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.]
