The Charge Of The
Mounted Boers Was Supported By A Very Heavy Fire From A Covering
Party, And The Gun-Detachments Were Killed Or Wounded Almost To A
Man.
The lieutenant in charge and the sergeant were both upon the
ground.
So far as it is possible to reconstruct the action from the
confused accounts of excited eye-witnesses and from the exceedingly
obscure official report of General Dixon, there was no longer any
resistance round the guns, which were at once turned by their
captors upon the nearest British detachment.
The company of infantry which had helped to escort the guns proved
however to be worthy representatives of that historic branch of the
British service. They were northerners, men of Derbyshire and
Nottingham, the same counties which had furnished the brave militia
who had taken their punishment so gamely at Roodeval. Though
hustled and broken they re-formed and clung doggedly to their task,
firing at the groups of Boers who surrounded the guns. At the same
time word had been sent of their pressing need to the Scotch
Borderers and the Scottish Horse, who came swarming across the
valley to the succour of their comrades. Dixon had brought two guns
and a howitzer into action, which subdued the fire of the two
captured pieces, and the infantry, Derbys and Borderers, swept over
the position, retaking the two guns and shooting down those of the
enemy who tried to stand. The greater number vanished into the
smoke, which veiled their retreat as it had their advance.
Forty-one of them were left dead upon the ground. Six officers and
fifty men killed with about a hundred and twenty wounded made up
the British losses, to which two guns would certainly have been
added but for the gallant counter-attack of the infantry. With
Dargai and Vlakfontein to their credit the Derbys have green
laurels upon their war-worn colours. They share them on this
occasion with the Scottish Borderers, whose volunteer company
carried itself as stoutly as the regulars.
How is such an action to be summed up? To Kemp, the young Boer
leader, and his men belongs the credit of the capture of the guns;
to the British that of their recapture and of the final possession
of the field. The British loss was probably somewhat higher than
that of the Boers, but upon the other hand there could be no
question as to which side could afford loss the better. The Briton
could be replaced, but there were no reserves behind the fighting
line of the Boers.
There is one subject which cannot be ignored in discussing this
battle, however repugnant it may be. That is the shooting of some
of the British wounded who lay round the guns. There is no question
at all about the fact, which is attested by many independent
witnesses. There is reason to hope that some of the murderers paid
for their crimes with their lives before the battle was over. It is
pleasant to add that there is at least one witness to the fact that
Boer officers interfered with threats to prevent some of these
outrages. It is unfair to tarnish the whole Boer nation and cause
on account of a few irresponsible villains, who would be disowned
by their own decent comrades. Very many - too many - British soldiers
have known by experience what it is to fall into the hands of the
enemy, and it must be confessed that on the whole they have been
dealt with in no ungenerous spirit, while the British treatment of
the Boers has been unexampled in all military history for its
generosity and humanity. That so fair a tale should be darkened by
such ruffianly outrages is indeed deplorable, but the incident is
too well authenticated to be left unrecorded in any detailed
account of the campaign. General Dixon, finding the Boers very
numerous all round him, and being hampered by his wounded, fell
back upon Naauwpoort, which he reached on June 1st.
In May, Sir Bindon Blood, having returned to the line to refit,
made yet another cast through that thrice-harried belt of country
which contains Ermelo, Bethel, and Carolina, in which Botha,
Viljoen, and the fighting Boers had now concentrated. Working over
the blackened veld he swung round in the Barberton direction, and
afterwards made a westerly drive in conjunction with small columns
commanded by Walter Kitchener, Douglas, and Campbell of the Rifles,
while Colville, Garnett, and Bullock co-operated from the Natal
line. Again the results were disappointing when compared with the
power of the instrument employed. On July 5th he reached Springs,
near Johannesburg, with a considerable amount of stock, but with no
great number of prisoners. The elusive Botha had slipped away to
the south and was reported upon the Zululand border, while Viljoen
had succeeded in crossing the Delagoa line and winning back to his
old lair in the district north of Middelburg, from which he had
been evicted in April. The commandos were like those pertinacious
flies which buzz upwards when a hand approaches them, but only to
settle again in the same place. One could but try to make the place
less attractive than before.
Before Viljoen's force made its way over the line it had its
revenge for the long harrying it had undergone by a well-managed
night attack, in which it surprised and defeated a portion of
Colonel Beatson's column at a place called Wilmansrust, due south
of Middelburg, and between that town and Bethel. Beatson had
divided his force, and this section consisted of 850 of the 5th
Victorian Mounted Rifles, with thirty gunners and two pom-poms, the
whole under the command of Major Morris. Viljoen's force trekking
north towards the line came upon this detachment upon June 12th.
The British were aware of the presence of the enemy, but do not
appear to have posted any extra outposts or taken any special
precautions. Long months of commando chasing had imbued them too
much with the idea that these were fugitive sheep, and not fierce
and wily wolves, whom they were endeavouring to catch.
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