With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader

The fight now ceased for a time. A party of the Boers occasionally crept forward and opened fire, but the Colonial Horse dashed forward and sent them flying back to the hills. From nine o'clock till a quarter to two the troops remained idle, but the reinforcements then arrived, a battery of field artillery, several squadrons of Dragoons, Lancers, and Colonials, and the Devonshire regiment and Gordon Highlanders, the infantry being brought up by train. These were under the command of Colonel Ian Hamilton, who had a thorough knowledge of Boer tactics, and knew how to handle his troops. It was well that it was so, for, led by a less experienced commander, they would have suffered terribly in their advance. While the infantry detrained, the Colonials, followed by the 5th Lancers, rode towards some low hills, whence some parties of Boers had maintained a distant fire. These were at once scattered. The infantry marched along some ridges parallel with the railway, but a mile away, while the Devonshire regiment kept along the low ground by the line. The 5th Dragoon Guards, with some troops of Colonials and one of the field batteries, moved forward on the left.

The Manchesters were on the right of the infantry, the Gordons in the centre, and the Devons on the left, as they set their faces towards the Boer position. At three o'clock the action began, the Boer riflemen opening a heavy fire. It was still too distant, however, to do any serious execution, and the British moved forward as regularly and unconcernedly as if it had been a field day. The Boer fire grew in intensity, and one of our batteries opened with shrapnel to drive them from the lower ridges. At half-past three the Boer artillery joined their deeper roar to the rattle of musketry and the sharp cracks of the British guns. Although it was still early the light was indistinct, for a heavy thunder-storm had been for some time brewing, and this burst before the heat of the action really began. The darkness was all in favour of the advancing infantry, who in their khaki uniforms were almost invisible to the Boers.

The troops were now in extended open order, and advanced towards the foot of the hill by rushes, taking advantage of the ant-hills that studded the plain and afforded an excellent cover, being high enough to cover them while lying down, and thick and compact enough to resist the passage of a Mauser bullet. The Highlanders were suffering the most heavily, their dark kilts showing up strongly against the light sandy soil, and while the Devons and Manchesters sustained but few casualties, they were dropping fast. They and the Manchesters were somewhat in advance of the Devons, who were guarding their flank, which was threatened by a large number of Boers gathered on the ridges on that side.

The storm was now at its height, the thunder for a time deadening the roar of the battle, but through the driving rain the infantry pressed on until they reached the foot of the Boers' hill. Large numbers of the enemy were on the slope, hidden from sight by the boulders, but these could not long maintain their position, for the British marksmen shot as straight as the Boer. Our batteries, which had almost silenced those of the enemy, scattered their shrapnel among those higher up the hill, and as the Boers rose to fly before the bayonets of our cheering troops, they were swept away by volleys of the Lee-Metfords. So, with short pauses when shelter was obtainable, our troops bore upwards, cheering and even joking, until they reached the last shoulder of the hill. The Boers made a short but plucky struggle, numbers pushing up from behind to help their comrades, but nothing could check the impetuosity of our troops. The magazines of the rifles were now for the first time set in action, and the Boer force withered away under the terrible storm of shot.

The men of the Imperial Light Horse, who had dismounted and joined in the advance, were fighting side by side with the Highlanders and Manchesters. The pace was now increased to a run, and shouting and cheering the men went forward with levelled bayonets. Many of the Boers, lying behind rocks, maintained their fire until the troops were within two yards of them, and then rising, called for quarter. The men, furious at seeing their comrades shot down when all hope of resistance was over, would have spared none, had not the officers with the greatest difficulty restrained them from bayoneting the Boers, and many of these were in fact killed. As the troops, now joined by the Devons, were rushing down upon the camp, the Boers raised a white flag, and the bugle sounded "Cease firing". The men halted for a moment and then were advancing quietly when a tremendous fire broke out from the Boers, who were scattered over the ridges of the hillside and a slope leading to its summit.

