CHAPTER XII
.
THE FLANK MOVEMENT IN NATAL.
Further preparations for the relief of Ladysmith--Burial of Lieutenant Roberts--Destruction of Colenso road-bridge--Picket surprised by Boers--Fifth Division reaches Natal--Want of howitzers--Arrival of a balloon and traction engines--Christmas in camp--Disposition of relief force--Boer positions--Mr. Winston Churchill escapes--Boer attack on Cæsar's Camp--Messages from Ladysmith--Relief force attacks Colenso--Advances on Springfield and Hussar Hill--Fail to draw the Boers--Further message from Ladysmith--Storm ends a desultory movement--The flag still flying in Ladysmith--Heroes in rags--Mud everywhere--Composition of the relief force--The army moves--Hampered by baggage--Difficulties of the march--Dundonald seizes Zwart Kop--The pont intact--The Boers entrenching--General Buller's plan of attack--The crossing of Potgieter's Drift.
[Sidenote: Further preparations for the relief of Ladysmith.]
After the disastrous reverse at Colenso a long pause followed before the relief army in Natal again took the field. The pause was necessary to allow of the bringing up of reinforcements in men and artillery, since, on the one hand, the battle of Colenso had demonstrated clearly that General Buller's 25,000 men were not equal to the work of forcing a passage to Ladysmith, and on the other the transference of ten British guns to the enemy had fatally weakened the British artillery. It is to be noted, however, that the Boers made little use of the captured guns; they professed to regard them, perhaps correctly, as of antiquated pattern with insufficient range, and preferred their own Krupps, Creusots, and Maxims, not being hampered by an organisation which considers it part of its duty to remain always a little behind rivals and competitors in its armaments. In this and in other directions the "simple farmers" showed that their simplicity was superior in its shrewdness to the learning of the British artillerists.
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Capt. Foot._
LITTLE MILK CARRIERS,
Bringing supplies to a picket under fire on the Tugela.]
[Sidenote: [DEC. 15-21, 1899.]
[Sidenote: Burial of Lieutenant Roberts.]
Two days after the battle the gallant Lieutenant Roberts, who had fallen mortally wounded in the effort to save the guns, died and was buried with five soldiers who, like him, had succumbed to their wounds. He lies at Chieveley in sight of the stubborn lines of entrenchments which on that mournful Friday repulsed the onslaught of the finest infantry in the world. To pay him the last honours General Clery and his staff were present at the funeral. Thus was all his early promise, all the hope of his family, laid in an untimely grave. He never knew that he had won the coveted honour of the Victoria Cross; life and glory slipped from him at once in painless forgetfulness. What England lost we can only guess from the achievements of his heroic father.
[Illustration: GRAVE OF LIEUTENANT ROBERTS, V.C., AT CHIEVELEY.]
[Illustration: A BOER QUICK-FIRING GUN AND ITS CREW.]
[Sidenote: Destruction of Colenso road-bridge.]
[Sidenote: Picket surprised by Boers.]
In the days after the battle the Boers displayed their wonted inactivity. They made no attempt to annoy General Buller seriously, and were content with sending small parties of skirmishers south of the Tugela, who hung round the British camp at Chieveley, sniping water
## parties, patrols, and outposts. On December 19 the naval guns opened
a heavy fire on Colenso road-bridge, which was still standing, with the object of destroying it and cutting off the retreat of the Boers who were south of the river. The existence of a Boer bridge north of Hlangwane was not known at this date. After three hours of continuous shelling a projectile struck and exploded a Boer mine, placed in the structure of the bridge, and a whole span was destroyed. From day to day the naval weapons fired a few shots at the Boer lines, whenever a party of the enemy was seen, and thus caused the Boers some loss. But these were the only incidents which broke the repose of the British camp. The soldiers, indeed, chafed at the monotony and inaction; they were eager to bring the war to a close and to return home; they feared, too, for Ladysmith, and would have wished to be allowed perpetually to harass the enemy. On the 20th a picket of seven men belonging to the 13th Hussars was surprised by the Boers, through the negligence of a corporal. The enemy surrounded the handful of men and fired upon them, killing two. The other five escaped. Next day, however, the British cavalry had their revenge; nine Natal Carbineers lay in ambush near the bodies of the slain Hussars, and, when a small party of Boers approached to plunder the dead, fired on them, killing or wounding four.
[Illustration: THE GUN OF THE 66TH BATTERY WHICH WAS SAVED BY CAPT. SCHOFIELD AND LIEUT. ROBERTS (see page 99).]
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Cribb._
SIGHTING THE 4·7 NAVAL GUN.
This photograph gives some idea of the great length of the weapon, which accounts in no small measure for the accuracy of its fire.]
[Sidenote: DEC. 20-27, 1899.] _Arrival of the Fifth Division._]
[Sidenote: Fifth Division reaches Natal.]
[Sidenote: [DEC. 1899.]
[Sidenote: Want of howitzers.]
In the week which followed the battle reinforcements began to arrive. Sir Charles Warren with the Fifth Division, 9,000 combatants strong, had left England in November, and a part of his command had reached South Africa even before the week of defeats. At first it had been intended to use his division in the central field of war, for the operations around Colesberg, and two battalions, the 2nd Royal Warwick and 1st Yorkshires, with his cavalry regiment, the 14th Hussars, were sent to that point. But when General Buller urgently needed more men, he had to call for the rest of the division, which sailed round to Durban and concentrated at Estcourt, six battalions and three batteries strong. It was thus composed:--
_Tenth Brigade._ _Eleventh Brigade._ MAJOR-GENERAL J. T. COKE. MAJOR-GENERAL E. R. P. WOODGATE. 2nd Dorsetshire. 2nd Royal Lancaster. 2nd Middlesex. 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers. 1st South Lancashire. 1st York and Lancaster. 19th, 28th, and 78th Field Batteries.
