On shore the hurricane was not so calamitous, but the tents were all torn up and blown to a distance. Only one solitary marquee remained to mark the site of the encampment. In common with the army the sappers and miners felt the shock of the storm, and were left shivering on the heights, unclad and comfortless. Those in the trenches experienced equal misery, but their zeal in the prosecution of the works was only checked by the fury of the raging wind and the deluging rain. The road to Balaklava soon became one long morass, and both man and horse, in travelling to the port, had to wade the distance up to their knees in mud. From this time the suffering and privations of the troops considerably increased in extent and severity; but, borne with uncomplaining endurance and fortitude, earned for them the abiding admiration and sympathies of their countrymen. Two days after the conflict at Inkermann, parties of the corps were allotted for the duty of raising appropriate field-works to protect the right, which, shortly after, were increased by the fourth company encamped on the heights. Ill able to spare the men from the general works, the seventh company under Captain Gibb was removed from Gallipoli to take part in the operation. Arriving at Balaklava on the 28th November, the company reinforced the camp before Sebastopol on the 2nd December. Until the 17th, it was employed in the work of the trenches forming the ‘right attack,’ but on the following day it moved to the heights of Inkermann to complete the approaches against the town, and to erect batteries to oppose those of the enemy on the side of the Tchernaya. The fourth company being relieved, was returned to the operations of the right attack. At these lines the sappers, whose numbers varied between 58 and 31, worked only by day, except in a few special instances when the firing of the enemy was too hot and accurate to admit of day labour being carried on with any chance of success. The chief of their work was performed in the parallel, Redoubte du 5me Novembre, and the Mortar and St. Laurent’s batteries. They also laid the platforms, formed the embrasures and traverses, and restored them when injured. Two magazines in the St. Laurent’s battery, constructed by the French of indifferent rubble, were so damaged by shells that both were rebuilt by the English sappers in a serviceable style, with a roof of sand-bags and fascines, covered with a thick substratum of well-tamped earth. Relieved from duty one afternoon, the party was thrown into the trenches at night to level the top of the parapet. Though few in number, they worked with so much energy, that the object of their employment was fully accomplished in the darkness. Another night they crept down into the glen on the right, and tearing down some Russian houses, the timber brought away with them was afterwards turned to account for platforms, &c. In the general business of the trenches they were much impeded by the severity of the weather.