The loss sustained by the British was 1 officer and 5 men killed; 1 officer and about 30 men wounded. The four sappers being unarmed, were withdrawn to preserve them from danger. Where sand-bag revetments had been used, the havoc committed by the tempest was general. Want of slope was the cause. Being early constructions, they had not shared in the improvements which experience had subsequently introduced. Some of the works, loosened by degrees, fell down and encumbered the trench. The surgeon’s hut was a ruin. Sixty-four sappers were appointed to the trenches on the 12th May, to make good the damages. In a day or two the medical quarter in No. 2 battery on the left was rebuilt by 17 sappers; the huts for the generals were repaired and strengthened; the embrasures and magazines mended, and all the revetments strongly bolstered up and properly battered. The draining, moreover, was enlarged and considerable advancement made in all the details of the new batteries. Blasting rock on the left was a special feature in the day’s labour. Twelve sappers were employed in the duty in No. 11 battery, and in front of the inner ammunition cave, from which they also constructed a ladder to the shaft leading to the trench above. Showers were frequent during the day and heavier in the following night. No working party was provided, but 20 sappers under Lieutenant Drake, who seemed to be invulnerable against inclemency, were far away in advance draining the approach to the right rifle-pit in the Gordon attack. Against the darkness and rain they endured with commendable resolution, and though restricted by the storm in their exertions, nevertheless afforded an instalment of relief to the screen. A few of the most energetic and skilful also rebuilt, in the 21-gun battery, an embrasure which had been washed down by the rain. So went on the works to the 15th, when private Reuben Wiles, one of a few miners employed in cutting rock at the caves on the left attack, in connection with the left boyau, was wounded. During the preceding night, the heavy firing from the Creek batteries had upset several of the gabions and made a wide breach in the parapet. It was when passing this gap, bearing gunpowder and fuses for blasting purposes, that a round shot, striking the broken angle of the trench, tore away a sand-bag, and threw it full at the chest of the miner. Wiles, who was knocked down by the blow, was also covered with a shower of stones; which, besides bruising him in different places, made a gash across his nose, contused one of his eyes, and wounded him in the right knee. A similar accident, the following night, wounded private Edward R. Hodgkinson severely in the head. ----- Footnote 180: