At each end of the long ridge the situation at the
dawn of day was almost identical. In each the stormers had seized
one side, but were brought to a stand by the defenders upon the
other, while the British guns fired over the heads of their own
infantry to rake the further slope.
It was on the Waggon Hill side, however, that the Boer exertions
were most continuous and strenuous and our own resistance most
desperate. There fought the gallant de Villiers, while Ian Hamilton
rallied the defenders and led them in repeated rushes against the
enemy's line. Continually reinforced from below, the Boers fought
with extraordinary resolution. Never will any one who witnessed
that Homeric contest question the valour of our foes. It was a
murderous business on both sides. Edwardes of the Light Horse was
struck down. In a gun-emplacement a strange encounter took place at
point-blank range between a group of Boers and of Britons. De
Villiers of the Free State shot Miller-Wallnut dead, Ian Hamilton
fired at de Villiers with his revolver and missed him. Young
Albrecht of the Light Horse shot de Villiers. A Boer named de
Jaeger shot Albrecht. Digby-Jones of the Sappers shot de Jaeger.
Only a few minutes later the gallant lad, who had already won fame
enough for a veteran, was himself mortally wounded, and Dennis, his
comrade in arms and in glory, fell by his side.
There has been no better fighting in our time than that upon Waggon
Hill on that January morning, and no better fighters than the
Imperial Light Horsemen who formed the centre of the defence. Here,
as at Elandslaagte, they proved themselves worthy to stand in line
with the crack regiments of the British army.
Through the long day the fight maintained its equilibrium along the
summit of the ridge, swaying a little that way or this, but never
amounting to a repulse of the stormers or to a rout of the
defenders. So intermixed were the combatants that a wounded man
more than once found himself a rest for the rifles of his enemies.
One unfortunate soldier in this position received six more bullets
from his own comrades in their efforts to reach the deadly rifleman
behind him. At four o'clock a huge bank of clouds which had towered
upwards unheeded by the struggling men burst suddenly into a
terrific thunderstorm with vivid lightnings and lashing rain. It is
curious that the British victory at Elandslaagte was heralded by
just such another storm. Up on the bullet-swept hill the long
fringes of fighting men took no more heed of the elements than
would two bulldogs who have each other by the throat. Up the greasy
hillside, foul with mud and with blood, came the Boer reserves, and
up the northern slope came our own reserve, the Devon Regiment, fit
representatives of that virile county.
