Chapter XIV: Part 14

The Captain, accompanied by Coles and a Cape man, had been out since the morning examining the country to choose a route for the next day’s march, and were working with all their energies at a road for the horses, when the savages from the camp poured into the forest. The Cape man, who was in the rear, first saw them; and instead of calling to Coles or the Captain for assistance, took to his heels, pursued by the natives. The three were now engaged for their lives, and taking up a position behind some rocks, the men were directed to fire separately. Coles was armed with the Captain’s rifle, but it was covered with a cloth case for protection against the rain. This becoming entangled with the lock, his services at a critical moment were lost. The Captain now gave Coles his gun to complete the reloading, and taking the rifle, tore off the cover and stept from behind the rocks. In an instant three spears pierced his body, but a deadly shot from the rifle slew the principal antagonist. The combat at once ceased; but, though it had only lasted a few seconds, the spears and weapons strewn in such abundance about that wild position gave proof of its severity. Neither Coles nor the Cape man was injured, but the Captain was badly wounded. Coles bound up the Captain’s hip wound as well as he could, and supporting him with his arm, assisted him homewards. Some hours were spent in the journey. The track was lost, and the Captain, leaning more and more heavily on Coles, showed signs of increasing weakness. A beaten route at last was gained and a stream in its vicinity crossed; but the Captain, in the effort, strained his wounded hip and fell on the opposite shore unable to rise. Coles, with his usual devotion, volunteered to go alone to the party and send assistance. This he did, bounding over rock and cliff, through wood and scrub, jumping gaping rifts, and fording streams with the natives on his trail. In a short hour, through his unflinching ardour and daring, the surgeon and Mr. Lushington were ministering to the wants of the wounded chief.[316] The only drawback to this day’s steadiness and fidelity was the loss, by Coles, of the Captain’s valuable note-book.[317] The nipple of the rifle injured by Coles in his eagerness to remove the case, was taken out by Auger; but lacking proper tools, several days were spent in niggling perseverance, to drill it out with a bradawl.

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Footnote 316:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 154.

Footnote 317:

Ibid., i. p. 153.

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The expedition was now delayed for a time; and corporal Auger, whose ingenuity and skill as a carpenter had frequently been of service, made the Captain a low stretcher to lie upon, which gave him a little more ease.[318] To relieve him, moreover, from unnecessary discomfort and pain, Auger, with feeling solicitude, carried the chief in his arms at times when he seemed to need it, to convenient distances in the vicinity of the tent. Athletic and careful, he was not a bad substitute for a sedan.

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Footnote 318:

Ibid., i. p. 158.

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On the 27th February the party was again in motion, but their progress was slow. Much time was spent in constructing pathways in ravines and clefty land otherwise inaccessible, and in finding fords over streams, and passages across swamps. To one ford Captain Grey particularly alludes. On the 27th March, he and his party sought for a ford across a river about a hundred yards wide in S. Lat. 15° 49´, E. Long. 125° 6´, but their efforts were fruitless. It therefore appeared inevitable that the winding of the river should be followed, or the party branched off in another direction to find an open route in advance. This surmise was not very agreeable. Auger pondered a little over this aspect of the journey, and soon resolved to make a survey of the stream untrammelled by the presence of any one. Accordingly, disposing of a hasty breakfast, he started alone to the river, and returned in about an hour reporting he had found one. The ponies were at once moved on, and as they wound through it following a circuitous course, it was nowhere less than knee deep, but on each side, at times, the water was dangerously high. “I could not,” writes the Captain, “but admire the perseverance of Auger, in having discovered so intricate a ford as this was.”[319]

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Footnote 319:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 209.

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Two or three nights before finding this ford he tied himself among the branches of a stunted acacia-tree, and shaken by the wind slept as soundly as in a cradle rocked by an attentive nurse. He did this to escape the wet and chills of the stony ground on which the travellers bivouacked and rested during the darkness.

Much labour was given in tracing the courses of rivers, the direction of mountain ranges, and acquiring information of the physical features of the country, and of its natural history.[320] All these services were not accomplished without much exertion and diligence. To scale the mountain side, to creep down the perilous declivity, to wade the morass, to traverse a wild country torn into fissures, and encumbered by rocks and scrubs and a dense vegetation, were but their common daily task; but when to these exertions are added the trials arising from privation, constant exposure to the sun and the storm, the bare shelter by night of some overhanging cliff or frail tent, with the discomfort of being, for days together, unable to undress or wash themselves, a faint glimpse only is caught of the harassing and difficult nature of their duties, their weariness, their sufferings and hardships.

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Footnote 320:

Auger accompanied Captain Grey on one occasion to examine a
sandstone ridge in the hope of finding egress from it. After
proceeding some distance the corporal discovered a cave, in which
was an intaglio face and head cut in the rock, of rather superior
workmanship for an untutored savage; and Captain Grey has
distinguished the work by giving a drawing of it in his Travels.
Vol. i. p. 206.

Private Mustard, who had been at the Cape of Good Hope, brought
his experience to bear upon the present service. He discovered the
spoor of a large quadruped with a divided hoof. He had seen like
impressions at the Cape. Captain Grey conceiving that Mustard had
made some mistake, paid no attention to his report, until he
afterwards saw traces of the animal himself. On one occasion the
Captain followed its track for a mile and a half, when it was lost
in rocky ground. The footmarks were larger than those of a
buffalo, and it was apparently more bulky, for where it had passed
through the brushwood, shrubs in its way of considerable size, had
been crushed aside or broken down. The animal has not yet been
seen. Its existence is, however, asserted, from the peculiarity of
the spoor. Vol. i. p. 242, ‘Grey’s Travels.’

