In allusion to the officers and men under this date ‘The Times’ thus speaks of their unshrinking labours:—“It is impossible to deny to the Russian engineers great credit for the coolness with which they set about repairing damages under fire; but words cannot do more than justice to the exertions of our own men and to the engineer officers and sappers engaged in this most perilous duty. When an embrasure is struck and injured it is the business of the sappers to get into the vacant space and repair the damage, removing the gabions, &c., under fire, and without the least cover from shot, shell, or riflemen. Our engineer officers have frequently set the example to their men in exposing themselves when not called upon to do so; and I believe that, as yet, there has not been a single instance in which a gun has been silent owing to damage done to an embrasure. The officers and men charged with this dangerous work have not waited for the cover of night to effect repairs, but have carried them on in the face of the enemy.”[178] This eulogium is corroborated by a conversation held between two officers of the engineers, in which one exclaimed to the other, “How admirably and cool these sappers behave under fire. They are really good men and brave soldiers.” As the night crept on 900 of the line and 89 sappers marched into the trenches, who, scattered among the batteries, left no point unstrengthened, no embrasure unequal to its wonted work. Everywhere the platforms obtained fixity, and the gaps which had been made in the parapets for the passage of cumbersome guns were filled up before the darkness sped. Much shattered was the Gordon battery, and its fascines, broken at the bands, were strewn in waste about the gorges, while the sand-bags were ripped up and disembowelled by every telling shot and tearing splinter. Iron gabions and fresh sand-bags were pressed into the embrasures to patch up their furrowed cheeks, and the shot-holes behind were plugged up with earth. A new sand-bag battery for four guns on the right attack was founded this night in rear of the left communication from the 8-gun battery to the left boyau. Much would have been done to raise it, but the night was dismally dark, and as rain was falling the men straggled on the road and loitered in their tasks. With fruitless effect the engineers and sappers tried to awaken in the workmen something like passable animation. Nevertheless 1,600 sand-bags reached the site and the sappers tossed and packed them in their places with nonchalant dexterity. Though much annoyed by fire from opposing rifle-screens, four men, superintending 100 of the infantry, made good progress in rendering defensible the advanced works on the left of the second parallel across the Woronzoff road, and six sappers in the 8-gun battery first relieved it of the debris which choked up the embrasures and then masked them. Early in the morning private Joseph McAsh was killed.