These reinforcements numbered about 7,000 combatants. In addition, one extra field battery, the 73rd, and a single howitzer battery, the 61st, were sent to Natal, bringing up the total of batteries to ten, of which, however, two, from the losses in guns, horses, and men at Colenso, had virtually ceased to exist. Even at full strength ten batteries, or sixty field guns, would have been a miserable proportion for an army of 30,000 infantry and cavalry, and there were deep and well-founded complaints among the correspondents--who, perhaps, accurately reflected the feeling of the younger officers--as to the paucity of howitzers, after the proved efficiency of these weapons at Omdurman. "Here they are simply clamouring for guns, guns, guns," wrote an officer of the Fifth Division, "and guns we send them, undrilled, unready, outclassed in range, and with raw horses and raw reservists.... To cross the river and face the Boer position with only 30,000 and no heavy artillery to speak of must mean heavy loss, and we feel very bitter." All these complaints were fully justified by events, yet British Ministers were, at the very hour when this was written, professing that the British artillery was all that could be desired and more than ample in strength, and British "experts" were explaining at home that the folly and wickedness of the Boers in arming themselves with "guns of position" were the causes of all the evil. Unhappily, it turned out that the enemy's "guns of position" could be moved and handled just as readily as our short-range field pieces.
[Illustration:
[_Facsimile of a sketch on the spot by F. A. Stewart._
THE PICKET OF THE 13TH HUSSARS IN DIFFICULTY (see page 236).]
[Sidenote: Arrival of a balloon and traction engines.]
With the additional guns came a tardy balloon. Even here there had been some miscalculation, as the balloon had been constructed for work at the altitude of Aldershot, and not for the high plateaux and rarified air of mountainous Natal. It was, in consequence, deficient in lifting power, though even with this defect it was able to render valuable service. Other adjuncts were a dozen powerful traction engines for use with the transport. They performed splendidly, climbing mountain sides and fording spruits with an agility not to be expected from their ponderous nature. "They require few attendants, don't gibe, and each can easily haul twelve tons," wrote Mr. Burleigh. The ox-waggon of South Africa carried only a quarter of a ton, so that one traction engine was equivalent to forty waggons.
[Illustration:
[_Sketched by a correspondent with the Boers._
HOW THE BOERS GOT THEIR HEAVY GUNS INTO POSITION.]
[Sidenote: DEC. 25-30, 1899.] _Christmas at the Front._]
[Sidenote: Christmas in camp.]
In spite of the sad memories of Colenso, the army managed to spend a cheerful Christmas. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die" is the spirit of the soldier--not in any irreligious sense, but in the sense that continued familiarity with death and the knowledge which all have that their turn may come on the morrow, mercifully assuages the bitterness of sorrow for the fallen. Were it not so a camp would indeed be a melancholy place. The bluejackets turned out with effigies of John Bull and Mr. Kruger, the latter somewhat battered--it was explained from "the effects of lyddite"; the soldiers diverted themselves with sports and pastimes; at night the camp fires resounded with familiar choruses; and had any Boer looked in upon the scene he would, doubtless, have wondered at the lightness of heart with which the British Army made war. Yet over all brooded the shadow of the coming battles and bloody conflicts which were at last to win the difficult way to Ladysmith; and to the north could be heard from time to time the thunder of the Boer guns bombarding the besieged town, and the thud of the Boer shells.
[Illustration: A TRACTION ENGINE STUCK IN THE MUD.]
[Sidenote: Disposition of relief force.]
[Sidenote: [DEC. 1899.]
[Sidenote: Boer positions.]
The relief force was temporarily scattered at the close of the year to facilitate supplying it with food and water. Two brigades were left at Chieveley, two more were placed at Frere, and at Estcourt was Warren's Division. On December 30, fifty Boer waggons were seen returning from foraging in the district between the Little and Big Tugela, but nothing was done to intercept them. Meantime the cavalry and mounted infantry executed frequent reconnaissances upon the Boer flanks. A body of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry pushed out on the left towards Springfield and Potgieter's Drift without encountering the enemy. It was observed, however, that the Boers were constructing trenches and works along the line of frowning heights which fringe the northern bank of the Tugela, continuing westwards from Colenso until the great dividing chain of the Drakensberg is reached. They were known to have bridged the Tugela far above Potgieter's Drift, and even at Springfield and on the line of the Little Tugela they were seen raising fortifications from time to time. Already they anticipated a turning movement by the west and were making ready, with their usual wise prevision, to meet it in the most unpleasant manner.
[Illustration: THE QUEEN'S CHOCOLATE BOX.
With her customary kindness and forethought, Her Majesty caused to be despatched to the troops in South Africa, shortly before the close of the old year, a very large number of elegantly-designed blue, red, and gold tin boxes containing chocolate in cakes, at once the most sustaining and appetising form of food. Every soldier at the front had a box specially assigned to him; in nearly every case they were duly delivered, and in all they were immensely appreciated. Often they were sent home by the recipient untouched, that they might be treasured as heirlooms.]
[Illustration: A REGIMENTAL COOK AT CHIEVELEY.]
[Illustration: SERVING OUT CHRISTMAS PUDDINGS AT CHIEVELEY.
Messrs. Lyons thoughtfully provided 10,000 puddings for the troops, most of which arrived in time for Christmas.]
[Sidenote: Mr. Winston Churchill escapes.]
[Sidenote: DEC. 11-12, 1899.] _Mr. Winston Churchill's Daring Escape._]
It was about this time that Mr. Winston Churchill rejoined the army in Natal, after effecting an escape from his Boer prison which reads like a chapter in some wild romance. After the armoured train affair he was sent to the State Model Schools in Pretoria, where the British officers were confined. The place was built of brick, standing in a gravelled playground, which was surrounded by a ten-foot-high iron fence except on the east, where was a high wall. Inside the fence were armed sentries, stationed at intervals of fifty yards. Attempts to bribe the sentries to connive at Mr. Churchill's escape failed. At night the yard was brilliantly lighted by electric lights, placed in its centre. These, however, blinded by their glare the sentries who stood behind them and cut off the view of the eastern side of the enclosure at a point where stood the offices of the school. If the two nearest sentries under the eastern wall had their backs turned, escape was possible for one or two determined men. December 11 was fixed by Mr. Churchill and a friend of his, Captain Haldane, for the attempt. But the sentries gave them no chance. On the evening of the 12th Mr. Churchill alone made a second effort. For an hour he watched the sentries through a chink in the offices; the moment at last came when they turned their backs and began to talk. In an instant he laid hold of the top of the wall, scaled it, and dropped over it into the garden of a villa. There he threw himself down under some bushes and waited. The villa was brilliantly lighted up and full of people; presently two men came out of it and stood, it seemed, watching him. A cat and a dog scurried past him, rustling the leaves and fixing attention on the very place where he lay in ambush. Yet he was not seen. The two men turned and went out of the garden, and he followed them boldly, with four slabs of chocolate and £75 as his equipment.
