Four Months Besieged Part 6

Sh.e.l.ls notwithstanding, the troops had their Christmas sports following a substantial dinner of roast beef and plum-pudding. There were high jinks in the volunteer camps, where Imperial Light Horse, Natal Carbineers, and Border Mounted Rifles, representing the thews and sinews of Colonial manhood, vied with Regular regiments in strenuous tugs of war and other athletic exercises, preparatory to the tournament, which is fixed for New Year's Day--"weather and the enemy's guns permitting."

Three special correspondents, whose waggons are outspanned to form a pleasant little camp in the slightly hollowed ridge of a central hill, where they cannot be seen from the Boer batteries, and are therefore comparatively safe except from stray sh.e.l.ls, organised a series of novel sports for the benefit of their nearest neighbours--the Rifle Brigade transport "South Africa," in the person of its genial representative, put up most of the prize-money, and together we arranged a succession of events, offering inducements enough to secure full entries for compet.i.tions that lasted from ten o'clock in the morning until near sunset, allowing sufficient intervals for the mid-day meal and other refreshments. We flatter ourselves that our gymkhana, in which races ridden on pack and transport mules furnished the liveliest incidents, would take a lot of beating--as a humorous entertainment at any rate.

In order to avoid drawing fire from "Puffing Billy" or "Silent Sue" of Bulwaan, the course had to be laid in a semicircle that pa.s.sed the picketing line for mules. Up to that point they would gallop like thoroughbreds, then cut it to their customary feeding-places with a promptness that sent several good riders to ground as if they had been shot. There are several good jockeys in the Rifle Brigade transport, and among them one who spent many days in racing stables at home and abroad before he took it into his head to follow the fifes and drums of "Ninety-Five." But even the redoubtable "Ginger," with all his horseman's skill and powers of persuasion in French, Hindustani, and English, could not prevail over a mule's will. It was more by luck than good riding that anybody managed to get past the post without two or three falls by the way. But this only added to the fun of the thing, for Tommy when in sportive mood takes hard knocks with infinite good-humour.

When at the finish successful and unsuccessful compet.i.tors a.s.sembled to cheer their hosts, the three correspondents had the gratification of feeling that for a few of the many besieged soldiers in Ladysmith they had helped to make Christmas merry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BRITISH POSITION AT LADYSMITH, LOOKING SOUTH-EAST]

You may be sure that sick and wounded at Intombi hospital were not forgotten in the midst of our wild festivities. For them the morning train was laden with fruit, flowers, and such delicacies as the resources of this beleaguered town can still furnish. There are many unselfish people here who do not want to make money by selling things at market prices, or to keep for their own use the dainties that might be nectar to the lips of suffering soldiers. And there are officers also who have given of their abundance so freely that they will have to be dependent on similar generosity if the chances of war should number them among the sick or wounded. I must guard myself against being misunderstood. The hospital patients at Intombi Camp are not reduced to meagre fare yet, nor likely to be, but medical comforts are not all that a sick man craves for, and the simplest gifts sent from Ladysmith's store that day must have been like a ray of suns.h.i.+ne brightening the lot of some poor fellow with the a.s.surance that, though far from home, he was still among friends who cared for him. Nor were the weakly and the children who still remain in this town forgotten. Colonel Dartnell, a soldier of wide experience, who commands the Field Force of Natal Police, and is beloved by every man serving under him; Major Karri Davis, of the Imperial Light Horse; Colonel Frank Rhodes, Lord Ava, and a few others got together the materials for a great Christmas tree, to which all the little ones between babyhood and their teens were invited.

The Light Horse Major's long imprisonment with his brother officer Sampson in Pretoria, far from embittering him against humanity in general, has only made him more sympathetic with the trials and sufferings of others; just as heavy fines and a death sentence seemed to bring out the most lovable characteristics of Colonel Rhodes. It was Karri Davis who bought up all the unbroken toys that were to be found in Ladysmith shops; and the ready hands of ladies, who are always interested in such work, decorated the Christmas trees or adorned the hall in which this gathering was to be held with gay devices and hopeful mottoes. There were four trees. Round their bases respectively ran the words, "Great Britain," "Australia," "Canada," and "South Africa," and above them all the folds of the Union Jack were festooned. Contributors sent bon-bons and crackers in such profusion that each tree bore a bewildering variety of fruit. To avoid confusion in distributing prizes, these were numbered to correspond with the tickets issued; and Santa Claus, who patronised the ceremony, in a costume of snowy swansdown, that shed flakes wherever he walked, was content to play his part in dumb show, while the children walked round after him to receive the toys that were plucked for them, with many jests, by Colonel Dartnell and his genial colleagues. Over two hundred children were there, and many of them so young that it seemed as if the one precluded from attendance on the score of extreme youthfulness must have been the siege baby, who was then only a few days old. Generals Sir George White and Sir Archibald Hunter, with their aides-de-camp and many staff officers, came to take part in the interesting scene.

