Marking out the encampment was done by the sappers under Colonel Torrens, assistant quartermaster-general, by driving pickets into the ground in the places selected to mark the salient points of the boundaries, to be occupied by the several regiments.
The springs and watercourses were sought for and collected into small reservoirs or basins, at sites as convenient for access as practicable. In some places small trenches were excavated, to afford easy channels for conveying the water to the terraces. These tanks were for domestic uses. Attached to them were larger ones for washing purposes, which were filled by the surplus water from the drinking reservoirs through the agency of small troughs, fixed near the top of the partitional embankments.
From the dipping and trawling of so many utensils of different kinds into the tanks, and the constant washing of the water against the sides of the embankments, it became very dirty and disagreeable. To obviate this, pumps were fixed in the tanks, large wooden troughs being added to them to convey the water to the recipients, and sentries being posted over the reservoirs to compel all parties to take the water from the approved contrivances instead of resorting to the objectionable mode which had been attended with so much discomfort.
Where springs could not be found in sufficient number, wells were sunk to afford water for the troops. Some of these answered excellently, and yielded a good supply. In several instances the men were interrupted in the service by the presence of moving quicksand, which prevented them digging to the depth they otherwise would have done. These wells, nevertheless, were ultimately made available for use. To keep the ground from being undermined by the sand, rough sap rollers were at first constructed and sunk, but as these were found inadequate to meet the difficulty, on account of the sand oozing through the interstices of the brushwood, some barrels were securely fixed at the bottom, which at once offered an effectual resistance to any encroachment, and secured a serviceable quantity of good clean water. Into several of the wells two or three bushels of pebbles and shells were thrown to purify the water in its infiltration. Wells cased or lined with fir poles—an expedient first resorted to—were found not to answer, as the water collected in them tasted disagreeably of an impregnation of turpentine. Many failures in seeking for water occurred. Three or four in elevated parts of the field were sunk through a stratum of sand and clay to the depth of thirty-five feet without success. Two artesian wells were also bored late in July, one to a depth of sixty feet and the other to thirty-five feet, without any beneficial result.
Tradition or experience was of little avail in selecting places to sink the wells with anything like certainty of finding water. Nor were any men present who possessed the occult and mysterious faculty of using the divining rod to discover it. Several ingenious suggestions were made and acted on with no better result. All depended upon chance; and to make up for the deficiency from this source, greater attention was paid to gathering the nests of springs, and opening up courses and channels for their unfettered issue into reservoirs. Commonly, depths beyond thirty feet were obtained without the use of the windlass, or the application of materials to support the sides. Many of the sappers in these experiments turned out expert well-diggers, and executed the heavy duty with energy and coolness.
The formation of lakes was effected by damming up some small brooks and rivulets, in the valleys which emptied themselves into Virginia Water. The dams were raised on piles formed from the ends of fir poles, which, to make a firm foundation, were driven into the ground about ten or fifteen feet wider at the base than the road was at the top. The sides were built with good sods, and filled in with the best soil that could be gathered on the spot. Where the bog was unstable, it was replaced by stiff clay, which was puddled. In this way two or three fine expansive sheets of water were formed, which were extremely useful for the cavalry horses; and a safe and ready passage was also afforded for the troops across some valleys and morasses over the roadway of the dam. One sheet was behind the cavalry stabling on Egham Common, and the others, named “The Great Arm” and “The Little Arm,” were at the base of Black-hill and of Sheep’s-hill.
The stables were constructed of a uniform width, but the length varied according to circumstances. For a stable of six horses, the dimensions were twenty-seven feet by thirteen feet six inches. The uprights or stanchions were nine feet long, three feet of which were driven into the ground and well rammed. A wall-plate was then fixed to the stanchions at the height of six feet from the ground. The rafters were made of rough poles, secured by a collar-beam four feet from the top, and then nailed firmly down on the wall-plates, every alternate one being strapped with hoop-iron. The centre was supported by a king-post rammed three feet into the ground, and besides being nailed to the collar-beam, was tied for steadiness and stability at the top with rope-yarn. Poles were also fixed and secured on either side and at the ends, which, with the doors, were thatched or wickered with fir branches, compactly intertwined. The whole was roofed with canvas, and stayed by guy-ropes. The canvas was made under contract, in pieces to cover a stable for six horses, but after a few days’ rain the pieces shrunk about sixteen inches, and caused throughout the period of the camp much inconvenience to the horses. The stabling was made to accommodate 1,800 horses at an expense of nearly 1,000l. An experimental stable of the above form was run up in two hours and a quarter by twelve men, under sergeant George Pringle, directed by Lieutenant Drake, in the presence of the Commander-in-Chief—Viscount Hardinge—who expressed his satisfaction both with the exertions of the men and the suitability of the construction.