[Illustration: BLUEJACKETS PROTECTING AN ARMOURED TRAIN WITH ROPE FENDERS.
This train ran on the line between Pietermaritzburg and Colenso.]
[Illustration: UNSHIPPING STORES AT DURBAN FOR GENERAL BULLER'S ARMY.]
[Sidenote: [DEC. 11-12, 1899.]
Once in the streets of Pretoria he steered by the stars to where he conjectured the Delagoa Bay railway to lie. He struck a railway--it seemed to be the right one--and walked along it till he passed a station; then he stopped and hid, determined to board a passing train in motion. Readers may guess the pluck and coolness required for such an undertaking. A train came in sight at last; stopped at the station; started and thundered past the fugitive. "I hurled myself at the trucks," writes Mr. Churchill, "clutched at something, missed, clutched again, missed again, grasped some sort of handhold, was swung off my feet--my toes bumping on the line--and with a struggle seated myself on the couplings of the fifth truck." The truck was laden with empty coal sacks, and under these Mr. Churchill buried himself and slept.
[Illustration: _J. Nash, R.I._] [_From a sketch by Winston Churchill._
MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL SCALING THE WALL OF THE PRISON AT PRETORIA.]
[Illustration: _J. Nash, R.I._] [_From a sketch by Winston Churchill._
MR. CHURCHILL BOARDING A GOODS TRAIN.]
[Sidenote: DEC. 12, 1899-JAN. 6, 1900.] _Mr. Churchill Rejoins Buller._]
When he woke it was still night. Fearing discovery by day, he leapt from the train with no more hurt than a severe shaking, and as dawn came hid in some broken ground amidst trees. He drank at a pool of water and ate one of his cakes of chocolate. And then, thinking over his situation--to quote his own strangely moving words--"I realised with awful force that no exercise of my own feeble wit and strength could save me from my enemies, and that without the assistance of that High Power which interferes more often than we are always prone to admit in the eternal sequence of causes and effects I could never succeed. I prayed long and earnestly for help and guidance. My prayer, as it seems to me, was swiftly and wonderfully answered. I cannot now relate the strange circumstances which followed, and which changed my nearly hopeless position into one of superior advantage. But after the war is over I shall hope to somewhat lengthen this account, and so remarkable will the addition be that I cannot believe the reader will complain." "More things are wrought by prayer Than this world dreams of," echoes the poet. And fresh from contact with the Boers, who yet believed in God, the fugitive sought and found that help without which the best efforts of man cannot prosper.
That night Mr. Churchill once more set out along the railway, walking and hoping to board a train. But no train came, and progress was slow and difficult. Five more days and nights he spent in this fashion; on the sixth his chance came. He found in a siding a train labelled Lourenço Marques; boarded it and wormed his way to the bottom of a truck laden with sacks of wool or some other soft material, and lay there _perdu_ for two-and-a-half days, till at last Delagoa Bay was reached. Once the truck was searched, yet he was not discovered. At Delagoa he took a steamer for Natal, sending on the way an earnest appeal to the British nation to persist in the war and despatch to South Africa a quarter of a million men. Thus providentially set free by the Hand which carries through dangers and trials the men who have a great work to do in the world, he rejoined General Buller's army in time to share the hopes and sorrows of the famous flank march.
[Sidenote: Boer attack on Cæsar's Camp.]
The early days of January passed and the signs of an immediate advance accumulated. In all the camps action was in the air; the last touches were being put to the transport; an embargo was laid upon all news which might instruct England or the enemy of what was in preparation. These indications could not have escaped the watchful eye of the Boer Government, and early, very early, in the morning of January 6 the Boers struck their blow. At 2 a.m. the British camp at Chieveley was awakened by the distant tumult of a heavy artillery fire away towards Ladysmith. The thunder of the guns was continuous and ominous. All the morning it lasted, while the British soldiers listened, and chafed, and wondered, and, as the truth dawned upon them, prayed that Ladysmith might that day uphold the honour and greatness of England.
[Illustration: _F. de Haenen._] [_From a sketch by Winston Churchill._
WAITING FOR NIGHT.
After dropping from the goods train, Mr. Churchill hid for fourteen hours in a wood, consumed with thirst, and watched, as he relates in his letter to the _Morning Post_, by a vulture, "who manifested an extravagant interest in my condition, and made hideous and ominous gurglings from time to time."]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 6, 1900.]
The morning passed in anxiety and the growl of the guns ceased. The day was black and stormy, but at times the sun broke through the clouds and the heliographs flashed fitfully. From Ladysmith came these messages of alarm:--
[Sidenote: Messages from Ladysmith.]
"9 a.m. Enemy attacked Cæsar's Camp at 2·45 this morning in considerable force. Enemy everywhere repulsed, but fighting still continues."
"11 a.m. Attack continues, and enemy has been reinforced from south."
[Illustration:
_F. W. Burton._]
THE BOER ATTACK ON CÆSAR'S CAMP.]
[Illustration:
[_Photo by C. Knight, Aldershot._
GENERAL SIR REDVERS BULLER, V.C.
Commander-in-Chief of the forces in South Africa up to the date of Lord Roberts's arrival. A brief account of General Buller's military career is given on page 77.]
[Illustration: THE NAVAL 4·7 GUNS SHELLING THE COLENSO LINES.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 6, 1900.]
[Sidenote: Relief force attacks Colenso.]
[Sidenote: Advances on Springfield and Hussar Hill.]
[Sidenote: Failure to draw the Boers.]
