s
sprang up in all directions, and all sorts of comforts purchased by
the subscriptions of the English people when they heard of the
sufferings of their soldiers, were landed and distributed.

The work of getting up siege guns and storing ammunition for a
re-opening of the bombardment in earnest, went on merrily, and the
arrival of 15,000 Turkish troops, and of nearly 20,000 Sardinians, who
pitched their camps on the plain, rendered the allies secure from an
attack in that direction, and enabled them to concentrate all their
efforts on the siege.

So far the success had lain wholly with the Russians. For every
earthwork and battery raised and armed by the allies, the Russians
threw up two, and whereas when our armies arrived before it on 25th
September, Sebastopol was little more than an open town, which could
have been carried by the first assault, it was now a fortified place,
bristling with batteries in every direction, of immense strength, and
constructed upon the most scientific principles. Many of their works,
especially the Mamelon, Malakoff, and Tower batteries, were fortresses
in themselves, with refuges dug deeply in the earth, where the
garrison slept, secure from the heaviest fire of our guns, and
surrounded by works on every side.

In the trenches it was the Russians who were always the aggressors.
Sortie after sortie was made throughout the winter, and in these the
Russians often obtained possession for a time of portions of our
trenches or those of the French. Along in front of their works the
ground was studded with rifle-pits, sometimes so close to our works
that it was impossible for a man to show his head above them, and the
artillerymen were frequently unable to work their guns, owing to the
storm of bullets which the Russians sent through the embrasures
whenever a sign of movement was discerned. In the desperate fights in
darkness in the trenches we lost more men than in either of the
pitched battles of the campaign; and it was only the dogged courage of
our soldiers and the devotion of the officers which enabled us to
maintain our footing in the trenches before the city which we were
supposed to be besieging.

Throughout the winter the fleet had lain inactive, although why they
should have done so none knew, when they had it in their power, by
attacking the Russian forts in the Sea of Azof, to destroy the
granaries upon which the besieged depended for their supplies.

The midshipmen, however