He Exposed Himself To The
Fire Of Half A Battalion While Doing So, But He Probably Was Aware
That With Our Present Musketry Instruction The Fire Of A British
Half-Battalion Against An Individual Is Not A Very Serious Matter.
The remainder of the 23rd was spent at Belmont Camp, and next
morning an advance was made to Enslin, some ten miles further on.
Here lay the plain of Enslin, bounded by a formidable line of
kopjes as dangerous as those of Belmont.
Lancers and Rimington's
Scouts, the feeble but very capable cavalry of the Army, came in
with the report that the hills were strongly held. Some more hard
slogging was in front of the relievers of Kimberley.
The advance had been on the line of the Cape Town to Kimberley
Railway, and the damage done to it by the Boers had been repaired
to the extent of permitting an armoured train with a naval gun to
accompany the troops. It was six o' clock upon the morning of
Saturday the 25th that this gun came into action against the
kopjes, closely followed by the guns of the field artillery. One of
the lessons of the war has been to disillusion us as to the effect
of shrapnel fire. Positions which had been made theoretically
untenable have again and again been found to be most inconveniently
tenanted. Among the troops actually engaged the confidence in the
effect of shrapnel fire has steadily declined with their
experience. Some other method of artillery fire than the curving
bullet from an exploding shrapnel shell must be devised for dealing
with men who lie close among boulders and behind cover.
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