The road was crowded with Frenchmen, returning with paltry plunder from Sebastopol, and with files of Russian prisoners, many of them wounded, and all dejected, with the exception of a fine little boy, in a Cossack's cap and a tiny uniform greatcoat, who seemed rather pleased with his kind captors. There was also one stout Russian soldier, who had evidently been indulging in the popularly credited sources of Dutch courage, and who danced all the way into the camp with a Zouave. There were ghastly sights on the waj', too, — Russians who had died, or were dying as they lay, brought so far towards the hospitals from the fatal Malakhoff. Passing through a maze of trenches, of gabionnades, and of zigzags and parallels, by which the French had worked their sure and deadly way close to the heart of the Russian defence, and treading gently among the heaps of dead, where the ground bears full tokens of the bloody fray, we come at last to the head of the French sap.
It is barely ten yards from that to the base of the huge sloping mound of earth which rises full twenty feet in height above the level, and shows in every direction the grinning muzzles of its guns. The tricolor waves placidly from its highest point, and already the French are busy constructing a semaphore on the top. Step briskly out of the sap — avoid those poor mangled heroes who are lying all round, and come on. There is a deep ditch at your feet, some twenty or twentytwo feet deep, and ten feet broad. See, here is the place where the French crossed — here is their bridge of planks, and here they swarmed in upon the unsuspecting defenders of the Malakhoff. They had not ten yards to go.
We had two hundred, and were then out of breath. Were not planks better than scaling-ladders? See how easily the French crossed. You ohserve on your right hand, as you issue from the head of the French trench, a line of gabions on the ground running up to this bridge. That is a flying sap, which the French made the instant they got out of the trench into the MalakhoJf, so that they were enabled to pour a continuous stream of men into the works, with comparative safety from the flank fii-e of the enemy. In the same way they at once dug a trench across the work inside, to see if there were any galvanic wires to fire mines. Mount the parapet and descend — of what amazing thickness are these embrasures!
From the level of the ground inside to the top of the parapet cannot be less than eighteen feet. There are eight rows of gabions piled one above the other, and as each row recedes towai'ds the top it leaves in the ledge below an excellent hanqiiette for the defenders. Inside the sight is too terrible to dwell upon. The French are carrying away their own and the Russian wounded, and there are four distinct piles of dead formed to clear the way. The ground is marked by pools of blood, and the smell is already noisome; swarms of flies settle on dead and dying; broken muskets, torn clothes, caps, shakos, swords, bayonets, bags of bread, canteens, and haversacks, are lying in indescribable confusion all over the place, mingled with heaps of shot, of grape, bits of shell, cartridges, case and canister, loose powder, official papers, and cooking tins.
The traverses ai-e so high and deep that it is almost impossible to get a view of the whole of the Malakhoff from any one spot, and there is a high mound of earth in the middle of the work, either intended as a kind of shell proof, or the remains of the old White Tower. The guns, which to the number of sixty were found in the work, are all ships' guns, and mounted on ships' carriages, and worked in the same v/ay as ships' guns. There are a few oldfashioned, oddly-shaped mortars. Look around the work, and you will see that the strength of the Eussian was his weakness — he fell into his own bomb-proofs. In the parapet of the work may be observed several entrances — very narrow outside, but descending and enlarging downwards, and opening into rooms some four or five feet high, and eight or ten square.
These are only lighted from the outside by day, and must have been pitcii dark at night, unless the men were allowed lanterns. Here the garrison retired when exposed to a heavy bombardment. The odour of these narrow chambers is villanous, and the ail" reeks with blood and abominations unutterable. There n2 are several of these place?, and they might bid defiance to the heaviest mortars in the world: over the roof is a layer of ships' masts, cut into junks, and deposited carefully; then there is over tliem a solid layer of earth, and above that a layer of gabions, and above that a pile of earth again. In one of tiiese dungeons, which is excavated in the solid rock, and was probably underneath the old White Tower, the officer commanding seems to have lived.