TOPIC:

Like to share this story that I have just come across.


Here is the strangest story of all from Spion kop. During a lull, when the Boers were making their counter attacks upon the Lancashire battalions, an officer in khakee suddenly appeared at the corner of the trench, and, in good English, bade the men come out not not stay there, as they were of no use in that position. "Come this way," he cried and several men got out to follow him. A few steps forward, around the rocks, they saw a number of Boers, and the soldiers hesitated. "They are friends," cried the officer; "come on." But a Lancashire lad replied, "Hold on a bit. Who are you?" The officer, who proved to be, it is said, an Austrian, grabbed the man's rifle, but the soldiers quietly gave him the bayonet, stretching the fellow upon the ground just as the Boers from the rocks fired a volley into our men. Only two or three of the soldiers were able to regain unwounded the cover of the trench, which unfortunately was not dug in the most commanding spot. More than once that day the cry of "Retire" was raised upon Spion kop by Boers anxious to get our men away.

Lovely story! Though I find the story implausible, I can sort-of-see the parts it is the sum of:
Germans were indeed on the summit; a sentry with a group of Germans was bayonetted (by Lieut. Vere Awdry of the LF); many Germans wore a khaki uniform; many Boers spoke English; there was a large surrender in the Lancashire trench, plus at least 2 other small surrenders.

Other Spioenkop "tall stories" I've come across are:
- Boer women were in the firing line
- British 15-pounders were used by the Boers against the British
- British artillery shelled their own men

Hi Rob,

If you love tall stories, then you are going to love this one......

A Transvaal war correspondent gave the London Daily Chronicle a strange story of Spion Kop: - One of the Lancaster men, while in the act of firing in the prone position, had his head taken clean off by a large shell. To the astonishment of his comrades the headless body quietly rose, stood upright for a few seconds, and then fell.


And they keep coming.



The following ghastly but withal profoundly pathetic story is told by Mr. A. G. Hales in the "Daily News":-

....So our dead lay, and grinned at those other dead, and the fierce sun-dried flesh and blood on Briton and on Boer, for both remained unburied for a while; and so it came to pass that a Boer commando retook those lines where those who died for us were lying, and as they marched amongst our dead, they saw a sergeant lying at full length shot, through the brain, yet even in death the man looked like some fighting machine suddenly gone out of order. His rifle was pressed against his shoulder, his left hand grasped the barrel on the under side, the forefinger of the right hand pressed the trigger lightly, the barrel rested out upon a rock, and his death-dulled eye still glared along the sights, for dissolution had come to him just as he bent his head to fire at those who shot him, and now his hands had stiffened in the unbendable stiffness of eternal sleep. A Boer soldier saw the sergeant as he lay, and with rude hands grasped the rifle by the barrel and tried to jerk it from the dead man's grip, but as he pulled he brought the rifle in a line with his own breast, and the unyielding finger on the trigger did the rest, the rifle spoke from the dead man's hand, and the bullet passing through the Boer's heart laid him beside the Briton.
  Sounds like a journalistic lie, does not it? Read it in a novel, and you would laugh, would you not? But it is the eternal truth, all the same, for the comrade of the Boer who died that day, killed by a dead man, told me the tale himself, and he was one of those who planted the dead Dutchman on the slope of Spion Kop.

A headless man on Spion Kop, who stood upright until he was pushed over, was also described by others. When one's head is catastrophically injured, for a while one's legs may extend stiffly - decerebrate rigidity - and support one's weight even though lifeless. The bit about him rising to his feet is likely an exaggeration.

The burgher who was killed when pulling a dead man's rifle towards him was said to be Wynand Els of the Pretoria Commando. The story is repeated in many accounts, both Boer and British, and I think it is likely to be true.

Thanks Rob,

When I read the second story, I could imagine it being true as one of those freak accidents and I'm glad that you have now put a name to an actual event which puts some weight behind the article.

Trev.

"Two men were lying on the rocks, every stitch burnt off them by the fire of a shell, probably after they were killed. Apparently nestling on the bare shoulder of one of them was a small rabbit, also killed." - A chaplain's account of a visit to Spion Kop.



"I was crawling like a stalker along a donga to take a sharpshooter to a point from which at 1,160 yards he could disturb a party of Boers. When I reached the point I saw through my glasses a young officer standing up to direct his men where to shoot. The poor boy was shot, of course, carried dead past my post." - A letter to the "Telegraph" from Spearman's.