1837.
Change in the dress—Increase of non-commissioned officers—Services of the detachment at Ametza Gaña—Oriamendi—Desierto convent on the Nervion—Fuentarabia—Oyarzun—Aindoin—Miscellaneous employments of the detachment—Trigonometrical survey west coast of Scotland—Inspection at Woolwich by Lord Hill and Sir Hussey Vivian—Staff appointments—Labours of sergeant Lanyon—Staff-sergeants' accoutrements—Expedition to New Holland—Corporal Coles selected as the man Friday of his chief—Exploration from High Bluff Point to Hanover Bay; difficulties and trials of the trip; great thirst—Exertions and critical situation of Coles—His courageous bearing—Touching instance of devotion to his chief—Employments of the party—Exploration into the interior with Coles and private Mustard—Hardships in its prosecution—Threatened attack of the natives; return to the camp.
This year the colour of the coatee was changed from red to scarlet—Plate XV., and the huge Kilmarnock woven cap was superseded by a neat superfine blue cloth cap, stiffened, with peak and chin-strap. The sergeants were distinguished by black oak-leaf bands and gilt ornaments, comprising a grenade, encircled by a laurel wreath, and surmounted by a crown and three chevrons. The other non-commissioned officers wore chevrons according to their ranks. The oil-skin chaco of the staff-sergeants was put aside for a forage-cap, with a gold oak-leaf band and gilt ornaments of a crown within a laurel-leaf.
By a royal warrant dated 24th April, an increase of one sergeant, one corporal, and one second corporal was made to each company by reducing five privates per company. Recourse to this expedient was necessary on account of the control of the companies being much diminished by the several detached duties upon which non-commissioned officers were employed, as well as a number being always required to take charge of the workshops and working parties. The strength of each company was now fixed at 1 colour-sergeant, 3 sergeants, 4 corporals, 4 second-corporals, 2 buglers, 75 privates; equal 89; which, for 11 companies, gave an establishment of 977. The Corfu company, paid by the Ionian government, did not, from its weak numbers, participate in the alteration. Its strength, therefore 62, with the 3 officers and 4 non-commissioned officers of the staff, made the total establishment of the corps sanctioned by the warrant reach the total of 1,048. The number reduced was 22 privates.
In the early months of the year the detachment in Spain was employed on the eastern heights of Passages in superintending the completion of the fort and barracks, and also on the island of Santa Clara in making platforms and repairing batteries.
On the 10th March, seventeen of the party were present in the attack on Ametza Gaña, and were subsequently employed in strengthening the redoubt previously occupied by the Carlists on that position.
In the action at Oriamendi on the 15th and 16th March, they also served. Ten of the number assisted in levelling the enemy’s parapets and destroying their barricades and works. The other seven, under Lieutenant Burmester, R.E., did duty with the royal artillery commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun. Their help, readily afforded at a time when it was of much value, enabled a third gun to be brought into action; and in cutting fuzes and loading shells, &c., they were found but little inferior to experienced artillerymen. Lord John Hay complimented Lieutenant Vicars upon the good service of this detachment; and the officers of the royal and marine artillery were loud in their praises of the exertions of the sappers, and of the efficiency of their assistance at the guns. One private was wounded.
A brief interval of repose followed, in which the detachment was occupied in fortifying the eastern entrance of Passages, also in barricading the advanced picket-house near that point, and in completing the batteries on Santa Clara. Four men were likewise detached to the river Nervion, and, with the crews of the ‘Scylla’ and ‘Savage,’ restored the works of the Desierto convent which protected the communication with Bilbao. On the return of the men, the commander of the ‘Savage’ brig spoke most favourably of their conduct.
In the operations of the army under Espartero on the 14th May, fifteen of the detachment were present and assisted in working the guns of the royal artillery. On the 17th they embarked to act in an attack on Fuentarabia, and were present at its capitulation on the 18th May. Here the detachment restored one of the ruined bastions of the fortress, and, besides making embrasures for two heavy guns, cleared away the debris from other parts of the defences and placed them in temporary repair.
