Late in the year the shoulder-belt of the staff-sergeants was superseded by a buff waist-belt, two inches broad, having carriages for the sword, with gilt plate, buckles, swivels, and hooks.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]]