Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/175

 THE APRIL BOMBARDMENT. 143 this array, there stretched the 2d Parallel, then chap. unfurnished with any siege-battery.* Beyond it, 1 however, in the 3d Parallel, and on -round so far in advance as to be only some 700 yards from the nearest of the enemy's "Works, two batteries had been long since begun ; and at the opening of the April bombardment, the task of constructing them had nearly been brought to a close. They had not, however, been armed ; and it was from his anxiety to attain that last object before the opening of the bombardment that Dacres had asked — though in vain — for a little extension of time. So, in point of siege-guns prepared to open im- mediate fire, the spectacle presented by our Left Attack at the opening of the bombardment was a single array of batteries looking down on the New Sebastopol created by Todleben's genius from a distance as great as at first in the old autumn days of the siege. This spectacle caused irritation on the part of our people, and it turned out that what had pre- vented the two advanced batteries from being brought into action was the difficulty of arming them. The task of taking siege-guns over more The arming 000 of its two than a half-mile of ground sloping down towards advanced to batteries the enemy was one that could be only attempted delayed, under cover of night ; but the darkness sought as a screen proved at times so intense as to become an insurmountable obstacle, and torrents teries in the 2d Parallel.
 * It was only in later days that they constructed other bat-