No sooner was the danger realised--the fact understood that a British garrison was fighting for its very life almost within sight of a British army of 30,000 men--than it was felt that this army could not stand by inert and un-helping. But the scattering of the British relief force precluded all serious attack; it was impossible in the time available to bring up the men from Frere and Estcourt; the most that could be attempted was to send in the two brigades at Chieveley to make a show of assault upon the Colenso lines, and so prevent the Boers from weakening their strength at this point. Even so the demonstration was tardily made. It was soon after 2 a.m. that the Boer artillery began its fierce bombardment of Ladysmith; it was not till 2 p.m. that General Hildyard's and General Barton's Brigades, with three batteries of artillery, marched out of camp and swept down the open, undulating plain which intervened between Chieveley and Colenso. Now, too, the naval guns opened a heavy fire upon the Colenso works. The Boers could be seen riding back in small parties from the direction of Ladysmith towards Colenso, so that the spell was working. On the flanks the 13th Hussars moved out to Springfield and Thorneycroft's men deployed in the direction of Hlangwane, advancing to Hussar Hill. The infantry opened out in scattered order, and pushed forward towards the battleground of December 15. The field batteries opened fire and there was a dress rehearsal of a battle--continuous long-range firing on the part of the British, to which the enemy only replied with the shots of a few marksmen from near the village of Colenso. The vast entrenchments, stretching mile after mile, were silent; the enemy's artillery obstinately refused to disclose itself. Just at this point another message, terrifying in its suggestiveness, came through from Ladysmith:--
[Sidenote: Further message from Ladysmith.]
"12·45 p.m. Have beaten enemy off at present, but they are still round me in great numbers, especially to south, and I think renewed attack very probable."
[Illustration: CHURCH STREET, PIETERMARITZBERG.]
After this came silence. Black clouds covered the sky; the sun failed; and the British headquarters and army were left in heartbreaking suspense.
[Illustration: BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF PIETERMARITZBURG, LOOKING EAST.
Pietermaritzburg, called after two Boer leaders, Pieter Retief and Gert Maritz, is the seat of Government in Natal, and since the beginning of the war has served as the official military base for the operations in that colony. The town has normally a population of about 20,000, of whom half are whites. It is beautifully situated amid sloping hills and fertile pastures, and is 70 miles distant from Durban. It is a metropolis in miniature, and the churches, hotels, banks, clubs, town hall, legislative council buildings, museum, and library are worthy of the capital of the "Garden Colony."]
[Sidenote: JAN. 6, 1900.] _Ladysmith in Peril._]
[Sidenote: Storm ends a desultory movement.]
The attack on Colenso was not pressed. Ladysmith was fighting for its life; thousands of British soldiers were burning to give Sir George White the best aid that could be given, by a vigorous assault upon Colenso, which by all appearances was not strongly held, and from which we now know that the Boers had withdrawn 7,000 men, and yet there was nothing more than a long-range interchange of fire. General Clery in command--for General Buller was seemingly not present--rode out well in advance of his men, but even this daring and calculated exposure of himself and his staff did not draw the Boers. It was a melancholy day, unsatisfactory in every sense, and, had the enemy's assault on Ladysmith succeeded, would have provoked bitter outcry at home, where the difficulties which faced the relief column were, perhaps, not fully appreciated. As the afternoon closed upon the desultory and ineffective demonstration, the storm broke over the country with appalling violence. Thunder and lightning, hail and rain, raged over the frowning heights before the British soldiery, and intense darkness put a stop to the one-sided engagement. Dripping and depressed, the men marched back to camp, uncertain as to the fate of Ladysmith.
Rain and gloom continued all next day, broken only by a flash of sunlight, which brought yet more disquieting news. The fresh message from Sir George White was this:--
"January 6, 3·15 p.m. Attack renewed. Very hard pressed."
[Illustration: THE UNION JACK AT LADYSMITH:
The flag which was never hauled down throughout the siege.]
[Sidenote: The flag still flying in Ladysmith.]
The Boer guns could not be heard, so that, for all men knew, the garrison had fallen. Yet one of those strange rumours, which in the old-world days told the Greeks, as they joined battle at Mycale, that their countrymen, hundreds of miles away, had on the same day beaten back the barbarian, ran swiftly through the camp. How or whence it comes, this sudden and unaccountable second-sight, no man can tell, and psychologists can but conjecture. For the story told with substantial truth that at 5 p.m. of the previous day, at which precise hour General Ian Hamilton and the Devons had sent the foe reeling down from Wagon Hill, the Boers had been repulsed and 400 of the enemy taken prisoners. Not till the following day was definite news forthcoming. Then it was known that with terrible loss the heroic garrison had driven back the Boers and kept the British flag flying over Ladysmith. Ian Hamilton, the wounded of Majuba, had been the hero of the defence.
Satisfaction reigned in the camps, though there were some who asked, when the losses were known, how it would be if the Boers repeated their assault. But now the signs of immediate movement filled the air and fixed all attention. The relief army was preparing to strike its second blow.
[Illustration: INDIANS CARRYING A WOUNDED OFFICER IN A DOOLIE.]
[Illustration: FOR THE GREATER COMFORT OF THE WOUNDED.
The McCormack-Brook wheeled stretcher-carriage is largely used in South Africa.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 6-9, 1900.]
[Sidenote: Heroes in rags.]
[Sidenote: Mud everywhere.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 9, 1900.] _Composition of the Second and Fifth Divisions._]
On the 6th the base hospitals at Pietermaritzburg had been cleared of the wounded; on the 8th the Frere hospitals were likewise emptied, and that evening 700 civilian stretcher-bearers, or "body-snatchers" as they were called by the troops, arrived at the front. They were a nondescript lot of men, ill-clad, poorly-shod, but, as their deeds upon the battlefield showed time and time again, surpassingly brave. For them there were no laurels, no honours, no mentions in despatches, not even the _gaudium certaminis_ which so often paralyses the sense of fear. Yet they did their duty and something more; with placid devotion they followed the fighting line, and many of them laid down their lives in noble efforts to succour the wounded and dying. All honour, then, to this ragged corps! In the last few days torrents of rain and continual thunderstorms had made of the veldt a morass, of the roads bottomless sloughs of despond, and of the spruits and watercourses, which furrowed the country side, roaring torrents; but the plight of Ladysmith admitted of no excuses or delays. On January 9, at last, the advance began. From Estcourt, Sir Charles Warren's Division pushed forward to Frere, after a terrible march through the mud, and slush, and tropical rain. "The hills," writes Mr. Atkins, the _Manchester Guardian's_ correspondent, "seemed to melt down like tallow under heat; the rain beat the earth into liquid, and the thick, earthy liquid ran down in terraced cascades.... From Estcourt to Frere the division waded, sliding, sucking, pumping, gurgling through the mud: the horses floundered or tobogganed with all four feet together; the waggons lurched axle-deep into heavy sloughs and had to be dragged out with trebled teams of oxen." "Crossing the swollen spruits was fearful," writes an officer. "At one place my horse fell and I went into the water head over heels and had to swim. The whole veldt was one sea of deep, slushy mud." At one point a strange river appeared--a roaring torrent of a few hours' growth--and checked the column. An engineer officer sounded and reported ten feet. The pontoons were called for, when a bold colonial rode up, looked at the stream, spurred his horse in, and quietly sped across. As the rest of the column followed him, there were many jests at the expense of the engineer officer. The men had a miserable bivouac that night at Frere, where most of the wet soldiers had to lie out in the mud. Yet the men bore the discomfort cheerfully, with the spirit of Mark Tapley, and made the best of a bad job.
