So Hot Was The
Answer, Both From Cannon And From Rifle, That It Seemed For A Time
As If A Real Battle Were At Last About To Take Place.
The Guards'
Brigade, Stephenson's Brigade, and Maxwell's Brigade streamed up
and waited until Hamilton, who was on the enemy's right flank,
should be able to make his presence felt.
The heavy guns had also
arrived, and a huge cloud of debris rising from the Pretorian forts
told the accuracy of their fire.
But either the burghers were half-hearted or there was no real
intention to make a stand. About half-past two their fire slackened
and Pole-Carew was directed to push on. That debonnaire soldier
with his two veteran brigades obeyed the order with alacrity, and
the infantry swept over the ridge, with some thirty or forty
casualties, the majority of which fell to the Warwicks. The
position was taken, and Hamilton, who came up late, was only able
to send on De Lisle's mounted infantry, chiefly Australians, who
ran down one of the Boer maxims in the open. The action had cost us
altogether about seventy men. Among the injured was the Duke of
Norfolk, who had shown a high sense of civic virtue in laying aside
the duties and dignity of a Cabinet Minister in order to serve as a
simple captain of volunteers. At the end of this one fight the
capital lay at the mercy of Lord Roberts. Consider the fight which
they made for their chief city, compare it with that which the
British made for the village of Mafeking, and say on which side is
that stern spirit of self-sacrifice and resolution which are the
signs of the better cause.
In the early morning of June 5th, the Coldstream Guards were
mounting the hills which commanded the town. Beneath them in the
clear African air lay the famous city, embowered in green, the fine
central buildings rising grandly out of the wide circle of villas.
Through the Nek part of the Guards' Brigade and Maxwell's Brigade
had passed, and had taken over the station, from which at least one
train laden with horses had steamed that morning. Two others, both
ready to start, were only just stopped in time.
The first thought was for the British prisoners, and a small party
headed by the Duke of Marlborough rode to their rescue. Let it be
said once for all that their treatment by the Boers was excellent
and that their appearance would alone have proved it. One hundred
and twenty-nine officers and thirty-nine soldiers were found in the
Model Schools, which had been converted into a prison. A day later
our cavalry arrived at Waterval, which is fourteen miles to the
north of Pretoria. Here were confined three thousand soldiers,
whose fare had certainly been of the scantiest, though in other
respects they appear to have been well treated. [Footnote: Further
information unfortunately shows that in the case of the sick and of
the Colonial prisoners the treatment was by no means good.] Nine
hundred of their comrades had been removed by the Boers, but
Porter's cavalry was in time to release the others, under a brisk
shell fire from a Boer gun upon the ridge. Many pieces of good luck
we had in the campaign, but this recovery of our prisoners, which
left the enemy without a dangerous lever for exacting conditions of
peace, was the most fortunate of all.
In the centre of the town there is a wide square decorated or
disfigured by a bare pedestal upon which a statue of the President
was to have been placed. Hard by is the bleak barnlike church in
which he preached, and on either side are the Government offices
and the Law Courts, buildings which would grace any European
capital. Here, at two o'clock on the afternoon of June 5th, Lord
Roberts sat his horse and saw pass in front of him the men who had
followed him so far and so faithfully - the Guards, the Essex, the
Welsh, the Yorks, the Warwicks, the guns, the mounted infantry, the
dashing irregulars, the Gordons, the Canadians, the Shropshires,
the Cornwalls, the Camerons, the Derbys, the Sussex, and the London
Volunteers. For over two hours the khaki waves with their crests of
steel went sweeping by. High above their heads from the summit of
the Raad-saal the broad Union Jack streamed for the first time.
Through months of darkness we had struggled onwards to the light.
Now at last the strange drama seemed to be drawing to its close.
The God of battles had given the long-withheld verdict. But of all
the hearts which throbbed high at that supreme moment there were
few who felt one touch of bitterness towards the brave men who had
been overborne. They had fought and died for their ideal. We had
fought and died for ours. The hope for the future of South Africa
is that they or their descendants may learn that that banner which
has come to wave above Pretoria means no racial intolerance, no
greed for gold, no paltering with injustice or corruption, but that
it means one law for all and one freedom for all, as it does in
every other continent in the whole broad earth. When that is
learned it may happen that even they will come to date a happier
life and a wider liberty from that 5th of June which saw the symbol
of their nation pass for ever from among the ensigns of the world.
CHAPTER 26.
DIAMOND HILL - RUNDLE'S OPERATIONS.
The military situation at the time of the occupation of Pretoria
was roughly as follows. Lord Roberts with some thirty thousand men
was in possession of the capital, but had left his long line of
communications very imperfectly guarded behind him. On the flank of
this line of communications, in the eastern and north-eastern
corner of the Free State, was an energetic force of unconquered
Freestaters who had rallied round President Steyn.
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