The nature of the service upon which the companies were employed precluded them from taking any very active or prominent share in the operations of the campaign, or of their numbers being collected in any force to render their movements impressive and conspicuous; nevertheless, as opportunities offered of withdrawing them from their more pacific duties, they were made to participate with the other troops in the harassing war which, without intermission, continued with vigour until the winter.
Corporal Benjamin Castledine, ordered to proceed from Fort Beaufort to Post Victoria, started on the 21st March, 1846, with a gunner of the royal artillery who was armed with a sword only, in charge of a waggon with twelve oxen and two natives—a driver and a leader—who had one musket between them. In crossing a drift, after marching seven miles, the oxen were knocked up, and the corporal sent the driver back for more cattle. At night the corporal took turn as sentry with the artilleryman. Next morning at daylight, the leader was ordered to collect the cattle then grazing about three hundred yards off; but while away, shots were heard in the direction he had taken. The corporal, leaving the waggon in charge of the artilleryman, ran to the banks of the drift, and before he had time to seek cover in the bush, was met by a volley from several armed Kaffirs, who had already wounded the leader and taken his gun. The corporal stood his ground, and wounding two of their number by his correct firing, the rest carried off the injured men and drove away the corporal’s cattle. Luckily, soon afterwards, a patrol of one sergeant and seven men of the 7th dragoon guards came up, and hearing what had happened, they pursued the Kaffirs and retook the oxen. The corporal with his escort and cattle, except two of the latter, which were lost on the road from exhaustion, resumed the route and reached Post Victoria on the 22nd March. Colonel Somerset, then commanding the frontier, hearing through Lieutenant Stokes, R.E., of the affair, gave corporal Castledine much credit for his conduct. This was the first skirmish in the war.
From the 16th to 18th April three men served with a demibattery of artillery as gunners, during Colonel Somerset’s operations in the Amatola mountains, and retreat from Burn’s hill to Block drift, where they were present in a smart action.
Ten men took part with the artillery at the guns, from 20th April to 29th September, at Victoria, Fort Beaufort, and Block drift. At these forts and at Graham’s Town the men for weeks together lay down in their clothes and accoutrements ready to meet any sudden attack. At Beaufort, four guns were manned by them, two 9-pounders and two 5½-inch howitzers: one of these had horses attached, which were mounted by the sappers.
Graham’s Town, denuded of its garrison to scour the Amatolas, was left unprotected. Bodies of Kaffirs pressed into the colony, marking their track by murder and desolation. Tidings of their savage proceedings being brought in by mounted burghers, breathless with the intelligence, it was feared the town would be early attacked. At once the engineer at the station set to work to fortify it, and with the assistance of some Fingoes and Hottentots, the few sappers that remained rapidly blockaded the streets and avenues leading into the town. The return, however, of Colonel Somerset’s division checked the enemy’s advance on this, the metropolis of the frontier.[[483]]
On the 23rd April, under Lieutenant Bourchier, R.E., fifty-one non-commissioned officers and men repulsed an attack by the enemy on the Farmer’s camp near Fort Brown. The action lasted about four hours, and though the night was extremely dark, the sappers, serving both as infantry and artillery in charge of two field-pieces, beat off the enemy with the loss, as was afterwards acknowledged by the chief Stock, of thirty killed. The sappers only were engaged in this affair, and their spirited and gallant conduct was reported by Lieutenant Bourchier.
On the 17th and 31st May and 1st and 18th June, about forty non-commissioned officers and men, sent from Fort Brown under Lieutenant Bourchier, went in pursuit of marauding parties of the enemy. From Double drift under the same officer, four other parties were despatched through the bush after the Kaffirs on the 25th June, 7th July, and 7th and 18th August. Sergeant Thomas P. Cook and corporal John Campbell were reported to have shown great determination and intelligence in following the enemy in their fastnesses. The former accompanied six of the patrols and the latter seven. Near Fort Brown, three Kaffir spies, discovered creeping up to the place to reconnoitre, were shot; two of these were brought down by privates Alexander Irvine and John Patterson.
From 3rd June to 13th July, ten men with a company of the 90th regiment, fifty marines and some sailors, under Lieutenant Owen, R.E., constructed a flying bridge of boats, &c. for crossing the Fish river mouth, and threw up a field-work on the right bank. In this service private John Vance, a superior carpenter, “showed remarkable zeal, skill, and intelligence.” The work was undertaken to establish an open line of communication to Fort Peddie.[[484]]
Under Lieutenant Stokes, R.E., twelve men shared in the operations with the second division in the field and at the passage at the mouth of the Keiskama river from the 6th to 16th July. From the latter date to the 13th September, under the same officer, six other privates served with the second division during Sir Peregrine Maitland’s attack upon the Amatola mountains, and constructed a field-work for the protection of the camp at Perie.
On the 15th and 16th July, sixteen non-commissioned officers and men under Lieutenant Bourchier were present in action with the enemy at Dodo’s kraal, under the command of Captain Hogg, 7th dragoon guards.