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| LADYSMITH
AND THE KLIP RIVER From: H. W. Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, 1902 |
Arthur Conan
Doyle,
The Great Boer War
London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1902
CHAPTER VII
The Battle of Ladysmith
Sir George White had now
reunited his force, and found himself in command of a formidable little army
some twelve thousand in number. His cavalry included the 5th Lancers, the
5th Dragoons, part of the 18th and the whole of the 19th Hussars, the Natal
Carabineers, the Border Rifles, some mounted infantry, and the Imperial
Light Horse. Among his infantry were the Royal Irish Fusiliers, the Dublin
Fusiliers, and the King's Royal Rifles, fresh from the ascent of Talana
Hill, the Gordons, the Manchesters, and the Devons who had been blooded at
Elandslaagte, the Leicesters, the Liverpools, the 2nd battalion of the
King's Royal Rifles, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, and the Gloucesters, who had
been so roughly treated at Rietfontein. He bad six batteries of excellent
field artillery - the 13th, 21st, 42nd, 53rd, 67th, 69th, and No.10 Mountain
Battery of screw guns. No general could have asked for a more compact and
workmanlike little force.
It had been recognised by the British General from the beginning that his
tactics must be defensive, since he was largely outnumbered and since also
any considerable mishap to his force would expose the whole colony of Natal
to destruction. The actions of Elandslaagte and Rietfontein were forced upon
him in order to disengage his compromised detachment, but now there was no
longer any reason why he should assume the offensive. He knew that away out
on the Atlantic a trail of transports which already extended from the
Channel to Cape de Verde were hourly drawing nearer to him with the army
corps from England. In a fortnight or less the first of them would be at
Durban. It was his game, therefore, to keep his army intact, and to let
those throbbing engines and whirling propellers do the work of the empire.
Had he entrenched himself up to his nose and waited, it would have paid him
best in the end.
But so tame and inglorious a policy is impossible to a fighting soldier. He
could not with his splendid force permit himself to be shut in without an
action. What policy demands honour may forbid. On October 27th there were
already Boers and rumours of Boers on every side of him. Joubert with his
main body was moving across from Dundee. The Freestaters were to the north
and west. Their combined numbers were uncertain, but at least it was already
proved that they were far more numerous and also more formidable than had
been anticipated. We had had a taste of their artillery also, and the
pleasant delusion that it would be a mere useless encumbrance to a Boer
force had vanished for ever. It was a grave thing to leave the town in order
to give battle, for the mobile enemy might swing round and seize it behind
us. Nevertheless White determined to make the venture.
On the 29th the enemy were visibly converging upon the town. From a high
hill within rifleshot of the houses a watcher could see no fewer than six
Boer camps to the east and north. French, with his cavalry, pushed out
feelers, and coasted along the edge of the advancing host. His report warned
White that if he would strike before all the scattered bands were united he
must do so at once. The wounded were sent down to Pietermaritzburg, and it
would bear explanation why the non-combatants did not accompany them. On the
evening of the same day Joubert in person was said to be only six miles off,
and a party of his men cut the water supply of the town. The Klip, however,
a fair-sized river, runs through Ladysmith, so that there was no danger of
thirst. The British had inflated and sent up a balloon, to the amazement of
the back-veldt Boers; its report confirmed the fact that the enemy was in
force in front of and around them.
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MILITARY OBSERVATION BALLOON ABOVE LADYSMITH From: H. W. Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, 1902 |
On the night of the 29th General White detached two of his best regiments,
the Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters, with No.10 Mountain Battery, to
advance under cover of the darkness and to seize and hold a long ridge
called Nicholson's Nek, which lay about six miles to the north of Ladysmith.
Having determined to give battle on the next day, his object was to protect
his left wing against those Freestaters who were still moving from the north
and west, and also to keep a pass open by which his cavalry might pursue the
Boer fugitives in case of a British victory. This small detached column
numbered about a thousand men - whose fate will be afterwards narrated.
At five o'clock on the morning of the 30th the Boers, who had already
developed a perfect genius for hauling heavy cannon up the most difficult
heights, opened fire from one of the hills which lie to the north of the
town. Before the shot was fired, the forces of the British had already
streamed out of Ladysmith to test the strength of the invaders.
