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The two hundred sappers and miners came next, and Don Gabriel Peralta, with his Spanish company; brought up the rear. It was a wild night. Incessant lightning, alternately revealed and obscured the progress of the midnight march through the black waters, as the anxious Commander watched the expedition from the shore, but the soldiers were quickly swallowed up in the gloom.
Our obligations to him, to Colonel Gimat, to Colonel Laurens, and to each and all the officers and men, are above expression. Not one gun was fired, and the ardour of the troops did not give time for the sappers to derange them, and, owing to the conduct of the commanders and the bravery of the men, the redoubt was stormed with uncommon rapidity.
The St. George battery and that of the Palisade were opened at once upon them, the balls came plunging among the sappers and miners before they had time to throw up many spade-fulls of earth, and the whole party were soon dead or driven from the dyke. The survivors effected their retreat as they best could, leaving four of their ships behind them and three or four hundred men.
Ney, ignorant that Napoleon had already left Krasnoi, and that the whole Russian army barred his way, made another effort to force a passage. He planted his twelve guns on a height above the ravines, and sent forward several companies of sappers and miners to endeavour to carry the battery again. Gallantly they made their way up the hill through a storm of fire.
The defence had been arranged by Major Cedric Maxwell, of the Sappers; and though the huge perimeter, nearly eight miles, made its defence by so small a force a most difficult matter, the result proved how good his dispositions were. At the same time, the Boers came on with every confidence of victory, for they had a superiority in guns and an immense superiority in men.
The centre, under Colonel Dennie, consisted of the 13th, 500 strong; the left, of the 35th, under Colonel Monteith, mustering the same number of bayonets; and the right, under Captain Havelock, composed of one company of the 13th, another of the 35th, and the detachment of sappers under Lieutenant Orr, the whole amounting to 360.
After gliding across the trenches, he landed among some dug-outs inhabited by sappers, and made use of much the same vocabulary as when he crashed at Dovstone Marmaduke shot down several Hun machines during the weeks that followed, but on the very day of his posting for a decoration a Blighty bullet gave him a return ticket to England and a mention in the casualty list.
Captain Frome, too, now laid me under increased obligations by giving up his own servant, Corporal Coles of the Royal Sappers and Miners, upon my expressing a wish to take him with me, and the Governor sanctioning his going.
And it can only be realised when seen first hand. Let us leave them there for the time that battalion of the South Loamshires. Sally as the C.O. is generally known has talked with the Brigadier and the Brigade-Major. He knows that zero hour is 11.30 a.m.; he knows his objective Suffolk Trench; he knows the strong point at its northern end which the sappers are going to consolidate.
The same instant the Austrian officers were surrounded; the sappers rushing on the bridge cleared away the combustibles, and cut off the trains; and the cavalry, till now in concealment, pushing forward at a gallop, crossed the bridge, followed by the grenadiers in a run, before the Austrians, who saw their own officers mingled with the French, could decide on what was to be done, while Murat, springing on his horse, dashed forward at the head of the dragoons; and before five minutes elapsed the battery was stormed, the gunners captured, and Vienna won.
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