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The mode of refreshing themselves by washing was as primitive as inconvenient, but the trying nature of the service led them to find contentment in the roughest resources. Full dressed, they often plunged into the lakes to scrape and wash away the accumulations of days from their persons and clothes; and on emerging from the waters, bearing their dripping suits on their backs, they ran about to prevent colds or rheumatic seizures, while the sun steamed off the moisture from their threadbare garments.

Corporal Auger in these wanderings was the chief dependent. Uncompromising, he was straightforward in his duties; enterprising, he feared nothing. On most occasions he was sent ahead of the party to pace the distance, to find the track through regions of country covered with rank grass more than fourteen feet high, and to discover fords to assist the progress of the wayfarers and thus prevent depressing and harassing detours or returns. The moral courage of that man must indeed have been great, who was the first to penetrate a shrouded and unbroken stretch of solitude, unaware of the dangers in which his every step might suddenly have involved him.

The expedition had now penetrated two rivers beyond the Glenelg and Prince Regent, and then turned towards Hanover Bay. On 1st April they started, encountering difficulties of a character similar to those already borne with such cheerfulness and fortitude. Seven days of their journey found private Mustard crippled from falling into a crevice in the rock. Here the Captain, though suffering himself from the wound in his hip, yielded his horse for Mustard’s convenience. On the 15th April, the party reached Hanover Bay, having lost nearly all their live stock and fifteen of their ponies. A few more days were occupied in collecting the stores and shipping them, when the expedition sailed for the Isle of France and arrived on the 17th May. The three sappers were landed in a very sickly and emaciated state, and during their stay at the Mauritius were under medical treatment in hospital.

On the 27th January, nineteen non-commissioned officers and privates of the detachment serving with the naval force under the command of Lord John Hay at San Sebastian, were present with General O’Donnell’s army in an attack on the village of Orio, and burnt and sank several flat-bottomed boats under the fire of musketry from the opposite side of the river.

On the following day, at the request of the Spanish general, the same sappers were despatched to Usurvil to intrench and fortify a large garden at the outskirts of the village. The work was instantly commenced; but when the party was about to destroy the bridge which had been partially broken, General O’Donnell changed his intention and the sappers returned to San Sebastian. Shortly after, the detachment marched with the marine battalion to Oyarzun to cover the operations of General O’Donnell at Bera.

About this period the available men of the party fitted up the ‘Columbia’ steamer for the accommodation of troops, and a storehouse for the use of the squadron. At Passages, also, the carpenters converted the church into a commissariat depôt for stores and provisions, and strengthened and improved the fortifications around San Sebastian and the heights. All the works were carried out with difficulty; for the Spanish authorities could scarcely command the use of a plank or even a nail for their purposes, and it was only by the force of habitual and urgent requisitions, that they could be induced to press for any materials for the service of the department.

By the ‘Alonzo’ transport a reinforcement of eleven rank and file arrived in May, increasing the detachment to thirty-one of all ranks. Late in the month, these men, with others of the party, were, at the recommendation of General O’Donnell, detached to Casa Aquirre on the left of Venta, to render it sufficiently defensive to receive the garrison of Astigaraga in the event of its being compelled to retire. The working party consisted of a company of the Spanish marine battalion of seventy soldiers and twenty peasants, and the position was completed with the necessary works by March, 1839.

On the 24th June, twenty-five of the detachment moved with a part of the army to the river Orio, and, under fire, levelled the parapets and works of the Carlists.

In October, four men of the party in plain clothes under orders of secrecy, accompanied Colonel Colquhoun of the royal artillery, and Lieutenant Vicars of the engineers, to the headquarters of Muñagorri, to assist in putting him in motion and to secure his position. The mission reached Sara on the 17th, then passed to a hill to the east of La Rune mountain, about four miles from the village, where the chief was posted, and afterwards to St. Jean Pied de Port; but owing to the opposition of Aquirre, the commandant of Valcarlos, who would not allow the pacificators to take up quarters in his neighbourhood, the expedition, unable from this cause to assist the Fuerist chief, returned to San Sebastian on the 24th October.

The same sappers, in plain clothes as before,[321] accompanied the above-named officers on a second mission to Muñagorri in November. The party reached St. Jean Pied de Port viâ Bayonne on the 5th. Aquirre, acting under the orders of Espartero, was firm in his resolution to resist the pacificators in the occupation of Valcarlos; and as he would not yield a pass to the force of Muñagorri, the project of entering Spain at Valcarlos was necessarily abandoned, and the expedition once more retraced its steps to San Sebastian, where it arrived on the 16th.

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Footnote 321:

The senior of whom was second-corporal John Down, afterwards
sergeant. In September, 1835, while pontooning in the Medway
at Halling, he plunged into the river and saved from drowning,
by means of an oar, private F. Adams of the corps. He also
relieved from a very precarious situation lance-corporal
Woodhead, of the Honourable East India Company’s sappers, who
had jumped in to assist private Adams. For his courage and
humanity the Royal Humane Society granted Down a pecuniary
reward, and his officers gave him a military hold-all,
containing the usual articles, chiefly of silver, bearing on a
silver plate this inscription—“Presented by his officers to
private John Down for his gallant conduct in rescuing a
comrade from drowning.” This non-commissioned officer served
two stations at Gibraltar and Bermuda, and being pensioned at
1_s._ 9_d._ in October, 1849, retired to Chatham, where he is
now filling the humble but sufficient situation of pump-master
to the Barracks at Brompton.