Hitherto the British loss had been wonderfully small considering the storm of bullets through which they had passed, but numbers now dropped, and taken wholly by surprise, the troops ran up the hill again. But not for long. Halting when they reached the crest, and furious at the treachery that had been practised with such success upon them, they turned again, and rushed down the hill, scattering the Boers, who still clung to their shelters, with their fire. It was just six o'clock when the Devons carried the last defence of the Boers and then with the Manchesters swept down into the camp. It was now the turn of the cavalry. These had in the darkness moved forward unnoticed, and the Lancers and Dragoons, with a few of the Colonials, among whom were the Maritzburg Scouts, fell upon the flying Boers and cut them up with great slaughter, and, although it was now quite dark, followed them for upwards of two miles, and then returned to camp.

The losses were heavy. The Gordons had lost four officers killed and seven wounded, and a total of a hundred and fifteen casualties among the four hundred and twenty-five men led into action. The Imperial Light Horse lost their colonel and had seven officers wounded, and eight men killed and forty wounded. Two hundred of the Boers lay dead upon the field. Their wounded were vastly more numerous, and most of the principal officers were killed or captured. General Koch, two of his brothers, a son, and a nephew were all wounded; Shiel, Viljoen, and many others killed or captured. Everything had been left behind. Three guns, all their baggage, their waggons, a great quantity of arms and ammunition, and many horses fell into the hands of the victors. Several battle flags were also captured, and two hundred prisoners were brought in by the cavalry. The night was a dreadful one, the rain still continued to come down, the cold was bitter, and it was next to impossible to find, still less to bring down, the wounded. Nevertheless the soldiers carried on the work during the greater part of the night. Boer waggons were turned for a time into hospital tents, and here by the light of their lanterns the surgeons laboured unweariedly in giving what aid was possible to those brought in, whether Boers or Britons. Chris and his band worked as hard as the rest, and carried down a great number of wounded; but in spite of all the exertions of the troops many remained on the hillside all night, the sufferings from the wounds being as nothing to that caused by the wet and cold. The lads' flasks were of great use now, and enabled many a man, too badly wounded to be carried down the rough hillside, to hold on till morning. General White had arrived from Ladysmith while the battle was going on, but he left the command in the hands of General French. On the following morning orders came for General French to retire, as strong parties of the enemy had been seen further south, and it was hourly becoming more and more evident that it would be impossible to hold the country beyond Ladysmith, and many were of opinion that even this position was too far advanced.

The splendid valour shown by our soldiers at Dundee and Elandslaagte, and the heavy losses they suffered, had been practically thrown away. The coal-fields of Northern Natal had been lost, the loyal settlers had been plundered and ruined. Colonel Yule's force was in imminent peril, and all that had been obtained was the temporary possession of the two heights, both of which had to be relinquished on the following morning. Beyond showing the Boers how enormously they had underrated the fighting powers of the British troops, no advantage whatever had been gained by the advance beyond Ladysmith.

Three of the Johannesburg Scouts had been wounded in the charge among the Boers. None of the injuries were severe, being merely flesh wounds, of which they were hardly conscious during the fighting, and which would not be likely to keep them long from the saddle. None of them applied for medical assistance, as the surgeons were so fully occupied with serious cases. Their comrades bound up the wounds and placed them in the most sheltered position they could find, five of their comrades remaining in charge of them and the horses, there being no possibility of finding the two Kaffirs and the spare animals in the confusion and darkness.

"We have had one lesson," Chris said, as at seven in the morning the party assembled, worn out by the long night's work, "and that is, that blankets are well enough against a passing shower, but that when there is any probability of wet we must carry our waterproof sheets with us. Of course they would have been no good last night, but on occasions when there is no need for us to be using our hands they will be an immense comfort."

"But we should have been wet through before we lay down, Chris."

"Yes, they would not have kept us dry, but they would have gone a long way towards keeping us warm. It would be like putting oilskin over wet lint; we should have felt as if we were in a hot poultice in a short time. And even while riding it would have been very comfortable, if we had worn them as we did the blankets, with a hole in the middle to put our heads through."

