So extensive now was the work for carpenters in the front it was found necessary to break in upon the routine of the rollster and send them irrespective of any assumed periods of relief to the trenches. Even those of the corps employed in the parks were added to the skilled resources of the engineers in both attacks. Magazines and platforms required repairs in every battery and new huts were wanted for doctors. Little clusters of these craftsmen were told off to every work, and without making a marvel of their exertions it is not the less creditable to say that their perseverance and quickness under the superintendence of non-commissioned officers who were citizens of the trenches, were, if not astonishing, highly satisfactory.
The chevaux-de-frise demolished on the 2nd, which left a clear passage for a sortie of between 45 and 50 yards, was almost made good in one night by a few sapper blacksmiths, under a direct fire of Miniés, shells, and grape. More would have been accomplished, but it was found an intricate matter in the dark to fellow the iron fitments. Next night two of the men repaired to the ravine to finish the barricade, but unable to procure help from the guard of the trenches, the moon rose upon them before the gap was filled up, and it was left for a subsequent night to complete the junction.
In the night of the 4th the moon again was up, and undimmed by mist or cloud, shone brightly over the trenches, telling our secrets to the Russians ensconced in concealed pits. Harassed in their work, the workmen in the fifth parallel of the right attack were withdrawn to less open trenches. The firing upon Nos. 17 and 20 batteries was very warm and the casualties heavy. The line officer in charge was dangerously injured, and between 20 and 30 other accidents occurred, among whom were a corporal and two sappers slightly wounded.
On the 6th August sergeant George Jarvis, a useful and pushing overseer and accredited to be one of the most competent, gallant, and go-ahead sergeants of the left attack, held a roving superintendence with a party of 54 men of the 68th regiment and 4 sappers. With broken stones they filled up the shot holes and craters in the second, third, and fourth parallels, and also collected loosened rock in heaps to be worked into the parapets at night. Sand-bags and gabions at this time were very scarce. In some works they could not be had. The latter, heavy with wet and bulged and ricketty by pressure and hard service, were nevertheless made to do duty in the front, intermixed with gabions woven with the iron hoops of broken barrels. These, with beef casks, worn tubs, and fascines tied with rope-yarn, strips of hide or iron bands, were the staple of the new constructions; and bread or biscuit bags, laid with gingerly care, formed faces to the revetments, backed by blocks of rock rolled into the parapets by manual labour. Even coal-sacks, heavy as they were when filled with earth, were found to be useful auxiliaries to the sand-bags. With singular abnegation the stalwart sailors mended their own embrasures, supervised by a few of the old sappers; and in driving some new communications gave material help, overriding by their strange but energetic combinations and procedure the more orderly but less picturesque efforts of disciplined troops.
On the 8th, though a storm broke over the trenches, choking up the channels and beating down the parapets, the men still worked. Many casualties were counted in the advance saps that day, two of whom were sappers—privates Matthew Hall wounded in the head, and John Fraser in the face, both slightly.
In the following night, the play of cohorn shells was more grand and vivid than hurtful. As many as sixteen of these missiles were screaming in the air at one time, marking their vicious courses through the darkness by a continuous burst of fire. Several of them pitched in the unfinished portions of the fifth parallel of the right attack, where parties of sappers and some men of the 31st regiment were busy reversing an old Russian trench. Corporal Curgenven, who was in charge, seeing no absolute shelter anywhere hugged the parapet closely, as did also a sergeant and an officer of the 31st who fell in line behind the corporal. Just then a shell burst above, scattering its splinters without apparently touching any one. “Are you hit, corporal?” asked the sergeant. “Not I,” said Curgenven, cheerfully. “Depend upon it you are,” returned the sergeant, “for a fragment fell so near you, I wonder you are alive to say you escaped.” When about to withdraw from the parapet, the corporal felt so heavy a weight on his hand, he fancied a portion of the revetment must be bearing on it. He was soon undeceived. A splinter had struck him, benumbing the limb to such an extent that the sensation produced was one of overpowering pressure. After satisfying himself that no bones were broken, and binding up his hand which was bleeding and much swoln, he resumed work as if nothing had transpired to cause him a moment’s uneasiness.
It was a hard matter when grape showered among the parties to keep them at their tasks. From this cause in the same night very little progress was made. An unarmed detachment appointed to cut a drain to the front on the left of the fourth parallel of the right attack wavered in its performance notwithstanding the personal risks and labours of the sapper in charge to win their firmness and zeal. At daybreak on the 11th sergeant Jarvis was again the chief sapper superintendent on the left, and with a force of sixty linesmen attended to the general drainage of the trenches. In the following night forty men were employed clearing loosened rock in the fifth parallel and building traverses. This party, under corporal Cray, whose constant faithfulness and ardour secured him many commendations, worked exceedingly well. On the 12th there were ninety-eight sappers mostly miners, boring and blasting in the fourth and fifth parallels. This was the largest force of sappers in the trenches of either attack at one time, except on the 3rd March, the first night of breaking ground for No. 7 battery of the left attack. At midnight on the 14th, twenty-five men in charge of a corporal of sappers, extending the fifth parallel of the right attack to the white Russian rifle pit, were opposed by shells and shot, which breaking the rock threw the stones into the gabions; but one striking more effectually tore up the last-pitched gabion and dashing it at the corporal knocked him down. Next day private Alexander Weir, a strong and pushing miner, was killed on the left attack; and in the succeeding night sergeant William Wilson on the right attack was entrusted with raising from the trace a 2-gun battery (No. 21) to enfilade the right face of the Redan. It was built on the right central boyau leading to the fourth parallel.