White's army was divided into three columns. On the extreme left, quite
isolated from the others, was the small Nicholson's Nek detachment under the
command of Colonel Carleton of the Fusiliers (one of three gallant brothers
each of whom commands a British regiment). With him was Major Adye of the
staff. On the right British flank Colonel Grimwood commanded a brigade
composed of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the King's Royal Rifles, the
Leicesters, the Liverpools, and the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. In the centre
Colonel Ian Hamilton commanded the Devons, the Gordons, the Manchesters, and
the 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, which marched direct into the battle
from the train which had brought them from Durban. Six batteries of
artillery were massed in the centre under Colonel Downing. French with the
cavalry and mounted infantry was on the extreme right, but found little
opportunity for the use of the mounted arm that day.
The Boer position, so far as it could be seen, was a formidable one. Their
centre lay upon one of the spurs of Signal Hill, about three miles from the
town. Here they had two forty-pounders and three other lighter guns, but
their artillery strength developed both in numbers and in weight of metal as
the day wore on. Of their dispositions little could be seen. An observer
looking westward might discern with his glass sprays of mounted riflemen
galloping here and there over the downs, and possibly small groups where the
gunners stood by their guns, or the leaders gazed down at that town which
they were destined to have in view for such a weary while. On the dun-coloured
plains before the town, the long thin lines, with an occasional shifting
sparkle of steel, showed where Hamilton's and Grimwood's infantry were
advancing. In the clear cold air of an African morning every detail could be
seen, down to the distant smoke of a train toiling up the heavy grades which
lead from Frere over the Colenso Bridge to Ladysmith.
The scrambling, inconsequential, unsatisfactory action which ensued is as
difficult to describe as it must have been to direct. The Boer front covered
some seven or eight miles, with kopjes, like chains of fortresses, between.
They formed a huge semicircle of which our advance was the chord, and they
were able from this position to pour in a converging artillery fire which
grew steadily hotter as the day advanced. In the early part of the day our
forty-two guns, working furiously, though with a want of accuracy which may
be due to those errors of refraction which are said to be common in the
limpid air of the veldt, preserved their superiority. There appears to have
been a want of concentration about our fire, and at some periods of the
action each particular battery was firing at some different point of the
Boer half-circle. Sometimes for an hour on end the Boer reply would die away
altogether, only to break out with augmented violence, and with an accuracy
which increased our respect for their training. Huge shells - the largest
that ever burst upon a battlefield - hurled from distances which were
unattainable by our fifteen-pounders, enveloped our batteries in smoke and
flame. One enormous Creusot gun on Pepworth Hill threw a 96-pound shell a
distance of four miles, and several 40-pound howitzers outweighted our field
guns. And on the same day on which we were so roughly taught how large the
guns were which labour and good will could haul on to the field of battle,
we learned also that our enemy - to the disgrace of our Board of Ordnance be
it recorded - was more in touch with modern invention than we were, and
could show us not only the largest, but also the smallest, shell which had
yet been used. Would that it had been our officials instead of our gunners
who heard the devilish little one-pound shells of the Vickers-Maxim
automatic gun, exploding with a continuous string of crackings and bangings,
like a huge cracker, in their faces and about their ears!
Up to seven o'clock our infantry had shown no disposition to press the
attack, for with so huge a position in front of them, and so many hills
which were held by the enemy, it was difficult to know what line of advance
should be taken, or whether the attack should not be converted into a mere
reconnaissance. Shortly after that hour, however, the Boers decided the
question by themselves developing a vigorous movement upon Grimwood and the
right flank. With field guns, Maxims, and rifle fire, they closed rapidly in
upon him. The centre column was drafted off, regiment by regiment, to
reinforce the right. The Gordons, Devons, Manchesters, and three batteries
were sent over to Grimwood's relief, and the 5th Lancers, acting as
infantry, assisted him to hold on.