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Late in the same month, twelve men of the detachment were sent to the Bidassoa to fortify the position taken up by the Fuerist chief. A fatality attended all his movements and projects. St. Marcial had been fixed upon by him to establish his force there; but before the operation could be effected, the Queen’s troops under General O’Donnell were already in possession of it, and the approach of Muñagorri was therefore interdicted. Another position, however, was soon selected near the Bidassoa, and a redoubt forthwith commenced. Sixty peasants from San Sebastian and a small force from the ranks of the Fuerists formed the working party. The latter were indolent to the last degree, and even the presence of Muñagorri and Jarregui failed to inspire them with the necessary energy. The sappers worked from morning till nightfall, and often remained on duty the entire day, exposed the whole time to the drenching storm. All the works were marked out, and every detail for the defence was conducted by the sappers under the direction of Lieutenant Vicars, and their zeal and usefulness were noticed in commendatory terms. After completing the defences, the party rejoined Lord John Hay’s force early in January, 1839.

In May one sergeant and twelve privates were detached to the north of Scotland, and employed on the trigonometrical survey of that part of the country until December under the direction of Lieutenant Robinson, royal engineers. This mountain detachment endured much fatigue in carrying out the service, and for their diligence and exertion in conducting the operation, received a high character.

Six rank and file were employed on a similar duty at the Frith of the Clyde under Captain A. Henderson, R.E., and rejoined the corps on the 24th October. The men were selected on account of their physical strength, and were in every respect found equal to the arduous requirements of the service.

The insurrection in the Canadas, headed by Papineau, induced the Government to send a company to that colony. Captain Colin Mackenzie with one sergeant and thirty-seven rank and file went out in the ‘Hastings,’ seventy-four, as a guard of honour to Lord Durham when his lordship was appointed Governor-General in Canada. The remainder, three sergeants and forty-five rank and file, sailed in the steamer ‘Dee.’ The guard of honour landed at Quebec on the 29th May, and the ‘Dee’ detachment on the 14th June. A proportionate quantity of intrenching tools and engineer stores were landed with the company.

At the celebration of Her Majesty’s coronation on the plains of Abraham in June, 1838, the Earl of Durham minutely inspected the company, and in the presence of several general officers, noticed the steadiness with which the company marched past. This expression the Governor-General repeated at the chateau of St. Louis on the 28th June, and added, that the soldier-like appearance of the sappers and their steadiness under arms exceeded his expectations. The good conduct of the company also elicited his lordship’s approbation.

While at Niagara, on the 11th September, the company was reviewed by Major-General Sir George Arthur, with the King’s dragoon guards and 43rd regiment, and his Excellency spoke in praise of the appearance of the company, its marching and manœuvring.

Soon after, the head-quarters of the company were removed to the Niagara frontier to place it in a state of defence. The work of reparation commenced with Fort Mississaqua. About this time twelve non-commissioned officers and men were removed, for engineer services, to Amherstburg, and another party of twenty-two of all ranks was detached to Montreal. The latter was detained at Cornwall for a few days by Major Phillpotts of the corps, and, under Lieutenant Roberts, formed the advanced guard with a detachment of the 71st light infantry, in a successful attack on the rebels at Beauharnois on the 10th November, 1838. The good conduct of this party was acknowledged by Colonel Carmichael who commanded the attack.

A novel duty now devolved upon the corps in the subaqueous destruction of the brig ‘William,’ sunk off Tilbury Fort in May, 1837, and the schooner ‘Glenmorgan,’ wrecked in Gravesend Reach several years before. The wrecks were impediments to navigation; and the Lord Mayor, after consulting Colonel Pasley, determined to have the vessels destroyed by gunpowder. Operations commenced on the 19th May by a detachment of thirty non-commissioned officers and men of the 8th company, under the direction of Captain Yule, royal engineers, and in a few days the wrecks were blown to pieces by two great charges of gunpowder of 2340 lbs. each. The object desired was thus satisfactorily attained. The sappers executed all the minor fitments not requiring the skill of shipwrights. They also descended in the diving-bell and diving-helmet, managed the movements of the former, and besides preparing and executing the mining details of the operation, assisted the seamen and the riggers in the naval arrangements.[322] The men in the diving-bell were exposed to great danger from the violent action, on two occasions, of the ebb and flood tides, and had they not been very resolute men, would have given up the attempt.

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Footnote 322:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 45, 274.

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During the service, a vessel ran foul of the diving-bell lighter, and carried it above a quarter of a mile up the river, disconnecting the great cylinder containing the charge. The next day, sergeant-major Jones, acting with the leading rigger, “got the lighter very nearly back into her former place over the wreck, and recovered the cylinder and leaden pipe from the bottom of the river.” To prevent the recurrence of a similar accident, the guard of the detachment on board, kept up a brisk fire of blank cartridges when any vessel approached them in the night, which had the desired effect.[323]

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Footnote 323:

Ibid., iii. p. 41, 42.

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Of the “indefatigable exertions of the sappers,” Colonel Pasley made particular mention in his official report, and added, “it was a pleasure to see them, and the seamen and riggers, working so cheerfully together.” “Sergeant-major Jones,” writes the Colonel, “who is equally skilful and active as a miner and a pontoneer, was quite in his element.”[324]

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Footnote 324:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 45.

