CHAPTER III.

Second Bombardment--Results--Visit to Balaklava--Watching the Fire--Casualties--Attitude of the Allied Fleet--Effects of the Cannonade--Turkish Infantry--Contest for the Rifle-pits--A Golden Opportunity--The Fire slackens.

On Easter Monday, April 9, the allied batteries simultaneously opened fire. The English works were armed with twenty 13-inch mortars, sixteen 10-inch mortars, twenty 24-pounders, forty-two 32-pounders, fifteen 8-inch guns, four 10-inch guns, and six 68-pounders. Late on the 8th, hearing that there was nothing likely to take place on Monday, I left the front, and returned to Balaklava; but in the evening I received an intimation that fire would open at daybreak the following morning. It was then black as Erebus, and raining and blowing with violence; yet there was no choice for it but to take to the saddle and try to make for the front. No one who has not tried it can fancy what work it is to find one's way through widely-spread camps in a pitch-dark night. Each camp is so much like its fellow that it is impossible to discriminate between one and the other; and landmarks, familiar in the day-time, are lost in one dead level of blackness. So my two companions and myself, after stumbling into Turkish and French lines, into holes and out of them, found ourselves, after three hours' ride, very far indeed from our destination in the front, and glad to stop till dawn, wet and tired, at the head-quarters' camp.

At four o'clock A.M. we left for the front. The horses could scarcely get through the sticky black mud into which the hard dry soil had been turned by one night's rain. Although it was early dawn, it was not possible to see a man twenty yards off. A profound silence reigned. Suddenly three guns were heard on the left towards the French lines, and then the whole line of batteries opened. The Garden and Redan Batteries came into play soon after we opened fire, but some time elapsed before the Round Tower or the Mamelon answered. The enemy were taken completely by surprise, and for half an hour their guns were weakly handled.

[Sidenote: THE NEW BOMBARDMENT.]

The Inkerman and Careening Bay Batteries were almost silent for three-quarters of an hour before they replied to the French batteries on our right.

A driving rain and a Black Sea fog whirled over the whole camp, which resumed the miserable aspect so well known to us during the winter. Tents were blown down, and the ground, as far as it was visible, looked like a black lake, studded with innumerable pools of dun-coloured water. It was not easy, so murky was the sky and so strong the wind, to see the flashes or hear the report of the Russian guns or of the French cannon on either flank, though the spot from which I watched was within a couple of hundred yards of the enemy's range; but we could tell that our batteries in front were thundering away continuously in irregular bursts, firing some twenty-five or thirty shots per minute. Early in the morning they were firing from seventy to eighty shots per minute, but they reduced the rate of fire. The sound was not so great as that of the 17th of October. Just as the cannonade opened, the sailors came over the hills from the batteries, where they had been relieved, and a few men of the Third Division turned out of the huts to the front, evidently very much astonished at the sudden opening of the fire. On the extreme left the French batteries were firing with energy on the loopholed wall, and on the Flagstaff and Garden Batteries, which were replying very feebly. Our left attack (Greenhill or Chapman's Batteries), directed its fire principally against the Redan, which only answered by five or six guns. Our right attack (Gordon's) aided by the advanced battery and by the French redoubts, had silenced the Mamelon and fired three or four shots for every one from the Round Tower. The Russian batteries to the right of the Mamelon were voiceless. So much could be seen, when rain and mist set in once more, and shut out all, save one faint blear of yellowish haze to the west. The storm was so heavy that scarcely a soul stirred out all day. It was dark as night. Lord Raglan stationed himself at his favourite place. On Cathcart's Hill only Sir John Campbell and an aide-de-camp were visible in front of the General's tent. Colonel Dacres was the only officer in front of Cathcart's Hill when I went up, with the exception of Sir John Campbell. The rain descended in torrents, there was nothing to be seen, heard, or learnt, every one withdrew to shelter after a long and hopeless struggle with the weather. The firing slackened considerably after twelve o'clock.

About five o'clock in the evening the sun descended into a rift in the dark grey pall which covered the sky, and cast a slice of pale yellow light, barred here and there by columns of rain and masses of curling vapour, across the line of batteries. The eye of painter never rested on a more extraordinary effect, as the sickly sun, flattened between bars of cloud, seemed to force its way through the leaden sky to cast one look on the plateau, lighted up by incessant flashes of light; and long trails of white smoke, tinged with fire, whirled away by the wind. The outlines of the town, faintly rendered through the mists of smoke and rain, seemed quivering inside the circling lines of fire around the familiar outlines--the green cupola and roofs, long streets and ruined suburbs, the dockyard buildings, trenches and batteries.

The only image calculated to convey an idea of the actual effect is a vision of the Potteries seen at night, all fervid with fire, out of the windows of an express train.

