The prize
was now won, but at heavy cost.
MacMahon's division, which assaulted with forty-five hundred bayonets
and two hundred officers, lost in killed and wounded just half its
strength.
Soon after the Russians had been driven from the salient of the
Malakoff, the French troops occupying it were fired on from the lower
part of the old masonry tower, which was loopholed, and inside which
five officers and sixty Russian soldiers had taken refuge. It was
impossible to dislodge them, as the only entrance was strongly blocked
on the inside. After a time some gabions were collected, and having been
placed in position close to the loopholes, were lighted, but before the
defenders could be smoked out, a mortar fired against the door blew it
away, and the Russians surrendered. The gabions burning fiercely, the
officers became alarmed lest the fire should be communicated to some of
the surrounding magazines, and an attempt was made to extinguish the
blazing fragments. As this was difficult, sappers were set to work to
dig a trench and throw the excavated earth on the fire.
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