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THE
DEFENCE OF CAESAR'S CAMP: "FIX BAYONETS!
R. Caton Woodville
From: H. W. Wilson, With the Flag to Pretoria, 1902 |
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Arthur Conan
Doyle,
The Great Boer War
London, Smith, Elder &
Co., 1902
CHAPTER XIII
The Siege of Ladysmith
Monday, October 30th, 1899,
is not a date which can be looked back to with satisfaction by any Briton.
In a scrambling and ill-managed action we had lost our detached left wing
almost to a man, while our right had been hustled with no great loss but
with some ignominy into Ladysmith. Our guns had been outshot, our infantry
checked, and our cavalry paralysed. Eight hundred prisoners may seem no
great loss when compared with a Sedan, or even with an Ulm; but such matters
are comparative, and the force which laid down its arms at Nicholson's Nek
is the largest British force which has surrendered since the days of our
great grandfathers, when the egregious Duke of York commanded in Flanders.
Sir George White was now confronted with the certainty of an investment, an
event for which apparently no preparation had been made, since with an open
railway behind him so many useless mouths had been permitted to remain in
the town. Ladysmith lies in a hollow and is dominated by a ring of hills,
some near and some distant. The near ones were in our hands, but no attempt
had been made in the early days of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana,
Lombard's Kop, and the other positions from which the town might be shelled.
Whether these might or might not have been successfully held has been much
disputed by military men, the balance of opinion being that Bulwana, at
least, which has a water-supply of its own, might have been retained. This
question, however, was already academic, as the outer hills were in the
hands of the enemy. As it was, the inner line - Caesar's Camp, Wagon Hill,
Rifleman's Post, and round to Helpmakaar Hill - made a perimeter of fourteen
miles, and the difficulty of retaining so extensive a line goes far to
exonerate General White, not only for abandoning the outer hills, but also
for retaining his cavalry in the town.
After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the Boers in
their deliberate but effective fashion set about the investment of the town,
while the British commander accepted the same as inevitable, content if he
could stem and hold back from the colony the threatened flood of invasion.
On Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the commandoes gradually closed
in upon the south and east, harassed by some cavalry operations and
reconnaissances upon our part, the effect of which was much exaggerated by
the press. On Thursday, November 2nd, the last train escaped under a brisk
fire, the passengers upon the wrong side of the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same
day the telegraph line was cut, and the lonely town settled herself somberly
down to the task of holding off the exultant Boers until the day-supposed to
be imminent - when the relieving army should appear from among the labyrinth
of mountains which lay to the south of them. Some there were who, knowing
both the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold chill within their hearts as
they asked themselves how an army was to come through, but the greater
number, from General to private, trusted implicitly in the valour of their
comrades and in the luck of the British Army.
One example of that historical luck was ever before their eyes in the shape
of those invaluable naval guns which had arrived so dramatically at the very
crisis of the fight, in time to check the monster on Pepworth Hill and to
cover the retreat of the army. But for them the besieged must have lain
impotent under the muzzles of the huge Creusots. But in spite of the naive
claims put forward by the Boers to some special Providence - a process which
a friendly German critic described as `commandeering the Almighty' - it is
certain that in a very peculiar degree, in the early months of this war
there came again and again a happy chance, or a merciful interposition,
which saved the British from disaster. Now in this first week of November,
when every hill, north and south and east and west, flashed and smoked, and
the great 96-pound shells groaned and screamed over the town, it was to the
long thin 47's and to the hearty bearded men who worked them, that soldiers
and townsfolk looked for help. These guns of Lambton's, supplemented by two
old-fashioned 63 howitzers manned by survivors from No.10 Mountain Battery,
did all that was possible to keep down the fire of the heavy Boer guns. If
they could not save, they could at least hit back, and punishment is not so
bad to bear when one is giving as well as receiving.
By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established their
circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops of the Klip
River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent, which furnished grazing
ground for the horses and cattle of the besieged. Beyond it rises into a
long flat-topped hill the famous Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot
and several smaller guns. To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another
Creusot, and between the two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The
British naval guns were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed
by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which is most
liable to assault. From thence all round the west down to Besters in the
south was a continuous series of hills, each crowned with Boer guns, which,
if they could not harm the distant town, were at least effective in holding
the garrison to its lines. So formidable were these positions that, amid
much outspoken criticism, it has never been suggested that White would have
been justified with a limited garrison in incurring the heavy loss of life
which must have followed an attempt to force them.
The first few days of the siege were clouded by the death of Lieutenant
Egerton of the 'Powerful,' one of the most promising officers in the Navy.
One leg and the other foot were carried off, as he lay upon the sandbag
parapet watching the effect of our fire. 'There's an end of my cricket,'
said the gallant sportsman, and he was carried to the rear with a cigar
between his clenched teeth.