By the middle of August the whole sapper force on the right was removed to the royal engineer camp on the left attack. In the former camp they held a forward position on the extreme right of the light division, and next to them on their left were the rifles. From high elevations shot and shells sometimes dropped in their vicinity, and one plunging furiously into the tent of sergeant-major Pringle shattered the table at which he was writing, and driving through a box of clothes and comforts buried itself in the earth. The startled occupant escaped, but in the violent overturning of his table and chair he was knocked down.[[191]]
On the morning of the 16th the Russians attempted a sortie, but before they had proceeded far up the Woronzoff road were compelled to retire followed by a sharp fire which accelerated their retreat. This was succeeded on the 17th, as soon as day broke, by the English and French opening their batteries for the fifth bombardment with a sweeping fire upon the whole range of the enemy’s works. In the early part of the day the cannonading was frightfully brisk: on both sides it was accurate; but as the hours wore on, the Russian batteries, crumbling into useless shapes, no longer able to cover the artillerymen at the guns, fell off by degrees in fierceness till the intervals became so long, it seemed as if the silence was the solemn consequence of the slaughter. In several places the parapets were so ploughed up and shaken, that, tumbling into the ditches, wide breaches were exhibited which clearly told of the ravages committed by shot and shell. It would indeed have been remarkable had not the destruction been excessive, for the guns and mortars playing from the British batteries alone were 187. In the right attack there were 20 batteries, but only 19 in action. The great 21-gun battery, early the terror of the siege, now shorn of its strength, was more than rivalled by No. 16 battery which had 14 pieces of artillery at work. The first eight batteries too distant for a striking cannonade only counted 18 pieces of artillery among them. On the left attack the batteries were numbered up to 17, but of these 5 and 6 were defunct, the materials composing them having been employed in more recent constructions. In No. 1 battery there were 13 guns and mortars, and in 14 and 15, 11 each. The English formations suffered but little comparatively and only five guns were disabled and a few carriages shattered. From our own sharp fire many of the embrasures were injured in the necks; and in the old batteries there was a general tottering which occasioned much labour to prop them up for battle. Nos. 7 and 8 were the most unstable and beaten. The turgent sand-bags and the worn-out gabions, alternately wet from violent rains and dry from the charring heat of the sun, burst and broke up at every blow. A couple of 13-inch shells struck two platforms in No. 14 battery of the Chapman attack and tore them from the sleepers. Shocks of shot and pieces of shells shivered some timbers in different works, and in others drew the bolts which held them in their places. Three shells one after another exploded on a magazine in No. 8 battery left attack, breaking the roof and starting the frame. The smoke still hovered over the spot when lance-corporal Jenkins with that spirited readiness for which he was remarkable, entered the place to ascertain the extent of the injury. It was of a nature to require the instant removal of the powder, in which Jenkins assisted, and by the next morning the damage was made good and the powder replaced. On the right there were 28 sappers in the batteries who were relieved in the afternoon by 36 of the corps. Their duties were those which arose out of superintendence and the platforms. On No. 14 battery of the Gordon attack, the firing had told so destructively that two of the embrasures were in ruins. As sappers could not be had in the work to effect the restoration, the naval captain in command of the seamen gunners telegraphed to the rear for a reinforcement. A few able fellows were hurried to the battery, who at once commenced and continued through the heat of the bombardment to remove the debris which choked up the openings and to rebuild the cheeks with gabions and fascines handed to them by the willing sailors. It was an exciting sight to watch the firmness and exertions of privates David Boyd and George Harvey in one of the embrasures, who remained at their posts till the renewal was finished; and when, after risking perils with fearless indifference, they leaped from the opening, the admiring seamen welcomed their escape with cheers. Privates Allan Hay, Alexander Norval, and William Robertson, also acted with firmness in mending the embrasures of No. 9 battery of the same attack; and Lieutenant Brine, the officer of engineers on duty, reported that the five men just named “displayed great courage and energy in repairing embrasures and clearing them out under fire.” On the left no working party was employed, but three sappers opened an embrasure in No. 1 battery; 20 posted in front of No. 7 improved its cover; 30 in No. 16 built the terreplein, and six carpenters with saws, chisels, and bags of bolts and nails traversed the batteries to make repairs wherever emergency called for their services. The general casualties in the day’s bombardment were severe. Of the sappers two were killed and five wounded, viz.:—
Left attack.—Private Henry Masters—killed; a round shot carried away the top of his head. He had been wounded in the trenches on the 14th March.