Find our Jacks queer fellows; they deal in horses or anything else, and as soon as they come out of the trenches they are all over the soldiers’ camps, doing work for the officers, repairing tents and that sort of thing, receiving part payment in grog, and then share it with the first “soger” they meet. I avoid too many restrictions, as long as men appear at the 10 A.M. muster, properly dressed, with their arms cleaned and correct, with correct numbers of the men and battery they have to relieve. They are then dismissed, and find their own way by trenches or over the open. In a body they are pretty sure to draw the enemy’s fire. [Sidenote: In Camp, July.] In our camp we are tolerably comfortable. My tent is pitched on a patch of ground on the edge of a hill. There is a long open avenue in front, on either side are the tents of the officers and seamen, which they decorate in the most fantastic way. All sorts of devices for weathercocks, etc. The shells that annoy us most are those that burst in the air. We are very close to one another in some places, but I expect we shall soon shut the Russians up, as they fire very wild when fired at; our fellows are as steady as ever; the more casualties, the more jokes are cracked! In front of our batteries, between us and the Redan and Malakoff Towers, are the trenches, and the Quarries, formerly a Russian position--taken by us before Inkerman, at present held by the guards and other troops. While no particular bombardment is going on, our orders are, to watch the enemy’s batteries, and only fire on them when they fire on our advanced parties in the trenches, so that the soldiers are, in a measure, partly under our protection. In this way we get some pretty shooting. A shell from the Redan bursts over our soldiers in the trenches; bang goes an 8-inch shell from the sailors’ battery, generally right into the embrasure, from which the mischief came. Another shell reaches them from our Left Attack. The French, too, take it up and pop one into them from the Mamelon, and then for the next half-hour a general scrimmage takes place, exciting to a degree. A very little precaution teaches you to know, by every gun that the enemy fires, whether they are shot or shell. The shot we do not care for. I saw one of our Jacks make a low bow to a shot that he saw coming directly at him: at the right moment he bobbed his head, and it passed about a foot above his body. There are small hollow places on ground above our batteries in which sailors are employed making gabions: having expended their materials the bluejackets were amusing themselves by running at one another with the gabions over their heads, when an enemy’s shell exploded without serious damage to any one. Most of the shot strike the parapet and throw a cloud of dust, dirt, and small stones into our batteries. Each day I have been so covered that you could not have told the proper colour of my dress. The shot