evaded his allotted labour; but many, from the “great heat of the trenches,” and the constant recurrence of a hard and fatiguing duty, were worn out or laid up and consumed by fevers. Truly wasting was the season, very light breezes only being astir to mitigate its oppressiveness. Strong hot winds at times, and heavy thunderstorms with frightful lightning playing above in angry forks or blazing sheets, told of its sultriness. Genial showers, however, now and again occurred to relieve it, which had the effect, in some degree, of refreshing the men, and giving an inspiriting spur to the flagging energies of overtasked industry.
1855.
17th July-25th August.
SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.
Trials in carrying on the works—Fifth parallel, right attack—Detachments and statistics—Spirited conduct of corporal Ross—Neglect of non-commissioned officers—Trench dress of the line—Shifts of the miners to form the parallels and approaches—Siege minutæ—Trenches flooded—A sergeant, in the absence of an engineer officer, in charge of the lines—Casualties—Sortie by the Russians—Sergeant Docherty examines the chevaux-de-frise—Overseers of the miners—The carpenters—Renewal of the chevaux-de-frise demolished in the sortie—Casualties during a moonlight night—Exertions of sergeant Jarvis and party; the sailors—Strange sensation produced by the blow of a shell splinter—Resources for field-work purposes—Progress of the trenches and batteries—Removal of the right attack sappers to the camp of the left attack—They thus escape a subsequent catastrophe—Fifth bombardment—Cost of a whiff of tobacco—Activity of the sappers in the batteries and works—Anecdote of a new comer visiting the works—No. 17 battery, left attack—Corporal Jenkins, the master carpenter of the left attack—The white-banded cap—Fifth parallel, right attack—Breaking ground from it for the last approach to the Redan—Workmanlike industry and vigour of corporal Ross in the sap—Corporal William Baker, 7th company—Progress in the advanced trenches; sergeant Hale of the guards; corporal Stanton—Prolongation of fifth parallel, right attack—Effects of wounds.
In the trenches were distributed, on the 17th July, a working party of 550 men superintended by 97 sappers. Of the latter, 73 were on the left where the mines demanded the skilled employment of men used to blasting. Several carpenters were detailed to the platforms and magazines, and others were sprinkled singly to the different works, embrasures and traverses. The majority were in advance prolonging the parallels and blowing up the rock. On the right attack, corporal George Luke was killed. A first-class miner and sapper, he was of signal service in the trenches, and his steady conduct throughout the siege added to the credit he had received for his exertions at Bomarsund.
In the night an old Russian trench, which by degrees had been reversed, was connected with the fifth parallel on the right attack by 11 sappers and 200 men, while 4 of the corps and 100 linesmen joined the approach from the left of No. 19 battery to the fourth parallel. These junctions were both effected under Lieutenant Brine of the engineers. Of the fifth parallel, a moiety was formed wholly of rubble masonry. Lacking gabions and revetting materials, the stones thrown up in blasting were the readiest means of forming the parapet. This rubble mound, forming a line of trench for about 450 feet, and stretching along the brow of the hill to the left of a hollow in the rock, which had acquired in official description the designation of the “little ravine,” was completed and backed in with earth by the 28th July. Being so near the enemy’s works, and disturbed by daily showers of grape, shell, &c., the construction of this stone parapet formed one of the curiosities of the siege.
