THE SIEGE OF LADYSMITH.
'I am shut up.'--_Ps._ lxxxviii. 8 and _Jer._ xxxvi. 5.
_Chronicle of the part taken by the detachment 2nd Battalion Royal
Dublin Fusiliers in the Siege of Ladysmith from November 1st, 1899, to
February 28th, 1900._ _By_ LIEUT. L. F. RENNY, _2nd Batt. Royal Dublin
Fusiliers_.
The detachment which was left behind in Ladysmith when the battalion
was ordered to Colenso consisted of two officers, three
non-commissioned officers and fifty-one men. The latter were made up
by a section of 'G' company which was left on piquet because they
could not be relieved in time, and the men of the regimental
transport, which had been left behind owing to there being no facility
for sending the waggons and animals by train with the battalion.
The morning after the departure of the latter I was ordered by the
D.A.A.G. of the divisional troops to proceed to the various camps in
Section A, and find convenient space for the transport waggons. I
found the necessary ground in rear of the camp of the 1st Battalion
Gloucester Regiment, behind the railway cutting leading to the Orange
Free State Junction. Here we were joined in the afternoon by
Lieutenant H. W. Higginson, who took command, and the section of 'G'
company, when the Gloucesters helped us in every way, and made us as
comfortable as they possibly could. All that day we were left in
comparative peace, there being no firing on either side; but the next
morning about 5 a.m. the Boers opened with 'Long Tom' from Pepworth
Hill, and commenced a duel of some hour's duration with our naval 4.7,
which was placed on Junction Hill. They also kept up a continual
cannonade with their long-range twelve-pounders, but did little or no
damage, as they had not yet discovered the exact location of our
camps.
For the next three or four days we remained in the Gloucester's camp
and aided in starting the trenches which eventually formed the fort
known as 'Tunnel Hill.' This was by no means pleasant work, as it was
carried out under fire, the enemy being very quick at spotting our
working parties and remarkably so at obtaining our range. We used to
watch with great interest the duel every morning between the two big
guns. Once the Boers hoisted a large white flag over their epaulement
and proceeded to repair some small damage to their gun--they have very
weird ideas about the white flag.
On November 7th our detachment was suddenly ordered to proceed to
'Bell's Spruit,' and form the guard there. I was ordered to hand over
our transport to the Army Service Corps, so we took away the majority
of the men and brought the strength of our piquet up to thirty-one
men; the transport was sent to the railway station yard for the use of
the Army Service Corps, where it remained throughout the siege. We
were stationed at the mouth of the spruit just where it runs through
the ridge opposite the cemetery. Our fortifications consisted of a
thick wall with sandbag loopholes running right across the spruit;
about fifty yards in front were strips of high and low wire
entanglement, making it practically impossible for the enemy to rush
the post at night. By night we had to man two sangars placed on the
hills on each side of the spruit. I know nothing more productive of
bad language than visiting the sentries on those hills in the dark,
scrambling over the hugest boulders up a hill like the side of a
house. We were not very comfortable at first, there being absolutely
no shelter from sun or rain, but after about a week we managed to
obtain a couple of railway tarpaulins, and rigged up shelters on the
sides of the spruit. We were all very lucky in not getting hit, as
the enemy had a nasty habit of bursting shrapnel over the place and
sending common shell on to the crests, which produced a shower of
rocks, splinters and stones; but although we were in the spruit for
seven weeks with absolutely no cover, not a man in the detachment was
hit. During our stay in the spruit our rations were exceptionally
good, as we got extras in the way of bacon, jam, chocolate, &c.
The night-work at this time was very hard, as everybody not actually
on outpost duty had to work at the trenches from 6.30 in the evening
till 3 a.m. the next morning. Sleep being impossible in the day-time
owing to the heat and a plague of flies, this continual night-work
told on the men severely. On November 9th the enemy made a feeble
attempt at capturing the place, and came on in considerable numbers
against Observation Hill, but were easily repulsed. On the night of
December 7th-8th an attack was made on Gun Hill, where the Boers had a
'Long Tom' and a five-inch howitzer, besides one or two small guns.
