The roads indeed, even then, when we had no trenches, no prospects of an attack, no want of labour — the roads were even then objects of much interest to us all. The whistling locomotives on the railway — the "Alliance," the "Victory" — which recalled to us the familiar sounds of Wolverhampton or of Swindon, and made us believe for the moment that we were in a civilized country, were not to be taken as material guarantees for the possession of material comforts in the coming winter. Mr. Beatty, with small means at his command, placed the railway on an excellent basis, as far as wood, iron, and stone could secure it.[34] The soundness of his judgment in laying out the line was confirmed by Mr. Doyne's adoption of a course very nearly parallel to it throughout for the grand main road between Balaklava and the camp. Mr. Beatty was obliged to retire from a post in which he rendered services not only to the army collectively, but to many individuals in it, who will always retain a deep sense of his kindness and friendly assistance in times of domestic difficulty about huts and transports, in consequence of ill-health, which not long after proved fatal to him.
Mr. Doyne, after careful examination, found that it would require much less labour to make a new and good road between{442} Balaklava and Kadikoi by a different route, than to attempt to repair the old one while the traffic was passing over it. Accordingly, a main drain was cut down the centre of the valley, running into the head of Balaklava harbour, to intercept all water flowing from the east of it, and free the road and railway drains rapidly from the rain-water. The road was made parallel to the railway, the material over which it passed being deep, spongy, vegetable soil, easily drained in its natural state, but very retentive if worked up under wet; drains four feet deep were cut at forty feet apart, and the surface between rounded to a foot higher at the centre. Cross-drains were cut at every forty-four yards, connecting main-drains, and the large stone pitching, twenty-eight feet wide, was filled in with smaller stones, and afterwards macadamized. Before laying on the pitching, the whole traffic of the camp was turned over the formed surface for five days to beat it down, and to consolidate it, a strong force of navvies being employed in the morning and evening to keep up the proper form. This course proved perfectly successful — the surface was quite smooth when the metalling was laid on, and consequently the rain ran freely off without penetrating the soil. On this section there was laid down about 13,000 tons of hard limestone pitching and metalling on a length of one mile.
From Kadikoi to the stationary engine the old road up the Vinoy ravine was so steep (1 in 12), and thus liable to be washed away, and the ground over which the down line was prepared to pass was so bad (in some places 1 in 7), that Mr. Doyne determined to abandon both, and to make a new road, round the eastern base of Frenchman's Hill, nearly parallel with the railway, and Sir Richard Airey gave his assent to the change. Here for a considerable distance the road was terraced out in the hill-side, formed of hard carboniferous limestone rock, and a clear metalled roadway was obtained from twenty to twenty-five feet wide throughout. In the next section, to Mrs. Seacole's hut, the old French road was widened, deep drains cut, the centre raised, and a deep coat of limestone metalling laid on.