On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was pushed down the Colenso
road to ascertain the force which the enemy had in that direction. Colonel
Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th Hussars, the 5th Lancers and
the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Light Horse and the Natal Volunteers. Some
desultory fighting ensued which achieved no end, and was chiefly remarkable
for the excellent behaviour of the Colonials, who showed that they were the
equals of the Regulars in gallantry and their superiors in the tactics which
such a country requires. The death of Major Taunton, Captain Knapp, and
young Brabant, the son of the General who did such good service at a later
stage of the war, was a heavy price to pay for the knowledge that the Boers
were in considerable strength to the south.
By the end of this week the town had already settled down to the routine of
the siege. General Joubert, with the chivalry which had always distinguished
him, had permitted the garrison to send out the non-combatants to a place
called Intombi Camp (promptly named Funkersdorp by the facetious) where they
were safe from the shells, though the burden of their support still fell of
course upon the much-tried commissariat. The hale and male of the townsfolk
refused for the most part to avoid the common danger, and clung tenaciously
to their shot-torn village. Fortunately the river has worn down its banks
until it runs through a deep channel, in the sides of which it was found to
be possible to hollow out caves which were practically bomb-proof. Here for
some months the townsfolk led a troglodytic existence, returning to their
homes upon that much appreciated seventh day of rest which was granted to
them by their Sabbatarian besiegers.
The perimeter of the defence had been divided off so that each corps might
be responsible for its own section. To the south was the Manchester Regiment
upon the hill called Csar's Camp. Between Lombard's Kop and the town, on the
north-east, were the Devons. To the north, at what seemed the vulnerable
point, were the Rifle Brigade, the Rifles, and the remains of the 18th
Hussars. To the west were the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, and 5th Dragoon
Guards. The rest of the force was encamped round the outskirts of the town.
There appears to have been some idea in the Boer mind that the mere fact
that they held a dominant position over the town would soon necessitate the
surrender of the army. At the end of a week they had realised, however, just
as the British had, that a siege lay before both. Their fire upon the town
was heavy but not deadly, though it became more effective as the weeks went
on. Their practice at a range of five miles was exceedingly accurate. At the
same time their riflemen became more venturesome, and on Tuesday, November
7th, they made a half-hearted attack upon the Manchesters' position on the
south, which was driven back without difficulty. On the 9th, however, their
attempt was of a more serious and sustained character. It began with a heavy
shell-fire and with a demonstration of rifle-fire from every side, which had
for its object the prevention of reinforcements for the true point of
danger, which again was Csar's Camp at the south. It is evident that the
Boers had from the beginning made up their minds that here lay the key of
the position, as the two serious attacks-that of November 9th and that of
January 6th-were directed upon this point.
The Manchesters at Csar's Camp had been reinforced by the 1st battalion 60th
Rifles, who held the prolongation of the same ridge, which is called Waggon
Hill. With the dawn it was found that the Boer riflemen were within eight
hundred yards, and from then till evening a constant fire was maintained
upon the hill. The Boer, however, save when the odds are all in his favour,
is not, in spite of his considerable personal bravery, at his best in
attack. His racial traditions, depending upon the necessity for economy of
human life, are all opposed to it. As a consequence two regiments well
posted were able to hold them off all day with a loss which did not exceed
thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed to the shrapnel of the
42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of the infantry, must have suffered
very much more severely. The result of the action was a well-grounded belief
that in daylight there was very little chance of the Boers being able to
carry the lines. As the date was that of the Prince of Wales's birthday, a
salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a successful day.
The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced the enemy
that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and disease were their
allies, would be surer and less expensive than an open assault. From their
distant hilltops they continued to plague the town, while garrison and
citizens sat grimly patient, and learned to endure if not to enjoy the crash
of the 96-pound shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon their
corrugated-iron roofs. The supplies were adequate, and the besieged were
fortunate in the presence of a first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of
Islington fame, who with the assistance of Colonel Stoneman systematised the
collection and issue of all the food, civil and military, so as to stretch
it to its utmost. With rain overhead and mud underfoot, chafing at their own
idleness and humiliated by their own position1 the soldiers waited through
the weary weeks for the relief which never came. On some days there was more
shell-fire, on some less; on some there was sniping, on some none; on some
they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out of the town, on most they
lay still - such were the ups and downs of life in Ladysmith. The inevitable
siege paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,' appeared, and did something to relieve
the monotony by the exasperation of its jokes. Night, morning, and noon the
shells rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not
bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang of the
shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the garrison could
see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies who had come down by
train to see the torture of the doomed town.
The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong positions and
excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and to sweep on at once to
the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it is hard to see what could have
prevented them from riding their horses down to salt water. A few odds and
ends, half battalions and local volunteers, stood between them and Durban.
