It Was Thought That The Hill Was More Accessible From That
Side.
The Leicesters and one field battery - the 67th - were left
behind to protect the camp and to watch the Newcastle Road upon the
west.
At seven in the morning all was ready for the assault.
Two military facts of importance had already been disclosed. One
was that the Boer percussion-shells were useless in soft ground, as
hardly any of them exploded; the other that the Boer guns could
outrange our ordinary fifteen-pounder field gun, which had been the
one thing perhaps in the whole British equipment upon which we were
prepared to pin our faith. The two batteries, the 13th and the
69th, were moved nearer, first to 3000, and then at last to 2300
yards, at which range they quickly dominated the guns upon the
hill. Other guns had opened from another crest to the east of
Talana, but these also were mastered by the fire of the 13th
Battery. At 7.30 the infantry were ordered to advance, which they
did in open order, extended to ten paces. The Dublin Fusiliers
formed the first line, the Rifles the second, and the Irish
Fusiliers the third.
The first thousand yards of the advance were over open grassland,
where the range was long, and the yellow brown of the khaki blended
with the withered veld. There were few casualties until the wood
was reached, which lay halfway up the long slope of the hill. It
was a plantation of larches, some hundreds of yards across and
nearly as many deep. On the left side of this wood - that is, the
left side to the advancing troops - there stretched a long nullah or
hollow, which ran perpendicularly to the hill, and served rather as
a conductor of bullets than as a cover. So severe was the fire at
this point that both in the wood and in the nullah the troops lay
down to avoid it. An officer of Irish Fusiliers has narrated how in
trying to cut the straps from a fallen private a razor lent him for
that purpose by a wounded sergeant was instantly shot out of his
hand. The gallant Symons, who had refused to dismount, was shot
through the stomach and fell from his horse mortally wounded. With
an excessive gallantry, he had not only attracted the enemy's fire
by retaining his horse, but he had been accompanied throughout the
action by an orderly bearing a red pennon. 'Have they got the hill?
Have they got the hill?' was his one eternal question as they
carried him dripping to the rear. It was at the edge of the wood
that Colonel Sherston met his end.
From now onwards it was as much a soldiers' battle as Inkermann. In
the shelter of the wood the more eager of the three battalions had
pressed to the front until the fringe of the trees was lined by men
from all of them. The difficulty of distinguishing particular
regiments where all were clad alike made it impossible in the heat
of action to keep any sort of formation. So hot was the fire that
for the time the advance was brought to a standstill, but the 69th
battery, firing shrapnel at a range of 1400 yards, subdued the
rifle fire, and about half-past eleven the infantry were able to
push on once more.
Above the wood there was an open space some hundreds of yards
across, bounded by a rough stone wall built for herding cattle. A
second wall ran at right angles to this down towards the wood. An
enfilading rifle fire had been sweeping across this open space, but
the wall in front does not appear to have been occupied by the
enemy, who held the kopje above it. To avoid the cross fire the
soldiers ran in single file under the shelter of the wall, which
covered them to the right, and so reached the other wall across
their front. Here there was a second long delay, the men dribbling
up from below, and firing over the top of the wall and between the
chinks of the stones. The Dublin Fusiliers, through being in a more
difficult position, had been unable to get up as quickly as the
others, and most of the hard-breathing excited men who crowded
under the wall were of the Rifles and of the Irish Fusiliers. The
air was so full of bullets that it seemed impossible to live upon
the other side of this shelter. Two hundred yards intervened
between the wall and the crest of the kopje. And yet the kopje had
to be cleared if the battle were to be won.
Out of the huddled line of crouching men an officer sprang
shouting, and a score of soldiers vaulted over the wall and
followed at his heels. It was Captain Connor, of the Irish
Fusiliers, but his personal magnetism carried up with him some of
the Rifles as well as men of his own command. He and half his
little forlorn hope were struck down - he, alas! to die the same
night - but there were other leaders as brave to take his place.
'Forrard away, men, forrard away!' cried Nugent, of the Rifles.
Three bullets struck him, but he continued to drag himself up the
boulder-studded hill. Others followed, and others, from all sides
they came running, the crouching, yelling, khaki-clad figures, and
the supports rushed up from the rear. For a time they were beaten
down by their own shrapnel striking into them from behind, which is
an amazing thing when one considers that the range was under 2000
yards. It was here, between the wall and the summit, that Colonel
Gunning, of the Rifles, and many other brave men met their end,
some by our own bullets and some by those of the enemy; but the
Boers thinned away in front of them, and the anxious onlookers from
the plain below saw the waving helmets on the crest, and learned at
last that all was well.
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