Streams and rivers abounding in the country, the India-rubber floats were necessarily resorted to, to push on the army. The first water of any magnitude on the line of march, was the Orange River, which, having sunk to an accessible depth, the troops breasted it; but to free them from hazard in crossing, their arms, appointments, knapsacks, and personal war equipment were ferried over on the raft by the party of sappers.
Traversing an open country for about 34 miles the army reached the Caledon, which offered the first serious obstruction to the march. The troops luckily had passed on foot, but by the time the waggons arrived the river had risen fifteen feet. Now the current was fierce, surging, and full of eddies; and the trunks of old trees, which, for years, perhaps, had floated with the changing tide, up and down the stream, materially interfered with the operations of the pontoon; but it nevertheless was made to do its work, and the waggons with the supplies were rapidly passed to the opposite bank.[[114]] Captain Tylden and Lieutenants Stanton and Siborne—the last in charge of the raft—were thanked for their “aid and exertions” in effecting the passage.
A journey of more than seventy miles brought the expedition to the Lieuw—a narrow fordable water, with a dashing tide confined within steep banks. Before however the waggons could cross, both shores had to be cut away to a convenient level by the whole force of sappers assisted by a fatigue party. Still, so difficult was the passage, that five hours were spent in taking over about one-half the train; and then only by the sturdy exertions of a double team of oxen whipped into extra activity by rows of persevering men occupying positions in the river up to their waists in water.[[115]]
Continuing the march, the Caledon River—which swept round from the level in which it was first encountered—was a second time approached, but as the stream was fordable, the operation of crossing was unattended by the exercise of more than ordinary energy. The troops then moved on to the Berea mountain and fought a battle with the well-equipped horsemen of Moshesh, in which the British casualties were severe. Corporal Edward A. Henderson was the only sapper present in the action, he being at the time with the rocket section of artillery, attached to Dr. Fasson, the Ordnance surgeon, in the capacity of medical orderly. The pontoneers were left in camp at the Caledon with the raft.
Having made the chief aware of the political consequences of his defeat, and obtained his subscription to a treaty, the victorious troops retraced their steps to the colony. The Caledon was easily passed, and after a march of about fifty miles, the Lieuw was gained. Recollecting the difficulty of the previous operation, Colonel Eyre ordered that some efforts should be employed to discover a really practicable drift. A few of the waggons crossed at the old ford, but in the mean time sergeant Ireland—a man who had received praise for his boat services and usefulness in the demolition of the wreck of the ‘Royal George’—discovered a diagonal drift so convenient, as to render the passage one of maximum facility. The bottom was rocky the whole distance, with a shallow flow trippling over the stones; while the general stream escaped through fissures and cavities in the rock, and merged into the river at the other side of the bar. The trickling, however, at the drift, caused it to be very slippery, but to make the footing sure, the defect was remedied by scattering along its surface a quantity of sand, which brought the new ford into favour, and the old one was abandoned.