"But that would spoil them for tents," Carmichael said.

"Well, we could have flaps sewn so as to cover the hole."

"Our blankets were very useful last night," Horrocks remarked. "I don't know how we could have got many of those poor fellows down the hill if we had not carried them in the blankets. It was infinitely easier for them and a great deal easier for us. I saw lots of soldiers using theirs in the same way."

"Are you sure you will be able to sit your horses down to Ladysmith?"

Chris asked Brown, Capper, and Harris, the three wounded.

All laughed. "One would think that we were babies, Chris," Harris said. "We could ride to Maritzburg if necessary, though I feel my arm rather stiff, and no doubt it will be stiffer still to-morrow. I felt a bit miserable at sunrise after lying there shivering, and envied you fellows who could keep yourselves warm by working; but I am beginning to thaw out now, and the sight of the Kaffirs coming towards us with the horses half an hour ago, and the thought of hot coffee, did even more than the sun to warm me."

"It will be ready soon," Willesden, who was specially in charge of the stores, said. "It was a capital idea bringing that large spirit stove and the paraffin with us; even a native could not find any dry sticks this morning."

"Except as the soldiers have done," Chris said, pointing to where, a quarter of a mile from the spot where they had gathered, a dozen fires were blazing, the soldiers having utilized some of the Boer waggons that had been smashed by the shell for the purpose of firewood.

"Yes, but if we were by ourselves, Chris, there would be no broken waggons; besides, after all I should not care to go down and scramble with the soldiers for a place to put a kettle on. At any rate, the stove will be invaluable out on the veldt."

"We all agree with you, Willesden," Peters said, "and it was because you were the one who suggested it that we promoted you to the office of superintendent of the kitchen. It is a comfort, too, that we have some clear water instead of having to get it from one of these muddy streams. The storm has done good anyhow, for if it had not been for that there would have been no breakfast for the troops until they had moved to the river."

In another twenty minutes they were drinking hot coffee and munching biscuits. At ten o'clock the bugle sounded the assembly, and the troops formed up, the wounded were placed in ambulance waggons or carried on stretchers, and all returned to Elandslaagte station. Here the wounded were sent on by train, while the infantry and cavalry returned by road. Talking to some of the officers of the Imperial Horse, several of whom were friends of his father, and had only left Johannesburg a short time before the declaration of war, Chris learned that the principal object in fighting the battle was to drive the Boers off the line by which the Dundee force would retreat; for Colonel Yule in his telegraphic despatch had stated, that although a victory had been won he felt that the position was untenable, and that he might at any moment be forced to evacuate it. He also learned that the safety of the line beyond Ladysmith was already threatened, but whether Sir George White would decide upon falling back towards Pietermaritzburg or would hold Ladysmith no one knew. Certainly nothing could be determined upon until General Yule rejoined with the division from Dundee.

The position there was indeed growing worse every hour. While the battle of Elandslaagte was being fought the Boers had opened fire from the hills above Glencoe on the British camp, and had compelled it to shift its position. The next day they were again obliged to move by artillery on the Impati mountain, and it was then that General Yule decided to retire at once on Ladysmith. A cavalry reconnaissance which was sent out found that the Boers were in great strength in the pass of Glencoe, and it was therefore determined to move by the roundabout way through Helpmakaar. Some stores of ammunition that had been left under a guard in the other camp were fetched, and with full pouches the little army started on its long and perilous march at nine o'clock on the evening of the 22nd. The camp was abandoned as it stood. The wounded remained with some surgeons under the protection of the Red Cross flag. All the available transport accompanied the column, but the men's kits and all other encumbrances were left behind. They were obliged to pass through Dundee to get upon the southern road, but so quietly was the movement effected that but few of the townsmen knew what was happening.

