The British army is busily engaged roadmaking, hutbuilding, and drilling. Large parties go down every day to Sebastopol and return with timber, doors, window-frames, joists, slabs of marble and stonework, grates, glass, locks, iron, Stourbridge fu'ebricks, of which a large quantity was found, and various other articles of common use in camp, and the huts which arise on every side are models of ingenuity in the adaptation of Russian property to British and French uses. As yet, however, the vast majority of the soldiers are under canvas, and are likely to be so for a couple of months longer. The trenches — those monuments of patient suffering, of endurance, of courage — will soon be no more. The guns are withdrawn; indeed, they are now nearly all gone.
The gabions are going fast, for the men have received permission to use them for fuel — the earthworks Avill speedily disappear, and next spring few traces will be left of the existence of these memorable Avorks. It is melancholy, amid all these sounds of rejoicing and victory, to think that an army has been all but lost and swallowed up in these narroAV dykes, and that it Avas " done by mistake." Our engineers dreAV their lines, and to them they adhered, although the Russians showed theiu their error every day. After all, Avhen our attack Avas made, the men had to run over the open space for upwards of 200 yards. Let any one try to run such a distance over broken ground with a rifle and 50 rounds of ball cartridge, and see whether he will be in a good condition for hard fighting at the end of it.
The French had just 10 metres to run across. They had more men at work, and easier ground for their operations between the JMamelon and Malakhoff", but the question is, ought oiumen to have been called on for such a death run at all? The firing into the town is occasionally very heavy, and it is returned with spirit by the French mortars, and by a few guns in position. The roads advance slowly, but are solidly and well made as far as they go, and the railway is assuming an appearance of solidity and permanence wliich gives satisfactory assurances of its eftlciency for the muter. The number of sick officers anxious to retui-n home is not on the decrease. Many of those whose names appear in general orders were, however, suflerers in the attack of the 8th of September.
The propoiiion of men invalided on account of iU-health is about equal to the number of officers. Poor fellows, they, however, have no " private urgent affairs" to attend to, and that is the cause assigned for many leaves of absence. It is curious and interestmg to observe how rank and social position hr'nig with them special cares of business and the laboui'S of afiairs from which the lowlier classes are exempted. Thus, the officers of the Guards are harassed to death by " urgent private affairs," which can no how be settled anywhere but in lingland, and which will require their presence in that land of busuiess from this time till just the week after Christmas before there is the smallest chance of their satisfactory adjustment.
How the gallant fellows can manage to stay in the army and attend to their regimental duties with such delicate negotiations to conduct, such stupendous arithmetical investigations to make, such a coil of accomits to examine, such interviews to go through, such a constant pressure of affau-s to sustain, is inconceivable! Sometimes no less than three of them succumb on the same day, and appear in orders as victims to these cruel urgencies. There are some people in camp who maintain that the killing of grouse, partridges, pheasants, and salmon, is a necessary condition of existence, and that when these are combined with the pleasures of society, with a light course of opera, and the claims of the family, they constitute an urgent private affair quite strong enough to draw any man from the Crimea.
No one blames these officers for feeling so strongly that they are citizens. We should all like to get home if it were consistent with our duty, but some of our officers think they have nothing to do when once the fighting is over. I have not seen any version of the little affair at Kertch in which the 10th Hussars were engaged, but I have heard many vai'ious reports and statements on the subject, and it is said the despatch containing the particulars was lost between Balaklava and head-quarters. It is reported that a small force of the 10th went out to patrol the countiy towards Arabat, and that when marching in loose order they wore suddenly attacked by a strong party of Cossack cavalry, who succeeded ia killing two, wounding thi'ee or four, and taking 15 men prisoners.