The operations did not terminate without the occurrence of a melancholy accident. On the 21st of May, Corporal Henry Mitchell, who had been practised as a diver for a short time in the Medway, was sent down in a diving-helmet to fix a couple of eye-bolts to the side of the ‘William,’ preparatory to the first explosion. “After examining the wreck, he came up and gave a favourable account of his prospects,” and then “took his tools and descended again; but owing to a rope fixed round him having become entangled in the wreck, the signals usually made by pulling this rope could not be distinguished;” nor could he be drawn to the surface of the water. On Colonel Pasley reaching the wreck, and as soon as the necessary arrangements could be completed, sergeants John Ross and James Young with two privates, voluntarily descended a second time in the diving-bell, and after a few minutes' careful exertion, succeeded in finding their comrade; but he was quite dead, having been at the bottom upwards of twelve hours. The intrepid conduct of these non-commissioned officers was much applauded.[325]

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Footnote 325:

Ibid., iii. p. 40, 41.

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The great explosions above referred to, had not, it was ascertained, touched the bow of the brig ‘William;’ and in August operations were resumed to destroy it. The entire service, except the duty of diving, devolved on the sappers. A leaden cylinder, to hold a charge of 315 lbs. of gunpowder, was made by some artificers of the corps at Chatham; but it failed on application, and tin oil bottles, containing small charges prepared by the sappers, were found to answer the purpose. These were taken to the wreck every morning by sergeant-major Jones and another non-commissioned officer, and being properly fixed by the divers and fired by the sergeant-major, the remaining fragments of the wreck were so broken and dispersed, as to render the anchorage perfectly safe for the shipping. Fifteen of such charges were fired against the ‘William,’ and two more, to make ‘assurance doubly sure,’ were also exploded among the scattered timbers of the ‘Glenmorgan.’ Sergeant-major Jones was the executive on this service under the direction of Colonel Pasley.[326]

Under the authority of the Act of 1st Vict. cap. 20, the Ordnance received in charge the royal military canal at Hythe. With a view to a more economical expenditure in its control and repair, the company of the royal staff corps in charge of it, was disbanded in July,[327] and a detachment of two sergeants and forty-two rank and file of the royal sappers and miners succeeded to the duty. Of this detachment, one sergeant and twenty rank and file had been detached to the canal early in April, and the remainder, to the above total, was completed by an incorporation of several men from the staff corps company, and six non-commissioned officers and gunners acquainted with the care and management of horses from the royal artillery. The principal duties of the detachment consisted in taking charge of the locks and sluices, collecting tolls, repairing the drains, fences, &c., and in the execution of various laborious services in mud and water. A careful review of this arrangement, and of the receipts and expenses of the canal, however, induced Sir Hussey Vivian, the Master-General, to supersede the employment of sappers by pensioners from the ordnance corps at very reduced wages; and accordingly in December, 1840, the detachment was reduced to thirty-two of all ranks; in May, 1841, to seven; and in the following month, to one sergeant, who continued on duty at Hythe till October, 1842.

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Footnote 326:

‘United Service Journal,’ iii. 1838, p. 271-274.

Footnote 327:

The disbandment of this company was the last in the annihilation
of the corps. In that month it disappeared from the muster-rolls
of the army.

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1839.

Expedition to Western Australia under Captain Grey—Excursion with
Auger to the north of Perth—Search for Mr. Ellis—Exploration of
shores from Freemantle—Bernier and Dorre Islands; want of
water; trials of the party—Water allowance reduced—A lagoon
discovered—Privations and hardships of the party—Return to Bernier
Island for stores—Its altered appearance—Destruction of the depôt
of provisions—Consternation of Coles—Auger’s example under the
circumstances—Expedition makes for Swan River—Perilous landing at
Gantheaume Bay—Overland journey to Perth; straits of the
adventurers—Auger searching for a missing man—Coles observes the
natives; arrangements to meet them—Water found by Auger—A spring
discovered by Coles at Water Peak—Disaffection about long marches;
forced journeys determined upon; the two sappers and a few others
accompany the Captain—Desperate hardships and fatigues; the last
revolting resource of thirst—Extraordinary exertions of the
travellers; their sufferings from thirst; water found—Appalling
bivouac—Coles’s agony and fortitude—Struggles of the adventurers;
they at last reach Perth—Auger joins two expeditions in search of
the slow walkers—Disposal of Coles and Auger.

Captain Grey of the 83rd regiment, undertook a second expedition; this time to Western Australia. As soon as the sappers had recovered from the hardships and privations to which they had been subjected in New Holland, they volunteered again to accompany him. Private R. Mustard, too much shaken by the injury he had sustained on the former expedition, was unfit to proceed, and was left with the company of the corps at the Mauritius. On the 21st of August, 1838, the party embarked at Port Louis; and, on the 18th of September, arrived at Perth, Western Australia.

Delays prevented the Captain immediately pursuing his object, but to turn the interval to profit, he made a short excursion to the north of Perth with Mr. Frederick Smith and Corporal Auger. The exploration continued from the 30th November to the 8th of December, and was marked by incidents of a pacific character. None of the difficulties which clogged their previous exertions were experienced on this trip, and, coupled with the variety and beauty of the scenery, but little enthusiasm was needed to make the travellers feel an interest in the service.[328]

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Footnote 328:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 292-309.

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The year opened with Captain Grey and four adventurers, including his two sappers, travelling into the interior in search of Mr. George Ellis and his two companions, who, having left the Williams' River for the Leschenault on the coast, had been out for several days beyond the period it was expected they would reach their destination, and fears were entertained for their safety. Captain Grey and his men steadily pursued their object, till the missing travellers, alive and in tolerable health, turned up to their exertions at Augusta. After twenty-two days' bush-ranging, the Captain and his party re-entered Perth on the 31st of January. This episodical service was one of fatigue, particularly in crossing the Darling range and in pushing their route through forests and over wild and rugged ground. In some districts, the want of water was severely felt by them, and for eleven hours in one day, they journeyed onwards under a sultry sun, suffering from excessive thirst.[329]

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Footnote 329:

Ibid., i. p. 310-328.