The column was led by Colonel Dartnel, chief of the Natal Police, whose knowledge of the district was invaluable to the troops. The roads were heavy, and the rain continued to pour down in torrents. Each man carried three days' provisions; they tramped along silently through the night; stoppages by swollen streams were frequent, and by daybreak the next morning they had only accomplished nine miles of their journey. Early in the morning the townspeople had woke up to the fact that the army had gone, and there was a general exodus of all who could obtain conveyances. The Boers remained for some time in ignorance that the force whose capture or destruction they had regarded as certain had slipped away. They saw the tents, but the fact that neither men nor horses were visible puzzled them, and it was eleven o'clock before some of the more venturesome galloping down found that the English force had escaped.

Then from all sides they poured into the town. Had they at once pursued they might still have overtaken the retreating force before nightfall; but they immediately set to work to loot the great stores of provisions left behind, and to gather their pickings from the deserted houses of Dundee, and so let slip their opportunity, and no pursuit whatever was attempted. For four days the column continued its march, resting for a few hours each day and usually marching all night. The road was terribly bad, leading through narrow mountain passes, and had but a small force of the enemy held the Waschbrank gorge, where the sides were for three miles nearly perpendicular, a terrible calamity might have taken place. Happily, however, the Boers were in absolute ignorance of the road which the British troops were following, and concluded that they must have somewhere crossed the railway and were making their way down by the roads to its west. That they had gone through Helpmakaar does not appear to have occurred to them, for after marching some thirty miles to that town the column was as far off Ladysmith as when it started.

The anxiety at the latter town was intense. The line being still uncut, the arrival of the column at Helpmakaar was known, but beyond that no communication could be received. On Tuesday the 24th Colonel Dartnel arrived in Ladysmith with the news that the column was now twenty miles away, all well, and he at once returned to them with supplies and a small relief force. On Wednesday many of the men came in, and on Thursday the remainder arrived and were heartily greeted. On the 24th—in order to divert the attention of Joubert and the Free State Boers, both of whom were converging upon General Yule's column, still making its way through the passes—a force composed of three regiments of cavalry, four of Colonial Mounted Infantry, three batteries, and four infantry regiments went out. The enemy were found near Reitfontein. No actual engagement took place, but for some hours an artillery and rifle duel was maintained and the Boers fell back. The number of casualties was not large, and these were principally among the Gloucester regiment, who, on entering a valley supposed to be untenanted, were received by a heavy fire from a strong party of the enemy hidden there. The fight, however, fulfilled the object for which the advance was undertaken, that of occupying the Boers' attention and enabling the column from Dundee to make its way into Ladysmith unmolested. The Boers were now closing in on the latter town from all directions, and preparations for defence at once began. The town-hall and the schools were fitted up as hospitals and everything arranged for the reception of wounded. As the Boers had already been seen near Colenso, sixteen miles to the south, it was certain that the communications would ere long be cut.

No more unsuitable place for a military camp could well have been selected than Ladysmith, which had indeed been chosen, years before the war was thought of, on account of its position on the railway, and the vicinity of the Klip river. The fact that the country immediately round was fertile and forage was obtainable no doubt influenced the military authorities in their selection. Lying in the heart of a mountainous country, it was commanded by steep and rocky hills at a distance of from two to four miles. Just as many castles built in the days before firearms were in use were rendered untenable against even the clumsy cannon of early days placed on eminences near, so the improvement in artillery and the possession of powerful modern guns by the Boers had gravely imperilled the position of Ladysmith. The military authorities could never have anticipated that the town would be besieged by foes armed with artillery that could carry over five miles. But such was the case now, and all there felt, as soon as it was decided to defend the place till the last, that the position was a precarious one.

