IN GARRISON.
A fruitless expedition--The Brigade goes off--The Volunteers with
them--The garrison--Residents--Defences--Communications--A
prisoner--A night attack--A complimentary order--No soap--Cordite
spills--A trap that failed.
On the 15th of November the General made a dash from Lindley at a Boer
laager, which was supposed to be about 7 miles out on the Reitz road, on
the other side of a huge kopje easily visible at a considerable
distance.
B, C, D, E, and G companies of our battalion were engaged in the
operation: we paraded at half past two in the morning, and, with half a
battalion of the Camerons, two companies of the Bedfords, two guns, a
pom-pom and Rimington's mounted troops, moved cautiously forward and
occupied the hill about dawn--only to find the birds flown, and no signs
of their nest. It was particularly disappointing to us, as we were the
leading troops in the column, and were in hopes of being able to follow
the example of Major Lean's little force at Bothaville; but the enemy
had gone the night before, having got wind of our intentions. We
remained a few hours on the top of the large kopje, while the cavalry
reconnoitred out in front; there were a few scattered Boers about, but
not many. We marched back to the town about mid-day, pretty well tired
out; not with the distance, which was only 14 or 15 miles, but with want
of sleep--for we had been nearly eleven hours on our feet.
The next morning the General and the Brigade went off, leaving us in
sole possession of that important town, and trade centre, Lindley: once,
but only for a short time during a somewhat hurried visit paid by Mr.
Steyn, the capital of the Free State. Unfortunately for the town, Mr.
Steyn's business was of such a peculiar character that he was compelled
to transfer the seat of Government to other and less important places
than Lindley.
With the Brigade went Captain Hopkins, who, to the loss of the Royal
Sussex, was proceeding to join his new regiment. Our two young aspirants
for fame on the staff, Lieut. Villiers and Lieut. Nelson, also went off,
and with them the remainder of the Volunteer company, to whom the
following farewell order was issued by the Colonel.
Extract from Battalion Orders, 16th of Nov., 1900.
"In bidding farewell to Lieut. D'Olier and the Volunteer company of the
Royal Sussex Regiment, Lieut.-Colonel Donne wishes to express the
feelings of all ranks in the First Battalion at losing such good
comrades in many a long march and hard fought action. They will go home
to Sussex carrying with them the proudest insignia of this campaign--the
memories of Welkom Farm, Zand River, Doornkop, Capture of Johannesburg,
Capture of Pretoria, and the hard fought battle of Diamond Hill on the
11th and 12th of June; the subsequent march south to Heidelburg and
Bethlehem, the operations in the Caledon Valley, the brilliant action at
Retief's Nek, and the surrender of the Boer forces at Golden Gate--these
are records they can well consider as second to none of the Volunteer
companies in South Africa.
"But these marches and victories have not been achieved without grievous
losses to mourn. Their best of leaders and bravest of men--Sir Walter
Barttelot--fell gallantly leading them to the attack on Retief's Nek.
His sterling worth as a soldier will live long in the records of the
regiment. He gloried in fighting for his country, and his death at the
head of his Volunteer company will serve not only as a pathetic incident
in the campaign, but as an illustrious example for all time to the
Volunteers of Sussex; it will knit more firmly together in the bond of
_esprit de corps_ all the battalions of the Royal Sussex as one great
county regiment.
"Whilst the path of the Volunteer company is towards home, that of the
First Battalion is outward bound, far out into the British Empire for
many a long year; but we shall never forget the comradeship which has
been cemented on the fields of South Africa in 1900. All Sussex will
welcome her citizen soldiers who have shared our hardships, and added
fresh glory to our old flags, which will shortly find their resting
place in the County Cathedral. We wish them a speedy and safe return
home after work so well accomplished. We wish them the hearty reception
that we know awaits them in the old country, and long life to enjoy the
honour of having served in this memorable campaign."
The garrison left in Lindley on the departure of the Brigade comprised
our battalion, two companies of the Bedfords under Captain Rowe, two
guns of the 39th Field Battery under Lieut. Harrison, the Five-Inch gun,
two companies of the 15th Battalion of Yeomanry under Lieut.
Shepherd-Crosse, and a few of Brabant's Horse under Lieut. Friedlander.
Lieut. Lloyd, the Supply Officer, had gone with the Brigade, but had
left his Sergeant-Major behind with an enormous mountain of stores of
all sorts, as we were rationed up to the 15th of the next month,
January. Lieut. Goodman had been left also to look after the transport:
the hospital and medical arrangements were supervised by Major Ritchie,
of the R.A.M.C., who had been some time in Lindley, and who had under
him Civil Surgeons Barr and Twigg, Captain Knapp, the medical officer of
the Cape Mounted Riflemen, and Lieut. Duncan of the R.A.M.C. There were
a good many men in hospital belonging to various corps, and the large
church in the centre of the market square, which from the first had been
used as a hospital, was nearly full; there had been one or two deaths
from enteric.
