The morning of the 8th of September was bitterly cold, and a keen wind blowing from the town raised clouds of dust.
The storming parties were to be furnished by the light and second divisions. The first storming party of the light division was to consist of 160 men of the 97th regiment, who were to form in rear of a covering party of 100 men, furnished by the second battalion, Rifle brigade. They were to carry ladders for descending into the ditch of the Redan. Behind them were to come 200 men of the 97th and 300 of the 90th. The supports consisted of 750 men of the 19th and 88th regiments.
Therefore the assault was to be made by about 750 men, with an equal body in support, the remainder of the light division being in reserve.
The covering party of the second division consisted of 100 men of the 3d Buffs; the storming party, with ladders, of 160 of the 3d Buffs, supported by 260 of the 3d Buffs, 300 of the 41st, with 200 of the 62d, and 100 of the 41st. The rest of the second division were in reserve.
The first and Highland divisions were to be formed in the third parallel.
The orders were that the British attack was not to commence until the French had gained possession of the Malakoff. This they did with but slight loss. The storming columns were immensely strong, as 30,000 men were gathered in their trenches for the attack upon the Malakoff. This was effected almost instantaneously.
Upon the signal being given, they leaped in crowds from the advanced trench, climbed over the abattis, descended the ditch and swarmed up the rugged slope in hundreds.
The Russians, taken wholly by surprise, vainly fired their cannon, but ere the men could come out from their underground caves, the French were already leaping down upon them. It was a slaughter rather than a fight, and in an incredibly short time the Malakoff was completely in the possession of the French. In less than a minute from the time they leaped from the trenches their flag floated on the parapet.
The Russians, recovered from their first surprise, soon made tremendous attempts to regain their lost position, and five minutes after the French had entered, great masses of Russians moved forward to dispute its possession. For seven hours, from twelve to dusk, the Russians strove obstinately to recover the Malakoff, but the masses of men which the French poured in as soon as it was captured, enabled them to resist the assaults.
At length, when night came on, the Russian general, seeing that the tremendous slaughter which his troops were suffering availed nothing, withdrew them from the attack.
As the French flag appeared on the Malakoff, the English covering parties leaped from the trenches, and rushed forward. As they did so a storm of shot and shell swept upon them, and a great number of men and officers were killed as they crossed the 250 yards between the trenches and the Redan. This work was a salient, that is to say a work whose centre is advanced, the two sides meeting there at an angle. In case of the Redan it was a very obtuse angle, and the attacks should have been delivered far up the sides, as men entering at the angle itself would be exposed to the concentrated fire of the enemy behind the breastworks which ran across the broad base of the triangle. The projecting angle was, however, of course the point nearest to the English lines, and, exposed as they were to the sweeping fire of the enemy while crossing the open, both columns of assault naturally made for this point.
The Russian resistance was slight, and the stormers burst into the work. The abattis had been torn to pieces by the cannonade, and the men did not wait for the ladders, but leapt into the ditch and scrambled up on the other side.
The Russians within ran back, and opened a fire from their traverses and works in the rear. As the English troops entered, they halted to fire upon the enemy, instead of advancing upon them. The consequence was that the Russians, who were rapidly reinforced, were soon able to open a tremendous concentrated fire upon the mass of men in the angle, and these, pressed upon by their comrades who flocked in behind them, impeded by the numerous internal works, mixed up in confusion, all regimental order being lost, were unable either to advance or to use their arms with effect. In vain the officers strove by example and shouts to induce them to advance. The men had an idea that the place was mined, and that if they went forward they would be blown into the air. They remained stationary, holding their ground, but refusing to go forward.
Every minute the Russians brought up fresh reserves, and a terrific fire was concentrated upon the British. The officers, showing themselves in front, were soon shot down in numbers, and success, which had been in their hands at first, was now impossible.
For an hour and a half the slaughter continued, and then, as the Russian masses poured forward to attack them, the remnant who remained of the storming parties leaped from the parapet and made their way as best they could through the storm of bullet and shot, back to the trenches.
The fight had lasted an hour and three quarters, and in that time we had lost more men than at Inkerman. Our loss was 24 officers and 119 men killed; 134 officers, and 1897 men wounded. Had the regiments engaged been composed of the same materials as those who won the heights of the Alma, the result might have been different, although even in that case it is questionable whether the small force told off for the assault would have finally maintained itself against the masses which the Russians brought up against them. But composed as they were of young troops, many being lads sent off to the front a few weeks after being recruited, the success of such an attack, so managed, was well-nigh impossible from the first.
It was a gloomy evening in the British camps. We were defeated, while the French were victorious. The fact, too, that the attack had failed in some degree owing to the misconduct of the men added to the effect of the failure. It was said that the attack was to be renewed next morning, and that the Guards and Highland Brigade were to take part in it. Very gloomy was the talk over the tremendous loss which had taken place among the officers. From the manner in which these had exposed themselves to induce their men to follow them, their casualties had been nearly four times as large as they should have been in proportion to their numbers.
Jack Archer was in deep grief, for his brother had been severely wounded, and the doctors gave no strong hopes of his life. He had been shot in the hip, as he strove to get the men of his company together, and had been carried to the rear just before the Russian advance drove the last remnants of the assailants from the salient.
Jack had, with the permission of his commanding officer, gone to sit by his brother's bedside, and to give his services generally as a nurse to the wounded.
At eleven o'clock the hut was shaken by a tremendous explosion, followed a few minutes afterwards by another. Several of the wounded officers begged Jack to go to Cathcart's Hill, to see what was doing.
Jack willingly complied, and found numbers of officers and men hastening in the same direction. A lurid light hung over Sebastopol, and it was evident that something altogether unusual was taking place.
When he reached the spot from which he could obtain a view of Sebastopol, a wonderful sight met his eye. In a score of places the town was on fire. Explosion after explosion followed, and by their light, crowds of soldiers could be seen crossing the bridge. Hour after hour the grandeur of the scene increased, as fort after fort was blown up by the Russians. At four o'clock the whole camp was shaken by a tremendous explosion behind the Redan, and a little later the magazines of the Flagstaff and Garden batteries were blown up, and the whole of the Russian fleet, with the exception of the steamers, had disappeared under the water, scuttled by their late owners. At half-past five two of the great southern forts, the Quarantine and Alexander, were blown up, and soon flames began to ascend from Fort Nicholas.
The Russian steamers were all night busy towing boats laden with stores, from the south to the north side, and when their work was done, dense columns of smoke were seen rising from the decks. At seven o'clock in the morning the whole of the Russian troops were safely across the bridge, which was then dismembered and the boats which composed it taken over to the north side. By this time Sebastopol was, from end to end, a mass of flames, and by nightfall nothing save a heap of smoking ruins, surrounded by shattered batteries, remained of the city which had, for so many months, kept at bay the armies of England and France.
All through the night Jack Archer had travelled backwards and forwards between the crest of the hill and the hospital; for so great was the interest of the wounded in what was taking place that he could not resist their entreaties, especially as he could do nothing for his brother, who was lying in a quiet, half-dreamy state.
The delight of the English army at the fall of the south side of Sebas............