its parapet lined with spectators. Five hundred yards beyond it, separated by a level space, stood the Malakoff, its ruined tower surrounded by earthen batteries ; and through the space between it and the Redan appeared the best built portion of the city, jutting out into the harbour, and near enough for the streets, with people walking in them, the marks of ruin from shot, the arrangement of the gardens, and the line of sunken ships, to be plainly visible. About forty bodies were removed from the front of the English Right Attack, among them that of the Albanian leader, partially stripped, and covered again with his white kilt and other drapery. In two hours the business was over, the soldiers on both sides had withdrawn within their lines, the flags were lowered, and the fire went on as before.
This was the only considerable attempt as yet made on the trenches, but small losses from fire occurred in them almost daily and nightly. At one time the men killed had been taken at night to the front of the works, and there buried, and a strange experience fell in consequence on a young engineer, destined to a place in the esteem of his country far beyond that of any other soldier of these latter generations, Charles Gordon. In carrying a new approach to the front, these graves lay directly across it, and he described how the working party had to cut their way straight through graves and occupants, and how great was the difficulty he found in keeping the men to their horrible task, which, however, was duly completed. He had a brother, Enderby
Russians recross the Tchernaya. 203
Gordon, on the staff of the artillery, to whom he used to relate his experiences ; among others, of strolls he was in the habit of taking at night far beyond our trenches, one of which led him up close to the outside of the Russian works, so that he could hear the voices of the men on the parapet. A singularly ghastly incident of these burials took place about this time. One night two men had carried the body of a comrade, just slain, on to the open ground for interment, and had finished digging the grave, and placing the body in it, when, as they were about to fill it in, a shot from the enemy, who had perhaps heard them at work, killed one of them. The survivor laid his comrade's body beside the other, buried both, and returned to the trench.
In the period to which this chapter relates several events of military importance had occurred, to have chronicled which, at their respective dates, would have broken the narrative of the siege. On the 6th December the troops which Liprandi had established in the valley of Balaklava were withdrawn across the Tchernaya, leaving only detachments of the three arms in the villages of Kamara and Tchorgoun, and a field work with guns to guard the bridge at Traktir. On the 3Oth December a considerable French force advanced up the valley, while the 42d Highlanders moved by the hills above, swept the residue of the enemy over the stream, and shelled the guns out of the bridge head, and the troops out of Tchorgoun. After destroying the Russian huts and forage, and capturing their cattle and
204 Arrival of Pelissier and Niel.
sheep, the troops returned to their camps. Access was thus once more gained to the WoronzofT road, and in time a good road was made connecting it with Balaklava.