BATTLE OF TINTA INYONI
LADYSMITH, _October 27, 1899_.
If you want to "experience a shock," as the doctors say, be with the
head of a column advancing leisurely along a familiar road only six
miles from camp, and have a shell flung almost at your feet from a
neighbouring mountain top. That was my fortune about the breakfast time
of peaceable citizens last Tuesday morning. A squadron of Lancers and
some of the Natal Carbineers were in front. Just behind me a battery was
rumbling along. A little knot of the staff was close by, and we were all
just preparing to halt. We stood on the Newcastle road, north of the
town, not far from our first position at the Elands Laagte battle of the
Saturday before. The road is close to the railway there, and I was
watching an engine and truck going down with a white-flag flying,
bringing back poor Colonel Chisholme's body for burial. Suddenly on the
left from the top of a mountain side beyond a long rocky ridge I saw the
orange flash of a big gun. The next moment came the familiar buzz and
scream of a great shell, the crash, the squealing fragments, the dust
splashing up all round us as they fell. I have never seen men and horses
gallop faster than in our rapid right-wheel over the open ground towards
a Kaffir kraal. I think only one horse was badly hurt, but at no
military tournament have I seen artillery move in such excellent style.
It was all over in a minute. The Boers must have measured the range to a
yard, and just have kept that gun loaded and waiting.
But in tactics jokes may be mistakes. That shot revealed the enemy's
position. Within ten minutes our gunners had snipt the barbed wire
fences along the railway, had dashed their guns across, and were
dragging them up that low rocky ridge--say, 300ft. to 400ft. high--which
had now so suddenly become our front and fighting position. Three field
batteries went up, and close behind them came the Gloucesters on the
right, a few companies of the second 60th (K.R.R.) the Liverpools and
the Devons in order on the centre and left. On our right we had some of
the 19th Hussars and 5th Lancers; on our left a large mixed force of the
mounted Natal Volunteers, who were soon strongly engaged in a small
valley at the end of the ridge, and suffered a good deal all day. But
the chief work and credit lay with our guns. Till they got into
position, found the range and began to fire, the enemy's shells kept
dropping over the ridge and plumping into the ground. None were so
successful as the first, and only few of them burst, but shells are very
unpleasant, and it was a relief when at the second or third shot from
our batteries we found the enemy's shells had ceased to arrive. We had
destroyed the limber, if not the gun, and after that the shells were all
on one side. Some say the Boers had two guns, but I only saw one myself,
and I watched it as a mouse watches a cat. One does.
The Boers, however, had many cats to watch. Climbing up the ridge
towards its left end, I sat among the rocks with the Liverpools and
Devons beside one of the batteries, and got a good view of the Boer
position. They were in irregular lines and patches among the rocks of
some low hills across a little valley in our front, and were stationed
in groups upon the two higher mountains (as one may call them) upon our
right and left. Both of these points looked down upon our position, and
it was only by keeping close among the stones under the edge of our
ridge that we got any cover, and that indifferent. But, happily, the
range was long, and for hour after hour those two hills were simply
swept by our shrapnel. On our right the long mountain edge, where the
enemy's gun had been, is called Mattowan's Hoek. The great dome-like
hill (really the end of a flat-topped mountain in perspective), on our
left, was Tinta Inyoni.
Our infantry lay along the ridge, keeping up a pretty constant fire, and
sometimes volleying by sections, whenever they could get sight of their
almost invisible enemy. Sometimes they advanced a little way down
towards the valley. On the right the Gloucesters about eleven o'clock
came over the ridge on to a flat little piece of grass land in front. I
suppose they expected to get a better range or clearer view, but within
a few minutes that patch of grass was spotted with lumps of khaki. Two
officers--one their colonel--and six men were killed outright, and the
official list of wounded runs to over fifty. When they had withdrawn
again to the ridge the doctors and privates went out to bring the
wounded back. Behind the cover of the rocks the dhoolies were waiting
with their green-covered stretchers. In the sheltered corner on the flat
ground below stood the ambulance waggons ready. All the ambulance
service was admirably worked that day, but I think perhaps the highest
credit remains with the mild Hindoos.
By twelve o'clock the low hills in our front were burning from our
shells, and the smoke of the grass helped still more to conceal this
baffling enemy of ours. It was all very well for the gunners, with their
excellent glasses, but the ordinary private could hardly see anything to
aim at, and yet he was more or less under fire all the time. As to
smoke, of course the smokeless powder gives the Boers an immense
advantage in their method of fighting. It is hardly ever possible to
tell exactly where the shots come from. But I noticed one man near the
top of Tinta, who evidently had an old Martini which he valued much more
than new-fangled things. Whenever he fired a little puff of grey smoke
followed, and I always thought I heard the growl of his bullet
particularly close, as though he steadily aimed at some officer near
by. He sat under a bush, and had built himself a little wall of rocks in
front. Shell after shell was showered upon that rocky hillside, for it
concealed many other sharpshooters besides. But at each flash he must
have thrown himself behind the stones, and when the shower of lead was
over up he got, and again I saw the little puff of grey smoke and heard
the growl of a bullet close by.