The practice from the left of the left attack and from the right of the right attack, which was more under observation than other parts of our works, was admirable. Our shell practice was not so good as it might have been, on account of bad fuzes. A large proportion burst in the air. Some of our fuzes were made in 1802. I have heard of some belonging to the last century, but some recent manufacture turned out the worst.

A strange and almost unexampled accident occurred in one of our batteries. A 13-inch mortar burst into two pieces, splitting up longitudinally. One of the masses was thrown thirty yards to the right, and another to the left, and though the fragments flew along the traverses and parapet, not one person was killed or wounded. We were less fortunate in the case of the Lancaster gun, which was struck by a shot, killing and wounding severely six men. Several engineer officers declared their satisfaction at getting rid of the gun, in which they could place no confidence, on account of its wild and uncertain firing.

The French silenced eight or nine guns of the Bastion du Mât (Flagstaff), and almost shut up the Inkerman Batteries. On our side we had silenced half the guns in the Redan and Malakoff, and had in conjunction with the French left the Mamelon only one out of seven guns, but the Garden, the Road, and the Barrack Batteries were comparatively uninjured, and kept up a brisk fire all day. General Bizot received a fatal wound in our right attack just as he was lamenting the thinness of our parapets. He was struck by a rifle-ball under the ear, and died shortly after, much regretted by our allies and by ourselves.

The Russians, with great _sangfroid_, repaired the batteries, and appeared to have acquired confidence, but their fire was by no means so brisk as it was when the siege commenced. Omar Pasha visited Lord Raglan again on Wednesday, the 11th, and there was another council of war, at which General Canrobert and General Bosquet were present.

[Sidenote: THE BOMBARDMENT CONTINUES.]

The expectation which the outsiders entertained that "the fleet would go in" on the third day was not realized. At daybreak I was up at Cathcart's Hill. The view was obscured by drizzling rain, but the hulls and rigging of the steamers and line-of-battle ships were visible; and though clouds of steam were flying from the funnels, it was quite evident that the fleet had no intention of taking part in the bombardment. Their presence there had, however, the effect of drawing off a number of the Russian gunners, for the sea batteries on the north and south sides were all manned, and we could see the artillerymen and sailors inside the parapets standing by their guns. It was evident that the Russians had more than recovered from their surprise, and laboured to recover the ground they had lost with all their might. They resorted to their old practice of firing six or seven guns in a salvo--a method also adopted by the French. Large reserves of infantry were drawn up near the north forts, and the corps over Inkerman were under arms. The Russians could be seen carrying their wounded across to the north side. The cannonade continued all day uninterruptedly, but I could not see that any great change had been made in the profile of the enemy's works. Several of the embrasures in the Redan had been destroyed, and the Round Tower works were a good deal "knocked about;" but there was no reduction in the weight of the enemy's fire.

Lord Raglan visited the front and spent some time examining the effects of the fire. Sir John M'Neill, Colonel Tulloch, General Pennefather, and Sir George Brown, were frequently among the spectators on the advanced mounds commanding a view of the operations. During the night the French attacked some rifle-pits at the Quarantine Cemetery, but were repulsed after a very serious affair, in which they lost 300 men; not, however, without inflicting great loss and damage on the enemy.

At dawn on Thursday, the 12th, the allied batteries and the Russians recommenced. The enemy exerted themselves to repair damages during the night, replaced damaged guns, mended embrasures and parapets, and were, in fact, nearly as ready to meet our fire as they had been at any time for six months. On our side, four of the guns for the advanced parallel, which for the previous two nights we had failed to get into position, were brought down after dark, and it was expected that material results would be produced by their fire when they were in position. Orders were sent to restrict the firing to 120 rounds per gun each day. The 13-inch mortar battery fired parsimoniously one round per mortar every thirty minutes, as it requires a long time to cool the great mass of iron heated by the explosion of 16lb. of powder.

The bombardment did not cease during the day, but it was not so heavy on the whole as it had been on the three previous days. At fifty minutes past four the batteries relaxed firing, renewed it at six, and the fire was very severe till nightfall. Then the bombardment commenced and lasted till daybreak. The Sailors' Brigade suffered very severely. They lost more men than all our siege-train working and covering parties put together. Up to half-past three o'clock on Friday, they had had seventy-three men killed and wounded, two officers killed, one wounded, and two or three contused.

At four o'clock on Friday morning, April 13, the Russians opened a destructive fire on our six-gun battery, which was in a very imperfect state, and by concentrating the fire of twenty guns upon it, dismounted some of the pieces and injured the works severely, so as to render the battery useless. One of our 24-pounders was burst by a shot which entered right at the muzzle as the gun was being discharged. Another gun, struck by a shot in the muzzle, was split up to the trunnions, the ball then sprang up into the air, and, falling at the breech, knocked off the button. In the very heat of the fire on the 12th, a Russian walked through one of the embrasures of the Round Tower, coolly descended the parapet, took a view of the profile of the work, and sauntered back again--a piece of bravado which very nearly cost him his life, as a round shot struck within a yard of him, and a shell burst near the embrasure as he re-entered.

