( 64t Camp.
Camp life has been varied again by a pontoon operation, on a grander scale than before, on classical ground ; and also by some cover-fighting.
The latter took place on Saturday. The main body of the troops attacked an enemy, not wholly imaginary, but composed of a body of Sappers, occupying Colonel Challoner's plantations. The enemy were driven through this, fighting from tree to tree, rallying on every hillock, and defend- ing every piece of rough ground. But on the other side of the wood the enemy were supposed to rally ; to begin the offensive ; and ultimately,. not only to drive back the foot regiments through the plantation, but to beat them off the field altogether, in spite of the gallant charges of the cavalry, who interposed to cover the retreat of their own troops and check the advance of the victorious enemy. These cavalry movements were peculiarly imposing, as the Horse Guards and the Light Dragoons in one brigade, and the Greys and Hussars in another, charged down upon the enemy's squares. The pontooning operations were performed on Wednesday, upon the Thames opposite Runnymede, and under " Cooper's Hill." As before, a feigned attack was made on the enemy who occupied the other bank of the river about a mile from the spot chosen for pontooning ; and while in the distance Sir Richard England's brigade was thundering away, a strong force of horse, foot, and artillery, with the pontoon train, as- sembled just opposite Runnymede, where the curve of the Thames is narrowest. The first movement was made by the Seventy-ninth High- landers, who perform that skirmishing duty recently gone through by the Rifles. As soon as they had crossed in boats, the enemy began to suspect the movement, and commenced a dropping fire. The bridge was soon stretched across the stream and in less time the Cameronians
marched over, followed by the Fourth Dragoons, the Scots Grer, the Eighth Hussars, the Ninety-seventh, Seventh, Nineteenth, and Eighty-
eighth Foot. The bridge was not strewed with heather or furze. An officer of the Fourth Dragoons, finding his horse swerving, spurred on and cleared the bridge at a gallop. Three Sappers were knocked off by the artillery-horses of a six-pounder. The horse of one of the Scota Greys' trumpeters refused to face the bridge ; and when the nine- pounder battery crossed, an accident, fatal to two horses, signalized the day. One gun passed over safely. The horses of the second were restive, one got a leg off the pontoon and slipped in, dragging the other five, and the gun, drivers, and two Sappers, into the water. "Two of the drivers, in falling, disengaged themselves from their sad- dles, and clung to the bridge. But the fate of the wheel-driver, who had sunk down with the gun, in from twelve to fourteen feet water, seemed
scarcely doubtful. In an instant four of the horses reared their create, plunging and snorting from the waters. In the centre of them, and beaten
down more than once by their efforts, appeared a poor Sapper, John Piper ; his comrade, William Swami, having reached a neighbouring point. The closeness of these horses together, their fearful struggles, the dangerous weight to which they were thought to be inextricably attached, at first de- barred the punts from approaching them. But signs of exhaustion in the man Piper—who, after battling lustily with the waves, had with difficulty raised himself upon the necks of two of the three horses grouped with fatal proximity about him—and a storm of shouts, urging the punters to approach nearer to the drowing man, finally secured him relief. Soon the glad tidings spread that all the men were safely rescued. A quick muster of the gun- ners and drivers showed that Blithe, Dowd, and Walker, were there to answer to their names; while Swann and Piper, the Sappers, were seated on the ground, the latter much exhausted and faint through a blow received from the heavy shafts of the gun-carriage in falling. The trending of the current now brought the horses nearer to the shore ; that is to say, the four of them whose heads had been seen above water, for the two wheel-horses already lay dead at the bottom of the river, held down there by the a eight of the gun. The struggle of the poor animals for life was fierce ; dilated nostrils—starting eye-balls—lips drawn up, laying bare their teeth—the
manner in which they threw out their fore-legs, and struck the water with a forward impulse, evidenccd their sufferings and extreme terror. In the
agony of these animals—so great was their exertion—they actually dragged with them the gun and their two drowned companions near to the shore. Speedily the punts pushed in upon them. Their harness was cut with knives, ropes passed round their necks, and at last two of them were safely landed, half strangled. The other two were also brought to the bank, which they vainly essayed to climb ; but at last, through careful guidance under Colonel Vicars's directions, they stood once more on terra firma. Here, dripping with water, bleeding at the hoof, tottering with weakness, and shuddering in every vein, the poor animals for at least half an hour presented an ap- pearance truly pitiable." An experiment was tried which has been recommended some time : the three remaining guns of the battery were dragged over by the men, the horses being detached, quite as rapidly as by the horses. After the enemy had been driven from Runnymede, the troops dined on the field,—a very pretty sight ; and marched back to the camp over Staines Bridge, with their bands of music at their head. The gun and drowned horses were recovered before the troops left the ground.
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