Looking at the little ones as they trooped through the hall, in their white finery, Sir George said he had no idea that so many children remained in Ladysmith, and perhaps at that moment his heart was heavy with a deeper sense of the responsibility thrust upon him. But fortunately we have been spared the worst horrors of a bombardment.

Though Boer gunners have never hesitated, but rather preferred, to turn their fire on the open town, with a probability of hitting some house in which were women and children, none of the latter, and only two of the former, have been hit through the whole siege. Mrs. Kennedy, to whose narrow escape I have already referred, suffered so little bodily injury or nerve shock that she was present with her children at the Christmas tree entertainment, and took the congratulations of her friends quite coolly. After the children had gone home trees and trappings were dismantled, and the hall cleared for dancing, which the young people of Ladysmith and a few subalterns off duty kept up with much spirit until near midnight. In days to come we may look back to our Christmas under siege in Ladysmith, and think that after all we had not a very bad time.

At this moment, however, there is probably n.o.body outside who envies our lot, or grudges us any enjoyment we may manage to get out of it.

Soldiers, at any rate, deserve every chance of relaxation that can be found for them. There are several regiments of this force that have been practically on outpost duty since the investment began, often exposed to rain-storms during the day, because they could not pitch even shelter tents without drawing the enemy's fire on them. When the honours for this campaign come to be distributed I hope the services of these regiments will not be ignored.

Some Boxing Day sports had to be postponed for a more convenient opportunity, because sh.e.l.ls were falling too thick about the camp, and since then the Boer guns have been so busy that men find occupation enough in fatigue duties at strengthening defensive works without thinking about amus.e.m.e.nts. The bombardment that day began with the first flush of roseate sunrise--when our enemies brought some smokeless guns to bear on us from new positions--and went on steadily for hours until "Puffing Billy" of Bulwaan left off sh.e.l.ling in this direction, and turned to fire several sh.e.l.ls eastward. Rumour, as usual, was equal to the occasion, circulating stories that Sir Charles Warren's patrols were known to be moving that way. These inventions are worth nothing unless the names of corps or their commanding officers can be given, so their originators always take care to give such realistic touches. They give you "the lie circ.u.mstantial" or none at all. Possibly there may have been in this firing more method than we imagine, the idea being to mislead us by a pretended engagement with some force on the other side of Bulwaan. Another rational theory is that the gunners were simply expending a little ammunition in practice at range-finding for their guidance in future eventualities. Any story proved acceptable as a relief to the weariness of life in camp, that day when the thermometer registered 108 in the shade. What a climate Natal has! For fickleness it beats anything we have to grumble about in England. At night the temperature went down to 65, and the brilliant summer weather broke up suddenly in a fierce thunderstorm. For a time every object roundabout would be blotted out by inky blackness, and for the next two or three minutes the lowering angry clouds would pulsate with dazzling light that leaped upward like life-blood from the throbbing heart of the storm.

Each thundering peal was followed by a momentary lull, and then spasmodic gusts shook the air, as if Nature were drawing a deep breath for another effort. Before daybreak yesterday the storm had cleared, leaving a clouded sky, but no mists about the hilltops, to prevent a continuance of the bombardment.

Surprise Hill's howitzer surpa.s.sed previous performances by throwing three sh.e.l.ls over Convent Ridge into the town, and the Bulwaan guns, having done with imaginary foes eastward, turned their attention to us once more. One of the earliest sh.e.l.ls from that battery struck the mess tent of the Devon Regiment, and burst among officers at breakfast with disastrous results. Captain Lafone, who had been wounded at Elandslaagte, was killed; Lieutenant Price-Dent so seriously injured that there is little hope of his recovery; six other subalterns wounded--one being hit by shrapnel bullets or splinters in four places--and the mess waiter struck down by a heavy splinter that embedded itself beneath the ribs in a cavity too deep for probing at present. There was a curiously spiteful touch in the bombardment all day, and at midnight we were roused by sounds of rapid rifle-firing that began from Bell's Spruit and the railway cutting against Observation Hill and ran along to Rifleman's Ridge on one flank, and Devons.h.i.+re Hill on the other. It was all Boer firing, but no shots came into the line of defences, and our men did not reply by letting off so much as one rifle.

