If there were reason to complain of the want of fresh meat none could be alleged against the quantities of rations supplied. While the troops were suffering great privations, the sappers always had full provisions and “when warm clothing was available for them it was brought up without delay.” This arose from the mules furnished for the engineer field service having been planked up in sheds at Balaklava in the early campaign and carefully attended to.[182] In the fatal winter that followed, the engineer mules were thus protected from its rigours, while the unsheltered baggage animals of different corps, and even the troop horses, fell dead in frightful numbers at their tethers. The great storm of November, 1854, rendered the animals almost powerless and the little strength they possessed wholly gave way when the slightest pressure was applied to derive from their employment any urgent assistance. Nothing on the other hand baffled the few mules attached to the engineer department but the conveyance of the huts; and this was a service so extremely heavy, it was utterly beyond their capabilities. To corporal Matthew Stevens was attributed the preservation of the engineer transport stud. He had with him a small party of sappers who soon turned themselves into efficient drivers, and emulating the energy and care of the corporal, assisted to produce a result which became a striking incident of the campaign.[183] So effective an adjunct of the siege was the rifle screen, that on the left attack four pits commanding the Woronzoff ravine were commenced in front of the second parallel on the night of the 22nd April and daily additions were made to the number. A fortnight later other pits in the same attack were made extending from the right of the second parallel to the front of the third, and also from the right flank of No. 8 battery. The chain consisted of forty holes spotting the ground with light troops in snug and commanding positions. These were commenced by Lieutenant C. G. Gordon of the engineers, with a force of 180 linesmen and a proportion of 24 sappers who were that night allotted for the works. In time the pits became an enlarged item in the system of attack, and formed, occasionally, the starting points from which new zigzags or parallels were struck out. Old pits, moreover, which had been abandoned by the Russians—as the besiegers’ works compressed their circumvallation—were taken advantage of and turned against them. Corporal John Landrey, a very good sapper, was noticed for his zeal and intelligence in leading and instructing the working parties on the 24th, and sergeant Benjamin Castledine, while visiting a working party in the extended parallel to the right of the mortar battery on Gordon’s attack, received a bullet wound in the hand.