compensated for his mishap by the reception he met with from a subaltern of the corps, who throwing aside the conventionalities which separate the soldier from the officer, gave him a place in his tent and entertained him hospitably. Three months after, this non-commissioned officer was killed at the Inkermann light-house battery. A few nights later, the seventh company quitted the heights under an assistant engineer—Mr. Newsome, who afterwards got a commission in the corps—to collect timber to be used for magazines and platforms in the mortar battery at Inkermann. Reaching the village unperceived, several of the men ascended the housetops, and throwing down the tiles, dislodged the beams and sheeting, whilst others ript up the floors and removed everything capable of serving the wants of an insatiable siege. Bearing loads far greater than under ordinary circumstances would have been allotted for carriage, the sappers turned their backs upon that desolate homestead; and, as if driven into the earth, bent under the pressure of their burdens. It was a severe night, and the nipping air so braced up the men that their power to bear was redoubled, but their progress with such weights was necessarily slow. Soon they reached a steep hill up which they clambered with a lagging tread and hard breath, retaining with difficulty their footing, for the slope was slippery. Nevertheless they gradually pushed up, till a heavy shot made them drop their loads, to seek, by prostration, a possible escape. Every one was down in an instant, and the hissing projectile plunged into the hill side two or three feet above the head of private A. Grant. Another such a shot was aimed at them before they reached the summit of the hill, but it soared far too high to do any injury. Quickened by the danger of their situation, and thus feeling less the heaviness of their burdens, the party jogged on at a greatly accelerated pace, and reached the camp unharmed. This was the only instance, it is said, of the Russians firing at night while the Inkermann works were in progress, and was no doubt due to the noise occasioned by the rattling of tiles and timbers in devastating the village. For some period in the new year, the weather continued so inclement that very little progress was made in the works. On several occasions the line parties could not be employed, for necessity more than commiseration returned them freezing to their tents. Directed by their officers, the sappers, only, held their posts and laboured as best they could against the stinging storms and winds which swept over the frosted hills. Many were frostbitten, several acutely; a few lost their limbs, and one man fell never to rise more. Yet amid all this severity they blasted the rock in many places to obtain cover, made loop-holes, erected gabion revetment, and where the drift had piled the snow in the more important excavations, removed it with almost impossible energy.[168]