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On the 17th of February, the expedition of twelve persons sailed from Fremantle to examine the shores of Shark’s Bay and the country behind it, taking with them three whale-boats for future use. On the 25th, they landed at Bernier Island, discovering, when too late, that the keg of tobacco which was to have constituted their chief consolation in hardship, was left on board. After landing the provisions, the greater part of them were buried for security, but the want of water drove the expedition to Dorre Island on the 28th of February, where their persevering search was equally unavailing, for the little that was obtained was extracted by suction from small holes in the rock. Already the party had had one of its boats knocked to pieces, and its stores lost, whilst the other two boats in a hurricane were much injured. For three days the sappers were engaged in their repair, and on the 3rd of March, the travellers, oppressed with thirst, wearied by fatigue, and exposed to the full blaze of a powerful sun, sailed for the main.[330]

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Footnote 330:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 329-344.

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Reaching a sand-bank, the boats were tracked and pulled onwards, through deep mud and weeds, into a dense mangrove creek, to land; and, in accomplishing this service, severe trials were encountered, the difficulties of which were increased by the exhaustion which labour and the want of water induced. In fifteen days, the allowance had been reduced from two and a half pints to half a pint a day.[331]

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Footnote 331:

Ibid., i. p. 345-351.

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Pursuing their journey, a lagoon of fresh water was soon found, and all bent the knee to take their fill of the luxury. A black line round the countenance showed how deeply each had regaled himself. Next day, the two sappers and some of the party visited the lagoon again, and in the evening returned loaded to the boats.[332]

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Footnote 332:

Ibid., i. p. 351-353.

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Several days had been spent in exploration and adventure, during which the river Gascoyne had been discovered, and a few objects of geographical interest named. On one occasion, a storm having overtaken the wayfarers, their boats, which were swamped, were dragged amid much danger to shore; and their flour, saturated with salt water, was now quite spoilt. Nevertheless, unwholesome as it was, they were forced to use it, as they had nothing else to eat. Illness now began to appear among the party, and as there was neither food nor medicine to give them, their situation was deplorable. While in this helpless state, they were attacked by a body of about thirty natives near Kolaina plains; but fortunately, they succeeded in pushing off their boats without any serious accident occurring.[333] Auger at the time was in the head of the boat, soldering up the breaches in an old kettle, valuable in its way, for the expedition had none other for its cooking purposes, when a spear, thrown by a savage, whizzed past the industrious tinker, and struck the seaman Ruston.

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Footnote 333:

Ibid., i. p. 351-379.

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After a period of intense desolation and gloom, in which the expedition was exposed to the fury of angry storms, and the pinching calls of want, the boats put to sea; and surrounded by perils both from surf and squall, the adventurers returned to the Gascoyne. Launching or beaching their boats on the rocky coast was a service of hazard and difficulty. On the 20th of March the provisions were nearly expended, and to replenish their stores, the boats made for Bernier Island. A gale of wind caught them on the passage, and they only made good the landing by almost superhuman exertion. Here a store of provisions had been buried, when the expedition first made the island, but from its very altered appearance, caused by the ravages of recent hurricanes, Captain Grey doubted whether the depôt could be found. Fearing some disaster had befallen the stores, he considered it unadvisable that the “discovery should be made in the presence of too many persons, as future discipline would depend on the first impression that was given.” He therefore selected Mr. Smith and corporal Coles, in whose courage, disinterestedness, and self-possession, he placed great confidence, to accompany him to the depôt. The corporal took a spade with him.[334]

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Footnote 334:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 379-391.

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Before they had gone far, they observed staves of flour casks scattered about amongst the rocks and high up on the sand hills. Coles, taking a rapid glance of the ground, “persisted, they were so far inland, that they could only have come from the flour casks which the expedition had emptied before starting.” Moving on in their anxious survey, they “next came to a cask of salt provisions washed high and dry at least twenty feet above the usual high-water mark; the sea had evidently not been near the spot for a long period, as it was half covered with drift sand, which must have taken some time to accumulate. This Coles again easily accounted for; it was merely the cask which had been lost from the wreck of the 'Paul Pry.'” The Captain thought otherwise, but made no remark. At length they reached the depôt. “So changed was it, that both Mr. Smith and Coles persisted it was not the place: but on going to the shore, there were some very remarkable rocks, on the top of which lay a flour cask more than half empty, with the head knocked out, but not otherwise injured. This was also washed up at least twenty feet of perpendicular elevation beyond high water mark. The dreadful certainty now flashed on the minds of Mr. Smith and corporal Coles;” but poor Coles, usually so imperturbable in character, and so ready to find reasons for the alarming appearances which had met his gaze at every step, did not bear the surprise as well as had been expected. He dashed the spade upon the ground with almost ferocious violence, and looking up to Captain Grey, said, “All lost, sir! We are all lost.” A few rallying words from the Captain, however, made him “perfectly cool and collected, and he promised to make light of the misfortune to the rest, and to observe the strictest discipline.” Coles with eager economy now collected every particle of the precious flour, discoloured as it was, that was left in the barrel and strewn on the rocks, and with another bag of spoiled flour found among the sea-weeds, the adventurers returned to the party. Their tale of distress was soon told, and all heard it with dismay. “Mr. Walker and corporal Auger set an excellent example to the others. Two seamen named Woods, indisposed to bear, in common with the adventurers, the sacrifices that impended, seized the first opportunity of endeavouring to appropriate to themselves the miserable remnant of damper belonging to the party; but their unmanly intention being observed, a sentry was placed in charge of the scanty store of provisions, which only amounted to about nine lbs. of salt meat, and about sixty lbs. of tolerably good flour.”[335]

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Footnote 335:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 391-396.