Crossing the Caledon, a second time, without difficulty, the march was sustained to the Orange River. Its passage, however, was a tedious and protracted operation. The rains had increased the height of the stream, and expanded it to 225 yards. The current was resistless and the weather squally. A heavy flat-bottomed punt and the India-rubber cylinders were the only means within reach to achieve the movement. Such an organization, to throw over an army of some strength with guns and troops of horses, attended by a cumbersome train of waggons of unusual magnitude for number was ridiculously small. Five sappers with Lieutenant Siborne manned the raft, and a like number of the troops oared the punt, each working its course, from bank to bank, on a separate hawser stretched across the stream. Thirty-five men, armed and fully accoutred, were taken over at each trip and landed every ten minutes. Indeed the passage across only occupied a third of the time, owing to a skilful use of sheaves—instead of thimbles and eyes—running on the warps, to which short lines were attached issuing from the raft. The latter again was placed obliquely to the warp, by which one of the angles or shoulders of the float was pressed forward to the hawser. All this is probably too technical to be generally understood. The current just suited the arrangement, and lashing against the cylinders—which were broadside to it—drove the raft onward at a rapid rate. Not needing to help in its propulsion, the men, looking to their equilibrium, simply balanced themselves on the deck. Until sergeant Ireland hit upon this expedient, the iron thimbles worked but idly on the rough hawsers, and the raft was necessarily hauled across by the manual dexterity of the pontoneers. Horses, mules, oxen, howitzers, guns, and all sorts of military equipment were passed over on the pontoons; whilst the punt, which could only bear one waggon at a time, and one or two struggling horses, was in constant requisition to take over the baggage and material of the army. Fortunately the evenings were moonlight, which graced the operation with a charm that influenced the ardour and exertions of the men. Under this sombre aspect, the rush of the stream, the splash of the wave, the dip of the paddles, and the gliding of the raft, gave the exploit a feature as romantic as martial. On two or three occasions the hawsers stretched to their utmost tension, by the increasing height of the river, snapt at their weakest points. To renew them was a labour of some eight hours’ toil; and then, such was the strength of the flow, they could not be safely used. The pontoons too, being light and inflated, danced like corks on the troubled water, and were nearly torn at times from under their superstructure. Still, the men accustomed to such perils were only the more daring and energetic, and the passage was prosecuted without accident. Under the altered circumstances of wind and current, the punt would have lain idle for the want of a tow-line by which to work its way from side to side, but Lieutenant Siborne, enlarging his sphere of action, had the boat pulled down on either bank to a good offing and made to do its share of hard duty. It was however a wearying and exhausting process, for each trip was not performed under three-quarters of an hour.
The conveyance of the “sick waggon” claimed especial care, but untoward mishaps made its short career eventful. When about half way across, one of its sweeps or long oars broke, and the boat with its living freight was at the mercy of the impetuous torrent. Drifting with the current it at length plunged among some willow trees below the landing-place, where a rope, passed from tree to tree, being quickly fastened to the punt, a party on shore hauled it to an opening in the bank. The hawser, however, unable to bear the strain, gave way, and the boat whirled off furiously towards a rapid in the middle of the stream. Recovered again, it was pulled up to the trees with so much force, that the overhanging branches became entangled with the waggon and nearly capsized it into the river. In this dilemma, some four or five sappers, under the direction of Lieutenant Stanton, nimbly vaulted into the willows, and with axes, promptly cut down the impeding branches, whilst others of the pontoneers, “swimming about in the boiling flood,” assisted to clear them away. All the obstacles being thus removed, the punt was successfully pulled to the sand-drift, and biding a prudent opportunity, was safely passed to the other bank.[[116]]
No less than eight days were consumed in this exciting operation, and the detachment, which had been left behind its division, to complete some necessary details, were now in full route for head-quarters. By forced marches, in forty-eight hours it overtook the column under Colonel Eyre, which had taken five days to travel the same distance. The subsequent rivers in the journey, being as shallow as rivulets, were easily forded, and no necessity occurred for employing the resources which the sappers had at command. The detachment arrived at King William’s Town on the 29th January. Four other sappers despatched from Bloom fontein and attached to the division under Colonel Napier, were also engaged as pontoneers, and completed the concluding operations for crossing the column. On arriving at Graham’s Town they joined a detachment of the corps there.[[117]] On the following muster parade, a letter was read, in which his Excellency commended the zeal and activity of the sappers as displayed in the passage of the Orange river by the divisions under Colonels Eyre and Napier, and justly attributed the success of the manœuvre to the able manner in which it had been conducted by Lieutenant Siborne.
Lieutenant-Colonel Cole, the commanding royal engineer, in his final report, dated 1st March, 1853, to Brigade-Major Walpole, communicating the termination of the war, thus wrote of the services and conduct of the corps:—“I cannot conclude what is probably my last report to you, without conveying the gratification I have experienced throughout by the value which has been attached to the services of the non-commissioned officers and men of the royal sappers and miners, not only in public dispatches, but from the opinion expressed to me by the late commander of the forces especially, and the officers under whose command they have served, and who have in many instances shown their confidence practically.
“I am enabled to add that from the reports I have received and my own observation, the non-commissioned officers and men have in all instances throughout this arduous struggle shown a zeal and determination to further the service in which they were engaged, and have displayed their usual gallantry and discipline whenever they have been in the presence of the enemy.”