This Was To Gain
Possession Of The Big 5-Inch Gun, Which Is As Helpless By Night As
It Is Formidable By Day.
At Helvetia they attained their object and
even succeeded not merely in destroying, but in removing their
gigantic trophy.
At Belfast they would have performed the same feat
had it not been for the foresight of General Smith-Dorrien, who had
the heavy gun trundled back into the town every night.
The attack broke first upon Monument Hill, a post held by Captain
Fosbery with eighty-three Royal Irish. Chance or treason guided the
Boers to the weak point of the wire entanglement and they surged
into the fort, where the garrison fought desperately to hold its
own. There was thick mist and driving rain; and the rush of vague
and shadowy figures amid the gloom was the first warning of the
onslaught. The Irishmen were overborne by a swarm of assailants,
but they nobly upheld their traditional reputation. Fosbery met his
death like a gallant gentleman, but not more heroically than Barry,
the humble private, who, surrounded by Boers, thought neither of
himself nor of them, but smashed at the maxim gun with a pickaxe
until he fell riddled with bullets. Half the garrison were on the
ground before the post was carried.
A second post upon the other side of the town was defended by
Lieutenant Marshall with twenty men, mostly Shropshires. For an
hour they held out until Marshall and nine out of his twelve
Shropshires had been hit.
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