The War in South Africa (part 2)

It is necessary now to revert to the action which had, on October 24th, been heard in the bivouac by the Waschbank, that action of which a ride of nine miles westward had failed to disclose either the purport or the scene. The arrival on the 23rd of Free State commandos upon the heights north and west of the railway had redoubled Sir G. White's already great anxiety for the safety of the retreat from Dundee. In reality, the presence of the Free State forces on the commanding ranges to the west of Elandslaagte was less dangerous than it appeared, for Yule was marching in greater obscurity than either he, or Sir G. White, imagined. When, indeed, on the morning of the 24th, the Free Staters saw troops issuing from Ladysmith, they believed them to be the combined forces of Generals White and Yule, though the latter was at the moment still actually upon the wrong side of the Waschbank. At still greater cross-purposes was Erasmus, who set off on the morning of the 24th, with so little hope of overtaking the retreat that he chose the only route by which it was impossible for him to do so, the main road west of the railway. Nevertheless, on the evening of the 25th, Erasmus' bivouac was near Elandslaagte, and the wisdom of Sir G. White's order for the instant continuance of the march of the column on that afternoon was manifested. Had that march not been executed, Yule, the action of Rietfontein notwithstanding, would have had the vanguard of Joubert's army upon his flank next day, when only operations from Ladysmith on the largest scale could have extricated him.

Some seven miles north-east of Ladysmith, Rietfontein farmhouse lay by a branch of the Modder Spruit, south-west of a long, low ridge, which descended to the railway line in smooth and easy slopes dotted with ant-heaps, with on its forehead a sparse eyebrow of stones. Beyond the crest line, to the northward, the ground sank with a gentle sweep, broken only by two rough under-features jutting from the western extremity of the ridge, to rear itself again eight hundred yards beyond into a line of abrupt heights. The southernmost of these, called Intintanyoni, leaped up steeply from the hollow, and beyond and behind it stretched many leagues of rolling ground, with scarce a subsidence until they merged in the tumultuous billows of the Drakensberg. Two grassy pinnacles, nearly equal in height, flanked Intintanyoni. Of these the western looked across a deep and narrow gorge over to Nodashwana or Swaatbouys Kop, of a somewhat greater elevation, whilst below the eastern, deep re-entrants, both on the north and south, divided Intintanyoni from the magnificent curve of highlands, which terminated west of Elandslaagte in the wooded mass of Jonono's Kop.

East of the twin peaks of Intintanyoni various lesser eminences and hollow Neks completed the tempestuous irregularity of this singular feature, along whose crest six Free State commandos lay waiting for their first battle on the morning of October 24th. To the east, with patrols upon Jonono's Kop, lay the men of Bethlehem, Vrede, and Heilbron; about the eastern peak of Intintanyoni the Winburg commando held the ground, in charge of two pieces of artillery; on their right, occupying the rest of the mountain, the burghers of Kroonstad made ready; whilst those of Harrismith disposed themselves partly upon a supporting position in rear, and partly as piquets and observation posts on outlying kopjes, amongst others the lofty Nodashwana. Some 6,000 riflemen in all filled the six-mile line of heights. They were commanded by General A. P. Cronje, who had arrived only on this morning, the 24th, to replace de Villiers, who had been in temporary charge.

Sir G. White moved out from Ladysmith at 5 a.m. with the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, Imperial Light Horse, Natal Mounted Rifles, 42nd and 53rd batteries R.F.A., No. 10 Mountain battery R.G.A., 1st Liverpool, 1st Devon, 1st Gloucestershire regiments, and 2nd King's Royal Rifle Corps, in all, some 5,300 officers and men, assuming himself the direction of an operation certain to be delicate, likely to be extremely dangerous. Moving up the Newcastle road from its rendezvous near the junction of the Free State railway, the force had proceeded six miles when the advanced screen of cavalry came under a dropping rifle fire at 7 a.m. from the heights on their left. Their action was prompt. Pushing rapidly across the Modder Spruit, a squadron of 5th Lancers, supported by two others, drove back at the gallop the small parties of Boers hovering in that neighbourhood, and themselves seized and held this advanced position. The remainder of the cavalry, stringing out along high ground dominating the western bank of the spruit, and facing more to the eastward, formed a strong flank guard towards Jonono's Kop. At 8 a.m., whilst fitful discharges of musketry rose and fell along the widely-extended line of troopers, the infantry had come up to Rietfontein. No sooner had they arrived at a point on the road some five hundred yards east of the Modder Spruit, than a loud report broke from the eastern peak of Intintanyoni, and a shell, bursting on impact, fell into the head of the column. Thereupon the British artillery wheeled out from the route, and in line of batteries trotted towards a level crossing over the railway, some six hundred yards west of the road. Arrived at this defile, and forming column inwards to traverse it, the first gun had scarcely passed the rails, when both the Boer guns on the high green rampart ahead opened upon the point, which had been taken as one of their range marks. Five hundred yards beyond it the artillery deployed behind a rise. The second round from the 53rd battery, fused at 3,600 yards, burst full upon one of the Boer pieces, and the gunners of both weapons fled. After a few more rounds the 53rd limbered up and prepared to advance.

The infantry were already over the railway, and moving forward—Gloucester regiment on the left, Liverpool regiment on the right—up the gentle but protected slope, swelling to the summit of the low ridge of Rietfontein. The 1st Devonshire regiment, in support, lay at the base, whilst the 2nd King's Royal Rifles remained in rear in charge of the baggage. On the appearance of the leading companies upon the crest, firing broke out from the whole length of the crest of Intintanyoni, to which the British infantry, lying prone, soon replied as vigorously. Of the artillery, the 42nd battery was quickly in action near the centre of the front, whilst the 53rd unlimbered some six hundred yards to the left, and began shelling a rocky underfeature of Intintanyoni, at a range of 1,500 yards. Sharp musketry assailed them. Then the 42nd battery, being ordered further to the left, passed behind the 53rd and the 10th Mountain battery, which had come into line on the left of the 53rd, and opened 1,900 yards from the summit of Intintanyoni. Thus began a severe fire fight at ranges varying from one to two thousand yards. Especially was it hotly contested where the Gloucester on the left of the British opposed the 1,400 Kroonstad men, who, under Nel, maintained the Boer right. Heavy exchanges of rifle fire swept across the valley in this part, and in spite of the steady practice of the artillery, it became necessary to reinforce the attackers. For this purpose the Devonshire regiment was pushed up on the left of the Gloucester, half the King's Royal Rifles coming from the baggage train to fill its place in support.

Sir G. White had all but accomplished his purpose, that of intervening between the Free State commandos and Yule's line of march, when one of those accidents of war, inexplicable because of the death of those who alone could explain them, largely increased his hitherto insignificant losses. Shortly before midday Colonel E. P. Wilford, commanding the 1st Gloucestershire, taking a company of his battalion and the regimental Maxim gun, dashed out of cover down the open slope as if to assault. Another half company of the battalion moved on ahead to cut a wire fence which obstructed the front. The Boers, who for a time had lain quiet under the shrapnel, which searched their position from end to end, at once opened a fierce fusilade. Colonel Wilford was shot dead, and his men fell rapidly, the detachment finally halting upon a low ridge beneath Intintanyoni. Further advance was impossible. Only with difficulty could both the Gloucestershire and "D." squadron I.L.H., which had joined in the attack, be withdrawn. Fortunately, as the attempt was promptly ordered to cease, though many had been wounded, only six were killed in the adventure. Meanwhile the shooting over their heads had been continuous. The enemy, encouraged by this event, and by the immobility of Sir G. White's line of battle, which they imagined to be awed from its purpose by their resistance, still clung to their fastness, and maintained a heavy though spasmodic fire. More than once the gunners of the still uninjured piece beneath the eastern peak made efforts to drag it forward into action, but the British artillerymen watched the spot narrowly, and each attempt was blown back by shrapnel, under which Intintanyoni burst into flames. Many of the Boer ponies herded in rear, terrified by the blaze, stampeded. Then, up on Nodashwana, amongst the Harrismith men, a stir was descried which seemed to threaten an outflanking manœuvre against the British left. Sir G. White, anxious for his communications with Ladysmith, promptly countered the movement by calling the Natal Mounted Rifles across from his right, and sending them on in front of his left flank. The Colonial riflemen went with such skill into the maze of broken ground below the mountain, that they not only succeeded in outflanking the outflankers, but actually drove by enfilade fire all of the Kroonstad commando, who were upon the right of Intintanyoni, far back across the hill to where the Winburgers lay at the eastern extremity. All danger ceased definitely on this side when two guns of the 42nd battery, turning towards the ridges of Nodashwana, in a few moments cleared it of the enemy, and converted it also into a huge bonfire of blazing grass. At 1.30 p.m. the Boer fire had dwindled all along the main ridge, and an hour later it ceased altogether. Only from the far right came the sound of musketry from the cavalry still fencing with scattered detachments of the Heilbron, Vrede and Bethlehem burghers, who clung to them pertinaciously.

At 3 p.m. Sir G. White gave the order for a general retirement. His object was accomplished, with the not undue loss of 114 casualties. Yule was now safe for that day, and he believed the Free State army to have suffered severely enough to keep it inactive on the next, when he intended to assist the Dundee column by other means. But the Boers watched the withdrawal of the British troops with very little despondency. Unaware of the true situation of the Dundee column, they misunderstood operations designed to keep them from it. The demonstration against Intintanyoni seemed to them nothing less than a serious attempt to drive them from their hold, and the retreat of the British to be that of a baffled army. Thus, ignorant of their strategical defeat, they rejoiced at what seemed a tactical victory. Moreover, their losses had been small. The cavalry alone, now called upon to protect the rear—as all day they had covered the right—had difficulty in returning. For some distance they had to maintain a running fire fight, and it was nearly 7 p.m. before the rearmost troopers entered Ladysmith, which the head of the infantry column had reached two hours and a half earlier.

Chapter IX.

ELANDSLAAGTE.

During the time (Oct. 12th-Oct. 26th, 1899) occupied by the episode of the Dundee detachment, including the action of Rietfontein fought to assist it in retreat, much had happened elsewhere.

Sir G. White arrived in Ladysmith on the 11th October. On the 12th telegraphic communication by Harrismith entirely ceased, and the mail train from that town failed to arrive. Early on the 12th a telegram from a post of observation of Natal Carbineers at Acton Homes gave information that a strong column of Boers, with four miles of train, was on the march through Tintwa Pass, the head of it being already across the border; furthermore, that there seemed to be an advance guard concealed in Van Reenen's Pass. Sir G. White prepared to strike instantly; but a British detachment which reached Dewdrop next day saw the Boer vanguard, halted in the mouth of Tintwa Pass, and as previously described (p. 123) returned to Ladysmith. A cavalry reconnaissance in the same direction on the 16th found that the commandos had not stirred and, though Olivier's Hoek, Bezuidenhout's, Tintwa and Van Reenen's Passes were all occupied, the country east of them was as clear of the enemy as heretofore. There appeared an unaccountable hesitation amongst the Free Staters. Rumours of disagreement, and even of actual hostilities between the commandos, reached the British camp. They were not altogether groundless, and Sir G. White, utilising the respite, set himself to consider how his field force might be turned into a garrison, and his place of rest into a fortress, should it be necessary, as now seemed likely, to stand a siege in Ladysmith. A complete scheme of defence was drawn up on the 16th, and a mobile column organised for instant service in any quarter. But, whilst the real enemy lay idle on the west, rumour, working in his favour far to the southward, troubled the British general and robbed him of troops he could ill spare. On the 17th a telegram from the Governor of Natal announced that there was evidence of a contemplated Boer raid viâ Zululand upon Pietermaritzburg and Durban, and asked for reinforcements for the defenceless capital. They were promptly sent, and quitted Ladysmith just as the Free Staters in the mountains received with much discussion the order to cross the frontier. Before dawn of the 18th all the commandos were on the move down the defiles, the men of Bethlehem in Olivier's Hoek Pass, of Heilbron in Bezuidenhout's, of Kroonstad in Tintwa, of Winburg in Van Reenen's, of Harrismith in De Beer's, of Vrede in Müller's. By 8 a.m. Acton Homes was in the hands of 3,000 Boers, and shortly after, west of Bester's station, a piquet of the Natal Carbineers was sharply attacked by the Harrismith commando, and forced to retire with loss. The Boers then occupied Bester's station, where they halted for the night. The news of this rapid development caused a great stir in Ladysmith. As early as the 15th Sir George White had decided upon the evacuation of the camp, which lay outside the town, but hitherto no orders had been issued to this effect. All the 18th the work of removing the troops and stores from the camp to the town defences previously selected was pushed on with such despatch, that by 10 p.m. these were well manned. The Pietermaritzburg column, which had reached Colenso, was ordered back to Onderbrook. Next day the General rode around Ladysmith, re-adjusting with great care the line of defence selected on the 16th. Instructions were then sent to Wolseley-Jenkins to resume his march to Pietermaritzburg, the Imperial Light Horse alone being taken from the column and brought back into Ladysmith.

Meanwhile, the Boer General, Kock, having arrived on the summit of the Biggarsberg on the 19th, promptly pushed patrols down the southern slopes. Field Cornet Potgieter, the leader of one of these, pressing on in company with a party of Viljoen's men, under Field Cornet Pienaar, dashed into Elandslaagte station, some twenty miles southward, and attacked and captured a supply train which was steaming through the station on its way to Glencoe. Potgieter at once sent back word to Kock, who, replying with the order: "Hold on to the trains at any cost, I am following with the whole detachment," marched all night, and joined his lieutenant near the looted train at break of day on the 20th.

News of the event was quickly received at Headquarters. At 11 a.m. on the 20th Major-General J. D. P. French, who had only arrived at 5 a.m. that morning, left Ladysmith with the 5th Lancers, the Natal Mounted Rifles and Natal Carbineers, and a battery Royal Field artillery, to ascertain the situation at Elandslaagte. An infantry brigade, under Colonel Ian Hamilton, moved out in support. But whilst they were on the march, the Free Staters at Bester's became so active that Sir George White, fearing an attack whilst part of his force was absent, sent orders to check the reconnaissance before it was half completed, and by sunset French was back in Ladysmith, having seen nothing but the German commando, Kock's screen.

By this time news of the victory at Talana had come in. Its partial extent not fully understood at first, it not only lifted a load from the General's mind, but showed him where he too could strike a blow. The commandos at Elandslaagte, yesterday dangerous from their position on Symons' line of retreat, were to-day in peril themselves, and he determined to give them no time to remove into safety. At 4 a.m. on the 21st French was again on the move towards Elandslaagte with five squadrons (338 men) Imperial Light Horse and the Natal Field artillery. At 6 a.m. a half battalion (330 men) of the 1st Manchester regiment, with Railway and Royal engineer detachments, followed by rail, preceded by the armoured train manned by one company of the same battalion. Moving along the Newcastle road, French made straight for the high ground south-west of Elandslaagte station, and at 7 a.m. his advance and right flank guards (Imperial Light Horse) came in touch with the enemy, the former south of the collieries, the latter on the open veld some four miles south of the railway. As the mist lifted, parties of Boers were seen all about the station and colliery buildings, and over the undulating veld, and it was observed that most of these, on sighting the British scouts, drew back upon a group of kopjes situated about a mile south-east of the station. French immediately ordered up the Natal battery on to a flat hillock which rose between the railway and the Newcastle road, south-east of Woodcote farm, and at 8 a.m. a shot from the 7-pounders, sighted at 1,900 yards, crashed into the tin out-buildings of the station. A crowd of Boers swarmed out at the explosion and with them some of the British captured in the train the day before, the former galloping for the kopjes, the latter making for the protection of their countrymen at the battery. At the same time a squadron of the Imperial Light Horse galloped for the station in extended files, captured the Boer guard, and released the station and colliery officials who were there in durance. But in a few moments shells from the group of kopjes beyond the station began to fall into the battery, one smashing an ammunition wagon. The gunners attempted in vain to reply; their pieces were outranged by over 500 yards, and at 8.15, on the arrival of the infantry near at hand, they fell back leaving the wagon derelict. At 8.30 a.m. French withdrew to a point four miles south of Woodcote farm, and from here sent a report to Sir George White, informing him that about 400 Boers with three guns were before him on a prepared position, and asking for support. The enemy's artillery continued to shell the troops, and French, after questioning the prisoners and the released Britons, and examining more closely, came to the conclusion that there were from 800 to 1,000 Boers in front of him. When parties of the enemy began to appear also upon Jonono's Kop to the north-west he judged it prudent to withdraw his weak detachment still further, and by 11.30 a.m. was back nearly at the Modder Spruit. On the way he fell in with a reinforcement from Ladysmith consisting of one squadron 5th Lancers, one squadron 5th Dragoon Guards, and the 42nd battery Field artillery, all under Colonel Coxhead, R.A., and with these he retraced his steps to the Modder Spruit siding, where a halt was called.

It was now evident to General French that an action of great importance could be fought or avoided before nightfall. At noon, therefore, he communicated with Sir George White, and, after informing him of his own and the enemy's situations, and the best line of attack, stated that in his opinion the numbers required would be three battalions of infantry, two batteries, and more cavalry than he had at the moment. He would await instructions. They came with promptitude; for Sir G. White had determined to ruin this commando, and sweep it from Yule's communications, before it could separate. "The enemy must be beaten, and driven off," he wrote to French. "Time of great importance." Within a quarter of an hour of the receipt of the above message, French had promulgated his orders; within half an hour, at 1.30 p.m., before the arrival of the reinforcements, the advance upon the kopjes had begun.

Running south-east, with its northern extremity about a mile from the station, the ground held by the enemy covered some 4,000 yards from flank to flank, and consisted of four boulder-strewn kopjes. That nearest the station was steep and rocky, its top 200 yards broad and sloping rearwards; next and somewhat retired from the general line, 700 yards distant, on the far side of a deep cup scored with dongas, arose one of those singular isosceles triangular eminences of which South Africa almost alone possesses the mould. A Nek, carrying the roadway to a farm behind, separated this from the main feature 500 yards away. This was a bluff and precipitous hill, thatched here and there with long grasses on its northern face, on its eastern sloping easily down to the veld which rolled in rounded waves towards Ladysmith. Its summit was almost flat, a bouldered plateau, 400 yards long by 200 wide, falling in rocky spurs to the river a mile and a half in rear, and slanting at its southern extremity into a broad and broken Nek. This climbed again 2,000 yards away up to the last kopje of the position, whose top, also flat, swung first south, then sharply west, to merge finally into the grassy rises which approached almost to Modder Spruit. Though the general elevation was no more than some 300 feet from the ground level, so bare was the terrain about its base, that the insignificant hills presented a formidable face to the south-west. Across the railway, some six miles to the north-west, Jonono's Kop looked over these low ridges, and threw great spurs, dotted with Kaffir villages, down into the undulating prairie which rolled between them. On one of these spurs, which came down to the Newcastle road, 100 men of the German commando, under Schiel, had, on the retirement of the British, taken post, supported on an underfeature close to the eastward by Field Cornet Joubert's Johannesburgers, and Vrede men (100) under De Jager. The rest of the commandos occupied the main feature above described, the remainder of the Germans the kopje nearest the station, strong skirmishing parties being thrown out, under Field Cornet Pienaar, along the uplands which ran out southward in front of their left flank. Slightly retired from the forward crest of the main hill were posted the two guns, below and behind the right of which, beside the roadway creeping between the bluff and the tall triangular kopje, the laager had been pitched on a flat of sun-baked mud.

Major-General French moved forward quickly without waiting for the reinforcements from Ladysmith. A squadron 5th Dragoon Guards under Major St. J. C. Gore on the west of the railway, and one of the 5th Lancers on the east, each covering two miles, scouted in front of the batteries and Imperial Light Horse, the 1st Manchester following slowly in the train. The Lancers were first in touch with the enemy, their progress being checked at 2 p.m. by Pienaar's piquets posted, as already described, on the low ridge running parallel to the railway, the ridge, indeed, which General French had selected as the springboard for his attack. A gun, opening from the hills behind, supported the skirmishers: the Lancer squadron had to retire. But Colonel Scott Chisholme quickly brought up four squadrons Imperial Light Horse, which, pressing forward in squadron-column with extended files, with the 5th Lancer squadron on the right, stormed the ridge and cleared it. The crest thus secured, the Manchester detrained under its cover at 2.30 p.m. about three miles south-west of Elandslaagte. Ten minutes later they were joined by a half-battalion 2nd Gordon Highlanders and seven companies of the 1st Devonshire regiment, who formed up on the veld in brigade-line of quarter-columns, facing north-east, Devonshire on the right, Manchester on the left. Before starting, the 7th brigade was addressed in inspiriting terms by its commander, Colonel Ian Hamilton. The Manchester led the way, heading for the ridge occupied by the Imperial Light Horse, with two companies covering 500 yards in front line; the Devonshire supported, and the Highlanders marched in reserve. As the brigade began to move, a burst of musketry from across the railway to the north told that the squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards had run into the enemy on the lower spurs of Jonono's Kop. So strong did the opposition there appear that the 42nd and 21st batteries, with a squadron 5th Lancers which had just escorted the guns from Ladysmith, were despatched to the spot in support. A few shrapnel from the 42nd battery sufficed to silence the Mausers, and the artillery recrossed the railway, the 5th Dragoon Guards also receiving an order to come in. The artillery were then ordered to go on at once and open against the main position. On their way to the front they passed the marching infantry, whose directions were now somewhat altered; for whilst the Manchester in the van still pushed eastwards for Scott Chisholme's captured ridge, the Devonshire, diverging half left from this line, now led upon the enemy's right flank, and behind, in the ever increasing interval thus created between the two battalions, the Gordon Highlanders were extending in reserve.

Whilst the advance was in progress Sir G. White, who had ridden fast from Ladysmith, arrived upon the field, escorted by a troop of Natal Mounted Rifles. Recognising the excellence of General French's plans and arrangements, he remained only as a spectator, leaving to his subordinate complete control of the battle. A few moments later, at 4 p.m., the British guns came into action in front of the infantry at a range of 4,400 yards. The enemy replied, shells bursting in the 21st battery. So rapid a bombardment was at once delivered against the hill that, after firing twenty rounds, all of which fell among the guns, the Boer gunners fled from their pieces. Then the artillery, changing their target continually, searched all the top with shrapnel. The 1st Devonshire regiment, pushing west of the rise to a point 800 yards north of the batteries, lay down on a front of 500 yards. At 3.30 p.m. this battalion had received an order to move, when the artillery preparation should cease, right across the open grass plain which separated them from the enemy, and to hold him to his defences.

A thousand yards south-east of the Devonshire, beyond the batteries, the Manchester had halted near the crest at the point of its curve northward, and this curve they were ordered to follow until it brought them upon the opposed left flank. A mile in rear, still, therefore, in the plain below, the Gordon Highlanders halted, and orders came to them to support the Manchester at the next stage. At 4.30 p.m. the infantry rose and moved forward. On the left the Devonshire, with three companies covering some 600 yards in front, and four companies in reserve, in column, with 50 paces distance between the single ranks, steered upon the tall cone which marked the right-centre of the Boers. Their march led them at first downhill into the broad bowl which lay below the foot of the kopjes, a hollow as smooth as a meadow but for the infrequent ant-hills. Shrapnel began from the first to burst over the battalion, but the soldiers pressed steadily onward until, at a point some 1,200 yards from the enemy, severe rifle-fire began to play upon them, and they were halted to reply to it. Their section volleys soon beat heavily about the Boer right, and pinned the burghers to their sangars. A little later, the Devonshire firing line, now stiffened by the supports, advanced again down the bullet-swept slope and gained a shallow donga about 850 yards from the crest. Here Major C. W. Park disposed his battalion for a musketry fight. He had carried out the first part of his orders, and it was necessary now to await the development of the attack in progress against the other flank. With some loss, therefore, the Devonshire lay within close range of the hostile lines. So briskly, however, did they engage them, that the attention of a great part of the Boer force was drawn to that direction, and for a time the simultaneous movement against the other flank proceeded almost unnoticed. The Manchester, indeed, during the early portion of their advance, were not easily to be seen from the Boers' left. Skilfully led, they made their way with two companies extended in the firing line, over broken ground under the crest of the ridge, and only some shells, aimed at the artillery, dropped amongst them. Out of sight on the right the Imperial Light Horse and the squadron 5th Lancers worked ahead on a parallel route, having drawn towards the outer flank on the infantry coming up to them. In rear the Gordon Highlanders, inclining to the right, followed in support of the Manchester, in echelon of companies at 60 paces interval, the companies marching in column of sections. A brisk shell fire assailed this battalion as it crossed the rear of the batteries, but, like the Manchester, the Highlanders for a time escaped the notice of the Boer riflemen, and they pushed on with trifling loss.

Thus by 4.30 p.m. the whole British force, 3,500 men in all, was in motion, and Coxhead, during the temporary silence of the enemy's artillery, ordered his command to support more closely. As the batteries limbered up, the Boers re-opened and followed them with shells. Only one horse fell, however, and the British guns, moving swiftly between the Devonshire and Manchester regiments, were shortly in action again three quarters of a mile nearer to the front. Under their rapid rounds at 3,200 yards the hostile gunners relapsed immediately and finally into silence.

In approaching the occupied zone the cavalry on the right were first closely engaged. A screen of skirmishers still lay out before the Boer left, and these, as they fell back slowly, had an easy target in the mounted men, who were working over ground of great difficulty. Then the Manchester, emerging from their covered way, found themselves upon the crest of a smooth and open plateau, which, sloping downwards for 200 yards from them almost imperceptibly, was traversed by a wire fence, beyond which stony outcrops again gave promise of shelter. As the foremost soldiers showed above the fringe of stones at the crest line, a sudden rush of bullets drummed upon the sun-dried level in front of them, and the men, in obedience to an order, dropped again behind the protecting stones to reply. As they did so, some of the officers of the Manchester, leaving their men in the security of the rocks, ran through the storm of lead and severed the wires obstructing advance. But the line was as yet too weak for a forward dash.

For a quarter of an hour the Manchester lay where they were, with frequent casualties, but using their weapons so vigorously that soon the Boers on their front, an advanced party of Lombard's commando, gave back in spite of their leader's efforts to hold them, and at 5.20 p.m. the Manchester poured from the stones after them. They were closely followed by the Gordon, who, though under cover below them, had suffered somewhat from the shots grazing the edge of the plateau. At their appearance heavy musketry burst from the kopjes 1,200 yards ahead. The soldiers were in a moment at the wire fence. This obstacle, only partially destroyed, had been taken as a known range by the Boer marksmen, and so accurate therefore was their shooting that soon there was scarce a strand unrent by the bullets. In the crowding which ensued many men fell amongst the now dangling wires, some pushed through, and some could find no gap. Though the front of the brigade thus became broken and confused, the advance continued uninterruptedly. Now Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Dick-Cunyngham sent the Gordon Highlanders forward into the gaps opening in the lines of the Manchester, some to the left, some to the right, some wherever they could find room. The Imperial Light Horse, who had been contending every foot of their progress with the cloud of skirmishers retiring slowly before them, here joined on to the right of the Gordon. Once at the edge of the ridge, from which, as the troops rushed forward, a detached party of Boers fell back, still shooting bitterly, the brigade found itself facing due north, and the Boer left flank lay exposed.

Meanwhile Gore, reinforced by a squadron 5th Lancers, had moved out yet further to the left, cutting in between the Boer main body and Schiel's Germans, so that the latter only saved themselves by a circuitous gallop behind Woodcote farm, not drawing rein until they arrived in rear of the left of the main position. Gore then gained a secure foothold near the colliery 1,700 yards from the enemy's right rear. Here he concealed his squadrons, and awaiting the development of the infantry attack, watched the rear face of the enemy's kopjes for signs of a break away.

Strengthened by the arrival of Schiel, the Boer left poured their bullets chiefly upon that portion of the line occupied by the right companies of the Gordon Highlanders and the Imperial Light Horse. Below the fence the ground sloped gently downward to the foot of the kopjes, where it again rose more steeply to the summit, some 350 yards distant. Down the incline the firing line went rapidly, for the most part by rushes of sections, carried out independently, yet with great dash and unanimity. But the slope was exposed throughout, and there were many casualties. About 5.30 p.m. the line of battle had arrived at the foot of the kopjes; then, swinging slightly towards the left, so as to envelop still more the flank of the enemy above, all supports and reserves being now absorbed, it began to make head upwards, still by short rushes. It was now nearly dark; rain burst down on them in a torrent: the men, breathless from their eager pace, began to slacken somewhat in their difficult progress up the hill-sides. At this moment Colonel Hamilton, who had previously ridden to where the Devonshire still held fast the Boer right with their volleys, hurried back to the main attack. He at once ordered the "charge" to be sounded, and running to the front, himself led the last onset. The Devonshire simultaneously leaped from the donga where they had lain more than an hour, and, advancing by companies from the right, reached the base of the final kopje. For an instant they halted to gain breath and fix bayonets, then, coming to the charge, assaulted the portion before them, and carried it without a check, four companies swinging to the left against the northernmost kopje, and three moving straight upon the main hill whereon stood the enemy's artillery. Here, as occurred all along the Boer line, though many fled at the sound of the charge, many stood and continued shooting at the troops until the latter were within twenty yards of them. Below the main crest a bitter contest was also maintained, for as at Talana, many Boers, seeing the soldiers determined to win the summit, pressed forward to oppose them, and lay firing behind the rocks until their assailants were almost upon them. Some acting thus were made prisoners; some escaped to the rear at the last moment; many were shot down as they ran. The assault poured on unchecked, the two guns falling to the converging Devonshire. At 5.55 p.m. the infantry held all the upper part of the hill.