But here, as on the Orange River, a singular paralysis seems to have struck
them. When the road lay clear before them the first transports of the army
corps were hardly past St. Vincent, but before they had made up their mind
to take that road the harbour of Durban was packed with our shipping and ten
thousand men had thrown themselves across their path.
For a moment we may leave the fortunes of Ladysmith to follow this southerly
movement of the Boers. Within two days of the investment of the town they
had swung round their left flank and attacked Colenso, twelve miles south,
shelling the Durban Light Infantry out of their post with a long-range fire.
The British fell back twenty-seven miles and concentrated at Estcourt,
leaving the all-important Colenso railway-bridge in the hands of the enemy.
From this onwards they held the north of the Tugela, and many a widow wore
crepe before we got our grip upon it once more. Never was there a more
critical week in the war, but having got Colenso the Boers did little more.
They formally annexed the whole of Northern Natal to the Orange Free State -
a dangerous precedent when the tables should be turned. With amazing
assurance the burghers pegged out farms for themselves and sent for their
people to occupy these newly won estates.
On November 5th the Boers had remained so inert that the British returned in
small force to Colenso and removed some stores - which seems to suggest that
the original retirement was premature. Four days passed in inactivity - four
precious days for us - and on the evening of the fourth, November 9th, the
watchers on the signal station at Table Mountain saw the smoke of a great
steamer coming past Robben Island. It was the 'Roslin Castle' with the first
of the reinforcements. Within the week the 'Moor,' 'Yorkshire,' 'Aurania,'
'Hawarden Castle,' 'Gascon,' Armenian,' 'Oriental,' and a fleet of others
had passed for Durban with 15,000 men. Once again the command of the sea had
saved the Empire.
But, now that it was too late, the Boers suddenly took the initiative, and
in dramatic fashion. North of Estcourt, where General Hildyard was being
daily reinforced from the sea, there are two small townlets, or at least
geographical (and railway) points. Frere is about ten miles north of
Estcourt, and Chieveley is five miles north of that and about as far to the
south of Colenso. On November 15th an armoured train was despatched from
Estcourt to see what was going on up the line. Already one disaster had
befallen us in this campaign on account of these clumsy contrivances, and a
heavier one was now to confirm the opinion that, acting alone, they are
totally inadmissible. As a means of carrying artillery for a force operating
upon either flank of them, with an assured retreat behind, there may be a
place for them in modern war, but as a method of scouting they appear to be
the most inefficient and also the most expensive that has ever been
invented. An intelligent horseman would gather more information, be less
visible, and retain some freedom as to route. After our experience the
armoured train may steam out of military history.
The train contained ninety Dublin Fusiliers, eighty Durban Volunteers, and
ten sailors, with a naval 7-pounder gun. Captain Haldane of the Gordons,
Lieutenant Frankland (Dublin Fusiliers), and Winston Churchill, the
well-known correspondent, accompanied the expedition. What might have been
foreseen occurred. The train steamed into the advancing Boer army, was fired
upon, tried to escape, found the rails blocked behind it, and upset. Dublins
and Durbans were shot helplessly out of their trucks, under a heavy fire. A
railway accident is a nervous thing, and so is an ambuscade, but the
combination of the two must be appalling. Yet there were brave hearts which
rose to the occasion. Haldane and Frankland rallied the troops, and
Churchill the engine-driver. The engine was disentangled and sent on with
its cab full of wounded. Churchill, who had escaped upon it, came gallantly
back to share the fate of his comrades. The dazed shaken soldiers continued
a futile resistance for some time, but there was neither help nor escape and
nothing for them but surrender. The most Spartan military critic cannot
blame them. A few slipped away besides those who escaped upon the engine.
Our losses were two killed, twenty wounded, and about eighty taken. It is
remarkable that of the three leaders both Haldane and Churchill succeeded in
escaping from Pretoria.
A double tide of armed men was now pouring into Southern Natal. From below,
trainload after trainload of British regulars were coming up to the danger
point, feted and cheered at every station. Lonely farmhouses near the line
hung out their Union Jacks, and the folk on the stoep heard the roar of the
choruses as the great trains swung upon their way. From above the Boers were
flooding down, as Churchill saw them, dour, resolute, riding silently
through the rain, or chanting hymns round their camp fires - brave honest
farmers, but standing unconsciously for medievalism and corruption, even as
our rough-tongued Tommies stood for civilisation, progress, and equal rights
for all men.
