Our losses were severe, and they were not alleviated by the consolations of victory. No less than 22 officers and 247 men were killed, 78 officers and 1,207 men were wounded. The French lost 39 officers killed and 93 wounded; 1,600 rank and file killed or taken prisoners, and about the same number wounded — so that the loss of the Allies, on the 18th of June, amounted to nearly 5,000 officers and men. The Russians admitted a loss of 5,800; but it is remarkable in their return that the proportion of their officers killed is very much less than ours. In our army one officer was killed to every eleven men — one was wounded to every fifteen. In the French army one officer was killed to thirty men, and one was wounded to every sixteen men. In the Russian army the proportion of killed was about one officer to forty-nine men — of wounded, one officer to thirty-one men. General Jones was wounded over the trench. General Eyre was disabled by a severe cut on the head, but kept with his men till they were established in the Cemetery.
The detachments from the Naval Brigade consisted of four parties of sixty men each, one for each column, but only two of them went out, the other two being kept in reserve; they were told off to carry scaling-ladders and wool-bags, and to place them for our storming parties. Captain Peel, who commanded, was wounded. His aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Wood, midshipman of H.M.S. Queen, though badly wounded, got up to the abattis, and rendered himself so conspicuous for a gallantry of which he had given several proofs on previous occasions, that Lord Hardinge presented him with a commission of the 13th Light Dragoons on his expressing a desire to exchange into the army. In No. 1 party, Lieutenants Urmston, Dalyell, and Parsons, were wounded. In No. 3, Lieutenant Cave was wounded, and Lieutenant Kidd killed. No. 2 and No. 4 party did not advance, and lost no officer. When the men retreated, overwhelmed by the storm from the enemy's battery, several officers and men were left behind wounded. Lieutenant Kidd got into the trench all safe, and was receiving the congratulations of a brother officer, when he saw a wounded soldier lying out in the open. He at once exclaimed — "We must go and save him!" and leaped over the parapet in order to do so. He had scarcely gone a yard when he was shot through the breast, and died an hour after. A private soldier of the 33rd, a native of Cork, named Richard Worrell, displayed the most touching devotion on the same occasion. When the regiment returned to the trenches it was discovered that a young officer named Heyland was missing. The enemy's guns were sweeping the front of the trenches. Worrell did not hesitate for a moment. "I'll go out," said he, "and bring him in if he's{295} wounded, or die beside him." He kept his word. His body was found pierced with balls, close to that of his officer.
All the advantage we gained was the capture of the Cemetery, and the small Mamelon near it. The French sent over an engineer to examine the ground, and as that officer expressed an opinion that it was desirable to hold the place with a view to ulterior defensive works being erected upon it, General Eyre was assured that a strong body of men would be marched into it at night. As these troops never arrived, Colonel Adams retired from the Cemetery at night, leaving only a picket, which was also withdrawn in compliance with the instructions General Eyre received from head-quarters, which were to the effect that if the French did not occupy the work our troops were to withdraw. On the following morning, Lieutenant Donnelly of the Engineers heard that the position for which we had paid so dearly was not in our possession. He appreciated its value — he saw that the Russians had not yet advanced to reoccupy it, begged and borrowed some thirty men, with whom he crept into the Cemetery. As soon as the armistice began, the Russians flocked down to the Cemetery, which they supposed to be undefended, but to their great surprise they found our men posted there, and in the evening the party was strengthened, and the Allies constructed most valuable works and batteries there.
The natural consequence, in civilized warfare, of such a contest as that recorded above, is an armistice to bury the dead. It was our sad duty to demand it next day, for our dead lay outside our lines, and there were no Russian corpses in front of the Redan or Malakoff. We hoisted a white flag in the forenoon, but there was no such emblem of a temporary peace displayed by the Russians. Officers and soldiers eager to find the bodies of their comrades, waited patiently and sadly for the moment when friendship's last melancholy office could be performed. At last it became known that the armistice was to take place at four o'clock in the afternoon.