A Hundred, Two, Three, Four, Five
Hundred Paces Were Taken.
They knew that they must be close upon
the trenches.
If they could only creep silently enough, they might
spring upon the defenders unannounced. On and on they stole, step
by step, praying for silence. Would the gentle shuffle of feet be
heard by the men who lay within stone-throw of them? Their hopes
had begun to rise when there broke upon the silence of the night a
resonant metallic rattle, the thud of a falling man, an empty
clatter! They had walked into a line of meat-cans slung upon a
wire. By measurement it was only ninety yards from the trench. At
that instant a single rifle sounded, and the Canadians hurled
themselves down upon the ground. Their bodies had hardly touched it
when from a line six hundred yards long there came one furious
glare of rifle fire, with a hiss like water on a red-hot plate, of
speeding bullets. In that terrible red light the men as they lay
and scraped desperately for cover could see the heads of the Boers
pop up and down, and the fringe of rifle barrels quiver and gleam.
How the regiment, lying helpless under this fire, escaped
destruction is extraordinary. To rush the trench in the face of
such a continuous blast of lead seemed impossible, and it was
equally impossible to remain where they were. In a short time the
moon would be up, and they would be picked off to a man. The outer
companies upon the plain were ordered to retire. Breaking up into
loose order, they made their way back with surprisingly little
loss; but a strange contretemps occurred, for, leaping suddenly
into a trench held by the Gordons, they transfixed themselves upon
the bayonets of the men. A subaltern and twelve men received
bayonet thrusts - none of them fortunately of a very serious nature.
While these events had been taking place upon the left of the line,
the right was hardly in better plight. All firing had ceased for
the moment - the Boers being evidently under the impression that the
whole attack had recoiled. Uncertain whether the front of the small
party on the right of the second line (now consisting of some
sixty-five Sappers and Canadians lying in one mingled line) was
clear for firing should the Boers leave their trenches, Captain
Boileau, of the Sappers, crawled forward along the bank of the
river, and discovered Captain Stairs and ten men of the Canadians,
the survivors of the firing line, firmly ensconced in a crevice of
the river bank overlooking the laager, quite happy on being
reassured as to the proximity of support. This brought the total
number of the daring band up to seventy-five rifles. Meanwhile, the
Gordons, somewhat perplexed by the flying phantoms who had been
flitting into and over their trenches for the past few minutes,
sent a messenger along the river bank to ascertain, in their turn,
if their own front was clear to fire, and if not, what state the
survivors were in.
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