The invading force, the numbers of which could not have exceeded some few
thousands, formidable only for their mobility, lapped round the more
powerful but less active force at Estcourt, and struck behind it at its
communications. There was for a day or two some discussion as to a further
retreat, but Hildyard, strengthened by the advice and presence of Colonel
Long, determined to hold his ground. On November 21st the raiding Boers were
as far south as Nottingham Road, a point thirty miles south of Estcourt and
only forty miles north of the considerable city of Pietermaritzburg. The
situation was serious. Either the invaders must be stopped, or the second
largest town in the colony would be in their hands. From all sides came
tales of plundered farms and broken households. Some at least of the raiders
behaved with wanton brutality. Smashed pianos, shattered pictures,
slaughtered stock, and vile inscriptions, all exhibit a predatory and
violent side to the paradoxical Boer character. [ Footnote: More than once I
have heard the farmers in the Free State acknowledge that the ruin which had
come upon them was a just retribution for the excesses of Natal.]
The next British post behind Hildyard's at Estcourt was Barton's upon the
Mooi River, thirty miles to the south. Upon this the Boers made a
half-hearted attempt, but Joubert had begun to realise the strength of the
British reinforcements and the impossibility with the numbers at his
disposal of investing a succession of British posts. He ordered Botha to
withdraw from Mooi River and begin his northerly trek.
The turning-point of the Boer invasion of Natal was marked, though we cannot
claim that it was caused, by the action of Willow Grange. This was fought by
Hildyard and Walter Kitchener in command of the Estcourt garrison, against
about 2,000 of the invaders under Louis Botha. The troops engaged were the
East and West Surreys (four companies of the latter), the West Yorkshires,
the Durban Light Infantry, No.7 battery R.F.A., two naval guns, and some
hundreds of Colonial Horse.
The enemy being observed to have a gun upon a hill within striking distance
of Estcourt, this force set out on November 22nd to make a night attack and
to endeavour to capture it. The hill was taken without difficulty, but it
was found that the gun had been removed. A severe counter-attack was made at
daylight by the Boers, and the troops were compelled with no great loss and
less glory to return to the town. The Surreys and the Yorkshires behaved
very well, but were placed in a difficult position and were badly supported
by the artillery. Martyn's Mounted Infantry covered the retirement with
great gallantry, but the skirmish ended in a British loss of fourteen killed
and fifty wounded or missing, which was certainly more than that of the
Boers. From this indecisive action of Willow Grange the Boer invasion
receded until General Buller, coming to the front on November 27th, found
that the enemy was once more occupying the line of the Tugela. He himself
moved up to Frere, where he devoted his time and energies to the collection
of that force with which he has destined, after three failures, to make his
way into Ladysmith.
One unexpected and little known result of the Boer expedition into Southern
Natal was that their leader, the chivalrous Joubert, injured himself through
his horse stumbling, and was physically incapacitated for the remainder of
the campaign. He returned almost immediately to Pretoria, leaving the
command of the Tugela in the hands of Louis Botha.
Leaving Buller to organise his army at Frere, and the Boer commanders to
draw their screen of formidable defences along the Tugela, we will return
once more to the fortunes of the unhappy town round which the interest of
the world, and possibly the destiny of the Empire, were centering. It is
very certain that had Ladysmith fallen, and twelve thousand British soldiers
with a million pounds' worth of stores fallen into the hands of the
invaders, we should have been faced with the alternative of abandoning the
struggle, or of reconquering South Africa from Cape Town northwards. South
Africa is the keystone of the Empire, and for the instant Ladysmith was the
keystone of South Africa. But the courage of the troops who held the
shell-torn townlet, and the confidence of the public who watched them, never
faltered for an instant.
December 8th was marked by a gallant exploit on the part of the beleaguered
garrison. Not a whisper had transpired of the coming sortie, and a quarter
of an hour before the start officers engaged had no idea of it. 0 SI SIC
OMNIA! At ten o'clock a band of men slipped out of the town. There were six
hundred of them, all irregulars, drawn from the Imperial Light Horse, the
Natal Carabineers, and the Border Mounted Rifles, under the command of
Hunter, youngest and most dashing of British Generals. Edwardes and Boyston
were the subcommanders. The men had no knowledge of where they were going or
what they had to do, but they crept silently along under a drifting sky,
with peeps of a quarter moon, over a mimosa-shadowed plain. At last in front
of them there loomed a dark mass - it was Gun Hill, from which one of the
great Creusots had plagued them. A strong support (four hundred men) was
left at the base of the hill, and the others, one hundred Imperials, one
hundred Borders and Carabineers, ten Sappers, crept upwards with Major
Henderson as guide. A Dutch outpost challenged, but was satisfied by a
Dutch-speaking Carabineer. Higher and higher the men crept, the silence
broken only by the occasional slip of a stone or the rustle of their own
breathing. Most of them had left their boots below. Even in the darkness
they kept some formation, and the right wing curved forward to outflank the
defence. Suddenly a Mauser crack and a spurt of flame-then another and
another! 'Come on, boys! Fix bayonets!' yelled Karri Davies. There were no
bayonets, but that was a detail. At the word the gunners were off, and there
in the darkness in front of the storming party loomed the enormous gun,
gigantic in that uncertain light. Out with the huge breech-block! Wrap the
long lean muzzle round with a collar of gun-cotton! Keep the guard upon the
run until the work is done! Hunter stood by with a night light in his hand
until the charge was in position, and then, with a crash which brought both
armies from their tents, the huge tube reared up on its mountings and
toppled backwards into the pit. A howitzer lurked beside it, and this also
was blown into ruin. The attendant Maxim was dragged back by the exultant
captors, who reached the town amid shoutings and laughter with the first
break of day. One man wounded, the gallant Henderson, is the cheap price for
the best-planned and most dashing exploit of the war. Secrecy in conception,
vigour in execution - they are the root ideas of the soldier's craft. So
easily was the enterprise carried out, and so defective the Boer watch, that
it is probable that if all the guns had been simultaneously attacked the
Boers might have found themselves without a single piece of ordnance in the
morning. [Footnote: The destruction of the Creusot was not as complete as was
hoped. It was taken back to Pretoria, three feet were sawn off the muzzle,
and a new breech-block provided. The gun was then sent to Kimberley, and it
was the heavy cannon which arrived late in the history of that siege and
caused considerable consternation among the inhabitants.]
