Shifts and expedients of camp life, travel & exploration

by William Barry Lord; Thomas Baines

A large water cask was kept filled in the fort, and even should the enemy gain possession of the lower room the women and children could still be tolerably safe in the upper, except from random shots fired upwards through the floor, and which of course could be returned in the same manner from above. Against fire their only defence lay in the supply of water we have already mentioned, but care was taken to have nothing inflammable in the lower room. There was no staircase; the ladder would be drawn up through the trap. The beams and flooring would require a considerable blaze to ignite them, and against any quantity of material being brought in for that purpose the defenders relied upon their rifles, or no less deadly smooth bores, loaded with loopers or buck shot.

Blockhouse.

Blockhouse, among military edifices, is, as its name implies, a building constructed chiefly of timber. If alone, it constitutes an independent fort; if formed in the interior of a field-work, it becomes a retrenchment or redoubt, and serves to protect the defenders from the inclemency of the weather when the work is occupied during a considerable time, or to prolong the defence when the work is attacked, and after it is taken to enable the garrison to obtain a capitulation. When the blockhouse is to be employed only as a retrenchment, its plan is generally a simple rectangle, and its walls consist of a single row of piles placed upright in the ground. These are pierced with loopholes at the distance of 3ft. from each other, in order that the building may be defended by a fire of rifles from within. The roof is formed by laying timbers horizontally across the inclosed area and covering them with fascines and earth. The interior breadth of the building may be from 18ft. to 20ft., in order to allow a passage between the two rows of bedsteads. These are placed with their heads to the side walls, and serve as stages on which the men may stand to fire through the loopholes when the latter are much elevated above the floor. In a mountainous country the blockhouse possesses great advantages over an ordinary field fort, inasmuch as the interior of the latter would be incessantly ploughed up by the fire of artillery directed into it by the enemy from the surrounding heights. Here, then, the blockhouse may with propriety be constructed as an independent work; its plan may have re-entering angles, or be in the form of a cross, in order to allow the faces to be defended by flanking fires from the rifles and revolvers from within; and the walls may be thick enough to resist even the shot from 9-pounder guns. For this purpose they must be made by planting parallel to each other, at a distance of 3 ft. or 4ft., two rows of strong piles, those in each row being close together, and the interval between the rows being filled with earth up to the height of the loopholes, which should never be immediately under the roof of the building. The roof must be made shell proof, as before; but it has been recommended, when the work is not overlooked by the enemy, and when its breadth will permit, to have the piles forming the side walls long enough to arise above the roof, and, either alone or with a mass of earth behind them, to serve as a parapet.

Where blockhouses have to be constructed among hostile or doubtful Indian tribes, who are not the possessors of artillery, the fascine and earth roof and double rows of piles may be easily and safely dispensed with.

Logs, squared with the axe and laid on each other, may be substituted for piles with advantage, as the labour of planting firmly in the earth so many ponderous beams of wood is considerable. It is well, in building a blockhouse, to construct a raised breastwork of small logs round the margin of the roof; these may be roughly squared and doweled together with short wooden pins. The roof itself should, after shingling, have a goodly layer of sand, earth, or raw hides laid over it in order to guard against the fire-tipped arrows of hostile savages. A few auger holes here and there serve to carry off rain water or melted snow, and the log breastwork can be both loopholed and fired over with ease.

Frontier blockhouses are usually built of squared logs of timber dowelled together; loopholes are made for firing rifles through, and portholes for one or two iron guns. Some frontier posts are merely squares of heavy log palisades, with all the requisite offices and buildings erected within them. A banquet runs from end to end of each side of the square in order that the defenders may command the attacking force. All trees and bushes within long shooting range are carefully removed so that there shall be no cover.

Waggon burgs, to make.

Bands of travellers in Africa not unfrequently so arrange their waggons as to form substantial defences against the attacks of hostile natives. We have often assisted in forming these so-called “waggon burgs.” They are made as follows: One waggon, with all the women, children, and ammunition, is placed in the centre. Others are drawn up, each with its inner fore wheel nearly touching the outer hind wheel of the one before it, and forming just such an angle with it that the dozen or thereabouts of vehicles form an almost perfect circle, their poles and trek gear extending on the outside, so that the oxen can again be yoked to each without disorder or confusion. There is room inside for the horses and cattle beside the defenders; and, should danger be imminent, the waggons can be locked together by the drag chains, and all the interstices choked with thorn bushes, the stems of which thrust inward would be securely fastened by pegs driven into the ground, or by lashing branches, cut short for the purpose, to the inner wheels, or by “reims” or thongs reeved through the bifurcations; while the tangled branches would oppose a barrier that no enemy could force in the face of the bullets or the small shot that would be poured through. The gear of the oxen would also be brought in and used in strengthening the defences.