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The expedition quitted Bernier Island on the 22nd of March, to make for Swan River. In taking this course, it was hoped, that if any accident occurred Perth could be reached by walking. Crossing the bay, the party sailed to the southward, examining the coast, and after a brief stay on Perron’s Peninsula and Dirk Hartog’s Island, the boats on the 31st, reached Gantheaume Bay. Eleven days were spent in achieving this run: the coasting was very perilous, and the gales that caught the leaky boats as they swept along, were terrific. Both were more than once in imminent danger, but the unsparing energy and determination of the men carried them safely to the shore. At Gantheaume Bay, however, the landing was not effected without casualty. The surf was high and raging, and the wind drove the boats along at a fearful rate. Onwards they plunged, now dancing on a swell, now pitching in a trough, now quite unmanageable, when one was tossed over by a furious wave and dashed in fragments amongst the rocks and breakers. In an instant, its crew and the two sappers were struggling through the foaming surf, but after tumbling amongst oars and water-kegs, and the spars and splinters of the wreck, all clambered to the summit of the cliff, torn, jaded, and exhausted.[336]

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Footnote 336:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ i. p. 396-412.

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A crisis had now arrived which it was necessary to meet with firmness. Assembling the expedition, the captain explained matters as they appeared, and of which the travellers were only too cognizant. Auger, who all along had repaired the boats, was asked by the chief, if they could be put in any kind of condition for service. Knowing their unfitness for anything, and the impossibility of making them even temporarily seaworthy, he frankly answered in the negative. Fortified by the professional opinion of a truthful and skilful artificer, Captain Grey took his determination at once and arrangements were made accordingly. On the 2nd April, the party started from Gantheaume Bay, resolved to reach Perth by marching. The provisions had been shared out—20 lbs. of flour and 1 lb. of salt meat per man. The flour was of a brown colour with a fermented taste, like bad beer, and nothing but dire necessity could induce any one to eat it. The distance to be travelled was about 300 miles in a direct line, without taking hills, valleys, and deviations into account. Corporals Coles and Auger, besides their provisions, &c., carried a pocket chronometer and a large sextant, turn about. Coles also bore the Captain’s rifle, and Auger a choice book valued by the chief, and a housewife containing some needles and thread and a few patches. In all the dreadful hardships that beset them, even when extreme feebleness might have excused them the toil of bearing the articles, they abandoned nothing until ordered to do so. “Indeed,” says Captain Grey, “I do not believe that there is a stronger instance of fidelity and perseverance than was evinced by some of the party, in retaining under every difficulty, possession of that which they had promised to preserve for me.”[337] Impeded by natural obstacles, their progress was tediously slow. The Hutt River was reached on the 5th. A few days after they touched the Bowes River, and then journeying through the province of Victoria, rested by the rivers Buller and Chapman.[338]

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Footnote 337:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ ii. p. 6.

Footnote 338:

Ibid., ii. p. 1-31.

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On the banks of the latter a man was found missing; and Dr. Walker and corporal Auger were sent in search of him. They ascended the cliffs and tracked him to the sea; but as a large party of natives were near them, they gave up the pursuit, and, unobserved, retreated. The missing man turned up next day.[339]

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Footnote 339:

Ibid., ii. p. 31-37.

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While this party was out, corporal Coles, who was posted as sentry on a high terrace difficult of access, saw natives on the opposite cliffs brandishing their spears in the manner they do before a fight. Captain Grey clambered up the height, but as he could not make them out, he thought Coles had made a mistake. “When I told him this,” writes the Captain, “he merely said, Look there, then, sir,” and pointed to the top of Mount Fairfax. There, indeed, they were, going through a series of enigmatical ceremonies. The disposition which the Captain made of his men, being observed by the natives, at first excited them to furious gestures, but by degrees, they calmed down and suddenly withdrew. “The British soldiers and sailors with me,” proceeds the chief, “were surprisingly calm.”[340]

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Footnote 340:

Ibid., ii. p. 31-33.

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The Greenough River was reached on the 8th April. Here some of the men became sullen and would not proceed. In the mean time corporal Auger went alone to search for water, and soon finding it, the party was moved to the stream. Revived in spirits by the supply, all readily resumed the march, and before nightfall, had travelled seven miles further on their journey.[341] But the wish for short marches and long halts which prevailed from the first, and in which Dr. Walker coincided, was now exhibited in discontent. The Captain, however, wisely persisted in following his own plan. On the 9th April the want of water was much felt; and late in the day corporals Auger and Coles and three others went in search of some. They had made about seven miles, “when the keen eye of Coles,” says the Captain, “discovered a beautiful spring under a hill, which was then named the Water Peak.” Why this designation? Indebted to the corporal for finding the spring, it would not surely have been irrelevant to associate the humble name of the faithful discoverer with this interesting feature of the hard journey. In returning to the party, they wandered over a rough country full of crevices, sustaining some serious falls, and, being benighted, did not reach their companions till the next morning.[342]

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Footnote 341:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ ii. p. 37.

Footnote 342:

Ibid., ii. p. 40-44.

