Ten Months In The Field With The Boers Part 2

On December 11, at Magersfontein, Lord Methuen had a second disaster to deplore. Half an hour after midnight, after twenty-four hours of artillery preparations and bombardment of the Boer entrenchments, five Highland regiments advanced in line of quarter-column. The night was dark, and rain was falling in torrents. At half-past three in the morning the English halted, not very sure of their route. In an instant a deadly fire poured out from the rocks. They were less than 200 yards from the trenches occupied by Cronje's men.

The Black Watch was decimated. General Wauchope fell, crying: 'My poor fellows! 'twas not I who brought you here!' The Marquis of Winchester was also killed.

The whole body was demoralized, and it was not possible to make the fugitives lie down till they had reached a distance of several hundreds of yards. 'It was,' says an eye-witness, 'one of the saddest sights that could wring the heart of an English soldier of our times.'

In this turmoil of confusion and indecision, Lord Methuen only gave the order to retire towards four o'clock in the afternoon. More than a thousand dead strewed the battle-field, and no help was given to the wounded till the following day.

In the last letter he wrote to England, Wauchope said: 'This is my last letter, for I have been ordered to attempt an impossible task. I have protested, but I must obey or give up my sword.... The men of the Modder River army will probably never follow Lord Methuen in another engagement.'

Finally, on December 15, the Battle of Colenso was fought. I borrow an account of it from Sir Redvers Buller's telegram despatched from Chieveley Camp in the evening:

'I regret to report serious reverse. I moved in full strength from camp near Chieveley this morning at 4 a.m. There are two fordable places in the Tugela, and it was my intention to force a pa.s.sage through at one of them. They are about two miles apart, and my intention was to force one or the other with one brigade, supported by a central brigade.

'General Hart was to attack the left drift, General Hildyard the right road, and General Lyttleton in the centre to support either.

'Early in the day I saw that General Hart would not be able to force a pa.s.sage, and directed him to withdraw. He had, however, attacked with great gallantry, and his leading battalion, the Connaught Rangers, I fear suffered a great deal. Colonel Brooke was severely wounded.

'I then ordered General Hildyard to advance, which he did, and his leading regiment, the East Surrey, occupied Colenso Station and the houses near the bridge.

'At that moment I heard that the whole of the artillery I had sent to that attack--namely, the 14th and 66th Field Batteries and six naval 12-pounder quick-firing guns, the whole under Colonel Long, R.A.--were out of action, as it appears that Colonel Long, in his desire to be within effective range, advanced close to the river. It proved to be full of the enemy, who suddenly opened a galling fire at close range, killing all their horses, and the gunners were compelled to stand to their guns.'

Desperate efforts were made to bring back the guns, but only two were saved by the exertions of Captain Schofield and two or three of the drivers.

It was here that Lieutenant Roberts, of the 66th Battery of Artillery, son of Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, met a glorious death.

'Some of the waggon-teams got shelter for troops in a donga, and desperate efforts were made to bring out the field-guns, but the fire was too severe, and only two were saved by Captain Schofield and some drivers, whose names I will furnish.

'Another most gallant attempt with three teams was made by an officer whose name I will obtain. Of the 18 horses, 13 were killed, and as several of the drivers were wounded, I would not allow another attempt.

'As it seemed they would be a sh.e.l.l mark, sacrificing loss of life to a gallant attempt to force pa.s.sage unsupported by artillery, I directed the troops to withdraw, which they did in good order.

'Throughout the day a considerable force of the enemy was pressing on my right flank, but was kept back by the mounted men under Lord Dundonald and part of General Barton's brigade.

'The day was intensely hot and most trying to the troops, whose conduct was excellent.

'We have abandoned ten guns, and lost by sh.e.l.l-fire one.

'The losses in General Hart's brigade are, I fear, heavy, though the proportion of severely wounded is, I hope, not large.

'The 14th and 66th Field Batteries also suffered severe losses.

'We have retired to our camp at Chieveley.

'The Boer losses are said to be over 700 men.'[#]

[#] This statement does not appear in the _Times_ report of General Buller's telegram.--TRANSLATOR.

No, General, we did not lose 700 men that day.

General Botha's report gave 8 dead and 20 wounded, while more than 2,000 English lay on the battle-field.

Round about the batteries especially the carnage had been terrible. The Boers, ambushed on a little kopje on the further side of the Tugela, 300 metres from the cannon, kept up an unerring fire for an hour.