By that time the cavalry, lying in wait at Elandslaagte, had already dealt their blow. A quarter of an hour before the infantry gained the crest the majority of the defenders had begun to vacate the summit, and, descending to the open ground behind, streamed raggedly across the front, many within five hundred yards, of the concealed troopers. The light was failing rapidly, and with it the chance of action. Though the crowd in the loose disorder of retreat seemed to offer an indefinite object for a charge, there was no likelihood of a better whilst sufficient light remained. At 5.30 p.m. Gore gave the word and pushed out eastwards with a squadron of the 5th Lancers on the right of his line, and one of the 5th Dragoon Guards on the left, both in extended files. The ground was difficult, boulders strewed the surface, and a series of dongas, intersecting it at all angles, seriously impeded progress. These obstacles once cleared, the cavalry moved on rapidly and, topping a slight rise, came suddenly into full view of the foremost Boers, some 300 in number, who were riding slowly northward away from the ridges all but captured behind them. The charge was instantly delivered, and the Boer retirement was dashed to pieces in all directions. Then, having traversed completely the zone of retreat, the cavalry were rallied and reformed into line. The gallop had carried the squadrons more than a mile and a half from their starting-place, and the intervening space was again covered by the enemy, now in full flight from the kopjes. Once more, therefore, the troopers charged, and, scouring in loose order back over the same ground, cleared it of the enemy, and drew rein with many prisoners near Elandslaagte, just as the last gleam of light died and gave place to darkness.

Meanwhile there had occurred an anxious moment for the infantry, victorious along the summit of the kopjes. Pressing forward from the captured crest in pursuit, and firing fast, the soldiers were some distance down the gentle reverse slope when a white flag was seen to be waving from the conical kopje above the laager, and Colonel Hamilton, believing it to signify a general capitulation, ordered the "cease fire" to be sounded. Suddenly a body of some fifty Boers charged boldly uphill against that section in which were the right company of the Gordon Highlanders and the Imperial Light Horse, and, seizing a small spur within twenty yards of the crest, turned their rifles upon the surprised troops. For a moment there was some confusion. The soldiers were scattered; some were continuing the pursuit, some were seeking their units; many were resting; the cross fire which thus assailed them was severe and accurate.

But the effect of this counter-attack was but momentary. Once more the "advance" was sounded, and that part of the line, rallied by the voice and example of Colonel Hamilton himself, surged forward again, and tumbled the last remnant of the enemy down the reverse slopes. During this incident some of the Imperial Light Horse on the extreme right, swinging round the enemy's left, surrounded a farmhouse which had been the rallying point of the above counter-attack, and, after a sharp encounter, stormed it, capturing twenty-one prisoners.

Thus terminated an action of which there can be no greater praise than that it was swiftly planned, carried out with determination, and that its complete success was gained exactly as designed. That success, moreover, was of more than local importance. Kock's hold upon the communications of Dundee had been of the briefest. He himself was a prisoner, mortally wounded, in British hands, and his force, rushing headlong back to Newcastle from the battlefield, upon which it had left over two hundred killed and wounded, nearly two hundred prisoners, two guns and a complete laager, carried despondency into the Boer Headquarters, so recently alarmed at the rebuff of Talana. Moreover, the battle did more than clear Yule's rear; it also safeguarded his front, by persuading Erasmus, already timorous upon Impati, to cling to his mountain, at a time when Yule's exhausted battalions were in no condition to resist the attack of 5,000 fresh enemies.

It formed no part of Sir G. White's plan to keep the ground that had been won. The position of Elandslaagte was useless alike for observation, defence, or offence. Even had it been of value, the presence of the Free State army upon its flank rendered the occupation of it too hazardous in the view of a General already impressed by the dangers of detachments. Throughout the day, indeed, the Free Staters themselves had been reminding him of these dangers. As early as 11 a.m. the piquets to the west of Ladysmith had reported significant developments about Van Reenen's Pass, and these, as the day wore on, became so threatening that at 5.30 p.m. General Hunter despatched a message to Sir G. White, who was at that time still at Elandslaagte, informing him that there was a hostile advance upon Ladysmith from Bester's station. It was necessary, therefore, to recall French at once, and at 9 p.m. he was so instructed by telephone.

At 11 p.m. General French issued orders for the return to Ladysmith on the morrow, and the troops bivouacked on the field, the infantry upon the kopjes, the cavalry about the station. The day's losses amounted to 263 officers and men killed and wounded.

At 3 a.m. on the 22nd the three batteries, the 5th Lancers and the Natal Mounted Rifles left by road for Ladysmith, the loaded ambulance train quitting the station at the same time. From that hour onwards the trains, bearing the soldiers, steamed away from the battlefield, the last to leave by rail being a portion of the Manchester escorting forty prisoners. They were detained until 3.20 p.m. The 5th Dragoon Guards, who had reconnoitred northward, followed last of all by road, and by evening the position was empty.

Chapter X.

LOMBARDS KOP.

On the very day of Yule's junction with Coxhead, Erasmus was in touch with A. P. Cronje, next day with Lukas Meyer, who, still feeling the blow of Talana, had moved timidly, wide on the left. At 4 a.m. on the morning of the 27th a brigade of cavalry left Ladysmith under Major-General French, and, proceeding to scout along the Newcastle and Helpmakaar roads, was sighted at dawn by Meyer, who was then in laager about seven miles south of Elandslaagte. The Boer leader, anticipating a general attack, at once signalled to Erasmus, upon which a strong contingent of the Ermelo burghers, accompanied by guns, made their way across to him from their camp. French reconnoitred boldly, and at 10.35 a.m. he was able to send in to Sir George White his estimate of the numbers confronting him. On Intintanyoni were 4,000-5,000 men. Other strong bodies hovered between Rietfontein and Pepworth Hill, whilst the enemy to his immediate front appeared to separate themselves into two laagers, whose sites could be clearly distinguished. One, sheltering about 2,000 men, lay at the junction of the Beith and Glencoe roads, some five miles south-east of Modder Spruit station, whilst the other, a much larger encampment, was situated four miles nearer to the railway, that is to say, one mile south-east of it.

Meanwhile Colonel Ian Hamilton had at 10 a.m. marched out of Ladysmith to the Neks between Gun Hill, Lombards Kop and Umbulwana, with a brigade consisting of the 1st Devonshire and 1st Manchester regiments, the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers and the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, with a brigade division of the 21st, 42nd and 53rd batteries R.F.A., joined later by the 1st Liverpool regiment and the 13th battery R.F.A. This brigade, lying out all day in support of the cavalry reconnaissance, caused continual apprehension to the enemy, who covered all his positions with men and cannon in momentary expectation of an attack. Altogether some 10,000 men with fifteen guns were observed, and for the purpose intended by Sir George White, who was only anxious to gain information, the object of the reconnaissance was accomplished. The attack of the laagers was considered by Sir George White, who rode out beyond Lombards Nek in the afternoon to confer with General French and Colonel Hamilton; but after careful examination it was ultimately decided to await a more suitable opportunity, and the troops were withdrawn.

On October 28th Lukas Meyer with 2,000 men and three guns pushed forward to Modder Spruit, where he went into laager behind a long flat kopje, now called Long Hill, situated some four thousand yards south-east of Pepworth Hill, the summit of which the Ermelo commando had already piqueted. The Free Staters, coming down from Intintanyoni, rode westward and lay in the evening upon the farm Kleinfontein, joining hands with their allies of the Transvaal across Surprise Hill and the heights above the Bell Spruit. Through their main laager on Kleinfontein ran the railway line to Van Reenen's Pass.

On the 29th the cavalry made a reconnaissance eastwards, and reported as follows. The laager which had been close to the Modder Spruit station on the 27th had disappeared, but there were now two encampments to the east and south-east of Lombards Kop, of which the lower appeared to command the road to Pieters, thus threatening the line of communication. Pepworth Hill was strongly occupied, and artillery were now upon it; a large camp lay close to the north-west of the height. The enemy was numerous upon Long Hill. Upon its flat top two or three guns were already emplaced, and an epaulment for another was in course of construction. Behind the hill was a laager.

This reconnaissance seemed to Sir G. White to furnish the reasons he desired for assuming the offensive. The capture of Long Hill would at least throw back the investing line of Transvaalers. It might do more—break through it altogether, when a sweep north against Pepworth would bid fair to drive together the Transvaal commandos in upon their centre, and roll up the whole. The Free Staters, strung out as they now are, thinly north-west and west, would then be cut off from the rest.

At 4 p.m. on the afternoon of the 29th his plans were formulated. Long Hill was to be the primary, Pepworth Hill the secondary object, and to secure them the whole of the troops were to be employed. His main army he divided into two bodies, with separate missions. One, consisting of No. 10 Mountain battery, the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers and the 1st Gloucester regiment, all commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel F. R. C. Carleton, of the first-named battalion, was to move at 10 p.m. that night northward along the Bell Spruit. The duties of this force were twofold: first, to cover the left flank of the main operation; secondly, to gain and hold such a position towards Nicholson's Nek (if possible, the Nek itself) as would enable the cavalry to debouch safely upon the open ground beyond, should opportunity arise for a pursuit, or, better still, an interception of the Transvaalers as they fell back on the Drakensberg passes. The left flank thus provided for, a cavalry brigade, consisting of the 5th Lancers, 19th Hussars, and Colonel Royston's regiment of Colonials, under Major-General French, were to reach the ridges north-east of Gun Hill before dawn, from which, by demonstrating against the enemy's left, they would cover the British right. Between these wings, the main infantry attack was to be carried out by the 8th brigade, which, in the absence of its proper commander, Colonel F. Howard, was under Colonel G. G. Grimwood, 2nd King's Royal Rifles, whose five battalions would include the 1st and 2nd King's Royal Rifles, the 1st Leicestershire, and 1st King's (Liverpool) regiments and the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers. The 1st brigade division Royal Field artillery and the Natal Field battery were to be attached to Grimwood's command. A general reserve of the 7th brigade, consisting of the 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 1st Manchester and 1st Devonshire regiments, and, should it arrive from Maritzburg in time, the 2nd Rifle Brigade, were to be under the command of Colonel Ian Hamilton, who, besides his infantry, would have with him the 5th Dragoon Guards, the 18th Hussars, the Imperial Light Horse, two companies mounted infantry, and the 2nd brigade division of artillery. Grimwood was to take Long Hill, and his path thereto was to be cleared by the shrapnel of both brigade divisions. That position carried, he was to hold it, whilst Colonel Hamilton, supported in turn by the fire of the united artillery, was to throw his fresh infantry against Pepworth Hill, and complete the victory.

At 10 p.m. Carleton left his parade ground with six companies (16 officers, 518 other ranks) and 46 mules, and at 11 p.m. arrived at the rendezvous, the level crossing of the Newcastle road close to the Orange Free State railway junction, where the rest of his command had been awaiting him for an hour. It consisted of five and a half companies (some 450 men) of the Gloucester regiment, with 57 mules and a Maxim gun; the 10th Mountain battery, comprising 137 N.C.O.s and men, 6 guns, with 100 rounds for each, 133 mules, with 52 Cape Boys as muleteers, and 10 horses. The total strength of the column was thus about 1,140 men and 250 animals.

Half an hour after midnight Grimwood's brigade (8th) set out eastward in the following order: 1st and 2nd battalions King's Royal Rifles, 1st Leicestershire regiment, 1st brigade division R.F.A., 1st King's (Liverpool) regiment, and the Natal Field battery, with a rearguard of the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Another brigade division, the 2nd, joining the line of march soon after it was put in motion, marched in front of the 1st Liverpool regiment. The whole pressed on for a time quietly and in order. Soon, however, the last arrival, the 2nd brigade division of artillery, in pursuance of orders, when between Flag and Limit hills, drew away from out of the column to the left and passed under the shelter of Flag Hill. The two battalions behind, not being aware of any special instructions given to the artillery, followed it, whilst those in front still pursued their proper route, so that Grimwood's force was cut in two and separated whilst yet but half his march was over. An hour before dawn, Grimwood, unconscious of the mishap to his rear, gained some low kopjes 1,800 yards from the south-eastern flank of Long Hill, and extended his troops across them, the two battalions King's Royal Rifles in firing line, Leicester in support, facing north-west. Here he waited for light. One company, "F." of the 1st King's Royal Rifles, moved cautiously forward to a small kopje, slightly in advance, to cover the front.

At 3 a.m. Major-General French rode out of Ladysmith with his two regiments and pushed for Lombards Kop, dismounting his command in a hollow basin between Gun Hill and Lombards Kop, some 4,000 yards in rear, and out of sight, of Grimwood's infantry. The Natal Volunteers, who had been on the ground since the previous night, went on, and, dividing right and left, secured the summits of Lombards Kop and Umbulwana Mountain. Colonel Hamilton, quitting his rendezvous between Tunnel and Junction Hills at 4 a.m., moved, as directed, on Limit Hill, which had been piqueted throughout the night by "G." and "H." companies Gordon Highlanders. As Hamilton rode at the head of his brigade, a man was brought to him who proved to be a muleteer of the 10th Mountain battery. He reported that a sudden disturbance had occurred in the midst of Carleton's night march; all the mules of the battery had broken away, and, so far as he knew, had never been seen again. A little further on an officer of the Scottish Rifles, who had been attached to the Gloucester regiment a few hours previously, appeared amongst the Gordon Highlanders. He, too, told of a stampede amongst the battery mules, and, in addition, of resulting disturbance of some of the infantry companies, amongst others that which he accompanied. Yet a third warning of misadventure on the left was received before dawn. In the early morning the sentries of the piquet of the Leicester regiment at Cove Redoubt, one of the northerly outposts of Ladysmith, became aware of the sound of hoofs and the rattle of harness coming towards them from the north, and the soldiers, running down, captured several mules bearing the equipment of mountain guns. A patrol of the 5th Dragoon Guards, which had been despatched by Sir G. White to try to get news of Carleton's column, was checked at the Bell Spruit, but met on the road a gunner of the 10th Mountain battery, who related the same tale as had already reached that General. This man said that the battery had been suddenly fired on at 2 a.m.; the mules had stampeded and disappeared. Both its ammunition and portions of most of its guns had been carried off. Finally, a brief note from Carleton himself to the Commander-in-Chief announced what had then happened.

At dawn Pickwoad's brigade division, which was now deployed 1-½ miles south-eastward of Limit Hill, opened at Long Hill at 3,700 yards. But Long Hill was silent. The three gun emplacements visible upon the crest were empty. Instead, at 5.15 a.m., a heavy piece fired from Pepworth Hill, and a 96-pound shell fell near the town, its explosion greeting the 2nd Rifle Brigade, which, having detrained at 2.30 a.m., was marching out to join Hamilton's force at Limit Hill. The next, following quickly, burst in Pickwoad's line of guns, and Coxhead's artillery, which attempted to reply, found itself far outranged, whilst Pickwoad's three batteries maintained for a time their bombardment of Long Hill. In a few moments four long-range Creusots of smaller calibre (75 m/m) joined in from either side of the 96-pounder, two others from lower ground about the railway below the height. Both Coxhead's and Pickwoad's batteries were covered with missiles. Colonel C. M. H. Downing, commanding all the artillery, quickly assumed the offensive. Dissatisfied with his position, the left of which, lying to the east of Limit Hill, was so encumbered with rocks that of the 53rd battery only two guns could fire at all, and those of the other batteries of the 2nd brigade division only by indirect laying, he drew that part of his line clear, and moved Coxhead's three batteries, the 21st, 42nd, and 53rd, out into the open, facing north-west, to within 4,000 yards of Pepworth. Troubled, while the change was in course of taking place, by the accurate shooting from that hill, Downing then ordered Pickwoad to change front to the left and come into action against Pepworth on the right of, but some distance from, the 2nd brigade division. The guns on the low ground under the shadow of Pepworth were soon mastered. The battery upon its summit, at distant range for shrapnel, withstood yet awhile; but ere long the gunners there, too, temporarily abandoned their weapons, and only returned when a slackening of Pickwoad's fire gave opportunity for a hasty round. At 6.30 a.m., therefore, and for some half hour more, the trend of battle seemed to the artillery to be in favour of the British. After that, however, fresh hostile guns opened, and the rattle of rifles arose in ever-increasing volume, not only from the broken ground to the right, where Grimwood's infantry lay lost to view amongst the low, rolling kopjes by the Modder Spruit, but also far to the rear, towards Lombards Kop. Yet no British were seen advancing. It was evident that the infantry and cavalry were not delivering but withstanding an onslaught.

The attack which Grimwood found to be developing rapidly against him was less surprising from its suddenness than from the direction from which it assailed him. Those with him, as described above, lay in the precise position designed for them. He had taken the precaution of covering his right rear, until it should be protected by the cavalry, at first with a half company ("A.") of the Leicestershire regiment, then with two more ("F." and "H.") of the same battalion and the Maxim gun. Furthermore, a kopje to the right front, seen in the growing light to command from the eastward that already occupied by "F." company 1st King's Royal Rifles, was now crowned by "H." company of the same battalion, and all had seemed safe on that side. But now a raking fire from the right assailed all his lines, and Grimwood, instead of outflanking, was outflanked.

Every moment this fire grew more severe; beyond the Modder, Boer reinforcements were streaming in full view up to the line of riflemen shooting along the Modder Spruit. Two guns, which began to shoot from a well-concealed spot near the Elandslaagte road, now took the British line in enfilade, and partially in reverse. The Boer gunners upon Pepworth and the low ground east of it again fired, the smaller pieces into the batteries and infantry, the great Creusot frequently into the town.

Instead of the anticipated change of front to the left for the destruction of the enemy Grimwood had now, therefore, to prepare a new frontage most speedily, almost to his present rear, for the safety of his brigade. "H." company 1st King's Royal Rifles, on the advanced kopje, first turned towards the east, and coming under heavy fire from three directions, was later reinforced by "A." company of the same battalion. "B." company, which had lain in support of "F.," moved to the new right of "H." and "A.," and, with "E." company, lined up along the rocks facing the Modder Spruit. Meanwhile the officer commanding "F.," the other advanced company, who had turned east, now found his left assailed, and threw back half his command in that direction. The tripod Maxim gun of the 2nd King's Royal Rifles was placed in the centre of this company.

The 2nd King's Royal Rifles, which had lain in support whilst the front circled round, were now sent to reinforce. Leaving two companies still in support, the battalion changed front to the right, and, extending from right to left, filled the gap between the right of the 1st King's Royal Rifles and the detached 2-½ companies of the Leicester regiment. These, with a Maxim, somewhat isolated on the kopje on what was now the right flank, were beginning to be hotly engaged.

Thus under incessant and increasing fire the 8th brigade swung round, pivoting on the left company 1st King's Royal Rifles, with the detachment of the Leicester as "marker," so to speak, to its outer flank. Two companies of the missing Royal Dublin Fusiliers now arrived to assist the Leicester, and were immediately assailed by some sharpshooters who had worked around the right flank. They therefore prolonged the line to the right, towards the northern spurs of Lombards Kop, and here about 7 a.m. they joined hands with the cavalry, whose movements must now be related.

Waiting until the artillery duel seemed to be going in favour of Downing's batteries, French gave the word for advance about 5.30 a.m. The 5th Lancers and 19th Hussars, who had been lying in mass in the hollow, quickly extended in a north-easterly direction, with orders to work round the Boer left. The route taken by the brigade lay for some distance within rifle range of the western flank of a line of low kopjes, which, running down north-east as an irregular spur of Lombards Kop, and parallel to the Modder Spruit, pointed in the direction of Long Hill. At the termination of this ridge, the high ground, dropping sharply to the plain, offered an outlet to the eastward. For this gateway French's two regiments were making. They had all but reached it when a sharp blaze of rifles broke from the kopjes to their right. The squadrons thereupon wheeled to the right, the troopers dismounted, and running a short way to the new front, they soon reinforced a ridge, already thinly held by the right of Grimwood's infantry, from whence they replied to the sharpshooters on the kopjes beyond. It was soon evident that the Mausers were becoming the masters of the carbines, and French, seeing the impossibility of breaking through, at any rate at this period, ordered his brigade to retire. As the men took to their horses, a gun, opening from the enemy's left, threw shell rapidly amongst them, and made the inequality of the combat yet more apparent. The two squadrons of the 5th Lancers, who were on the left, drew back over the plain, whilst the 19th Hussars retraced their path under the ridges, both rejoining General French under the lee of Lombards Kop, north of Gun Hill and of their original point of departure. French immediately threw his command forward again, and his two regiments, with some of the Natal Carbineers, all dismounted, crowned the high ridges running northward and downward from the summit of Lombards Kop, and were soon deep in action with superior numbers all along the line. About 8 a.m. Major-General J. F. Brocklehurst, who had only reached Ladysmith at 3 a.m., arrived at Lombards Kop with two squadrons ("B." and "D.") of the 5th Dragoon Guards, followed by the 18th Hussars; and Downing, withdrawing the 69th battery from the line of guns still shelling Pepworth, despatched it with all haste in the same direction. Of Brocklehurst's reinforcement, the two squadrons 5th Dragoon Guards came up on the right of the 19th Hussars on the crest, and found themselves at once under fire from the front and right flank. Of the three weak squadrons of the 18th Hussars—all that remained after the catastrophe of Adelaide Farm—one was directed to reinforce the 19th Hussars on the eastern slope of Lombards, the other two climbed to the right of the 5th Dragoon Guards to the south. Sharp fire from a pom-pom and many rifles met them on the shoulder of the ridge, and it seemed as if the British right was to be overmatched. But the 69th battery, which had moved up the Helpmakaar road, escorted by a squadron of the 5th Lancers, now arrived, and, boldly handled, quickly relieved the pressure in this portion of the field by drawing the enemy's attention to itself. Pushing on through the Nek which joins Lombards Kop to Umbulwana this battery came into action on an underfeature south of the road one mile beyond it, and enfiladed the Boer left. Soon, however, it found itself the focus of an increasing fusilade, and its commander, Major F. D. V. Wing, saw that to continue to work the guns would entail a grave loss of men. He therefore determined to withdraw from his dangerously advanced position. It was impossible to bring up the teams, but the gunners ran the guns back by hand. The battery withdrew almost intact, and, coming into action again, kept the balance level by steady practice carried on from the Nek itself.

Meanwhile, Grimwood was being hard pressed on the low kopjes to the northward, and his line became thinner every moment as he endeavoured to meet the continual attempts upon his flanks. Two Boer guns shelled steadily the much exposed 8th brigade from various points, and when about 8 a.m. a pom-pom, joining in the bombardment, killed with its first discharges some of the ammunition mules and scattered the rest far and wide, Grimwood sent urgent messages to the artillery for support. Sir G. White was at that moment himself with the batteries, which were being enfiladed again, this time by some guns on the low ground below and south of Pepworth. He promptly despatched the 21st and 53rd batteries to positions from which, facing eastwards, they could support both the cavalry and Grimwood. The 21st moved far southward, and from a gap in the hills between the infantry and cavalry soon rendered for the left of the latter the same service as the 69th was performing for the right. The 53rd battery, coming into action near the Elandslaagte road, engaged the Boer guns on Grimwood's front, and though kept at extreme range by Sir G. White's orders, succeeded in much reducing their effect. At the same time the 13th battery also left the line facing Pepworth, and, wheeling eastward, shelled the hostile artillery on the left front of the infantry with good results.

For two hours, from about 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., the engagement continued with little movement of either army. The Boers, being now within 800 yards of the British, could advance no further, but sent a steady stream of bullets against the ridges, pinning the cavalry to Lombards Kop and the infantry to their line of hillocks along the Modder. By 9.30 a.m. Grimwood's last available reserve was put into the firing line, and he could prolong his front no more, though the enemy still threatened his flanks. The artillery was strangely dispersed. Far on the right the 69th battery stood in action upon Umbulwana Nek; the 21st battery on the northern side of Lombards Kop covered French's left and Grimwood's right; out in the open to their left rear the 53rd battery shot above the heads of the right wing of the infantry, whilst farther northward the 13th sent shrapnel over the left wing. Only the 42nd and 67th batteries remained on the site first held by the artillery facing north-west, where the former suffered considerable losses from the heavy enfilade and frontal fire which recommenced. For the Boer artillerymen, encouraged by the diminution of the British gun-power at this point, had not only returned to the pieces upon Pepworth, but placed fresh ones upon the northernmost spurs of Long Hill itself.

The reserve on Limit Hill, under Colonel Ian Hamilton's command, had been reduced considerably by the successive demands of the battle. He had been early deprived of most of his cavalry and all his artillery, and shortly after 8 a.m., on a report coming of a hostile advance against the left flank, two squadrons ("E." and "F.") of his remaining mounted troops, the Imperial Light Horse, had left him to occupy some kopjes on either side of the railway close to Aller Park, from which they could see the enemy moving in strength about the heights of Bell Spruit. At 10 a.m. the 1st Manchester regiment was also withdrawn from Hamilton's brigade, the right half-battalion proceeding towards Lombards Kop, the left half passing into the open as escort to the artillery. The former portion eventually became incorporated with French's firing line, whilst the latter lay out upon the shelterless ground between the original artillery position and the new one taken up by the 13th battery, where they suffered somewhat severely from the intermittent shells.

Meanwhile Colonel W. G. Knox, who, in the absence of the army, had been placed in charge of the defences of Ladysmith, was by no means secure. Left with a garrison of a few companies of infantry, he detailed two of these, with the 23rd of the Royal engineers, and the two Boer guns captured at Elandslaagte, to cover the north of the town, posting them upon a ridge north-west of Observation Hill. Here he found himself confronted immediately by strong bodies and two guns of the enemy, who manœuvred about Bell's and the adjacent kopjes. He was soon strengthened by two guns and 88 men of the 10th Mountain battery, hastily collected and reorganised after their stampede from Carleton's party. But at no time could Knox do more than hold his own, and the strength and boldness of the Boers, who at one time threatened the town, seemed the last confirmation of Carleton's fate.

About 11 a.m. Sir G. White, having first despatched his Chief of the Staff, Major-General A. Hunter, to investigate the situation, decided to withdraw. To cover the movement he sent out three squadrons ("B.," "C." and "D.") of the Imperial Light Horse which remained in reserve at Limit Hill. The 13th battery, receiving an order to support them as closely as possible, galloped in and unlimbered 800 yards behind Grimwood's line. So screened, the infantry began to retreat at 11.30 a.m. As the men rose from their shelters, a storm of fire broke from the enemy's ridges. But the gunners of the 13th battery, turning the hail of bullets from the infantry, faced it themselves. Almost the whole volume of the enemy's fire soon centred on this battery. From the right, four Boer guns concealed in the scrub raked the line; those upon Long Hill bombarded from the left, whilst from the left rear the heavy shells from Pepworth also struck in, hitting direct four of the six guns. When twenty minutes had passed thus, and Grimwood's brigade had almost removed itself into safety, the battery which had shielded it looked as if it must itself be lost.

From their rear Major A. J. Abdy, commanding the 53rd battery, had marked the perilous situation of the 13th and, obtaining permission from Colonel Coxhead, advanced to succour it. Galloping to the front, across a deep donga, the 53rd wheeled to the right of the 13th and ranged upon some Boer artillery 2,350 yards to the eastward. By the orders of Major-General Hunter, who was on the spot, the 13th retired first, some 800 yards. But before it could come into action again, the 53rd, left alone on the plain, drew in its turn the fire of all the Boer guns. A shell exploded beneath a limber, blowing the wheels to fragments, so that the gun could not be removed, and had to be temporarily abandoned. As soon as the 13th re-opened the 53rd was able to draw back. In re-crossing the donga a gun upset, and the enemy's shells burst over it, but whilst the battery fell back to a new site to support the 13th, Lieutenant J. F. A. Higgins, having been left with the team in the donga, succeeded in righting the gun, and restored it to its place in the line. A few minutes previously, Captain W. Thwaites, with six men, had ridden forward, and now returned, bringing with him on a new limber the gun which had been disabled in the open. Only the old limber and a wagon of stores remained derelict.

So covered, the infantry had been getting away with unimpaired discipline, but in great confusion, owing to the intermixture of units and the extreme exhaustion of the men. Two Maxims were abandoned, but useless, on the kopjes—those of the Leicestershire regiment and 2nd King's Royal Rifles—the mules of both having been shot or stampeded by the last outburst from the Boer lines. The enemy made no serious attempt to follow up the retirement. Some Boers did indeed speed forward to the now empty kopjes, and began shooting rapidly from thence, but under the fine practice of the 13th battery the musketry soon dwindled. The Creusot on Pepworth Hill sounded on the right, and every part of the route to be traversed by the troops lay within range of its projectiles. About noon, a report, as loud as that of the great French cannon itself, came from the direction of the town, and the batteries on Pepworth sank immediately to silence under the repeated strokes of shells from British Naval guns. Captain the Honourable Hedworth Lambton, R.N., had detrained his command of two 4.7-in., three 12-pr. 12-cwt. quick-firing guns, with some smaller pieces, 16 officers and 267 men at 10 a.m., the very time when the enemy's 6-in. shells were bursting over the railway station. After conferring with Colonel Knox, he was in two hours on his way towards the fight with the 12-pounders, reaching the place held by Hamilton's brigade. But in view of the imminent retirement, this was too far forward, and Lambton was ordered back. Whilst he was in the act of Withdrawing, the gunners on Pepworth, descrying the strings of moving bullocks, launched a shell which pitched exactly upon one of the guns, and tumbled it over. Lambton, however, coming into action nearer the town, opened heavily and accurately on his antagonist, and reduced him to immediate silence.

At 1 p.m. the cavalry on the right gave up the crests which they had maintained so long, covered up to the last by the 21st battery on the left, and on the right by the 69th battery, whose escort had been strengthened by "C" squadron 5th Dragoon Guards taken from Limit Hill. At 2.30 p.m. French's command was in Ladysmith, following the 1st Manchester regiment, which had retired on the right of the cavalry. With the exception of four companies of the 1st Devonshire regiment, left upon Limit Hill, the rest of the troops engaged had reached their camps a short time previously. Only the tents of Carleton's two battalions were seen to be empty when evening fell.