At Oyarzun the Carlists were in the habit of creeping up to the town and annoying the troops. To prevent this, the hill above was crowned with a square redoubt for two guns. Ten of the detachment superintended its construction, and the work was executed in so excellent a manner, that experienced officers spoke of it with unqualified satisfaction. The working party consisted of peasants who were skilful in the construction of earth-works, and zealous in the use of the spade and pickaxe.
At the solicitation of General O’Donnell of the Spanish service, nineteen of the sappers, under the command of Lieutenant Vicars, were attached to his force. The party reached Aindoin on the 11th September, and were set to work with a company of Gastadores under them, on a height on the extreme left of the position. Very rapidly, a large hedge surrounding the height was turned into a parapet; and in places where it was too high to cut down, loopholes were formed. A dense wood that joined the hedge was partly felled, and from its ample resources abattis were thrown out in front of the line of hedge. For three days the work progressed; at intervals under heavy rain; and on the 13th September a formidable work of more than half a mile in length was ready to obstruct the advance of the enemy. At daylight on the 14th the Carlists opened fire on Aindoin, and the first shot went through the house where the sappers were quartered. At once they were withdrawn to the church, and ultimately removed to a circular fort to attend to orders either from Lord John Hay or General O’Donnell. Scarcely had they commenced the movement before the enemy approached the church with irresistible impetuosity, and drove the forces of O’Donnell from the town with signal disaster. The escape of the detachment of sappers was almost miraculous; a few moments later would have thrown them[them] wholly into the hands of the Carlists.
During the later months of the year the detachment repaired Fort Morales, and the lines on the western heights of Passages. There also they fitted up barracks for the royal marines, and strengthened the advanced picket-house. Four of the men superintended a working party of the royal marines in completing and arming the redoubts around San Sebastian, in which service much difficulty was experienced from the want of an adequate working party and materials. So impoverished were the stores, that to provide planks and sleepers for the platforms and magazines, recourse was had to old splintered timbers from ruined sheds and buildings. Among other services performed by the detachment was the construction of a redoubt at Cachola on the high road from San Sebastian to Hernani, to protect that communication.
On the 13th May, six rank and file were attached to Captain A. Henderson, R.E., and were employed for the fourth summer under his direction in the trigonometrical survey of the western coast of Scotland for the Admiralty. The nature of the operations, as on former occasions, necessitated their encampment on the mountains; and when the service closed in November, the party returned to Woolwich.
Lord Hill and Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master-General, inspected the seventh company and detachment of the corps at Chatham on the 15th June, and afterwards witnessed the siege operations carried on by the troops and sappers under Colonel Warre. At the steadiness of the latter on parade, and the able manner in which the siege details were executed, his lordship expressed the highest gratification; and Colonel Warre, in his public orders of 16th June, also eulogised the corps for the cheerful and indefatigable manner in which they had worked in the field, adding, “that the construction of the works did credit to their skill as engineer workmen, and their appearance to their discipline and efficiency as soldiers.”
Second-Captain Henry Sandham, R.E., by commission dated 1st August, was appointed adjutant to the corps at Chatham vicê Captain Jebb promoted. The latter had filled the office with much advantage to the public service; and his many excellent qualities, as evinced in the discharge of his duties, commanded the esteem of the corps, and caused him to be much regretted at his leaving.
