Passing on to the night of the 17th, when 80 sappers were in the lines—28 being on the right and 52 on the left—corporal Joseph J. Stanton and four leading men, with 200 of the infantry, were detailed for the extension of the left demi-parallel situated between the third parallel and Egerton’s rifle-pit under Captain King of the engineers. The little brigade crept silently to the head of the sap, and after placing the gabions crammed them with sand-bags passed from hand to hand. As the sappers steadily moved on, the working party broke the ground and increased the cover. In this way, though the soil was very rocky, about a hundred gabions obtained a footing before morning. It was hot work to advance even the length of a yard, and gabion after gabion torn from the row was gallantly replaced. Constant volleys from the rifle-pit in front compelled the men to proceed with the greatest caution and silence. Persevering in this way till reaching the brow of the hill, they were stopped by an old Russian rifle-screen, which was immediately reversed by transferring the large gabions and sand-bags forming the original revetment to the opposite side. During the operation Captain King was severely wounded in the thigh and expired a few days after. Three of the sappers were also wounded—privates Alexander McCaughey, John Limming, and George Hobson: the last was wounded in the arm, had three or four bullets through his greatcoat, and the frog of his waist-belt carried away. Among the workmen there were five injured. Best able to judge of the exertions of the party, Lieutenant-Colonel Tylden thus wrote of them:—“The conduct of the sappers under Captain King and the working party under Major Welsford, 97th regiment, exposed the whole time to a most galling and dangerous fire, was admirable.”