One Example Of That Historical Luck Was Ever Before Their Eyes In
The Shape Of Those Invaluable Naval Guns Which Had Arrived So
Dramatically At The Very Crisis Of The Fight, In Time To Check The
Monster On Pepworth Hill And To Cover The Retreat Of The Army.
But
for them the besieged must have lain impotent under the muzzles of
the huge Creusots.
But in spite of the naive claims put forward by
the Boers to some special Providence - a process which a friendly
German critic described as 'commandeering the Almighty' - it is
certain that in a very peculiar degree, in the early months of this
war there came again and again a happy chance, or a merciful
interposition, which saved the British from disaster. Now in this
first week of November, when every hill, north and south and east
and west, flashed and smoked, and the great 96-pound shells groaned
and screamed over the town, it was to the long thin 4.7's and to
the hearty bearded men who worked them, that soldiers and townsfolk
looked for help. These guns of Lambton's, supplemented by two
old-fashioned 6.3 howitzers manned by survivors from No. 10
Mountain Battery, did all that was possible to keep down the fire
of the heavy Boer guns. If they could not save, they could at least
hit back, and punishment is not so bad to bear when one is giving
as well as receiving.
By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established
their circle of fire.
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