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Middlebrook._
HOW THE MOUNTAIN BATTERY IS CARRIED.
The photograph shows the form of saddle which is used for transporting the portions of a mountain battery. One mule is laden with the "chase" of the gun itself, another with the breech, and two more with the wheels and the trail.]
[Sidenote: Composition of the force.]
The army was now reorganised for the work before it. The following was its new composition:--Under Sir Charles Warren for the flank movement were the Second and Fifth Divisions; General Buller kept only the corps troops under his immediate orders.
SECOND DIVISION.
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR F. CLERY.
_Second Brigade._ _Fifth Brigade._
MAJOR-GENERAL HILDYARD. MAJOR-GENERAL HART. 2nd East Surrey. 1st Connaught Rangers. 2nd West Yorkshire. 1st and 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers. 2nd Devonshire. 1st Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. 2nd West Surrey. 1st Border Regiment. 7th, 64th, and 73rd Field Batteries.
FIFTH DIVISION.
LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR C. WARREN.
_Fourth Brigade._ _Eleventh Brigade._
MAJOR-GENERAL LYTTELTON. MAJOR-GENERAL WOODGATE. 1st Rifle Brigade. 2nd Royal Lancaster. 1st Durham Light Infantry. 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers. 3rd King's Royal Rifles. 1st South Lancashire. 2nd Scottish Rifles. 1st York and Lancaster. 19th, 28th, and 63rd Field Batteries.
CORPS TROOPS.
GENERAL (COMMANDING-IN-CHIEF) SIR R. BULLER.
_Tenth Brigade._ MAJOR-GENERAL COKE. 2nd Dorset. 2nd Middlesex. 2nd Somerset.
Imperial Light Infantry.
78th Field Battery, 61st Howitzer Battery, 4th Mountain Battery.
_Cavalry Division._ MAJOR-GENERAL LORD DUNDONALD. 13th Hussars. 1st Royal Dragoons. South African Light Horse. Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry. Bethune's Mounted Infantry. Natal Carbineers. Mounted Infantry King's Royal Rifles. Imperial Light Horse. Naval guns (two 4·7 in., eight 12-pounders).
[Illustration: THE PRICE OF LOYALTY IN NORTHERN NATAL:
A farmhouse laid in ruins by the Boers.]
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Bassano._
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR C. F. CLERY, K.C.B.
In command of the Second Division in Natal since October 1899, with local rank of Lieut.-General. He entered the Army in 1858; was Professor of Tactics at Sandhurst from 1872-5; Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General in Ireland (1875-7), and at Aldershot (1877-8); was Chief Staff Officer of the Flying Column in the Zulu War, 1878-9; Brigade-Major at Alexandria in the Egyptian War of 1882; Assistant-Adjutant-General in the Sudan Expedition in 1884; Deputy-Adjutant and Quartermaster-General in the Nile Expedition of 1884-5; Chief of Staff in Egypt 1886-8, and Commandant of the Staff College 1888-93. He commanded the 3rd Infantry Brigade at Aldershot 1895-6, and was Deputy-Adjutant-General to the Forces from that date until he left for Africa.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 9-10, 1900.]
General Barton with the Sixth Brigade was directed to entrench himself at Chieveley, and was given as his artillery the other six naval 12-pounders, two dummy 4·7's which the ingenuity of the bluejackets had constructed, and the remnants of the field batteries destroyed at Colenso. To guard Frere camp, the Composite Rifle Battalion, made up of drafts for the regiments in Ladysmith, was detailed. The total force available for offensive action was, when all deductions had been made, 15,000 infantry, 2,500 cavalry and mounted men, and fifty-eight guns, excluding the Mountain Battery, which was of no use in the field, and was never employed because of its want of range and power. The general theory in the British camp was that the advance would be made by the right flank in the direction of Hlangwane and Weenen, which many thought was the easiest line of approach to Ladysmith. Circumstantial reports had already reached Durban to the effect that a part at least of Sir Charles Warren's Division was marching along the Weenen road. But these conjectures were falsified by events; it was by the left flank that General Buller had determined to make his next throw.
[Illustration: GRILLED STEAK À-LA-BOER.]
[Illustration: GENERAL WARREN'S BRIGADE MARCHING OUT FROM FRERE.
The depressions seen in the middle distance are called by the Boers "dongas."]
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Middlebrook._
AN ARMY ON THE MARCH: GUNS AND AMBULANCE CARTS CROSSING A DONGA.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 10, 1900.] _Forward Movement._]
[Sidenote: The army moves.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 10, 1900.]
The 10th, after the deluge of the 9th, was sunny and intensely hot. The earlier hours of the day the men spent in drying their dripping belongings, while the hundreds of transport waggons were packed with twenty days' stores and provisions for the whole force. As the afternoon drew on and the heat of the sun abated, the march to the west began. Battalion followed battalion, brigade followed brigade, and last of all came interminable strings of ox-waggons, carts, ambulances, cannon, and all the vast paraphernalia of an army in motion. The men turned their backs upon Colenso and the scene of the defeat of December 15; they strode blithely along towards the Upper Tugela--into a land new to most, a land of promise and hope. Nor could they know that they were facing disaster upon disaster, defeat piled upon defeat, or that after a month of march, and battle, and toil they were doomed to return empty-handed and rebuffed. No such thoughts troubled the hearts of the men; for them it was enough that the hour of action had come, and that vengeance was at last to be taken for Colenso and the dismal past.