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THE
DEVONS IN ACTION NEAR LADYSMITH |
At nine o'clock there was a lull, but it was evident that fresh commandoes
and fresh guns were continually streaming into the firing line. The
engagement opened again with redoubled violence, and Grimwood's three
advanced battalions fell back, abandoning the ridge which they had held for
five hours. The reason for this withdrawal was not that they could not
continue to hold their position, but it was that a message had just reached
Sir George White from Colonel Knox, commanding in Ladysmith, to the effect
that it looked as if the enemy was about to rush the town from the other
side. Crossing the open in some disorder, they lost heavily, and would have
done so more had not the 13th Field Battery, followed after an interval by
the 53rd, dashed forward, firing shrapnel at short ranges, in order to cover
the retreat of the infantry. Amid the bursting of the huge 96-pound shells,
and the snapping of the vicious little automatic one-pounders, with a
cross-fire of rifles as well, Abdy's and Dawkins' gallant batteries swung
round their muzzles, and hit back right and left, flashing and blazing, amid
their litter of dead horses and men. So severe was the fire that the guns
were obscured by the dust knocked up by the little shells of the automatic
gun. Then, when their work was done and the retiring infantry had straggled
over the ridge, the covering guns whirled and bounded after them. So many
horses had fallen that two pieces were left until the teams could be brought
back for them, which was successfully done through the gallantry of Captain
Thwaites. The action of these batteries was one of the few gleams of light
in a not too brilliant day's work. With splendid coolness and courage they
helped each other by alternate retirements after the retreating infantry had
passed them. The 21st Battery (Blewitt's) also distinguished itself by its
staunchness in covering the retirement of the cavalry, while the 42nd (Goulburn's)
suffered the heaviest losses of any. On the whole, such honours as fell to
our lot were mainly with the gunners.
White must have been now uneasy for his position, and it had become apparent
that his only course was to fall back and concentrate upon the town. His
left flank was up in the air, and the sound of distant firing, wafted over
five miles of broken country, was the only message which arrived from them.
His right had been pushed back, and, most dangerous of all, his centre had
ceased to exist, for only the 2nd Rifle Brigade remained there. What would
happen if the enemy burst rudely through and pushed straight for the town?
It was the more possible, as the Boer artillery had now proved itself to be
far heavier than ours. That terrible 96-pounder, serenely safe and out of
range, was plumping its great projectiles into the masses of retiring
troops. The men had had little sleep and little food, and this unanswerable
fire was an ordeal for a force which is retreating. A retirement may very
rapidly become a rout under such circumstances. It was with some misgivings
that the officers saw their men quicken their pace and glance back over
their shoulders at the whine and screech of the shell. They were still some
miles from home, and the plain was open. What could be done to give them
some relief?
And at that very moment there came the opportune and unexpected answer. That
plume of engine smoke which the watcher had observed in the morning had
drawn nearer and nearer, as the heavy train came puffing and creaking up the
steep inclines. Then, almost before it had drawn up at the Ladysmith siding,
there had sprung from it a crowd of merry bearded fellows, with ready hands
and strange sea cries, pulling and hauling, with rope and purchase to get
out the long slim guns which they had lashed on the trucks. Singular
carriages were there, specially invented by Captain Percy Scott, and
labouring and straining, they worked furiously to get the 12-pounder
quick-firers into action. Then at last it was done, and the long tubes swept
upwards to the angle at which they might hope to reach that monster on the
hill at the horizon. Two of them craned their long inquisitive necks up and
exchanged repartees with the big Creusot. And so it was that the weary and
dispirited British troops heard a crash which was louder and sharper than
that of their field guns, and saw far away upon the distant hill a great
spurt of smoke and flame to show where the shell had struck. Another and
another and another-and then they were troubled no more. Captain Hedworth
Lambton and his men had saved the situation. The masterful gun had met its
own master and sank into silence, while the somewhat bedraggled field force
came trailing back into Ladysmith, leaving three hundred of their number
behind them. It was a high price to pay, but other misfortunes were in store
for us which made the retirement of the morning seem insignificant.
In the meantime we may follow the unhappy fortunes of the small column which
had, as already described, been sent out by Sir George White in order, if
possible, to prevent the junction of the two Boer armies, and at the same
time to threaten the right wing of the main force, which was advancing from
the direction of Dundee, Sir George White throughout the campaign
consistently displayed one quality which is a charming one in an individual,
but may be dangerous in a commander. He was a confirmed optimist. Perhaps
his heart might have failed him in the dark days to come had he not been so.
