TOPIC:

I could be wrong, but I believe these are all .303 magazine Lee Enfields (MLE) or magazine Lee Metfords (MLM). Same meat, different gravy, as the saying goes...
From the sling positions, I think:
A = MLM Mk 1*
B = MLM Mk II or MLE Mk I (the safety catch differs but none are shown)
C = Lee Speed sporter - the sling attachment is on the barrel, so it was made as a sporter.



In the Caton Woodville illustration,
D = MLM Mk I*
E = Martini Henry Mk IV

More blockhouse associated night manoeuvres:




This time the Illustrated London News of 8th February 1902 used a less well known illustrator – Allan Stewart (1865-1951). However, he does have a Wikipedia page which shows he did spend time in South Africa during the ABW.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Stewart_(art...es%20and%20portraits .

Attempts to break through the line at night gave rise to a number of issues, not least the ability of soldiers to shoot at targets in the dark. To this end a system of fixed batteries, each consisting of up to six rifles, was introduced. The rifles were set into wooden cradles, which were constructed so that fire from the battery would find its mark along the line of the barbed wire. All six rifles would discharge simultaneously, and were presumably sighted to cover a wide field. In practise, I cannot imagine this system was very effective, and was probably used for its psychological effect rather than to bring down the enemy.










The above batteries supplemented a complex system of alarms and flares (collectively termed "dodges").





A great variety of dodges were tried, for giving warning to the blockhouses when the Boers were tampering with the fences and for enabling the garrisons to direct their fire correctly.

(1) Alarm guns were fixed to the posts of the fences at several points and connected with a thin trip wire running parallel to the fence. Guns were also fixed to the posts with the trigger connected by a piece of thin wire to one of the fence wires, so that when the wire was cut it sprang back and discharged the gun.
Such devices were gradually displaced by guns, which were fixed close to the blockhouses, and were fired by the cutting of a long thin wire stretched right along the fence with a heavy stone hung to it at the blockhouse, a piece of thin wire connecting the trigger to this long wire. Sometimes the fence wires themselves were made to run through loops on the posts and act in the same way. Both these last dodges were necessary because the Boers generally spotted the guns whilst still at a distance from the blockhouses and disconnected them.

Friction tubes were also used as alarms, but not very successfully, as they required to be pulled with a jerk, – not merely dragged out.

(2) Chemical alarms were also tried. In these, when the wire was cut, it broke a small phial, which emptied its contents into another chemical and either caused a detonation or lit a flare. These were, however, no better than an ordinary detonating cap, which could be made either (i) to light some fine powder or guncotton, and so some cotton waste and rosin mixed, or (ii) to fire a cartridge.

Alarms were made to detonate either by the release of a weight which dropped on to a striker (e.g., a nail) placed over a cartridge; or by dropping the detonator itself, the case containing a small weight, and the detonator being fired by the momentum of the inside weight striking the ground.

It was one thing to get an alarm which would work, and to be sure the garrison would hear it on a windy night; but another thing to enable them to shoot straight down the fences – the only chance of hitting anyone in the dark.
To this end wooden biscuit boxes were embedded in the parapet of the sentry trench, – or, better still, in a small defiladed recess leading out of it – with grooves cut fore and aft, filled with shingle, and so laid that a man had nothing to do but place his rifle straight in the grooves and shoot.

Forked sticks stuck into the parapet inside and outside the shield, and adjusted for shooting down the fences, were also tried.




An alternative to the fixed rifle battery: a .303 Maxim installed on top of the blockhouse at Vredefort Koppie (King's College Collection).





..

Astonishing that these crackpot schemes were actually tried, Neville! A battery of 6 rifles firing only once makes little sense since one soldier could fire 6 aimed rounds in about 20-25 seconds, and keep going thereafter. It's likely that the main function of an African sentry with a Martini Henry was to shoot an alarm shot - now, I've fired a Martini in the dark, and the noise, flash and smoke are like setting off a Guy Fawkes rocket. It's a mystery how the poor African sentry, having revealed his position, could be expected to survive Boer counter-fire. Moreover, if captured, armed Africans were often executed by the Boers.

Rob by the look on the face of Guard "C" in Neville's picture I think the chap had worked that out.

Neville_C has quoted in detail very informative extracts from
THE BLOCKHOUSE SYSTEM IN THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR.
BT.-COLONEL E.H. BETHELL, D.S.O., R.E.
published in the Professional Papers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, Vol. XXX (1904)

I registered a jolt of recognition when I saw Bethel’s name. I have the post WW1 miniature medals of Colonel Bethel in my collection.

Pete