There were a few civilians in the town: it seems the Boers allowed each
business house in the towns to leave either the owner or the manager in
charge, all the other assistants having either to go on commando or to
pay a heavy fine. Of course those of them who were British subjects
cleared out altogether; but the unfortunate owner of the shop, if he was
in possession of burgher rights, gained by long residence in the
country, was in rather a fix, and saw every prospect of losing his money
either way. One of the merchants in Heilbron provided a case in point:
he was an Englishman with burgher rights, and, when war was looming in
the distance, he went to Cape Colony, leaving his manager in charge of
the store. The Boers under their rule exempted the manager from service,
but sent the owner a notice to turn out and join his commando; no notice
being taken of this by the man, a fine of L500 was inflicted, which the
unfortunate trader had to pay, and did pay, because if he had not done
so the Boers would have distrained on the goods in his shop, and would
have probably taken several times the amount of the fine.
There was a branch of the National Bank in Lindley, and the manager and
a clerk had remained throughout all the troubles, and the various
occupations and evacuations by our troops and the Boers: the Boers
always respected the Bank, and gave no annoyance whatever.
Several families of doubtful loyalty had been removed by General Bruce
Hamilton, and taken away with the Brigade; their property in Lindley was
respected, however, in view of their return. One or two of those who
were left made themselves useful to us and added to their own income by
making up the men's rations of flour into loaves. It will hardly be
believed that the greater part of our bread ration was flour only, while
at Kroonstad thousands of boxes of biscuits were being used to form
houses for the supply subordinates to live in.
The town and the vicinity were in a filthy state after so many mounted
troops, cattle and horses had been quartered there; but after a while it
was gradually cleared up, and the carcases of the dead bullocks and
mules left behind by the Brigade dragged away or buried. The river was a
disgusting sight, with dead bullocks strewn about from one end to the
other, half in the water: still some men did not mind, but bathed
frequently in the deeper pools.
From its situation, in a hollow, surrounded by extensive hills, the town
needed a good many pickets to adequately protect it; there were three
permanent posts to the north and four to the south, each consisting of
an entire company, and some furnishing subsidiary posts in the
neighbourhood, on roads or prominent spurs. Each post was well defended,
and in some a reserve of rations and water sufficient for three days'
consumption was stored; there was, it need hardly be said, extra
ammunition kept by each, and all were defended by earthworks or stone
sangars on prominent points, the tents being pitched in each case so as
to be out of the line of fire, should the enemy take it into his head to
snipe at long range at the pickets.
The remaining three companies of the infantry were quartered on the
three sides of the town to act as a reserve, and also as a second line
of defence, should the Boers penetrate the picket line and rush into the
town. The pickets were relieved every ten days or so, and their
positions changed, as the sentry work at some was harder than at
others. The men were allowed into the town to go to the Canteen or the
Soldiers' Club during the afternoon; it was quite 40 minutes' walk to
some of the pickets, so that most of the men usually remained at home.
The two guns of the battery were quartered on the outskirts of the town,
but the five inch gun was kept in its gun pit on No. 2 picket to the
south, where it dominated a very large tract of country. On one occasion
it was taken at night to the opposite picket, about 4 miles away, whence
it very much astonished some Boers who were wandering about in front at
a distance of no less than 6 miles.
The Yeomanry and a few men of Brabant's Scouts were utilised to furnish
a picket by day on the top of Tafelburg, a high square-crowned kopje,
about 3 miles to the north-west, from which an extensive view could be
obtained; and a couple of mounted men were kept by day at some of the
pickets, in case of necessity, to carry messages or go after suspicious
passers-by. All the pickets were in signalling communication with each
other and with headquarters in the town; sometimes helio messages were
received from Bethlehem, about 35 miles to the south-east, whose
garrison was apparently similarly situated to ourselves; and
occasionally, at long intervals, a runner arrived from Kroonstad with
microscopic messages--usually containing news, unimportant to us at all
events, such as the state of the Czar's health, but very little
information as to how things were going on with regard to our move to
India, about which we were most concerned.
Occasionally a few of the mounted men would go out at night, and
surround a farm or two in hopes of catching a few Boers who might be
indulging in the unwonted luxury of a night's rest in a bed; but only
once did they meet with any success, and then they caught a solitary
Boer who gave us a deal of trouble to look after. Lieut. Harden and
Lieut. Montgomerie had the honour of catching this sportsman, who seemed
to have been a fighting Boer from the yarns he told with regard to the
fights in which he had taken part; but most of his stories had to be
taken _cum grano salis_.
On the 3rd of December, however, the Boers treated us to an alarm about
half-past nine at night: they crawled up a donga which ended in a short
outcrop of rocks within four hundred yards of one of the detached posts
then occupied by B company. The rocks afforded splendid natural cover in
capital positions for firing from, and the Boers, about a dozen of them,
opened a smart fire at the eight men occupying the small defensive work,
who, nothing loath, replied with vigour, blazing away at the flashes of
the enemy's rifles. One Boer must have been hit, as some blood was found
on the grass the next day. The enemy fired about 500 rounds, judging
from the cartridge cases lying in little heaps behind the rocks, and our
men got rid of about the same number. One or two of the Boers had the
impertinence (it was nothing less!) to try and stalk the picket by
dodging up towards them from post to post of a line of fencing which ran
in their direction; but, coming to a gap where one or two posts were
missing, their hearts failed them, and they went no further. None of our
men were hit, but the stone loopholes and the parapet of the post were
splashed with bullet marks in five or six places.
