On the 22nd and 23rd February one sergeant and sixty rank and file were on patrol to Fort White, with supplies for the columns of Colonel Mitchell and Major Kyle. Ten waggons were in charge of the party, five of which were delivered to an escort from Major Kyle’s patrol, and the remainder were unloaded at the Fort. The party then returned to King William’s Town, capturing on the road two Kaffirs and six horses.
From 5th to 27th March nine rank and file under Captain Robertson, were present in the operations of the force under his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, in driving the enemy from the Waterkloof and adjacent fastnesses, and finally from the Amatola mountains. The sappers, commanded by Captain Fenwick, R.E., were most useful in rendering the drifts injured by heavy rains practicable for the passage of waggons. On this service four men of each regiment accompanied the head-quarters as the Commander-in-Chiefs escort. The party of sappers also shared in the honour, by being permitted to add five men to his Excellency’s body guard. One corporal was also attached to the division under Colonel Eyre, and was present in all its operations from 5th March to 27th April. To this patrol were added seven rank and file on the 20th April, who assisted in the concluding services of the division.
Sixty sappers formed part of a patrol of 150 men, under the command of Captain Moody, R.E., sent out on the 27th March to co-operate with Colonel Eyre’s division, and also to intercept fugitives, cattle, &c., flying from him in the direction of the Isili range. That day Captain Moody formed a junction with Colonel Eyre’s force under Murray’s Kraantz, and in working up by Kaffir tracks to the high ground burnt several of the enemy’s huts. The service required that the party should descend again: this was done in a different direction over shelving rocks and through dense underwood. It then crossed one of the sources of the Buffalo, scoured the country in its vicinage, and returned again through the bush under the Buffalo range towards Colonel Eyre’s camp. The paths were most intricate and rocky, and the detachment consequently marched in Indian file. While in the heart of the bush night came on. The darkness was so intense that the men were obliged to trail on by feeling and calling to each other. It was with the greatest difficulty that the path was kept, but at last it was lost altogether, and halting near a stream the men lay down on the wet ground, without fires, and passed the night in a comfortless bivouac. At grey light next morning the patrol was in motion, and the sappers emerged from the bush after about four hours’ exertion. One man missed his way in the jungle, and spent eighteen hours in endeavouring to gain the detachment. He had nearly exhausted his energies in extricating himself from the steep and broken rocks that lay in his track, when luckily he was rescued by some of his comrades who were sent in quest of him. After renewed efforts to clear the bush of prowling Kaffirs, and driving them and their cattle in the direction of Colonel Eyre’s division, the detachment on the 29th March returned to King William’s Town, laying waste on the route three Kaffir gardens. “As usual,” wrote Captain Moody, “the sappers behaved in an excellent manner.” Their conduct also met with the approval of Colonel Eyre.
With a patrol of about 240 troops, commanded by Captain Robertson, R.E., was sent a party of one sergeant and forty rank and file, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E. The patrol left King William’s Town on the 30th March. The sappers, broken up into small sections, aided in scouring the Isili Berg. On the 1st April the patrol quitted the bivouac at the source of the Yellow Wood river, destroyed a few huts and several fields of corn, and reached head-quarters on the 2nd April.
A patrol of 300 men, under Captain Moody, R.E., conveyed supplies of cattle and provisions to Fort Cox for the divisions working in the Amatolas, and returned with the empty waggons without opposition from the enemy. The escort was out three days, from 5th to 7th April, and 100 sergeants and rank and file of the corps, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., formed a part of the force.
Sergeant John Mealey and ten rank and file accompanied, on the 7th April, a small escort under Lieutenant Broke, 60th rifles, with provisions in waggons to the Green river for Colonel Percival’s division, and returned the next day to King William’s Town.
Soon after this, a detachment of thirty-one men, under Lieutenant Siborne, R.E., built a defensible tower in the Keiskama Hoek, for the purpose of making a demonstration of a fixed purpose permanently to eject the Gaika tribe from that territory and to occupy the Amatolas.
