Pembroke was also surveyed by a party of one sergeant and eight men from the survey companies, between April and December, under Captain Chaytor, R.E. This survey included the docks, dockyard, and property in its immediate vicinity, to enable measures to be taken for raising essential defensive works to protect the place. The survey was well executed; and private John Wall,[[510]] who remained at the duty until March 1848, executed with neatness and accuracy, the required plans.
About this period the survey operations of the corps, both in the triangulation and the detail duty, were very conspicuous, and drew from the greatest of the daily London journals, in a leader, a high commendation for its services and trials. The language of the article is too forcible and brilliant to justify abridgment, and the complimentary passage is therefore given entire.—“An Englishman has a constitutional repugnance to the intrusion of soldiers into civil duties; he would rather pay them to walk about than to work, and he chooses to make a separate and private hiring of his own police. Ordinarily, soldiers are unwelcome visitors to him, seldom appearing but at the beck of some scared sheriff or meddling mayor, to correct his refractory disposition. But there is a corps which is often about him, unseen and unsuspected, and which is labouring as hard for him in peace as others do in war. If he lives near a cathedral city, he may perhaps have occasionally observed a small wooden cradle perched on the very summit of the spire or tower, and he may have pitied, perhaps, the adventurous mason who had undertaken the job. That cradle contained three sappers and miners, stationed there for five or six weeks to make surveys, and who only quitted their abode for another equally isolated and airy. Within these last five years, a handful of these men, with an engineer officer, have been frozen upon the peak of a Welsh mountain, on an allowance of provisions fit for the sixth month of a siege, and with no more possibility of communicating with the scanty natives of the place, than if they had been shipwrecked on the Sandwich Islands.”[[511]]
A party of fifteen men, selected from a number of volunteers by Sir John Richardson, joined the expedition under his orders to the Arctic seas in June. The object of the mission was to search for Sir John Franklin and his crews, by tracing the coast between the Mackenzie and Coppermine Rivers, and the shores also of Victoria and Wollaston lands, lying opposite to Cape Krusenstern. All the men were intelligent artizans, accustomed to boat service and laborious employment. They were, moreover, strongly built, of good physical powers, and, with one exception, bore excellent characters. The defaulter was addicted to drinking, but in other respects he was a good and active workman. Knowing that there would be no means of obtaining intoxicating drinks in Rupert’s Land, Sir John Richardson accepted his services, and he turned out an invaluable man. Seven of the party were carpenters, joiners, and sawyers, one was a miner, one a painter, and six were blacksmiths, armourers, and engineers, who were found useful in repairing the boats, working up iron, constructing the domicile for the winter residence of the expedition, and making the furniture required for its few and simple wants.[[512]] To suit the hard climate of the Arctic zone, each man was provided with a flannel jacket and trousers, a stout blue Guernsey frock, a waterproof overcoat and cap, and a pair of leggings. They also wore mocassins and leather coats, when the nature of the season and their employment rendered it necessary.[[513]]
On the 4th June the men were discharged from the corps, and sailed on the 15th from the Thames in the ‘Prince of Wales,’ and the ‘Westminster.’ Delayed much by ice in Hudson’s Straits, they had a long passage, and it was not until about the middle of September that the stores for the journey were wholly landed.[[514]] As soon as this service was effected, the expedition, with a number of hired men, quitted Norway House in five boats, which, from being “often stranded and broken in the shallow waters, caused frequent detention for repairs.” Overtaken by winter in Cedar Lake, Mr. Bell, who had charge of the expedition until Sir John Richardson arrived, made this a depôt, where he stored the boats and goods in a suitable house constructed by the sappers. Several of the party were left here to take care of the matériel, and also the women and children, who were unequal to a long journey over the snow.
In October the bulk of the expedition started for Cumberland House, and reached it on the eighth day after leaving Cedar Lake. On the first day’s journey private Hugh Geddes and a half-caste Indian were attacked by a bear on Muddy Lake. The latter fired three times at the beast without bringing him down. Neither of them now had any ammunition; but Geddes, who was incapable of much exertion from an axe wound in the foot, anticipating the peril, forgot his pains and felled two young birch trees, one of which he handed to his companion: with these formidable defensors both made a desperate onslaught on the raging bear, but it was not until after much labour and hazard that they succeeded in slaying it. In due time they sleighed his huge carcase to the rendezvous at Cedar Lake.
At Cumberland House one of the divisions passed the winter, and was kept in constant employment by attending to several seasonable occupations, such as cutting firewood, driving sledges with meat or fish, and fulfilling a round of services no less laborious than necessary. They also established a fishery on the Beaver Lake, two days' march north of the depôt.[[515]]
From July to December three rank and file were employed under Captain T. Webb, R.E., in surveying and laying out roads in Zetland, in connection with the Central Board for the Relief of Destitution in the Islands of Scotland. This service was ordered by the Home Government, and the party returned to Woolwich when the winter had fairly set in. Second-corporal Harnett was well reported of for his intelligence and capabilities, and the two privates for their industry and exertions.
At the Cape of Good Hope the two companies were distributed to fifteen posts and forts on the frontier. On the 2nd May the sapper force there was increased to 198 of all ranks by the arrival of thirty-five men, under Lieutenant Jesse, R.E. Between the 14th September and 23rd December one sergeant and sixteen rank and file were in the field, under Captain Walpole, R.E. They had with them an assortment of carpenters' and smiths' tools, engineer stores, and a quantity of intrenching tools, besides a large five-oared cutter, and the materials and gear to form a raft of casks. From the 1st to 6th December, eleven of these men were actively employed in transporting men and provisions to a large portion of the division on the left bank of the Kei, under Lieutenant Jervois, R.E., at a time when the rise of the river prevented any intercourse by waggons. During the six days, the party exerted themselves in a most praiseworthy manner, and sergeant Alexander McLeod was particularly active and zealous. Between the 21st November and 1st December, three sappers, with a party of the line, under Lieutenant Stokes, R.E., opened a road for waggons in the Amatola mountains, and constructed a temporary bridge across the Keiskama. Before the execution of this service provisions were conveyed to the camp in the mountains on mules, and hence the transit was slow and uncertain.
On the representation of Colonel Lewis, R.E., a company of full strength was removed from Chatham to Portsmouth, on the 22nd December. Its employment was confined to the erection and repair of such works as could not be undertaken by contract, such as strengthening the fortifications, repairing gates, laying platforms, curbs, &c. It was also considered indispensable to retain a company in that command, to execute, in the event of a war suddenly breaking out, the numerous wants likely to occur in such an emergency.