Firing commenced also against Captain Aldridge's picket, about a mile
further off, where bullets came plunging through the tents, to the
astonishment of the men there. These, however, quickly dropped into
their places in the various sangars, and replied briskly to the enemy's
fire, which, as could be seen by the flashes, was coming from a ridge
over 2,000 yards away. After half-an-hour or so the firing dropped on
both sides.
The remainder of us had, of course, turned out at once and got into our
various positions. About half-past ten, everything being quiet, we
turned into bed again. In a few minutes there was a furious clatter of
about a dozen shots fired rapidly from the north-east, and later, two
more outbursts of firing from the north; and as none of our pickets on
that side had fired, we concluded the Boers were ending the evening's
amusement by firing at each other, an original idea, and one that we
hoped they would regularly carry out--if possible, without causing us to
turn out also in the dark. We never heard the cause of this firing, and
the only possible solution was that two parties of Boers must have met
in the dark. There was, however, a very good reason for the sudden
firing on the pickets to the east and north-east, as we found in the
morning, when Swannepool, a loyal farmer living to the north-west of the
town and some miles away, arrived in a furious passion, swearing
vengeance against all and every Boer; and, when he had cooled down
somewhat, announced that some Boers had held him up in the night, and
had driven off all his stock, his cows, his bullocks and horses, and had
taken away his Cape cart. _Hinc illae lachrymae_, he said, and we
sympathised with him.
The few men of B company on the detached post were in a nasty corner for
some time, and fully deserved the complimentary remarks which the
Colonel made the next day, and which were published in battalion orders.
They were as follows:--
Extract from Battalion Orders, 6th of December, 1900--
"The Commanding Officer wishes to express to Lance-Sergeant Ockelford
and the eight men who defended the outpost of No. 1 picket, South, on
the night of the 3rd of December, his approbation of their soldierly
conduct in defending a small breastwork against a superior force of the
enemy.
"An incident of this sort shows what a few men can do who are determined
to hold their own, and the Commanding Officer has made a report of their
creditable conduct to the General Officer commanding at Bloemfontein."
Our humdrum existence continued now for some little time, our days
commencing by standing to arms at dawn (which was pretty early, usually
between three and four o'clock), and concluding by our going to bed
about eight o'clock in the evening. Almost every day there were cricket
matches, and there were _al fresco_ concerts three times a week. Beyond
this mild form of entertainment, it cannot be said that we lived in an
exciting whirl of constant pleasures.
Soap was at a premium; there was not a scrap to be had anywhere. All
that the Brigade Canteen had brought had been commandeered by the Supply
people for the use of the hospital, and, beyond a meagre issue of one
ounce a man, the troops had had none for nearly two months. Matches were
also conspicuous by their absence. The soldier is always a large
consumer of this article, and spends a good deal of his time daily in
striking matches and lighting his pipe; he was not, however, to be
defeated by the absence of matches: some ingenious man had discovered
that the thin sticks of cordite out of the cartridges made an excellent
spill for lighting cigarettes or pipes at the fire, and, until the
practice was peremptorily stopped, it became quite a fashionable
pursuit.
Some of the Boers must have developed quite an affection for Captain
Aldridge's picket, because, on the 8th of December, they fired a few
shots about half-past nine in the morning at the men of the picket
employed in repairing their sangars. To this fire E company disdained
even to reply, and the disgusted Boers, finding their overtures received
with apathy, rode off, six of them being observed passing through a gap
in the hills quite 2,500 yards away.
On the night of the 9th, some of the mounted troops went out to lay a
trap for a Boer picket which was in the habit of coming to a kraal,
about three miles to the north and in full view of our pickets on that
side; and a field gun was sent out early next morning to No. 2 picket to
cover their retirement, if required.
The little plan failed, owing to the too eager and inexperienced Yeomen
showing themselves just as the birds were entering the trap. There was a
certain amount of shooting, however, as towards breakfast time our men
withdrew; but it was all long range firing, which seldom harms anyone.
In front of the picket where the gun was posted was a splendid expanse
of open country, with an occasional small kopje; and the whole panorama
was backed by a range of hills, which limited the view to about five
miles. Over this country were a few groups of Boers dotted, moving about
aimlessly. One small party riding towards a donga, whence possibly they
might have attempted to annoy our Yeomanry, were fired at by our gun at
4,500 yards: the shell sang through the still air and burst with a
"ping" some hundreds of yards short. With one accord the four or five
Boers mounted and spurred vigorously away, nor did they draw rein so
long as they remained in sight.
(_End of Colonel du Moulin's manuscript._)