Carleton's detachment had moved from the rendezvous at 11.15 p.m. in the following order: first, under Major C. S. Kincaid, a small party of 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers, who marched with fixed bayonets; then Colonel Carleton himself, with Major W. Adye, D.A.A.G. for Intelligence, and the guides; behind them the 1st Royal Irish Fusiliers, followed by their 46 mules; then the 10th Mountain battery, with 133 mules; then the 57 mules of the 1st Gloucester regiment; next five and a half companies of that battalion, and finally a small rearguard, under Captain B. O. Fyffe, of the Gloucester. The valley of the Bell Spruit was wrapped in profound darkness, yet the force pushed on at a rapid pace, and, in spite of the noise of its progress, was undetected by the Boer piquets on the hills on either side. Shortly after 1 a.m. the van was opposite the southern spur of the height called Kainguba, at the other extremity of which, some two miles due north, lay the object of the expedition, Nicholson's Nek. The column was here in perfect order, the road to the Nek was good, and there was promise of about two hours of darkness to conceal the remainder of the march. But Colonel Carleton, thinking more of the lateness of his start than of the excellence of his progress, and remembering that his orders had not bound him absolutely to Nicholson's Nek, came to the conclusion at this point that, if, as seemed possible, he could not reach the Nek before dawn, it would be extremely rash to be surprised by daylight in a narrow defile. He decided, therefore, at least to make good the dangerous high ground on his left by occupying the nearest crest of Kainguba above him, intending, if time allowed, to continue his march to the Nek from this vantage ground. He therefore wheeled the leading files to the left, and at their head began the boulder-obstructed and finally almost precipitous ascent of the mountain, ordering guides to be left to indicate the point of the change of direction to the units following the Royal Irish Fusiliers. When the head of that battalion had climbed two-thirds of the steep a mysterious and fatal incident occurred. Suddenly from the darkness encircling the clambering soldiers broke out a roar "like that of an approaching train," there was a rush of hoofs and the clatter of scattering stones. In a moment a group of loose animals, whether horses, mules or cattle, it was impossible to discern, bounding down the rocky precipice, tore past the last companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers and disappeared as quickly as they had come into the gloom of the valley. The rear of the Irish Fusiliers checked and staggered back upon the long line of ammunition mules. The natural timidity of these animals, many of them almost untrained, had been increased by their long wait at the rendezvous, and by the fact that they were led by strange and unskilled men. Now it became an uncontrollable panic. Leaping round, dragging their muleteers with them, they plunged backwards in terror, wrenched themselves loose, and thundered over the steep slope upon all below them. The battery mules and those of the Gloucester regiment were dashed downwards and joined the riot, and the whole mass poured upon the Gloucester regiment, which had just begun to breast the hill. A shout arose; the men of the front companies were buffeted and swept from the track in every direction. A few shots rang sharply from behind, and a few more faintly from a startled Boer piquet on Surprise Hill. Then the uproar died away in the valley of the Bell Spruit, leaving the column disordered and amazed at its own wreck. It was a disaster complete, sudden, and incurred by no fault of officers or men. Up to this point the night march, conducted in deep darkness and between the enemy's piquets, had been a conspicuous success, and now in one swift moment the hand of fate had changed order into chaos, and success into destruction. But the troops quickly recovered, and indeed but few had yielded to the shock. Many had gathered about their officers with fixed bayonets; many, hurled to the ground, had nevertheless gripped their weapons and looked not for safety, but the enemy. Only fifty of the infantry, and these included many who had been actually stunned by the onset of the frenzied mules, failed to fall into the ranks at the summons of the officers, who, even before the tumult had ceased, were strenuously working to re-organise their commands.

About 2 a.m. the leading files pressed over the crest on to the top of the mountain. An hour of uncertainty and, had the enemy been near, of extreme danger followed. Most of the Irish Fusiliers were now upon the summit, disposed, as best could be, for defence. But the Gloucester at the bottom were not yet formed, and when, about 3 a.m., they came up in such order as they had been able to contrive, they brought only nine of their fifty-nine mules with them. The Irish Fusiliers had recovered but eight. The reserve of ammunition was thus practically swept away. The Mountain battery did not appear at all. Only two of the gun mules eventually arrived, carrying portions of two pieces. Eighty-eight gunners and one hundred and thirty mules had dropped out, and not a complete gun of all the six was available.

When at last both regiments reached the top they were formed in line of quarter-columns—Gloucester on the right. Guided by Adye, they moved towards the southern extremity of the ridge, where they halted, lay down around the crest, and waited for light. Dawn revealed the nature of the position which the diminished detachment occupied. Behind, the southern end of the mountain dropped almost sheer to the valley. In front, to the northward, the hill-top first sloped downward somewhat to a point, where, like Talana, it was narrowed by a deep re-entrant on one side, then rose to a new sky line, which hid from the British troops the remainder of the ridge some 1,200 or more yards from the southern crest. Over it the hill-top narrowed, and ran on for a mile and a half towards Nicholson's Nek. A jungle of tall grass, hiding innumerable boulders, clothed the mountain up to and a little beyond the sky line, ceasing some 700 yards from the southern crest, and between this thicket and the British line were dotted a few ruined stone kraals, of a circular shape and some two feet high. Across the valley of the Bell Spruit, to the east, a group of kopjes stood within long rifle range of, but lower than, Kainguba. In the midst of the British position itself, a small knoll, crowned by two trees, and nearly as high as the grass-grown sky line in front, arose at the end of the mountain before it plunged into the depth behind. Carleton, now decided to stand on the defensive where he was, despatched a message at 3.55 a.m. by a native, acquainting Sir G. White with his mishap, his position, and his plan, and issued orders for the disposition and entrenchment of the troops. The left or western crest of the hill was assigned to the Gloucester regiment, the right to the Irish Fusiliers, a reserve, consisting of two companies ("G." and "H.") of the latter battalion, taking post in front of the knoll at the southern extremity of the summit. The men began at once to build sangars. The position of the Gloucester, which it is necessary to describe in detail, was as follows: Along half of the southern and south-western crest lay "A." company, its right being prolonged by "B." company, and at first by "C." This last-named unit, however, was soon extended across the north of the hill, at right angles to the crest and "B." company, and had half completed a defensive wall when it was again pushed forward about 100 yards to the front, "B." company increasing its extension along the crest to maintain junction with the left of "C." The right flank of "C." company was marked by a round kraal, behind which stood up a small tree, and beyond this the line across the mountain-top was taken up by a company ("E.") of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, which, in its turn, linked on to the defenders ("A.," "B.," "F." companies Royal Irish Fusiliers) of the eastern crest. The formation thus took the shape of a semicircle, behind a diameter, composed of one company Gloucester and one Royal Irish Fusiliers, facing the rise to the northward. Some 700 yards back from these the arc followed the contour of the mountain in rear. Thus back from the fighting line the ground sloped upwards, hiding from it the reserves, and exposing reinforcements from them, or men retreating back to them, to the full view and fire of anyone upon the shoulder which arose in front. Over the brow of this rise "D." company Gloucester entrenched itself in a position to support both "C." company Gloucester and "E." company Royal Irish Fusiliers. Though less than 150 yards in rear, "D." company was, owing to the bulging ground, invisible to "C." company, and the officers of the latter knew nothing of the proximity of its support. The movements necessary to these dispositions had scarcely begun when a slow rifle-fire, commencing from Surprise Hill to the south-west, showed that the presence of the British on the mountain was discovered, and from the very first the toiling soldiers thus found themselves taken in flank and reverse. Stones of manageable size were scarce, tools were lacking with which to move the large ones, and, with the smaller, defences of but the most paltry dimensions could be erected. At this time the danger of the dead ground ahead, and below the left front, became apparent to Carleton, and "E." company of the Gloucester, moving out beyond the front line, took post upon the densely-grown summit of the rise, 400 yards in front of "C." turning its left section to face west. Here it was shortly joined by the half of "H." company, some twenty men in all, sent forward by the O.C. Gloucester in response to Carleton's order (which did not name any precise strength) to reinforce.

At 7 a.m. bands of mounted men came down from Intintanyoni to the heights east of Bell Spruit, whence they opened fire upon the right rear of the British position. An hour later a hostile battery of apparently four guns suddenly appeared upon the northern end of these heights, and, unlimbering for action, threatened Kainguba in silence for some time, only to disappear northwards without firing a shot. A number of horsemen were seen to ride away with it, and these, bearing to the left, vanished behind Nicholson's Nek.

At 9 a.m. a movement still more threatening was descried from the lines of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. Groups of horsemen, breaking away from the main laager visible at Pepworth, came riding up the valleys and behind the crests towards the northern end of Kainguba. On the right, amongst the Irish Fusiliers, the Maxim of the Gloucester regiment stood ready for action, and the officer in charge commenced a slow fire upon the stream of Boers. Opening at 1,200 yards, he gradually increased the range to 2,000 yards, and the trotting horsemen had just broken into a gallop as the bullets began to lash amongst them, when an order was received not to fire unless the enemy showed in masses at closer distances, ammunition being scarce.

At 2 a.m. Commandant Van Dam, lying in bivouac with his Johannesburg Police beneath Pepworth, received orders from Joubert in person to proceed at once to the northern summit of Kainguba and hold the ridge above Nicholson's Nek. The Boer officer thereupon galloped for that spot with 400 men, being warned of the proximity of British troops by a Field Cornet of the Pretoria commando, who lay with thirty men on the northern slope of the high ground east of Bell Spruit. Gaining the Nek, the Police found it occupied by 150 Free Staters, who moved away further west on their approach. Van Dam's plan was quickly made. Sending a message to the Free Staters that if they would ride round to the flank and rear of the British, he would attack straight over the top of the mountain, he left fifty burghers in the Nek in charge of the horses, and led the remainder on foot in straggling order up the hill. The crest was gained and half the summit traversed before shots rang out from the shelters of the advanced companies of the Gloucester. But the Boers fired no round until, at 800 yards, the foremost British sangar was visible through the long grass. Meanwhile the Free Staters, under Christian De Wet and Steenkamp, crept around the foot of the steep ground under Van Dam's right, swinging northward. Then they, too, began to climb, and by 10 a.m. Carleton's column was entrapped.

The weak company and a half in front of the Gloucester, badly sheltered from the converging fire, could do little more than check the foremost burghers. This, however, they did so effectually for a time that Van Dam, fearing for the issue of a merely frontal attack, and hearing nothing of the Free Staters, who had not yet reached their goal, ordered one of his officers, Lieutenant Pohlmann, to take fifty men out of sight under the hill to the right, and not to fire a shot until he arrived within decisive range of the British. Pohlmann moved boldly and skilfully, and, appearing suddenly upon the left of "E." company Gloucester, poured a destructive shower over the defences. The captain of "E." company perceived at once the hopelessness of his situation, asked and received permission to retire, and took his men and those of "H." company back under a heavy fusilade and with severe loss, passing the left flank of "C." company, into whose sangars many dropped for shelter. The section detached to the left, not receiving the order—unable to retire, if it had received it—was shot down to a man. The commander was taken prisoner. Carleton, who had not authorised this retirement, and placed as he was, knew nothing of the necessity for it, then ordered Major S. Humphery to reinforce the diminished companies, and send them back to the abandoned sangars. This Humphery found to be impossible, and thus the front of the position receded to the line of "C." company Gloucester and of "E." company Royal Irish Fusiliers, slightly to their right rear. Nor was this to remain long unbroken; for most of the men of this company of Royal Irish Fusiliers, finding their feeble defences crumbling to nothing under the tremendous fire, drew off gradually towards their comrades on the right, and soon the officers of "C." company Gloucester saw that the prolongation of their line had vanished, and that their right was now completely exposed.

About this time (11.30 a.m.) a heliograph from Sir G. White's main body was seen. Carleton called for signallers to read the message; but so deadly was the fire that three men were wounded in succession, and one man thrice, as they stood by Carleton spelling out the signal. This ran:—"Retire on Ladysmith as opportunity offers." The only heliograph with the column had vanished in the stampede, and Carleton, encircled by musketry, knew that he was as powerless to obey the order as to acknowledge it.

The Boers, who had turned "E." company, Gloucester, crawled on to within forty yards of the right of "B." company, threatening to roll it up, and Lieutenant C. S. Knox, its commander, surrounded by dead, found it necessary to go back to fetch up more men. Near him, in the sangar of "C." company, lay Captain S. Willcock of "H." company, and Knox, before starting back, waved his arms to attract his attention, shouting to him that the Boers were coming up from behind, that he, Knox, had to go back, and that Willcock must look to his left. But Knox, with a gesture of his arms, had unwittingly imitated the military signal to retire, and the musketry, which was now one sustained roar upon the mountain, drowned all of his shouting, except the words "from behind." Willcock, therefore, imagining that he was receiving an order to retire, which might have been sent forward from the commanding officer, passed it on to Captain Fyffe, who, in turn, communicated it to Captain Duncan, the senior officer in the sangar. In the short retirement which followed nearly forty-five percent fell.

Following their retreating companies, Captains Duncan and Fyffe (the latter wounded) halted by a small ruined kraal some fifty yards back, leaped into it with six or eight men, and determined to make a stand. Behind the kraal, the ground sloping upwards, hid the rest of the British lines entirely from a man lying prone in the sorry shelter. So close now were the Boers that the uproar of their rapid and incessant shots overwhelmed all else. To the occupants of the kraal it seemed as though silence had fallen over the British part of the position, and this, though "D." company was shooting steadily, unshaken in the sangar not fifty yards to their right rear. They thought that Colonel Carleton had taken his column from the hill, and that they were alone. For a few moments they lay, the helpless focus of hundreds of rifles, and then, after a brief conversation with his wounded junior, Duncan decided to surrender. Two handkerchiefs tied to the muzzle of an uplifted rifle were apparently invisible to the Boers, whose fire continued unabated. But the white rags, fluttering just clear of the brow of the rise, were marked in an instant from the sangar of "D." company, of whose proximity Duncan and his party were absolutely unaware, and Captain R. Conner, who lay there with the commanding officer of the Gloucester, rushed out towards them over some fifty yards of bullet-swept ground shouting an enquiry. Meanwhile, as the storm of lead still beat upon the shelter, Duncan, taking a towel from a soldier near him, tied it to his sword and held it aloft. For a minute or two the enemy did not desist, and in this interval Conner, running by order of his commanding officer, across to Colonel Carleton, acquainted him with the fact that the flag had been upraised in Duncan's sangar. At the same time a bugle, whether British or Boer will never be known, sounded the "cease fire" somewhere on the British left. There was a hasty consultation between Carleton and Adye as to the possibility of repudiating the surrender altogether, or of applying it solely to the small party which had yielded. But the former officer, raising his eyes towards the spot, saw that the enemy had practically decided the question for him. Having passed by Duncan's kraal they were close in front of his main line, moving quickly forward with shouts and waving of hats, with rifles held confidently at the "trail." Many were already on the flank of the right portion of the British line, which, surrender or not as it would, was thus placed in an utterly untenable position. This right, consisting of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, absorbed in action to the front, knew nothing of the events on the left.

There was yet time to disown the flag. The Boers had so far possessed themselves only of Duncan's sangar; but Carleton shrank from doing what he knew would be construed into the blackest treachery by his opponents, which he knew, moreover, could but prolong the resistance of his trapped and exhausted battalions some half an hour or less. Calling a bugler to him he bade him sound the "cease fire," set a match to his maps and papers, and, with Adye, walked out towards the enemy. Some of the Irish Fusiliers still fought on whilst Carleton, meeting Commandant Steenkamp, handed over to him his sword and revolver; it was some time before the bursts of firing ceased altogether on the right. At about 1.30 p.m. 37 officers and 917 men became prisoners of war.

Chapter XI.

THE ARRIVAL OF SIR REDVERS BULLER.

Reports of the concentration of large commandos of Transvaal and Free State burghers on the Natal border had been telegraphed home by the High Commissioner and the Governor of Natal on the 28th of September, and reached the Colonial Office during the night of the 28th-29th. The plan, therefore, of an advance through the Orange Free State, which was adopted by the Cabinet on the following day, by implication assumed that the force assigned to Sir George White for the defence of Natal would be sufficient to check the threatened invasion until a forward movement of the army corps in the western theatre of war should draw away from the republican host the Free State men for the protection of their own territory.

The events of the first three weeks of the war showed that Sir George White, without assistance, would not be able to protect Natal, and the situation which met General Buller on his disembarkation in South Africa on the morning of the 31st October could not but cause him grave anxiety. The Natal Field Force, after three strenuous efforts at Talana, Elandslaagte and Lombards Kop to repel the enemy's columns of invasion, lay concentrated at Ladysmith, and to the north, east, and west was already closely watched by the enemy in superior strength. General Buller was convinced that the troops needed rest, and could for a time only act on the defensive. He therefore telegraphed to General White, on 1st November, suggesting that he should entrench and await events either at Ladysmith or at Colenso. Sir George's reply showed that he had already entrenched himself at Ladysmith, and could not now withdraw. South of Ladysmith there were only very weak posts at Colenso and Estcourt, and one regular battalion at Maritzburg. For the moment, the safety of the capital of Natal appeared to be precarious, and Sir Redvers even deemed it necessary to request the Naval Commander-in-Chief to take steps for the protection of Durban from land attack. In Cape Colony the Boer forces close to the Orange river had been strengthened by reinforcements from the commandos originally assigned to watch the Basuto border. Moreover, there was some reason to believe that another commando from the north was moving down upon Kimberley, and this report, coupled with the lack of news from Mafeking, rendered it for the moment doubtful whether Baden-Powell might not have been overwhelmed. The first units of the expeditionary force were not due at Cape Town for some ten days. The complete disembarkation at Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and East London would not be finished until early in December. The British Commander-in-Chief could not hope, therefore, for at least a month, that his field army would be complete in organisation, equipment, and transport, and ready to commence an advance into the Free State. Notwithstanding these anxieties, General Buller was at first inclined to adhere to the scheme originally designed, and to wait until he could remove the pressure on Ladysmith and Kimberley by striking straight at Bloemfontein. He so informed Lord Wolseley in a telegram despatched from Cape Town on 1st November. Yet a few hours later it became evident that the whole case was graver than Sir Redvers had at first conceived. Both from the telegrams of Sir George White and from those of Sir Archibald Hunter, from whom, as his own chief-of-staff, Buller had called for a personal report on affairs in Natal, it was manifest that Ladysmith was certain to be cut off from the outer world. General White telegraphed: "I have the greatest confidence in holding the Boers for as long as necessary," but he added that "reinforcements should be sent to Natal at once. Ladysmith strongly entrenched, but lines not continuous and perimeter so large that Boers can exercise their usual tactics." General Hunter reported that "Ladysmith lies in a hollow, commanded by heights too distant for us to hold, and now possessed by the enemy"; and that "the Boers are superior in numbers, mobility, and long-range artillery." In Cape Colony the Intelligence officers at Naauwpoort and Stormberg telegraphed that a commando, 800 strong, had crossed the Orange river at Norval's Pont, and that another Boer force, stated to be 3,000 strong, with two guns and a Maxim, was crossing the Bethulie bridge. The enemy's successes in Natal were, in fact, encouraging the Free State commandos to establish connection with the disaffected in the eastern and midland districts of Cape Colony. As regards the general attitude of those in the Colonies who sympathised with the Boers, General Buller was aware that for the most part they possessed arms and ammunition, and that if their districts were invaded the young men would join the enemy. The information in his possession led to a belief that the greater number were for the moment still very undecided, wondering which side would win, and that their whole attention was fixed on Ladysmith and Kimberley. If the relief of those places could be effected, the hostile elements, it was held, would not stir; but if the two towns should fall, a dangerous rising was thought probable. Meanwhile at Kimberley, although the reports of the officer in command of the garrison did not appear to Sir Redvers to show any immediate anxiety, yet the successful defence of that place depended on other than the regular troops, and there were indications that the strain of the situation was being already felt. Urgent appeals were addressed by the civil community to the High Commissioner, drawing his attention to the large number of women and children within the town, the possibility of the cattle, on which the meat supplies of the invested population mainly depended, being captured by the enemy, and the difficulty of maintaining order amongst the 10,000 "raw savages" employed in the mine compounds.

The consideration of these reports and representations made it evident that the whole situation had changed from that contemplated when the original plan of campaign had been drawn up. For an aggressive advance on Bloemfontein there was as yet no adequate army. The component parts of it were on the high seas. Even after they should have arrived, much time and labour would be required, before they could be welded together, and supplied with all that was needed for an offensive march into a country so distant from the coast. On the other hand, if Ladysmith should meanwhile fall, the Boer commandos at present surrounding that town would be set free to seize not only Maritzburg but probably also the seaport of Durban, the possession of which would give to the republics direct access to the outer world, and would, as was believed by both Boer and British, be a signal to all the disaffected in Cape Colony to take up arms. In the western theatre of war, the early relief of Kimberley was an object dear to the hearts of all loyalists, and its loss would undoubtedly give an immediate impetus to the wave of rebellion. The necessity for immediate action was urgent, both in Natal and Cape Colony, but the former appeared for the moment to present the more critical situation. Sir Redvers, therefore, on the 2nd November, telegraphed to the War Office:

"I consider that I must reinforce Natal, hang on to Orange River bridge, and give myself to organise troops expected from England. I am, therefore, withdrawing the garrisons at Naauwpoort and Stormberg. I shall send Gatacre's division on arrival to Natal, and with Methuen's and Clery's try to keep the main line open, and to relieve Kimberley. I do not wish to be pessimistic, but it seems to me I shall have to wait until March to commence active operations."

On receipt of this report Lord Lansdowne telegraphed an enquiry whether the division sent to Natal should be replaced by a fresh division from England. On the 3rd November, in consequence of further reports from Natal, Sir Redvers telegraphed to the Secretary of State:

"Telegraphic connection with Ladysmith was interrupted yesterday, and White's force is isolated. He is well supplied with everything, except ammunition for his naval 12-pounders, which are the only guns that can compete with hostile artillery. I regard the situation as one of extreme gravity. Colenso bridge and Maritzburg are held by one battalion each; we are protecting Durban from the fleet. I shall despatch the first reinforcements I receive to Durban, but I cannot conceal from myself that if the enemy previously occupy, even with a small force, the country south of Mooi River, the relief of White by troops just landed will be an almost impossible operation, unless he can hold out six weeks at least from now."

By the following day, 4th November, General Buller had been able to work out his plans more in detail. It had become more and more apparent that Natal, where now the bulk of the enemy's strength lay, was for the moment the scene of most difficulty and danger, and that the relief of Ladysmith was all-important. For these reasons Sir Redvers decided to proceed himself to Natal for a time to supervise personally that critical operation. He telegraphed, therefore, to the Secretary of State:

"My intentions are as follows: I propose to send Clery and Headquarters 2nd division to Natal to command. With him will go the first three brigade Headquarters except Guards that arrive. These three brigades will be composed of the first line battalions that arrive. Headquarters 1st division will land at Cape Town, and Lord Methuen will command advance on Kimberley with Guards' brigade and one other. Headquarters 3rd division will land at Cape Town or East London, as circumstances require, and will be completed with a new brigade, under Fetherstonhaugh, formed of three extra regiments and one from line of communications, or else colonial regiment.

"I propose to take charge of advance on Ladysmith. If under Providence we are successful there and at Kimberley, I think collapse of opposition possible. These proposals are subject to High Commissioner's views of state of Cape Colony, and to what may happen meantime anywhere else.

"Preparation of extra division seems desirable, but I do not yet see need for its despatch from England. I shall speak with more confidence when I see French, who is, I hope, en route here from Ladysmith."

On the 5th November Sir Redvers telegraphed further to the War Office that 40 days' supplies for the force under orders for Natal should be shipped direct from England to Durban. The more hopeful view the General Commanding-in-Chief was already taking may be judged from the fact that on the following day, the 6th of November, he requested the War Office to read "January" instead of "March" in the last sentence of his above quoted cypher of November 2nd. Five days later, in reply to a telegram from Lord Lansdowne, stating that another infantry division was being mobilised, and asking by what date it would be required, General Buller reported:

"The defence of Ladysmith seems to have so thoroughly checked advance of enemy, that I have some grounds for hoping the successful relief of Kimberley and Ladysmith may end opposition. On the other hand, reliable Dutch here predict guerilla warfare as a certainty. I think, therefore, that I ought to have another division as soon as possible. My great want at present is mounted men. I am raising as many as I can, and should like, as soon as possible, a few good special service officers."

To this despatch the War Office answered on 14th November that a fifth infantry division would be sent out at an early date, under command of Sir C. Warren.

In arriving at the decisions recorded in the above official telegrams, Sir Redvers Buller had not abandoned the intention of carrying out ultimately the original plan of campaign. On the contrary, with a view to its resumption, after the relief of Ladysmith had been effected, he determined to instruct the General Officer Commanding the 1st division, Lieut.-General Lord Methuen, as soon as he had thrust aside the Boer commandos between the Orange river and Kimberley, to throw into that town supplies and a reinforcement of one and a half battalions of infantry and some naval long-range guns, and then move back to the Orange river, withdrawing with him the women and children and natives. Meantime, while the cavalry division, as its units arrived from England, was being prepared for the front at a camp near Cape Town, its commander, Lieut.-General French, who had been recalled from Ladysmith, was to form a flying column at Naauwpoort, with instructions to risk no engagement, but to manœuvre and worry the enemy, and thus check any invasion of the central districts of the Cape. On the eastern side of that colony, the Commander-in-Chief decided to assemble at Queenstown a force, under Lieut.-General Sir W. Gatacre, the commander of the 3rd infantry division, whose duty it would be to operate northwards, and endeavour to stop recruiting by the enemy and protect the loyal. On Lord Methuen's return to Orange River, it was Sir Redvers' intention that he should march eastwards in conjunction with French, occupy the bridges of Colesberg, Norval's Pont and Bethulie, and thus prepare for the advance on Bloemfontein, which would be undertaken as soon as the relief of Ladysmith set him (Sir Redvers) free from Natal.

The decision to despatch to Natal the bulk of the earliest reinforcements arriving from home has been often referred to as "the break-up of the army corps." In a sense it was much more than that. From the point of view of organisation, the transfer of one or more intact divisions of the original army corps to Natal would have been immaterial, since they would have remained still under the supreme control of the General himself. But the urgency of the situation compelled the British Commander not only to detach portions of the army corps, but to improvise hastily, from the general officers and regimental units as they arrived in transports at Cape Town, special forces with hardly any regard to the composition of the divisions as originally fixed by the War Office. Thus to the commander of the 2nd division, Lieut.-General Sir C. F. Clery, who was selected by Sir Redvers Buller to make preparation for the relief of Ladysmith, and to act as his second in command in that enterprise, two cavalry regiments, four brigades of infantry, two brigade divisions of field artillery, a company of Royal engineers, and a pontoon troop were assigned. But of these units, only the 4th brigade, commanded by Major-General the Hon. N. G. Lyttelton, and Lt.-Colonel L. W. Parsons' brigade division, R.F.A. (63rd, 64th, and 73rd batteries), belonged to Clery's division. The 2nd infantry brigade, under Major-General H. J. T. Hildyard, and Lt.-Colonel H. V. Hunt's brigade division (7th, 14th, and 66th batteries), being the first units of infantry and artillery to arrive from England, were removed from Methuen's division, and sent on at once to Natal. To these were subsequently added both the infantry brigades of the 3rd division (the 5th, under command of Major-General A. FitzRoy Hart, and the 6th, under Major-General G. Barton), the 13th Hussars, originally designated as corps troops, the Royal Dragoons, drawn from the 2nd cavalry brigade, and the pontoon troop of the army corps.

The 3rd, or Highland brigade, under Major-General A. G. Wauchope, was at first assigned by the Commander-in-Chief to Lord Methuen, to replace the 2nd brigade, transferred to Natal; but, as it was found later that Wauchope's battalions would at the outset be needed to guard the railway line in rear of Methuen's column, a 9th brigade, under Major-General R.S.R. Fetherstonhaugh, was formed out of the infantry units already at Orange River station, viz.: the half-battalion 1st Loyal North Lancashire, 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, and 2nd Northamptonshire. Lt.-Colonel F. H. Hall's brigade division (18th, 62nd, and 75th batteries) and the 9th Lancers were also allotted to the 1st division.

For Naauwpoort, General French, in addition to the original garrison of that place, was at first given the assistance of the 12th Lancers, a battery of R.H.A., and a half-battalion of the Black Watch, besides two companies of M.I. To these other units were to be gradually added, as soon as they became available.

Sir W. Gatacre was instructed to develop a force on the eastern railway line from the original Stormberg garrison, the 1st Royal Scots (originally allotted as corps troops), the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers (a lines of communication battalion), the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles (detached from the 5th brigade), and the brigade division (74th, 77th and 79th batteries), of the 3rd division, supplemented by such colonial corps as he could gather together locally.

The dates of the arrival of the various expeditionary units at Cape Town and their disposal are shown in Appendix No. 7.

The dislocation of the infantry divisions, which was caused by the necessity for these sweeping changes, would have been even more seriously detrimental had those divisions actually existed prior to the embarkation of the troops from England; but, as has been shown in an earlier chapter, one of the weak points of the British army in 1899 was the imperfect development in peace time of the higher organisation of the troops. Except, therefore, in Major-General Hildyard's brigade, which came direct from Aldershot, and had been trained there by its brigadier under the immediate eye of Sir R. Buller, that confidence, which is established between troops and their superior leaders by intimate mutual knowledge, did not exist, and could not be affected by that reorganisation, which the strategical situation necessitated.

