Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/333

THE 17TII OF OCTOBER. 303 parapets (and especially in the revetments of the chap. embrasures) by the enemy's round-shot and shell; _i 1_ to be quenching the fires which were constantly j^a?n*J[;|ng^8 seizing upon gabions, fascines, and timber ; to be '^J^^^ ^*^' replacing guns; to be tending or removing in litters the men newly wounded ; and to be to-iling thus, hour by hour, in the midst of a dim pile of smoke, with a mind always equal to an instant encounter with death, — this was alike the duty of the French, of the English, and of the Eussians, who worked the power of artillery in the con- flicting batteries ; and, until there occurred that disaster to the French of which we shall presently speak, the duty was performed with unflinching persistency by besieged and besiegers alike. The works which covered the Eussian batteries had been constructed in haste, with dry, gritty eartli laboriously brought to the spot ; and, no rain having come in the interval to bind the loose heaps into solid structures, they formed of course soriy ramparts. The embrasures, too, were weak. Some of them, for want of fascines and hurdles, had been revetted with bags of earth, with planks, or with clay. There were other embrasures which had not been revetted at all. Of the revetments formed with clay, some were brought down in fragments by the mere blast of the guns firing out topol three setters came ranging up the hillside, but making small progi-ess, for at every salvo they dropped. At the thunder of the nations, as though it were the report of their masters ' double barrel,' the well-bred and well-broken beasts took care to 'down -charge.' I never knew whence the ensile uor whither they went.