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.
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