A most exciting scene now took place towards the northward. One of the enemy's steamers had run out of the Bay of Kertch, which was concealed from our view by the headland, and was running for the Straits of Yenikale. She was a low schoonerrigged craft, like a man-of-war, and it was uncertain whether she was a government vessel or not. And, just as she passed the cape, two Russian merchantmen slipped out and also made towards Yenikale. A gunboat dashed after her across the shallows. At the same moment a fine roomy schooner came bowling down with a fair breeze from Yenikale, evidently intending to aid her consort, and, very likely, despising the little antagonist which pursued her. The gunboat flew on and passed the first merchantman, at which she fired a shot, by way of making her bring-to. The forts at Kertch instantly opened, shot after shot splashed up the water near the gunboat, which kept intrepidly on her way. As the man-of-war schooner ran down towards the Russian steamer, the latter gained courage, slackened her speed, and lay-to as if to engage her enemy. A sheet of flame and smoke rushed from the gunboat's sides, and her shot flying over the Russian, tossed up a pillar of water far beyond her. Alarmed at this taste of her opponent's quality, and intimation of her armament, the Russian took flight, and the schooner wore and bore away for Yenikale again, with the gunboat after both of them. Off the narrow straits between Yenikale and the sandbank as the English gunboat, which had been joined by another, ran towards them, a Russian battery opened upon her from the town. The gunboats still dashed at their enemies, which tacked, wore, and ran in all directions, as a couple of hawks would harry a flock of larks.
Sir Edmund Lyon sent off light steamers to reinforce the two hardy little fellows, the French steamers also rushed to the rescue. The batteries on the sandbank were silenced; they blew up their magazines, and the fort at Yenikale soon followed their example.
There was a pretty strong current running at the rate of about three miles an hour over the flats off the town of Yenikale, and the water was almost as turbid as that of the Thames, and of a more yellow hue, as it rushed from the Sea of Azoff. Two gunboats, carrying twelve small pieces each, were moored off the forts
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cf Yenikale, and there was a floating battery close to them armed with two very heavy guns, the floor being flush with the water, and the guns quite uncovered. One man was found dead in the battery at Yenikale, lying, as he fell, with the match in his hand, close to the gun he was about to fire, and two more Russians were found dead on the beach, but they looked as if they had been killed by the explosion of the magazine. The guns in Yenikale were new and fine. Some of them were mounted on a curious kind of swivel — the platforms were upon the American principle. One brass piece, which was lying near the guard-house, was said to have been taken from the Turks at Sinope. Two barks, armed on the main-deck with guns, and used as transports, were resting on the sand, where they had been sunk by our ships as they attempted to escape to the Sea of AzofF. It was suspected that there were few regular troops in proportion to the numbers in and about Kertch and Yenikale, and that there was a large proportion of invalids, local militia men, and pensioners among the soldiers who made such a feeble and inglorious defence. The appearance of our armada as it approached must have been most formidable. The hospital, which was in excellent order, contained sick and wounded soldiers, the former suffering from rheumatism, the latter sent from Sebastopol. The enemy fired the magazine close at hand without caring for these unfortunate fellows, and every pane of glass in the windows was shattered to pieces by the explosion. The total number of guns taken at Yenikale was about twenty-five, of which ten were in a battery inside the old Genoese ramparts, four in a detached battery, and eleven lying partially dismounted about the works.
At about half-past six o'clock the batteries in the Bay of Kertch ceased firing, and the Russians abandoned the town. Dark pillars of smoke, tinged at the base with flame, began to shoot up all over the hill-sides. Some of them rose from the government houses and stores of Ambalaki, where we landed; others from isolated houses further inland; others from stores, which the retreating Russians destroyed in their flight. Constant explosions shook the air, and single guns sounded here and there continuously throughout the night. Here a ship lay blazing on a sandbank; there a farm-house in flames lighted up the sky, and obscured the pale moon with volumes of inky smoke.