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So great had the disaffection become about short marches, that the Captain resolved to adopt a course to settle the question. About seventy miles only had been marched, and six or seven pounds of flour were all that was left to each person. All were hourly losing strength and energy, and suffering from stiffened limbs. To delay under such circumstances was sure to bring with it wants and trials of the most distressing nature. The Captain, therefore, determined to proceed by forced journeys. “It was evident,” he writes, “that those men who, during our late toils, had shown themselves the most capable of enduring hardships, privations, and the fatigue of long and rapid marches, were those best suited for the service destined for them.” Among the five selected to accompany him were corporals Auger and Coles, whose force of character and disciplinary habits made them fit examples for imitation in so forlorn an extremity. Dr. Walker’s party consisted of five men, and himself as the chief. Mr. Frederick Smith was with the slow walkers. The separation took place on the 10th April.[343]

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Footnote 343:

Ibid., ii. p. 45-52.

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The Arrowsmith River was gained by Captain Grey and his steady men on the 11th, and a further march of forty-six miles brought them on the 13th to Gairdner’s Range. On the 14th, they reached the Hill River, and after a long journey, halted at a pool, where they each cooked two table-spoonsful of flour in about a pint of thick water into a mess they termed _soup_. This, with a few nuts from the zamia tree, formed their day’s repast. On this scanty fare they trudged along at a smart pace, over an arid and sterile tract of country, groaning from pain and fatigue. The sun, too, was intensely hot, and all grew faint for want of water. Gaining the course of a parched-up stream, it was called the “Smith” River. Many holes like wells were in its bottom, inviting search and promising success; but all were cruelly dry, and the very stones over which the water once had gushed, were blanched or blackened with long exposure to a burning sun. Now their weary days only passed to be succeeded by sleepless and toilsome nights. Almost perishing with thirst, they wandered like wild men even in the dark hours of night, from swamp to swamp, digging holes in a vain search. For two days and two nights they had not tasted a single drop of water or food of any kind; and on the 17th, as they moved slowly on with weak and husky voices, they moistened their mouths by sucking a few drops of dew from the shrubs and reeds. So worn out were they all, that now they could only walk a few hundred yards at a time; but about two o’clock in the afternoon they were so completely exhausted, it was impossible to move them. The sun was then very oppressive, and the groans of the men were painful in the extreme. Some had fruitlessly essayed to obtain relief to their parched throats by chewing the laces and fragments of the tops of their ankle boots; but now the “last sad and revolting resource of thirst was upon them—they were driven to drink their own ——!”[344]

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Footnote 344:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ ii. p. 54-72.

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Reduced to the last degree of weakness and want, Captain Grey, in this desperate crisis, resolved to proceed southward, and never to halt until he dropped or reached water; and if any of the party fell behind, not to wait for them, but to go on until he slaked his own thirst, and then to return with assistance to them. Upon all he called to exert their utmost energies and make a last struggle for their lives. Every superfluous article was now thrown away, and the very valuable sextant, carried in turns by corporals Coles and Auger, was also abandoned. In sad procession the sufferers reeled on with wild and haggard looks; and though reason with some had begun to hold but a very slight influence, discipline was rigidly maintained, and not a complaint escaped them. At length, after suffering intense thirst for three days and two nights, performing severe marches under a scorching sun, the delighted travellers, finding a small hole of moist mud, each as he came up cast his wearied and aching limbs beside the hole, and, thanking God, greedily swallowed the liquid.[345]

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Footnote 345:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ ii. p. 77-81.

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Almost in a state of stupefaction the men lay down by the pool, watching with straining eye-balls until they again saw a little mud in it, which they eagerly licked up. Pigeons and cockatoos in numbers came to drink of the spring, but the gaunt wayfarers forestalling them had consumed the supply. Above, hovered birds in tempting flocks while the travellers by the “lone pool” were starving. Not an arm was strong enough to bring one down. The gun was partially raised, but the tremor of the effort rendered the attempt altogether hopeless. Each now turned to his own little store, and cooking a spoonful of flour, mixed with the black liquid, gratefully ate it. All sense of smell and taste had gone, and a repast of mud was as palatable as a custard. Next day, April the 18th, quitting the memorable pool, they traversed a very hilly and densely-wooded country, and finding excellent water, made, notwithstanding their extreme feebleness, an incredibly long march. At night they lay down exposed to heavy rain, and, as a piece of torn and shredded blanket between two was their only covering, their situation was one of extreme wretchedness and suffering.[346] During these wanderings, Auger found intervals in which his spirits were sufficiently buoyant to encourage him to unpack his needles and thread, and to do his best—being only an improvised tailor—to mend the gaping rents and fretted fractures in the Captain’s tattered costume.[347]

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Footnote 346:

Ibid., ii. p. 81-87.

Footnote 347:

Lady Thomas, the mother of the chief, heard of these thoughtful
attentions exercised under such trying circumstances, and on the
traveller being introduced to her, she acknowledged his kindness
with no little emotion, and marked her grateful appreciation of it
by a suitable gift.

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On the 19th, the exhausted travellers were in motion again, but completely crippled from the cold of the night. “Corporal Coles,” writes the Captain, “my faithful and tried companion in all my wanderings, could scarcely crawl along. The flesh was completely torn away from one of his heels; and the irritation caused by this had produced a large swelling in the groin. Nothing but his own strong fortitude, aided by the encouragement given him by myself and his comrades, could have made him move under his great agony.”[348] Twenty-one miles the party marched that day without food, and only gave up when the darkness closed in upon them. A night of appalling misery succeeded, for the teeming rain drenched them as they lay; and the following morning, wasted and weak, with rigid limbs and shivering bodies, they could only, by extraordinary efforts, push themselves along. Life was scarcely worth the effort it cost to move. Coles was in a dreadful state, staggering on like a drunken man reduced to the last extremity of human endurance. It required fortunately but a few more desperate struggles to succeed; all therefore buoyed up their spirits, for, in their deep despair, a flickering hope still remained; and on the 21st April the five exemplary adventurers under their captain, entered Perth miserable objects of emaciation and prostration.[349] Here ended their toils, discouragements, and privations; and here they were tended with the best medical skill that the settlement could command.[350]

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Footnote 348:

‘Grey’s Travels,’ ii. p. 87.

