THE SECOND ATTACK UPON THE BRICKFIELDS
MAFEKING, _February 28th, 1900_.
In many ways this month has been the most eventful of any during the
siege. Other months of the siege have secured for themselves a certain
notoriety, because they have been identified with some particular
engagement; but this month of February has seen our labour in the
brickfields brought to a successful consummation, and, at a moment
when the garrison was congratulating itself upon the triumphant issue
of such an adventurous and adventitious undertaking, we have been
brought face to face with the contingency that even yet it may not be
possible to continue to occupy so advanced a post. If I return to the
subject of the brickfields after such a short interval, it is because
there, more than anywhere else in Mafeking, the clash of arms is
predominant. These many days we have followed out our scheme,
endeavouring to circumvent the enemy by pushing forward a line of
entrenched posts until they should embrace an area which would enable
us to outflank their main lines and enfilade their advanced trenches.
There was a moment when this was actually completed, a moment in
which we who were in the advanced forts, knew that if we could but
hold the position we held the invaders in such a fashion that they
would be compelled to abandon their posts. But there was the shadow of
uncertainty, since we were rather reckoning upon the hitherto
recognised fact, that the Boers belonged to that class of fighting
peoples who never purposely attack if they could secure their ends by
entrenchments and delay. For one day we rather gloried in the work,
until towards dusk we realised with a swift and fearful astonishment
that the Boers were intending to sap us. We have supposed it to be by
accident rather than by design that a man, in the uniform of some
German regiment, appeared of a sudden to arise out of the ground at a
point some thirty yards distant from what we had considered to be the
end of the Boer trench. His presence explained much, since the night
before we had been perplexed at hearing the sound of picking and
shovelling a little in advance of our position. At that time we had
concluded that the noises emanated from the natives, who were
deepening and strengthening the advanced trench of the Boers; but with
this figure suddenly appearing, we realised that there was quite a
different story to be told, one which implied that our previous
opinion of the enemy was in error, and that they intended to make us
fight for our position or to turn us out. The situation was rapidly
becoming as interesting as any which has developed from the siege. Sap
and counter-sap were separated perhaps by eighty yards, and so
gallantly and vigorously did the enemy work that we could see them
approaching yard by yard. It was impossible for us in the time at our
disposal to do very much to stop them; we could simply keep a look-out
and drench their trenches with volleys upon the slightest
provocation. It was useless to fire upon the natives working in the
sap, since it was only possible to see the points of their picks as
they were swung aloft, catching for a moment the radiance of the sun.
Still they came on, and one night we knew that before dawn they would
be into us. That night no one slept in the advanced trenches, and
Inspector Marsh, who has very generously permitted me to stop with him
for the past month in his quarters in the brickfields, visited the
posts hourly. Between two and three we slept, and for a short space
there was a perfect calm in our lines. At half-past four we stood to
arms, to hear that the enemy had made contact with our trench. As we
found this out, news was brought that the big Creusot gun had taken up
its position upon the south-eastern heights, and so commanded our
entire area. The inevitable had arrived and perhaps for a brief moment
we were all a little subdued. As the sun rose Inspector Marsh,
commanding the south-eastern outposts, under directions from
Headquarters, warned every man to take such cover as was obtainable.
The situation would have given satisfaction had there been any
prospect of an equal contest, since man to man we were not unmatched,
but it would be impossible for the occupants of these advanced posts
to attempt conclusions with an enemy who could bring to their
assistance a high-velocity Krupp and a 100 lb. Creusot. There was
immediate excitement, and Inspector Marsh telephoned the news to
Headquarters. For the moment that was all which could be done--inform
Headquarters. Then, with our rifles in our hands, with an extra supply
of ammunition by our sides, we waited the inevitable, and we waited
until night; but upon that night nothing happened. As dusk drew down,
and as the calm of night was broken only by the rumbling echoes and
tremors of the work in the enemy's sap, we threw out a working party
of some two hundred natives, starving and ill-conditioned, but the
best that we could procure, intending to make the effort to check once
and for all the advance of the Boers. We worked all night, and dawn
was breaking as we drew off, but we had passed them. In a single night
we had carried our sap some thirty yards beyond theirs, and at such an
angle that we enfiladed their sap, while only eighty yards divided the
pair. The Boer line of advance was deeper than ours by some five feet,
but all that day white man and Cape Boy strove to deepen our new
trench, and by night it was perhaps a foot deeper than it had been. It
was dangerous work; it was exciting. The crackle of bullets was never
absent; they struck all round one, and there were a few fatalities.