Both attacks were hourly approaching nearer to those extraordinary structures it was hoped every day to storm. It still required time to render the preparations complete for the dénouement. The ever present rock, covered only by a few inches of soil, greatly increased the trials of the workmen. Sacrifices of energy and strength were made in its removal that ended in casualties unknown in former wars. The siege was one continuous battle; yet it was more than strange, considering the ferocity of the cannonade, that comparatively so few casualties occurred. Engines to destroy human life in the most approved methods were complete among the Russians; still they did not scruple to resort to the uncivilized use of horse-shoes and scrap-iron to mow down the assailants. So close were the parallels to the enemy’s works, that, on a clear day, a finger could easily be discovered above the parapet. Where the cover was scanty, it was a virtue to double up one-self into a cramped position and labour like a giant. The miners and sappers in every contortion of body, wheedled themselves under cover and stole onwards with insidious certainty; but to preserve a strict concealment was not an easy matter. For ambitious men the times were tempting; opportunities seemed to impel one forward, or to unbend one-self into an erect posture in delivering a blow; for, intent on progress, the mind forgot dangers, and it was just then that the ardent man let his head or his arm appear above the parapet, or his leg stray beyond the last pitched gabion, when he was struck down. It was different, however, at night, when all were alike veiled by the darkness. Works then were commonly prosecuted on the open in front of batteries, on the tops of merlons and magazines, and the crests of parapets. Experienced sappers after dusk seldom sought to shield themselves by the sap-roller or mantlet. A check to their progress, it was almost always cast aside to be used by men who feared to go ahead without it.
Private Rowland Nicholas was struck severely in the right foot while working in the fifth parallel of the right attack, and died of his wounds. The firing was more true than severe and eight casualties occurred in this parallel during the night.
There were nine companies in the Crimea on the 21st July, each of reduced strength, giving a total of 678 sergeants and rank and file. Of these there were 97 detailed to the following places:—
| Sergts. | Corporals. | Bug. | Privates. | Total. | |
| St. Paul near Kertch. | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 14 |
| Scutari | 2 | 3 | 0 | 21 | 26 |
| Balaklava | 2 | 6 | 0 | 22 | 30 |
| The monastery | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Telegraph stations | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 | 14 |
| Head-quarters of the army | 1 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 11 |
| 97 | |||||
| Otherwise employed, and as batmen | 5 | 0 | 1 | 33 | 39 |
| Total | 136 |
At St. Paul the detachment conjoined with the French and Turks in raising defences for the protection of the post. The men at Scutari attended to the artificers’ work in the hospitals and barracks, many being foremen, and sergeant William Sargent overseer. This non-commissioned officer was soon after discharged and appointed civil foreman of works at that great invalid depôt. Corporal Rinhy was the military foreman, and a most energetic and useful man he was found. Other non-commissioned officers were detached to the hospital-stations on the Bosphorus as overseers. Sergeant Barnard was at Pera, sergeant Lynn at Kulalee, corporal Cann at Ismid,[[190]] and corporal J. T. Collins, after leaving the trenches in consequence of his wound, was appointed sapper superintendent in the island of Proti, where the Russian prisoners were confined, and for whose accommodation huts were erected and an old Greek monastery converted into an hospital. At Balaklava the detachment superintended the removal and erection of the huts at the camp and elsewhere, and fulfilled various duties in relation to the stores, wharves, and defences; while the party at the monastery and with the telegraph were busy in carrying out the details of that interesting field adjunct. Those at headquarters were employed in offices and as orderlies. Sappers were appointed bâtmen from the impossibility of retaining civil servants with the officers, and thus a rule had been broken, which for forty-four years had been adhered to without infringement. Of the remaining number on the rolls, there were 90 men sick in camp, and 59 dispersed in invalid ships and in the hospitals on the Bosphorus. Taking all these details into account, there were only 393 fighting-men left for trench-work, which will at once show how hard must have been the duties of that half-battalion. As, moreover, there were other indispensable services in camp which could not be relinquished, it followed that the usual routine of the companies necessarily appointed the same men to the trenches every other day or intervening night; and this, continued without intermission for months, amid varying vicissitudes of weather, of fearful exposure and untold hardships and suffering, gives an aspect of sapper character and endurance which few will be slow to eulogize. Indeed several of the non-commissioned officers charged with particular services, were every day in the trenches and sometimes even at night. Nor should it be omitted to observe that the extreme heat of the season had so enervated the men, that none but the most acclimatized and inured to fatigue could bear up against its exhausting influence. Thinned, therefore, by disease, hard work, long vigils, and night damps in the trenches and mines, the numbers of the sick fluctuated to such an extent, that the proportion above stated was at times considerably overshot. The reinforcements which arrived from England to fill up the places of casualties almost to a man fell sick from these causes, and many wanting sinew and hardihood were removed as invalids from the camp without seeing the trenches.