On Easter Sunday, the 8th April, orders were given for opening fire next morning. The mortars, absent on the former occasion, were now a prominent feature in the attacking batteries, placed behind lofty and solid parapets, and hurling their great missiles high into the air, to drop thence into an enemy's work, and there explode. The various character of the soil of the plains must now once more be noted, as it very seriously affected the siege operations carried on in it. On the slopes of Mount Inkerman, and in our Right and Left attacks, especially the right, the soil was thin, the rock lay immediately below, and the workmen painfully scooped an often insufficient cover, frequently by dint of blasting; and the want of earth for parapets was in many cases supplied by sandbags filled elsewhere. But on Mount Rodolph, and to its left, the soil was favourable, easily trenched, and supplying earth in quantity sufficient to rear the parapets high, and thicken them to solidity ; and thus the French had been able on that side to sap up and push their trenches to within 160 yards of the
2 TO Another Cannonade.
Flagstaff Bastion, while our fire was still mainly delivered (though some mortar batteries had been formed in advance), as in October, from the batteries first constructed, Gordon's and Chapman's.
When the sun should have appeared next morning, a dense mist covered the plains. It lifted a little, and at half-past six our guns, as they caught sight of the opposing batteries, opened fire, and the French soon followed. The Russians were so completely unprepared that it was twenty minutes before they began to reply. A strong wind swept volumes of the smoke from the Allied trenches over the Russian works, and must have added greatly to the difficulties of the men who worked the guns there. They were slack in replying; the guns in the redoubted Mamelon fired slowly, so did those of the Malakoff, as if insufficiently manned, though really owing to dearth of powder ; and a face of the Redan was silenced. On the other hand, the French breached the salient of the Central Bastion, and inflicted immense damage and loss of men on the Flagstaff Bastion. When the sun went down, the fire of the Allied guns ceased. Not so those of their mortars, which did not depend on keeping sight of their object, and all night the great shells climbed the sky, and descended on their prey. Nevertheless, the works were again in a condition of defence next morning. On this second day the White Works were reduced to silence and ruin. On the nth the English and French batteries directed on the Mamelon extinguished its fire, and the Malakoff scarcely fired at all, while the Flagstaff Bastion
Severity of Fire upon the Fortress. 2 1 1
had been again and again reduced to the direst extremity. Therefore, in momentary expectation of an assault, the Russian troops were kept at hand in, or close to, the lines of defence, and as a consequence suffered heavily They were subjected to terrible trials, from which the Allies were exempt, for the hurricane of iron which besides ruining works dismounting guns, and exploding magazines, swept without intermission through the whole interior space of the fortress, where it had already razed the barracks and public buildings of the suburb to the ground, and choked the streets of the city with destroyed masonry, could not but tell heavily on uncovered troops.