London to Ladysmith via Pretoria by Winston Spencer Churchill

W >> Winston Spencer Churchill >> London to Ladysmith via Pretoria

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20

'Look out!' we were told, 'they always follow that with a shell.' And so
they did, but it passed overhead without harming anyone. Again the
Vickers-Maxim flung its covey of projectiles. Again we crouched for the
following shell; but this time it did not come--immediately. I had seen
quite enough, however, so we bade our friends good luck--never good-bye
on active service--and hurried, slowly, on account of appearances, from
this unhealthy valley. As we reached our horses I saw another shell
burst among the infantry. After that there was another interval. Further
on we met a group of soldiers returning to their regiment One lad of
about nineteen was munching a biscuit. His right trouser leg was soaked
with blood, I asked whether he was wounded. 'No, sir; it's only blood
from an officer's head,' he answered, and went on--eating his biscuit.
Such were the fortunes for four days of the two brigades forming
Warren's left attack.

I have already written a general account of the final action of Spion
Kop on January 24, and have little to add. As soon as the news spread
through the camps that the British troops were occupying the top of the
mountain I hurried to Gun Hill, where the batteries were arrayed, and
watched the fight from a flank. The spectacle was inconsiderable but
significant. It was like a shadow peep-show. Along the mighty profile of
the hill a fringe of little black crotchets advanced. Then there were
brown and red smudges of dust from shells striking the ground and white
puffs from shrapnel bursting in the air--variations from the black and
white. Presently a stretcher borne by five tiny figures jerks slowly
forward, silhouetted on the sky-line; more shells; back goes the
stretcher laden, a thicker horizontal line than before. Then--a rush of
crotchets rearwards--one leading two mules, mules terrified, jibbing,
hanging back--all in silhouette one moment, the next all smudged with
dust cloud; God help the driver; shadows clear again; driver still
dragging mules--no, only one mule now; other figures still running
rearwards. Suddenly reinforcements arrive, hundreds of them; the whole
sky-line bristles with crotchets moving swiftly along it, bending
forward almost double, as if driving through a hailstorm. Thank heaven
for that--only just in time too--and then more smudges on the shadow
screen.

Sir Charles Warren was standing near me with his staff. One of his
officers came up and told me that they had been disturbed at breakfast
by a Boer shell, which had crashed through their waggon, killing a
servant and a horse. Presently the General himself saw me. I inquired
about the situation, and learned for the first time of General
Woodgate's wound--death it was then reported--and that Thorneycroft had
been appointed brigadier-general. 'We have put what we think is the best
fighting man in command regardless of seniority. We shall support him as
he may request. We can do no more.'

I will only relate one other incident--a miserable one. The day before
the attack on Spion Kop I had chanced to ride across the pontoon bridge.
I heard my name called, and saw the cheery face of a boy I had known at
Harrow--a smart, clean-looking young gentleman--quite the rough material
for Irregular Horse. He had just arrived and pushed his way to the
front; hoped, so he said, 'to get a job.' This morning they told me
that an unauthorised Press correspondent had been found among the killed
on the summit. At least they thought at first it was a Press
correspondent, for no one seemed to know him. A man had been found
leaning forward on his rifle, dead. A broken pair of field glasses,
shattered by the same shell that had killed their owner, bore the name
'M'Corquodale.' The name and the face flew together in my mind. It was
the last joined subaltern of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry--joined in
the evening shot at dawn.

Poor gallant young Englishman! he had soon 'got his job.' The great
sacrifice had been required of the Queen's latest recruit.

CHAPTER XIX

A FRESH EFFORT AND AN ARMY CHAPLAIN

Spearman's Hill: February 4, 1900

The first gleams of daylight crept underneath the waggon, and the
sleepers, closely packed for shelter from the rain showers, awoke. Those
who live under the conditions of a civilised city, who lie abed till
nine and ten of the clock in artificially darkened rooms, gain luxury at
the expense of joy. But the soldier, who fares simply, sleeps soundly,
and rises with the morning star, wakes in an elation of body and spirit
without an effort and with scarcely a yawn. There is no more delicious
moment in the day than this, when we light the fire and, while the
kettle boils, watch the dark shadows of the hills take form,
perspective, and finally colour, knowing that there is another whole day
begun, bright with chance and interest, and free from all cares. All
cares--for who can be worried about the little matters of humdrum life
when he may be dead before the night? Such a one was with us
yesterday--see, there is a spare mug for coffee in the mess--but now
gone for ever. And so it may be with us to-morrow. What does it matter
that this or that is misunderstood or perverted; that So-and-so is
envious and spiteful; that heavy difficulties obstruct the larger
schemes of life, clogging nimble aspiration with the mud of matters of
fact? Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the
caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else
may stand over, perhaps for ever. Existence is never so sweet as when it
is at hazard. The bright butterfly flutters in the sunshine, the
expression of the philosophy of Omar Khayyam, without the potations.

