I entered along with them. The parapets were high inside the work, and were of a prodigious thickness. It was evident the Mamelon was overdone. It was filled with traverses and excavations, so that it was impossible to put a large body of men into it, or to get them in order in case of an assault. The stench from the dead, who had been buried as they fell, was fearful; and bones, and arms, and legs stuck out from the piles of rubbish on which you were treading. Many guns were also buried, but they did not decompose. Outside were plenty of those fougasses, which the Russians planted thickly. A strong case containing powder was sunk in the ground, and to it was attached a thin tube of tin or lead, several feet in length; in the upper end of the tube was enclosed a thin glass tube containing sulphuric or nitric acid. This portion of the tube was just laid above the earth, where it could be readily hid by a few blades of grass or a stone. If a person stepped upon it he bent the tin tube and broke the glass tube inside. The acid immediately escaped down the tin tube till it met a few grains of chlorate of potash. The mine exploded, and not only destroyed everything near it, but threw out a quantity of bitumen, with which it was coated, in a state of ignition. I very nearly had a practical experience of the working of these mines, for an English sentry, who kindly warned me off, did not indicate the exact direction till he found he was in danger of my firing it, when he became very communicative upon the subject. They made it disagreeable walking in the space between the works.
I turned into the second English parallel on my left, where it joined the left of the French right. What a network of zigzags, and parallels, and traverses! You could see how easy it was for men to be confused at night — how easy to mistake.
I walked out of the trench of the Quarries under the Redan, in which we had then established a heavy battery, at the distance of 400 yards from the enemy's embrasures. The ground sloped down for some few hundred yards, and then rose again to the Redan. It was covered with long rank grass and weeds, large stones, tumuli, and holes ranging in depth from three feet and a half or four feet, to a foot, and in diameter from five feet to seven or eight feet, where shells had exploded. It is impossible to give a notion of the manner in which the earth was scarred by explosions, and shot. The grass was seamed in all directions, as if ploughs, large and small, had been constantly drawn over it.
The litter-bearers were busy. Most of our dead were close to{298} the abaths of the Redan, and many, no doubt, had been dragged up to it at night for plunder's sake. Colonel Yea's body was found near the abattis on the right of the Redan. His head was greatly swollen, and his features, and a fine manly face it had been, were nearly undistinguishable. Colonel Shadforth's remains were discovered in a similar state. Sir John Campbell lay close up to the abattis. It was but the very evening before his death that I saw him standing within a few feet of his own grave. He had come to the ground in order to attend the funeral of Captain Vaughan, an officer of his own regiment (the 38th), who died of wounds received two days previously in the trenches, and he laughingly invited me to come and lunch with him next day at the Clubhouse of Sebastopol. His sword and boots were taken, but the former was subsequently restored by a Russian officer. The body was interred on Cathcart's Hill — his favourite resort, where every one was sure of a kind word and a cheerful saying from the gallant Brigadier.
The bodies of many a brave officer whom I had known in old times — old times of the war, for men's lives were short in the Crimea, and the events of a life were compressed into a few hours — were borne past us in silence, and now and then men with severe wounds were found still living. The spirit of some of these noble fellows triumphed over all their bodily agonies. "General!" exclaimed a sergeant of the 18th Royal Irish to Brigadier Eyre, as he came near the place in the Cemetery where the poor fellow lay with both his legs broken by a round shot, "thank God, we did our work, any way. Had I another pair of legs, the country and you would be welcome to them!" Many men in hospital, after losing leg or arm, said they "would not have cared if they had only beaten the Russians." The wounded lay in holes made by shells, and were fired at by the Russian riflemen when they rolled about. Our men report that the enemy treated them kindly, and even brought them water out of the embrasures. They pulled all the bodies of officers within reach up to the abattis, and took off their epaulettes and boots, but did not strip them.