December 15, be it noted, has long been a day of rejoicing in the Transvaal. It is the anniversary of the Battle of Bloedriver, when Pretorius, to avenge the ma.s.sacre of Pieter Retief and over 500 Boers, defied the bands of the Zulu chief Dingaun. This was on December 15, 1838, and on that eventful day Pretorius and his 400 men left 3,000 Zulus on the field, with a loss of only three wounded themselves.

After Colenso the victors had another splendid opportunity. They might have pushed forward with the armies of Natal and the Free State. The English troops had, it is true, been reinforced, but the arms of the Republics were still victorious in every direction.

In the beginning, on the whole, the elements of success were overwhelmingly with the Boers. These were superiority of numbers, of marksmans.h.i.+p, a profound knowledge of the country, of which no accurate maps exist, and the great distances between their opponents and such reinforcements as the latter could depend on. It might have been said that the fortune of war, taking into account the right and justice of their cause, had been pleased to place all the elements of victory in their hands. But neither the advice offered by the most authoritative voices and based on the great teachings of military history, nor the entreaties dictated by the most generous devotion to the cause of the Boers, could rouse the superiors in command from the apathy that seemed to have overtaken them.

Christmas pa.s.sed in rejoicings on both sides. The belligerents exchanged Christmas and New Year good wishes by the medium of sh.e.l.ls specially prepared, containing sweets, chocolates, etc. New Year's Day found them all much in the same positions. The bombardment of the three towns, Mafeking, Kimberley, and Ladysmith, continued.

However, on January 6 Joubert made up his mind to attack--if, indeed, that strange encounter, aimless and incoherent, can be called an attack.

Was it an a.s.sault by the besiegers or a sortie of the besieged? Perhaps both. It took place at Platrand. Four or five hundred of Prinsloo's men were seriously engaged; the others (there were 6,000 round the town) took up positions early in the morning, quitted them towards ten o'clock to come back and breakfast in camp, returned to them later, and remained for the rest of the day 1,800 yards from the town, which was no longer defended, without firing a shot, without a thought of throwing themselves against it or of going to the help of their comrades, hotly engaged close by. In the evening they went back quietly to camp, while the commandos of Zand River, Harrismith, Heilbron, and Kroonstad had fifty-four killed and ninety-five wounded. The English lost 138 killed and over 200 wounded. A little dash, decision, and cohesion, and the town might have been taken. Such was Colonel de Villebois-Mareuil's opinion.

But even in the full flush of success we shall never find among the Boers that eagerness, that scorn of death, that enthusiasm which sweep troops forward and make great victories.

The same day, at Colesberg, an _accident_ (this word is a happy invention of General French's to denote a reverse) cost the English 150 lives, among them that of Colonel Watson.

The sieges followed their--I will not say normal--course, for the ill-defended towns ought long ago to have been taken by the Boers. Such was the general situation, more or less, when we landed.

II

Time pa.s.sed, the screw laboured round, and on January 12 we arrived at Diego Suarez.

'Pa.s.sengers for Lourenco Marques change steamers!'

For the _Natal_ is bound for Mauritius, along the east coast of Madagascar. We shall therefore spend the night on sh.o.r.e.

Wandering about the town, we meet Colonel Gourko, whom we invite to dinner, as we are in a French colony. I can't pride myself much on this meal, in the name of French culinary art.

The next day I lighted on a quartermaster of the Marine Artillery, whom I had known in the Soudan when he was only a gunner. He went off to find the other Soudanese campaigners of the settlement, and in a quarter of an hour I was surrounded by half a dozen old comrades. They were all in high spirits, for it had been a day of promotions, and several of them were toasting their new stripes.

I spend a full hour with them, recalling the old days spent in the colony that all who have once known regret.

The hour of parting draws near; several subalterns return to their duties, while my old friend and a newly-promoted officer come to see me off.

The _Gironde_, also of the Messageries Maritimes, plies from Diego Suarez to Durban and _vice versa_. Several artillery and marine officers, having heard of my presence, have come to wish me G.o.dspeed on board. I am much touched at this token of sympathy from unknown friends, for, setting my humble personality aside, it is a homage to the n.o.ble cause I am on my way to uphold.

But the bell rings, the anchor is weighed, and we are off. If the _Natal_ was an old 'fine steamer,' the _Gironde_ is a _very_ old one.

She was formerly one of the swift and elegant Indian liners, but now, obsolete and worn-out, is reserved for this little auxiliary service till such time as some sudden squall shall send her to the bottom.

Nevertheless, we arrived safely at Mozambique, where some few days before a terrible cyclone had destroyed part of the native village. Huts were overthrown and lying in fragments, trees torn up by the roots, telegraph-wires broken; an air of mournful desolation hung over the district.