But we awoke on the morning of the 25th in most gloomy spirits. I had
seen the evacuation of Spion Kop during the night, and I did not doubt
that it would be followed by the abandonment of all efforts to turn the
Boer left from the passages of the Tugela at and near Trichardt's
Drift. Nor were these forebodings wrong. Before the sun was fairly risen
orders arrived, 'All baggage to move east of Venter's Spruit
immediately. Troops to be ready to turn out at thirty minutes' notice.'
General retreat, that was their meaning. Buller was withdrawing his
train as a preliminary to disengaging, if he could, the fighting
brigades, and retiring across the river. Buller! So it was no longer
Warren! The Commander-in-Chief had arrived, in the hour of misfortune,
to take all responsibility for what had befallen the army, to extricate
it, if possible, from its position of peril, to encourage the soldiers,
now a second time defeated without being beaten, to bear the
disappointment. Everyone knows how all this, that looked so difficult,
was successfully accomplished.

The army was irritated by the feeling that it had made sacrifices for
nothing. It was puzzled and disappointed by failure which it did not
admit nor understand. The enemy were flushed with success. The opposing
lines in many places were scarcely a thousand yards apart. As the
infantry retired the enemy would have commanding ground from which to
assail them at every point. Behind flowed the Tugela, a deep, rapid,
only occasionally fordable river, eighty-five yards broad, with
precipitous banks. We all prepared ourselves for a bloody and even
disastrous rearguard action. But now, I repeat, when things had come to
this pass, Buller took personal command. He arrived on the field calm,
cheerful, inscrutable as ever, rode hither and thither with a weary
staff and a huge notebook, gripped the whole business in his strong
hands, and so shook it into shape that we crossed the river in safety,
comfort, and good order, with most remarkable mechanical precision, and
without the loss of a single man or a pound of stores.

The fighting troops stood fast for two days, while the train of waggons
streamed back over the bridges and parked in huge black squares on the
southern bank. Then, on the night of the 26th, the retreat began. It was
pitch dark, and a driving rain veiled all lights. The ground was
broken. The enemy near. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more
difficult operation. But it was performed with amazing ease.
Buller himself--not Buller by proxy or Buller at the end of a
heliograph--Buller himself managed it. He was the man who gave orders,
the man whom the soldiers looked to. He had already transported his
train. At dusk he passed the Royals over the ford. By ten o'clock all
his cavalry and guns were across the pontoon bridges. At ten he began
disengaging his infantry, and by daylight the army stood in order on the
southern bank. While the sappers began to take the pontoon bridges to
pieces the Boers, who must have been astonished by the unusual rapidity
of the movement, fired their first shell at the crossing. We were over
the river none too soon.

A successful retreat is a poor thing for a relieving army to boast of
when their gallant friends are hard pressed and worn out. But this
withdrawal showed that this force possesses both a leader and machinery
of organisation, and it is this, and this alone, that has preserved our
confidence. We believe that Buller gauged the capacity of one
subordinate at Colenso, of another at Spion Kop, and that now he will do
things himself, as he was meant to do. I know not why he has waited so
long. Probably some pedantic principle of military etiquette:
'Commander-in-Chief should occupy a central position; turning movements
should be directed by subordinates.' But the army believes that this is
all over now, and that for the future Buller will trust no one but
himself in great matters; and it is because they believe this that the
soldiers are looking forward with confidence and eagerness to the third
and last attempt--for the sands at Ladysmith have run down very low--to
shatter the Boer lines.

We have waited a week in the camp behind Spearman's Hill. The General
has addressed the troops himself. He has promised that we shall be in
Ladysmith soon. To replace the sixteen hundred killed and wounded in the
late actions, drafts of twenty-four hundred men have arrived. A
mountain battery, A Battery R.H.A., and two great fortress guns have
strengthened the artillery. Two squadrons of the 14th Hussars have been
added to the cavalry, so that we are actually to-day numerically
stronger by more than a thousand men than when we fought at Spion Kop,
while the Boers are at least five hundred weaker--attrition _versus_
recuperation. Everyone has been well fed, reinforced and inspirited, and
all are prepared for a supreme effort, in which we shall either reach
Ladysmith or be flung back truly beaten with a loss of six or seven
thousand men.

