As most of the works were ready it was considered advisable not to delay the second bombardment, which, on the morning of the 9th April, commenced on our side from 101 guns and mortars. Nearly all our batteries were in full play, whilst the Russians, opening by degrees a powerful array of ordnance from their extensive defences, checked the otherwise irresistible vigour of our well-served armaments. On the left attack, after blocking up a gap made for the passage of artillery, the workmen were withdrawn to the first parallel to place them out of immediate danger, leaving thirteen sappers with Captain Belson to attend to the urgent details of the fighting batteries. On the right attack there were 28 men of the corps dressed like their comrades on the left, in waterproofs and long boots. During the cannonading, 90 soldiers of the line fed the sappers with sand-bags for the 21-gun battery, and assisted them in covering the roof of a magazine in 12-mortar battery. Other sappers worked in No. 10 battery in providing channels for clearing away the mud which obstructed the artillerymen at the guns. The damage done by the enemy’s fire was comparatively trifling, and the breaches, in all vital cases, were promptly restored. Iron gabions made of the hoops of barrels and the bands of trusses of compressed hay, were, for the first time, opposed to discharges of heavy metal, and proved their excellence for defence. The Madras platform, still in use, only added to the cumulative facts of its inutility. The Russians fired about one shot to the besiegers’ three; yet the result of this battering fell marvellously short of what was expected. “The sappers behaved remarkably well” this day, and second-corporal James Edward McKimm and private Neil McInnes, of the corps, were mentioned in brigade orders for their energy and ardour in repairing the works in exposed situations.