A thunder-storm raged to the accompaniment of heavy rain for some time, and perhaps the enemy thought we might choose such a night for attacking them under cover of intense darkness.

The last few days of the closing year were, on the whole, quiet, though, as Mr. Pea.r.s.e seems to have felt, important events were brewing. We make the following extracts from his notebook:--

_December 28._--This morning there was just a pale glimmer of dawn when our large naval gun a.s.sumed the aggressive part, and sent six sh.e.l.ls in rapid succession on to Bulwaan battery and the hillside, where Boers were moving about. A little later stretcher parties could be seen collecting apparently wounded men. As "Puffing Billy" made no reply to this challenge, but remained silent all day, it is probable that many of the gunners were injured. "Silent Susan," otherwise "Bulwaan Sneak,"

however, fired several shots, and the bombardment was kept up from Rifleman's Ridge, Telegraph Hill, and a 12-pounder on Middle Hill, while Pom-Poms at two points barked frequently, but all this fuss and fury happily did no harm to anybody. At night a brilliant beam, like the tail of a comet, appeared in the southern sky. Presently the tail began to wag systematically, and experts were able to spell out the words of a cipher message. It was General Buller talking to us across fifteen miles of hills, and the conversation, all on one side, was kept up until lowering clouds shut out the light. We had no means of replying, but at eleven o'clock our guns fired two shots as a signal that the message had been seen and understood.

_December 29._--Yesterday and to-day the bombardment has been vigorous in spite of heavy rain, and directed mainly on houses in town. Colonel Dartnell had a narrow escape on Friday, a sh.e.l.l bursting close to his tent in the Police Camp behind the Court-House. Next morning one came into and through my old room at the Royal, completing its ruin. To all this shooting the naval guns have replied effectively at intervals.

Ammunition for them is precious, and Captain Lambton's gunners take care not to waste it on chance shots, as the Boer artillerymen do. From five o'clock last evening until dawn this morning rain fell heavily. The river rose four feet in one hour at midnight, flooding out the 18th Hussars, who are bivouacked by its banks, and carrying away the bridge that had been built by the Imperial Light Horse. Many horses and mules were swept down-stream by the roaring torrent, and drowned before anybody could attempt to save them.

_December 31._--The old year closes in a quiet that is probably deceptive. More Boers than we have seen for weeks past are gathered behind Bulwaan, many having returned from leave which Joubert is said to have granted them to visit their home, with a liberality that shows his confidence in our inactivity. It has not been so quiet all day. The Boers disregarded their customary Sabbath rule of refraining from hostilities unless provoked by some apparently menacing movement on our part. There was nothing of that kind to incense them this morning, but their gunners, unable to resist the temptation offered by herds of cattle on Manchester Hill (as Caesar's Camp is sometimes called), sent one sh.e.l.l from "Silent Susan" on to that ridge. They missed their mark, however, and did not get another chance until the afternoon, when several "Sneakers" were aimed at the old camp, and one burst close to a group of officers who were exercising themselves and their ponies for a polo match. This may have been meant as a rebuke to the Sabbath-breakers. Boer riflemen were engaged at that time in the more reprehensible pastime of sniping our outposts at long range, and they kept this up until near sunset, as if engaged in the most laudable duty; but we have long since learned that the Boer judges his own conduct by one standard and ours by another.

To-day the sun shone brilliantly, bringing back tropical heat, in contrast to the cold that always accompanies violent thunder-storms in Natal.

And so Christmas-tide was past, and the New Year broke upon the beleaguered garrison. So great is the influence of times and seasons that we may well believe that even in Ladysmith the first day of 1900 brought a brighter ray of hope. But hope must yet for long be deferred, and the daily round of tasks grow wearisome by repet.i.tion--the daily dole of eked-out rations, the daily tale of bursting sh.e.l.ls, were for many weeks, with one day's startling break, to be the sole preoccupation of the defenders. The enemy, even on this first day of January, were not willing to leave the garrison in doubt as to their presence, although, despite the possible touch of sarcasm, there was a grim sort of friendliness in their reminder. It again took the form of blind sh.e.l.ls--this time fired from the Free State batteries--inscribed "Compliments of the Season." The sarcasm (writes Mr. Pea.r.s.e)

seems the more pointed because we hear that the Boers believe us to be starving and unable to hold out much longer. We should, at any rate, appreciate the good wishes more if they were sent in another form.

