Next Instant The
Curtain Had Closed Once More, But All Who Had Caught A Glimpse Of
That Vision Knew That A Stern Struggle Was At Hand.
At this moment two guns of the 84th battery under Major Guinness
were in action against Boer riflemen.
As a rear screen on the
farther side of the guns was a body of the Scottish Horse and of
the Yorkshire Mounted Infantry. Near the guns themselves were
thirty men of the Buffs. The rest of the Buffs and of the Mounted
Infantry were out upon the flanks or else were with the advance
guard, which was now engaged, under the direction of Colonel
Wools-Sampson, in parking the convoy and in forming the camp. These
troops played a small part in the day's fighting, the whole force
of which broke with irresistible violence upon the few hundred men
who were in front of or around the rear guns. Colonel Benson seems
to have just ridden back to the danger point when the Boers
delivered their furious attack.
Louis Botha with his commando is said to have ridden sixty miles in
order to join the forces of Grobler and Oppermann, and overwhelm
the British column. It may have been the presence of their
commander or a desire to have vengeance for the harrying which they
had undergone upon the Natal border, but whatever the reason, the
Boer attack was made with a spirit and dash which earned the
enthusiastic applause of every soldier who survived to describe it.
With the low roar of a great torrent, several hundred horsemen
burst through the curtain of mist, riding at a furious pace for the
British guns. The rear screen of Mounted Infantry fell back before
this terrific rush, and the two bodies of horsemen came pell-mell
down upon the handful of Buffs and the guns. The infantry were
ridden into and surrounded by the Boers, who found nothing to stop
them from galloping on to the low ridge upon which the guns were
stationed. This ridge was held by eighty of the Scottish Horse and
forty of the Yorkshire M.I., with a few riflemen from the 25th
Mounted Infantry. The latter were the escort of the guns, but the
former were the rear screen who had fallen back rapidly because it
was the game to do so, but who were in no way shaken, and who
instantly dismounted and formed when they reached a defensive
position.
These men had hardly time to take up their ground when the Boers
were on them. With that extraordinary quickness to adapt their
tactics to circumstances which is the chief military virtue of the
Boers, the horsemen did not gallop over the crest, but lined the
edge of it, and poured a withering fire on to the guns and the men
beside them. The heroic nature of the defence can be best shown by
the plain figures of the casualties. No rhetoric is needed to adorn
that simple record. There were thirty-two gunners round the guns,
and twenty-nine fell where they stood. Major Guinness was mortally
wounded while endeavouring with his own hands to fire a round of
case. There were sixty-two casualties out of eighty among the
Scottish Horse, and the Yorkshires were practically annihilated.
Altogether 123 men fell, out of about 160 on the ridge. 'Hard
pounding, gentlemen,' as Wellington remarked at Waterloo, and
British troops seemed as ready as ever to endure it.
The gunners were, as usual, magnificent. Of the two little
bullet-pelted groups of men around the guns there was not one who
did not stand to his duty without flinching. Corporal Atkin was
shot down with all his comrades, but still endeavoured with his
failing strength to twist the breech-block out of the gun. Another
bullet passed through his upraised hands as he did it. Sergeant
Hayes, badly wounded, and the last survivor of the crew, seized the
lanyard, crawled up the trail, and fired a last round before he
fainted. Sergeant Mathews, with three bullets through him, kept
steadily to his duty. Five drivers tried to bring up a limber and
remove the gun, but all of them, with all the horses, were hit.
There have been incidents in this war which have not increased our
military reputation, but you might search the classical records of
valour and fail to find anything finer than the consistent conduct
of the British artillery.
Colonel Benson was hit in the knee and again in the stomach, but
wounded as he was he despatched a message back to Wools-Sampson,
asking him to burst shrapnel over the ridge so as to prevent the
Boers from carrying off the guns. The burghers had ridden in among
the litter of dead and wounded men which marked the British
position, and some of the baser of them, much against the will of
their commanders, handled the injured soldiers with great
brutality. The shell-fire drove them back, however, and the two
guns were left standing alone, with no one near them save their
prostrate gunners and escort.
There has been some misunderstanding as to the part played by the
Buffs in this action, and words have been used which seem to imply
that they had in some way failed their mounted companions. It is
due to the honour of one of the finest regiments in the British
army to clear this up. As a matter of fact, the greater part of the
regiment under Major Dauglish was engaged in defending the camp.
Near the guns there were four separate small bodies of Buffs, none
of which appears to have been detailed as an escort. One of these
parties, consisting of thirty men under Lieutenant Greatwood, was
ridden over by the horsemen, and the same fate befell a party of
twenty who were far out upon the flank. Another small body under
Lieutenant Lynch was over taken by the same charge, and was
practically destroyed, losing nineteen killed and wounded out of
thirty.
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