In the early part of the day there had been a popular impulse to believe that an end of the affair would be made at night by a combined assault upon the Malakoff and the Redan. That both were within scope of capture was considered in camp as proved to demonstration. But the news of the suspension of arms dissipated the hope, and when the divisions got their orders for the night, it was no longer thought that aggression was likely, though defence might be. The enemy, with their wonted perseverance, had been making very comfortable use of their time, and when the firing recommenced, which it did instantly on the flags being lowered, a few minutes before six o'clock, it was plain that the Malakoff and Redan had both received a reinforcement of guns. Six and eleven were the numbers of remounted bouches de feu — exactness in such a calculation was not easy, for the Russians were laboriously artful in disguising the strength of their artillery, and frequently by moving guns from one embrasure to another make a single one play dummy for two or three. From six until nine o'clock the duel continued without special incidents; then there came a sudden splash of musketry, which lasted some few minutes and died away as unexpectedly.{288} Another trifling musketry diversion took place about three in the morning, to relieve the monotony of the great artillery, which kept up its savagery throughout the night — ten guns for one of the enemy's — but slacked a little towards morning. We had a great number of casualties during the night in our new position on the left, into which the Russians kept firing grape and canister from the batteries which protect the rear of the Redan. They also occupied the dismantled houses above the ravine, and leisurely took shot at our people from the windows. Not unnaturally, it was a subject of the bitterest anger and complaint among the soldiers that they had to stand still and be riddled, losing day by day a number which was swollen in a week to the dimensions of a battle-roll of killed and wounded.
Through the occupation and arming of the White Batteries, situated on the edge of the ridge of Mount Sapoune, the head of the harbour was more or less in our power. The Russians themselves seemed to acknowledge this by taking outside the boom the vessels which had before been lying in that direction, and would have been commanded from the works which the French were then constructing on the site of the White Batteries of the Russians. But this was not all. These new works were to act against the two Strand batteries which the Russians had behind the Mamelon, and which, not being much commanded by any of our works, could do a good deal of harm without being exposed to much danger. The construction of French works on the Mamelon brought us to about 500 yards from the Malakoff works; it gave us a footing on the plateau on which these works lie; it furnished us with the means of approaching the rear of them, and at the same time of operating successfully on the annoying batteries in the rear of the Mamelon, which, taken thus in a cross fire, could not long resist. The Quarry was scarcely more than 200 yards from the Redan. The battery which it contained worked successfully on the six-gun battery in the rear between the Redan and the Malakoff Tower works; and from the advanced posts our riflemen were able to prevent a good number of the guns in the Redan from working.
But, for all this, the keeping of the Quarry was, especially in the beginning, not at all an easy thing; not so much, perhaps, from the attempts of the Russians to retake a point of such vital importance to them, but rather on account of the fire to which it was exposed from other Russian batteries besides the Redan. The Garden Battery on our flank, the six-gun battery in the rear, and the Malakoff works could touch it on nearly all sides. Moreover, the work, when it was taken being directed against us, offered very little protection against the riflemen of the Redan, until its face could be converted.