Nevertheless, as regards staff arrangements, serious inconvenience was for the moment inevitable. Sir F. Forestier-Walker, although appointed officially to the post of General Officer Commanding the lines of communication, had, through some oversight in London, not been given the full staff, as prescribed by the regulations, for an officer performing those onerous duties, and had been forced to improvise assistants from such special service officers as he could lay hands on. There was from the outset, therefore, a shortage of staff. Officers were, moreover, urgently required for the development of local troops and for censorship duties. The original Headquarter staff had been calculated on the hypothesis that the whole of the expeditionary corps would operate in the western theatre of war, Sir George White being responsible for the Natal command. The rearrangement carried out by Sir R. Buller created in Natal a second field army. For this no Headquarter staff was available, without robbing the Cape of needed men. He therefore kept with him only his personal staff during his temporary absence in Natal, and issued orders there through the divisional staff of General Clery. He decided to leave the rest of the Headquarter staff at Cape Town to supervise the disembarkation of the reinforcements from England and their formation into a field army.

The reports of the fighting during the opening phases of the war had shown that our difficulties were mainly due to three causes—the superior numbers of the enemy, their greater mobility, and the longer range of their guns. In the operations he was now about to undertake, Sir Redvers hoped partially to make good these deficiencies by borrowing ships' guns from the Navy and by locally raising mounted men. The Naval Commander-in-Chief had already lent one contingent, under Commander A. P. Ethelston, R.N., to garrison Stormberg. Another such contingent, under Captain the Hon. H. Lambton, R.N., was in Ladysmith, and, at the request of Sir R. Buller, Captain Percy Scott, R.N., in H.M.S. Terrible, had been despatched to Durban to arrange the land defences of that port. Rear-Admiral Harris, with the approval of the Admiralty, now consented to the Stormberg party being brought back to Cape Town, with a view to its marching under the command of Capt. R. C. Prothero, R.N., with Lord Methuen's column, to Kimberley and there remaining as a reinforcement of the garrison. The Naval Commander-in-Chief further agreed to organise yet a third detachment to assist in the relief of Ladysmith. The cheerfulness with which the Naval authorities rendered assistance to the army in this time of stress and strain was only in conformity with the traditions of both services; yet the readiness shown by the officers and men of the Royal Navy and Marines in adapting themselves and their weapons to the circumstances of a land campaign won the profound admiration even of those who were best acquainted with the practical nature of the normal training of the personnel of the fleet.

The calling out of colonial mounted corps, both in Cape Colony and Natal, is mentioned in Chapter I. and Chapter II. Mounted men were urgently needed by all the columns in process of preparation, but, adhering to his opinion that success in the relief of Ladysmith was the most crucial matter, Sir Redvers decided to despatch to Natal the first unit enlisted at Cape Town—the South African Light Horse. The first party of "Light Horse" embarked at Cape Town for Natal on the 22nd November. In Natal itself two mounted corps, under the command of Major (local Lieut.-Colonel) A. W. Thorneycroft, Royal Scots Fusiliers, and Major (local Lieut.-Colonel) E. C. Bethune, 16th Lancers, were already being formed.

Mr. Schreiner, the Prime Minister of Cape Colony, had, at the suggestion of General Buller, endeavoured to raise in the districts of Middleburg, Cradock, and Somerset East, a burgher force to maintain internal order and repel invasion, but the local civil authorities were unanimous in advising that an application of the Cape Burgher law would furnish some recruits for the enemy. Captain Brabant (now Major-General Sir E. Brabant), an ex-Imperial officer, was, with the concurrence of the Cape Government, instructed to raise a mounted corps from the loyalists in the eastern districts.

It will readily be conceived from the brief summary of the facts which have been above recorded that the tasks which the Commander-in-Chief, assisted by the Headquarter and lines of communication staffs, had to carry out during the first three weeks of November were of an overwhelming nature. These included the reorganisation of the various bodies of troops which, from the 9th November onwards, arrived daily in Table Bay from England; the disembarkation of the units; their equipment for the field and despatch to the front; the issue of operation orders to the troops in Natal and Cape Colony already in touch with the enemy; the establishment of supply depôts for the field forces, the defence of Maritzburg and Durban from the Boer raid, which threatened those very important towns; the protection of the lines of railway through Cape Colony, with the mere handful of troops at first available; and the checking of the invasion of the Free Staters across the Orange river. To these must be added the anxious watching of the signs in disaffected districts of smouldering rebellion, which a single success of the enemy might fan into a burst of flame; these and other cares formed an accumulation of pressing duties and heavy responsibilities, which fully justify the frank statement of Sir R. Buller to Lt.-Gen. Forestier-Walker on 20th November that "Ever since I have been here we have been like the man who, with a long day's work before him, overslept himself and so was late for everything all day." The position of affairs in South Africa throughout these anxious weeks, in fact, forcibly proved the truth of Lord Wolseley's warning, addressed on 3rd September, 1899, to the Secretary of State that: "We have committed one of the greatest blunders in war, namely, we have given the enemy the initiative. He is in a position to take the offensive, and by striking the first blow to ensure the great advantage of winning the first round."

Yet by the 22nd November the labours of the Headquarter staff of the army in South Africa, assisted by the fullest co-operation of the two Governors, Sir Alfred Milner and Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson, and aided by the strenuous exertions of the lines of communication staff in Cape Colony and Natal, had sensibly improved the general situation in both the western and eastern theatres of war. In Cape Colony, no part of Bechuanaland and Griqualand West, it is true, except the areas defended by the garrisons of Mafeking, Kuruman and Kimberley, remained under British authority. But cheery reports from Colonel Baden-Powell gave promise of a prolonged stand at the little northern town, while Lord Methuen's column had on the previous day (the 21st November) crossed the Orange river and made good the first eleven miles of its march on Kimberley. Southward, Major-General Wauchope's brigade was holding the section of the railway line from Orange River station, viâ De Aar, to Naauwpoort, the latter station having been re-occupied, and the formation of a column, to harass and menace the enemy in the direction of Colesberg, had commenced under the direction of Lieut.-General French. On the eastern side of the Colony only had the Boers made any substantial advance; a strong Free State commando had seized Burghersdorp and detached parties to Aliwal North and Lady Grey. Sir W. Gatacre, on the other hand, had assumed command of colonial corps and one and a half battalions of regular troops at Queenstown, and was preparing to move northward, to check the commandeering of British subjects, which Commandant Olivier had instituted in the territory occupied by his burghers. The Basuto chiefs remained true to their allegiance to the "Great White Queen," and by tacit consent their territory was treated by both sides as neutral. In Griqualand East and the native territories east of Cape Colony, the Pondo, Tembu and Fingo tribes continued loyal, and arrangements for the defence of these great masses of native population against Boer raids were being made by Major Sir H. Elliott, who as Commandant-General, under the sanction of the Governor, was defending the passes leading from Barkly East with the Cape Mounted Rifles and some Volunteers.

In Natal Sir George White was holding his own at Ladysmith, and, as he had anticipated, detaining north of the Tugela the main strength of the enemy's army. After some hesitation on the part of the Boer leaders, a raid in force had been made to the south, and had for the moment caused much alarm. But the delay in the movement had greatly diminished its chances of reaching Maritzburg, although the local condition was still one of some anxiety. Reinforcements as they arrived at Durban had been pushed rapidly up by rail north of Maritzburg, and the British troops were now echeloned along the railway up to Estcourt. The vanguard of the enemy's raiding column had reached Mooi River, and his scouts had even penetrated as far as Nottingham Road, but a day's ride from Maritzburg. The Boers were, therefore, well in rear of the British advanced posts, and Lieut.-General Clery felt some doubt whether a temporary retirement from Estcourt might not prove necessary. The chief difficulty was the lack of mounted troops to bring the enemy to action and put a stop to his pillaging the outlying farms of the Natal colonists.

Such were throughout South Africa the facts known to him when Sir Redvers Buller, having issued instructions for the guidance of the senior officer in Cape Colony, Sir F. Forestier-Walker, and for the three commanders in the field, Lieut.-Generals Lord Methuen, French, and Sir W. Gatacre, embarked at 7 p.m., the 22nd November, in the S.S. Mohawk for Natal. His military secretary, Col. the Hon. F. Stopford, and aides-de-camp accompanied him. The rest of the Headquarter staff remained at Cape Town.

The appreciation of the situation written by the General commanding-in-chief forty-eight hours earlier will place the reader in possession of his views on the eve of his embarkation for Durban. The memorandum ran as follows:—

Cape Town,
November 20th, 1899.

General Walker,

Before starting for Natal I think I should leave you my appreciation of the situation.

1. Ever since I have been here we have been like the man, who, with a long day's work before him, overslept himself and so was late for everything all day.

2. In disposing the troops which arrived from England I have considered that it was of the first importance to keep Cape Colony from rebellion, even if by so doing I temporarily lost Maritzburg.

3. I consequently have formed a strong column under Lord Methuen which is in a position to take the field and I am forming a force of mounted men and horse artillery under General French, which will, I hope, be able to meet any commandos which may invade the Colony. I have also done all I can to safeguard the western and eastern lines of railway.

4. The state of Kimberley necessitated the first employment of Lord Methuen's force in that direction. He starts to-day. General French is at Naauwpoort, organising a column to attack Colesberg at the earliest possible date.

5. My hope is that the Boers at Colesberg will have been defeated before Lord Methuen returns from Kimberley.

On his return he should send a force to attack the Boers at Burghersdorp. There should then be 1,000,000 rations at Orange River and 1,000,000 at De Aar, and I have directed that supply should be accumulated at Port Elizabeth and East London. He can then open new lines of supply as he moves eastward.

6. As soon as they can be occupied General Gatacre's force should be advanced to Molteno or Stormberg, and any force at Burghersdorp should be attacked.

If the Burghersdorp force has meanwhile advanced south it would be attacked by Lord Methuen, aided by part of General French's force, the two being based on Naauwpoort or Middleburg.

7. The exact nature of this operation must depend on the actual circumstances at the time. The main point is, there will be rations at De Aar and near it to enable a force under Lord Methuen to move along the line eastward, repairing it as he goes, and strong enough to clear the northern districts.

8. As soon as ever circumstances admit the bridges at Norval's Pont and Bethulie will, of course, be seized; in short, the plan is, clear the northern districts by working from west to east, seize the bridges, and, as occasion admits, bring the shorter lines of supply into use. Then concentrate for an advance on Bloemfontein.

9. I think there are enough troops in the Colony to work this programme, except that:

• (1) There should be a battalion at Port Elizabeth.
• (2) General Gatacre wants another battalion and a battery of field artillery.
• (3) General French should have the second battery Royal Horse artillery, and eventually three cavalry regiments, and, if possible, one more battalion.

10. With regard to Natal, I propose to send the 6th Dragoon Guards and 10th Hussars, the 63rd, 64th, and 73rd batteries Royal Field artillery, the remainder of General Hart's Brigade, i.e., three battalions, as soon as they come in. We must do with them the best we can.

11. I think the Colonial contingents had better go to Natal.

12. In my opinion, so long as General White holds Ladysmith the force able to attack you from the Orange Free State is not likely to be serious, but if Natal goes you will have to concentrate for defence, and you should make up your mind what positions to hold. Probably the best military positions about Queenstown, Middleburg, and Beaufort West will be found most convenient.

Redvers Buller,
General.

Chapter XII.

ADVANCE FROM THE ORANGE RIVER.

On the 10th of November Lord Methuen, with his staff, left Cape Town for Orange River station, where he arrived two days later. The orders which he had received from Sir Redvers Buller ran as follows:—

November 10th, 1899.

1. You will take command of the troops at De Aar and Orange River stations, with the object of marching on Kimberley as rapidly as possible.

2. In addition to the troops now at De Aar, the infantry of which are being formed into the 9th brigade under Colonel Fetherstonhaugh, you will have under your command:—

• The 1st Infantry Brigade.—Major-Gen. Colvile.
• The Highland Brigade.—Major-Gen. Wauchope.
• The 9th Lancers.
• The Brigade Division, Royal Field Artillery, under Colonel Hall.
• The Divisional Troops except Cavalry of the Division.
• Certain Royal Engineers, Army Service Corps and Medical Details which have been collected at the two stations.

I wish you to march from the Orange river to the Modder river, communicate with Kimberley, and to hold the line De Aar, Modder river, so that we shall be able to bring up stores and heavy guns and pass them into Kimberley.

3. The half-battalion Loyal North Lancashire regiment, which will form part of the 9th brigade, is to be left in Kimberley.

4. You will afford help to Kimberley to remove such of the natives as they wish to get rid of, and, generally, you will give such advice and assistance in perfecting the defences as you may be able to afford.

5. You will make the people of Kimberley understand that you have not come to remain charged with its defence, but to afford it better means of maintaining its defence, which will at the same time be assisted by an advance on Bloemfontein.

Redvers Buller, General.

Four days later, the Commander-in-Chief in South Africa addressed the following letter to General Methuen:—

Cape Town,
November 14th, 1899.

Lord Methuen,—

Personal advice from Sir Redvers, Nov. 14th.

I do not want to tie your hands in any way, but I send this letter for such use as you choose to make of it.

1. I think that you will find that the Guards and the 9th Brigade and two batteries Royal Field Artillery will be as large a portion of your force as you can take with advantage.

2. As to mounted men, you will of course take what you require. I think it will be advisable to leave one-half of Rimington's Guides, the party at Hanover Road, and sufficient others to scout 20 to 25 miles on all sides of the line held by General Wauchope.

3. On your departure General Wauchope will have, including the two half-battalions of Berkshire and Munster, four battalions; and if you leave him one battery, six guns Royal Field Artillery, with them he should be able to hold the line to Belmont with perfect safety. Orange River bridge must of course be held at all costs. I hope you will not remain a day longer at Kimberley than you can help.

5. I have already told you that I am sending with you a Naval brigade with four 12-pr. 12-cwt. guns; these guns range 6,000 yards. You will not start without them, will leave them at Kimberley, and such reinforcements not exceeding one-and-a-half battalions as the commandant may require.

6. I have said in my instructions that you will proceed to Modder river. If you can from there get a clear road to Kimberley, so much the better, but you will act according to circumstances. The main object is to save time.

R. Buller.

Before Lord Methuen's arrival at Orange River station, the mounted troops had been engaged in reconnoitring and sketching the country in the neighbourhood of the railway bridge. On the 6th of November a party of the 9th Lancers and mounted infantry, accompanied by guns, had scouted up the railway to within five miles of Belmont. On the 9th another reconnaissance was made up the line, past Belmont, to Honey Nest Kloof, 37 miles from Orange River station. No Boers were seen about Belmont, though they had left traces of their presence in broken culverts and other damage to the railway. After falling back for the night to Witteputs, the patrol marched north-eastward on the morning of the 10th, and encountered several hundred Boers, with field guns, a few miles to the east of Belmont. A skirmish ensued in which Lt.-Col. C. E. Keith-Falconer was killed, Lt. C. C. Wood mortally wounded, and Lts. F. Bevan and H. C. Hall and four men wounded. To the westward of the railway line a detachment of thirty of Rimington's Guides successfully reconnoitred as far as Prieska. Though the information brought back by these reconnaissances was mainly negative, on the 18th November Major R. N. R. Reade, Lord Methuen's Intelligence officer, was able from various sources of information to report that a force, estimated at from 700 to 1,200 men, with four guns, was at or near Belmont; and that a small commando under Jourdaan had been successfully recruiting from the disloyal farmers in the districts of Barkly West, Campbell, Douglas, and Griquatown, which lay to the west and north-west of the line of advance to Kimberley.

Thanks to the strenuous efforts of the staff and the departmental corps, the reconstituted first division was by the 20th of November ready to take the field. Equipped with mule transport, and marching with a minimum of baggage, Lord Methuen's column consisted of about 7,726 infantry, 850 cavalry and mounted infantry, two batteries of Royal Field artillery, four companies of Royal engineers and a Naval brigade.

It was thus composed:—

Naval brigade—Captain R. C. Prothero, R.N.:—

Four naval 12-pr. 12-cwt. guns, with 363 officers and men of the Royal Navy, sailors, Royal Marine artillery and Royal Marine Light Infantry.

Mounted troops:—

9th Lancers.

One company mounted infantry Northumberland Fusiliers.

One company mounted infantry Loyal North Lancashire.

Half company mounted infantry King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

New South Wales Lancers (30 of all ranks).

Rimington's Guides.

Royal Field Artillery:—

Brigade division R.F.A.—Lt.-Colonel F. H. Hall.

18th and 75th Field batteries (15-pr. guns).

Royal Engineers—Lt.-Colonel J. B. Sharpe:—

7th Field company.

8th Railway company.

11th Field company.

30th Fortress company.

Telegraph section.

1st (Guards) brigade—Major-General Sir H. E. Colvile:—

3rd battalion Grenadier Guards.

1st battalion Coldstream Guards.

2nd battalion Coldstream Guards.

1st battalion Scots Guards.

9th Infantry brigade—Maj.-Gen. R. S. R. Fetherstonhaugh:—

1st battalion Northumberland Fusiliers.

Half-battalion 1st Loyal North Lancashire.

2nd battalion Northamptonshire.

2nd battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry.

The medical services for the 9th infantry brigade were furnished by the divisional Field Hospital of the 1st division, and the 3rd brigade Field Hospital formed the new divisional Field Hospital. Subsequently, when the 3rd (Highland) brigade joined Lord Methuen's force at Modder river, its Field Hospital was provided by the 2nd division Field Hospital and the Bearer company by "A." company Cape Medical Staff Corps, under Lieut.-Col. Hartley, V.C.

Behind the 1st division, the Highland brigade, under Maj.-Gen. A. G. Wauchope, guarded the railway up to the Orange river, and overawed the disaffected element among the inhabitants along the line of communication. In the neighbourhood of Colesberg, Lieut.-General French, with a mixed force of all arms, was engaged in stemming the tide of invasion from the Free State, and by incessantly occupying the attention of the commandos opposed to him, prevented their massing against Lord Methuen's right flank as he advanced towards Kimberley.

The Boers were not taken by surprise by Lord Methuen's preparations for an advance. Their spies and sympathisers kept them fully informed of all the steps taken. In anticipation of a dash upon Kimberley they had carefully prepared defensive positions along the railway at Belmont and at Rooilaagte, or, as we term it, Graspan. To some 2,500 burghers, under Commandant Jacobus Prinsloo, was entrusted the duty of thrusting the British back towards the Orange; and, if the task should prove beyond their strength, De la Rey, who, with his commando was then investing the southern defences of Kimberley, could easily reinforce them. A large supply of stores had been collected at Jacobsdal, while subsidiary depôts had been formed at Graspan and in the neighbourhood of Koffyfontein.

At 4 a.m., on the 21st of November, the 1st division marched from their bivouac on the northern bank of the Orange river. The General followed the course of the railway in order to facilitate the carriage of supplies, not only for his own column, but also for the inhabitants of the town into which he was to throw stores and reinforcements. The troops halted about 8 a.m. at Fincham's farm, near Witteputs, twelve miles north of the Orange River bridge. The 9th Lancers and mounted infantry were at once thrown forward with orders to reconnoitre northwards on a front of about twelve miles. They found the enemy in some strength among the hills which lie to the east of Belmont station, and drew fire, fortunately with very slight loss. Lieut.-Colonel Willoughby Verner, D.A.A.G., for topography to the army corps, sketched the Boer position from the low hills east of Thomas' farm, about a mile and a half south-east of Belmont station. These sketches were subsequently reproduced and distributed among the officers of the column before the action of the 23rd. Later in the day Lord Methuen himself studied the ground from the hills near Thomas' farm, and then returned to Witteputs, followed by the mounted troops, many of whom had covered forty miles during the day.

In the grey of the morning of the 22nd of November, the mounted infantry swooped from Witteputs upon Thomas' farm, occupied it, and threw out a chain of posts facing the station of Belmont and the hills to the east. Lord Methuen, with his staff, the brigadiers commanding the infantry brigades, Lt.-Col. Hall, C.R.A., and Lt.-Col. Sharpe, C.R.E., arrived shortly afterwards, and again reconnoitred the Boer position from the high ground above Thomas' farm. When the General had completed his reconnaissance, he dictated the orders for the attack which he proposed to deliver on the morrow. Then, leaving the mounted infantry to hold the ground they occupied, and to protect the companies of Royal engineers who were on their way from Witteputs to repair the railway, Lord Methuen returned with his staff to the column, to prepare for a further advance that afternoon. During the morning there was intermittent firing between the mounted infantry outposts and parties of the enemy, who occasionally showed themselves for a short time, and then disappeared without affording any clue as to the strength of the force concealed among the kopjes. In the afternoon the Boers brought two guns into action, chiefly directed against the 7th Field company R.E., then employed in improving the supply of water at the site selected for that night's bivouac near Thomas' farm. To silence this artillery fire the 18th and 75th batteries were hurriedly despatched from Witteputs, and in order to save the troops at Belmont as quickly as possible from this annoyance, the Officer Commanding trotted nearly the whole distance. The horses, still weak from the effects of the long sea voyage, suffered severely from the strain. Five indeed actually died of exhaustion, and all were so weary that during the engagement of the 23rd, the artillery was unable to move with any degree of rapidity.

At 4.30 p.m. the remainder of the troops marched from Witteputs and reached their bivouac at Thomas' farm just before nightfall.

Chapter XIII.

BELMONT.

Lord Methuen's dispositions for attack were necessarily determined by the ground which the Boers had taken up to oppose his advance. Some two miles to the south-east of Belmont station a hill, in form like a sugar-loaf, rises abruptly about 280 feet above the veld. From it extends northwards a broken line of kopjes which for several miles runs parallel with the railway in its course from Orange River station to Kimberley. Twelve hundred yards to the north of the "Sugar Loaf" there is a precipitous hill of nearly equal height, which acquired the name of the "Razor Back." The northern side of it overhangs a steep ravine, some 600 yards wide. The most important feature of the range, termed "Mont Blanc" by Lord Methuen, stretches northward from beyond this ravine for three miles. It is irregular in outline and broadens on its northern face to a width of a mile. Its average height may be taken at 300 feet above the plain. To the south and west its slopes are very steep; on the east they present fewer difficulties; on the north they are comparatively easy. Between Mont Blanc and the railway is a secondary line of heights about a mile and a half long, of an average width of 1,200 yards. The northern portion of this western range is a steep-sided, flat-topped hill, called "Table Mountain" in the orders for the battle; it lies about a mile due west of the central portion of Mont Blanc. Its average height is perhaps 100 feet lower than Mont Blanc, but here and there its surface is broken by knolls which dominate not only the plateau itself, but the surrounding country in every direction. A well-defined depression, almost amounting to a valley, running from south-east to north-west, separates Table Mountain from the southern half of the western heights. To these the name of "Gun Hill" has been given. Gun Hill consists of a series of undulations, bounded on the west and south by kopjes, in places as precipitous as the sides of Table Mountain, and varying in height from 80 to 120 feet above the plain. After the engagement the most southerly of these knolls became known to Lord Methuen's force as "Grenadier Hill." The valley between Mont Blanc and the western range is open, but intersected by deep dongas running from the north and north-east. The hills in both lines of heights are covered with huge iron-stone boulders, in places so steeply piled that men have to climb them on hands and knees, and their indented outlines form many salients from which cross fire can be poured on troops advancing to the attack.

As seen from the railway, the direct line of advance on Kimberley, the Mont Blanc range stands out of the veld like a fortress. This, the main range, is surrounded on the south and east by a level plain which affords advancing troops no cover from fire. Its western face, fronting the railway, has as natural outworks the heights of Table Mountain and Gun Hill. Thus, when Lord Methuen at first designed to drive off the Boers who flanked and menaced his further progress, the nearest part of the enemy's position to him was Gun Hill, and beyond this, further north, was Table Mountain, while supporting these from the east was the main ridge of Mont Blanc. Therefore, in order to clear away the enemy thus threatening him on his right, it was necessary first to arrange the positions of rendezvous so that the division should be arrayed against the hills about to be assailed. Thus the 9th brigade on the left of the attack looked towards Table Mountain. The Guards on the right, that is, to the south of the 9th brigade, similarly faced Gun Hill. The Guards were both nearer to the part to be assailed by them, and more immediately opposite to it, than was the 9th brigade to the object of its attack.

The 9th brigade was to assault the western face of Table Mountain, while the Guards' brigade attacked Gun Hill. As soon as the enemy had been driven off Table Mountain, the 9th brigade was to move eastwards, swinging its left round so as to attack Mont Blanc from the north, while supported by the fire of the Guards from the eastern side of Gun Hill. The 75th battery on the left, the Naval guns and the 18th battery on the right, were to co-operate with the infantry by searching the heights with shrapnel. The mounted troops were to guard the flanks, prevent the escape of the enemy to the east, and, if possible, capture the Boer laager. With this object, two squadrons of the 9th Lancers under Colonel B. Gough were to be on the left flank of the 9th brigade, with one and a half companies of mounted infantry; while the remaining squadron of the 9th Lancers, a company of M.I. and Rimington's Guides, the whole under Major M. F. Rimington, were to work on the outer flank of the brigade of Guards. The troops were to march off from their respective rendezvous at 3 a.m. By this attack on Mont Blanc from the north, after the outworks of Table Mountain and Gun Hill had been carried, the Boers would be driven, not back along the railway towards Kimberley, but eastwards, well off Lord Methuen's proposed line of advance.

The enemy under Jacobus Prinsloo consisted of the Jacobsdal, Winburg, Fauresmith and Bloemfontein commandos, with detachments from Kroonstad, Hoopstad and Boshof. It is difficult to arrive at an exact conclusion as to their strength, for the Boers themselves do not agree as to the number of burghers who took part in the action. Their estimates vary from 2,100 to 2,500 men, with two field guns and a pom-pom. Their artillery, however, hardly fired at all, nor were the reinforcements which De la Rey brought from Kimberley actively engaged. The exact ground held by each commando cannot be accurately stated, but their approximate dispositions are shown upon the maps No. and 10(a). There is some reason to believe that the Boer general had intended to throw part of his right wing across the railway, as trenches were found west of the line, so constructed as to bring flanking fire against an attack on Table Mountain; but whether these works were occupied on the morning of the 23rd cannot be ascertained. That the enemy had posts along the line to the north of Belmont is proved by the fact that one of these parties was captured by Colonel Gough's detachment of mounted men.

The troops left their bivouacs about 2 a.m. on the 23rd, reached their respective rendezvous at the time appointed, and at about 3.15 moved off towards the various parts of the enemy's position, to the attack of which they had been assigned.

In the assault on Gun Hill by the brigade of Guards, the two battalions of the Coldstream Guards were in reserve; the 1st battalion Scots Guards and the 3rd battalion Grenadier Guards were detailed to deliver the attack. As the latter battalions, moving in line of quarter-column, reached the wire fences along the railway line, they demolished them or scrambled through them as best they could and then deployed into fighting formation. Four half companies, extended to five paces, formed the firing line of each battalion, supported at 200 paces distance by the remainder of these four companies, also extended to five paces. The battalion reserve, which followed about 200 paces behind the supports, consisted of four companies, which moved in the same formation as the leading companies but with a smaller extension between the men. As soon as the deployment was completed the advance began, and the troops moved forward through the darkness, over ground fairly open, but here and there made difficult by rocks and ant-bear holes. The only sound to be heard was the steady tramp of feet, which in the stillness of the night could be distinguished many hundred yards away by the 9th brigade. In admirable order, with their intervals and distances well maintained, the long lines of men advanced, straining their eyes to catch a glimpse of the kopjes they were to attack, and wondering when the Boers would open fire upon them. They had not long to wait. Towards 4 a.m., when the outlines of the hills began dimly to appear against the first glimmer of dawn, a violent burst of musketry rang out. Each rifle as it flashed against the dark background showed where it had been discharged. The enemy were thus seen to be dotted at irregular intervals in two tiers on the skyline and the upper slopes of the heights.

The Scots Guards, who were marching on the point marked c on map No. , were within about 150 yards of the foot of the kopje, and had hardly fixed bayonets, when the enemy opened upon them. Col. A. H. Paget ordered the charge to be sounded, and, with a ringing cheer, his men carried the hill with comparatively small loss, to find themselves exposed, not only to frontal but to cross fire from both flanks. The musketry from the right ceased as soon as the Grenadiers stormed the kopjes which they attacked, while, thanks to the initiative of Bt. Lt.-Col. W. P. Pulteney, that from the left was checked. This officer, whose company was on the left of the line of the Scots Guards, found himself under heavy fire from the kopje marked d. Advancing against it he dislodged its defenders, who, in their precipitate retreat to Table Mountain, left some thirty ponies behind them. Colonel Pulteney mounted as many of his men as possible upon them, galloped in pursuit across the valley, then dismounted and worked up the kopje at the south-western angle of Table Mountain (b on map No. ), until he was stopped by the enemy concealed amongst its boulders.

The front line of the Grenadiers was about 350 yards from the kopjes when they first came under fire. To close with their enemy, the men were ordered to double and then instinctively quickening their pace they arrived panting at the foot of the hills, which loomed black and threatening before them. Under a very heavy fusilade, which at times came from both flank and front, the Grenadiers carried the position, but not without considerable loss in officers and men. They were led by Col. E. M. S. Crabbe, who fell wounded within a few feet of the top of the kopje, and were reinforced as they reached the summit by the battalion reserve under Major D. A. Kinloch. The Boers fought gallantly on this part of the field; some indeed, as was also the case on Table Mountain, clung so tenaciously to their defences that they perished by the bayonet. As soon as the ground to the front of the Grenadiers and Scots Guards had been cleared of the enemy, both battalions were re-assembled by their commanding officers.

