The Heavy Guns Had Also
Arrived, And A Huge Cloud Of Debris Rising From The Pretorian Forts
Told The Accuracy Of Their Fire.
But either the burghers were half-hearted or there was no real
intention to make a stand.
About half-past two their fire slackened
and Pole-Carew was directed to push on. That debonnaire soldier
with his two veteran brigades obeyed the order with alacrity, and
the infantry swept over the ridge, with some thirty or forty
casualties, the majority of which fell to the Warwicks. The
position was taken, and Hamilton, who came up late, was only able
to send on De Lisle's mounted infantry, chiefly Australians, who
ran down one of the Boer maxims in the open. The action had cost us
altogether about seventy men. Among the injured was the Duke of
Norfolk, who had shown a high sense of civic virtue in laying aside
the duties and dignity of a Cabinet Minister in order to serve as a
simple captain of volunteers. At the end of this one fight the
capital lay at the mercy of Lord Roberts. Consider the fight which
they made for their chief city, compare it with that which the
British made for the village of Mafeking, and say on which side is
that stern spirit of self-sacrifice and resolution which are the
signs of the better cause.
In the early morning of June 5th, the Coldstream Guards were
mounting the hills which commanded the town. Beneath them in the
clear African air lay the famous city, embowered in green, the fine
central buildings rising grandly out of the wide circle of villas.
Through the Nek part of the Guards' Brigade and Maxwell's Brigade
had passed, and had taken over the station, from which at least one
train laden with horses had steamed that morning.
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