Two divisions of Turkish infantry encamped near the English head-quarters. They mustered about 15,000 men, and finer young fellows I never saw. They had had a long march, and their sandal shoon afforded sorry protection against the stony ground; and yet few men fell out of the ranks. One regiment had a good brass band, which almost alarmed the bystanders by striking up a quick step (waltz) as they marched past, in excellent style, but the majority of the regiments were preceded by musicians with drums, fifes, and semicircular thin brass tubes, with wide mouths, such as those which may have tumbled the walls of Jericho, or are seen on the sculptured monuments of primæval kings.

The colonel and his two majors rode at the head of each regiment, and followed by pipe-bearers and servants, richly dressed, on small but spirited horses, covered with rich saddle-cloths. The mules, with the tents, marched on the right--the artillery on the left. Each gun was drawn by six horses. The two batteries consisted of four 24lb. brass howitzers, and two 9lb. brass field pieces; the carriages and horses were in a very serviceable state. The ammunition boxes were rather coarse and heavy. The baggage animals of the division marched in the rear, and the regiments marched in columns of companies three deep, each company on an average with a front of twenty rank and file. One of the regiments had Minié rifles of English make; the others were armed with flint firelocks, but they were very clean and bright. They displayed standards, blazing with cloth of gold, and flags with the crescent and star upon them. The men carried blankets, squares of carpet for prayer, cooking utensils, and packs of various sizes and substances. As they marched over the undulating ground they presented a very picturesque and warlike spectacle, the reality of which was enhanced by the thunder of the guns at Sebastopol, and the smoke-wreaths from shells bursting high in the air.

At a council of war on the 13th, the question of assaulting the place was discussed, but Lord Raglan and the other English generals who were in favour of doing so were overruled by General Canrobert and General Niel.

Omar Pasha, attended by his suite, rode round the rear of our batteries on the 15th, and Lord Raglan visited the Turkish encampment on the hills to the west of the Col de Balaklava.

[Sidenote: THE BOMBARDMENT CONTINUES.]

On Saturday night (14th), there was a severe and protracted conflict on the left, for the French rifle-pits in front of the Quarantine Works. At first, the weight of the columns which swept out of the enemy's lines bore back the French in the advanced works, where the covering parties were necessarily thin, and many lost their lives by the bayonet. Our allies, having received aid, charged the Russians into their own lines, to which they fled with such precipitation that the French entered along with them, and could have spiked their advanced guns had the men been provided with the means. As they were retiring, the enemy made a sortie in greater strength than before. A sanguinary fight took place, in which the bayonet, the musket-stock, and the bullet were used in a pell-mell struggle, but the French asserted their supremacy, and in defiance of the stubborn resistance of the Russians, evoked by the cries and example of the officers, forced them battling back across their trenches once more, and took possession of the rifle-pits, which they held all night. The loss of our allies was considerable in this brilliant affair. The energy and spirit with which the French fought were beyond all praise.

The next morning our advanced batteries were armed with fourteen guns. They opened at daybreak, and directed so severe a fire against the Russian batteries throughout the day, that they concentrated a number of guns upon the two batteries. We nevertheless maintained our fire.

At half-past eight o'clock in the evening (15th), three mines, containing 50,000 pounds of powder, were exploded with an appalling crash, in front of the batteries of the French, seventy yards in front of the third parallel. The fourth and principal mine was not exploded, as it was found to be close to the gallery of a Russian mine, and the French were unable to make such a lodgment as was anticipated; but they established themselves in the course of the night in a portion of the outer work. The _etonnoirs_ were, after several days' hard labour and nights of incessant combat, connected with the siege works. The Russians, believing the explosion to be the signal for a general assault, ran to their guns, and for an hour their batteries vomited forth prodigious volumes of fire against our lines from one extremity to the other. The force and fury of their cannonade was astonishing, but notwithstanding the length and strength of the fire, it caused but little damage to the works or to their defenders. Next day the magazine of our eight-gun battery in the right attack was blown up by a shell, and seven of our guns were silenced, but the eighth was worked with great energy by Captain Dixon, R. A., who commanded in the battery.

On the 17th, the 10th Hussars arrived, and five hundred sabres were added to the strength of our cavalry. Our fire had much diminished by the 18th of April. The Russian fire slackened just in proportion as they found our guns did not play upon them. The French batteries also relaxed a little. In the night we carried a rifle-pit in front of our right attack, and commenced a sap towards the Redan. The Russians made sorties on the French in the third parallel, and were only repulsed after hard fighting and loss.