But whether one considers the non-destruction of the Newcastle Railway, the
acquiescence in the occupation of Dundee, the retention of the non
combatants in Ladysmith until it was too late to get rid of their useless
mouths, or the failure to make any serious preparations for the defence of
the town until his troops were beaten back into it, we see always the same
evidence of a man who habitually hopes that all will go well, and is in
consequence remiss in making preparations for their going ill. But unhappily
in every one of these instances they did go ill, though the slowness of the
Boers enabled us, both at Dundee and at Ladysmith, to escape what might have
been disaster.
Sir George White has so nobly and frankly taken upon himself the blame of
Nicholson's Nek that an impartial historian must rather regard his
self-condemnation as having been excessive. The immediate causes of the
failure were undoubtedly the results of pure ill-fortune, and depended on
things outside his control. But it is evident that the strategic plan which
would justify the presence of this column at Nicholson's Nek was based upon
the supposition that the main army won their action at Lombard's Kop. In
that case White might swing round his right and pin the Boers between
himself and Nicholson's Nek. In any case he could then re-unite with his
isolated wing. But if he should lose his battle-what then? What was to
become of this detachment five miles up in the air? How was it to be
extricated? The gallant Irishman seems to have waved aside the very idea of
defeat. An assurance was, it is reported, given to the leaders of the column
that by eleven o'clock next morning they would be relieved. So they would if
White had won his action. But -
The force chosen to operate independently consisted of four and a half
companies of the Gloucester regiment, six companies of the Royal Irish
Fusiliers, and No. 10 Mountain Battery of six seven-pounder screw-guns. They
were both old soldier regiments from India, and the Fusiliers had shown only
ten days before at Talana Hill the stuff of which they were made. Colonel
Carleton, of the Fusiliers, to whose exertions much of the success of the
retreat from Dundee was due, commanded the column, with Major Adye as staff
officer. On the night of Sunday, October 29th, they tramped out of
Ladysmith, a thousand men, none better in the army. Little they thought, as
they exchanged a jest or two with the outlying pickets, that they were
seeing the last of their own armed countrymen for many a weary month .
The road was irregular and the night was moonless. On either side the black
loom of the hills bulked vaguely through the darkness. The column tramped
stolidly along, the Fusiliers in front, the guns and Gloucesters behind.
Several times a short halt was called to make sure of the bearings. At last,
in the black cold hours which come between midnight and morning, the column
swung to the left out of the road. In front of them, hardly visible,
stretched a long black kopje. It was the very Nicholson's Nek which they had
come to occupy. Carleton and Adye must have heaved a sigh of relief as they
realised that they had actually struck it. The force was but two hundred
yards from the position, and all had gone without a hitch. And yet in those
two hundred yards there came an incident which decided the fate both of
their enterprise and of themselves.
Out of the darkness there blundered and rattled five horsemen, their horses
galloping, the loose stones flying around them. In the dim light they were
gone as soon as seen. Whence coming, whither going, no one knows, nor is it
certain whether it was design or ignorance or panic which sent them riding
so wildly through the darkness. Somebody fired. A sergeant of the Fusiliers
took the bullet through his hand. Some one else shouted to fix bayonets. The
mules which carried the spare ammunition kicked and reared. There was no
question of treachery, for they were led by our own men, but to hold two
frightened mules, one with either hand, is a feat for a Hercules. They
lashed and tossed and bucked themselves loose, and an instant afterwards
were flying helter skelter through the column. Nearly all the mules caught
the panic. In vain the men held on to their heads. In the mad rush they were
galloped over and knocked down by the torrent of frightened creatures. In
the gloom of that early hour the men must have thought that they were
charged by cavalry. The column was dashed out of all military order as
effectively as if a regiment of dragoons had ridden over them. When the
cyclone had passed, and the men had with many a muttered curse gathered
themselves into their ranks once more, they realised how grave was the
misfortune which had befallen them. There, where those mad hoofs still
rattled in the distance, were their spare cartridges, their shells, and
their cannon. A mountain gun is not drawn upon wheels, but is carried in
adjustable parts upon mule-back. A wheel bad gone south, a trail east, a
chase west. Some of the cartridges were strewn upon the road. Most were on
their way back to Ladysmith. There was nothing for it but to face this new
situation and to determine what should be done.
