The Result Of
This Attack Was Peculiarly Disastrous.
It was made at night, and as
soon as it developed, the Boers retreated to the trenches on the
crest of the hill, and threw men around the sides to bring a cross-
fire to bear on the Englishmen.
In the morning the Inniskillings
found they had lost four hundred men, and ten out of their fifteen
officers. The other regiments lost as heavily. The following
Tuesday, which was the anniversary of Majuba Hill, three brigades,
instead of a regiment, were told off to take this same Railway Hill,
or Pieter's, as it was later called, on the flank, and with it to
capture two others. On the same day, nineteen years before, the
English had lost Majuba Hill, and their hope was to take these three
from the Boers for the one they had lost, and open the way to Bulwana
Mountain, which was the last bar that held them back from Ladysmith.
The first two of the three hills they wanted were shoulder to
shoulder, the third was separated from them by a deep ravine. This
last was the highest, and in order that the attack should be
successful, it was necessary to seize it first. The hills stretched
for three miles; they were about one thousand two hundred yards high.
For three hours a single line of men slipped and stumbled forward
along the muddy bank of the river, and for three hours the artillery
crashed, spluttered, and stabbed at the three hills above them,
scattering the rocks and bursting over and behind the Boer trenches
on the crest.
As is their custom, the Boers remained invisible and made no reply.
And though we knew they were there, it seemed inconceivable that
anything human could live under such a bombardment of shot, bullets,
and shrapnel. A hundred yards distant, on our right, the navy guns
were firing lyddite that burst with a thick yellow smoke; on the
other side Colt automatics were put-put-put-ing a stream of bullets;
the field-guns and the howitzers were playing from a hill half a mile
behind us, and scattered among the rocks about us, and for two miles
on either hand, the infantry in reserve were firing off ammunition at
any part of the three hills they happened to dislike!
The roar of the navy's Four-Point-Sevens, their crash, their rush as
they passed, the shrill whine of the shrapnel, the barking of the
howitzers, and the mechanical, regular rattle of the quick-firing
Maxims, which sounded like the clicking of many mowing-machines on a
hot summer's day, tore the air with such hideous noises that one's
skull ached from the concussion, and one could only be heard by
shouting. But more impressive by far than this hot chorus of mighty
thunder and petty hammering, was the roar of the wind which was
driven down into the valley beneath, and which swept up again in
enormous waves of sound. It roared like a wild hurricane at sea.
The illusion was so complete, that you expected, by looking down, to
see the Tugela lashing at her banks, tossing the spray hundreds of
feet in air, and battling with her sides of rock. It was like the
roar of Niagara in a gale, and yet when you did look below, not a
leaf was stirring, and the Tugela was slipping forward, flat and
sluggish, and in peace.
The long procession of yellow figures was still advancing along the
bottom of the valley, toward the right, when on the crest of the
farthermost hill fourteen of them appeared suddenly, and ran forward
and sprang into the trenches.
Perched against the blue sky on the highest and most distant of the
three hills, they looked terribly lonely and insufficient, and they
ran about, this way and that, as though they were very much surprised
to find themselves where they were. Then they settled down into the
Boer trench, from our side of it, and began firing, their officer, as
his habit is, standing up behind them. The hill they had taken had
evidently been abandoned to them by the enemy, and the fourteen men
in khaki had taken it by "default." But they disappeared so suddenly
into the trench, that we knew they were not enjoying their new
position in peace, and every one looked below them, to see the
arriving reinforcements. They came at last, to the number of ten,
and scampered about just as the others had done, looking for cover.
It seemed as if we could almost hear the singing of the bullet when
one of them dodged, and it was with a distinct sense of relief, and
of freedom from further responsibility, that we saw the ten disappear
also, and become part of the yellow stones about them. Then a very
wonderful movement began to agitate the men upon the two remaining
hills. They began to creep up them as you have seen seaweed rise
with the tide and envelop a rock. They moved in regiments, but each
man was as distinct as is a letter of the alphabet in each word on
this page, black with letters. We began to follow the fortunes of
individual letters. It was a most selfish and cowardly occupation,
for you knew you were in no greater danger than you would be in
looking through the glasses of a mutoscope. The battle unrolled
before you like a panorama. The guns on our side of the valley had
ceased, the hurricane in the depths below had instantly spent itself,
and the birds and insects had again begun to fill our hill with
drowsy twitter and song. But on the other, half the men were
wrapping the base of the hill in khaki, which rose higher and higher,
growing looser and less tightly wrapt as it spun upward. Halfway to
the crest there was a broad open space of green grass, and above that
a yellow bank of earth, which supported the track of the railroad.
This green space spurted with tiny geysers of yellow dust.
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