6–12 November 1854

I arrived on the 7th. All the rumours that tormented me en route turn out to be false. I am ordered to join the 3rd Light Battery, and I live in the town itself. Have seen all our fortifications from a distance, and some of them closely. To take Sevastopol is quite impossible : of that apparently the enemy is convinced — in my opinion they are masking a retreat. The storm on November 2 drove ashore about thirty boats, one sailing-vessel, and three steamers. The company of artillery officers in this Brigade is the same as everywhere else. There is one of them who is very much like Louisa Volkonski — I know that I shall soon get tired of him, so I try to see him seldom that the impression may last longer. The decent men among the Commanders appear to be — Nakhfmov, Totteben, Istdmin — and Menshikov* seems to be a good Commander-in-Chief, but he un- fortunately began his military activity with inferior forces against an enemy three times as strong and«better armed. The troops on both sides were men that had never been under fire, which makes the numerical superiority ten times more felt. Raw troops cannot retreat — they run away.

Yesterday a soldier of the foreign legion deserted to us. He says that an assault has been arranged for the 25th (that is the 13th O.S.). It is now already o’clock, and nothing has happened. It is said that the enemy have eighty guns trained on to the Fourth Bastion, that they intend suddenly to make a breach, destroy our guns, and attack. This, though doubtful, is all the same an explanation. Why did they not take the opportunity on the 6th instant, when nearly all the guns in the Fourth Bastion had been knocked out ?