Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa

G and H Companies were sent in with wagons, on the 20th of July, to Bethlehem, to draw another supply of rations and to get the mails, sixty-three bags of which were waiting for us. They returned the next day in the afternoon, together with the Bedfordshire regiment, who camped alongside of us, but left the next evening to join Paget's Brigade, which was only a few miles away.

The Bedfords, who had been equipped earlier in the campaign than we had, when things were more plentiful, were very well provided as regards transport. They had plenty of wagons, Scotch carts, ammunition carts and water carts, while we were still limited to the one water cart with which we originally started, and the two old Scotch carts, procured at a farm, which we utilised to carry some of our reserve ammunition. The four ammunition and other carts we had brought from home had been left at Glen for want of mules to draw them.

CHAPTER XIII

RETIEF'S NEK

A bad night – Start for Relief's Nek – Description of ground – Orders to attack – Leading companies take wrong direction – Remaining companies advance against Nek – They close up to the Boer position – Further advance impossible – Death of Sir Walter Barttelot – Orders to retire at dusk – Difficulty of bringing in wounded – A good Samaritan

It was dark on Sunday evening, the 22nd of July, when the Bedfords started from Meyer's Kop; and directly they had gone the wind rose and the rain came down in torrents, splashing up the black soil, turning the camp into a morass, and penetrating through everything – blankets, waterproof sheets, canvas sheeting. The wind blew our blankets about and the rain drenched everything for many hours without ceasing, all fires were quenched by the downpour, and we sat and cursed and were wretched. One or two of us were fortunate enough to get hold of some corrugated iron, and I remember getting an hour or two's broken sleep by crawling, all wet and muddy, under a long sheet of this iron, which I had stretched over my blankets.

To add to our troubles, one of the companies on picket fired a few shots in the middle of all our discomfort, but, as the firing did not continue, no further steps were taken: however, about half-past two, the Volunteer company burst out into heavy firing which they continued for some time. As they were on picket quite close to us, the Adjutant ran up to see what was the matter, and found that they were firing at some lights some distance in front of them: so the firing soon stopped, and we huddled under our dripping blankets until three o'clock, when we were routed out and told to pack our kits and load the wagons. Overnight the Colonel had had confidential orders to move before daybreak towards Retief's Nek, where we were to meet General Hunter and receive further orders; so by four o'clock we were on the move. The night was pitch dark, but luckily the rain had stopped: the whole camp and the ground round it was a sea of mud, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we could start the wagons, already fully loaded with rations and mails, to which had been added the men's blankets, now trebled in weight owing to the absorption of rain: in consequence of the compression, the water was soon running out of the bottoms of the wagons, which will give an idea how wet the blankets had been when loaded.

As it was, after squelching and slipping along in slimy mud, we had to wait at the top of the hill for the wagons to be hauled up to drier ground; by that time it was dawn, and we were able to proceed at a better pace across country towards Retief's Nek.

There was one nasty drift on the way, muddy and slippery, which caused considerable delay to our small column; but after this we trekked along for some hours over grassy veldt, until we came in sight of Retief's Nek, when the Colonel rode on to communicate with General Hunter, and the battalion halted under the lee of a huge mass of rock, rising sheer out of the plain. This was about eleven o'clock, so we seized the opportunity to eat some biscuit and what cooked food we happened to have in our haversacks, and to rest; for after our dreadful night and long tramp, we were fairly well tired.

After some little while, the Colonel came back, summoned the officers, and told us the orders he had received from General Hector Macdonald, who was in charge of the operations; we then went some little distance aside, and the position was shown to us and the orders explained.

In front, the ground, level and grassy, stretched away for about a mile and a half to a low conical hill, which appeared to be of slaty rock, and the top of which shone and glistened in the sun like white marble; a little to the rear of this, and seemingly connected with it by a narrow nek, rose another hill, very similar in appearance, but dark and lowering. Separated from these hills on our right by a gap, perhaps 600 or 700 yards wide, rose a spur with a knoll half way up, a little less in height than the kopje (which we had now named Marble Kop), and from this knoll the spur rose abruptly to a great height, broken and jagged, the slopes covered with huge black rocks: this cliff bore round to our right for perhaps a mile or more, very steep and precipitous, until it was abreast of where we were standing, when the range of mountains swung away to our right and was lost in the distance. Still to the front, but a little to our right, rose a narrow grassy kopje, with a couple of houses at its foot. This kopje was separated from the great range of hills by a narrow, funnel shaped passage which seemed to be about 600 yards wide at the entrance; but whether this narrow kopje, which ran straight back, eventually joined the broken and jagged cliffs in the distance, or whether it was an isolated hill and the passage ran round behind it, could not be decided from the spot upon which we were then.