On the same morning (December 9th) a cavalry reconnaissance was pushed in
the direction of Pepworth Hill. The object no doubt was to ascertain whether
the enemy were still present in force, and the terrific roll of the Mausers
answered it in the affirmative. Two killed and twenty wounded was the price
which we paid for the information. There had been three such reconnaissances
in the five weeks of the siege, and it is difficult to see what advantage
they gave or how they are to be justified. Far be it for the civilian to
dogmatise upon such matters, but one can repeat, and to the best of one's
judgment endorse, the opinion of the vast majority of officers.
There were heart burnings among the Regulars that the colonial troops should
have gone in front of them, so their martial jealousy was allayed three
nights later by the same task being given to them. Four companies of the 2nd
Rifle Brigade were the troops chosen, with a few sappers and gunners, the
whole under the command of Colonel Metcalfe of the same battalion. A single
gun, the 47 howitzer upon Surprise Hill, was the objective. Again there was
the stealthy advance through the darkness, again the support was left at the
bottom of the hill, again the two companies carefully ascended, again there
was the challenge, the rush, the flight, and the gun was in the hands of the
stormers.
Here and only here the story varies. For some reason the fuse used for the
guncotton was defective, and half an hour elapsed before the explosion
destroyed the howitzer. When it came it came very thoroughly, but it was a
weary time in coming. Then our men descended the hill, but the Boers were
already crowding in upon them from either side. The English cries of the
soldiers were answered in English by the Boers, and slouch hat or helmet
dimly seen in the murk was the only badge of friend or foe. A singular
letter is extant from young Reitz (the son of the Transvaal secretary), who
was present. According to his account there were but eight Boers present,
but assertion or contradiction equally valueless in the darkness of such a
night, and there are some obvious discrepancies in his statement. 'We fired
among them,' says Reitz. 'They stopped and all cried out "Rifle Brigade."
Then one of them said "Charge!" One officer, Captain Paley, advanced, though
he had two bullet wounds already. Joubert gave him another shot and he fell
on the top of us. Four Englishmen got hold of Jan Luttig and struck him on
the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet. He
seized two of them by the throat and shouted "Help, boys!" His two nearest
comrades shot two of them, and the other two bolted. Then the English came
up in numbers, about eight hundred, along the footpath' (there were two
hundred on the hill, but the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness),
'and we lay as quiet as mice along the bank. Farther on the English killed
three of our men with bayonets and wounded two. In the morning we found
Captain Paley and twenty-two of them killed and wounded.' It seems evident
that Reitz means that his own little party were eight men, and not that that
represented the force which intercepted the retiring riflemen. Within his
own knowledge five of his countrymen were killed in the scuffle, so the
total loss was probably considerable. Our own casualties were eleven dead,
forty-three wounded, and six prisoners, but the price was not excessive for
the howitzer and for the MORALE which arises from such exploits. Had it not
been for that unfortunate fuse, the second success might have been as
bloodless as the first. 'I am sorry,' said a sympathetic correspondent to
the stricken Paley. 'But we got the gun,' Paley whispered, and he spoke for
the Brigade.
Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the dysentery, one
ray of comfort had always brightened the garrison. Buller was only twelve
miles away - they could hear his guns - and when his advance came in earnest
their sufferings would be at an end. But now in an instant this single light
was shut off and the true nature of their situation was revealed to them.