Sh.e.l.ls, even without fuses or powder-charges, are not quite harmless; and though these have done no damage so far, there is always a chance that they may hit somebody when fired into the heart of a town where people still carry on their customary occupations in spite of bombardment.

Whatever change favourable to their hopes was believed in by the Boers, there was none in the spirit with which soldiers and civilians alike in the invested towns.h.i.+p faced the duties placed upon them. Writing on New Year's Day Mr. Pea.r.s.e has a timely and a generous word for the humbler heroes of the siege:--

We have among us one little saddler for whose services there is so much demand that he has steadily st.i.tched away for hours together every working day since the siege began, heedless of sh.e.l.ls. There are tailors, too, who have done their best to keep officers and civilians clothed, not even quitting their benches when shrapnels burst near them, and I know of at least one poor seamstress who, by working night and day, has earned enough to buy something more than bare rations even at famine prices. Cynics do not look for heroes or heroines among such as these. They toil for gain, that is all. But they have stuck to their notion of duty in the midst of danger, and no soldier could have done more. Not all the sh.e.l.ls fired into town on New Year's Day were harmless, however. One from Bulwaan burst near Captain Vallentin's house, which has been a favourite since Colonel Rhodes took up his quarters there, and at last one hit just over the front door. It smashed the drawing-room wall, pa.s.sed thence to the kitchen, and mortally wounded a soldier servant, whose last words to his master were, "I hope you've had your breakfast, sir!"

Up to this time the subject of food supply, though it had long seriously occupied the attention of the authorities, had not gravely added to the anxieties of the siege. Under the date of 1st January Mr. Pea.r.s.e has the following entry:--

Colonel Ward tells me that rations are holding out well. Neither soldiers nor civilians, who number altogether over 20,000, have suffered privations yet, and, thanks to Colonel Stoneman's admirable system of distribution, something more than beef, bread, and groceries can still be issued to those who are too weak to be nourished by rough campaigning fare.

Forage for horses was, however, getting very scarce, and the poor beasts suffered greatly.

Four hundred men, including natives, are sent out every day to cut gra.s.s on the hillsides that are least exposed to Boer rifle fire, and they manage to bring in about 32,000 lbs. daily, but this does not go far among all the cavalry horses, transport animals, and cattle. Many must be left to pick up their own food by grazing under guard. The old troop-horses, however, break away from their allotted pasturages when feeding-time comes. Perhaps their quick ears catch the familiar bugle call to stables sounding afar off. At all events, neither knee-halters nor other devices are of any avail. They get back to the old lines somehow at feeding-time, and it is pitiful to see them standing patiently, in a row, waiting for the corn or chaff that is not for them, trying by a soft whinny to coax a little out of the hands of soldiers who pa.s.s them, or sidling up to an old stable chum who is better fed because better fit for work, in the hope of getting a share of his forage for the sake of auld lang syne. Those who know how the cavalry soldier loves a horse that has carried him well will not need to be told how hard Tommy found it to resist the appeal of a dumb comrade in distress; and who shall blame him if he shortened by just a handful or so the allowance for horses that are rationed on a special scale rather than turn a half-starved outcast empty away? But sentiment is a mistake when kindness can do no more than prolong misery. There is no horse sickness yet in the epidemic form. They simply pine for want of nourishment until, too weak even to nibble the gra.s.s about them, they drop and die. Some day we may have a use for them before things come to that extremity, but at present the difficulty is to dispose of their carcases. Sanitary considerations forbid that they shall be buried in town or near camp. The enemy sh.e.l.ls working parties, who begin to dig pits on the open plain, and so an incinerating furnace has been built for the cremation of horses.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIEGE OF LADYSMITH, AFTER TWO MONTHS OF BOMBARDMENT]

In the early days of the year the Boer batteries became much more active. We shall see that they were preparing for a climax, which, however, by the splendid bravery and determination of the garrison, was to be turned into one of disaster for the enemy rather than for the defenders. We are now within three days of the hottest ordeal Sir George White and his gallant army had to pa.s.s through.

