Sir George White Was Now Confronted With The Certainty Of An
Investment, An Event For Which Apparently No Preparation Had Been
Made, Since With An Open Railway Behind Him So Many Useless Mouths
Had Been Permitted To Remain In The Town.
Ladysmith lies in a
hollow and is dominated by a ring of hills, some near and some
distant.
The near ones were in our hands, but no attempt had been
made in the early days of the war to fortify and hold Bulwana,
Lombard's Kop, and the other positions from which the town might be
shelled. Whether these might or might not have been successfully
held has been much disputed by military men, the balance of opinion
being that Bulwana, at least, which has a water-supply of its own,
might have been retained. This question, however, was already
academic, as the outer hills were in the hands of the enemy. As it
was, the inner line - Caesar's Camp, Wagon Hill, Rifleman's Post,
and round to Helpmakaar Hill - made a perimeter of fourteen miles,
and the difficulty of retaining so extensive a line goes far to
exonerate General White, not only for abandoning the outer hills,
but also for retaining his cavalry in the town.
After the battle of Ladysmith and the retreat of the British, the
Boers in their deliberate but effective fashion set about the
investment of the town, while the British commander accepted the
same as inevitable, content if he could stem and hold back from the
colony the threatened flood of invasion. On Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, and Friday the commandoes gradually closed in upon the
south and east, harassed by some cavalry operations and
reconnaissances upon our part, the effect of which was much
exaggerated by the press. On Thursday, November 2nd, the last train
escaped under a brisk fire, the passengers upon the wrong side of
the seats. At 2 P.M. on the same day the telegraph line was cut,
and the lonely town settled herself somberly down to the task of
holding off the exultant Boers until the day - supposed to be
imminent - when the relieving army should appear from among the
labyrinth of mountains which lay to the south of them. Some there
were who, knowing both the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold
chill within their hearts as they asked themselves how an army was
to come through, but the greater number, from General to private,
trusted implicitly in the valour of their comrades and in the luck
of the British Army.
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. On the east of the town, broken by the loops
of the Klip River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent,
which furnished grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the
besieged. Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous
Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several smaller guns.
To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another Creusot, and between
the two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The British
naval guns were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed
by the river lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which
is most liable to assault. From thence all round the west down to
Besters in the south was a continuous series of hills, each crowned
with Boer guns, which, if they could not harm the distant town,
were at least effective in holding the garrison to its lines. So
formidable were these positions that, amid much outspoken
criticism, it has never been suggested that White would have been
justified with a limited garrison in incurring the heavy loss of
life which must have followed an attempt to force them.
The first few days of the siege were clouded by the death of
Lieutenant Egerton of the 'Powerful,' one of the most promising
officers in the Navy. One leg and the other foot were carried off,
as he lay upon the sandbag parapet watching the effect of our fire.
'There's an end of my cricket,' said the gallant sportsman, and he
was carried to the rear with a cigar between his clenched teeth.
On November 3rd a strong cavalry reconnaissance was pushed down the
Colenso road to ascertain the force which the enemy had in that
direction. Colonel Brocklehurst took with him the 18th and 19th
Hussars, the 5th Lancers and the 5th Dragoon Guards, with the Light
Horse and the Natal Volunteers.
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