'They stopped and all cried out "Rifle Brigade." Then one of
them said "Charge!" One officer, Captain Paley, advanced, though he
had two bullet wounds already.
Joubert gave him another shot and he
fell on the top of us. Four Englishmen got hold of Jan Luttig and
struck him on the head with their rifles and stabbed him in the
stomach with a bayonet. He seized two of them by the throat and
shouted "Help, boys!" His two nearest comrades shot two of them,
and the other two bolted. Then the English came up in numbers,
about eight hundred, along the footpath' (there were two hundred on
the hill, but the exaggeration is pardonable in the darkness), 'and
we lay as quiet as mice along the bank. Farther on the English
killed three of our men with bayonets and wounded two. In the
morning we found Captain Paley and twenty-two of them killed and
wounded.' It seems evident that Reitz means that his own little
party were eight men, and not that that represented the force which
intercepted the retiring riflemen. Within his own knowledge five of
his countrymen were killed in the scuffle, so the total loss was
probably considerable. Our own casualties were eleven dead,
forty-three wounded, and six prisoners, but the price was not
excessive for the howitzer and for the morale which arises from
such exploits. Had it not been for that unfortunate fuse, the
second success might have been as bloodless as the first. 'I am
sorry,' said a sympathetic correspondent to the stricken Paley.
'But we got the gun,' Paley whispered, and he spoke for the
Brigade.
Amid the shell-fire, the scanty rations, the enteric and the
dysentery, one ray of comfort had always brightened the garrison.
Buller was only twelve miles away - they could hear his guns - and
when his advance came in earnest their sufferings would be at an
end. But now in an instant this single light was shut off and the
true nature of their situation was revealed to them. Buller had
indeed moved. . .but backwards. He had been defeated at Colenso,
and the siege was not ending but beginning. With heavier hearts but
undiminished resolution the army and the townsfolk settled down to
the long, dour struggle. The exultant enemy replaced their
shattered guns and drew their lines closer still round the stricken
town.
A record of the siege onwards until the break of the New Year
centres upon the sordid details of the sick returns and of the
price of food. Fifty on one day, seventy on the next, passed under
the hands of the overworked and devoted doctors. Fifteen hundred,
and later two thousand, of the garrison were down. The air was
poisoned by foul sewage and dark with obscene flies. They speckled
the scanty food. Eggs were already a shilling each, cigarettes
sixpence, whisky five pounds a bottle: a city more free from
gluttony and drunkenness has never been seen.
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