I will not try to foreshadow the line of attack, though certain
movements appear to indicate where it will be directed. But it is
generally believed that we fight to-morrow at dawn, and as I write this
letter seventy guns are drawing up in line on the hills to open the
preparatory bombardment.

It is a solemn Sunday, and the camp, with its white tents looking snug
and peaceful in the sunlight, holds its breath that the beating of its
heart may not be heard. On such a day as this the services of religion
would appeal with passionate force to thousands. I attended a church
parade this morning. What a chance this was for a man of great soul who
feared God! On every side were drawn up deep masses of soldiery, rank
behind rank--perhaps, in all, five thousand. In the hollow square stood
the General, the man on whom everything depended. All around were men
who within the week had been face to face with Death, and were going to
face him again in a few hours. Life seemed very precarious, in spite of
the sunlit landscape. What was it all for? What was the good of human
effort? How should it befall a man who died in a quarrel he did not
understand? All the anxious questionings of weak spirits. It was one of
those occasions when a fine preacher might have given comfort and
strength where both were sorely needed, and have printed on many minds a
permanent impression. The bridegroom Opportunity had come. But the
Church had her lamp untrimmed. A chaplain with a raucous voice
discoursed on the details of 'The siege and surrender of Jericho.' The
soldiers froze into apathy, and after a while the formal perfunctory
service reached its welcome conclusion.

As I marched home an officer said to me: 'Why is it, when the Church
spends so much on missionary work among heathens, she does not take the
trouble to send good men to preach in time of war? The medical
profession is represented by some of its greatest exponents. Why are
men's wounded souls left to the care of a village practitioner?' Nor
could I answer; but I remembered the venerable figure and noble
character of Father Brindle in the River War, and wondered whether Rome
was again seizing the opportunity which Canterbury disdained--the
opportunity of telling the glad tidings to soldiers about to die.

CHAPTER XX

THE COMBAT OF VAAL KRANTZ

General Buller's Headquarters: February 9, 1900.

During the ten days that passed peacefully after the British retreat
from the positions beyond Trichardt's Drift, Sir Redvers Buller's force
was strengthened by the arrival of a battery of Horse Artillery, two
powerful siege guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and drafts for
the Infantry battalions, amounting to 2,400 men. Thus not only was the
loss of 1,600 men in the five days' fighting round Spion Kop made good,
but the army was actually a thousand stronger than before its repulse.
Good and plentiful rations of meat and vegetables were given to the
troops, and their spirits were restored by the General's public
declaration that he had discovered the key to the enemy's position, and
the promise that within a week from the beginning of the impending
operation Ladysmith should be relieved. The account of the straits to
which the gallant garrison was now reduced by famine, disease, and war
increased the earnest desire of officers and men to engage the enemy
and, even at the greatest price, to break his lines. In spite of the
various inexplicable features which the actions of Colenso and Spion Kop
presented, the confidence of the army in Sir Redvers Buller was still
firm, and the knowledge that he himself would personally direct the
operations, instead of leaving their conduct to a divisional commander,
gave general satisfaction and relief.

On the afternoon of February 4 the superior officers were made
acquainted with the outlines of the plan of action to be followed. The
reader will, perhaps, remember the description in a former letter of the
Boer position before Potgieter's and Trichardt's Drift as a horizontal
note of interrogation, of which Spion Kop formed the centre angle--/\.
The fighting of the previous week had been directed towards the
straight line, and on the angle. The new operation was aimed at the
curve. The general scheme was to seize the hills which formed the left
of the enemy's position and roll him up from left to right. It was known
that the Boers were massed mainly in their central camp behind Spion
Kop, and that, as no demonstration was intended against the position in
front of Trichardt's Drift, their whole force would be occupying the
curve and guarding its right flank. The details of the plan were well
conceived.

The battle would begin by a demonstration against the Brakfontein
position, which the Boers had fortified by four tiers of trenches, with
bombproof casemates, barbed wire entanglements, and a line of redoubts,
so that it was obviously too strong to be carried frontally. This
demonstration would be made by Wynne's Brigade (formerly Woodgate's),
supported by six batteries of Artillery, the Howitzer Battery, and the
two 4.7-inch naval guns. These troops crossed the river by the pontoon
bridge at Potgieter's on the 3rd and 4th, relieving Lyttelton's Brigade
which had been in occupation of the advanced position on the low kopjes.