Marble Kop was the position the battalion were to attack, and it was to be supported in its advance by the battery, which would take up a position on a hill which we could not then see, but which was immediately in front of Marble Kop, and some considerable distance away from it: no nearer position could be found for the guns.

On the left of Marble Kop rose abruptly to a point a lofty range of hills, looking quite inaccessible, and bearing round to our left in a great sweep. Between this point and Marble Kop was another gap of some considerable width, which was the pass of Retief's Nek; and down at the bottom of this pass and hidden in a fold of ground, the road ran from where guns were posted straight into and beyond the pass.

Our orders from General Macdonald were to attack Marble Kop, and on arrival there to open an enfilading fire on a trench which the enemy was reported to have dug across the pass: there were to be no supports for us, and there was no information as to the position of the enemy, or his strength, or whether Marble Kop was occupied by him: a deadly stillness was in the air, and the strongest telescope did not reveal the presence of the enemy at any point which was visible.

The companies now proceeded to move off in the following order: – G company under Captain Mackenzie, then H under Captain Wisden; after them A under Major O'Grady, followed by B with Major Panton in command, and C under Captain Wroughton; E under Captain Aldridge bringing up the rear. The remaining companies were on various duties; D under Lieut. Ashworth was escorting the guns and took no part in the action, F under Captain Gilbert, and the Volunteer company under Sir Walter Barttelot, were baggage and rear guard respectively: they came up shortly after we had advanced, when the wagons had been parked by Major Scaife, who was baggage master – these two companies then proceeding to join in the attack.

The leading company, G, was directed to advance towards Marble Kop, proceeding in a circuitous direction, and skirting the base of the narrow kopje, then in front and lying at our feet. This kopje G should have left on the right. The companies were to advance in column of sections, each extended to ten paces, and with large intervals between each line; all officers and supernumeraries were to be in among the men in line, so as not to render themselves too conspicuous. The companies were soon fairly launched and moving off across the grassy veldt in great parallel lines, about a hundred or more yards apart, and stretching well away to the right and left, so as not to afford to the enemy a more extensive objective than was necessary. The leading company was a long way off, and the men were appearing smaller and smaller as they got further away to the front, when it was noticed that the column, instead of skirting the narrow kopje in front and leaving it on their right, had misunderstood these instructions and were entering the funnel shaped passage, thus leaving the narrow kopje on their left.

There was then no time or means of recalling them without considerable delay, owing to the distance, fully a mile, which they had already traversed, so it was considered advisable to allow them to continue their advance in the direction which they had chosen; the point of attack had been distinctly pointed out to every one concerned, and if, as often happens in these widely extended movements, certain contingencies had arisen which necessitated the direction of the attack being changed, yet no further instruction could be given by the commanding officer, and the execution of the attack must, perforce, be left to the discretion of each company commander.

Under the extended order system as carried out during this war, the company commander becomes a far more important personage than he has been during the last twenty years, with an immensely free hand, within certain limits, directly active operations commence.

The machine guns under Captain Green had gone along with H company, and had by this time, with the three leading companies, gone quite out of sight into the funnel shaped passage; C company, which was the fifth in order of succession, was just inside the entrance, and E was following in rear: the ammunition cart and water cart and the rest of the first line were coming on behind. This was the situation about one o'clock, and I was walking up the narrow kopje, intending to watch the progress of events from its summit, when suddenly from inside the passage on the right, into which the companies had gone, came, like a clap of thunder, a most fearful outburst of firing, which continued for some time without intermission, and which echoed and re-echoed among the ravines and rocky hills, until one could hardly hear one's own voice.

From the top of the kopje nothing could be seen, either of our men or the enemy, and the infernal pandemonium still continued in the valley below; but to the incessant ping-boom, ping-boom of the Mauser, unmistakeable from its propinquity, was now added the ping, ping, ping of the Lee Metford, and the continuous stutter of the Maxim, as this highly strung machine, shaking and quivering with nervous energy, stammered out whole belts full of ammunition without ceasing. Undoubtedly, Captain Green had got hold of a soft thing and was taking the utmost advantage of it, and squeezing the last ounce out of the Maxim, which fired as it had never fired before and probably never will again. The water in the casing fizzed and spluttered, but more was handy; the empty belts littered the ground, but the ammunition cart was not far off, and so the vastly important work of spattering with bullets the hillside opposite, which a moment before had been as still as the grave, was continued without intermission. The companies in front had dropped into cover behind some huge rocks which fringed both sides of the valley, immediately on the first shots being fired; and they had ever since continued to fire at their invisible foe, who were lining the hillside and the jagged crest line not 800 yards away.

