" I have the honour to transmit a copy of Sir De Lacy Evans's report, which I am sure your Grace will read with the highest satisfaction, and I beg to recommend the officers whom he particularly mentions to your protection.
" Captain Bayley of the 30th, and Captain Atcherley of the same regiment, and Lieutenant Conolly of the 49th, all of whom are severely wounded, appear to have greatly distinguished themselves.
" I cannot speak in too high terms of the manner in which Lieutenant-General Sir De Lacy Evans met this very serious attack. I had not the good fortune to witness it myself, being occupied in front of Balaklava at the time it commenced, and having only reached his position as the affair ceased, but I am certain I speak the sentiments of all who witnessed the operation in saying that nothing could have been better managed, and that the greatest credit is due to the Lieutenant-General, whose services and conduct I have before had to bring under your Grace's notice. (
CRIMEA.
" I inclose the return of the losses the army has sustained since the 22nd.
" I have, &c.
" Raglan."
On the 28th Of October our cavalry abandoned their old camp. They took up ground on the hills on the road to Balaklava, close to the rear of the French centre. We thus abandoned the lower road to the enemy.
Eelative Position of the rival Forces at the end of October — "Whistling Dick" — Sir De Lacy Evans's Accident — No Bono Johnnies— French Batteries again open Fire — A Weak Point— First Surprise— Commencement of the Battle of Inkerman — Heroic Defence — Death of Sir George Cathcart — Sir George Brown wounded — The Sandbag Battery—. Superiority of the Minie Rifle — Advance of the French — Complete Rout of the enemy — Inkerman won.
The end of October. All waiting for the French. I am not sure but that the French were waiting for us to " ecraser " some of the obnoxious batteries which played upon their works from uglyenfilading positions.
The Quarantine Fort was opposed to them on their extrme left. Then came a long, high, loopholed wall or curtain extending in front of the town from the back of the Quarantinie Forfc to the Flagstaff Battery. The Russians had thrown up a very deep and broad ditch in front of this wall, and the French artillery had made no impression on the stonework at the back. The Flagstaff Battery, however, and all the houses near it, were in ruin; but the earthworks in front of it, armed with at least twenty-six heavy guns, were untouched, and kept up a harassing fire on the French working parties, particularly at certain periods of the day, and at the interval between nine and eleven o'clock at night, when they thought the men were being relieved in the trenches. Inside the Road Battery we could see the Russians throwing up a new work, armed with six heavy ships' guns. They had also erected new batteries behind the Redan and behind the Round Tower. The latter was a mass of crumbled stone, but two guns kept obstinately blazing away at our 21-gun battery from the angle of the earthwork around it, and the Redan had not been silenced, though the embrasures and angles of the work were much damaged. The heavy frigate which had been " dodging" our batteries so cleverly again gave us a taste of her quality in the right attack. She escaped from the position in which she lay before where we had placed two 24-pounders for her, and came out again on the 29th in a great passion, firing regular broadsides at our battery and sweeping
A TRICK OP "WHISTLING DICK." 165
the hill up to it completely. Occasionally she varied this amusement with a round or two from 13-inch mortars. These shells did our works and guns much damage: but the sailors, who were principally treated to these agreeable missiles, got quite accustomed to them. "Bill," cries one fellow to another, " look out, here comes ' Whistling Dick!' " The 13-inch shell has been thus baptized by them in consequence of the noise it makes. They look up, and their keen, quick eyes discern the globe of iron as it describes its curve aloft. Long ere " Whistling Dick" has reached the ground the blue-jackets are snug in their various hiding-places; but all the power of man could not keep them from peeping out now and then to see if the fusee is still burning. One of them approached a shell which he thought had "gone out;" it burst just as he got close to it, and the concussion dashed him to the ground. He got up, and in his rage, shaking his fist at the spot where the shell had been, he exclaimed, " You deceitful beggar, there's a trick to play me!"