The camp-kitchen for the sappers was built six feet wide and ten feet long, and was approached by a ramp. The flues were ten feet long and one foot wide, with a space intervening through the entire length of twenty inches, which was six inches deep in front and lessened to nothing as it neared the neck of the chimney, for the purpose of facilitating the action of the air and producing a rapid draught. Its sides were built up with sods to the height of fourteen inches, and the top was covered over with the blades of broken shovels. Intervals of nine inches were left to receive the camp-kettles. A trench was dug round the kitchen from which at one end rose, to the height of above six feet, a mud stack containing two distinct chimneys shaped into ornamental pots. At the other end, the two fires were lighted. The flues were kept independently of each other, and, with the chimney-stack, were plastered both inside and out with clay. This expedient gave to the kitchen a neat appearance, and sufficient durability to stand the wear and tear of constant use. Sometimes it was converted into an oven by removing the kettles, and temporarily closing the open spaces with sods. The kitchen cooked for 100 men. Though somewhat troublesome to inexperienced men to construct, compared with the old Peninsular range adopted by some regiments in camp, it was a decided improvement both in form and utility, inasmuch as it economised fuel, received with readiness the few appliances used in military cooking, and enabled the culinary art to be carried on with more alacrity and on a larger scale.
An oven was also constructed after the model of the kitchen with one flue and chimney only. It was built with bricks made on the spot, from clay in the vicinity of the camp. Amid so much rusticity and so many rude campaigning inventions, this oven, from its neatness and success, was much admired. Sergeant Timothy Sillifant, an ingenious mechanic, designed both the kitchen and the oven, and superintended their construction.
Some incidental services executed by the sappers were of a character which it may not be considered inappropriate to notice. So various were their duties and so frequent the calls for their assistance, that the encomiums passed upon them after a full test of their usefulness were not extravagant when it was said “that in all their capacities, from the driving of a nail to the marking out of a fortification, they seemed to be equally as au fait as if each service was their special and sole vocation.”[[122]] They repaired and adapted the poor-house at Burrow Hill for a general hospital; erected a flag-staff for displaying the royal standard; enclosed a large area of ground with a canvas wall seven feet high, within which were pitched marquees and different tented conveniences for the use of the Queen and Her Majesty’s Consort and guests; and watched and managed the tent-ropes of the royal pavilion, &c., within the compound. Here likewise they erected a cookhouse of brick, after the form of their own kitchen, and cut a road about two miles long, from Colonel Challoner’s plantation to the “Magnet,” as a carriage drive for Her Majesty. The road led across one of the artificial sheets of water, and at either side of this causeway was fixed a temporary railing, which gave it an appearance of strength and completeness. Contrivances were also adopted for permitting the water to run freely through the embankment so as to insure the stream rising to the same level at both sides of the bridge. The road was, moreover, a useful one, for in manœuvring the troops it was sometimes employed to accelerate their movements, and the passage across it formed a grand feature in the reviews. It was called the “Queen’s Road,” and the dam across the sheet of water was dignified with the name of the “Queen’s Bridge.” The sappers also attended to the pitching and adjusting of the marquees of some of the staff officers; drained the camp ground; taught soldiers of the line the readiest methods of effecting these duties, and built several sentry-boxes. One was erected under the superintendence of a French captain, of rough poles driven into the ground in a circle, after the manner of the initial gabion. In front, one stake was omitted for the entrance. The box was built to the usual height, was covered in with a conical top, and the whole was thatched with, straw in courses, which gave it in the distance, when the sun was shining upon it, the semblance of a richly-flounced dress. Another box of this kind revolved on a pivot at pleasure, to screen the sentry from wind or rain; and after the camp was broken up, it was given a place in the grounds of Colonel Challoner. A third was run up by private James Queen,[[123]] which, from its mechanical pretensions, was applauded as a work of taste, but could never be successfully imitated unless by talented workmen accustomed to build with neatness and exactness. The structure was of a mural character and defensible, having loopholes in its sides and rear. An heroic bust, made of clay by the private, who had shown some aptitude as a sculptor, was to have surmounted the box, but it was unfortunately destroyed by some of his comrades, during an excited criticism upon its merits.