But coupled with this impression was the far stronger conviction that, had our array marched upon the place on the 25th of September, it would have fallen almost without resistance. A Russian officer, who was taken prisoner and who knew the state of the city well, declared that he could not account for our " infatuation" in allowing the Russians to throw up works and regain heart, when we could have walked into the place, unless under the supposition that the hand of the Almighty was in it, and that He had blinded the vision and perverted the judgment of our generals. "And now," said he, "He has saved Sebastopol, and we, with His help, will maintain it inviolate."
However, let bygones be bygones on this and other points as well — they will be matters for history and posterity.
Several sea-service mortars, with a range of 3,500 yards, were sent up to the front, and the new batteries, now about to open, had the heaviest armament ever used in war.
On the 17th of March the Fourth Division had races. The meeting was well attended, and had this advantage over the races at Karanyi, that the course was almost under long range fire of the forts, and that the thunder of the siege-guns rose now and then above the shouts of the crowd in the heat of the sport. Not a drunken man was visible on the course. Every face beamed with good humour and joy and high spirits. As it was St. Patrick's Day, many an officer had a bit of some sorry green substitute for a shamrock in his cap. Some thoughtful people at home had actually sent out to their friends real shamrocks by post, which arrived just in the nick of time, and an officer of my acquaintance was agreeably surprised by his servant presenting himself at his bedside with a semblance of that curious plant, which he had cut out of some esculent vegetable with a pair of scissors, and a request that he would wear it, " and nobody would ever know the differ."
A melancholy accident occurred on the same night. Mr. Leblanc, surgeon of the 9th Regiment, was coming home after dark, and got outside the French lines. He was challenged; and either did not hear or understand what the man said. The Frenchman challenged again, and, receiving no reply, shot the officer dead. Heavy firing was going on at the time, and a serious affair on our right, another struggle for the pits, which the enemy had thrown up on the right opposite the French, and which our allies carried gallantly, but did not succeed in retaining.
These rifle-pits, which cost both armies such a quantity of ammunition, and led to so considerable a sacrifice on the part of our allies, were placed in front and to the right and left of the Tower of Malakoff, about 600 yards from our works. They were simple excavations faced with sandbags, loopholed, and banked round with earth. Each of these pits contained about ten riflemen. Practice made these soldiers crack shots and very expert, so that if a man showed for a moment above the works in front of these pits he had instantly a small swarm of leaden hornets buzzing vound his ears.
CRIMEA.
They were so well covered and so admirably protected by the nature of the ground that our riflemen could do nothing with them, and the French sharpshooters were equally unsuccessful. It was determined to try a round shot or two at them from one of the English batteries. The first shot struck down a portion of the bank of one of the pits, the second went slap into the sandbags, right through the parapet, and out at the other side, and the riflemen, ignorant of Sir John Burgoyne's advice to men similarly situated to adhere the more obstinately to their work the more they are fired at by big guns, " bolted," and ran across the space to their works. The French sharpshooters, who were in readiness to take advantage of this moment, at once fired on the fugitives, but did not hit one of them.