Happenings in the short interval are thus described in Mr. Pea.r.s.e's notes:--

_January 3._--For two days the Boer fire from Bulwaan has been directed mainly at the Town Hall or buildings near it, with occasional diversions towards the Intelligence Offices on one side, or the Indian Ordnance Laager on the other. Within these limits of deviation are the busiest parts of Ladysmith, bakeries for the supply of all who are invested, depots at which civilians a.s.semble to draw their daily rations beside the Market Square, where lank-sided dogs snarl over refuse, and such stores as have still something to sell that has not been requisitioned for military uses. The Royal Hotel seems to be a mark once more. Several sh.e.l.ls have come near hitting it to-day, and not twenty yards from the room in which I am making these notes a shrapnel has just burst through the wall of a stable. One horse standing there seems to be badly wounded, but curiously enough hardly shows any signs of terror, though the explosion close to him must have sounded terrific, and he was half blinded by dust mingled with fumes of melinite. The fact that Boers use high explosives for bursting charges has been questioned, but this shrapnel, and others I have seen burst at close quarters, undoubtedly contained melinite or some similar villainous compound, to which our own lyddite is near akin. A little later two ladies were driving down the main street when a sh.e.l.l burst just in front of their trap. The pony swerved as if to bolt, but his driver pulled him up with a steady hand and soothed him without a tremor in her voice. At the next corner, fully exposed to Bulwaan's battery, these ladies stopped, waiting to watch the effect of another shot.

It must not be thought that our own guns, though seldom mentioned, are idle all this while. They do not waste ammunition, for a very good reason, but wait their opportunity for effective reply to the enemy's batteries, and when a naval 12-pounder or the "Lady Anne" comes into action the Boer fire is apt to be hurried and wildly inaccurate if it does not cease for a time. The Boers have however mounted a new gun near Pepworth's, which sends "sneakers" into town and about Mount Hill with irritating persistency, and its smokeless powder makes a flash so small that the exact position cannot be located.

_January 5._--Days in succession pa.s.s unbroken by any incidents dissimilar to the routine which in the very constancy of danger becomes monotonous. Yesterday and to-day are so much alike that one hardly remembers which was which unless some personal adventure or a friend's narrow escape makes a nick in the calendar. Yesterday, for instance, one of several sh.e.l.ls bursting about the same spot shattered the water tanks behind a chemist's shop, and its splinters came in curious curves over the housetops, one grazing an officer of the Imperial Light Horse, to whom I was at that moment talking. The next sh.e.l.l was into the police camp, where it burst with destructive force, completely wrecking Colonel Dartnell's tent with all its contents, but injuring n.o.body. Had that genial and most popular officer followed the almost invariable practice of his everyday life, there would have been an end of the man to whom more than to anybody else we owe the timely retirement from Dundee. He it was who told General Yule, "You must go to-night or you will not be able to go at all," and whose advice, being acted upon, brought back several thousand men to strengthen the garrison of Ladysmith just before its investment. The loss of such a man would have been irreparable, for he knows more than any other officer in this country about Boers and their methods of fighting, and he has every thread of information at command if he were allowed to use native scouts in his own way. He would have made the best possible chief of an Intelligence Staff, but unfortunately military etiquette or jealousy bars his employment in that capacity. If his advice is asked for he gives it readily as at Dundee, and though he has no authority to act in the way that would be most congenial to his fearless and active nature, he is as ready as ever to render a service when wanted. Some of us know too how much civilians have been encouraged in their endurance of a long siege by Colonel Dartnell's cheery example. Nothing disheartens him. He is always the same whether the day's news be good or bad, and perhaps his unostentatious services will be adequately recognised in the end. If they had been taken advantage of in the beginning there would be fewer blunders to regret.

To-day Colonel Stoneman had more than one narrow escape. Two sh.e.l.ls burst within splinter range of the office in which he and his a.s.sistants have worked steadily at supply details since the bombardment began. A third pa.s.sed through the roof over that office after a ricochet, and then, without bursting, rolled to the ground in front of a stoup where several Army Service officers were sitting. That sh.e.l.l will be cherished after extraction of its fuse and melinite charge. Fire from other Boer guns proved more disastrous. Surprise Hill's howitzer threw one sh.e.l.l to the little encampment behind Range Point, where it killed one man and wounded four of the unfortunate Royal Irish Fusiliers.

But the time seems now ripe for larger events. On the following day the Boers made their supreme attempt upon the defences of the town.

Their best and their bravest were pitted against the siege-worn British soldier; but though they gained all the advantage of a night surprise, though their fierce energy placed them at this point and that several times within an inch of victory, they were hurled back by a foeman whose determination was greater than their own, and whose courage and spirit of self-sacrifice rose superior.