The head-quarters of the ninth company was removed from King William’s Town on the 28th May by Graham’s Town and Fort Brown to Beaufort, at which fort it arrived on the 19th June. Previously to its arrival it was overtaken in the Konap pass on the 13th June by a body of 200 rebel Hottentots, under Ian Cornelis and Damon Kuhn, and at noon was suddenly brought into action. The small force under Captain H. C. B. Moody, R.E., consisted of two sergeants, thirty-one rank and file, and one bugler, in charge of five waggons containing baggage, arms, engineer stores, and 30,000 rounds of musket-ball ammunition, with four women and ten children. The Pass—a long and dangerous one—has a serpentine direction, accommodating itself to the tortuous ravine through which it ascends. On the left, the whole way is a rocky precipice some forty feet high, scarped either by manual labour to form a road or by descending torrents in bygone ages, the summit of which is covered with bush. On the right rises a steep hill, inaccessible, and thickly wooded to the brim; a better position adapted to a lurking foe could not well be imagined, affording the means of enfilade fire at every turn of the road.[[102]] Acquainted by spies with the movements of the convoy, the rebel Hottentots had before its approach concealed themselves in an impenetrable ambuscade, and as the sappers ascended the hill, the advanced guard was met with a volley which killed three of the mules in the leading waggon and stopped the progress of the train, the road being too narrow to turn it. So sudden and fierce a beginning did not appal the detachment, for instantly, without disorder, they joined issue with the enemy though far superior in force and almost unassailable in position. Some of the party soon tried to push into the bush above them, but the rebels already occupied it close to the edge of the road; and as the thicket was too dense to work in, the men were compelled to retire. At this moment one of the leading drivers showed unmistakeable symptoms of treachery and fraternization with the rebels, and he was instantly shot down by a sapper.[[103]] In a few seconds the firing was general for more than 150 yards on both sides of the Pass, but the detachment, careful of its ammunition, only fired when the enemy could be seen and picked off. At length the advance men fell back and took cover under the bank, and between it and the leading waggon, where they received a reinforcement of a few men from the rear. Each waggon was now defended with great determination and intrepidity, and each man fought his way through fearful straits. The firing was chiefly within five yards and less of their antagonists. Sometimes in venturing from their shelter to fire upon the rebels in the kloof, they were opposed by a deadly fire from behind, which always lessened the number that returned. At the head of the road a force of the enemy occupied a position which enfiladed the detachment, but the rebels there were held in check by the steady firing of a few men who kept a vigilant look out for them. Without diminishing his fire in the parts he already occupied, the enemy rapidly increased the extent of his flanks and was trying to surround the little band, but to prevent this, and as the men had been driven to the last stand and were fast falling, Captain Moody gave the reluctant order for the women and children to leave the waggons, and all to commence a retreat. Not a move was made to the rear until the order was given; and, with as many of the wounded as could assist themselves, and the women and children—the retreat towards the old Konap post was conducted with steadiness and without precipitation under a spirited fire from the rebels. On clearing the gorge, a section of the men was extended into the bush to keep the advancing enemy in check, and under its cover the detachment gained an abandoned inn, which was soon converted into a post of defence by barricades and loopholes. Here a final stand was to be made, but the Hottentots, although they were aware of the weakness of the party, dared not renew the attack. The action lasted an hour; three-fourths of the time being spent in defending the waggons, which were riddled with balls. The casualties were——
| Killed | 7— | Lance-corporal John Hitchings; bugler David Brotherston; privates John Crilly, John Gillies, James Marr, Edward Phillips, and William Sanderson. |
| Also the wife of private Thomas Hayward, and three or four of the drivers, including young Webb, a lad of eighteen years of age, who was shot dead while receiving some caps from a sapper.[[104]] | ||
| Died of wounds | 2— | Privates William Forgie and John Arthur. |
| Wounded severely | 6— | Corporal Edward Wilmore; second-corporal William Marshall, and privates Henry Scott, John Cloggie, Philip Gould, and James Reynolds. |
| Wounded slightly | 1— | Private Thomas Seaman. |
| Total | 16 | |
The enemy, though ensconced in the thicket, had many killed.[[105]] All the spare arms, Minié rifles, ammunition, oxen, baggage, and equipments were captured by the rebels, but the waggons, engineer stores, and some minor articles were recovered.[[106]] The Minié rifles luckily had been “rendered useless by the precaution of removing the nipples.”[[107]]