A new pontoon bridge was thrown at the angle of the river a mile below
Potgieter's, the purpose of which seemed to be to enable the frontal
attack to be fully supported. While the Artillery preparation of the
advance against Brakfontein and Wynne's advance were going on, Clery's
Division (consisting of Hart's Brigade and Hildyard's) and Lyttelton's
Brigade were to mass near the new pontoon bridge (No. 2), as if about to
support the frontal movement. When the bombardment had been in progress
for two hours these three brigades were to move, not towards the
Brakfontein position, but eastwards to Munger's Drift, throw a pontoon
bridge covered first by one battery of Field Artillery withdrawn from
the demonstration, secondly by the fire of guns which had been dragged
to the summit of Swartkop, and which formed a powerful battery of
fourteen pieces, viz., six 12-pounder long range naval guns, two
15-pounder guns of the 64th Field Battery, six 9-pounder mountain guns,
and lastly by the two 50-pounder siege guns. As soon as the bridge was
complete Lyttelton's Brigade would cross, and, ignoring the fire from
the Boer left, extended along the Doornkloof heights, attack the Vaal
Krantz ridge, which formed the left of the horseshoe curve around the
debouches of Potgieter's. This attack was to be covered on its right by
the guns already specified on Swartkop and the 64th Field Battery, and
prepared by the six artillery batteries employed in the demonstration,
which were to withdraw one by one at intervals of ten minutes, cross No.
2 pontoon bridge, and take up new positions opposite to the Vaal Krantz
ridge.

If and when Vaal Krantz was captured all six batteries were to move
across No. 3 bridge and take up positions on the hill, whence they could
prepare and support the further advance of Clery's Division, which,
having crossed, was to move past Vaal Krantz, pivot to the left on it,
and attack the Brakfontein position from its left flank. The 1st
Cavalry Brigade under Burn-Murdoch (Royals, 13th and 14th Hussars, and A
Battery R.H.A.) would also cross and run the gauntlet of Doornkloof and
break out on to the plateau beyond Clery's Division. The 2nd Cavalry
Brigade (South African Light Horse, Composite Regiment, Thorneycroft's,
and Bethune's Mounted Infantry, and the Colt Battery) were to guard the
right and rear of the attacking troops from any attack coming from
Doornkloof. Wynne was to co-operate as opportunity offered. Talbot Coke
was to remain in reserve. Such was the plan, and it seemed to all who
heard it good and clear. It gave scope to the whole force, and seemed to
offer all the conditions for a decisive trial of strength between the
two armies.

On Sunday afternoon the Infantry Brigades began to move to their
respective positions, and at daylight on the 5th the Cavalry Division
broke its camp behind spearman's. At nine minutes past seven he
bombardment of the Brakfontein position began, and by half-past seven
all the Artillery except the Swartkop guns were firing in a leisurely
fashion at the Boer redoubts and entrenchments. At the same time Wynne's
Brigade moved forward in dispersed formation towards the enemy, and the
Cavalry began to defile across the front and to mass near the three
Infantry Brigades collected near No. 2 pontoon bridge. For some time the
Boers made no reply, but at about ten o'clock their Vickers-Maxim opened
on the batteries firing from the Potgieter's plain, and the fire
gradually increased as other guns, some of great range, joined in, until
the Artillery was sharply engaged in an unsatisfactory duel--fifty guns
exposed in the open against six or seven guns concealed and impossible
to find. The Boer shells struck all along the advanced batteries,
bursting between the guns, throwing up huge fountains of dust and smoke,
and covering the gunners at times completely from view. Shrapnel shells
were also flung from both flanks and ripped the dusty plain with their
scattering bullets. But the Artillery stood to their work like men, and
though they apparently produced no impression on the Boer guns, did not
suffer as severely as might have been expected, losing no more than
fifteen officers and men altogether. At intervals of ten minutes the
batteries withdrew in beautiful order and ceremony and defiled across
the second pontoon bridge. Meanwhile Wynne's Brigade had advanced to
within twelve hundred yards of the Brakfontein position and retired,
drawing the enemy's heavy fire; the three brigades under Clery had moved
to the right near Munger's Drift; the Cavalry were massed in the hollows
at the foot of Swartkop; and the Engineers had constructed the third
pontoon bridge, performing their business with excellent method and
despatch under a sharp fire from Boer skirmishers and a Maxim.