Thus on the right the battle so far had developed in substantial agreement with Lord Methuen's plans. On the left also matters were going well, but more slowly than the General had anticipated. At the time when fire was opened on the Guards, the leading battalions of the 9th brigade were crossing the railway line which lay between their rendezvous and their object, the western side of Table Mountain. They were guided by Lieut. F. L. Festing, Northumberland Fusiliers. The Northampton was on the right, the Northumberland Fusiliers on the left, both in column of double companies, with increased distances between the companies. In the same formation the Yorkshire Light Infantry followed as reserve to the brigade about 1,000 yards in rear. In rear of this battalion were two companies of the Royal Munster Fusiliers. After passing through the railway fence both the leading battalions extended from their left, with the result that the Northumberland Fusiliers somewhat overlapped the Northampton. To correct this, the former battalion was ordered to take ground towards Belmont station, and in doing so was exposed to heavy, but ill-aimed, fire. The direction of the Northampton advance exposed the right of their leading line to the Boer musketry on Gun Hill, from which they suffered until the Guards captured that part of the position. The greater part of the Northumberland Fusiliers pushed forward against the south-west corner of Table Mountain, but were temporarily checked by heavy fire from outlying rocks and knolls. One or two misdirected British shells also contributed to delay the progress of the battalion, but the forward movement of the Northampton, some of whom charged with the bayonet, against the northern end of Gun Hill drove away the parties of Boers opposing the Northumberland Fusiliers, who were then able to continue their attack on Table Mountain. Two companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers, under Major the Hon. C. Lambton, had been left in reserve on the western side of the railway near Belmont station. When, about 5 a.m., the sun rose just behind Table Mountain, Major Lambton realised that, with the light shining straight in their faces, his men could not see to shoot. He therefore moved his two companies up the railway to the point marked a, and then across the open veld to ground from which, unbaffled by the morning sun, he was able to pour heavy volleys upon the burghers opposed to the main attack of his battalion. His flanking fire largely contributed to dislodge the Boers from Table Mountain, while the 75th battery, from the neighbourhood of the railway, played upon the north-west face of this portion of the western range. The positions occupied by the detachment of Northumberland Fusiliers and by this battery will be found on map No. 10 (a).

The stubborn resistance of the defenders of Table Mountain greatly delayed its complete occupation by the British troops; indeed, it required the united exertions of the Northumberland Fusiliers, of part of the Northampton, of several companies of the Guards, and of two companies of the Yorkshire Light Infantry to drive the Boers completely off the plateau. When the attack of the Northumberland Fusiliers upon the south-western corner of Table Mountain was checked, the Brigadier had brought up from his reserve half a battalion of the K.O.Y.L.I. under Col. C. St. L. Barter. It had entered the depression between Table Mountain and Gun Hill in the formation which the battalion had assiduously practised for several years—waves of double companies, in single rank, with an interval of 8 to 10 paces between the men. Being struck in the flank by musketry from Table Mountain, two companies turned and joined in the attack on that plateau. In the course of the fight on Table Mountain Major-General Fetherstonhaugh was severely wounded, and the command of the brigade devolved upon Lieut.-Col. C. G. C. Money, Northumberland Fusiliers.

The original orders for the battle had directed that, when the Grenadier and Scots Guards had carried Gun Hill, the two Coldstream battalions should reinforce them and support the 9th brigade in the attack on Mont Blanc. When, therefore, Gun Hill appeared to be occupied by his leading battalions, Major-General Colvile ordered the Coldstream to advance, the 1st battalion on the right, the 2nd on the left, but as they approached Gun Hill they came under a heavy fire from the Razor Back and the Sugar Loaf. To meet this attack they changed front half right, and gradually inclined still more to this direction until the Razor Back and Sugar Loaf Hills became the objects of their attack. General Colvile, desiring to arrest this movement, which threatened to become a purely frontal attack over most unfavourable ground, despatched his brigade-major, Captain H. G. Ruggles-Brise, to halt these two battalions. Ruggles-Brise succeeded in reaching the 2nd battalion, and led part of them back to Gun Hill, whence a portion of them, under command of Major H. Shute, were immediately despatched by Major-General Colvile to re-establish connection with the 9th brigade. This detachment gradually worked northwards towards Table Mountain, and joining hands with Brevet Lieut.-Col. Pulteney's company of Scots Guards, to which reference has already been made, took part in the capture of the northern extremity of the western range. But the remainder of the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream under Lieut.-Col. H. R. Stopford, and the 1st battalion, under Lieut.-Col. A. E. Codrington, were beyond recall; they pressed forward, and, materially aided by the fire of the 18th battery, assaulted and carried the Razor Back and Sugar Loaf kopjes. Captain J. T. Sterling, who commanded a company of the reserve of the 1st Coldstream, marching in rear of the remainder of the battalion, became aware that the hills to the south of the Sugar Loaf were occupied by Boers. Fearing that these burghers might attack Codrington in flank, Sterling, deviating from his proper line of advance, moved his men against them, in rushes of sections, at five paces interval, and using independent fire. That there were many of the enemy opposed to him is proved by the fact that he lost 20 men out of his company, 110 strong; but his prompt action prevented the counter-stroke which he had anticipated.

In consequence of this unexpected development in the battle, Lord Methuen, abandoning his intention of attacking Mont Blanc from the north, determined to support the Coldstream battalions, by launching every available man to reinforce their attack upon the main ridge. The Grenadiers and Scots Guards moved down into the valley which lies between the two ranges, and, to minimize the effect of the plunging cross fire from the heights of Mont Blanc and Table Mountain, passed it as rapidly as possible in three widely-extended lines. The valley once traversed, the Boer musketry ceased to be dangerous, but its passage cost the Grenadiers nearly as dear as their capture of the kopjes of Gun Hill. He also called up his last reserve, half a battalion of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the two companies of the Munster Fusiliers, and threw them into the fight, on the left of the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream Guards. Thus, on the right of the field of battle were long lines of skirmishers, either crossing the valley or actually ascending its northern heights, while on the left a fierce fight was raging between the 9th brigade and the stalwart defenders of the crags and works on the plateau of Table Mountain. Gradually the Boers at these points weakened, and then retreated in all haste to the valley, where, pursued by long-range volleys, they mounted their ponies and disappeared among the kopjes of the main range. Then the 9th brigade, following them across the valley, scaled the steep slopes of Mont Blanc, and those of the enemy who were still holding this kopje, fell back before them, and galloped off to the east and north-east, under the heavy fire of the infantry.

Neither of the field batteries from their positions could see the Boers as they fled from Mont Blanc. The Naval guns, which had been successfully co-operating with the 18th battery in shelling the Boers on the crest line of Mont Blanc, were the artillery nearest to Lord Methuen's hand as, from the summit, he watched the retreating Boers. He called upon the Naval brigade to bring one of their guns on to the top of Mont Blanc, by the deep gorge which cuts into the western face of the main range. But the ground was impossible; the heavy gun could not be dragged up the mountain side, and the Boers effected their retreat without molestation from artillery fire. The 18th battery indeed joined with Major Rimington in a pursuit of the Boers eastwards, from the extreme south of the hills, but with horses exhausted by thirst and fatigue, nothing could be effected. The detachment of cavalry and mounted infantry on the left of the British line pushed some distance to the north-east; its appearance scattered considerable parties of the enemy who otherwise might have harassed the left flank, but with this exception its influence on the fight was small. About midday its progress was arrested by a very well handled flank or rearguard of the enemy in the neighbourhood of Swinkpan.

By 10 a.m. the engagement was over, and by noon the greater part of the British force had returned to camp. After the action the outposts were furnished by the Northampton regiment, and half a battalion of the Scots Guards held Belmont station with a detached post on Table Mountain. The total loss of Lord Methuen's command was 3 officers and 51 N.C.O.s and men killed; 23 officers and 220 N.C.O.s and men wounded. The Grenadiers suffered more heavily than any of the other battalions. They lost 1 officer killed and 8 wounded, 2 mortally; 21 N.C.O.s and men killed and 107 wounded, 24 mortally. Of the Boers, it is known that more than 80 were killed, and 70 were taken prisoners. A large amount of cattle, a considerable number of ponies, and much ammunition were captured.

Though from the insufficient number of his mounted troops and from the want of horse artillery, Lord Methuen was unable to convert his successful engagement into a decisive victory, the action was satisfactory in many ways. The first advance was made in darkness, in a formation more extended than any practised at the same period in broad daylight by continental nations. Such men as became detached from their battalions promptly rallied upon the nearest officer of another corps. The leading of company officers when, in the stress of battle, they became separated from their battalions, and had thus to act entirely on their own initiative, was most satisfactory. As an instance of the manner in which troops become dispersed in modern engagements, it is well to record the movements of the companies of the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream Guards. One company joined or closely followed the Grenadiers in their attack on Gun Hill. Two companies worked with the Grenadiers in their attack on Mont Blanc. Three companies fought on Table Mountain. One company kept touch with the 1st battalion; another acted independently in clearing the eastern side of Gun Hill, and then fought on Table Mountain. The fire discipline proved distinctly good. Long range supporting fire, when the light permitted it, was freely employed. The arrangements by the R.A.M.C. for the removal of the wounded from the field of battle to the base hospitals were admirable.

Chapter XIV.

GRASPAN.

Eleven miles north of Belmont station the road and railway leading to Kimberley enter a network of kopjes, which dominate the line until the plain through which the Modder river flows is reached. These rough outcrops of rock and boulders from the plains of the open veld have been arranged by nature in clusters of small hills, the most southern group being so shaped as to form a natural redoubt astride of the railway, midway between Graspan and Enslin, thus barring any advance from the south along the line. The larger portion of the Boer force, defeated at Belmont, had fallen back under Prinsloo, on the 23rd of November, across the Free State border to Ramdam, about 13 miles east of Enslin station. De la Rey, however, whose commando had taken but little part in that action, halted his men at Graspan, and occupied the excellent position which this redoubt offered for a further stand. That same evening the Transvaal General sent an urgent despatch to his Free State colleague, imploring him to return to the railway line, and in compliance with this request Prinsloo on the following day left Commandant T. van der Merwe with 800 men at Ramdam, and moved to Graspan with the rest of his men. On the arrival of the Free State commandos at Graspan, a Krijgsraad assembled, and decided to remain on the defensive for the next twenty-four hours, after which period, if no forward move were made by the British troops, the two republican leaders would themselves assume the offensive.

The natural redoubt, which the Boer leaders had thus determined to hold, rises abruptly from the level, and commands the approaches across the veld on the south, east and west; the even surface of the plain, the sandy soil of which was barely concealed by dry tufts of coarse grass, presented not an inch of cover, save for a few ant-mounds dotted about here and there: their hard sun-baked walls afford good protection from bullets for a skirmisher lying close behind them. The kopjes are so grouped as to facilitate the reinforcement of either the front face or the flanks from a centrally placed body. They overlook, moreover, the only water available in the vicinity, a few muddy pans and wells within the hills to the rear. The southern face of the stronghold, tracing it from west to east, has a length of about a mile. The flanks of this face are very definitely marked by two razor-backed kopjes, the one on the east and the other on the west, rising some 150 feet above the surrounding ground; both these kopjes run approximately from the south to the north. In the centre of the southern face lies a third kopje, oval in shape, 200 yards in length and 30 feet higher than the flank hillocks with which it is connected by re-entrant ridges.

The left flank mentioned above consists mainly of that eastern razor-backed kopje already referred to, which runs northward for a distance of some 1,200 yards, its crest line broken by a series of small knolls. Further north on this flank are one or two smaller kopjes, then a mile of valley, on the far side of which, nestling under another cluster of hills, lie the Rooilaagte homestead and a Kaffir kraal. On the right flank in like manner the western razor-back is similarly continued in a northerly direction by two other small kopjes, the more northern of which is situated on the west side of the railway. A Nek of land connects this kopje with the apex of a triangular patch of broken ground, stretching several miles northward, with its eastern side at right angles to the railway. Yet further north, beyond the base or northern side of this third cluster of hills, a valley some two miles broad runs from the railway on the east to the open veld on the west, and thus completely separates the quadrilateral redoubt, the Rooilaagte, and the triangular clusters of hills already described, from a fourth group termed Honey Nest Kloof Kopjes, which stretch northward to the Modder valley. Strong, therefore, although this whole position, or rather series of positions, was on the front and flanks, it will be understood that if the valley in rear could be seized by a sufficient mounted force, while the front and flanks were threatened by infantry and guns, the defenders would be cut off from their line of retreat, and their safety seriously imperilled.

On the afternoon and night of 23rd of November Lord Methuen's division rested at Belmont. The forenoon of the 24th of November was spent in preparing for another march, supplies of ammunition being replenished by railway from Orange River station. Meanwhile an armoured train, escorted by the mounted company of the Loyal North Lancashire, had been despatched up the line to reconnoitre, and came under artillery fire from the Boers on Graspan. Its escort pushed on, the foremost scouts riding up to within fifty yards of the kopjes, and ascertaining, although with the loss of an officer (Lieutenant Owen-Lewis, I.S.C.) and two men, that these hills were held by a Boer force of about 400 to 500 men, with two guns. The mounted infantry, together with the train, then returned to Belmont.

On receipt of their report at 2.30 p.m. the General Officer commanding the division ordered the 9th Lancers and the whole of the mounted infantry to move forward, covering the front for three miles on each side of the railway, and further reconnoitring the enemy's position. Under cover of this reconnaissance, the rest of the division were directed to march at once to Swinkpan, so that they might be within easy striking distance of Graspan on the following morning. Intelligence, however, having reached the British commander that a party of Boers, stated to be 500 strong, were on his right flank, the Scots Guards and the two companies of Royal Munster Fusiliers, together with the Naval guns, remained at Belmont to protect the railway and the rear of the column, but were ordered to march to Enslin the next day.

This information as to the enemy and an unfounded rumour of a Boer movement to the westward somewhat delayed the start of the whole division; the troops, therefore, did not reach Swinkpan until after dark. On arrival barely sufficient water was found in the pan for the men, and none could be spared for the battery horses, a hardship which told against them severely in the fight of the morrow. The cavalry reconnaissance, which Lord Methuen personally accompanied, tended to confirm the original report that the strength of the Boer force holding the position did not exceed five hundred men. He considered, therefore, that on the following day he would be able to shell the enemy out of the kopjes, and hoped that by despatching his cavalry and mounted infantry well forward on both flanks he might have the good fortune to capture the entire detachment.

With this design the mounted troops, the Field artillery, and the 9th brigade under command of Lieut.-Col. Money, marched from Swinkpan bivouac on Graspan at 3.30 a.m. on the 25th of November, the Guards' brigade, under Major-General Sir H. Colvile, following in rear with the baggage train at an interval of more than an hour. The Naval guns at Belmont, mounted on goods trucks, simultaneously moved forward up the line with the armoured train, followed by the Railway Troops, viz., the 8th, 11th and 31st companies of the Royal engineers. The 1st Scots Guards and two companies Munster Fusiliers went by road as rearguard.

To the 9th brigade had been attached this day a small Naval battalion, commanded by Captain Prothero, R.N., consisting of a company of bluejackets, one company of Royal Marine artillery, and two companies of Royal Marine Light Infantry, the total strength of the battalion being about 240 men. Besides this unit the brigade comprised the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers, 2nd Northamptonshire regiment, 2nd King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and a half-battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire.

In conformity with his plan of action Lord Methuen directed Colonel B. Gough to pass beyond the enemy's position on the east with two squadrons of the 9th Lancers, one company of mounted infantry, and Rimington's Guides; to pass beyond it on the west he likewise sent Major Milton with the third squadron of the 9th Lancers, the mounted company of the Northumberland Fusiliers, the mounted half company of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, and a detachment (thirty strong) of the New South Wales Lancers. The batteries (18th and 75th) moved at first with the main body of the 9th brigade, the Northumberland Fusiliers furnishing the advance guard, but, when the sun rose at 5 a.m. and the Boer position was approached, the guns were ordered forward and came into action about 6.15 a.m. against the kopjes held by the enemy east of the railway. The 75th on the left engaged in a duel with the Boer guns, but owing to the careful concealment of the latter was unable to produce much effect; the 18th on the right, at a range of 2,200 yards, searched carefully with shrapnel the sangars on the kopjes. The four companies of the Loyal North Lancashire were detailed as an escort to this battery, two of them lying down close to the guns, the other two being in support some distance in rear. The 75th battery at first lacked an escort, but later on a half-battalion of the Northamptonshire was sent to it, and remained near the railway until the end of the day.

Meanwhile the remainder of the 9th brigade halted out of the enemy's range midway between the two batteries, with a half-battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers extended in front. The armoured train and the Naval guns, four 12-prs., commanded by Lieut. F. W. Dean, R.N., arrived in sight of the Boer position a little before 6 a.m., accompanied by the Royal engineer companies, who were in a repair train in rear. The leading train halted at Graspan station, from whence by means of field-glasses a large number of Boers could be seen standing on the crests of the kopjes commanding the line. Almost immediately a puff of smoke appeared on the ridge a little to the east of the railway, and a shell whistled over the train, bursting some 200 yards beyond. Lieutenant Dean at once detrained two guns (the strength of his party being insufficient to man-handle more than two in the soft ground), and with them ranged on the crest line, finding the distance to be about 5,000 yards. The trains were then sent back about half a mile, leaving, however, a trolly with ammunition. The Naval guns, in conjunction with the field batteries, which had now come up, continued to shell the Boer guns, and by 6.30 a.m. these for a time ceased fire.

The estimate of the enemy's strength made by the reconnaissance of the 24th was not inaccurate, but the fact was that the situation had been entirely changed by the arrival of Prinsloo with large reinforcements later on that afternoon. The exact numbers of the Boers engaged in this fight are, as in other cases, difficult to state with any precision, but they were probably not less than about 2,300 men, with three Krupp guns and two pom-poms. This force was disposed as follows:—General De la Rey's commando of Transvaalers, consisting of 700 men and two Krupp guns, held the northern end of the kopjes on the western flank, and was therefore on the north-western side of the railway. Next on the western central kopje to the south-east of the railway came the Winburg commando, about 250 with a Krupp gun, under Commandant Jourdaan. These three Krupp guns were, however, controlled by Major Albrecht, the officer commanding the Free State artillery. The long kopje, at the southern end of which the western meets the southern face, was held by the Bloemfontein commando, 500 strong, under General J. Prinsloo. East of him, in the centre of the front face, was placed the Jacobsdal commando, 300 strong, under Commandant Lubbe. The eastern razor-backed kopje, which formed the left flank and part of the frontal defence, was assigned to detachments of the Bloemfontein, Hoopstad, and Fauresmith commandos under Commandants P. Fourie and H. van der Venter. Two pom-poms were mounted on this side of the defences. It will be seen from map that the Graspan ground differed in a marked way from the majority of the positions selected by the Boers, being salient instead of re-entrant. It did not, therefore, lend itself readily to the adoption of those enveloping tactics which their forefathers learnt originally from the Zulus. Prinsloo sought to remedy this defect by ordering up from Ramdam a detachment to menace the eastern flank of the British advance.

It was now seen that the enemy available for the defence of the main position was too strong to be driven out there from by a brief artillery bombardment, and it soon became clear to the British Commander that an attack in due form had become necessary. Lord Methuen determined, therefore, to direct the 9th brigade to go forward and carry the kopjes. The artillery was to prepare the way for attack at closer range, while the Guards' brigade was ordered to come up in support and to hold the right flank, the presence of the Ramdam detachment to the south-east having already been discovered by the mounted troops.

These orders were issued at about 7 a.m. The 18th battery started off eastward, and a quarter of an hour later came into action under infantry fire at a range of 1,425 yards against the southern end of the long eastern kopje. Lord Methuen had already chosen that kopje as the main object of the infantry attack. A section of the battery was a little later moved round yet further east to search with shrapnel the eastern face. Although all the guns of the 18th battery were thus for a considerable period in action within long-range rifle fire of the enemy, it did not suffer a single casualty during the whole engagement. Two companies of the Loyal North Lancashire regiment followed the battery, and continued to act as escort; the other two companies of that half-battalion under Major Churchward were ordered personally by Lord Methuen to move forward, the right company against the eastern kopje, and the left against the central kopje of the southern face. But, soon after they had started to do this, they were instructed by a subsequent order to halt and await the arrival of the rest of the brigade.

Five companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers, which was still leading the 9th brigade, were ordered to protect the left of the attack and remained lying down 2,000 yards from the enemy, where the half-battalion as advance guard had been originally halted. Two of the remaining companies were directed to reinforce the escort of the guns (Naval and 75th battery) on the left flank, and the other one moved to the right to support the 18th battery.

The 75th battery advanced at the same time parallel to the line. It was accompanied by the two Naval 12-prs., and took up two successive positions 4,000 and 2,300 yards from the enemy's guns, which now re-opened fire. The Naval guns during these movements were dragged forward by the seamen, assisted by sappers lent from the Royal engineer companies. The fire of the enemy at the British as they came into action at the nearer range was accurate. The Naval guns, nevertheless, remained in action until the conclusion of the day. When, a little later, the 75th battery was moved to the eastward, Lieut. Dean held his ground. By making his men lie down as each flash at the enemy's battery was seen, he was able to save them from any heavy casualties. The effect of the British on the Boer artillery was also very slight, the enemy's casualties being limited to one gunner wounded and three horses killed.

The Guards' brigade, in its march from Swinkpan, had been drawn to the north-west by the sound of the guns and had moved in extended lines in that direction, until the left company of its leading battalion, the 3rd Grenadier Guards, crossed the railway close to the spot where the Naval guns were stationed; but at this moment Lord Methuen's order to march to the south-east to protect the right rear of the main attack reached the Brigadier by heliograph. In compliance with this instruction Sir H. Colvile turned about the 3rd Grenadier Guards and 2nd Coldstream Guards, and moved them to the other flank; throughout this movement from left to right behind the 9th brigade, the two battalions were in extended order and beyond the range of the enemy. The 1st Coldstream Guards were still protecting the transport column; the 1st Scots Guards, which came up from Belmont, were also held back on the left, under the immediate orders of the Lieut.-General, and acted as a divisional reserve. Lord Methuen's preliminary dispositions, therefore, of the troops not actually employed in the assault, included the use of six field guns, two Naval guns, seven companies Northumberland Fusiliers, four companies Northamptonshire, and three companies Royal engineers, in facing the enemy's right and centre; two battalions of the Guards watched the right flank, in support of the main attack, and the other two battalions were available as a final reserve.

Meanwhile the units of the 9th brigade, intended to deliver the assault, had extended in front of the centre of the position. The Brigadier was, however, then instructed by Lord Methuen that he was to act against the eastern kopje, and a little later was further informed that the attack should also overlap its eastern face. Lieut.-Colonel Money accordingly moved his brigade to the right in extended order, and thus brought it to a point from whence a direct stroke could be made at the assigned object. There the brigade halted for a moment; the Naval battalion was immediately facing the eastern kopje and now slightly in advance of the other units. The latter had somewhat intermingled during the movement to the flank, with the result that two companies of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and one company of the Northampton were on the left of the Naval contingent, the remaining six companies of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and three of the Northampton being on its right. These preparations for the attack occupied nearly two hours, and were not completed until 9 a.m. The situation at this hour is shown on map No. . Meanwhile, an hour earlier, the 75th battery had by Lord Methuen's order been brought over from the western flank and co-operated with the 18th in shelling the eastern kopje. All being now ready for the attempt, the order to move was given by the Lieut.-General in person, and the Naval battalion pushed on to a level with the two companies of the Loyal North Lancashire regiment extended in their front. Accompanied by these on the left flank, and supported by the three Yorkshire Light Infantry and Northamptonshire companies on that side, the Naval contingent steadily and rapidly pressed on against the eastern kopje. The sailors and marines had originally been extended to four paces, but had somewhat closed in during the manœuvring which preceded the attack. The enemy remained silent until the assailants approached to within 1,000 yards, but then began to pour in a rapid and effective fire from the kopje attacked, and the ridge to the westward. At 600 yards the British line halted to return this, and then from that point onward advanced by rushes of from 50 to 100 yards at a time, the left company of the Loyal North Lancashire, supported by the companies of King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, moving on the centre kopje, and the Naval brigade with the other North Lancashire company, under the command of Lt. A. J. Carter, still leading towards the eastern kopje with the Northamptonshire company in support. The enemy's fire meanwhile increased in intensity, and both officers and men were falling fast on the British side. The last 200 yards to the foot of the hill were therefore traversed in a single rush. At the base of the kopjes a certain amount of dead ground allowed of a short breathing space, during which a consultation between the company officers left in command took place. They determined to scale the hill and ordered the men to fix bayonets.

The Naval contingent had already suffered heavily. Captain R. C. Prothero, R.N., was wounded; Commander A. P. Ethelston, R.N., Major J. H. Plumbe, R.M.L.I., and Captain Guy Senior, R.M.A., had been killed; the command of the battalion thus devolving on Captain A. E. Marchant, R.M.L.I. The two companies of the North Lancashire, more fortunate, owing to their wide extension and their use of such cover as the ant-hills afforded, reached the base of the kopjes with considerably less loss than the Naval battalion.

While this advance against the southern face of the kopje was being executed, the six companies of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and the three remaining companies of the Northamptonshire regiment, had gradually worked round the enemy's left flank. The two pom-poms posted on this side proved troublesome, although endeavours were made to reach them by the two guns of the 18th battery and by long-range rifle-fire. The Yorkshire Light Infantry were being carefully manœuvred in successive lines extended at ten paces interval, and having pivoted on the left flank, succeeded, notwithstanding the pom-poms and a heavy rifle-fire, in crossing the open plain to the foot of the eastern face of the kopje with only moderate losses. The Northampton supported this attack on the right, the two companies of the Loyal North Lancashire, which formed the original escort of the 18th battery, joining in on the left.

The moment had now come for the assault. Under cover of a final artillery preparation the bluejackets, marines, and North Lancashire men began to climb the boulders which covered the front face of the kopjes. A third of the way up a momentary halt again became necessary, as the British shells were bursting just in front of the assaulting line. Then the Royal artillery ceased fire and the assailants, having been joined by their Brigadier, Lieut.-Col. Money, and the supporting Northamptonshire and Yorkshire companies, eagerly dashed on up to the crest. The eastern face of the position was carried at the same time. The enemy had no desire to await this final onslaught and had already retired to the broken ground further to the north. If the times were correctly recorded, the advance and capture of this kopje did not take more than half an hour, the final assault having been delivered at 9.30 a.m.

The commando on the Boer right had had but little share in this fight, being held in check by the force on the British left detailed expressly for that purpose. The loss of the razor-backed kopje rendered the whole position untenable; De la Rey and Prinsloo therefore fell back with their men northwards, pursued by long-range volleys from the British infantry. As soon as he was informed that the infantry had made good the crest line, Lieut.-Col. Hall, commanding the Royal artillery, pushed on with both the field batteries to the ridge between the central and eastern kopjes, but the enemy had by this time retreated too far for the fire of the British guns to be effective. The batteries then were taken to water, of which the animals were in dire need.

Meantime the two bodies of mounted troops, which, according to Lord Methuen's scheme, were to seize ground in the path of the now retreating Boers, had set out on their mission.

Major Milton, in the early morning, had led his small force of one squadron and one and a half companies of mounted infantry by a circuitous march well to the westward of the railway and thence northward until he reached that previously described valley which separates the three southern clusters of hills from Honey Nest Kloof Kopjes. On a sugar loaf hill at its entrance he left an observation piquet and, extending the Northumberland Fusiliers company very widely, with instructions to hold its southern side, he pushed up the valley eastward with the remainder (amounting now to less than two hundred men) and reached Honey Nest Kloof station. This small detachment had thus ridden completely across the Boer line of retreat, and was now six miles in rear of their captured position. Moving further to the east, Milton observed, in the plains beyond the distant end of the valley, the two squadrons under Colonel Gough, but failed in an attempt to attract their attention by heliograph. There were already signs of Boers coming to him, and, hoping to intercept fugitives, Milton moved back on the Fusilier company extended on the southern side. But the Boers swarmed out of the kopjes on this very side in greatly superior numbers, and opened a heavy fire upon the weak line of the Northumberland Fusiliers. The audacity of their position in the open with their horses some 1,000 yards in rear was apparent to the enemy. About 400 Boers, moreover, detached themselves from the main body and approached Milton's men. The situation thus became very critical, and the cavalry squadron fell back to the western entrance, covered by the mounted infantry, who succeeded in seizing a kopje on the northern side. The Boers continued their advance against the defending party to within three hundred yards of this kopje, but then swerved off to the east, thus enabling Major Milton to withdraw the whole of his detachment in safety. Any further attempt at pursuit would have ended in disaster, because of the great strength of the enemy, and the unbroken front they still presented.

Lieut.-Col. B. Gough's force on the east had similarly found itself to be insufficient in strength to reap the fruits of victory. During the earlier part of the fight it had done good service in holding back the Ramdam detachment of Boers which occupied a kopje about two and a quarter miles to the south-east of the battlefield. This detachment was reported at first to be about 500, but Major Rimington, who reconnoitred close up to it, saw other Boers advancing westwards to support it, and it is not improbable that the whole of van der Merwe's commando may have ridden out from Ramdam in the course of the morning. Fortunately, however, the Boers were not at this period of the war disposed to attack mounted troops in the open plain; the demonstration, therefore, of Rimington's Guides and the Lancers' squadrons sufficed to chain them to the kopje.

As soon as the main attack had succeeded, Gough moved northward and sighted the Boer laager, which had been observed at Enslin the previous night, now retiring north-east along the road to Jacobsdal. The escort appeared, however, to be too strong to be charged. Urgent requests for guns were therefore sent back to Headquarters and ultimately the 18th battery, which had reached the bivouac at Enslin, was sent out to join Gough, but the horses were too exhausted for rapid movement and the guns only arrived in time to fire a dozen rounds at the last Boer wagons, which were now 5,000 yards away.

Yet at Graspan, as at Belmont, the open plains across which the enemy was compelled to retire after his defeat were singularly favourable to cavalry action and, had a satisfactory mounted brigade with a horse artillery battery been available, the Boers could not have effected their escape without suffering very heavy losses. Not only were the mounted troops at Lord Methuen's disposal insufficient numerically, but their horses were already worn out by the heavy reconnaissance duty, which had of necessity been carried out by them day after day without relief, under the adverse conditions of a sandy soil, great heat, and a scarcity of water. The results of this deficiency in mounted men were far-reaching. Not only did the enemy avoid paying the material penalties of successive failures on the battlefield, but his moral was stiffened by these demonstrations of the immunity from disaster conferred by his superior mobility.