CHAPTER X

THE GREAT a.s.sAULT

Why the Boers attacked--Interesting versions--A general surprise--Joubert's promise--Boer tactics reconsidered--Erroneous estimates--Under cover of night--A bare-footed advance--The Manchesters surprised--The fight on Waggon Hill--In praise of the Imperial Light Horse--A glorious band--The big guns speak--Lord Ava falls--Gordons and Rifles to the rescue--A perilous position--The death of a hero--A momentary panic--Man to man--A gallant enemy--Burghers who fell fighting--The storming of Caesar's Camp--Shadowy forms in the darkness--An officer captured--"Maak Vecht!"--Abdy's guns in play--"Well done, gunners!"--Taking water to the wounded--d.i.c.k-Cunyngham struck down--Some anxious moments--The Devons charge home--A day well won.

When Mr. Pea.r.s.e spoke of the comparative calm which marked the closing days of 1899 as deceptive, he was right, and events promptly proved him so. On 6th January the Boers, as has been said, made a most determined attempt to bring the siege of Ladysmith to an end by storming the British defences. Why the enemy should have allowed so long an interval to elapse since their half-hearted effort of 9th November, is difficult to imagine. Dingaan's Day (16th December) was originally fixed for the attack, but Schalk-Burger was diverted from his purpose by the attempt made by Sir Redvers Buller to force the pa.s.sage of the Tugela. The projected onslaught on the besieged town having once been abandoned, it was generally believed that the Boers would be too intent on watching the movements of the relief column to trouble about attacking Ladysmith in force. According to one report an imperative order from President Kruger precipitated matters, while another story is to the effect that a bogus despatch purporting to be from Sir George White to Sir Redvers Buller, brought about the sudden change in the enemy's tactics. This despatch, so the story runs, asked that relief might be sent at once as the ammunition was exhausted, and it was impossible for the garrison to hold out in the event of the town being attacked. The native runner, to whom the doc.u.ment was entrusted, was instructed to proceed in the direction of the Boer lines, and so faithfully complied with his orders that both runner and despatch fell into the hands of the enemy. If the Boers were led to attack by any such ruse they were completely disillusioned as to the capabilities of Sir George White's forces. Be it said to their credit that, whatever their hopes of an easy victory, they quitted themselves like men when they realised their tremendous mistake. The long fierce struggle is vividly described in the following letter written two days after:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ENVIRONS OF LADYSMITH]

Sat.u.r.day's stubborn fight was a surprise in more senses than one. n.o.body here had credited the Boers with a determination to attack, unless chance should give them overwhelming superiority in all respects, and for that chance they have waited so supinely that it seemed probable the game of long bowls with heavy artillery, varied by "sniping" from behind rocks a mile off, would continue to be played day after day in the hope of starving us into subjection, before Sir Redvers Buller could bring up his relieving force. Everybody knew that issue to be well-nigh impossible, because our resources are far from starvation point yet, and it is inconceivable that eight or ten thousand British soldiers could be hemmed in by three times their number of Boers, and compelled to yield without a desperate fight in the last extremity. We were fully aware that if ever an opening offered for the Boers to creep up within shorter range, under cover, and without being seen, they would be prompt to take advantage of it, in expectation of bringing off another Majuba, and that is a danger to which our extenuated defensive lines necessarily expose us, but we trusted with justice, as events have proved, to the steadiness and discipline of well-trained troops, to hold the Boers in check wherever they might gain any temporary advantage, and drive them back at the bayonet's point. That they would even push an attack to storming point few if any among us believed, for the simple reason that rifles are of no use against cold steel when combatants come to close quarters. The Boers know that well enough. Their only hope in attack therefore rests on the chance of being able by stealth to seize an advantageous position whence they may bring a deadly rifle fire to bear on the defenders, whom they hope by this means to throw into panic.

That was the plan they tried on Sat.u.r.day, being urged to it, as we have since learned, by peremptory orders and fair promises from Joubert, who is said to have watched the fight from a distance. That, however, seems improbable, if Sir Redvers Buller was at the same time threatening a movement against the Tugela Heights, though it is certain that Joubert attached great importance to this attack on Ladysmith, because he had written a letter ordering De Villiers to capture Bester's Ridge, at all costs, with his commando of Free State Boers, and promising that those who succeeded in winning that position should be released from further service. This anxiety to get hold of a range which includes Caesar's Camp and Waggon Hill, and commands Ladysmith at a range of 5000 yards, can be easily understood, but the urgency demanding any sacrifice of life, provided that end were attained, suggests many possibilities, and gives to Sat.u.r.day's fight exceptional significance as a probable turning-point in the Natal Campaign, which has. .h.i.therto gone in favour of our foes, notwithstanding the victories we have gained over them in isolated actions. Dundee and Elandslaagte, like Lord Methuen's fights on the Modder River, added l.u.s.tre to our army, by showing what British soldiers can do in a.s.saulting positions against the terrific fire from modern magazine rifles, but it cannot be said that we have profited by them while our enemies are able to keep us here cut off from all communications except by heliograph or search-light signals, and have yet force enough to interpose a formidable line of resistance between Ladysmith and Sir Redvers Buller's column.