Fortunately, a considerable store of provisions had been collected, and so long as the line was open additions were being sent up by every train. The line was a single one, winding along through passes among the hills, and therefore open to attack by small bodies of the enemy. In point of size Ladysmith was the third largest town in Natal. Durban boasted a population of thirty thousand, Pietermaritzburg of twenty thousand, and Ladysmith of four thousand five hundred, being four hundred larger than that of Dundee. It was the point at which the line of railway forked, one branch running north through Glencoe to the Transvaal, the other northwest through Van Reenen's Pass to Bloemfontein. It was a pretty straggling town with its barracks, government buildings and large stores. Almost all the houses were detached and standing in their own gardens, and as these were largely wooded its appearance was very picturesque, with the Klip river, a branch of the Tugela, running through it. The houses were, for the most part, one-storied, and the roofs were all painted white for the sake of coolness. No perfectly open town had ever before undergone a siege by an army of some thirty thousand men provided with excellent guns, and yet the garrison awaited the result with perfect confidence.

CHAPTER VII

LADYSMITH BESIEGED

On the 30th, the Boers being now in force on many of the hills around the town, and having inflicted the first annoyance upon Ladysmith by cutting the conduit that brought down the water-supply to the town from a reservoir among the hills, and so forced it for the future to depend upon a few wells and the muddy water of the river, it was determined to make an effort to drive them back and to gain possession of some of the hills from which it was now evident the town would stand a risk of being bombarded. Hitherto there had been considerable apathy in taking measures for keeping the enemy as far as possible out of range. A few redoubts thrown up during the last week and strongly held would have been invaluable, but it seemed to be considered by the military authorities that the siege could be but a short one, and that the Boers would speedily be driven off by the troops now pouring into Durban.

An effort was now to be made to repair the consequences of this remissness and to drive the Boers off the positions they occupied, and it was hoped that if a heavy blow were dealt them they would draw off altogether. The forces of Joubert, Meyer, and the Free Staters were now all within a distance of a few miles, and were all to be beaten up. Their central position was on a hill afterwards known as Signal Hill, and on this they had already planted a forty-pounder gun. A force composed of six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, four and a half of the Gloucesters, a mountain battery and a troop of Hussars started at midnight towards a hill known as Nicholson's Nek, occupied by the Free Staters. Major General Hunter with a brigade of infantry, three batteries, and a small cavalry force were to attack Meyer's commando to the east, while General White, with two infantry brigades, French's cavalry, and six batteries of field artillery moved against Joubert's force on Modder Spruit. It was hoped that the Boers, if defeated, would find their retreat barred by the force that had stated early for Nicholson's Nek. All were well away from the town before daylight broke.

At five o'clock in the morning the guns spoke out, and were at once answered by the Boer artillery, and the roar of fire soon became general. General White's central column was screened by a ridge near the railway, and the big gun on Signal Hill directed its fire partly against the town and partly against the cavalry which could be seen by them in rear of the column. As only a few of the Volunteer Horse had been ordered to accompany the attacking force, Chris and his companions took up their position on an eminence that afforded a general view of the battle, and here a large number of the townspeople also gathered. The general plan of operations was that the two movable columns should form a rough arc of a circle and, driving in both flanks of the Boers, sweep the whole force before them.

"They have a great many guns," Peters said, as the rattle of the machine-guns and the thud of quick-firing one-pounders joined the continuous fire of several Boer batteries and the deeper roar of their big gun, "and they seem to be in greater force than was supposed, for I can make out large reinforcements coming up to them from behind."

Our artillery were first placed about four thousand yards from the Boer position, but as this was on higher ground than that occupied by our guns our fire did not appear to be effective. They were therefore moved forward some distance, supported by two battalions of the Rifles and the Dublin Fusiliers. The infantry force with them pushed forward rapidly and gained a crest from which they threatened to take the Boer position on Signal Hill in rear; but the Boers, very strongly reinforced, moved to meet them, and heavy fighting took place, until the enemy's force became so strong that they not only checked the further advance of the brigade, but threatened it on both flanks. Two batteries went to their assistance, but even with this aid they could not continue their advance, pressed as they were by greatly superior numbers and harassed by the fire of the Boer field batteries on the hill.