Sergeant Hugh Lanyon, after Sergeant-major Forbes’s removal, was appointed to the charge of the detachment at Sandhurst College, and carried on the field details in every way to the satisfaction of the authorities. For many years, as a private and non-commissioned officer, he worked at the college, and his example had the best effect on the successive parties with which he served. As a practical sapper he was one of the ablest and most skilful in the corps, and in the rapidity with which he threw up earth-works was unsurpassed. Sir Charles Pasley has done him honour by noticing the extraordinary labours of the sergeant in his ‘Practical Operations for a Siege.’[[300]] His willingness and ability in this respect, covered, in great measure, his educational deficiencies. In charge of the detachment he displayed his usual industry and exertion, kept his men in perfect discipline and order, and the excellent work resulting from their united efforts elicited an encomium in a popular periodical very creditable to the sergeant and his party.[[301]] Indeed, so effectually were all the instructional operations carried out, that the governor of the college, with the sanction of the Master-General, presented him in November with a case of drawing instruments, bearing an inscription flattering to his zeal and services.[[302]]
Late in the year the shoulder-belt of the staff-sergeants was superseded by a buff waist-belt, two inches broad, having carriages for the sword, with gilt plate, buckles, swivels, and hooks. The plate bore the royal arms—without supporters—within a wreath, with the motto “Ubique” at its base, and above, a crown. The sword was the same as issued in 1824, and as at present worn, but adapted by rings to be slung to the improved accoutrement.—See Plate [XVI]., 1854.
Under orders from Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, corporals John Coles and Richard Auger were attached to the New Holland expedition under Captain Grey, the object of which was to gain information as to the real state of the interior and its resources. On the 5th July, 1837, they sailed in the ‘Beagle’ from Plymouth, and at the Cape of Good Hope were removed into the ‘Lynher’ schooner. There, private Robert Mustard joined the party, and all reached Hanover Bay, Western Australia, on the 2nd December.
Captain Grey had early formed a good opinion of corporal Coles and made him his chief subordinate.[[303]] He was emphatically his man Friday, and his conduct in striking instances of suffering and peril was marked by unfaltering devotion and fortitude, combined with diligence and humanity. Auger was ‘jack of all trades;’ the mechanic and architect; equally a tailor and a tinker; the ready mender of boats, and the efficient millwright and armourer of the party.
On the day of arrival the Captain landed with five persons and three dogs at High Bluff Point, to explore from thence to Hanover Bay. Coles was one of the number. The sun was intensely hot. A long confinement on ship-board had made them unequal to much exertion. Forward, however, they journeyed, without the advantage of trees or foliage to screen them from the sun’s burning rays. The country, too, was rocky; and its surface, jagged and torn into crevices, being overgrown with spinifex and scrub, they frequently either slipped or fell into the covered fissures. Soon the party was overcome by thirst and lassitude. Two pints of water was all that was brought from the ship, and this, shared with the panting dogs, left but little for the adventurers. As time wore on, their weariness, before excessive, became worse, and the dogs falling back exhausted, were never recovered. Water was at length observed at the bottom of a ravine, and down its precipitous slopes Coles and others scrambled, only to mock the thirst they craved to satiate, for the inlet was salt water! However, after travelling for about another mile, fortune favoured them with a pool of brackish water, from which they drank freely.[[304]]
Whilst the party rested by the pool, Captain Grey, accompanied by Coles, explored the ravine, and then returning, led the party into the country by a fertile valley surrounded by rocky hills. Not long after, the thirst and fatigue so dreaded before, recurred in an aggravated form, and some were almost completely worn out by it. To march through the night without fresh water was next to impossible; and as a last effort to obtain relief, the Captain pushed on for the coast, directing that when he fired, Mr. Lushington with the party should follow.[[305]]
The arranged signals being given and answered, the party moved on. Corporal Coles was in the van, and forcing his way over broken rocks and down steep cliffs, he was the first to reach the Captain. At this spot he followed the example of his chief, and, plunging into the sea, refreshed his strength and appeased his thirst. Mr. Lushington and the sufferers now arrived, and, leaving them to try the effect of bathing, the Captain and his corporal moved along the coast to find the ‘Lynher,’ and send a boat to the party. About two miles they had journeyed when their progress was arrested by an arm of the sea, about 500 yards across. Coles kept firing his gun in hopes it might be heard on board. From hill to hill and cliff to cliff, its report re-echoed, but no answering sound came back. The Captain now resolved to swim the arm; and as Coles was unskilful in the water, he was directed to wait until the others came up and remain with them until the Captain returned. The latter then plunged into the sea, and left Coles alone in that solitary spot with wild and rugged cliffs overhanging the shore, and the haunts of savages in his vicinity.[[306]]
