During the next night the mouths of No. 7 battery, on the left attack, were cut by a strong party of sappers, but the deep mud in the excavations did not admit of the guns being moved into position, so that in the interim the openings were blinded with sand-bag screens. Extra exertions were made in every work for an impending bombardment. All the sappers available for duty, including those even who had been relieved from the front at six o’clock in the morning, were dispersed through the batteries, mending the soaked embrasures and parapets. The weather had been tempestuous, and the rain, which fell as in a storm, flooded the trenches. The winds were howling and driving, and the cold very great. To work under such disadvantages was exceedingly hard. “Man or beast,” says ‘The Times,’[174] “could not remain without some shelter. Not a man is now out, except the shivering camp sentinels and the men employed in the batteries.” ----- Footnote 165: The siege passed and peace returned without the chance of using them. Mr. Deane, the subaqueous engineer, was sent to the Crimea to carry out services in connection with his profession. After Sebastopol had fallen he recovered about thirteen guns sunk in the inner harbour. Private John Williams, an excellent diver, who had been employed at the ‘Royal George,’ under Sir Charles Pasley, pushed into the idle dress one day when Mr. Deane was away and dived, bringing up, as the fruit of his exertions, a brass 8-pounder field-piece and a gun-carriage, with harness for horses attached. This was the only opportunity, and a stolen one it was, that he, or any sapper, had of proving his efficiency in submarine operations. Footnote 166: Granted by the Queen under authority, dated 12th January, 1855. See ante, pp. 185-187. Footnote 167: The bridge was thrown, under the direction of Major Bent, by the sappers and miners, and a party of French pontoneers. The duty of the seamen was confined to the nautical arrangements for the undertaking, which comprised the labour of bringing the boats and securing them stem and stern. Footnote 168: