The Army Had Been Reinforced The Night Before By The Welcome
Addition Of The Argyll And Sutherland Highlanders, Which Made Up
For The Losses Of The Week.
It was a cloudless morning, and a
dazzling sun rose in a deep blue sky.
The men, though hungry,
marched cheerily, the reek of their tobacco-pipes floating up from
their ranks. It cheered them to see that the murderous kopjes had,
for the time, been left behind, and that the great plain inclined
slightly downwards to where a line of green showed the course of
the river. On the further bank were a few scattered buildings, with
one considerable hotel, used as a week-end resort by the
businessmen of Kimberley. It lay now calm and innocent, with its
open windows looking out upon a smiling garden; but death lurked at
the windows and death in the garden, and the little dark man who
stood by the door, peering through his glass at the approaching
column, was the minister of death, the dangerous Cronje. In
consultation with him was one who was to prove even more
formidable, and for a longer time. Semitic in face, high-nosed,
bushy-bearded, and eagle-eyed, with skin burned brown by a life of
the veld - it was De la Rey, one of the trio of fighting chiefs
whose name will always be associated with the gallant resistance of
the Boers. He was there as adviser, but Cronje was in supreme
command.
His dispositions had been both masterly and original. Contrary to
the usual military practice in the defence of rivers, he had
concealed his men upon both banks, placing, as it is stated, those
in whose staunchness he had least confidence upon the British side
of the river, so that they could only retreat under the rifles of
their inexorable companions. The trenches had been so dug with such
a regard for the slopes of the ground that in some places a triple
line of fire was secured. His artillery, consisting of several
heavy pieces and a number of machine guns (including one of the
diabolical 'pompoms'), was cleverly placed upon the further side of
the stream, and was not only provided with shelter pits but had
rows of reserve pits, so that the guns could be readily shifted
when their range was found. Rows of trenches, a broadish river,
fresh rows of trenches, fortified houses, and a good artillery well
worked and well placed, it was a serious task which lay in front of
the gallant little army. The whole position covered between four
and five miles.
An obvious question must here occur to the mind of every
non-military reader - Why should this position be attacked at all?
Why should we not cross higher up where there were no such
formidable obstacles?' The answer, so far as one can answer it,
must be that so little was known of the dispositions of our enemy
that we were hopelessly involved in the action before we knew of
it, and that then it was more dangerous to extricate the army than
to push the attack. A retirement over that open plain at a range of
under a thousand yards would have been a dangerous and disastrous
movement. Having once got there, it was wisest and best to see it
through.
The dark Cronje still waited reflective in the hotel garden. Across
the veld streamed the lines of infantry, the poor fellows eager,
after seven miles of that upland air, for the breakfast which had
been promised them. It was a quarter to seven when our patrols of
Lancers were fired upon. There were Boers, then, between them and
their meal! The artillery was ordered up, the Guards were sent
forward on the right, the 9th Brigade under Pole-Carew on the left,
including the newly arrived Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. They
swept onwards into the fatal fire zone - and then, and only then,
there blazed out upon them four miles of rifles, cannon, and
machine guns, and they realised, from general to private, that they
had walked unwittingly into the fiercest battle yet fought in the
war.
Before the position was understood the Guards were within seven
hundred yards of the Boer trenches, and the other troops about nine
hundred, on the side of a very gentle slope which made it most
difficult to find any cover. In front of them lay a serene
landscape, the river, the houses, the hotel, no movement of men, no
smoke - everything peaceful and deserted save for an occasional
quick flash and sparkle of flame. But the noise was horrible and
appalling. Men whose nerves had been steeled to the crash of the
big guns, or the monotonous roar of Maxims and the rattle of Mauser
fire, found a new terror in the malignant 'ploop-plooping' of the
automatic quick-firer. The Maxim of the Scots Guards was caught in
the hell-blizzard from this thing - each shell no bigger than a
large walnut, but flying in strings of a score - and men and gun
were destroyed in an instant. As to the rifle bullets the air was
humming and throbbing with them, and the sand was mottled like a
pond in a shower. To advance was impossible, to retire was hateful.
The men fell upon their faces and huddled close to the earth, too
happy if some friendly ant-heap gave them a precarious shelter. And
always, tier above tier, the lines of rifle fire rippled and
palpitated in front of them. The infantry fired also, and fired,
and fired - but what was there to fire at? An occasional eye and
hand over the edge of a trench or behind a stone is no mark at
seven hundred yards. It would be instructive to know how many
British bullets found a billet that day.
The cavalry was useless, the infantry was powerless - there only
remained the guns. When any arm is helpless and harried it always
casts an imploring eye upon the guns, and rarely indeed is it that
the gallant guns do not respond.
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