That night we worked again, and so did they. Indeed, each side
volleyed heavily all night to protect their working parties. We were
not extending our trench; it was already a hundred yards sheer into
the open, but in the morning when we looked, the Boer trench was
barely thirty yards away from ours. That day we did nothing but await
the inevitable again. We slept, since it was certain that on the
morrow a fight would come. Once more there was nothing for it but to
wait in such readiness as we could be in, for anything that the enemy
might attempt. They began at dusk by throwing dynamite bombs into our
sap--some burst, some fell blind; but this work was futile, since they
had not yet reached sufficiently near to effect any damage. When they
did obtain such access, we also had a little pile of bombs. Tooth for
tooth--we were not going to give up without fighting. Then the end
came suddenly, for Headquarters telephoned that the big gun had taken
up its original position, which was barely two thousand yards distant
on our left flank. With this message we began to comprehend what the
next day would bring forth.
The affair between the outposts began about a quarter to five in the
morning. The first 100 lb. shell fell between our trenches and those
of the enemy: it seemed that they had wished to secure the range. They
had secured it. The three holes which form our advanced position
contain no cover whatsoever, since there is none to put up, and
whatever earth had been thrown up was commanded by the enemy's fort
upon the south-eastern heights. Each hole contained a shelter from the
sun, a corrugated iron arrangement, supported by props, with a
sprinkling of earth on top. The shooting was magnificent, and it will
be difficult to find, when the various comparisons be drawn,
marksmanship more precise or more accurate. Each was wrecked in turn:
a shell to a shelter. When this work had been accomplished, the big
gun directed its attention to the brick-kilns, in which we had posted
our sharpshooters. In a little time the three were heaps of ruins.
Between the intervals of shelling the Boers fired volleys from the
three points: from the fort on the south-eastern heights, from the
fort in the river-bed, and from their main trench. The company of Cape
Boys in the advanced hole could not be expected to relish the triple
fire, which was in turn endorsed by shells from the big gun. The holes
are not very large, nor very wide, nor high: they are natural
depressions in the soil, in which water had collected and caused a
further subsidence. When the enemy volleyed from the advanced trench,
they had to crouch under the lee of a bank that was facing the
direction of the fort on the south-eastern heights; when they wished
to avoid shell and rifle fire from this fort, they had to run the risk
of finding shelter in the direct line of fire from the main trench. If
they endeavoured to move to the second hole, they had to do so under
fire from all three points. It was rather an unpleasant state of
things for the Cape Boys, who, moreover, could find no point from
which to return the fire of the enemy. In an hour some twelve shells
had been thrown into the first hole, and there were five fatalities.
Whenever we endeavoured to occupy the sap the big gun shelled it,
until it was no longer possible to maintain a post in a position so
exposed. We fell back to the second hole, and the enemy began to shell
other points in the brickfields. They sent two to Currie's post in the
river-bed; they scattered them plentifully about the first, second,
and third forts--entrenched posts by which it is hoped to keep back
the Boers, should they successfully carry the Cape Boy holes. The
situation was becoming serious, and we had been compelled to abandon
the sap and evacuate the first hole. At the moment it was a question
of whether the Boers were coming on, and as we waited in the
expectation of seeing them advance down our own sap into our original
position, the shelling ceased, for the Boers had gone to breakfast.
That was our supreme opportunity, and although they must have seen us
from the south-eastern heights, we employed ourselves in saving from
the wreck what was possible. All the shelters had been pounded into
_debris_: rifles and bayonets lay about broken and twisted, here and
there were remains of camp utensils, and blood-stained clothing. It
was a scene of ruin, and as we crept into it upon our hands and knees
the confusion of the place struck one sadly. Sergeant-Major Taylor had
been hurt by the second shell, and has since died, while another of
the wounded has also succumbed. While the firing lasted the position
was untenable, and we fell back from the sap into the most advanced of
the holes. Here the situation rapidly became impossible, for the
character of the outwork prevented any one from taking cover. But
despite the galling fire, the Cape Boys behaved with admirable courage
and endurance, and it was only when three men in the advanced hole had
been seriously wounded, that they fell back behind the bank of the
second pit. In a little, when the gun had effectually driven us from
the advanced hole, the enemy began to shell the forts in the rear. At
that moment there were two things to be done: one was to bank up the
mouth of the sap, since the enemy had already reached it and were
firing down it, the other was to throw up a rampart across the mouth
of the second hole. Under a heavy fire Corporal Rosenfeld, of the
Bechuanaland Volunteers, and myself undertook and accomplished the
one, while at night the work upon the rampart was begun. By morning it
was finished, but in the night the enemy had occupied our sap. The
length of the first hole then alone divided us. Within the next few
hours, however, the position of affairs changed as rapidly again. At a
moment when the enemy were least prepared a strong party rushed the
hole and sap, expelling the Boers by vigorous use of bayonets and
dynamite bombs. Since then the Boers have left our advanced works
severely alone.