The firing ceased about three. There was no apparent reason why it
should. The Boers had killed a few of us. Probably we had killed more of
them. But mere loss of life does not make victory or defeat, and to all
appearance we were both on much the same ground as at first, except that
the Boers had lost a gun, and were not at all comfortable on the
positions they had held. Our withdrawal, however, was due to deeper
reasons. A messenger had brought news of the column which had unhappily
been driven from Dundee--whether by the Boers' 40-pounder, "Long Tom,"
or by failing ammunition I will not try to decide. Anyhow, the messenger
brought the news that the column was safe and returning unmolested on
Ladysmith by the roundabout road eastward, near Helpmakaar. We had held
back the enemy from intercepting them on their march. Our long and
harassing fight, then, had been worth the sacrifice. It was a victory in
strategy. Sir George White gave the order for the infantry to withdraw
from the ridge by battalions and return to Ladysmith. By evening we were
all in the town again.
Next day I determined to meet the Dundee force on its way. They were
reported to have halted about twenty-five miles off the night before,
near Sunday's river, which, like all the rivers and spruits just here,
runs southward through mountains into the Tugela and Buffalo. About six
miles out we had a small force ready to give them assistance if they
were pursued. Passing through that column halted by a stream, I went on
into more open country, where there was an occasional farm with the
invariable tin roof and weeping willows of South Africa. For many miles
I saw small parties of our Lancers and Carbineers scouring the country
on both sides of the track.
Then soon after I had crossed a wide watershed I came down into broken
and rocky country again, well suited for Boers, and there the outposts
ended. I had a wide view of distant mountains, far away to the Zulu
border on the east, and northwards to the Biggarsberg and Dundee, a
terrible country to cross with a retiring column, harassed by three
days' fighting. The few white farmers had gone, of course, but, happily,
I came upon a Kaffir kraal, and a Kaffir chief himself came out to look
at me. The Cape boy who was with me asked if he had seen any English
troops that way. "Yes, there were many, many, many, hardly an hour's
ride further on. But he was hungry, hungry--he, the chief--and so were
his wives--four of them--all of them." He spoke the pretty Zulu
language--it is something like Italian.
We went on. The track went steep down hill to a spruit where the water
lay in pools. And there on the opposite hill was that gallant little
British Army, halted in a position of extreme danger, absolutely
commanded on all sides but one, and preparing for tea as unconcernedly
as if they were in a Lockhart's shop in Goswell Road. Almost as
unconcernedly--for, indeed, some of the officers showed signs of their
long anxiety and sleeplessness. When I came among them, some mounted men
suddenly showed themselves in the distance. They took them for Boers. I
could hardly persuade them they were only our own Carbineers--the
outposts through whom I had just ridden. Three of our own scouts
appeared across a valley, and never were Boers in greater peril of
being shot. I think I may put their lives down to my credit.
The British private was even here imperturbable as usual. He sat on the
rocks singing the latest he knew from the music-halls. He lighted his
fires and made his tea, and took an intelligent interest in the
slaughter of the oxen, for all the world as if he were at manoeuvres on
Salisbury Plain. He is really a wonderful person. Filthy from head to
foot, drenched with rain, baked with sun, unshorn and unwashed for five
days, his eyes bloodshot for want of sleep, hungry and footsore, fresh
from terrible fighting, and the loss of many friends, he was still the
same unmistakable British soldier, that queer mixture of humour and
blasphemy, cheerfulness and grumbling, never losing that
imperturbability which has no mixture of any other quality at all. The
camping ground was arranged almost as though they were going to stay
there for ever. Here were the guns in order, there the relics of the
18th Hussars; there the Leicesters, the 60th, the Dublins, the Royal
Irish Fusiliers, and the rest. The guards were set and sentries posted.
But only two hours later the whole moved off again for three miles'
further advance to get them well out of the mountains. Why, on that
perilous march through unknown and difficult country, the Dutch did not
spring upon them in some pass and blot them out is one of the many
mysteries of this strange campaign.
Among them I greeted many friends whom I had come to know at Dundee ten
days before. But General Symons and Colonel Gunning, whom I had chosen
out as the models of what officers should be, were not there. Nor was
the young officer who had been my host--young Hannah of the
Leicesters--who at his own cost came out in the ship with us rather than
"miss the fun." A shell struck his head. I think he was the first killed
in Friday's battle.
I got back to Ladysmith late that night. Early next morning the column
began to dribble in. They were received with relief. I cannot say there
was much enthusiasm. The road by which I went to meet them is now
swarming with Boers.