It has been often and naturally asked, why did not Colonel Carleton make his
way back at once upon the loss of his guns and ammunition, while it was
still dark? One or two considerations are evident. In the first place, it is
natural to a good soldier to endeavour to retrieve a situation rather than
to abandon his enterprise. His prudence, did he not do so, might become the
subject of public commendation, but might also provoke some private comment.
A soldier's training is to take chances, and to do the best he can with the
material at his disposal. Again, Colonel Carleton and Major Adye knew the
general plan of the battle which would be raging within a very few hours,
and they quite understood that by withdrawing they would expose General
White's left flank to attack from the forces (consisting, as we know now, of
the Orange Freestaters and of the Johannesburg Police) who were coming from
the north and west. He hoped to be relieved by eleven, and he believed that,
come what might, he could hold out until then. These are the most obvious of
the considerations which induced Colonel Carleton to determine to carry out
so far as he could the programme which had been laid down for him and his
command. He marched up the hill and occupied the position.
His heart, however, must have sunk when he examined it. It was very large -
too large to be effectively occupied by the force which he commanded. The
length was about a mile and the breadth four hundred yards. Shaped roughly
like the sole of a boot, it was only the heel end which he could hope to
hold. Other hills all round offered cover for Boer riflemen. Nothing
daunted, however, he set his men to work at once building sangars with the
loose stones. With the full dawn and the first snapping of Boer Mausers from
the hills around they had thrown up some sort of rude defences which they
might hope to hold until help should come.
But how could help come when there was no means by which they could let
White know the plight in which they found themselves? They had brought a
heliograph with them, but it was on the back of one of those accursed mules.
The Boers were thick around them, and they could not send a messenger. An
attempt was made to convert a polished biscuit tin into a heliograph, but
with poor success. A Kaffir was dispatched with promises of a heavy bribe,
but he passed out of history. And there in the clear cold morning air the
balloon hung to the south of them where the first distant thunder of White's
guns was beginning to sound. If only they could attract the attention of
that balloon! Vainly they wagged flags at it. Serene and unresponsive it
brooded over the distant battle.
And now the Boers were thickening round them on every side. Christian do
Wet, a name soon to be a household word, marshaled the Boer attack, which
was soon strengthened by the arrival of Van Dam and his Police. At five
o'clock the fire began, at six it was warm, at seven warmer still. Two
companies of the Gloucesters lined a sangar on the tread of the sole, to
prevent any one getting too near to the heel. A fresh detachment of Boers,
firing from a range of nearly one thousand yards, took this defence in the
rear. Bullets fell among the men, and smacked up against the stone
breastwork. The two companies were withdrawn, and lost heavily in the open
as they crossed it. An incessant rattle and crackle of rifle fire came from
all round, drawing very slowly but steadily nearer. Now and then the whisk
of a dark figure from one boulder to another was all that ever was seen of
the attackers. The British fired slowly and steadily, for every cartridge
counted, but the cover of the Boers was so cleverly taken that it was seldom
that there was much to aim at. 'All you could ever see,' says one who was
present, 'were the barrels of the rifles.' There was time for thought in
that long morning, and to some of the men it may have occurred what
preparation for such fighting had they ever had in the mechanical exercises
of the parade ground, or the shooting of an annual bagful of cartridges at
exposed targets at a measured range. It is the warfare of Nicholson's Nek,
not that of Laffan's Plain, which has to be learned in the future.
During those weary hours lying on the bullet-swept hill and listening to the
eternal hissing in the air and clicking on the rocks, the British soldiers
could see the fight which raged to the south of them. It was not a cheering
sight, and Carleton and Adye with their gallant comrades must have felt
their hearts grow heavier as they watched. The Boers' shells bursting among
the British batteries, the British shells bursting short of their opponents.
The Long Toms laid at an angle of forty-five plumped their huge shells into
the British guns at a range where the latter would not dream of unlimbering.
And then gradually the rifle fire died away also, crackling more faintly as
White withdrew to Ladysmith. At eleven o'clock Carleton's column recognised
that it had been left to its fate. As early as nine a heliogram had been
sent to them to retire as the opportunity served, but to leave the hill was
certainly to court annihilation.