Footnote 349:

Ibid., ii. p. 88-97.

Footnote 350:

Both received 1_s._ a-day each working pay, and for their good and
enterprising conduct a gratuity of 10_l._ from the Secretary of
State for the Colonies.

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Worn as he was, Auger started again the next day with a party under Lieutenant Mortimer to search for the lagging travellers left with Dr. Walker, and was out a fortnight. Driven by want of provisions the mission returned to Perth on the 6th May, bringing with it one of the missing men. In the following morning the corporal was again afoot with a second party under Mr. Roe, the surveyor-general of the province. Big-boned, broad and unbending, though ailing, attenuated and of melancholy aspect, he marched for eleven more days, re-entering the settlement on the 21st May with Mr. Spofforth, the companion traveller of Mr. Roe. The search was successful; four of the adventurers were taken into Perth, and the starved remains of the last were buried in a sand-hill. After sleeping upwards of 400 nights in the open air and suffering hardships of extreme severity, it seems strange that Auger, footsore and tired, should not have been allowed a horse, as some of the party were, upon which to travel in these concluding services; and it is even more surprising that Captain Grey, in furnishing the details of these secondary expeditions, should have suppressed all allusion to the presence of the corporal, who deserved, for his spirit and endurance, most honourable mention.

Months passed away before the two corporals regained their health, when, in February, 1840, they proceeded to South Australia. Corporal Coles joined the detachment of the corps at Port Adelaide; and corporal Auger landed at Woolwich in September, and was soon afterwards discharged by purchase.[351] Coles remained in the corps till June, 1843, when he was pensioned on 1s. a-day, in consequence of the loss of the fingers of his right hand and the forefinger of his left, occasioned by the accidental explosion of a carronade, which he was firing in honour of the birth of the Duke of Cornwall. Captain Grey was then Governor of South Australia, and he at once nominated his faithful companion and servant to a lucrative government appointment in the colony, presenting him also, at great cost, with a set of fingers fitted to his hand, which were so beautiful in their mechanism and accurate in their working, that he could pick up a button or a sixpence with pleasing facility.

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Footnote 351:

Broken down by the service Auger felt it necessary to seek repose
in civil life. When sufficiently restored he was engaged to hold a
responsible situation in the Pimlico wheel factory, by Octavius
Smith, Esq., of Thames Bank, the father of poor Mr. Frederick
Smith, who was one of the expedition. This young gentleman offered
a noble example of courage, patience, and resignation, but his
delicate and shattered constitution not giving him strength to
keep up in the forced marches of his chief, he was left, in the
painful separation on the 10th April, with the slow marchers under
Dr. Walker, and perished in the bush from want and exhaustion, at
the tender age of nineteen.

Captain, now Sir George Grey, on visiting England in 1854, most
kindly sought for Auger. Naturally the meeting awakened
reminiscences of the New Holland struggles; and the chief, at
parting, presented his corporal with an elegant silver teapot and
stand, bearing this simple but expressive inscription:—“Sir George
Grey to his old follower, Richard Auger, August, 1854.”

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1839.

Services of the detachment in Spain—Last party of the artillery on
the survey—Survey of South Australia—Inspection at Limerick by Sir
William Macbean—Triangulation of north of Scotland—Also of the
Clyde—Pontoons by sergeant Hopkins—Augmentation of the corps—Also
of the survey companies—Supernumerary rank annulled—Tithe surveys;
quality of work executed on them by discharged sappers;
efficient surveys of sergeant Douli—Increase of survey
pay—Staff appointments on the survey—Responsibility of
quartermaster-sergeant M‘Kay—Colonel Colby’s classes—Based upon
particular attainments—Disputed territory in the State of
Maine—Movements and services of the party employed in its
survey; intrepidity of corporal M‘Queen—Experiments with the
diving-bell—Also with the voltaic battery—Improvement in the
priming-wires by Captain Sandham; sergeant-major Jones’s
waterproof composition and imitation fuses—Demolition and removal
of the wreck of the ‘Royal George’—Organization of detachment
employed in the operation—Emulation of parties—Success of the
divers; labours of the sappers—Diving bell abandoned—Accident to
private Brabant—Fearlessness of Corporal Harris in unloading the
gunpowder from the cylinders—Hazardous duty in soldering the
loading-hole of the cylinder—First sapper helmet divers—Conduct
and exertions of the detachment.

The detachment in Spain was not called upon during the year to take part in any active operation. Its services were, therefore, confined to the works. At Passages the men performed several duties connected with the squadron; and in addition to fitting up Her Majesty’s ship ‘Nightingale’ for stores, made various essential alterations and fitments in Lord John Hay’s vessel, the ‘North Star.’ Sections of the detachment were for months at Aquirre completing the construction of a redoubt and magazine, and repairing the fortified house there, and building a barrack and magazine at Cachola Fort on the Hernani road. Others were also occupied for a period in fitting up the hospital at San Sebastian, repairing the barracks of the royal artillery and royal marines, and attending to the security of the different forts in front of the fortress.

A detachment of the artillery had, ever since the commencement of the national survey, been employed on that duty, whose numbers, by degrees, were reduced to five non-commissioned officers and privates. This year saw the last of that regiment on the survey, for the men alluded to were transferred to the corps on the 1st April.