There cannot be many Boers in any position surrounding this place, but their mobility gives them the power of concentrating quickly at any point that might be threatened, and this for all practical purposes increases their numbers threefold. As Colonel F. Rhodes put it in one of his quaintly appropriate phrases, "We are a victorious army besieged by an inferior enemy." But there are Boers in twice our own strength near at hand, if, not actually all in the investing lines. The Tugela Heights are scarcely twelve miles off as the crow flies, and this distance might be covered by a Boer commando in less than two hours, so that a thousand men or more moving from one of our enemy's columns to another, could be brought into a fight in time to turn the tide against either Ladysmith or its relieving force as occasion might prompt. For attacking a particular point this mobility would give enormous advantages if the Boers only knew how to make full use of them, and carried arms on which they could rely for hand-to-hand fighting, in the critical moment of pus.h.i.+ng an attack home.

As it is they trust to tactics that have stood them well in previous campaigns against British soldiers and natives, their object being to gain some commanding position, whence, without being seen, they may pour a deadly fire on their astonished foes, and thus cause a panic retreat that might be turned into a disorderly rout by a sudden rush of reinforcing Boers or a terrific storm of bullets from several quarters at once. Reasoning from experience they hope to make history repeat itself in another Majuba Hill. One would have thought that the fights at Elandslaagte and Dundee would dispel delusions of that kind based on the a.s.sumption that Tommy Atkins will not stand up against rifle bullets at short range from Boers whom he cannot see if they but steal upon him and open fire where he least expects to find them.

Probably there were erroneous estimates on both sides, but at any rate it is certain that our foes were confident of being able to win by ma.s.sed surprise, and their effort was made with an adroitness not less astonis.h.i.+ng than the audacity of its conception. After this it will be ridiculous for anybody to contend that the Boers are not brave fighters, though they lack the daring by which alone fights like that of Sat.u.r.day can be decided. Their tactics have changed little since the old days, and it remains true now as then that they are an offensive but not an attacking force. Having gained by stealth the positions that were supposed to command our outpost defences on Caesar's Camp and Waggon Hill, they acted from that moment as if on the defensive, trusting for victory not to any forward movement of their own but to the belief that our men would give way, and might then be rolled back in panic upon Ladysmith by thousands of mounted Boers who awaited that turn of events to make their meditated dash. Such undoubtedly was the plan conceived by Free State and Transvaal commanders at the Krygsraad when Joubert, Prinsloo, Schalk-Burger, Viljoen, and other leaders met together in council some days ago. The manner of its execution may be conjectured by the light of subsequent events.

The attack began before daybreak with a determined attempt to capture the whole range of Bester's Ridge, which is divided officially into Caesar's Camp and Waggon Hill, forming the southern chain of our defences, and held by the outposts of Colonel Ian Hamilton's Brigade.

Seventy of the Imperial Light Horse held Waggon Hill with a small body of bluejackets and a few Engineers having charge of the 4.7 naval gun, which they had brought up overnight for mounting in that position, but it still remained on a bullock waggon. Next to them were several companies of the King's Royal Rifles under Colonel Gore-Browne, while the Manchester Regiment held Caesar's Camp with pickets pushed forward to the southern crest and eastern shoulder. Nearly the whole length of ridge hence to Waggon Hill is a rough plateau, strong but presenting little cover from artillery fire or the rifles of any foe bold enough to scale the heights under cover of darkness. It was scarcely entrenched at all, having only a few sangars dotted about as rallying-points. The Boer movements were marked by a searchlight from Bulwaan, which played for hours in a curious way across Intombi Hospital Camp to the posts occupied by our men, intensifying the obscurity of all-surrounding blackness.

