With all these shifts, from the inadequacy of material resources to carry on the works, such was the recklessness of the soldiers in seeking means to afford them a modicum of comfort, that the sand-bags were constantly abstracted from the trenches to line their trousers and gaiter their legs; and when wood could not be readily procured, they made no scruple in frosty weather, of purloining fascines and gabions to light their fires. Mandates against such practices were disregarded, and vigilance was no match for men driven by cold to such extremities. On the 24th October, a battery for three guns and a 10-inch mortar was opened on the left above the picket-house to destroy a two-decker lying snugly in the inner harbour. A few red-hot shot being sent into her, she hastily moved off, and the battery was quickly turned to swell the general armament against the enemy’s land works. The same night two privates were out in some advanced works tracing a battery under Major Gordon. When returning by a whistle-signal from the Major, they were mistaken for Russians, and fired upon by a party of the 79th Highlanders. The result was that private James Bland, a good sapper, was struck down by a rifle-shot which passed through both his thighs. It was not long before the Madras traversing platform, considered to be the specific for a great siege, was shown to be a failure. From the hard and uneven bottom of the trench the platforms were, to save them from injury and secure their efficiency, laid upon sand-bags well tamped, but the violent and sudden action of the guns in their recoil shivered the platforms to pieces. A rude substitute was expeditiously furnished by tearing down some dilapidated wooden houses in the neighbourhood of the camp; and resorting to the old expedient of sleepers and floors, the platforms, so prepared by the sapper carpenters, were found to be far less liable to derangement than the engineering-exotic from Madras. While the Russians and our allies experienced very heavy losses in the destruction of their magazines, no accident whatever occurred to the English powder-magazines, “although more than once exposed to the test of the fall and explosion of a 12-inch shell.”[161] Offering, as the record does, a tribute of credit to the efficiency of the contrivance, it is no less a testimonial to the skill of the sappers, who, in consequence of the special nature of the service, constructed the magazines themselves. The magazines on the left were constructed on the established model, in places assigned to them by the old engineers, but on the right the ammunition was dispersed in sheltered spots in small receptacles attached to the parapets of the different batteries. The large depôts of ammunition were formed in the caves of the neighbouring ravine; and all the magazines were well protected by sand-bags.