The men had then been under fire for six hours, and with their losses
mounting and their cartridges dwindling, all hope had faded from their
minds. But still for another hour, and yet another, and yet another, they
held doggedly on. Nine and a half hours they clung to that pile of stones.
The Fusiliers were still exhausted from the effect of their march from
Glencoe and their incessant work since. Many fell asleep behind the
boulders. Some sat doggedly with their useless rifles and empty pouches
beside them. Some picked cartridges off their dead comrades. What were they
fighting for? It was hopeless, and they knew it. But always there was the
honour of the flag, the glory of the regiment, the hatred of a proud and
brave man to acknowledge defeat. And yet it had to come. There wore some in
that force who were ready for the reputation of the British army, and for
the sake of an example of military virtue, to die stolidly where they stood,
or to lead the 'Faugh-a-ballagh' boys, or the gallant 28th, in one last
death-charge with empty rifles against the unseen enemy. They may' have been
right, these stalwarts. Leonidas and his three hundred did more for the
Spartan cause by their memory than by their living valour. Man passes like
the brown leaves, but the tradition of a nation lives on like the oak that
sheds them - and the passing of the leaves is nothing if the bole be the
sounder for it. But a counsel of perfection is easy at a study table. There
are other things to he said - the responsibility of officers for the lives
of their men, the hope that they may yet be of service to their country. All
was weighed, all was thought of, and so at last the white flag went up. The
officer who hoisted it could see no one unhurt save himself, for all in his
sangar were hit, and the others were so placed that he was under the
impression that they had withdrawn altogether. Whether this hoisting of the
flag necessarily compromised the whole force is a difficult question, but
the Boers instantly left their cover, and the men in the sangars behind,
some of whom had not been so seriously engaged, were ordered by their
officers to desist from firing. In an instant the victorious Boers were
among them.
It was not, as I have been told by those who were there, a sight which one
would wish to have seen or care now to dwell upon. Haggard officers cracked
their sword-blades and cursed the day that they had been born. Privates
sobbed with their stained faces buried in their hands. Of all tests of
discipline that ever they had stood, the hardest to many was to conform to
all that the cursed flapping handkerchief meant to them. 'Father, father, we
had rather have died,' cried the Fusiliers to their priest. Gallant hearts,
ill paid, ill thanked, how poorly do the successful of the world compare
with their unselfish loyalty and devotion!
But the sting of contumely or insult was not added to their misfortunes.
There is a fellowship of brave men which rises above the feuds of nations,
and may at last go far, we hope, to heal them. From every rock there rose a
Boer - strange, grotesque figures many of them - walnut-brown and
shaggy-bearded, and swarmed on to the hill. No term of triumph or reproach
came from their lips. 'You will not say now that the young Boer cannot
shoot,' was the harshest word which the least restrained of them made use
of. Between one and two hundred dead and wounded were scattered over the
hill. Those who were within reach of human help received all that could be
given. Captain Rice, of the Fusiliers, was carried wounded down the hill on
the back of one giant, and he has narrated how the man refused the gold
piece which was offered him. Some asked the soldiers for their embroidered
waist-belts as souvenirs of the day. They will for generations remain as the
most precious ornaments of some colonial farmhouse. Then the victors
gathered together and sang psalms, not jubilant but sad and quavering. The
prisoners, in a downcast column, weary, spent, and unkempt, filed off to the
Boer laager at Waschbank, there to take train for Pretoria. And at Ladysmith
a bugler of Fusiliers, his arm bound, the marks of battle on his dress and
person, burst in upon the camp with the news that two veteran regiments had
covered the flank of White's retreating army, but at the cost of their own
annihilation.
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Arthur Conan
Doyle, The Great Boer War, 1902. Area around Ladysmith from map of "Northern Natal" |
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Arthur Conan
Doyle, The Great Boer War, 1902. Chapter VIII: Lord Methuen's Advance. |
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Arthur Conan
Doyle, The Great Boer War, 1902. Preface and Table of Contents |
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Arthur Conan Doyle,
The Great Boer War. Map Index |
