Access to each redoubt was gained from the rear, and in some cases one side was also left open, as Skobeleff's troops found to their cost in the work of which they held temporary possession. Sleeping accommodation for the artillerymen was provided inside the redoubts, while the infantrymen were lodged outside in the trenches. There was something weirdly dramatic in the sight of those Turkish gunners, black and weary and smoke-begrimed with battle, sleeping, as I have often seen them, in their narrow resting-places scooped out of the stiff loam in the inner side of the great wall of the redoubt. The Russian shells came crashing into the exterior face of the earth wall; but the gunners slept on calmly in their subterranean clay beds, and after a brief slumber mounted to relieve their comrades again, often indeed only to exchange their narrow beds in the thickness of the earth wall for couches in the cold, wet earth outside and the sleep that knew no waking. Immediately in front of the redoubt in every case was a ditch about fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep as a first line of defence. Farther in advance was a line of trenches, in many cases connecting with an adjacent redoubt; and a second line farther on down the slope of the hill provided another line of fire. The trenches had breastworks about three feet high, pierced with loopholes for rifles at intervals of one foot six inches. Covered passages effectually connected the trenches, and a network of similar passages afforded ample living accommodation for the troops. The scale upon which all these works were carried out may be imagined when it is mentioned that one of the redoubts contained in interior area more than ten thousand seven hundred square yards, and was provided with subterranean chambers affording lodgment for troops and staff as well as ample storage room and stabling for horses. Of course the redoubts were not all uniform in exact pattern, some of them being designed for artillery and infantry, while others were defended by infantry only. In many of the works a second line of rifle fire was obtained from a covered way leading outside, so that when all the resources of a redoubt and trenches were at work an unremitting fire of three and in some cases four successive tiers was obtained. The supply of ammunition was practically unlimited; and it is not difficult to recognize that, under such conditions, an assaulting force could not but be terribly scourged both by infantry and artillery.