Captain Mackenzie had, at the outset, exposed himself somewhat recklessly, and had been knocked over in the open with a bullet in his ankle; his subaltern, Lieut. Hopkins, seeing this, shouted to a couple of men to accompany him, and dashed out without a moment's thought towards his captain, in the face of a murderous fire which covered the ground around them with a cloud of dust spirts. Together with the two men, who turned out to be Corporal Hoad and Lance-Corporal Neville, Lieut. Hopkins raised Captain Mackenzie and bore him, groaning and sweating with agony from his broken ankle, to safety.

For this gallant act these three, the young officer and the two Corporals (both young soldiers), were recommended for the Victoria Cross, the highest distinction to which a soldier can aspire. However, in lieu of this, Lieut. Hopkins was offered a company in the Manchester regiment, and the two Corporals were each awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal.

Nothing could be done to withdraw the companies in front, and the Maxim had also to remain; but orders were sent to B, C, and E companies to move to their left to the other side of the kopje. This they soon did, and the attack was launched again at Marble Kop, but on this occasion from the direction in which it had been originally intended to advance. As matters turned out, however, it was perhaps as well that the mistake had been made and the advance commenced in the wrong direction, as our three companies, although useless to the battalion in continuing the advance, were still of inestimable value where they were lying, as they held a good number of the enemy in check and prevented them from leaving their cover and proceeding to other positions, from which they could, perhaps, have done more damage. While our three companies kept up a dropping fire and while the Maxim rattled out its scattered shots at intervals, no Boer would dare to leave his cover; and so matters remained in statu quo in this valley until dusk.

Meanwhile, our battery had commenced shelling vigorously the slopes of the hills on the right of Marble Kop, and B and C companies, with E following, were moving over to the open ground directly in front of it; from here they advanced in succession by half-companies and stretched away out into the veldt, E company being meanwhile held in reserve.

We sat and watched the companies diminishing in the distance, and, when the leading half-company was about a thousand yards from us and about the same distance from the foot of Marble Kop, we saw rifle fire opened on them from their right front. They continued their advance like a parade ground movement, halting, lying down to fire and then rising and going on again, the lines in rear conforming to the movements of those in front, and the men on the right of all the lines delivering their fire against their hidden enemy among the hills on the right front. Gradually the lines in rear decreased their distances, closing up to the front and reinforcing and thickening the firing line: this manœuvre adds more rifles to the firing line and enables more fire to be brought to bear on the enemy, but at the same time it increases the vulnerability of the foremost line, rendering more men liable to be hit owing to their proximity to each other, so, possibly, the advantages may or may not outweigh the disadvantages. In this particular case, however, where the enemy were behind perfect cover, the disadvantages of thickening the firing line predominated, and the enemy's bullets fell pretty thickly amongst our men.

It appeared at this stage of the proceedings, that Marble Kop was unoccupied, and that the bulk of the firing was coming from a concealed party of sharpshooters at long range, stationed somewhere on the right front, upon whom the shrapnel of our guns seemed to have little or no effect: however our men, although hampered by having to fire half right, continued to pour in a constant fire at ranges of from 600 to 800 yards, and perhaps longer.

About this time, also, F company and the Volunteer Company appeared, coming up from the rear in similar formation (half company columns) to that adopted by us: seeing that the firing line wanted a wider front instead of a thicker formation, F company was directed by signal to continue moving to the front, but to gradually edge off to the left, so as eventually to come up on the left of the present firing line, composed of B company.

So F company trudged off and carried out this manœuvre beautifully, coming up into line with B company and lying down and opening fire about half an hour later: meantime the Volunteer company had received similar orders to move further off and to prolong the line to the left of F company; this movement had used up all the companies at our disposal, except E, who were now moved off to the left also, but were still to remain as a reserve in rear of the centre, in view of possible contingencies which might arise. There were one or two wounded being brought in, so a dressing station was established under some cover, formed by a few large rocks and a tree or two; and the doctor, who had remained in the valley on the right attending to one or two men of G company who had been hit, was sent for. The first line transport with the ammunition carts, water cart and the medical officer's cart had, for some inexplicable reason, remained in this valley, although the majority of the battalion had been moved in another direction; they did not come near us all the afternoon, men having to be sent over to get ammunition, which, at a later stage of the fight, was running short rapidly.

For the second time that day I sat down and searched the hills thoroughly with a telescope; not a sign of an enemy did I see, and yet the jets and puffs of dust thrown up amongst the men spread all over the veldt up to a thousand yards in front distinctly showed that the firing was from the right front. Away on our right, the spur, which has been alluded to as being separated from Marble Kop by a gap about six hundred yards wide, was being steadily shelled by our battery all along its length, and on its face where it joined the big jagged cliffs and trended off to the right; but it was now seen that this spur continued round to the left also, and forked out into another lofty range of hills, which swung round with a semi-circular sweep, enclosing a valley into which various underfeatures and knolls led out from the spur and from the lofty range itself. The conclusion I came to at the time was that the Boers were in position on these knolls and underfeatures, rising in tiers, one above another, and that the majority of the firing was directed on our men through and over the gap between the spur and Marble Kop; this supposition was supported by information given by the stretcher bearers, who were now coming in pretty frequently with wounded men from the firing line, so I signalled information to this effect to the officer commanding the battery; the distance, however, was too great, and the enemy were too well posted for shrapnel to do any harm: moreover, the gunners, from their long distance in the rear and because of the intervening end of the spur, could not see any of the underfeatures, behind which the enemy were situated.