After dark the flashes of the guns had been seen by the schooner, and a boat was instantly despatched for the party. Coles was the first found; but fearing, if he then availed himself of the protection of the boat, he would lose the clue by which to trace the Captain, he directed the mate to pass on for the others. They were soon picked up, and returning for Coles, he was found at his post—one of danger and honour—and taken into the boat with his companions. The other shore was soon reached and the Captain found.[[307]]
“Have you a little water?” he asked, as he entered the boat. “Plenty, sir!” answered Coles, handing him a little, which the Captain greedily swallowed. That choice drop of water was all that was in the boat when Coles was picked up, and although he suffered severely from thirst, he would not taste it as long as he retained any hope that his chief might be found and be in want of it.[[308]]
For several days the sappers and others of the expedition were employed in searching for water, taking short exploratory trips, and in removing the live stock and stores from the ‘Lynher’ to the location fixed upon by Captain Grey. To facilitate the service, a rude pathway was formed by firing the bush, and removing, with much toil, the rocks and vegetation. So rough was the track that a wheelbarrow could not be used upon it, and every burden was, therefore, necessarily carried on the men’s shoulders. By the 16th December, the country had been taken possession of, and the encampment completed.[[309]]
On the following evening, Captain Grey with corporal Coles and private Mustard, started from the camp to penetrate some distance into the interior. Confident in the steadiness and courage of his men he felt no anxiety. Each carried ten days' provisions, a day’s water, and his arms and ammunition. Thus laden, in a tropical climate, their progress was slow and laborious. Their route lay through a region of romantic beauty. Now they were urging their course through deep ravines alive with the gush of water and the foaming of cascades; now threading their tiresome way through the devious forest with its prickly grasses and entangled bush. Again they were climbing crumbling ranges, scrambling down precipices, tearing themselves through mangroves and densely-matted vegetation, traversing some wild broken land, or worming themselves among lofty and isolated columns of sandstone mantled with fragrant creepers, which, like the remains of ruined temples of classic ages, afforded indubitable evidence of the ravages of time upon rock and range. Wherever they journeyed, they found the same chaos—beautiful in its wildness and eccentricity—rich in its luxuriance and picturesqueness.[[310]]
Nearly six days were spent in this march, and the trials endured were only a prelude to what were to follow. Rice and tea in small quantities formed the staple of their diet. An occasional slice from a pheasant’s breast, or a bite from the remains of a crane left by the rats, gave relish to their repast. The Captain was the game purveyor to the party and Mustard its Soyer. On the first night they slept in a bark hut of their own making at the foot of a towering precipice; the second was passed under some overhanging rocks. On the other three nights they bivouacked on the slopes of the glens under the lightning’s vivid flash, exposed to the rains of violent thunderstorms. Early in the journey Mustard became ill, but he was soon sufficiently recovered to sustain the toils and privations of discovery and the discomfort of unsheltered sleep. Dripping wet, tired, weary and hungry, these brave men carried out the purposes of their mission, and, with unwavering faithfulness and zeal, penetrated wherever their chief desired. “Three of us,” writes the Captain, “slept in the open air without any covering or warm clothes for five successive nights, during three of which we had constant showers of heavy rain, and yet did not in any way suffer from this exposure.”[[311]]
Want of food at length compelled the adventurers to return. Having gained the summit of a range, the rain began to fall in torrents. To escape it they retired to a detached group of rocks. A party of fourteen savages now appeared, brandishing their spears, bounding from rock to rock, and making the wilderness ring with their war cry. This was answered by a party coming over the high rock in rear of the travellers. In this critical situation a hostile attitude was at once taken up. There was a natural opening like an embrasure between the blocks of the rock, through which they could level their pieces, and each gallant fellow took his station, with orders to fire one by one if the command were given. The Captain fired over their heads; but this one report was quite enough, for the savages fled on all sides, and the party thus left to itself, hurried home through a tempest of rain and reached the cantonment before nightfall on the 22nd December.[[312]]