Some young officers—sportive yet enterprising—hearing of the nearness of the Russians to our works, paid a visit to the lodgment, bringing with them loaded soda-water bottles prepared with fuzes. As occasion served they lighted these improviséd grenades, and threw them among the enemy’s riflemen in the pit. The effect was to increase the fire on the sappers and retard the work. In self-defence the sergeant was compelled to report the annoyance, and the General of the trenches gave orders that none should enter the pits except on duty. A Polish refugee, belonging to a fusilier regiment, also came to the screen under the auspices of the young officers aforesaid. A hole was made for him to speak through, and addressing the Russians in their own language, his jargon was discourteously treated with laughter and a few angry shots. Renewing the interview the fusilier, after saying some extravagant things to induce the riflemen to desert, concluded by intimating “they were great fools to remain where they were.” Another volley was the result of this candid but indiscreet communication; and of course the Pole was forthwith expelled from the trench. Footnote 181: This suggests the mention of a brief conversation which occurred one day between Colonel Shadforth and lance-corporal Jenkins. “How is it,” asked the Colonel, “that so few sappers die?” “They hav’nt time,” replied the corporal; “there’s too much work for them to do in the trenches!” A stiff glass of grog from the officer’s canteen was the result of Jenkins’s rejoinder, which would have been strictly true, had the question been asked with respect to the primitive state of the sapper camp. Footnote 182: Sir John Burgoyne in letter to the ‘Times,’ May, 1855. Footnote 183: The means taken to preserve the engineer mules was referred to in the Second Report of Sir John McNeill and Colonel Tulloch to the War Minister, as an instance of what other troops might have done had they exercised common “promptitude or ingenuity.” It afterwards became a vexed question, and a Court of Enquiry, conducted by seven distinguished General Officers, sat for many weeks at Chelsea Hospital, to ascertain, among other matters, whether any blame was fairly attributable to the officers in chief command for neglecting the use of expedients to save the horses. The enquiry terminated fully exculpating the officers. 1855. 16th May-7th June. SIEGE OF SEBASTOPOL.