Buller had indeed moved... but backwards. He had been defeated at Colenso,
and the siege was not ending but beginning. With heavier hearts but
undiminished resolution the army and the townsfolk settled down to the long,
dour struggle. The exultant enemy replaced their shattered guns and drew
their lines closer still round the stricken town.
A record of the siege onwards until the break of the New Year centres upon
the sordid details of the sick returns and of the price of food. Fifty on
one day, seventy on the next, passed under the hands of the overworked and
devoted doctors. Fifteen hundred, and later two thousand, of the garrison
were down. The air was poisoned by foul sewage and dark with obscene flies.
They speckled the scanty food. Eggs were already a shilling each, cigarettes
sixpence, whisky five pounds a bottle: a city more free from gluttony and
drunkenness has never been seen.
Shell-fire has shown itself in this war to be an excellent ordeal for those
who desire martial excitement with a minimum of danger. But now and again
some black chance guides a bomb - one in five thousand perhaps - to a most
tragic issue. Such a deadly missile falling among Boers near Kimberley is
said to have slain nine and wounded seventeen. In Ladysmith too there are
days to be marked in red when the gunner shot better than he knew. One shell
on December 17th killed six men (Natal Carabineers), wounded three, and
destroyed fourteen horses. The grisly fact has been recorded that five
separate human legs lay upon the ground. On December 22nd another tragic
shot killed five and wounded twelve of the Devons. On the same day four
officers of the 5th Lancers (including the Colonel) and one sergeant were
wounded - a most disastrous day. A little later it was again the turn of the
Devons, who lost one officer killed and ten wounded. Christmas set in amid
misery, hunger, and disease, the more piteous for the grim attempts to amuse
the children and live up to the joyous season, when the present of Santa
Claus was too often a 96-pound shell. On the top of all other troubles it
was now known that the heavy ammunition was running short and must be
husbanded for emergencies. There was no surcease, however, in the constant
hail which fell upon the town. Two or three hundred shells were a not
unusual daily allowance.
The monotonous bombardment with which the New Year had commenced was soon to
be varied by a most gallant and spirit-stirring clash of arms. On January
6th the Boers delivered their great assault upon Ladysmith - an onfall so
gallantly made and gallantly met that it deserves to rank among the classic
fights of British military history. It is a tale which neither side need be
ashamed to tell. Honour to the sturdy infantry who held their grip so long,
and honour also to the rough men of the veldt, who, led by untrained
civilians, stretched us to the utmost capacity of our endurance.
It may be that the Boers wished once for all to have done at all costs with
the constant menace to their rear, or it may be that the deliberate
preparations of Buller for his second advance had alarmed them, and that
they realised that they must act quickly if they were to act at all. At any
rate, early in the New Year a most determined attack was decided upon. The
storming party consisted of some hundreds of picked volunteers from the
Heidelberg (Transvaal) and Harrismith (Free State) contingents, led by de
Villiers. They were supported by several thousand riflemen, who might secure
their success or cover their retreat. Eighteen heavy guns had been trained
upon the long ridge, one end of which has been called Csar's Camp and the
other Waggon Hill. This hill, three miles long, lay to the south of the
town, and the Boers had early recognised it as being the most vulnerable
point, for it was against it that their attack of November 9th had been
directed. Now, after two months, they were about to renew the attempt with
greater resolution against less robust opponents. At twelve o'clock our
scouts heard the sounds of the chanting of hymns in the Boer camps. At two
in the morning crowds of barefooted men were clustering round the base of
the ridge, and threading their way, rifle in hand, among the mimosa-bushes
and scattered boulders which cover the slope of the hill. Some working
parties were moving guns into position, and the noise of their labour helped
to drown the sound of the Boer advance. Both at Csar's Camp, the east end of
the ridge, and at Waggon Hill, the west end (the points being, I repeat,
three miles apart), the attack came as a complete surprise. The outposts
were shot or driven in, and the stormers were on the ridge almost as soon as
their presence was detected. The line of rocks blazed with the flash of
their guns.
Csar's Camp was garrisoned by one sturdy regiment, the Manchesters, aided by
a Colt automatic gun. The defence bad been arranged in the form of small
sangars, each held by from ten to twenty men. Some few of these were rushed
in the darkness, but the Lancashire men pulled themselves together and held
on strenuously to those which remained. The crash of musketry woke the
sleeping town, and the streets resounded with the shouting of the officers
and the rattling of arms as the men mustered in the darkness and hurried to
the points of danger.
