Woodgate,
The Lancashire Brigadier, And Blomfield Of The Fusiliers Led The
Way.
It was a severe climb of 2000 feet, coming after arduous work
over broken ground, but the affair was well-timed, and it was at
that blackest hour which precedes the dawn that the last steep
ascent was reached.
The Fusiliers crouched down among the rocks to
recover their breath, and saw far down in the plain beneath them
the placid lights which showed where their comrades were resting. A
fine rain was falling, and rolling clouds hung low over their
heads. The men with unloaded rifles and fixed bayonets stole on
once more, their bodies bent, their eyes peering through the mirk
for the first sign of the enemy - that enemy whose first sign has
usually been a shattering volley. Thorneycroft's men with their
gallant leader had threaded their way up into the advance. Then the
leading files found that they were walking on the level. The crest
had been gained.
With slow steps and bated breath, the open line of skirmishers
stole across it. Was it possible that it had been entirely
abandoned? Suddenly a raucous shout of 'Wie da?' came out of the
darkness, then a shot, then a splutter of musketry and a yell, as
the Fusiliers sprang onwards with their bayonets. The Boer post of
Vryheid burghers clattered and scrambled away into the darkness,
and a cheer that roused both the sleeping armies told that the
surprise had been complete and the position won.
In the grey light of the breaking day the men advanced along the
narrow undulating ridge, the prominent end of which they had
captured. Another trench faced them, but it was weakly held and
abandoned. Then the men, uncertain what remained beyond, halted and
waited for full light to see where they were, and what the work was
which lay before them - a fatal halt, as the result proved, and yet
one so natural that it is hard to blame the officer who ordered it.
Indeed, he might have seemed more culpable had he pushed blindly
on, and so lost the advantage which had been already gained.
About eight o'clock, with the clearing of the mist, General
Woodgate saw how matters stood. The ridge, one end of which he
held, extended away, rising and falling for some miles. Had he the
whole of the end plateau, and had he guns, he might hope to command
the rest of the position. But he held only half the plateau, and at
the further end of it the Boers were strongly entrenched. The Spion
Kop mountain was really the salient or sharp angle of the Boer
position, so that the British were exposed to a cross fire both
from the left and right. Beyond were other eminences which
sheltered strings of riflemen and several guns. The plateau which
the British held was very much narrower than was usually
represented in the press. In many places the possible front was not
much more than a hundred yards wide, and the troops were compelled
to bunch together, as there was not room for a single company to
take an extended formation. The cover upon this plateau was scanty,
far too scanty for the force upon it, and the shell
fire - especially the fire of the pom-poms - soon became very
murderous. To mass the troops under the cover of the edge of the
plateau might naturally suggest itself, but with great tactical
skill the Boer advanced line from Commandant Prinsloo's Heidelberg
and Carolina commandos kept so aggressive an attitude that the
British could not weaken the lines opposed to them. Their
skirmishers were creeping round too in such a way that the fire was
really coming from three separate points, left, centre, and. right,
and every corner of the position was searched by their bullets.
Early in the action the gallant Woodgate and many of his Lancashire
men were shot down. The others spread out and held on, firing
occasionally at the whisk of a rifle-barrel or the glimpse of a
broad-brimmed hat.
From morning to midday, the shell, Maxim, and rifle fire swept
across the kop in a continual driving shower. The British guns in
the plain below failed to localise the position of the enemy's, and
they were able to vent their concentrated spite upon the exposed
infantry. No blame attaches to the gunners for this, as a hill
intervened to screen the Boer artillery, which consisted of five
big guns and two pom-poms.
Upon the fall of Woodgate, Thorneycroft, who bore the reputation of
a determined fighter, was placed at the suggestion of Buller in
charge of the defence of the hill, and he was reinforced after noon
by Coke's brigade, the Middlesex, the Dorsets, and the Somersets,
together with the Imperial Light Infantry. The addition of this
force to the defenders of the plateau tended to increase the
casualty returns rather than the strength of the defence. Three
thousand more rifles could do nothing to check the fire of the
invisible cannon, and it was this which was the main source of the
losses, while on the other hand the plateau had become so cumbered
with troops that a shell could hardly fail to do damage. There was
no cover to shelter them and no room for them to extend. The
pressure was most severe upon the shallow trenches in the front,
which had been abandoned by the Boers and were held by the
Lancashire Fusiliers. They were enfiladed by rifle and cannon, and
the dead and wounded outnumbered the hale. So close were the
skirmishers that on at least one occasion Boer and Briton found
themselves on each side of the same rock. Once a handful of men,
tormented beyond endurance, sprang up as a sign that they had had
enough, but Thorneycroft, a man of huge physique, rushed forward to
the advancing Boers. 'You may go to hell!' he yelled. 'I command
here, and allow no surrender.
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