On the outbreak with Russia a detachment of the Sappers and Miners was sent out with the Baltic fleet, and a second company was despatched to the Aland Islands. They played an important part in the destruction of the forts and the capture of Bomarsund. Other detachments were sent to Turkey, and did good service at Gallipoli, Boulair, and Ibridgi, winning the “entire approbation” of Sir George Brown. At Scutari, Varna, Derno, and Rustchuk they were still further distinguished. Before Sebastopol, when shot and shell swept furiously into the trenches, the conduct of the men was everything that could be desired. “The country,” wrote Lord Raglan, “was covered with water; the trenches extremely muddy, their condition adding greatly to the labours of the men employed in the batteries, chiefly sailors, artillerymen, and sappers. _They conducted their duties admirably._” Everywhere in posts of danger were the Sappers; here piling up hides and fixing gabions; there fixing platforms, renewing sleepers, and fastening bolts; here crawling on the earth, more like a gnome than a man, but busy with pick and shovel, under a shower of rifle bullets; there black with gunpowder, blasting the rock to widen the trench; there the bright hammer of the Sapper plies on the newly-reared parapet, and affords a mark for the enemy; here the horn lantern of the Sapper gives feeble light to the busy workman, but a sure target to the foe; everywhere, in battery, trench, and mine, the Sapper is the centre of each party, toiling at his hazardous avocation through the long dark night. While the French amused their leisure with private theatricals, getting up an impromptu theatre, the English Sappers built a church—built it entirely of siege apparatus, the materials so arranged that they were only in store, ready for use at a moment’s notice: scaling ladders, gabions, fascines, timbers ready cut and shaped for gun platforms, a few planks and pieces of rope. Two scaling ladders locked into each other at the top, formed at certain intervals the columns which separated the aisles from the body of the church and bore up the roof. The framework of the outer wall was made of long upright timbers which leant against the summits of each set of ladders respectively, and were secured by cords. Across these a few joist beams were lashed, and the outer wall of gabions in a great degree rested on these horizontal supports. The roof was made by the platform timbers laid between the tops of the ladders on each side, and at right angles to these, fascines were laid in regular rows until a complete covering—but one admitting of free ventilation—was formed. There solemn service was often held, and good words spoken by good and brave men—with the Union Jack for a pulpit cloth.