[Illustration: AMMUNITION CARTS AT A DRIFT: MULES OBJECTING TO CROSS.]
[Sidenote: Hampered by baggage.]
The march of the column was vexatiously slow. The exceeding badness of the tracks--for to call them roads is impossible--the quantity of water in the spruits and rivulets, and the enormous amount of baggage caused continual halts in the centre and rear of the column. A hundred years ago Napoleon wrote that no army carries with it so much baggage as the British, and his criticism was justified. In the interval we have not improved. Says Mr. Churchill: "The vast amount of baggage this army takes with it on the march hampers its movements and utterly precludes all possibility of surprising the enemy. I have never before seen even officers accommodated with tents on service, though both the Indian frontier and the Sudan lie under a hotter than the South African sun. But here to-day, within striking distance of a mobile enemy whom we wished to circumvent, every private soldier has canvas shelter, and the other arrangements are on an equally elaborate scale. The consequence is that the roads are crowded, drifts are blocked, marching troops are delayed, and all rapidity of movement is out of the question. Meanwhile the enemy completes the fortification of his positions and the cost of capturing them rises. It is poor economy to let a soldier live well for three days at the price of killing him on the fourth." The Boer somehow managed to do without these elaborate arrangements. He found it possible to subsist without being constantly accompanied by a supply train; he carried a sufficiency of food with him, and slept in the open, or in some rough improvised shelter behind a heap of stones. With his strip of dried beef, bag of biscuits, 200 rounds of ammunition, and his rifle, he could cover in one day the distance which the British Army could only accomplish in three. And as Napoleon has said that the strength of an army should be gauged by its numbers, multiplied by the number of miles it can move in a given time, it followed that four or five thousand Boers were a match for General Buller's whole army.
[Illustration:
_Painted by H. W. Koekkoek._]
HORSE ARTILLERY IN A TIGHT PLACE.]
[Illustration: SPRINGFIELD BRIDGE: THE PIVOT OF THE FLANKING MOVEMENT.]
[Illustration: MURRAY'S MOUNTED SCOUTS:
Natal farmers who volunteered when the Boers invaded that colony.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 10, 1900.]
[Sidenote: Difficulties of the march.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 10-11, 1900.] _Springfield Bridge Seized._]
On this occasion the average of the infantry was scarcely a mile an hour. At the start Sir Charles Warren's men had to ford the Blaauwkrantz in flood, and the drifts were choked with waggons, carts, and refractory teams of oxen and mules. "The passages through the spruits were nightmares," says Mr. Atkins, "carts overturned in the water, wheels off, mules mixed up, fighting and knotted in their harness and half drowning, oxen with their heads borne down under water and heaving with all their mighty strength to the opposite bank, a gun or a waggon stuck, and the river of traffic looping round it as water flows round an island; spare teams of oxen moving about to help the unfortunate out of difficulties, a traction engine with one wheel almost buried in soft mud and two other engines pulling at it." One ox-waggon which stuck close to Frere station could not be moved by eighty oxen, and must have been abandoned but for the traction engines, one of which was harnessed to it with a steel hawser and hauled it triumphantly out of difficulty. The march, in consequence of these incidents, which, at first diverting enough, rapidly palled upon the men, was weary to a degree. Great caution had to be observed, for though the Tugela was in heavy flood and the Boer bridges broken, no one could be certain that the enemy had not some force south of the river carefully watching the British flanks and ready to cut off stragglers and vehicles in difficulty. The first halt for the infantry of the Second Division was to be made at Pretorius' Farm, six miles on the Frere side of Springfield and ten miles from Frere, and for the Fifth Division at Springfield itself; but that point was not reached by many of the men till long after midnight. At midnight the weather had broken once more and a terrific thunderstorm swept over the hills, drenching the tired men and inflicting upon them the misery of a sodden bivouac after their hard day's march. They slept as best they could, wrapped in their great-coats and blankets, in the mud and slush. Hildyard's Brigade, with the two great 4·7's dismounted from their carriages and placed upon carts, had already struck into the column, half way to Pretorius' Farm, coming from Chieveley, so now the turning force was complete.
[Illustration:
_[From an instantaneous photograph by the Biograph Co._
LORD DUNDONALD'S CAVALRY ON THE WAY TO POTGIETER'S DRIFT.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 11, 1900.]
All the 10th and 11th the troops were on the march, streaming westwards in an unending column. On the 11th the cavalry under Lord Dundonald pushed forward, in advance of the army, to seize Springfield bridge--a long, wooden structure which spans the Little Tugela, and which, according to spies' accounts, had been left standing by the Boers. The country through which the troopers rode was pleasant upland, recalling to many the Yorkshire moors or the fells of Cumberland, only that far away, to north and west, rose in a fantastic wonderland of rugged heights the summits of the Drakensberg. Valleys with verdant herbage ran up into the mountains and were lost in the browns and purples of the savage rocks. It was a scene of beauty in the soft glow of the afternoon sun, with the white mists of night already rising from the valley bottoms--a delectable country, but void and untenanted by man. The sparse farms were empty; the war had driven away their owners--some to the British Army to avoid being commandeered and insulted by the invader, others to the Boer forces in guilty alarm at the approach of the "rooineks." And, strangest of all, there was no trace of the enemy. His scouts and pickets were nowhere seen; as the troopers moved cautiously and inquiringly over the broken terrain, no volleys flashed out from the folds of the spruits. Would it be so when Springfield bridge was reached, or must a battle be fought before the British could win possession of the Little Tugela?
[Illustration:
_[Photo by Middlebrook._
THE FIRST STEEP BIT ON ZWART KOP.
Up which guns and ammunition had to be dragged by hand labour. Zwart Kop looks down on Potgieter's Drift from the east, as Spearman's Hill does from the south-west.]
[Sidenote: Dundonald seizes Potgieter's Drift.]
