Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/267

 THE OPENING OF THE SIEGE. 237 contact with it. There were distances of six or chap seven miles and even more which had to be con- ! — quered. And how? The means of hind trans- port were so slight in proportion to the enormous need, that the mere counting of the carts that they had and of the beasts fit for draught might well have induced the Allies to go back once more into council, and ask themselves yet again whether it was commonly prudent for them to forego or postpone their assault of the place for the sake of undertaking a mighty siege business without sufficing resources. It would seem that the only means of transport ])laced at the disposal of our engineers were some light bullock-carts of the country, amounting at first in number to forty-six, but reduced by the 12th of October to twenty-one ; and that the way in which this scant command of draught power had to be augmented was by pressing into the service every spare ammunition and baggage horse.* Having those poor means of land trans- port, the English engineers proposed to drag their stores to the front — a distance of six or seven miles — and there, sitting down as besiegers, to ' pit themselves against the garnered resources of Sebastopol and the vast empire lying behind it. With means of land transport not more than enough for a raid, they were invading an empire and undertaking an inland siege. It is true that by dint of toil long continued it was possible for them to drag up to the front the material for a • ' OfTicial Journal of the Siege Operations,' p. 26.