Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/47

 todleben's aggressivk measures. 15 impossible, to mend their embrasures in the day- Cii A P. time, and subjecting them besides to the bane of ! — having their lines overlooked by observers both near and well sheltered. So vexatious a kind of encroachment was not to be always maintained without provoking resist- ance, or rather counter-attack, and the struggles for Kifle-pits occurring in the course of the siege may be said to have only begun with the exploit of young Tryon, who wrested one of these lairs from the hands of the enemy, and achieved his little conquest so brilliantly as to win and de- serve the warm praises of both the Allied com- manders, General Canrobert no less than Lord Eaglan. But the idea of the Kifle-pit soon proved to be His lodg x. ments. only the embryo of another and more formidable conception which was afterwards brought to maturity by Todleben's fertile brain. Instead of sending out a small party of riflemen to choose, on the spur of the moment, a speck of ground in advance, and there dig themselves down into shelter, might he not rather act — though of course on a diminutive scale — as be- siegers are wont to do ? Might he not cause beforehand a sufficing breadth of ground to be scientifically chosen and duly taped out by skilled engineers, then deliver it, under cover of night, into the hands of strong working-par- ties, who would instantly and swiftly entrench it ? All this, he saw, could be done ; and thence- forth the besiegers had cares which resembled