Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/209

THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. 177 battery. It would seem that, when restoring the CHA.P. shattered parapet of this ' advanced No. VII.,' our _ Engineers must have given it a greater degree of strength than it had on the previous morning; for, although it is true there were instances of the 68-pounders impinging upon the tops of the parapets, and thence driving the sand-bags before them, it was generally through one or other of the embrasures that the shot and the shell on this day came leaping into the battery. One of these took a life of much worth. Brave, zealous, endowed beyond other mortals with the gift of cheerliness, Boyd (a corporal of the Eoyal Artil- lery) was laying a gun, and casting a satisfied glance along the line of its ' sights,' when a can- non-ball shot away the upper part of his skull, and killed him so instantaneously that his face — with the blood pouring down — still kept its radi- ant smile. The body of this valiant corporal, with that of another good artilleryman who had also been killed, was placed with care on a spot where one of the traverses seemed to offer a semblance of shelter; but soon, a shell blew up the traverse and buried the dead in its ruins. Out of his small force Captain Henry lost two men killed, and five men wounded. From each of his 32-pounders he fired about one hundred rounds, but one of his guns was, after a while, disabled. Kept for nearly eight hours under a powerful fire, the battery and its embrasures suffered havoc. 'I remember,' says Colonel Torriano, 'going down VOL. VIII. M