The six batteries and the howitzers now took up positions opposite Vaal
Krantz, and seventy guns began to shell this ridge in regular
preparation and to reply to three Boer guns which had now opened from
Doornkloof and our extreme right. A loud and crashing cannonade
developed. At midday the Durham Light Infantry of Lyttelton's Brigade
crossed the third pontoon bridge and advanced briskly along the opposite
bank on the Vaal Krantz ridge. They were supported by the 3rd King's
Royal Rifles, and behind these the other two battalions of the Brigade
strengthened the attack. The troops moved across the open in fine style,
paying no attention to the enemy's guns on Doornkloof, which burst their
shrapnel at seven thousand yards (shrapnel at seven thousand yards!)
with remarkable accuracy. In an hour the leading companies had reached
the foot of the ridge, and the active riflemen could be seen clambering
swiftly up. As the advance continued one of the Boer Vickers-Maxim guns
which was posted in rear of Vaal Krantz found it wise to retire and
galloped off unscathed through a tremendous fire from our artillery: a
most wonderful escape.

The Durham Light Infantry carried the hill at the point of the bayonet,
losing seven officers and sixty or seventy men, and capturing five Boer
prisoners, besides ten horses and some wounded, Most of the enemy,
however, had retired before the attack, unable to endure the appalling
concentration of artillery which had prepared it. Among those who
remained to fight to the last were five or six armed Kaffirs, one of
whom shot an officer of the Durhams. To these no quarter was given.
Their employment by the Dutch in this war shows that while they
furiously complain of Khama's defence of his territory against their
raiding parties on the ground that white men must be killed by white
men, they have themselves no such scruples. There is no possible doubt
about the facts set forth above, and the incident should be carefully
noted by the public.

By nightfall the whole of General Lyttelton's Brigade had occupied Vaal
Krantz, and were entrenching themselves. The losses in the day's
fighting were not severe, and though no detailed statement has yet been
compiled, I do not think they exceeded one hundred and fifty. Part of
Sir Redvers Buller's plan had been successfully executed. The fact that
the action had not been opened until 7 A.M. and had been conducted in a
most leisurely manner left the programme only half completed. It
remained to pass Clery's Division across the third bridge, to plant the
batteries in their new position on Vaal Krantz, to set free the 1st
Cavalry Brigade in the plain beyond, and to begin the main attack on
Brakfontein. It remained and it still remains.

During the night of the 5th Lyttelton's Brigade made shelters and
traverses of stones, and secured the possession of the hill; but it was
now reported that field guns could not occupy the ridge because, first,
it was too steep and rocky--though this condition does not apparently
prevent the Boers dragging their heaviest guns to the tops of the
highest hills--and, secondly, because the enemy's long-range rifle fire
was too heavy. The hill, therefore, which had been successfully
captured, proved of no value whatever. Beyond it was a second position
which was of great strength, and which if it was ever to be taken must
be taken by the Infantry without Artillery support. This was considered
impossible or at any rate too costly and too dangerous to attempt.

During the next day the Boers continued to bombard the captured ridge,
and also maintained a harassing long-range musketry fire. A great gun
firing a hundred-pound 6-in. shell came into action from the top of
Doornkloof, throwing its huge projectiles on Vaal Krantz and about the
bivouacs generally; one of them exploded within a few yards of Sir
Redvers Buller. Two Vickers-Maxims from either side of the Boer position
fired at brief intervals, and other guns burst shrapnel effectively from
very long range on the solitary brigade which held Vaal Krantz. To this
bombardment the Field Artillery and the naval guns--seventy-two pieces
in all, both big and little--made a noisy but futile response. The
infantry of Lyttelton's Brigade, however, endured patiently throughout
the day, in spite of the galling cross-fire and severe losses. At about
four in the afternoon the Boers made a sudden attack on the hill,
creeping to within short range, and then opened a quick fire. The
Vickers-Maxim guns supported this vigorously. The pickets at the western
end of the hill were driven back with loss, and for a few minutes it
appeared that the hill would be retaken. But General Lyttelton ordered
half a battalion of the Durham Light Infantry, supported by the King's
Royal Rifles, to clear the hill, and these fine troops, led by Colonel
Fitzgerald, rose up from their shelters and, giving three rousing
cheers--the thin, distant sound of which came back to the anxious,
watching army--swept the Boers back at the point of the bayonet. Colonel
Fitzgerald was, however, severely wounded.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20