Three companies of the Gordons had been left near Csar's Camp, and these,
under Captain Carnegie, threw themselves into the struggle. Four other
companies of Gordons came up in support from the town, losing upon the way
their splendid colonel, Dick-Cunyngham, who was killed by a chance shot at
three thousand yards, on this his first appearance since he had recovered
from his wounds at Elandslaagte. Later four companies of the Rifle Brigade
were thrown into the firing line, and a total of two and a half infantry
battalions held that end of the position. It was not a man too much. With
the dawn of day it could be seen that the Boers held the southern and we the
northern slopes, while the narrow plateau between formed a bloody debatable
ground. Along a front of a quarter of a mile fierce eyes glared and rifle
barrels flashed from behind every rock, and the long fight swayed a little
back or a little forward with each upward heave of the stormers or rally of
the soldiers. For hours the combatants were so near that a stone or a taunt
could be thrown from one to the other. Some scattered sangars still held
their own, though the Boers had passed them. One such, manned by fourteen
privates of the Manchester Regiment, remained untaken, but had only two
defenders left at the end of the bloody day.
With the coming of the light the 53rd Field Battery, the one which had
already done so admirably at Lombard's Kop, again deserved well of its
country. It was impossible to get behind the Boers and fire straight at
their position, so every shell fired bad to skim over the heads of our own
men upon the ridge and so pitch upon the reverse slope. Yet so accurate was
the fire, carried on under an incessant rain of shells from the big Dutch
gun on Bulwana, that not one shot miscarried and that Major Abdy and his men
succeeded in sweeping the further slope without loss to our own fighting
line. Exactly the same feat was equally well performed at the other end of
the position by Major Blewitt's 21st Battery, which was exposed to an even
more searching fire than the 53rd. Any one who has seen the iron endurance
of British gunners and marvelled at the answering shot which flashes out
through the very dust of the enemy's exploding shell, will understand how
fine must have been the spectacle of these two batteries working in the
open, with the ground round them sharded with splinters. Eye-witnesses have
left it upon record that the sight of Major Blewitt strolling up and down
among his guns, and turning over with his toe the last fallen section of
iron, was one of the most vivid and stirring impressions which they carried
from The fight. Here also it was that the gallant Sergeant Bosley, his arm
and his leg stricken off by a Boer shell, cried to his comrades to roll his
body off the trail and go on working the gun.
At the same time as - or rather earlier than - the onslaught upon Caesar's
Camp a similar attack had been made with secrecy and determination upon the
western end of the position called Waggon Hill. The barefooted Boers burst
suddenly with a roll of rifle-fire into the little garrison of Imperial
Light Horse and Sappers who held the position. Mathias of the former, Digby-Jones
and Dennis of the latter, showed that 'two in the morning' courage which
Napoleon rated as the highest of military virtues. They and their men were
surprised but not disconcerted, and stood desperately to a slogging match at
the closest quarters. Seventeen Sappers were down out of thirty, and more
than half the little body of irregulars. This end of the position was feebly
fortified, and it is surprising that so experienced and sound a soldier as
Ian Hamilton should have left it so. The defence had no marked advantage as
compared with the attack, neither trench, sangar, nor wire entanglement, and
in numbers they were immensely inferior. Two companies of the 60th Rifles
and a small body of the ubiquitous Gordons happened to be upon the hill and
threw themselves into the fray, but they were unable to turn the tide. Of
thirty-three Gordons under Lieutenant MacNaughten thirty were
wounded. [Footnote: The Gordons and the Sappers were there that morning to
re-escort one of Lambton's 47 guns, which was to be mounted there. Ten
seamen were with the gun, and lost three of their number in the defence.] As
our men retired under the shelter of the northern slope they were reinforced
by another hundred and fifty Gordons under the stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, a
man cast in the mould of a Berserk Viking. To their aid also came two
hundred of the Imperial Light Horse, burning to assist their comrades.
Another half-battalion of Rifles came with them. At each end of the long
ridge the situation at the dawn of day was almost identical. In each the
stormers had seized one side, but were brought to a stand by the defenders
upon the other, while the British guns fired over the heads of their own
infantry to rake the further slope.
It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the Boer exertions were most
continuous and strenuous and our own resistance most desperate. There fought
the gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton rallied the defenders and led
them in repeated rushes against the enemy's line. Continually reinforced
from below, the Boers fought with extraordinary resolution. Never will any
one who witnessed that Homeric contest question the valour of our foes. It
was a murderous business on both sides. Edwardes of the Light Horse was
struck down. In a gun-emplacement a strange encounter took place at
point-blank range between a group of Boers and of Britons. De Villiers of
the Free State shot Miller-Wallnut dead, Ian Hamilton fired at de Villiers
with his revolver and missed him. Young Albrecht of the Light Horse shot de
Villiers. A Boer named de Jaeger shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones of the Sappers
shot de Jaeger. Only a few minutes later the gallant lad, who had already
won fame enough for a veteran, was himself mortally wounded, and Dennis, his
comrade in arms and in glory, fell by his side.
