The Boer,
However, Save When The Odds Are All In His Favour, Is Not, In Spite
Of His Considerable Personal Bravery, At His Best In Attack.
His
racial traditions, depending upon the necessity for economy of
human life, are all opposed to it.
As a consequence two regiments
well posted were able to hold them off all day with a loss which
did not exceed thirty killed and wounded, while the enemy, exposed
to the shrapnel of the 42nd battery, as well as the rifle-fire of
the infantry, must have suffered very much more severely. The
result of the action was a well-grounded belief that in daylight
there was very little chance of the Boers being able to carry the
lines. As the date was that of the Prince of Wales's birthday, a
salute of twenty-one shotted naval guns wound up a successful day.
The failure of the attempt upon Ladysmith seems to have convinced
the enemy that a waiting game, in which hunger, shell-fire, and
disease were their allies, would be surer and less expensive than
an open assault. From their distant hilltops they continued to
plague the town, while garrison and citizens sat grimly patient,
and learned to endure if not to enjoy the crash of the 96-pound
shells, and the patter of shrapnel upon their corrugated-iron
roofs. The supplies were adequate, and the besieged were fortunate
in the presence of a first-class organiser, Colonel Ward of
Islington fame, who with the assistance of Colonel Stoneman
systematised the collection and issue of all the food, civil and
military, so as to stretch it to its utmost. With rain overhead and
mud underfoot, chafing at their own idleness and humiliated by
their own position, the soldiers waited through the weary weeks for
the relief which never came. On some days there was more
shell-fire, on some less; on some there was sniping, on some none;
on some they sent a little feeler of cavalry and guns out of the
town, on most they lay still - such were the ups and downs of life
in Ladysmith. The inevitable siege paper, 'The Ladysmith Lyre,'
appeared, and did something to relieve the monotony by the
exasperation of its jokes. Night, morning, and noon the shells
rained upon the town until the most timid learned fatalism if not
bravery. The crash of the percussion, and the strange musical tang
of the shrapnel sounded ever in their ears. With their glasses the
garrison could see the gay frocks and parasols of the Boer ladies
who had come down by train to see the torture of the doomed town.
The Boers were sufficiently numerous, aided by their strong
positions and excellent artillery, to mask the Ladysmith force and
to sweep on at once to the conquest of Natal. Had they done so it
is hard to see what could have prevented them from riding their
horses down to salt water. A few odds and ends, half battalions and
local volunteers, stood between them and Durban.
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