At length the bridge came into sight. It was uninjured, and there was still no enemy. More than this, word came from the patrols in advance--Murray's Natal Mounted Scouts--that they had scoured the country beyond, up to Potgieter's Ford and the Big Tugela, and found it also empty. The bridge was crossed, and now it entered Lord Dundonald's head, in spite of his orders, which required him only to "seize Springfield Bridge," to push on yet further, and endeavour to secure Potgieter's. The danger was that this ostentatious abandonment of the district by the Boers might mean some devilish trick--some ambush of the kind to which our army had now grown accustomed in South Africa. In that event no support would be at hand, for the infantry and artillery of the Fifth Division would be nine miles behind at Springfield. Yet, weighing the chances, Lord Dundonald dashingly determined to take the risk. He detached 300 men with two guns to hold the bridge; with the South African Light Horse--a splendid body of men--a company of mounted infantry, and four guns of the 78th Field Battery, he struck out resolutely for Potgieter's Drift, and the great hill known as Spearman's Hill, which commands it. At 6 p.m. the goal was reached. There was still no enemy; only half-a-dozen Boers could be seen, and these, wonderful to relate, were washing themselves in the river, and scuttled off like terrified insects when the cavalry came into view. The 700 British troopers started to climb the hill, dragging with them the guns, with inconceivable toil, and as night fell reached the summit. It was found to be fortified with trenches, laboriously excavated, and stone walls or schantzes, raised by the enemy--evidence at once of Boer activity and insight. Messages were forthwith sent back to Pretorius' Farm to apprise General Buller of the success achieved and to ask of him immediate support. For if the Boers should attack--and even with the Tugela in flood they might know of drifts or have bridges ready--Spearman's Hill could scarcely be held by this handful of men. The night was an anxious one, but it passed without incident. With day the real danger vanished, and all eyes could drink in the wonderful panorama that lay below.
[Illustration: TRANSVAAL COINS.
The illustration shows the reverse side of some of the Transvaal coins. The head of President Kruger (as below) appears on the obverse of each. An artificial value attaches to some of them on account of the very limited number issued.]
[Illustration: OBVERSE OF A TRANSVAAL CROWN-PIECE.]
[Illustration: POTGIETER'S DRIFT: BRITISH FORCES CROSSING.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 11, 1900] _A Frontal Assault Inevitable._]
The hill pitched precipitously down, with an occasional shelf or terrace, 700 feet into the Tugela below. The river ran, a brown streak of muddy water, flecked with foam, betwixt high rocky banks, through a valley of enchanting beauty. It curved and doubled back upon itself in the most sinuous fashion; from under Spearman's Hill two tongues of land projected northward fenced in by the two inverted ⋃'s which the stream hereabouts described. Between these two tongues and on the north of the river an undulating plain rose gently to the mountains, which ran parallel to the river course and shut it in. Exit from this plain there was none without scaling the mountains; on three sides, south, east, and west, was the river, on the fourth the mountain ridge. Thus there was no means of outflanking the enemy when once the army had crossed the river. A frontal assault would be inevitable; and already the Boers could be seen in small parties on the crest of the mountain line, building schanzes, digging trenches, and improvising defences.
[Sidenote: [JAN. 11, 1900.]
[Sidenote: The pont intact.]
In the panorama the most striking object was the great mountain known as Spion Kop or Taba Myama--though the latter name is applied rather to the western part of the crest and slope, and Spion Kop to the eastern summit. It dominated the whole region, rising away to the north-west of Spearman's Hill, at a point where the chain of hills tends upwards to the north-west to meet the Drakensberg. It was flat-topped and grassy on the summit; then it fell away in sheer cliff, but with a narrow and steep incline at one point to the south, where it could just be scaled; then again its lower slopes descended in gentle undulations to the Tugela. On the northern side, so far as could be ascertained, its slope was gentle. So incorrect were the British maps that it was placed many miles out of its position, far away to the west, and this though it was a mountain famous in history as the point from which the Boer leaders gazed upon Natal and "saw the land that it was good." And beyond it rose the dim outlines, blue with the morning haze, of the troubled sea of mountains which fills Northern Natal; on the horizon the Biggarsberg; then the hills near Elandslaagte, Bulwana and the crests held by the British garrison at Ladysmith; then again to the left the craggy fortresses of the Drakensberg, with waterfalls pouring down their precipitous walls, and melancholy corries and patches of green upland pasture breaking their sombre tints of purple and grey. It was an enchanting vision that unfolded itself--Nature in her grandest and sublimest aspect. Just under Spearman's Hill lay the spidery line of the ferry; the pont itself was at the opposite side of the river, but the rope was intact.
[Illustration: A PONT OR FERRY ON THE TUGELA.]
[Illustration:
_[Photo by Lambert Weston._
LIEUTENANT T. H. CARLISLE, S.A.L.H.
This is the officer mentioned on page 214 (note to illustration) under the name of Carlisle-Carr, who with six of the South African Light Horse swam the Tugela and brought over the pont.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 11, 1900.] _The Boers Entrenching._]
The Tugela at this point swirls along a rocky bed with precipitous banks at the rate of ten miles an hour when in flood, varying in width from 100 to 300 feet. To pass the drift, which is always difficult and dangerous except when the stream is exceptionally low, marks on the rocks have to be consulted. The road does not run direct across the river, but makes a wide bend; it descends to the river bed from the level of the surrounding veldt by a very steep and narrow cutting. There are huge boulders in the stream, hidden in its turbid waters, which render the crossing particularly awkward for waggons. Into this treacherous torrent presently plunged Lieutenant Carlisle and six of the rank and file of the South African Light Horse--Sergeant Turner, Corporals Barkley and Cox, and Troopers Godden, Howell, and Collingwood--all volunteers, and swam for the other side to seize the pont. They reached it safely, released it, and started in it to recross, but in mid stream were fired upon by the Boers. Fortunately, only Lieutenant Carlisle was slightly wounded. A covering party of twenty British troopers returned the fire with small effect. In the course of the morning the 1st Durham Light Infantry and 2nd Scottish Rifles, speedily followed by the rest of General Lyttelton's Brigade, arrived, and Spearman's Hill was at length secure.
