Three days later, seventy men were employed on the left attack, forming, on the right extremity of the third parallel, a work for two 9-pounders. Four hours they had laboured at it, when daylight having exposed them, the field officer refused to permit the continuance of their services. As, however, it was important to push the work, Major Chapman, of the 20th regiment, the assistant engineer on duty, ordered ten sappers under lance-corporal Robert Hanson, to repair to the trench. It was a clear morning and the work exciting. Gabions and fascines had been laid by a previous party, so that the sappers were covered from musketry, though not from heavier missiles. As they were strengthening the parapet, the earth thrown up being seen by the enemy, a fire of every description of projectile, even links of chain, was hurled against it. In some measure to prevent accident, a “look-out man,” in turn, took his station at the head of the trench to peep round the hot corner. Sweeping with a quick eye the cordon of ordnance in front, the caution to “look out” came thick and fast. In time it was so rapidly reiterated, occasioning interruptions which did not coincide with the men’s notions of progress, that, preferring to toil without this species of questionable assistance, the “look out man” was withdrawn, and made to unite his strength with the shovellers. With faultless energy and confidence, they persevered in the work though harassed by an incessant fire, with grape in clusters, blown from mortars, dropping into the trench. Presently a shot crashed against the revetment, capsized three gabions and two fascines, wounded lance-corporal James Veal in the neck, and knocking down corporal Hanson, buried him beneath the rubbish. There was great reason to fear that the smash was fatal, and Major Chapman, who happened to be in the work at the moment, called out in the forlorn hope of receiving a reply, “Are you hurt, corporal?” Unexpectedly there was a movement in the mass; the gabions rolled lazily aside as the corporal struggled from the debris; and in springing to his feet he cheerfully exclaimed, “All right, sir!” The perils of the battery were of a nature to induce Major Chapman instantly to withdraw the sappers. Two nights after, the work was finished and its embrasures were opened. On the day of the 7th, lance-corporals Rinhy and Jenkins were building a magazine in No. 8 battery of the left attack. The timbers were just rising when, seeing a 13-inch shell approaching from the Flagstaff, the latter dashed between the uprights and screened himself behind a traverse. Rinhy, less fortunate, had to endure all the horrors of anticipated annihilation, for the shell, plunging towards him, passed with the swiftness of a meteor an inch or two from his back, and in bursting carried away the frame, without touching the carpenter.