The Low Kopjes In Front
Of Them Were Blazing With Musketry Fire.
The brigade held its own,
but lost the Brigadier (the second in a month) and 150 rank and
file.
Next morning the main body of the infantry was passed across,
and the army was absolutely committed to the formidable and
unnecessary enterprise of fighting its way straight to Ladysmith.
The force in front had weakened, however, both in numbers and in
morale. Some thousands of the Freestaters had left in order to
defend their own country from the advance of Roberts, while the
rest were depressed by as much of the news as was allowed by their
leaders to reach them. But the Boer is a tenacious fighter, and
many a brave man was still to fall before Buller and White should
shake hands in the High Street of Ladysmith.
The first obstacle which faced the army, after crossing the river,
was a belt of low rolling ground, which was gradually cleared by
the advance of our infantry. As night closed in the advance lines
of Boers and British were so close to each other that incessant
rifle fire was maintained until morning, and at more than one point
small bodies of desperate riflemen charged right up to the bayonets
of our infantry. The morning found us still holding our positions
all along the line, and as more and more of our infantry came up
and gun after gun roared into action we began to push our stubborn
enemy northwards. On the 21st the Dorsets, Middlesex, and Somersets
had borne the heat of the day. On the 22nd it was the Royal
Lancasters, followed by the South Lancashires, who took up the
running. It would take the patience and also the space of a
Kinglake in this scrambling broken fight to trace the doings of
those groups of men who strove and struggled through the rifle
fire. All day a steady advance was maintained over the low kopjes,
until by evening we were faced by the more serious line of the
Pieter's Hills. The operations had been carried out with a monotony
of gallantry. Always the same extended advance, always the same
rattle of Mausers and clatter of pom-poms from a ridge, always the
same victorious soldiers on the barren crest, with a few crippled
Boers before them and many crippled comrades behind. They were
expensive triumphs, and yet every one brought them nearer to their
goal. And now, like an advancing tide, they lapped along the base
of Pieter's Hill. Could they gather volume enough to carry
themselves over? The issue of the long-drawn battle and the fate of
Ladysmith hung upon the question.
Brigadier Fitzroy Hart, to whom the assault was entrusted, is in
some ways as singular and picturesque a type as has been evolved in
the war. A dandy soldier, always the picture of neatness from the
top of his helmet to the heels of his well-polished brown boots, he
brings to military matters the same precision which he affects in
dress. Pedantic in his accuracy, he actually at the battle of
Colenso drilled the Irish Brigade for half an hour before leading
them into action, and threw out markers under a deadly fire in
order that his change from close to extended formation might be
academically correct. The heavy loss of the Brigade at this action
was to some extent ascribed to him and affected his popularity; but
as his men came to know him better, his romantic bravery, his
whimsical soldierly humour, their dislike changed into admiration.
His personal disregard for danger was notorious and reprehensible.
'Where is General Hart?' asked some one in action. 'I have not seen
him, but I know where you will find him. Go ahead of the skirmish
line and you will see him standing on a rock,' was the answer. He
bore a charmed life. It was a danger to be near him. 'Whom are you
going to?' 'General Hart,' said the aide-de-camp. 'Then good-bye!'
cried his fellows. A grim humour ran through his nature. It is
gravely recorded and widely believed that he lined up a regiment on
a hill-top in order to teach them not to shrink from fire. Amid the
laughter of his Irishmen, he walked through the open files of his
firing line holding a laggard by the ear. This was the man who had
put such a spirit into the Irish Brigade that amid that army of
valiant men there were none who held such a record. 'Their rushes
were the quickest, their rushes were the longest, and they stayed
the shortest time under cover,' said a shrewd military observer. To
Hart and his brigade was given the task of clearing the way to
Ladysmith.
The regiments which he took with him on his perilous enterprise
were the 1st Inniskilling Fusiliers, the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, the
1st Connaught Rangers, and the Imperial Light Infantry, the whole
forming the famous 5th Brigade. They were already in the extreme
British advance, and now, as they moved forwards, the Durham Light
Infantry and the 1st Rifle Brigade from Lyttelton's Brigade came up
to take their place. The hill to be taken lay on the right, and the
soldiers were compelled to pass in single file under a heavy fire
for more than a mile until they reached the spot which seemed best
for their enterprise. There, short already of sixty of their
comrades, they assembled and began a cautious advance upon the
lines of trenches and sangars which seamed the brown slope above
them.
For a time they were able to keep some cover, and the casualties
were comparatively few. But now at last, as the evening sun threw a
long shadow from the hills, the leading regiment, the
Inniskillings, found themselves at the utmost fringe of boulders
with a clear slope between them and the main trench of the enemy.
Up there where the shrapnel was spurting and the great lyddite
shells crashing they could dimly see a line of bearded faces and
the black dots of the slouch hats.
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