[Sidenote: The Boers entrenching.]
From Spearman's Hill the Ladysmith heliograph could be seen endeavouring to call up the British. The signalmen were speedily in communication, when they learnt that Sir George White's officers could make out the enemy in large numbers moving west and south to the threatened point. And the men on Spearman's Hill, for their part, could see hundreds and thousands of small dark figures at work upon the slopes and crests of the mountains opposite. "Every favourable bit of ground they could be seen inspecting," says Mr. Burleigh, "while hundreds toiled in every direction. Their object was unmistakable--to draw line after line of trenches and to erect forts which would command every inch of ground from the river front up to and beyond the crested ridges four miles north. Besides that, to the west, they were crowning lofty Spion Kop with defences and gun-positions." In a word, while the British infantry were slowly and painfully marching to find the enemy's right flank, the Boers by virtue of their mobility had already prolonged that flank so far to the west that it could not be turned. Yet the confidence in the British army as to the success of the move was so great that already officers were betting two to one on the relief of Ladysmith before the lapse of another week.
[Illustration:
_Alec Ball._]
THE CAPTURE OF THE PONT AT POTGIETER'S DRIFT.]
[Sidenote: General Buller's plan of attack.]
[Sidenote: [JAN. 11-16, 1900.]
After the seizure of Spearman's Hill and Potgieter's Drift, a long interval of apparent inactivity on the British side followed. The naval guns arrived at Potgieter's Drift and were placed in position on the hill, but they refrained from shelling the Boer lines. General Buller fixed his headquarters hard by at Spearman's Camp. Meantime, the British troops anxiously watched the Boers. "What are we showing ourselves and our guns here for?" was the question which they asked each other, to draw the not too satisfactory answer, "To give the enemy plenty of time to get ready." Yet, as a matter of fact, this criticism was not altogether just. Though in the light of after events it can be seen that a rapid blow would have had many chances in its favour, though, as Napoleon said, "Celerity is better than artillery," such action must have carried with it grave risks. General Buller, preferring caution and sure-going, wished to attract all the attention of the enemy to Potgieter's and then to strike elsewhere. Five miles west of Potgieter's were two fords known as Trichard's and Wagon Drifts; five miles east another known as Skiet Drift. Roads to these ran from Springfield, and the movement of troops along the roads could not be seen by the enemy, owing to the heights which fringed the south bank of the Tugela. When all his preparations were complete, ample supplies of food and ammunition accumulated at Springfield, and his army concentrated, General Buller had determined to move General Warren across at Trichard's Drift with instructions to turn the enemy's right. Thus the apparently foolish and purposeless demonstration at Potgieter's was not without its object. Great delay was caused by the state of the unmetalled roads and the immense difficulty of moving over them 650 ox-waggons. Between Frere and Springfield there were no less than three places where all the waggons had to be doubled-spanned and where some even required three spans. There the oxen had to be detached from two waggons and attached to a third, while the vehicles behind them were brought to a dead stop. The marching of the troops was not altogether well-managed, since the men had alternately to run and halt, than which nothing could be more wearying.
[Illustration:
[_Photo by Caney, Durban._
BREAKING CAMP: OX-WAGGONS MOVING OFF.]
[Sidenote: JAN. 16, 1900.] _Preparations for the Coming Battle._]
At last, on January 16, a supply of seventeen days' provisions was ready at Springfield. The position of the British Army was now as follows:--At Spearman's Camp and Potgieter's Drift were General Coke's and General Lyttelton's Brigades, forming the centre of the British Army. Watching Skiet Drift, near which the enemy had been seen in some force, and guarding the British right, was the greater part of Bethune's Mounted Infantry. At Springfield the main force was concentrated--three brigades strong, with six batteries, under the command of Sir Charles Warren. On the evening of the 16th this force marched north-westwards to Trichard's Drift, where it was to pass the river next day. With it went the Cavalry Division under Lord Dundonald. Sir Charles Warren's orders were, having crossed the Tugela, to advance north-westwards along the front of the Boer position, leaving Spion Kop on his right, and swinging his force round the westward extremity of the Boer line of defence, in the neighbourhood of Acton Homes. Thence a comparatively open stretch of country extended to the neighbourhood of Ladysmith.
[Illustration: THE SCOTTISH RIFLES' MAXIM ON ZWART KOP.]
[Sidenote: The crossing of Potgieter's Drift.]
To draw off the enemy's attention from this, the decisive movement, a demonstration in force was to be made from Potgieter's Drift. As columns of dust rose from the direction of Springfield, betokening the advance of Warren's three brigades, the camp at Spearman's Farm showed signs of activity. The infantry struck their tents; the cavalry, whose camp was in full view of the Boer lines, left theirs standing and marched off to the west; all the naval guns pushed forward to good positions on Spearman's Hill. Then, first Lyttelton's and afterwards Coke's Brigades deployed and in open order descended to the river. The Scottish Rifles and Durham Light Infantry led the way. One officer, Captain Harrison, advanced into the water carrying with him a rope; the stream had fallen and now ran only waist deep at the ford. Then came two or three more men, and last a long line holding hands. Simultaneously a number of pontoons were got to work, and the ferry, which had stuck obstinately and refused to move, was repaired by the Natal Naval Volunteers. Away in front the Boers watched without firing a shot. They could be seen manning their trenches on the hills, but they gave no sign of life, intending, perhaps, as at Modder River and Colenso, to allow the "rooineks" to approach within some hundreds of yards, and then to massacre them with their magazine fire at their leisure.
[Illustration: DINNER HOUR IN CAMP.
A trumpeter of Thorneycroft's Horse going the rounds.]
First one and then another chain of infantry made the passage with much floundering in the water. The companies, as they crossed one by one, formed up on the opposite bank. When the two leading battalions were complete they advanced rapidly for a mile along the undulating plain to the north of the river and seized a line of low kopjes. The night drew on with troops everywhere in motion.
[Illustration: DIRECTING THE ADVANCE ON POTGIETER'S DRIFT FROM THE BALLOON.
The Boers made ineffectual attempts to destroy the balloon by shell-fire.]
[Illustration: PERILOUS DUTY: A DESPATCH RIDER WAYLAID BY BOERS.]
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