December 13, 1 p.m. The wind ceased about mid-day; it is now freezing sharply; but the sun is shining, and the sky is tolerably clear. Black tracks already appear in the white snow, as the men and carts toil across the plateau. In the distance, on the heights over the Tchernaya, the Russians can be seen at drill. Tliere is some reason to believe that the position from Inkermann to Aitodor is partly occupied by ]\Iilitia regiments, and no doubt they imdergo a good deal of goose-step these quiet times. The anis full of drumming and fifing and trumpeting. The regiments are getting up their bands again, and the exertion is generally distressing to the neighbourhood; but there is no use in writing to The Times on the subject.
It is, however, u'ritating to the last degree to be surrounded by drummers, who are sent to this part of the camp as a favourable spot for practice, and to be the unwilling auditor of first lessons on the bugle and French horn. The French are indefatigable at this work. Every one recoUects the three little drummers who are always " dubbing" away like mad at Capecure, on that little spot near the south pier of Boulogne. They are out here now, multiplied exceedingly, and as active in elbow and wrist as ever. It is a curious subject for the statist to ascertain when the French di-ummer is perfect in his art. As far as I can perceive, he must he a tolerably elderly man before he leaves off practice, and can only he enjoyed in perfection for a very brief period before he retires from the service altogether.
The Kusslan keep iip a pertinacious fii"e on the town. The reports of their guns shake my hut this fine day at the rate of about two a-minute, and the sound is tolerably loud with this wind. Sebastopol is a disagreeable place to go to on pleasui-e, for shot and shell are continually lobbing along the streets, houses are falling piecemeal, and the stones flying about from the shock of cannon-balls. The casualties, however, are very few, and the French have displayed great ingenuity in erecting comfortable magazines and shops in out-of-the-way parts of the town, where one can get a cup of coffee and a cigar without much danger. But to the uninitiated the roar of a ball and the twittering hiss of a shell fail to give zest to these luxuries.
It is no longer an occurrence of every week to go down to Sebastopol once or twice, and few people resort to the docks unless they are on duty, or have just come out, and are under the painful necessity of going en amateur. The whole establishment of a cantiniere went smash the other day through the operation of a shell, and, although it was tolerably well filled, the only damage done was to the poor proprietress, who lost her hand and an immense amoimt of crockery, comestibles, and customers. The labours of the Sappers and Miners have been very heavy to destroy the docks in making the mines, and it is to be hoped they will receive some extra reward for their laborious duties, which have only begun with the end of the siege.
The subaltern officers of Engineers have just grounds of complaint at the way in which the}' have been passed over. As they belong, like the Artillery, to a branch of the service in which promotion is regulated by senioritjs their rise is very slow, notwithstanding the heavy losses of the corps dui'ing the siege, and, beuig below the rank of captain, they cannot receive brevet rank. There is one officer, Lieutenant Neville, R.E., who has been on duty in the trenches imder fire upwards of one hundred times, and he is Lieutenant Neville still, and I doubt not there are several others in the same case. This is all the more galling when these officers behold captains, in the line, of a couple of years' service, and lieutenants, who were children when they entered the army, rising rapidly in their regiments.
It is all very well to say that when these officers become captains they will no doubt get brevet rank, but that is small consolation for those who will have years to wait for their promotion. To be valued, rewards should be prompt, certain, and discriminative. Ours generally are slow, but by no means sure, and are generic in distribution. Confessedly there were not more than 8000 and odd hundred British soldiers at Inkevmann, of whom 2000 were placed hors de combat. How many succumbed of the survivors of that day in the winter of 185 1, and in the subsequent battles of the trenches, I cannot say; but it is not too much, when we consider the condition to which the Guards, as well as several other regiments, such as the 63rd, were reduced, to tix the number entitled to the clasp under any discriminating rule, — such as that the regiments should have been under fire or engaged in support or reserve, — at GOOO men, and yet I understand that not less than 16,000 clasps, with the word " Inkermann" upon each, were distributed to the army.