It Is Worthy Of Remark That In This
Battle The Three Field Batteries Engaged, As Well As G Battery,
R.H.A., Each Fired Over 1000 Rounds And Remained For 30 Consecutive
Hours Within 1500 Yards Of The Boer Position.
But of all the corps who deserve praise, there was none more
gallant than the brave surgeons and ambulance
Bearers, who
encounter all the dangers and enjoy none of the thrills of warfare.
All day under fire these men worked and toiled among the wounded.
Beevor, Ensor, Douglas, Probyn - all were equally devoted. It is
almost incredible, and yet it is true, that by ten o'clock on the
morning after the battle, before the troops had returned to camp,
no fewer than five hundred wounded were in the train and on their
way to Cape Town.
CHAPTER 10.
THE BATTLE OF STORMBERG.
Some attempt has now been made to sketch the succession of events
which had ended in the investment of Ladysmith in northern Natal,
and also to show the fortunes of the force which on the western
side of the seat of war attempted to advance to the relief of
Kimberley. The distance between these forces may be expressed in
terms familiar to the European reader by saying that it was that
which separates Paris from Frankfort, or to the American by
suggesting that Ladysmith was at Boston and that Methuen was trying
to relieve Philadelphia. Waterless deserts and rugged mountain
ranges divided the two scenes of action. In the case of the British
there could be no connection between the two movements, but the
Boers by a land journey of something over a hundred miles had a
double choice of a route by which Cronje and Joubert might join
hands, either by the Bloemfontein-Johannesburg-Laing's Nek Railway,
or by the direct line from Harrismith to Ladysmith.
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