The casualties suffered by the 1st division on this day amounted to 3 officers and 15 men killed, 6 officers and 137 men wounded, and 7 missing.

The proportion of these losses which fell on the Naval brigade was very high, their returns showing 3 officers and 6 men killed and 3 officers and 89 men wounded. The Marines, who took part in the actual attack, lost 47 per cent. of their strength. It is remarkable that the North Lancashire, two of whose companies shared in that assault, had only 1 man killed, 6 wounded, and 2 missing. The Guards' brigade did not suffer and did not fire a shot all day.

The enemy's losses are not accurately known; the bodies of 23 Boers were found by the British troops, and buried after the fight; the total republican casualties probably, therefore, amounted to about 80 or 90. Forty prisoners and a few ponies were captured.

Lord Methuen's division bivouacked the night of the 25th November at or near Enslin station; the scarcity of water again caused much discomfort to men and animals. Under the supervision of Colonel E. Townsend, principal medical officer of the division, the wounded were collected and entrained during the afternoon, the less severe cases being sent off to Orange River, and the graver to Cape Town.

Chapter XV.

THE BATTLE OF THE MODDER RIVER.

When the Boers, after their defeat on the 25th November, retreated from the heights of Graspan, the greater part of their force withdrew to Jacobsdal, little inclined to renew the combat. But General De la Rey induced the burghers to make another effort to arrest the British march on Kimberley, at a position of his own selection at the confluence of the Riet and the Modder rivers, where the terrain differed in character from that which had been occupied at Belmont and Graspan. In those engagements the Boers had entrenched themselves upon high and rugged kopjes, of which the apparent strength became a source of weakness. The hills afforded an excellent target for the British artillery. The riflemen who held the works had to aim downwards at the enemy as he advanced to the attack, and a "plunging" fire never yields satisfactory results. At their base was dead ground, inaccessible to the musketry of the defenders. Here the attacking infantry, after their rush across the open, could halt for breathing space before delivering the final assault. For these reasons De la Rey decided to adopt completely new tactics and to fight from the bed of a river, surrounded on every side by a level plain, destitute of cover over the surface of which the burghers could pour a continuous and "grazing" fire upon the British from the time they first came within range, up to the very moment of their final charge. The plain, across which the railway from Orange River to Kimberley runs nearly due north and south, is intersected by the devious windings of two rivers, the Riet and the Modder. From Bosman's Drift (see map ) the Riet, the more southerly of the two, runs north-west for about a mile and a half, and then for the same distance turns to the north-east. Its course next changes abruptly to the north-west for nearly two miles when, increased in volume by the waters of its affluent, the Modder, it gently curves to the westward for about a mile and a half. The meanderings of the Modder are even more remarkable. Its most southern elbow is half a mile north-east of the spot where the Riet turns for the second time north-west. Thence it runs for a mile to the north, then about the same distance to the west; it turns southward for a mile, and then flows westward for three-quarters of a mile, where, a few hundred yards above the railway bridge, it merges into the Riet. Both these streams have cut themselves channels so wide as to allow a thick growth of trees and scrub to line their sides, so deep that the vegetation which they contain hardly shows above the level of the surrounding plain. There are few practicable fords across the Riet. One exists at Bosman's Drift; there is a second near the railway bridge; among the group of islets at Rosmead there is a natural ford, while the retaining wall of the weir which dams the river at this village can be used, not without difficulty, by active men in single file. Elsewhere the depth of the water and the mud at the bottom of the Riet effectually combine to prevent the passage of troops. Thus the Riet and the Modder together formed not only a gigantic moat across the approaches to Kimberley from the south and south-east, but a covered way, by which its defenders could move unseen to any part of the position.

On the right bank of the Riet there are two hamlets. One, known as Modder River village, is clustered round the station; the other, Rosmead, lies a mile further down the river. In both are farms and cottages with gardens, bounded by trees, strongly-built mud walls, and fences of wire and prickly cactus. On the left bank, close to the river, there are two or three farms, surrounded by gardens and substantial enclosures. About five miles to the north-east of the Modder River village the Magersfontein kopjes loom dark and frowning, a landmark for all the country round; while still further to the north the heights of Scholtz Nek and Spytfontein lie athwart the railway to Kimberley. A glance at the reproduction of Captain Erskine's freehand sketch of the ground will help the reader to appreciate the strength of the Boer position.

On the 26th November, Lord Methuen halted in the neighbourhood of Enslin, while supplies and ammunition were brought up by the railway. As far as the exhausted condition of his horses permitted, he reconnoitred in the direction of the Riet, and a strong patrol of mounted men, led by Lt.-Colonel Verner, ascertained that the Boers were in occupation of Honey Nest Kloof station (map No. ), and saw considerable numbers of the enemy moving across the veld, trekking, as it seemed, from the river southwards towards Ramdam. But so tired were the artillery horses that, when the leader of the patrol sent back a request for guns with which to shell the Boers out of the railway station, Lord Methuen thought it better to give them absolute rest, and ordered the patrol to retire.

At 4 a.m. on the 27th the division marched to Wittekop, about six miles to the south of the Modder River bridge. Here the artillery and infantry bivouacked while the cavalry and mounted infantry reconnoitred on a front of six miles along the railway towards the river. In the distance, lines of wagons could be seen leaving Jacobsdal, apparently moving towards Modder River station, and at about 1 p.m. the advance patrols of the 9th Lancers reported that they had been forced to halt by the enemy's musketry from the direction of the railway bridge, which had been wrecked by the Boers at the beginning of the war. In the afternoon Lord Methuen joined Major Little, commanding the 9th Lancers, in a reconnaissance towards the Riet, but observed nothing to cause him to change the plan he had already formed. This was to mask the Modder River bridge by a reconnaissance in force, while he marched to Jacobsdal, and thence by Brown's Drift across the Modder river to Abon's Dam, lying about sixteen miles north-east of Jacobsdal, and thus turn the position of Spytfontein (see map No. ), on which he was convinced the burghers intended to give him battle. The cavalry did not reconnoitre up the Riet river towards Jacobsdal, and therefore the existence of the ford at Bosman's Drift remained unknown to him. His only large scale sketch of the ground near the Modder bridge did not include the windings of this stream. But in the course of the night much information came in. Major Little reported that he estimated the number of Boers near the Modder River village to be 4,000. Major Rimington ascertained that the Boers expected reinforcements, and that they were making entrenchments on the south bank near Modder River bridge. A loyal British subject, at great personal risk, succeeded in sending a message to the effect that the Boers were in force at the village, and were "digging themselves in like rabbits." On this evidence Lord Methuen concluded, and he continued to hold his opinion till the battle began, that Modder River village was merely used as an advanced post to cover the burghers' main position at Spytfontein. But as he did not wish to leave even a detachment of the enemy threatening his lines of communication, he decided to postpone his flanking movement on Abon's Dam until he had captured the entrenched village. Before dawn the orders were recast, and by 4.30 a.m. on the 28th, the division was on the march, but unfortunately the men were not all of them adequately prepared for the work which lay before them, for owing to the change of plan many started without their breakfasts.

The cavalry, who had moved off at 4 a.m., were brought to a standstill by the enemy's fire at about 5.30 a.m. Major Little then reported to Lord Methuen, who had accompanied the mounted troops, that all the information sent in by the officers of the advance squadrons showed that the river was strongly held from the railway bridge eastward to a clump of high poplars. Major Little's deduction, as far as it went, was perfectly correct; but he did not know, nor did anyone else in Lord Methuen's force suspect, that admirably concealed entrenchments had been thrown up along the left bank of the Riet, from Rosmead east, to the bend where the bed of the river turns sharply southwards. At many places on the northern bank shelter trenches had been constructed. The farms on the southern bank had been prepared for occupation by riflemen; the houses of Rosmead and Modder village had been placed in a state of defence. At various points behind the Riet, epaulments had been thrown up for the six field guns which the enemy had with them, while among the foliage on the bank three or four pom-poms were cunningly concealed. It is uncertain whether the whole of the long series of trenches was actually manned when the cavalry first appeared before the river, or whether the Boers only occupied the western works after it had become clear that Lord Methuen did not propose to force a crossing at Bosman's Drift, and that his line of attack was to be roughly parallel to the railway. But there is no doubt that the fear of being outflanked caused the burghers to take up a very wide front, and that the manœuvres of the mounted troops near Bosman's Drift, and of the 9th brigade at Rosmead, forced them still further to extend it on both flanks. When the whole position was taken up, Free Staters under Prinsloo were posted on the right; the centre, through which ran the railway line, was defended by De la Rey with part of the Transvaal commandos; to the left stood another contingent of Transvaalers, composed of some of the men who, two days earlier, had arrived at Edenburg, weary with the forced march and long railway journey by which P. Cronje had brought them from the siege of Mafeking to protect the Riet. In all, between three and four thousand burghers were in array.

Noticing the direction of the British advance towards Modder River village, Cronje at first believed that Lord Methuen was about to cross the Riet at Bosman's Drift. He therefore hurriedly despatched a gun and a pom-pom from the delta formed by the junction of the two rivers, to support the outlying detachments of riflemen, already posted in the neighbourhood of the ford and of a farmhouse a mile further up the river. The 18th battery drove back the pom-pom and gun, and then, at about 7.15 a.m. supported the mounted infantry who had been despatched to capture the farm. Aided by the well-placed shells of the artillery, the mounted infantry carried it, and established themselves so solidly under cover of the mud walls of its kraal that a Boer gun, which later in the day played upon them for several hours, failed to dislodge them. The duty of watching the right rear was entrusted to the 9th Lancers. By their repeated attempts to cross the Riet they prevented the men who guarded it from reinforcing the main Boer positions; and they warded off the threatened attack of detachments of the enemy who, based on Jacobsdal, hovered on the right flank. Rimington's Guides at the beginning of the action were sent to the west, where they similarly covered the left flank. Among the first to cross the river was a party of the Guides, and these did good service during the subsequent fighting on the right bank.

The infantry began to arrive on the battlefield at about 7 a.m., and Lord Methuen directed Major-General Colvile with the Guards' brigade to attack the left flank of the supposed frontage of the enemy, viz., the space from the railway bridge eastward to the clump of high poplars on the Riet. Major-General R. Pole-Carew was meanwhile to lead the 9th brigade astride of the railway upon the broken bridge, conforming his advance to that of the Guards. A verbal message was at the same time sent by Lord Methuen to say that he thought that there were along the river bank no Boers except possibly some 400 men who might be covering the broken bridge itself.

It will be convenient to describe the operations of the Guards' brigade throughout the day, before touching upon those of the 9th brigade. On receipt of his instructions, Major-General Colvile formed his troops, then at some distance east of the railway, into two lines; the first consisted of the Scots Guards on the right, the Grenadiers in the centre, the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream on the left; the first battalion of the Coldstream was in reserve as second line. The clump of high poplars was selected as the point of direction. As the Guards deployed they were smitten by artillery, and later by rapid musketry. As soon as the deployment was completed, the Scots Guards were ordered to advance at once, swing round their right, and take the enemy in flank. Lieut.-Colonel Pulteney with two companies and a machine gun was pushing round to the right, to carry out the turning movement, when, at about 8.10 a.m. he came under a sudden and violent fire from the enemy concealed in the low bushes of the Riet or in the trenches on its left bank. The companies suffered considerably; and of the men forming the detachment with the Maxim all were killed or wounded by a well-concealed pom-pom. Colonel Paget, who commanded the Scots Guards, sent four companies to Colonel Pulteney's assistance, but even with this reinforcement it was impossible to make further progress across the plain.

When Major-General Colvile saw that the Boers had thus arrested the march of the Scots Guards, he determined to employ his reserve, the 1st Coldstream, in prolonging the line of the brigade to the right so as to extend beyond the enemy's left. The 1st Coldstream was then on the right rear of the leading battalions and was formed in two lines, one behind the other, each in echelon of companies from the left. Lt.-Colonel Codrington, who commanded it, accordingly moved to the right, where he was unexpectedly stopped by the Riet, of the existence of which he was unaware. Major Granville Smith's company, which was one of those that first reached the river, was ordered to line part of the left bank, to repel an expected attack in flank from burghers who had been seen on the plain beyond the further bank. In this part of its winding course the right of the Riet is higher than the left, so that Major Granville Smith's field of view was very limited. He therefore sought for a ford by which he could reach the dominant bank. Finding traces of a disused drift, he waded alone over a narrow spit of rock through water which reached to his chin, to the right side of the river, where he was soon joined by Lt.-Colonel Codrington with two other officers and 18 non-commissioned officers and men. After driving away some Boers by musketry, the little party reconnoitred up and down the stream in the vain hope of finding a more practicable ford, and was then ordered by a staff officer to recross and return. During the time employed in this unsuccessful quest the greater part of Colonel Codrington's battalion had pushed down the river, some companies in the bed, others along the bank. As they scrambled on, fording was attempted at many points, but in every case the deep water, and the almost equally deep mud at the bottom of the stream, proved impassable. The leading company reached the angle of the bend where the Riet breaks away to the westward, but there, shot down by invisible Boers, some hidden along the right bank, others holding a farm and garden on the left bank, they could get forward no further. A patrol worked down stream sufficiently far to the west of the bend to be able to see the railway bridge, but was driven back by musketry. The battalion took up a position along the left bank, entrenching itself with the Slade-Wallace tools, carried as part of the soldiers' equipment. Some companies faced to the west, the remainder to the north and east. Here they remained till nightfall. They were a target for the defenders of the banks of the Riet, for a detachment which lined the Modder near the northern reservoir, and for a pom-pom. This latter was, however, quickly driven away by a few well-aimed section volleys. Some time after 9 a.m. two companies of Scots Guards, by order of Major-General Colvile, fell back from where they were on the plain, and forming up along the river bank prolonged the line of the 1st Coldstream to the south-west. At dusk a handful of officers and men succeeded in making their way to the Scots Guards' machine gun which had been silenced in the morning, and brought it back, together with one or two wounded men of the detachment who lay around it. At intervals during the day the British right flank was annoyed by shots from Boers on the plain to the east of the Riet. These men several times appeared to be about to make a serious attack upon this part of the line, but their purpose always withered up under the fire of the Grenadiers' Maxim gun, of detachments of the Guards left to hold the southern reservoir, and of the mounted infantry and 9th Lancers on the extreme right rear.

When the Scots Guards commenced their turning movement, the Grenadiers and the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream began their frontal attack, and arrived within 1,000 or 1,100 yards of the enemy who lined the river bank. At this range the hostile fire was so severe that it became impossible to get nearer and, as the day wore on, the difficulty of keeping the men supplied with ammunition grew more and more serious. When night put an end to the engagement, in many companies the soldiers had but ten cartridges left in their pouches with which to cover an attack, or repel a counter-stroke. So long as the men lay flat on the ground they were little molested, as a growth of thistles hid them from the enemy's view, but any attempt to move brought upon them a shower of bullets, to which they were unable to reply with any effect, as the Boers, perfectly protected by their trenches or concealed by the vegetation which lined the river bank, suffered little from the shrapnel of the supporting British guns, and could not be seen by the infantry.

The 18th and 75th batteries came into action to the east of the railway, and after various short duels with Boer guns which appeared and disappeared on different parts of the field, they covered the movements of the brigade of Guards. The 75th battery was to the left rear of the 2nd Coldstream, first at 1,700, then at 1,200 yards, range. There it remained till 4 p.m. when, owing to casualties and want of ammunition, it was ordered to fall back a few hundred yards. The 18th battery, two hundred yards to the left rear of the 75th, opened fire at 1,400 yards range; the targets for both batteries were the buildings and enclosures stretching eastward for a mile from the railway bridge. The Naval brigade, about 250 strong, under the command of Major A. E. Marchant, R.M.L.I., had been brought up by rail from Enslin under the escort of an armoured train. At about 7 a.m. their four 12-pr. 12-cwt. guns began to engage the enemy's artillery from a knoll, a little to the west of the line, distant 4,800 yards from the broken bridge.

While the Guards, covered by the fire of the artillery, were preparing for the already described movements, Major-General Pole-Carew, as ordered by Lord Methuen, led the 9th brigade towards the broken railway bridge, the point assigned as his object. The Northumberland Fusiliers and the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry were ordered to advance along the railway, the former on its east, the latter on its west, each supported by half a battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, while the half-battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire was to prolong the line to the left, and if possible cross the river and threaten the enemy's right. But Pole-Carew speedily realised that by the time the first line of the Guards' brigade had fully extended, their left would almost reach the railway, and would therefore overlap his right. To obtain more room, and also in the hope of being able to turn the right flank of the enemy, he marched westward, and, thanks to a slight swell in the ground, was able to reach the railway, some 2,000 yards south of the broken bridge, without attracting much attention. But as soon as the Northumberland Fusiliers were in the act of crossing the line from east to west, the Boer guns opened upon them and a few minutes later, about 7.30 a.m., the whole river bed, west of the bridge, burst into one wide fusilade. In order to maintain touch with the Guards, and to protect the westward march of his brigade, the Major-General ordered the Northumberland Fusiliers to change direction to their right, extend, and endeavour to beat down the enemy's enfilading musketry, which was pouring across the plain, here smooth as a glacis and as destitute of cover. Soon afterwards he found it necessary to leave half the battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders to prolong the line of the Northumberland Fusiliers to the left; and, later, he was compelled to direct the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry yet further to prolong the covering force, behind whose protection he was making the westward march. The continual necessity thus to increase the numbers employed in this protective work now left him only the half-battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire and the half-battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders available for carrying out the original design.

The left of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry made their way to within a few hundred yards of a farmhouse and kraal, some 300 yards south of the river. These buildings and a patch of rocky ground to the west were strongly held as outworks by the Boers; and Major-General Pole-Carew, being convinced by a report from Captain E. S. Bulfin, his brigade-major, that they covered a ford across the Riet, endeavoured to take them, but without success. In the hope of bringing enfilade fire upon the defenders, he sent a small party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders into a donga, which runs into the river between the farmhouse and the nearest Boer trench on the left bank. Advancing with a rush, this detachment reached the river bed without loss, and was subsequently reinforced by another handful of the same battalion.

About 11 a.m. an order reached Pole-Carew telling him that as the Guards were crossing the river, his battalion near the railway was to cease fire so as to avoid the possibility of injuring their comrades. This order was with the greatest difficulty conveyed to the right of the 9th brigade, but as soon as it was obeyed, the musketry of the Boers so redoubled in intensity that in self-defence the troops had to re-open fire. Almost immediately after the message had arrived, Lord Methuen came up and told Pole-Carew that the Guards had not succeeded in their attempt to cross. His purpose was to arrange for concerted action on the left flank. The Major-General explained to him the local situation, and said that he proposed to reinforce the little party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the river bank, and under cover of their fire on the farm, rush it, and then make every effort to cross the river by the islands at Rosmead. Lord Methuen approved, and some twenty or thirty more of the Argyll and Sutherland rushed down into the donga. A strong flanking patrol of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, under Lt. R. M. D. Fox, supported by a detachment of the Argyll and Sutherland, was now utilised for the attack on the house and kraal. The Boers did not make a vigorous resistance but retreated across the river as the British advanced, and at about 11.30 the farm and the rocky ground were in Major-General Pole-Carew's hands. The enemy on the north bank had been so greatly shaken by the fire of two guns of the 18th battery, under Capt. G. T. Forestier-Walker, that they were already in retreat from Rosmead when the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry attacked the farmhouse. This section, which at 10.15 a.m. was sent to assist the 9th brigade by Col. Hall, the officer commanding the artillery, had come into action on a small knoll south-west of the village of Rosmead, on the extreme left of the line, and its shells had dislodged a party of about 300 Boers, who were seen galloping away northwards from Rosmead and from the wood to the east of it.

At 11.30 a.m. the general situation was as follows:—the half battalion Loyal North Lancashire was close to the southern bank facing a ford, to which it had been sent by Capt. Bulfin. The farm covering the weir was in our hands; thence eastwards to the railway stretched the 9th brigade, immovable under the fire of the Boers entrenched along both banks. The small detachment of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders held the donga between the farm and the nearest Boer trench on the south bank.

A few minutes later Lieut.-Col. Barter, K.O.Y.L.I., followed by a few men of various corps, began to cross the river by the weir, while a quarter of a mile lower down the stream two companies of the Loyal North Lancashire under Major Coleridge commenced the passage of the drift. Major-General Pole-Carew now despatched a messenger to inform Lord Methuen, who had returned to the centre of the line, that he had made a lodgment on the right bank and required reinforcements. But there were no troops in hand. No battalions had been retained as final reserve, and the only troops not engaged were the baggage guard of six companies of the Northampton regiment and three companies of Royal engineers. All that could be done was to direct various officers to convey orders to the 9th brigade, and to the companies of the Guards in its immediate neighbourhood to move westward, in support of the movement on the extreme left. But their efforts served to prove once more the truth of the axiom that when once troops are heavily engaged in the fire-fight, they can only advance or retire; for it was found impossible to withdraw any large number of men from the right and centre of the 9th brigade. Without waiting for the reinforcements he had asked for, the Major-General, as soon as he had collected about 150 men of various corps, dashed into the river, and partly by wading through water up to the men's armpits, partly by scrambling along the wall of the weir, brought his party safely into Rosmead.

After making preparations to repulse any attempt by the enemy to recapture the village, the Brigadier began to organise a force with which to push up the right bank towards Modder River village, and thus attack the heart of the defence. In about an hour he had collected some five hundred men of various corps, and leaving part of the Loyal North Lancashire to guard Rosmead, he advanced eastward to capture this important post. On his right, in the brushwood, were some of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. On the left were parties of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry under Colonel Barter, and some of the Loyal North Lancashire. A company of Northumberland Fusiliers, commanded by Major the Hon. C. Lambton, followed in support; and a patrol of Rimington's Guides scouted on the left flank.

At first his men were little exposed to fire, but when they reached the neighbourhood of Fraser's farm they found the enemy prepared for them. A storm of bullets, and of inverted shrapnel from Albrecht's guns (at the spot where these guns are shown 500 yards north-west of the bridge), fell upon them as they endeavoured to cross long hedges of prickly pear, and to climb through strong wire fences. Nor were other Boer artillerymen, posted close to the railway station, unobservant of the British flanking movement. Their shells fell thick among the ranks of the detachment, while the burghers in the trenches on the south side of the river, turning their aim from the right and centre of the 9th brigade, poured their fire against those who were the more dangerous enemy, because threatening to cut off their retreat. The Brigadier had expected that the party of Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, placed in the donga on the left bank of the river, would have kept these Boers in check by flanking fire; but owing to a mistake either in the delivery, or in the interpretation, of an order, the officers had brought their men across the Riet and had joined in the advance along the right bank.

Captain Forestier-Walker, who was now in action with the section of the 18th battery near the farm which had been carried earlier in the day by the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, vigorously shelled the trees and brushwood in front of our men as they advanced, but his efforts were much hampered by the fact that the undergrowth was so thick that it was impossible to see exactly how far forward they were. All attempts to establish communication by signal, between the officer commanding the 9th brigade and the troops on the south side of the river, failed. The attack broke down from want of strength to drive it home, and the baffled troops sullenly fell back to Rosmead. They were so closely pressed by the enemy's musketry that, in order to cover the retreat, two officers, Major H. F. Coleridge, North Lancashire, and Captain T. Irvine, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, each with ten or eleven men of different battalions, threw themselves into farmhouses, which they stubbornly defended until, many hours later, after their detachments had suffered severe loss, they were ordered to evacuate their posts. On his return to the village Major-General Pole-Carew found that the British strength on the north bank had been increased by the arrival of 300 officers and men of the Royal engineers, and of part of a company of the 2nd battalion of the Coldstream Guards. After writing to Lord Methuen to report his failure to force his way up the right bank, and to ask for co-operation in the fresh attempt for which he was then rallying his troops, Pole-Carew heard a rumour that Lord Methuen had been wounded, and that Major-General Colvile was now in command of the division. The rumour was true. Lord Methuen had been wounded at about 4 p.m. near the centre of the line, and one of his staff officers, Colonel H. P. Northcott, had previously fallen mortally wounded, while conveying orders for the reinforcement of the troops on the north bank. Not long after this news came in, the officer commanding the two guns of the 18th battery, still in action near the farm to the south of Rosmead, reported that he heard through the officer commanding the artillery that Major-General Colvile had issued orders for a vigorous bombardment of the position by the artillery till dusk, when the Guards were to attack the left of the Boer line with the bayonet. Pole-Carew then considered whether, in view of the projected movement of the Guards' brigade, his local attack was still feasible. He decided that, owing to the configuration of the ground over which both bodies of troops would have to move in the darkness, the danger was so great lest his detachment should enfilade the Guards as to prohibit an advance from Rosmead. All, therefore, that could be done was to secure firmly that village.

While the little column had been striving in vain to force its way up the right bank of the river, the situation on the left bank had remained unchanged. The infantry lay prone on the ground, engaged in a desultory fire-fight with an unseen enemy, while the artillery continued to shell the buildings and the river-banks near the railway bridge. During the course of the afternoon Colonel Hall, commanding the artillery, had received a welcome reinforcement of four guns of the 62nd battery, under Major E. J. Granet. The 62nd, which had been left to guard the Orange River bridge, received orders late on the 26th to leave two guns at that camp, and proceed with all speed to rejoin Lord Methuen's division. Owing to a deficiency in rolling stock, no railway transport was available, and it became necessary for the battery to march the whole way. Starting at 10 a.m. on the 27th, Major Granet reached Belmont, thirty miles distant, at dusk. He halted there till 6 a.m. on the 28th, when, escorted by twenty-five of the Royal Munster Fusiliers mounted infantry, he marched to Honey Nest Kloof, where he decided to water and feed his horses. He had but just halted, when a message reached him that there was fighting on the Riet river and that guns and ammunition were urgently required there. He started immediately, and despite the heavy ground over which he had to pass, reached the battlefield a little after 2 p.m. In twenty-eight hours the 62nd battery had covered sixty-two miles, at the expense of six horses which fell dead in the traces, and of about forty more, which never recovered from the fatigue of this forced march. The battery was first sent to the left to support the advance up the north bank of the river, but before it had opened fire, Colonel Hall ordered Major Granet more to the eastward, as he was afraid that the shells might fall among the detachment during its progress through the trees and brushwood which concealed its movements. At 2.45 p.m., the 62nd came into action 1,200 yards from the south bank, behind a swell in the ground which covered the gunners from the waist downwards. Its fire, aimed first at the north bank, was distributed laterally, and then for depth, with good results, as the enemy's musketry slackened, and numbers of men were seen stealing away. About 5 p.m., to support the projected attack by the Guards, the battery was moved close to a sandpit on the west of the railway, where it was joined by the section of the 18th from the left of the line.

After considerable delay, caused by the difficulty of sending messages across the shot-swept plain, Major-General Colvile was informed that Lord Methuen had been wounded, and that the command of the division had devolved upon him. He handed over the Guards' brigade to Colonel Paget, Scots Guards, with orders to collect his battalions for the attack upon the left of the Boer line, but soon afterwards decided that it was too late to risk the passage of the river at night with troops exhausted by hunger, thirst, and the burning heat of an exceptionally hot day. He therefore resolved to break off the fight till daybreak next morning, and directed Colonel Paget to form up his brigade for the night at the southern reservoir.

As soon as Major-General Pole-Carew reluctantly abandoned the idea of renewing his attack along the north bank of the Riet, he posted his troops for the defence of Rosmead. He realised the risks which he ran in holding so isolated a position throughout the night, but he and his staff considered that the importance of maintaining the lodgment, which had been effected on the enemy's side of the Riet, made it worth while to incur the danger. To the Royal engineers, under Major G. F. Leverson, was allotted the western face of the village; the Yorkshire Light Infantry held the north, and the Loyal North Lancashire the north-east; the Argyll and Sutherland guarded the east. The men lined the walls, banks, and houses at a yard and a half apart, in groups of six, of whom five rested while one stood sentry. In the centre of the village was the reserve, two companies of the Northumberland Fusiliers, and a company of the 2nd battalion Coldstream Guards. The remainder of the 9th brigade was ordered to cross the river. To guide them, two fires were lit at the drift; and by daybreak the whole command was concentrated on the north bank. It was reinforced by the 1st Highland Light Infantry, who had arrived during the night by rail from Orange River. In the grey of the morning, while the Guards were preparing to support the 9th brigade, the guns re-opened fire upon Modder River village, but it was soon discovered that during the night the enemy had abandoned his position, and had disappeared with all his guns and pom-poms. With horses utterly tired out, immediate pursuit was impossible, though by midday patrols of mounted men had regained touch with such of the Boers as had fallen back upon Magersfontein. By the afternoon, the whole division had crossed the Riet, and was concentrated on its northern bank.

The British casualties consisted of four officers killed (among whom was Lieut.-Colonel H. R. Stopford, commanding the 2nd battalion Coldstream Guards) and 19 wounded; among the other ranks 67 were killed, and 370 wounded. The losses among the Boers are not accurately known, but 23 burghers were found dead in Rosmead and buried near the village, while 27 bodies were subsequently found in the river itself.

Chapter XVI.

THE RAID ON SOUTHERN NATAL.

