Some of my heroes are low. I hear the sound of death ahead.
July passed off pretty quietly, but there was something in the wind; instead of returning to camp to rest, We all had to fall in at tattoo and march off to some part of the field, pile arms, and lie down. Our generals were not going to have another Inkermann job on their hands without being prepared for them. The Russians could see that the town must fall. It was only a matter of another month or so. The French had a splendid position in the Mamelon, were daily strengthening it, creeping and sapping up to the Malakoff; while our people were advancing step by step. The closer we got to the town the dearer the ground became, the fighting became more bitter, and we lost more men and officers daily. Their marksmen were always busy. The enemy were determined to make one more effort on a grand scale in order to try and save the town, and we did not know the spot or the hour the storm would burst upon us, so it was best not to be caught napping. Our batteries were being strengthened, and more guns and mortars added every day; and an immense iron girdle was now around the town, or the south side of it.
On the morning of the 16th August, our camp was aroused by a tremendous firing to our right rear. The enemy had attacked us in the Valley of the Tchernaya, just to the right of Inkermann. We at once got under arms, the 2nd Brigade closing up, and there we remained. The firing got hotter and hotter; Prince Gortschakoff had now a vast host under his command, and he was making one more grand throw for victory. The fighting was very severe between the French and Sardinians on the one side, and Russians on the other. The Sardinians fought like men, and the Zouaves, as usual, like so many tigers, and the battle raged from morning until about 5 p.m. The enemy never had the slightest chance of success. I went on to the field in the evening and had a good look round; I found that the fighting had been in earnest. On and at the Tractor Bridge the dead lay in heaps, while the arches over the river were completely choked or blocked up with Russian dead, the water running on either side of the bridge. The Russians, as usual, behaved in a most barbarous manner after the battle. They had been foiled at all points, and were compelled to retire. A party of French and Sardinians went to look up the wounded; the Russians could see plainly what the party was doing, yet they opened their heavy guns upon them! I came across a few French wounded Zouaves, and did all I could for them.