Seldom Has A General Found Himself In A More Trying Position Than
Clements, Or Extricated Himself More Honourably.
Not only had he
lost nearly half his force, but his camp was no longer tenable, and
his whole army was commanded by the fringe of deadly rifles upon
the cliff.
From the berg to the camp was from 800 to 1000 yards,
and a sleet of bullets whistled down upon it. How severe was the
fire may be gauged from the fact that the little pet monkey
belonging to the yeomanry - a small enough object - was hit three
times, though he lived to survive as a battle-scarred veteran.
Those wounded in the early action found themselves in a terrible
position, laid out in the open under a withering fire, 'like
helpless Aunt Sallies,' as one of them described it. 'We must get a
red flag up, or we shall be blown off the face of the earth,' says
the same correspondent, a corporal of the Ceylon Mounted Infantry.
'We had a pillow-case, but no red paint. Then we saw what would do
instead, so they made the upright with my blood, and the horizontal
with Paul's.' It is pleasant to add that this grim flag was
respected by the Boers. Bullocks and mules fell in heaps, and it
was evident that the question was not whether the battle could be
restored, but whether the guns could be saved. Leaving a fringe of
yeomen, mounted infantry, and Kitchener's Horse to stave off the
Boers, who were already descending by the same steep kloof up which
the yeomen had climbed, the General bent all his efforts to getting
the big naval gun out of danger. Only six oxen were left out of a
team of forty, and so desperate did the situation appear that twice
dynamite was placed beneath the gun to destroy it. Each time,
however, the General intervened, and at last, under a stimulating
rain of pom-pom shells, the great cannon lurched slowly forward,
quickening its pace as the men pulled on the drag-ropes, and the
six oxen broke into a wheezy canter. Its retreat was covered by the
smaller guns which rained shrapnel upon the crest of the hill, and
upon the Boers who were descending to the camp. Once the big gun
was out of danger, the others limbered up and followed, their rear
still covered by the staunch mounted infantry, with whom rest all
the honours of the battle. Cookson and Brooks with 250 men stood
for hours between Clements and absolute disaster. The camp was
abandoned as it stood, and all the stores, four hundred picketed
horses, and, most serious of all, two wagons of ammunition, fell
into the hands of the victors. To have saved all his guns, however,
after the destruction of half his force by an active enemy far
superior to him in numbers and in mobility, was a feat which goes
far to condone the disaster, and to increase rather than to impair
the confidence which his troops feel in General Clements.
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