Throughout the operations in Natal during the opening phase of the war, Sir G. White had held that a mobile force, concentrated north of the Tugela, afforded better protection to the central and southern portions of the colony than any number of detachments stationed on the lines of communication. Face to face as he was with an enemy in superior strength, the retention with his field force of every available unit was essential to the British commander's plan of striking at his opponents whenever an opportunity offered. Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson, although anxious as to the security of Maritzburg and Natal from Boer raids, accepted Sir George's decision, telegraphing to the General on 26th October: "I shall do my best in consultation with General Wolfe Murray.... I think we shall be able to deal with any small raid, but a raid in force, especially if supported by guns, will be a serious matter. We must take the risk, and hope for the best." On October 30th, the date of the battle of Lombards Kop, the only regular unit on the Natal line of communication was the 1st Border regiment, which had arrived at Maritzburg that morning from East London. Detachments of colonial troops held Colenso bridge and Estcourt. To the eastward the Umvoti Rifles, a mounted corps rather more than one hundred strong, had been ordered to fall back from Helpmakaar and watch the ferry, by which the Dundee-Greytown road crosses the Tugela. A battalion of mounted infantry was being raised at Maritzburg by Lieut.-Colonel Thorneycroft, Royal Scots Fusiliers, and another at Durban by Lieut.-Colonel Bethune, 16th Lancers.

The result of the battle of 30th October made it probable that the field force at Ladysmith would be soon cut off from its communications. To keep the road open to the south, Sir George White that evening reinforced the garrison of Colenso by despatching thither by rail from Ladysmith the 2nd Royal Dublin Fusiliers, a company of mounted infantry, and the Natal Field battery, whose obsolete 7-pounder guns had been grievously outranged at Elandslaagte. On arrival at Colenso, the commanding officer of the Dublin, Colonel C. D. Cooper, assumed command of that post, finding there one squadron of the Natal Carbineers, one squadron Imperial Light Horse, a party of mounted Police, and the Durban Light Infantry (about 380 strong), and a detachment (fifty strong) of the Natal Naval Volunteers, with two 9-pounder guns. The total strength of the command, including the reinforcements from Ladysmith, was approximately 1,200 men. The Natal Royal Rifles (150 strong) were encamped at Estcourt, twenty-five miles in rear.

On the following day General White telegraphed to the Governor of the colony: "My intention is to hold Ladysmith, make attacks on the enemy's position whenever possible, and retain the greatest number of the enemy here." Sir W. Hely-Hutchinson and the officer commanding the Natal line of communication, Brigadier-General J. S. Wolfe Murray, were thus confronted with a difficult and anxious situation. It was obvious that, having regard to the numerical superiority and greater mobility of the enemy, the British force at Ladysmith would, in all probability, be unable to retain the whole of the Boer army. A raid on southern Natal was therefore to be expected immediately, and the strength of that raid might well be such as to overwhelm, or, at any rate, to ignore, the weak garrisons which so imperfectly covered Maritzburg and Durban. Moreover, General Murray was aware that even if Sir R. Buller should think fit to divert from Cape Colony any portion of the expeditionary force now on the high seas, a fortnight must elapse before a single man could be landed at Durban.

Maritzburg, from its topographical environment, is even less adapted by nature for defence than Ladysmith. Lying in a deep depression surrounded by high hills, the positions covering the capital of the colony are so extensive that a very large force would be needed for their effective occupation. Nevertheless, after consultation on the afternoon of 31st October with the Governor and the Prime Minister of the colony (Colonel Hime), the Brigadier-General decided that, although it was impossible to protect the town itself, it was advisable to prepare the cantonments, so-called "Fort Napier," for defence, and for that purpose to borrow Naval guns from the ships at Durban. As regards Durban, a telegram was received from Sir Alfred Milner stating that arrangements had been made by Sir Redvers Buller with the admiral for the immediate despatch to that port of H.M.S. Terrible and Forte as a reinforcement to the Tartar and Philomel, already in the harbour, and suggesting that in the case of a complete disaster to Sir G. White's force it would be wise to retire on the seaport and there make a stand.

But the responsible military authorities were by no means inclined to take a pessimistic view of the situation. The final instructions, dated 1st November, received from Sir G. White's Chief of the Staff, directed General Murray "to remain and defend Maritzburg to the last," and on the following day Sir R. Buller telegraphed from Capetown that a division would be despatched as soon as possible to Natal, adding: "Do all you can to hold on to Colenso till troops arrive." Meanwhile, a warning had been received from the Intelligence staff at Ladysmith, that a considerable body of Free Staters was moving on Colenso, and Brigadier-General Murray, realising that the situation of Colonel Cooper's force at the bridge, commanded by the heights on the northern bank of the Tugela, was becoming precarious, directed that officer to fall back on Estcourt, should he consider his position no longer tenable. On the afternoon of November 2nd, telegraphic communication between Colenso and Ladysmith was cut off by the enemy, and a large Boer commando, having occupied the high ground near Grobelaars Kloof (map No. ), opened fire on the two little works, Forts Wylie and Molyneux, which had been constructed by the Natal Volunteers on the left bank of the Tugela to cover the crossings of that river, and the approaches to Langewacht Spruit. The Natal Field battery and Natal Naval Volunteers' guns were again seriously outranged by the Boer artillery, and Colonel Cooper decided that, having regard to his instructions, he must fall back on Estcourt. The withdrawal to that town was effected on the night of November 2nd-3rd without molestation from the enemy, the infantry being conveyed in special trains, the mounted troops and field artillery moving by road. The 1st battalion Border regiment was simultaneously pushed forward by rail from Maritzburg to Estcourt, and Brigadier-General Murray proceeded, on 3rd November, to the latter station to take personal command of the force there concentrated, which now amounted in all to about 2,300 men. With this force, weak though it was in guns and mounted troops, he intended to dispute the Boer advance from the north, falling back, if necessary, on the prepared position at Maritzburg. A telegram, dated 4th November, conveyed General Buller's approval of these dispositions, but added: "Do not risk losing Durban by over-prolonged defence of Maritzburg, but hold the latter so long as you safely can. I fear it will be at least ten days before I can send you substantial assistance."

Fortunately, until the last but one of these ten days, the enemy held back on the north bank of the Tugela. A Krijgsraad, at which all the Boer generals and commandants attended, had assembled in front of Ladysmith on 1st November to decide whether the main effort of the Boer army should be concentrated on the attack of that town, or whether, leaving a detachment to hold Sir G. White's troops, they should at once advance on Maritzburg and Durban. Some of the younger leaders, including Louis Botha, as yet only plain commandant, were in favour of the latter course. The majority of the council decided that, so long as 12,000 effective British troops remained at Ladysmith, the commandos were not numerous enough to allow them to win the much-coveted prizes of the capital and seaport of Natal. It was believed that General White's troops would be unable to withstand an assault. On the 9th November, therefore, an abortive and ill-arranged attack was made. It sufficed to show that the Ladysmith garrison was by no means disposed to yield, and that a formal and perhaps prolonged investment would be needed to weaken its powers of resistance. To this task, therefore, the main body of the Boer commandos was assigned; but, as an erroneous report had come in that 5,000 English troops had concentrated at Frere, it was decided that a strong reconnaissance, under the personal command of General Joubert, should cross the Tugela to ascertain the disposition and strength of the British column. On the evening, therefore, of the 13th November, a force about 4,200 strong was assembled at Colenso with orders to push to the south. As agreed, Joubert, although Transvaal Commandant-General, went with it. Louis Botha, promoted to the rank of "Fighting General," was second in command. There is reason to believe that the presence of the senior General was due to a desire to restrain the impetuosity of his subordinate.

The fifteen days' breathing space which the authorities in southern Natal had thus been given, after receipt of the disquieting intelligence of the battle of Lombards Kop, had been of great value. Captain Percy Scott, H.M.S. Terrible, had reached Durban on November 6th, and was appointed commandant of that town. A defence scheme was prepared and a battalion of "Imperial Light Infantry" was raised to assist the Naval contingent, and guns (including two 4.7-in. guns and sixteen 12-pr. 12-cwt.) were landed for its protection. At Maritzburg a position in the vicinity of Fort Napier had, under the supervision of Col. C. C. Rawson, C.R.E., been prepared for defence, the work being executed by a hastily improvised Pioneer Corps of artisans, assisted by native labour. In selecting this position and planning its defence, it was assumed that if the force at Estcourt fell back on Maritzburg, 4,000 men in all would be available for its occupation. Meanwhile, in addition to Thorneycroft's corps, the recruiting and training of which were proceeding satisfactorily, a provisional garrison was arranged for Maritzburg by the despatch of two 12-pounders and a Naval detachment from the fleet at Durban, by the withdrawal of the detachment of the Naval Volunteers from Estcourt, and by the organisation into a Town Guard of all able-bodied citizens willing to carry a rifle. Moreover, some 150 loyal and zealous Natal colonists volunteered for scouting duties, and were formed into a corps under the command of the Hon. T. K. Murray, C.M.G., finding their own horses, saddlery, and rifles, and serving without pay. This body of patriotic men did useful work to the north of Maritzburg, in the neighbourhood of Mooi River, from the 4th to the 16th November, when on the arrival of reinforcements from the Cape they were released from further duty, and thanked in General Orders for their "excellent service."

On 11th November General Murray, with the approval of Sir R. Buller, handed over the command of the Estcourt garrison to Colonel Charles Long, R.H.A., and returned to Maritzburg to direct personally the heavy work falling on the line of communication staff in arranging for the disembarkation and equipment of the reinforcements, whose arrival at Durban was now hourly expected. He had been warned by Headquarters, on the 7th, that these reinforcements would be made up to three brigades and divisional troops, and that Lieut.-General Sir C. F. Clery would be sent in command. On the evening of the 11th the first battalion, the 2nd West Yorkshire, arrived at Durban with the Brigadier of the 2nd brigade, Major-General Hildyard, and was sent on the following day to Estcourt, accompanied by two naval 12-prs. and a 7-pr. manned by a detachment of bluejackets under the command of Lt. H. W. James, R.N. These units reached Estcourt on the 13th. Lt.-General Clery reached Durban on November 15th, and assumed command of the troops south of the Tugela. By the 17th five more battalions and a brigade division of field artillery had landed at that port. The British troops in southern Natal were thus in numerical superiority to the Boer column, moving south of the Tugela. The dates of the disembarkation of the remaining units of the corps for the relief of Ladysmith, to which a fourth brigade was ultimately assigned by Sir R. Buller, are shown in Appendix 7.

On the morning of the 14th November, Joubert's men crossed the Tugela and off-saddled on the Colenso plain, pushing patrols forward to Frere and finding there only an observation post of eight of the Natal Mounted Police. These patrols, as well as the large number of horses grazing near Colenso, were observed and reported by the armoured train, which, according to the daily practice of the Estcourt garrison, was sent up the line to reconnoitre in the direction of the Tugela. No mounted troops accompanied these train reconnaissances, but doubtful ground was, as a rule, made good by flankers on foot, detailed when required from the infantry in the train.

Early on the following morning, 15th November, the armoured train, carrying a 7-pounder M.L. gun, manned by five bluejackets, one company Royal Dublin Fusiliers, and one company Durban Light Infantry, was again despatched to reconnoitre northward from Estcourt. Captain J. A. L. Haldane, Gordon Highlanders, was placed in command. The train, after a brief halt at Frere to communicate with the police post, pushed on to Chieveley station. No flanking patrols appear to have been sent out; but as Chieveley station was reached a party of 50 Boers was seen cantering southward about a mile to the west of the railway. An order was now received by telephone from Estcourt: "Remain at Frere, watching your safe retreat." The train accordingly commenced to move back on Frere, but on rounding a spur of a hill which commands the line, was suddenly fired at by two field guns and a pom-pom. The driver put on full steam, and the train, running at high speed down a steep gradient, dashed into an obstruction which had been placed on a sharp curve of the rails. A detachment of about 300 men of the Krugersdorp commando had concealed themselves and their guns behind the hill during the train's outward journey, and blocked the line in its rear by filling the space between the doubled rails at the curve with earth and small stones, thus forcing the wheels off the metals.

An open truck and two armoured trucks were derailed, one of the trucks being left standing partly over the track. An engagement ensued, in which the British troops fought under great disadvantages. Mr. Winston Churchill, a retired cavalry officer, who had been allowed to accompany the train as a war correspondent, having offered his services, Captain Haldane requested him to endeavour, with the assistance of the Durban Light Infantry company, to clear the line. Haldane meanwhile with the naval gun and the Dublin kept back the enemy. The naval gun was almost at once put out of action. After an hour's work under a heavy shell and rifle fire, Mr. Churchill succeeded in his task, but the coupling between the engine and the rear trucks had been broken by a shell, the engine itself injured, and its cab was now filled with wounded. Captain Haldane accordingly ordered the engine to move back out of fire towards Frere, and, withdrawing his men from the trucks, directed them to make a dash for some houses 800 yards distant, where he hoped to effect a further stand. During this movement across the open veld two privates, without orders, held up white handkerchiefs; the Boers ceased fire, galloped in on the retreating soldiers, and called upon them to surrender. Thus Captain Haldane, a subaltern of the 2nd Dublin Fusiliers, Mr. Winston Churchill, and 53 men were captured. One officer and 69 men succeeded in making their way back to Estcourt, their retirement being covered by a detachment of mounted troops sent out to their assistance. The remainder of the 4 officers and 160 men, of whom the original party consisted, were killed or wounded. General Buller, in commenting subsequently on this unlucky affair, recorded his opinion that the officer in command "acted in trying circumstances with great judgment and coolness." A Boer account mentions that the British troops fought "with exceptional gallantry."

Emboldened by this success, General Joubert determined to carry onwards his raid to the south. For this purpose he divided his force into two columns, 3,000 men being retained under his personal orders to operate on the west side of the railway, and 1,200 detached to the eastward under the command of his son, David Joubert. The western column reached Tabanhlope, a hill thirteen miles west of Estcourt, on the 16th, and there remained for two days, reconnoitring Estcourt with patrols. The eastern column occupied Weenen on the 18th, and on the following day both columns continued their movement southward, inclining somewhat towards each other. On the 20th Piet Joubert arrived at Hlatikulu, and, having halted there a night, he further divided his command, sending forward a detachment with a field gun towards Mooi River, where they skirmished at long range on the 22nd and 23rd with the force which, under Major-General Barton, had recently been concentrated at that station. Some scouts of this detachment even pushed on as far as Nottingham Road. The remainder of the Commandant-General's column moved eastward, seized the railway between the Highlands and Willow Grange, and joined hands with David Joubert's commando, which since the 19th had remained halted at Warley Common, a farm three or four miles to the east of Highlands station.

The situation, therefore, on the night of the 22nd was remarkable. The British collected at Estcourt, whither General Hildyard had been sent on the 15th to take command, now amounted to 800 mounted troops (including Bethune's newly-raised battalion), one battery of R.F.A., the Natal Field battery, two naval 12-prs., and 4,400 infantry. Major-General Barton, who had reached Mooi River on the 18th, had, by the night of the 22nd, under his orders Thorneycroft's mounted infantry (490 strong), a battery and two sections of R.F.A., and about 4,000 infantry. Estcourt and Mooi River stations are 23 miles apart. Although, therefore, the Boers had cut the railway and telegraphic communication between the two stations, yet the situation of Gen. Joubert (halted between two British forces, each equal in strength to the two Boer commandos), was audacious, if not dangerous. Moreover, in rear of Mooi River, further British reinforcements were disembarking at Durban, and being pushed up to the front in a continuous stream. The composition and exact distribution of the troops actually in southern Natal on the 23rd November is given in Appendix 8. The pendulum had thus swung completely over. The armoured train incident was of no importance either tactically or strategically, and that momentary success was the only one achieved by Joubert. The slow and hesitating movements of the Boer columns had but hastened the disembarkation and concentration of the troops destined for the relief of Ladysmith. Finally, a tardy fit of rashness had induced the old Commandant-General to place his burghers in peril.

The danger of Joubert's situation was not fully realised by the British staff. The strength of the enemy's invading columns had been magnified by rumour to 7,000, and the number of their guns doubled. Moreover, the units at Mooi River, and in a lesser degree those at Estcourt, had for the most part only just arrived from a long sea voyage, and as yet lacked the organisation, transport, and physical fitness necessary for rapid movements in the field. At Mooi River, General Barton was without Intelligence staff, guides, or even a map. Under these circumstances, the instructions issued by General Clery from Maritzburg to his subordinate commanders were based on a policy of cautious defensive, although he hoped that in a few days an opportunity for striking at the enemy might arise. Thus, the six days, from the 17th to the 22nd, were marked on the British side by advances to, and withdrawals from, posts between Estcourt and Mooi River, which showed a strong desire to avoid all risks. A detachment of the West Yorkshire, with some mounted men, was despatched from Estcourt on the 17th to occupy Willow Grange, and on the following day a similar mixed garrison was sent up to the Highlands from Mooi River; but on the 20th, under instructions from Maritzburg, both these garrisons were withdrawn. The position of David Joubert's laager to the east of Willow Grange was ascertained by the mounted troops of both Barton's and Hildyard's forces, and on the night of the 20th the latter despatched to Willow Grange eight companies of infantry and 430 mounted men under the command of Colonel Hinde, 1st battalion Border regiment, intending an attack. But the enemy was judged by General Hildyard to be too strongly posted, and the party was withdrawn to Estcourt on the following day.

On the morning of the 22nd, it was reported that the Boers had occupied Brynbella, a commanding hill to the south of Estcourt about 700 feet above the level of the surrounding plateau, as an advanced post. General Hildyard considered that this development offered a good opportunity for striking a blow at the enemy, and he determined to attempt the capture of the post, and of some guns it was reported to contain. That afternoon, therefore, he moved a Naval 12-pr., the 7th Field battery, a half-battalion 2nd West Surrey, 2nd battalion West Yorkshire, Durban Light Infantry, and seven companies of the 2nd battalion East Surrey regiment, to a height called Beacon Hill, which lay between Estcourt and the enemy's position, about 3,000 yards distant from the latter. Colonel W. Kitchener was entrusted with the command of this force and directed to seize Brynbella by a night attack. Beacon Hill was occupied without opposition, and the Naval gun, Field battery, and 2nd Queen's were detailed to hold it as a support to the attack; to these was subsequently added the 1st Border. A thunderstorm of great severity now delayed the advance upon Brynbella; the night was intensely dark; the rocky nature of the ground and the absence of beaten tracks made the task of assembling the troops and directing their movements extremely difficult. It was not, therefore, until after midnight that the column, led by Colonel Kitchener, moved forward under the guidance of a Natal colonist, Mr. Chapman, who was unfortunately killed in action after he had successfully accomplished his task. The march was made in column of double companies. Owing to the darkness of the night and the broken ground, the difficulty of keeping touch between the companies was great; firing had been forbidden, but when half the distance had been covered, a company reached a wall and rushed it, thinking that it was the enemy's position; the next company was thrown into confusion, and a third in rear and on higher ground opened fire and began cheering. Colonel Kitchener with great coolness succeeded in restoring order, but not before eight soldiers had been hit by bullets from their comrades' rifles. The advance was then continued and Brynbella Hill was occupied at 3.30 a.m. without further casualties. The Boer party, which consisted of eighty Johannesburg policemen, under Lieut. van Zyl, retired to a ridge about 1,500 yards further to the south. A Creusot field gun had been withdrawn the previous evening after a brief exchange of shots with the Naval gun on Beacon Hill.

At daybreak next morning Kitchener's men came under the fire of the Boer commando holding the southern ridge, and after some two hours' skirmishing at long range the enemy began to creep forward, and the rifle and gun fire gradually became very effective. Kitchener, perceiving that no supports were being sent forward to him, decided to retire, and in this carried out the Major-General's intentions. A gradual withdrawal from the hill in groups of two or three was therefore commenced. Mounted troops, which had left Estcourt at daybreak under command of Lt.-Colonel C. G. Martyr, were now protecting Kitchener's right flank; the squadron of Imperial Light Horse, under Capt. H. Bottomley, dismounted and ascended Brynbella Hill, where with much coolness and gallantry they covered the retirement of the infantry. The Border was also moved forward from Beacon Hill to support the retreating troops. In this manner the whole was withdrawn and subsequently fell back on Estcourt, General Hildyard having decided that it was better to keep his brigade concentrated, ready to move in any direction that might be necessary. The total British loss in this action was eleven men killed, one officer and sixty-six men wounded, and one officer and seven men taken prisoners. A considerable portion of these losses was due to the attempts of combatants to assist the wounded to the rear during the retirement.

The action of Willow Grange brought home to Joubert the fact that his commandos were in a hazardous situation, and in that way, therefore, tended to clear south Natal of the enemy. If the Estcourt and Mooi River forces could have closed on the Boer laager simultaneously, it is probable that more important results would have been achieved. To gain this object Major-General Hildyard despatched on the 22nd a written message to Major-General Barton, stating his plan of attack, and asking for his co-operation. Unfortunately this message was not sent in duplicate, and the native to whom it was entrusted did not deliver it until 10.30 a.m. on the following morning; by that time Hildyard's troops had withdrawn from Brynbella, and were retiring on Estcourt. The Boer Commandant-General was not disposed to run any more risks, and by the 25th the burghers were in full retreat back to the Tugela, taking with them much cattle and many valuable horses, which, in spite of the vehement remonstrances of Piet Joubert, had been looted from the rich grazing grounds of central Natal. The main body of the Boers moved eastward to gain the crossing of Bushman's river at Weenen. A small detachment passed round Estcourt about twelve miles to the westward.

A reconnoitring column, consisting of about 300 of Thorneycroft's regiment and four guns, with two infantry battalions left close to the camp, in support, was pushed out on the 24th November by General Barton from Mooi River to feel for the Boers. It came in touch with the enemy, but the force was not deemed sufficiently strong to press an attack. On the 26th General Hildyard, with the bulk of his troops, advanced to Frere, hoping to intercept the Boers' eastern column, and on the following day General Barton marched from Mooi River to Estcourt. But the burghers, now disorganised and alarmed, fell back too fast to be seriously molested, and on the 28th, when Lord Dundonald advanced with a field battery and all available mounted troops on Colenso, the Boer rearguard merely withdrew across the road bridge. The demolition that evening of the railway bridge was a proof that any lingering hope, which the Boers may up to that date have cherished of mastering southern Natal, was abandoned.

On the eastern side of northern Natal, a Boer force about 800 strong, under Commandant Ferreira, consisting of the Piet Retief and Bethel commandos, and about 120 Natal rebels, was still in occupation of Helpmakaar, patrolling country on the left bank of the Tugela from below Colenso. They went as far as Rorke's Drift. One of these patrols attempted to cross the river at the Tugela Ferry on the 23rd November, but was repulsed by the Umvoti Rifles, commanded by Major Leuchars. Further east again small parties of Boers had raided into Zululand, but their movements were of no importance.

Chapter XVII.

OPERATIONS ROUND COLESBERG UP TO THE 16th DECEMBER.

A Boer force seized the passage of the Orange river at Norval's Pont on the 1st November. It consisted of the Philippolis and Edenburg commandos, with a detachment from the Bethulie district and some burghers from the Transvaal, and was commanded by a Transvaaler named Schoeman. Schoeman's subsequent advance was extraordinarily cautious and hesitating, a caution probably more due to the existence amongst the Free State burghers of a strong party opposed on political grounds to the invasion of the colony than to strategical considerations. Although on the withdrawal of the British garrison from Naauwpoort on the 3rd, there was for the moment not a single British post between Port Elizabeth and the frontier, it was not until the 14th that the little town of Colesberg was occupied by the enemy. That this Boer force was not the advance guard of any large army had been shown by the destruction on the 5th of two railway bridges, at Van Zyl and Achtertang, between Colesberg junction and Norval's Pont; on the other hand, the aggressive intention of Schoeman's movement had been demonstrated by the issue on the 9th of a Boer proclamation, declaring the Colesberg district to be Free State territory. The main object of this proclamation, as well as of similar announcements made in the Aliwal, Albert, and Barkly East districts, was to apply the Free State commando laws to British subjects, and under that legal pretext force them to join the invading columns. Nor did this policy at first lack encouragement, for a public meeting held at Colesberg on the day of its occupation passed a resolution in favour of throwing in its lot with the Orange Free State. These facts were duly reported to the Intelligence staff at Cape Town. The strength of Schoeman's column was variously assessed, one report placing it as high as 3,000, but the estimate considered most reliable stated that the Boer commandant had at this time under his orders 1,200 men, two field guns, and a Maxim. On the 17th the Intelligence department was informed that the column intended to occupy Naauwpoort, and there divide into two sections, one pushing across country to the south-west for the purpose of cutting the railway at Richmond Road, and the other moving south on a recruiting mission to Middleburg.

A series of boldly-conducted raids on the long line of railway from Cape Town to De Aar might at this period have paralysed Lord Methuen's advance on Kimberley, while a Boer column in the central districts of the Colony would have formed a nucleus round which the disaffected and lawless might have rallied, before the loyal farmers could be armed and organised to defend their own homes. It was thus evident that immediate steps must be taken to check the commando at Colesberg, and it was for these reasons that the orders, already mentioned, were issued by Sir R. Buller for the re-occupation of Naauwpoort by a half-battalion of the 2nd Berkshire, a half-battalion of the Black Watch, the New South Wales Lancers (40 all ranks), 25 Cape Police, and a party of Royal Garrison artillery manning two 9-pr. R.M.L. guns, and for the despatch of Lieut.-General French to organise as a combined force these and such further troops as Wauchope could spare, so as to oppose Schoeman's operations.

General French, accompanied by Major D. Haig as his Chief Staff Officer, and Captain the Hon. H. A. Lawrence as Intelligence Officer, left Cape Town by train on the evening of the 18th November, reaching on the following night De Aar, where he had been instructed to confer with Major-General Wauchope (at that time commanding the lines of communication from De Aar to Orange River) as regards the plan of campaign and as to the units that could be given him. In telegraphic orders sent to French on the 19th Sir R. Buller laid down his mission in the following terms:—

"I shall reinforce you as rapidly as possible; meanwhile do your best to prepare for a flying column, strength say, nearly 3,000 men, with which as soon as I get more troops, I mean you to attack the Boers about Colesberg. I think such an attack should be based on Hanover Road. Do all you can to reconnoitre the country, to obtain guides and information, and to be prepared to start; keep your men in condition, and exercise horses and mules."

As a result of his conference with Wauchope, General French reported to Headquarters on the 20th that Naauwpoort, which had already been re-occupied by the troops above-named, would be a better base than Hanover Road for a movement on Colesberg, considering both the flatness of the country, the fewer wire fences, and the railway and direct road. But for the moment Wauchope could spare no more troops except two companies of M.I. The telegram added that arrangements were being made for the formation at Naauwpoort of a depôt containing thirty days' supplies for 3,000 men, 600 horses, and 500 mules. After the despatch of this report General French, accompanied by his staff, proceeded by train to his destination, and immediately on his arrival issued orders for a reconnaissance on the following day.

On the morning of the 21st, the General Officer commanding pushed forward up the railway with the N.S.W. Lancers, followed by a section of infantry in a train. The line was found to be broken one mile north of Tweedale siding, but the cavalry advanced to within eight miles of Colesberg without meeting the enemy (see map No. ). On reporting by telegram the result of this reconnaissance, General French added that, on the arrival from De Aar of the two companies M.I., he proposed to occupy a strong position north of Arundel, and that he considered that, with a view to an attack on Colesberg, he should be reinforced by two and a half battalions and a few squadrons of cavalry, "most necessary for reaping fruits of victory in this country." The same afternoon R. battery R.H.A. and an ammunition column reached Naauwpoort by train from Cape Town. The two companies M.I., under Lieut.-Colonel R. J. Tudway, marched in from De Aar, but were found to be so insufficiently trained in their mounted duties that they were as yet unfit to take the field as complete units against the enemy.

On the 22nd, culverts north of Tweedale siding were repaired, and an obstruction on the line was removed. A patrol of the N.S.W. Lancers was pushed on to a kopje north of Arundel, but no sign of the enemy was seen. On the 23rd the other half-battalion Black Watch came in from General Wauchope, and a reconnaissance of New South Wales Lancers and a picked detachment of the M.I., supported by a company of infantry in a train, was despatched up the line towards Arundel, with a view to observing by patrols the vicinity of Colesberg; the kopjes, however, north of Arundel station were found to be now occupied by the Boers in sufficient strength to check further progress. In reporting this to Cape Town by telegraph, General French stated that he did not think that the enemy intended to attack Naauwpoort, but considered that the Boers should be dislodged from Colesberg as soon as possible, as they were obtaining recruits there. Naauwpoort had meantime been placed in a thorough state of defence.

Reconnaissances continued to be made almost daily towards Arundel. Meanwhile General French's sphere of command had been increased by the addition to it of the central line of communication down to Port Elizabeth, volunteer corps, including the Prince Alfred's Guards, of a strength of 900 all ranks, being placed at his disposal. Some difficulty, however, arising as to the movement of these colonial troops north of Cradock, detachments of regulars were sent temporarily from Naauwpoort to hold Rosmead Junction and the railway bridges near it against small rebel parties, which were reported to be under arms in that neighbourhood. The force at Naauwpoort was gradually augmented by the arrival of the 12th Lancers on the 25th, and O. battery R.H.A., and another ammunition column on the 27th. On the other hand, by the 1st December the whole battalion of the Black Watch had been, at the urgent request of Major-General Wauchope, returned to Orange River to replace infantry sent forward to Lord Methuen. The 1st Suffolk regiment arrived at Naauwpoort that afternoon, and on the 2nd December the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, a fine corps 400 strong, and the 26th company R.E., joined General French.