There has been no better fighting in our time than that upon Waggon Hill on
that January morning, and no better fighters than the Imperial Light
Horsemen who formed the centre of the defence. Here, as at Elandslaagte,
they proved themselves worthy to stand in line with the crack regiments of
the British army.
Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the summit
of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never amounting to a
repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the defenders. So intermixed were
the combatants that a wounded man more than once found himself a rest for
the rifles of his enemies. One unfortunate soldier in this position received
six more bullets from his own comrades in their efforts to reach the deadly
rifleman behind him. At four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered
upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly into a terrific
thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. It is curious that the
British victory at Elandslaagte was heralded by just such another storm. Up
on the bullet-swept hill the long fringes of fighting men took no more heed
of the elements than would two bulldogs who have each other by the throat.
Up the greasy hillside, foul with mud and with blood, came the Boer
reserves, and up the northern slope came our own reserve, the Devon
Regiment, fit representatives of that virile county. Admirably led by Park,
their gallant Colonel, the Devons swept the Boers before them, and the
Rifles, Gordons, and Light Horse joined in the wild charge which finally
cleared the ridge.
But the end was not yet. The Boer had taken a risk over this venture, and
now he had to pay the stakes. Down the hill he passed, crouching, darting,
but the spruits behind him were turned into swirling streams, and as he
hesitated for an instant upon the brink the relentless sleet of bullets came
from behind. Many were swept away down the gorges and into the Klip River,
never again to be accounted for in the lists of their field-cornet. The
majority splashed through, found their horses in their shelter, and galloped
off across the great Bulwana Plain, as fairly beaten in as fair a fight as
ever brave men were yet.
The cheers of victory as the Devons swept the ridge had heartened the weary
men upon Csar's Camp to a similar effort. Manchesters, Gordons, and Rifles,
aided by the fire of two batteries, cleared the long-debated position. Wet,
cold, weary, and without food for twenty-six hours, the bedraggled Tommies
stood yelling and waving, amid the litter of dead and of dying.
It was a near thing. Had the ridge fallen the town must have followed, and
history perhaps have been changed. In the old stiff-rank Majuba days we
should have been swept in an hour from the position. But the wily man behind
the rock was now to find an equally wily man in front of him. The soldier
had at last learned something of the craft of the hunter. He clung to his
shelter, he dwelled on his aim, he ignored his dressings, he laid aside the
eighteenth-century traditions of his pigtailed ancestor, and he hit the
Boers harder than they had been hit yet. No return may ever come to us of
their losses on that occasion; 80 dead bodies were returned to them from the
ridge alone, while the slopes, the dongas, and the river each had its own
separate tale. No possible estimate can make it less than three hundred
killed and wounded, while many place it at a much higher figure. Our own
casualties were very serious and the proportion of dead to wounded unusually
high, owing to the fact that the greater part of the wounds were necessarily
of the head. In killed we lost 13 officers, 135 men. In wounded 28 officers,
244 men - a total of 420, Lord Ava, the honoured Son of an honoured father,
the fiery Dick-Cunyngham, stalwart Miller-Wallnutt, the brave boy sappers
Digby-Jones and Dennis, Adams and Packman of the Light Horse, the chivalrous
Lafone - we had to mourn quality as well as numbers. The grim test of the
casualty returns shows that it was to the Imperial Light Horse (ten officers
down, and the regiment commanded by a junior captain), the Manchesters, the
Gordons, the Devons, and the 2nd Rifle Brigade that the honours of the day
are due.
In the course of the day two attacks had been made upon other points of the
British position, the one on Observation Hill on the north, the other on the
Helpmakaar position on the east. Of these the latter was never pushed home
and was an obvious feint, but in the case of the other it was not until
Schutte, their commander, and forty or fifty men had been killed and
wounded, that the stormers abandoned their attempt. At every point the
assailants found the same scattered but impenetrable fringe of riflemen, and
the same energetic batteries waiting for them.
Throughout the Empire the course of this great struggle was watched with the
keenest solicitude and with all that painful emotion which springs from
impotent sympathy. By heliogram to Buller, and so to the farthest ends of
that great body whose nerves are the telegraphic wires, there came the
announcement of the attack. Then after an interval of hours came 'everywhere
repulsed, but fighting continues.' Then, 'Attack continues. Enemy reinforced
from the south.' Then 'Attack renewed. Very hard pressed.' There the
messages ended for the day, leaving the Empire black with apprehension. The
darkest forecasts and most dreary anticipations were indulged by the most
temperate and best-informed London papers. For the first time the very
suggestion that the campaign might be above our strength was made to the
public. And then at last there came the official news of the repulse of the
assault. Far away at Ladysmith, the weary men and their sorely tried
officers gathered to return thanks to God for His manifold mercies, but in
London also hearts were stricken solemn by the greatness of the crisis, and
lips long unused to prayer joined in the devotions of the absent warriors.
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