Before the end of April, a few men of the corps assisted by working parties completed a hut for the general officer of the trenches on the right attack with stout timbers and sheeting and gave it as much proof with sand-bags and earth as practicable. A similar chamber was reared soon after for the general on the left. Considering its position it was a cozy quarter in the storm, and its social character was enhanced by the introduction of an old door and a glazed window screened from fire by a traverse. All that it wanted was a stove and the wreathing smoke from a chimney-pot to make it a palace for a peasant. The engineer hovel of the left attack—used as an office by each succeeding engineer as he took possession of the trenches—exhibited some points of needy refinement; for it not only possessed a door and a glazed sash, but a stove with a pipe leading through the splinter proof roof which boasted a covering of asphalted felt! From a sunken foundation the hut rose up under a broad parapet in the first parallel between Nos. 1 and 2 batteries, and was built chiefly of sand-bags with an interior nearly ten feet square fitted with the bare conveniences of seats and a desk—all, however, sufficiently rough to identify the structure with the rigours of a stern siege. In the area in front of the hut was a sort of engineer depôt from whence the tools and materials were distributed to the working parties. Meanwhile the sappers in small batches or in ones and twos were lost among the military operatives, distinguished by the badge of a piece of tracing tape around their caps. Usually in the 21-gun battery were found the greatest number and half a brigade or so of selected men could be counted in each of the new batteries on the right attack. These run from 10 to 14. On Greenhill the works also claimed a share of sapper labour, but in the batteries numbered 10 and 11 on the left, the parties, as far as strength was concerned, were more ostentatious.