The advance was continued until the right of the firing line, B company, was about 600 yards from the foot of Marble Kop; they could go no further with any advantage, and were fully occupied, as was C company, in keeping down the fire from their right front. Beyond them F company was pushing forwards towards the left of Marble Kop where the pass opened out, and were moving down into a fold of the ground, which hid them from my sight; slightly behind them and on their left was the Volunteer company, slowly pushing on, firing and advancing, and lying down to fire again, and continuing this with the greatest coolness and steadiness.

I was watching them through my telescope for some little time, noticing Sir Walter Barttelot running forward and the half-company following him, and I thought how unmistakeable a leader he looked, with no equipment and no rifle, standing and pointing with his stick to places which men should occupy. Sir Walter did not know the meaning of fear or nervousness, and the pluck and marvellous endurance he displayed during the campaign was a constant wonder to all of us, and put to shame many a soldier of half his age.

Soon the Volunteer company disappeared, like F company, in the fold of the ground, and I hoped that they would succeed in pushing on into the pass and round by the left of Marble Kop, and so create a diversion in the state of affairs. One or two wounded men being brought in from these companies proved what I suspected – that the huge, black, conical hill, rising on the left of the pass, was also occupied by the enemy's marksmen, who were behind the rocks and ledges of the steep slopes. This being so, things looked bad for our chance of being able to push round the left side of Marble Kop, which was, like its front, a slippery mass of smooth volcanic rock rising to a sharp pinnacle, and without an atom of cover. Nothing was to be gained by rushing this rock and swarming up its slippery sides (which we could easily have done), because, once there and necessarily crowded, we should have been exposed without the least protection to an overwhelming fire from the hills on the right and left of the Kop, while we could have done little good by our rifle fire, which would, of course, have to be directed up hill.

However, half of E company, waiting patiently in reserve, was sent out in support of F and the Volunteers, in case they should succeed in gaining a footing, and I went out myself a little way to find out if I could see what was beyond the fold in the ground into which these two companies had disappeared. Soon I met a stretcher borne along with difficulty by two men of F company, Privates Stewart and Biles, and upon it I was shocked to see Sir Walter Barttelot; he was unconscious and breathing heavily, and had been shot through the body by a bullet fired from the lofty hill on our left front. Sadly the men continued on their way to the dressing station, where Dr. Edwards immediately attended to him; but the case was hopeless from the first, and he breathed his last, still unconscious, soon after arrival.

From the men I learned that Captain Gilbert with most of his Company had brilliantly dashed into a Kaffir kraal under a severe fire from the left, and were there doing their best to subdue the enemy's scathing fire; several men had been wounded, Lieut. Anderson had been dangerously shot in the neck, and more stretchers were wanted. On the way back, therefore, volunteers were called for from E company to go out with stretchers, and right gallantly they came forward, plenty of them; they went out under the steady shower of bullets, right up to the firing line, and brought back most of the wounded who could not walk.

About four o'clock, a message was received from the Colonel that, if it was impossible, without supports as we were, to carry the Nek, a retirement should be made, and a reply was sent that the Nek could certainly be carried, as the men were only waiting for the order to rush Marble Kop; but that the advantage thus gained would be valueless, as no troops could remain on the smooth pinnacle, with no cover and commanded on both sides.

Orders were therefore sent to each company commander to retire as quickly as possible as soon as it was dusk. All this time the firing in the valley on the right had been going on, and at intervals the Maxim spluttered out a handful of rounds and kept the enemy from quitting, and, possibly, from taking up other positions from which they could have added their quota of fire to that already being showered on us.

The stretchers were still coming in, and some of the men of E company had once more volunteered to make another journey, although this work was much more dangerous than lying behind an ant heap in the firing line, and the men deserve all the credit that it is possible to give them for their pluck and coolness. Four volunteers, when asked for, were also easily forthcoming to carry to the four Company commanders the orders to retire; one of these men, Hurrell, of E, had only just returned with a stretcher, but off he went again, and, I am thankful to say, safely returned.

There were now a number of poor fellows lying on the grass, and the doctor and Corporal Knapp and Private Gill were busy doing the best for them that circumstances would allow; several others, who were only slightly wounded and were able to walk, were sent off to camp, and the stretchers were sent back to the firing line in anticipation of the retirement at dusk.