On the 26th November Sir R. Buller had telegraphed to Sir F. Forestier-Walker: "French should attack Arundel as soon as he feels strong enough, but not before, and he should be sure that he is strong enough. We can now afford to wait;" and on the following day he added: "Tell French to maintain an active defence, not running any risk." On the 30th another despatch from the General Commanding-in-Chief to General Forestier-Walker ran: "suggest to French that a policy of worry, without risking men, might have a good effect on the enemy at Colesberg and keep him occupied." Meanwhile the constant appearance of patrols from Naauwpoort had not only completely chained to the vicinity of Colesberg the main body of the enemy, but had made him nervous for the safety of his advance party on the kopjes north of Arundel station; and on the 29th November a squadron of the 12th Lancers discovered that those kopjes had been evacuated. On this, two days later, two squadrons of that regiment were sent forward to Arundel station to bivouac there that night with a view to a reconnaissance being pushed on to Colesberg on the following morning. But at 10 p.m. the Lieutenant-General received a telegram from the Chief of the Staff ordering the 12th Lancers to join Lord Methuen on the Modder river. The squadrons were, therefore, recalled from Arundel and the regiment entrained for the Modder on the following day, as soon as sufficient rolling-stock could be obtained. Its departure left French for the moment with insufficient mounted men to keep touch with the enemy, but the arrival of the New Zealanders on the 2nd December enabled active operations to be renewed, and on the 5th the Carabiniers, commanded by Colonel T. C. Porter, increased the Naauwpoort force sufficiently to warrant the adoption of the "policy of worry" suggested by Sir R. Buller. Moreover, arrangements had now been completed for the protection of the railway line from Cradock to Rosmead by part of the Port Elizabeth Volunteer Corps. The details of the Suffolk regiment and M.I., which had been guarding these localities, were thereupon recalled to Naauwpoort and rejoined on the afternoon of 5th December. On the 6th orders were issued for the occupation on the following day of a position near Arundel with mounted troops "with the object of pushing forward detachments to observe the enemy, and clear up the situation near Colesberg next day." In pursuance of these orders the New Zealand Mounted Rifles moved out to the ridge to the south of Arundel early on the morning of the 7th, and later in the day the Carabiniers, mounted infantry (less a detachment holding Hanover Road station), the N.S.W. Lancers, a detachment of the R.E. company, and Field Telegraph section were brought out by train from Naauwpoort under the command of Colonel Porter; and, having detrained at Hartebeestfontein farm, covered by the New Zealand Mounted Rifles, advanced with that regiment to Arundel without meeting any opposition. There the force bivouacked for the night, the enemy's piquets watching them from a ridge three miles north of the station.

At dawn on the 8th, Colonel Porter sent forward his mounted infantry, with some cavalry, and seized a hill three miles north of Arundel. General French, accompanied by his staff and two Berkshire companies, arrived at Arundel by train from Naauwpoort at 6 a.m., and by his orders the reconnaissance was then pushed home. The Boers were found to be now occupying a series of kopjes called Taaiboschlaagte which run in a south-easterly direction from Rensburg, and extend to the westward, across the line. The cavalry was sent round both flanks of the enemy, while the mounted infantry held him in front. This movement caused the Boers to fall back and disclose a second position athwart the railway, with a wide frontage both to the east and west. Artillery fire was opened on the British troops from three points of this new post, and a large gun was seen being dragged into action near Rensburg, which appeared to be the centre of the Boer line. It was estimated that the opposing commando was on this occasion about 2,000 strong. A prisoner was captured, who alleged that he was adjutant to the officer commanding a reinforcement just arrived from Pretoria. He stated that the total force under Schoeman's orders was now 3,000, exclusive of local rebels, that it included four field guns and three smaller pieces, and that Grobelaar's commando of 1,700 men at Burghersdorp would shortly receive a reinforcement of 600 men from the Free State and intended then to co-operate with Schoeman. A telegram, despatched by Major Haig in the evening to Cape Town, reported the above information and the day's operation, adding: "General French desires me to say that in face of attitude of enemy to-day he cannot do more than reconnoitre with forces here." The mounted troops, who had now been joined by R. battery R.H.A., continued in occupation of the kopjes north of Arundel, and on the 11th December, the railway having been repaired, three companies of the Royal Berkshire, under Major McCracken, were moved by train to that station, and a detachment of 50 M.I. was sent to Tweedale to patrol and guard the line; the remainder of the troops continued to garrison Naauwpoort under command of Lieut.-Colonel A. J. Watson, 1st Suffolk regiment.

Two squadrons of the Inniskilling Dragoons reached Naauwpoort on the 10th, and with two squadrons of the 10th Hussars, arriving on the 11th, were sent on to Arundel. Early on the morning of the 11th the British patrols reported that the Boers had seized Vaal Kop, an isolated hill some six miles west of Rensburg, with open ground all round it, and Kuilfontein farm, one and a half miles to the north-west of the kop. By the Lieut.-General's directions a squadron of the 10th Hussars and two Horse artillery guns were sent out against these detached posts, and having forced the enemy back remained in possession of Vaal Kop. Some anxiety was still felt as regards Schoeman's designs on his left side, as it was surmised that his continued occupation of a position so much in advance of Colesberg was probably due to an intention of holding out a hand to Grobelaar in the Burghersdorp district. Colonel Porter was, therefore, ordered to patrol widely to the east and north-east to discover whether any movements were taking place in those quarters. Early on the morning of the 13th his patrols reported that about 1,800 Boers were leaving their laagers in three detachments and pushing southward towards Naauwpoort. By 7 a.m. Colonel Porter had made the following disposition to meet this development—Vaal Kop on his extreme left was still occupied by a squadron and two guns, and the kopjes to the north of Arundel were held by the three companies of the Berkshire and two 9-pr. R.M.L. guns, supported by the M.I. on the right and the New Zealand Mounted Rifles on the left, with the N.S.W. Lancers at the Nek near the railway. The main body of the cavalry (six squadrons) with four guns of R. battery was concentrated on the threatened flank two to three miles to the east of the remainder. In a skirmish which ensued, the enemy brought up two guns, but these were quickly silenced and the Boer commandos were driven back by the cavalry. By 2 p.m. the bulk of the enemy's forces had returned to their old ground; a party, which about that hour occupied Kuilfontein farm on the western flank, was driven away by the shell fire of the two British guns on Vaal Kop, suffering considerable loss. The British casualties during the day were limited to one officer and seven men wounded. A congratulatory telegram, received by General French from Sir R. Buller next day, commented: "You are following the right policy. Worry them." The tactics prescribed by General French at this period can be best realised from the following extract from the instructions issued by his Chief Staff Officer on the 14th to Major-General Brabazon, who, on his arrival on that date, was placed in command at Arundel:—

"Your task is to prevent the enemy moving from his present positions closer to Naauwpoort, or reaching the railway connecting that place with Arundel. The Lieut.-General Commanding considers that the best method to pursue to attain this end is:

"(a) Hold Arundel as a pivot.

"(b) Using that as a pivot, act energetically with your mounted troops against any of the enemy's detachments which may leave his main position and cross open ground.

"(c) Select and hold certain points (such as Vaal Kop), to retain the enemy and make him fear an offensive movement against his line of retreat; (which is viâ Colesberg wagon bridge)."

On the 16th, however, notwithstanding these instructions, the officer commanding the detachment on Vaal Kop fell back from that post on its being threatened by distant artillery fire, and the whole of the troops at Arundel were turned out on a false alarm that the enemy was advancing. The defeats at Stormberg, Magersfontein, and Colenso, recorded in later chapters, had meantime darkened the prospect, so that manifestly the utmost care must be taken by all commanders to obviate mistakes which might lead to further misfortunes. General French, therefore, moved his Headquarters to the front, and assumed personal command of the troops at Arundel. He had telegraphed on the previous day offering to despatch all his cavalry to the Modder river, but this suggestion was negatived "on account of scarcity of water." He reorganised the Arundel command into a division as follows, appointing Major-General Brabazon second in command:—

1st Cavalry Brigade (under Colonel T. C. Porter).

• The Carabiniers.
• New South Wales Lancers (40 men),
• 1 company mounted infantry.

2nd Cavalry Brigade (under Lieut.-Colonel R. B. W. Fisher).

• The Inniskilling Dragoons (2 squadrons),
• 10th Hussars (2 squadrons),
• 1 company mounted infantry.

Divisional Troops.

• Brigade division R.H.A. (under Colonel F. J. W. Eustace).
• New Zealand Mounted Rifles.
• R.E. company.
• Bearer company.
• Half-battalion Royal Berkshire regiment. under Major F. W. N.
• 2 guns R.G.A." "

Major McCracken was directed to fortify the kopjes north of Arundel, and to hold them "at all costs" as a pivot of manœuvre. The country, for purposes of reconnaissance, was divided into two zones, the railway being taken as the line of demarcation. The 1st brigade was assigned to the western zone, the 2nd to the eastern; the Brigadiers were instructed to occupy certain tactical points towards the front and flanks, and were made responsible that the enemy was not allowed to establish himself unmolested on any kopje south of the Arundel ridge. The Horse artillery and New Zealand Rifles were kept in reserve under the personal orders of the General Officer Commanding. With these arrangements the Lieut.-General felt assured that his position was secure, and hoped to be able to continue to pursue a bold and aggressive policy, a duty to which he was now able to devote his whole attention, as other arrangements had been made for the command of the lines of communication to Port Elizabeth.

Chapter XVIII.

STORMBERG.

President Steyn early in November ordered an invasion of the north-eastern portion of Cape Colony. In doing so he acted against the advice of a Krijgsraad held at Bethulie to discuss the project. A considerable party of the Free State burghers was, in fact, opposed to an offensive plan of campaign, but the President held that success in the struggle against Great Britain could not be attained without enlisting in his favour all the external support he could obtain. The mission of the invaders was therefore to incite the discontented in the colony to open rebellion. Under these circumstances, although many communications passed between the disaffected amongst the local farmers and Olivier, the commandant of the Boer contingent which had crossed Bethulie bridge early in November, the movements of the burghers were at first slow and hesitating. Aliwal North was occupied on the 13th, and Burghersdorp—a town without any great reputation for loyalty—two days later. The districts of Aliwal North, Albert and Barkly East were at once proclaimed to be Free State territory. It was not until the 25th that the Boer commando seized the important railway junction of Stormberg, from which the British garrison had three weeks earlier been withdrawn by Sir R. Buller to Queenstown.

Lieut.-General Sir W. Gatacre, with the staff of the 3rd division, the two brigades of which had been sent on to Natal, disembarked at East London on 16th November. The tasks assigned to that General were to prevent British subjects from being persuaded or compelled to take up arms against their Sovereign, to encourage and protect the loyal, and, so far as possible, to stem the Boer invasion until the return of Lord Methuen's division from Kimberley enabled the country south of the Orange river to be swept clear of the enemy, preparatory to the general advance through the Free State.

Sir W. Gatacre moved immediately up to Queenstown, taking with him the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles (898 all ranks), who had landed the same day at East London. On arriving at Queenstown he found at that station the half-battalion and a mounted company of the 2nd Berkshire regiment (strength, 574 all ranks), a small detachment of Royal Garrison artillery, and a half company of Royal engineers, which, with the Naval contingent, had formed the original garrison of Stormberg. The personnel of the Naval contingent had been ordered to return to Cape Town, but had left with the Royal artillery their two 12-pr. guns. Besides these, the gunners had two obsolete field guns belonging to the armament of the naval base, but owing to the lack of mules and equipment none of the guns were mobile. In addition to these troops the local volunteers, consisting of the Kaffrarian Rifles, the Frontier Mounted Rifles (about 229 strong), and the Queenstown Rifle Volunteers (285), had been called out; a corps of mounted infantry was being raised locally from the farmers of the Eastern province by Colonel Brabant, and a contingent of the Cape Mounted Rifles and Cape Police had been placed at the Lieut.-General's disposal. The Kaffrarian Rifles, 285 all ranks, held the base at East London. The remainder of the local troops, except some posts of observation at Cathcart, Indwe and Molteno, were concentrated at Queenstown. An armoured train, commanded by Lieutenant F. J. Gosset, 2nd Berkshire, patrolled the railway.

For the moment it was obvious that no forward movement could take place; indeed, a telegram despatched by Sir R. Buller to General Gatacre, on 18th November, reminded him that "the great thing in this sort of warfare is to be perfectly certain that one position is safe before you advance to another, and that we are not yet strong enough in troops to play tricks." Yet patrols, furnished by the Cape Police, were sent out to Dordrecht, Stormberg and Tarkastad, and the employment of reliable native scouts was arranged. In a telegram, dated 21st November, Sir Redvers suggested that a portion of General Gatacre's force might be moved to Stormberg for the purpose of covering the coal mines at Indwe. Sir W. Gatacre replied on the same day that he had not sufficient men as yet to advance to Stormberg, but, as soon as more troops arrived, he intended to occupy that junction and clear the country round it. Meanwhile, as a result of a personal reconnaissance of the district, he proposed to occupy Putterskraal, a position which, with outposts at Bushman's Hoek and Penhoek, would "command Sterkstroom junction with the colliery line, reassure loyal farmers, and steady disloyal men." The arrival from England of two companies of mounted infantry (part of the mounted infantry of the cavalry division), under Capt. E. J. Dewar, King's Royal Rifles, on the 22nd, and of the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers on the 27th November, enabled a concentration of all the mounted troops, the detachment of Royal Garrison artillery, the 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, and the 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, to be effected at Putterskraal on the latter date. Sterkstroom was also occupied as an advanced post, and on the following day the Berkshire mounted infantry, four companies of the Irish Rifles, and the Kaffrarian Rifles, brought up from East London, were pushed on to Bushman's Hoek.

The enemy was becoming bolder. A considerable number of disaffected farmers had joined the commando at Burghersdorp; more were known to be on their way up from Cradock, while at Barkly East a disloyal field cornet was issuing Government arms and ammunition to rebels. The Boer occupation of Stormberg on the 25th was followed immediately by the destruction of the railway and telegraph line to the westward. Thus French's force at Naauwpoort and Gatacre's troops at Putterskraal were cut off from each other, and the latter were left for the moment entirely dependent on their own resources. Sir Redvers, who was kept daily informed of these developments, felt "anxious," and telegraphed orders from Maritzburg on 26th November to Sir F. Forestier-Walker: "Caution Gatacre to be careful. I think he is hardly strong enough to advance beyond Putterskraal, until Methuen's return;" and on the following day he telegraphed instructions to reinforce General Gatacre by one, or, if possible, by two battalions, "and any mounted men that can be spared." Barkly East was reported to be in open rebellion, although Sir H. Elliott's action in defending the passes leading south to Griqualand East continued to be effective. The "annexation" of Dordrecht to the Free State, proclaimed officially on its occupation by the enemy, further complicated the situation. General Gatacre accordingly telegraphed direct to the General Commanding-in-Chief:—

"Military situation here requires dealing with extreme carefulness. Boers have occupied Dordrecht and enemy is advancing in a southerly direction, evidently pointing for Queenstown. I have two British regiments only, and I am 33 miles to the north of Queenstown—I am holding Bushman's Hoek range to endeavour to prevent descent into Queenstown district, which would mean general state of rebellion of Dutch. Force will be strengthened at Queenstown by next British regiment which should arrive at Queenstown 5th December, but Queenstown is indefensible position. Are there any orders especially as regards my movements?"

Sir Redvers replied the same day (2nd December) from Maritzburg:—

"Your No. A 514. We have to make the best of the situation, and if the enemy is advancing by Dordrecht, the importance of Bushman's Hoek is diminished. You have a force which altogether is considerably stronger than the enemy can now bring against you. Cannot you close with him, or else occupy a defensible position which will obstruct his advance? You have an absolutely free hand to do what you think best."

Meanwhile, on the 29th November, a raid by train had been made from Putterskraal on Molteno, and a large amount of corn removed from a mill which it was feared might fall into the enemy's hands. An officer and 50 men of the Cape Police were left in observation at Molteno, and detachments of Cape Mounted Rifles and of the newly-raised corps, Brabant's Horse, of a total strength of 400 men, was pushed out to Penhoek, a pass through the hills ten miles east of Sterkstroom.

By the 6th December, Sir W. Gatacre had been reinforced by two batteries of his divisional artillery, the 74th and 77th, the divisional ammunition column, the 12th company R.E., the 1st Royal Scots, the 33rd company Army Service Corps, and 16th Field Hospital. The greater portion of his detachment was unfortunately only just free from the confinement of the voyage from England. Every effort had been made on board ship to keep the infantry in good condition by gymnastics and physical drill, but they were naturally not in the best trim for a long march. The horses of the artillery had suffered from a somewhat stormy passage of 31 days, during which 14 had died of influenza. They, too, therefore, were hardly yet ready for hard work. Nevertheless, the G.O.C. considered that, in the existing strategic situation, any further prolongation of the defensive attitude he had hitherto been obliged to maintain would be injurious. He determined, therefore, to take advantage of the free hand left to him by Sir R. Buller, and to follow the further suggestion that he should close with the enemy. On the evening of the 7th he informed the commanding officers of units that he intended to make a night march on Stormberg and attack the Boer laager. It will be seen from map No. that the buildings and sheds which mark the railway junction lie at the foot of a steep razor-back hill, called Rooi Kop, and on the eastern edge of a valley or vlei, about two miles in length from north to south, and one in breadth. This vlei, in which the enemy's main body was known to be, is shut in on the east by the Rooi Kop, which dominates all of the surrounding country. To the south and south-west, it is enclosed by a lower hill, named the Kissieberg, and on the north by a flat-topped kopje on which forts had been constructed by the British garrison when in occupation of the junction. Between this kopje and the northern point of the Kissieberg, there is a gap of a mile through which pass out the spruit, which drains the vlei, and the branch line to Naauwpoort. The railway from East London to Bloemfontein and the main road from Molteno to Burghersdorp, viâ Stormberg, cross a Nek between the Kissieberg and Rooi Kop, subsequently skirting the latter hill very closely. This Nek, on which the intelligence scouts reported the Boer guns to be posted, and the Rooi Kop, Sir W. Gatacre planned to seize before dawn on the morning of the 9th by a night march from Molteno. He proposed to employ on the enterprise the whole of the mounted infantry, one field battery, the R.E. company, the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Royal Irish Rifles, and a detachment of Cape Police. The mounted troops from Penhoek were also to co-operate on the right flank. Arrangements were also made with Sir H. Elliott for an advance of the Headquarters of the Cape Mounted Rifles in the direction of Dordrecht. By concentrating at Molteno late on the day previous to that chosen for the attack, General Gatacre hoped to surprise the enemy. Owing, however, to some difficulties in obtaining rolling stock, the movement was postponed till the 9th.

Early on the morning of that day, camp was struck at Putterskraal, and the baggage packed, the wagons being ordered to travel by road to Molteno. The assembling of the troops at that village was effected during the afternoon in the following manner:—

By Train from Putterskraal.

• Divisional Staff.
• R.A. Staff, 74th and 77th batteries R.F.A.
• R.E. Staff, 12th company R.E.
• 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers.
• Headquarters and 4 companies Royal Irish Rifles.
• Field Hospital and Bearer company.

By Train from Bushman's Hoek.

• 4 companies Royal Irish Rifles.

By Road from Putterskraal.

• 2 companies mounted infantry.
• 42 Cape Mounted Police.

By Road from Bushman's Hoek.

• 1 company Royal Berkshire mounted infantry.

Besides these, three companies Royal Scots were sent by rail from Putterskraal. One of them was dropped at Bushman's Hoek, the other two being taken on to Molteno. The units that went by train had with them their first line transport. Although the entraining of the troops began about 12 noon, it was not completed till after 5 p.m., owing to the lack of sufficient sidings. The movement to Molteno was covered by the armoured train, and was carried out without interruption. The detachments of Brabant's Horse and Cape Mounted Rifles ordered in from Penhoek to Molteno failed, however, to appear. A message to the officer commanding at Penhoek, conveying the order, had been handed in at the telegraph office at Putterskraal at midnight on the 8th, but owing to some carelessness had not been forwarded by the telegraph clerk. The precaution of demanding an acknowledgment of the receipt of this important order, or of sending a duplicate, does not appear to have been taken by the divisional staff.

The troops had dined before leaving Putterskraal, and took with them one and a half day's rations, the half ration to be eaten in the train on the way to Molteno, and the remainder to be carried by the men on the march. The preserved meat had been issued in 6lb. tins. These were very inconvenient. Therefore many of them were thrown away.

On arriving at Molteno, Sir W. Gatacre assembled the commanding officers and issued personally to them his orders for the movement against Stormberg. His Intelligence staff had ascertained that the actual strength of the Boers in laager at that moment was about 1,700, and that the southern face of the Kissieberg and the Nek between that hill and Rooi Kop were entrenched. The General, on receipt of this information, determined to modify his original plan. Although Stormberg had been occupied for more than a month by British troops, no systematic sketching of the surrounding country had been undertaken. Except a plan made more than a year before of the ground in the immediate neighbourhood of the junction, and reproduced in one of the Intelligence handbooks, the only map at the disposal of the Staff was the Cape Survey, the scale of which, 12-½ miles to an inch, was too small for tactical purposes.

The local Cape Police, the Berkshire mounted infantry, and others were very well acquainted with the country; and, after a personal examination of Sergeant Morgan, Cape Police, and several native policemen, who had previously been selected as guides, Sir W. Gatacre determined to move his force out from Molteno by the Steynsburg road, and to diverge from that road by a cross track, leading northwards from a point near D. Foster's farm to Van Zyl's farm, which was situated immediately in rear of the western face of the Kissieberg. Thus the position on the Nek would be turned. The distance to be covered during this flank march was said by his informants to be about nine miles. The actual distance was about ten miles. Allowing for intermediate rests for the men, the General anticipated that he would be able so to order the time as to place his men in a position to rush the Kissieberg with the bayonet before dawn, and then, as soon as daylight appeared, to plant the guns on that kopje, thus commanding the whole of the Stormberg valley. Sir W. Gatacre informed commanding officers verbally of these intentions, and arranged the following succession:

• Royal Irish Rifles.
• Northumberland Fusiliers.
• 74th and 77th batteries, escorted by Two companies M.I. and the Cape Police.
• Berkshire M.I. company.
• Machine guns, ammunition reserve, and Field Hospital, escorted by 12th company R.E.

The column was to move off in three echelons, the first consisting of the divisional staff and the infantry, the second the artillery and mounted infantry, and the third the field hospital, machine guns, etc. Guides were allotted to each unit. Complete reliance was placed on the efficiency of these guides, and the precaution of causing the road to be previously reconnoitred by a staff officer had not been taken. Both Sir W. Gatacre's intelligence officers, one of whom knew the ground intimately, had duties on the line of communication, and were thus unable to accompany the column. The General, with all the rest of his staff, took his place at the head of the leading battalion, which was preceded by eight infantry scouts under a subaltern. The remainder of the infantry marched in fours. The batteries were in column of route. The wheels of the 77th were covered with raw hide. The wheels of the 74th had not been so padded, as that battery was only added to the column at the last moment. The hide proved to be of but little value for the purpose of deadening the sound, and only made the draught heavier.

The head of the column moved off about 9 p.m., somewhat later than had been originally planned. The artillery and mounted infantry followed in due course along the Steynsburg road, but the machine guns, field hospital, and R.E., owing to a lack of staff supervision, took the one direct on Stormberg, and, finding that there were no troops in front of them, halted where they were until daylight, having first ascertained from the officer left in command at Molteno that he did not know the route by which the main column was advancing.

Meanwhile, the infantry of that column had pressed on with the keenness of soldiers eager for their first fight, and at 1 a.m. a homestead, which proved to be that of Mr. J. Roberts. The guides had in fact passed the branch road leading to Van Zyl's farm, but on being interrogated, the head guide, Sergeant Morgan, assured Sir W. Gatacre that he and his assistants knew the way perfectly, and that they were leading the column by a road which, though slightly longer than that originally selected, avoided wire and a bad piece of track which the guns would have found it difficult to cross at night. They added that they were within one and a half miles of the spot, to which the General desired to be guided. The map and freehand sketch show that the guides now proposed to lead the column to the rear of the Kissieberg by the wagon-track which leaves the Steynsburg road at Roberts' homestead, and after crossing the Bamboosberg Spruit and the colliery branch line, strikes, near Van Zyl's house, the track by which General Gatacre had intended to approach the enemy's position. The distance still to be traversed was, as will also be noticed, not one and a half, but about two and a half miles. Moreover, after crossing the spruit and the railway, the track traverses the northern slopes of a stony irregular underfeature which guards the approaches to the Kissieberg from the south and west. Progress over this ground was unlikely to be rapid. Roberts' homestead is 10-½ miles from Molteno. The troops had, therefore, already marched rather further than was originally anticipated; and, as they had halted for a short time every hour, their rate of marching had been fast for night-work over such country. The men were somewhat weary owing to the march. They were out of condition. They had been engaged on heavy fatigue work on the morning of the 9th. Whether, therefore, the guides had missed the true road in the dark, a supposition which is favoured by the fact that they had previously assured the General that the whole route was fit and easy for wheeled transport, or whether, not realising the importance in military operations of obedience to orders, they had, on their own judgment, diverted the column to the longer route in the belief that it would be easier, the effect on the General's plan of attack was serious. Sir W. Gatacre, nevertheless, decided that he would give his men an hour's rest, and then push on.

About 2 a.m. the march was resumed in the same order as before, except that the guns and mounted infantry had closed up to the infantry. But after crossing the railway the roughness of the ground added to the fatigue of the troops; moreover, doubt as to the manner in which the column was being guided had spread discouragement. The General, moving at the head of the leading battalion, constantly questioned the guide, but was as constantly assured by Sergeant Morgan that the right road was being followed, although the distance was greater than he had estimated. The column, therefore, trudged on until at length, as the first signs of dawn were beginning to appear, it reached the cross roads near Van Zyl's house, and thus was on the very ground from whence General Gatacre intended to make his assault on the Kissieberg. If the assault had been delivered at once, the ridge might have been carried and command over the Stormberg valley have been thus secured.

The Boers in and near Stormberg on the morning of the 10th December were under the command of Olivier: they consisted of about 1,700 burghers of the Bethulie, Rouxville and Smithfield commandos, with two guns and a Maxim. A detachment under Commandant Swanepoel, with one gun, held the Nek between the Kissieberg and Rooi Kop. A piquet of about fifty men was stationed on the western ridge of the former hill, and another piquet watched the north end of the vlei; the remainder of the burghers slept on the lower inner slopes of the two hills. The Boer accounts of the fight all agree in stating that Gatacre's night march was a complete surprise to them. So secure did Olivier feel in his position that on the 9th he had detached a commando of colonial rebels, amounting to some 500 or 600 men, under Grobelaar and Steinkamp, to Steynsburg to beat up more recruits in that direction. In consequence of a dispute about a gun, which was referred to President Steyn by telegram for settlement, Grobelaar had outspanned for the night some seven or eight miles away on the Stormberg-Steynsburg road, and his commando lay about a mile north-west of Roberts' farm. Sir W. Gatacre's information, therefore, as to the strength of the Boers in the Stormberg valley was accurate, their dispositions favoured the plan he had formed for a surprise, and the British assailants, notwithstanding the circuitous march, had now arrived in time, though only barely in time, at the spot for its execution. But either the chief guide did not fully comprehend the General's intentions, or he had lost his bearings, for he pointed to a kopje nearly two miles off, and said that that was the real place. The wearied men continued to trudge along the road, which, skirting the lower western slopes of the Kissieberg, leads to Stormberg junction. Day was breaking, but no change was made in the formation of the troops. The infantry remained in fours, with no flankers out, and still only eight men were in front as an advance guard. The Boer piquet on the Kissieberg saw the grey thread as it wound its way slowly along the foot of the hill within effective range of the crest. A single shot echoed through the valley, and a corporal of the leading company of Irish Rifles fell dead. A rapid fire, although from but a few rifles, was then opened on the British troops at a range of about 400 yards. It was impossible to convey orders to a long column of route, thus taken at a disadvantage. Each company officer had to act on his own initiative, and as few, if any of them, knew where they were, or where was the enemy they were required to attack, confusion inevitably arose.

The three leading companies of the Irish Rifles, under their commanding officer, Lieut.-Colonel H. A. Eagar, front-formed, extended rapidly at right angles to the road, and dashed forward and seized the underfeature a (map No. ), which faces the extreme northern spur of the Kissieberg. In pushing on towards this point, the men were much exposed to enfilade fire from their right, and a good many casualties occurred. The other five companies of the Irish Rifles and the Northumberland Fusiliers faced to the right, confronting the main ridge, against which they scrambled upwards by successive stages. The companies extended as they moved on, and gradually opened out into firing line and supports. The western face of the Kissieberg was found to be exceedingly steep and difficult to climb. A series of krantz, or perpendicular walls of rocks, barred the ascent, except at certain gaps, while between these krantz were interspersed bushes and large boulders. The company officers ordered their men to unfix bayonets, and to help each other up the rocks. The enemy's fire for the moment had ceased to be effective, as the British soldiers were more or less under cover of the krantz, but the clamber through the gaps in the first barrier, nearly twelve feet high, took a considerable time. On the top a halt was made to let men get their breath, and then began again the onward advance of small groups of twos and threes in the direction of the shoulder of the hill, where the burghers had managed to place a gun. The Boers' shooting from the crest now again became effective, whilst they themselves, carefully concealed, offered no target to the British rifles. The rocks and bushes made communication between the different parts of the line of the attack very difficult.

At the moment when the first shot killed the corporal, the batteries, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel H. B. Jeffreys, had rapidly moved off to the left by sub-divisions for about 1,000 yards, and then onward up the valley. There was no good position for the British guns, except the ridge 2,000 yards to the west of the Kissieberg. But the infantry's need of immediate support was too pressing to allow time for that ridge's occupation. Lieut.-Colonel Jeffreys therefore, by the direction of General Gatacre, caused the 77th battery to come into action near kopje a, the 74th unlimbering on the open veld to the westward. The mounted infantry continued to escort the batteries. In getting into place a gun of the 74th battery had stuck in a donga, owing to a horse being struck. It was smothered by a hail of bullets. The three drivers were almost immediately wounded, and all the rest of the team were shot down. The gun had therefore to be abandoned, part of its breech mechanism being first removed.