All we know absolutely is that long before dawn Free Staters were in possession of the western end of Bester's Ridge, where Waggon Hill dips steeply down from the curiously tree-fringed shoulder in bold bluffs to a lower neck, and thence on one side to the valley in which Bester's Farm lies amid trees, and on the other to broad veldt that is dominated by Blaauwbank (or Rifleman's Ridge), and enfiladed by Telegraph Hill--both Boer positions having guns of long range mounted on them; and at the same time Transvaalers, mostly Heidelberg men, had gained a footing on the eastern end of the same ridge where boulders in t.i.tanic ma.s.ses, matted together by roots of mimosa trees, rise cliff-like from the plain where Klip River, emerging from th.o.r.n.y thickets, bends northward to loop miles of fertile meadow-land before flowing back into the narrow gorge past Intombi Spruit Camp. How the Boers got there one can only imagine, for neither the Imperial Light Horse pickets on Waggon Hill, nor the Manchesters holding the very verge of that cliff which we call Caesar's Camp and the Kaffirs Intombi, nor the mixed force of volunteers and police watching the scrub lower down, saw any form or heard a movement during the night. It was intensely dark for two or three hours, but in that still air a steenbok's light leap from rock to rock would have struck sharply on listening ears. Those on picket duty aver that not a Boer could have shown himself or pa.s.sed through the mimosa scrub without being challenged. Yet four or five hundred of them got to the jutting crest, of Caesar's Camp somehow, and to reach it they must either have crossed open ground or climbed with silent caution up the boulder-roughened steeps.

An explanation may perhaps be found in the fact that a Boer takes off his boots or vel-schoon when there is noiseless stalking to be done.

Going over the battlefield afterwards I noticed that where dead Boers were lying thickest about the salient angle of that eastern s.p.a.ce, all were bare-footed. Boots and even rubber-soled canvas shoes had been taken off for the climb, and these lay in pairs beside the bodies, just as they had been placed when the fight began. And the spots on which these Boers lay seemed to indicate that they must have scaled the steep just where a sentry among the rocks on top would have found most difficulty in seeing anything as he peered over jutting edges into the darkness below. At any rate the Manchester picket was surprised before dawn, as I shall describe presently, though it should have been put on the alert by rifle firing an hour earlier away on Waggon Hill, where the fight began between two and three o'clock. Then, however, it seemed little more than the sniping between outposts, to which custom has made all of us somewhat inattentive, and n.o.body thought for a moment that a picket of Imperial Light Horse had been practically cut off before the Boers fired a shot or our own men had given an alarm.

Waggon Hill was at that moment the key of a very critical situation, and had the Light Horse been seized by panic, or given way an inch, the Boers might possibly have brought enormous numbers up to that commanding crest and enfiladed the rear of Caesar's Camp. We know now that thousands of Free Staters were waiting in the kloofs between Mounted Infantry Hill and Middle Hill, not two miles distant, for the opportunity which, they had no doubt, would be opened up to them by the success of five or six hundred tough veterans who had volunteered to win that position or die in the attempt. They had, however, to reckon with men whose gallantry was proved at Elandslaagte and the night attack on Gun Hill--men who are endowed with the rare quality which Napoleon the Great called "two o'clock in the morning courage." One has to praise the Imperial Light Horse so often, that reiteration may sound like flattery. But they deserve every distinction that can be given to them for having by superb steadiness, against great odds, saved the force on Bester's Ridge from a very serious calamity, if not from actual disaster. They must share the credit to some extent, however, with two small bodies of men already mentioned, who happened to be on Waggon Hill neither for fighting nor watch-keeping--the few bluejackets of H.M.S. _Powerful_ in charge of the big gun which had been brought up that night for mounting there, and the handful of Royal Engineers under Lieutenants Digby-Jones and Dennis, preparing the necessary epaulements for that weapon. When firing began, the gun being still on its waggon, all that could be done was to outspan its team of oxen. Then bluejackets and sappers, seizing each his rifle, took their places behind slight earthworks, prepared to fight it out manfully. The only tribute they need ask for is that their roll of dead and wounded may be borne in memory. Out of thirty all told, the Royal Engineers lost two officers killed and fifteen men wounded. Of the few sailors, one was killed and one wounded. This record seems hard to beat; but the Imperial Light Horse could point to heaps of dead and maimed in proof of the dauntless stand they made, for the living continued to fight where their gallant comrades fell, scorning to quit an inch of ground to the Boers, though they knew by the rifle fire flas.h.i.+ng round them in the darkness that they were hopelessly outnumbered from the first. Their brigadier speaks of them as men with no nerves at all. When one was. .h.i.t, another stepped quietly up to his place and went on shooting as if at target-practice, though he had no more cover than a small stone to lie behind; and this happened not once but a score of times, the officers taking an equal share in the fight with their men, who speak with pride of the gallantry shown by Captains de Rothe and Codrington, Lieutenants Webb, Pakeman, Adams, Campbell, and Richardson, and the active veteran Major Doveton, who cheered his men on after he had received two bullet wounds, one of which shattered his fore-arm and shoulder.