These guns had been annoying us very greatly for the past three weeks,
and we were all delighted in the early morning when we heard the
attack had been successful, and the guns blown up. We none of us knew
anything about this affair till it was over. I was visiting our posts
about 2.30 a.m. when I saw two large flashes on Gun Hill; on listening
I could not hear any shells travelling or bursting, so concluded the
enemy were amusing themselves by firing blank charges. It was not till
we saw our column returning at dawn that we solved the problem. We
found the spruit very unpleasant in wet weather, as the water used to
come down like a mountain torrent and wash away bits of our wall and
shelters; after wet nights we used to spend our time in digging our
belongings out of the sand, having spent the night sitting on the
rocks.
About December 18th, after the failure of General Buller's first
attempt to relieve us, there was a general interchange of posts
amongst the troops of our section, and the detachment received orders
to proceed to the Newcastle Road examining guard. We were all heartily
sick of the spruit, and glad of the change. It was about this time
that our rations began to be diminished, and we had completely run out
of all extras. The post of the examining guard was on the road just
inside the ridge which formed our general line of defence, but by
night we moved out as a piquet about half a mile on to the veld into a
spruit which ran under the Harrismith line, whence we patrolled out to
Brooke's Farm, and the surrounding country. I think this was the worst
post we had throughout the siege, as we came in for a long spell of
wet weather, and night after night had to lie out on the open veld
from 8 p.m. till 4 a.m., wet to the skin and miserably cold. The
duties on this post came very hard on our men, as we had to find a
double and single sentry by day, so that they never got a night in
bed, and only about one day in three off duty.
On Christmas Eve the men came into possession of a fine pig, so that
we all had pork for our Christmas dinner, a great change from eternal
'trek ox,' but unfortunately nothing stronger to drink than tea. I'm
sure it was the first Christmas any of us had spent in such an
uncongenial way.
On January 6th the enemy made their desperate attack on Waggon Hill
and Caesar's Camp. They seem to have completely surprised our
outposts, as they succeeded in crawling up the hill in the dark, and
the fighting commenced at 3 a.m. The cannonade all day was something
tremendous, 'Long Tom' firing 125 rounds. They kept us pretty busy on
our side of the defences as well, but never developed any serious
attack. Whilst on this post we were subjected to a continuous and
daily course of sniping, the enemy getting on the kopjes behind
Brooke's Farm, and firing all day at a range of 2800 yards. At this
range the bullets used to whiz over the hill and drop amongst us,
although we were only a few yards behind the crest. Higginson and I
used to spend hours lying on the crest with rifles and glasses trying
to spot them, but never succeeded in doing so, as they used to take up
their position before dawn and never move all day.
It was about this time that our men began to show the effects of
exposure and constant sentry-go, and several of them went down with
fever and rheumatism; but we were extremely lucky throughout the
siege, having only one casualty: Private Ward, 'G' company, a
reservist, who died of enteric at Intombi Camp.
I forgot to mention that on January 6th our section had to be entirely
denuded of supports and reserves in order that they might be sent to
Waggon Hill, so that if the enemy had attacked us seriously we should
have had a hard job to keep them back.
On January 25th the detachment was ordered to garrison Liverpool
Castle, a fort overlooking the Newcastle Road, but we had not been
there twelve hours before we were ordered to Tunnel Hill. This latter
post consisted of a large main fort capable of holding two hundred
men, and two small works about a quarter of a mile on each flank, in
all of which we had to find a guard. Our fighting strength was at this
time reduced to twenty-seven men, so that they did guard and patrol
alternate nights. We had to send out five of the latter during the
night about half a mile to the front and a mile laterally along the
valley. The confinement in this fort was rather trying, and the
eternal manning of the trenches at 4 a.m. very monotonous. After about
three weeks on this post I was suddenly seized with a 'go' of fever,
and was sent down to a room in one of the houses. When I rejoined the
detachment, after a fortnight on the sick list, they had moved to the
railway station as guard over the bridge across the Klip River. Here
we had to endure rather a severe dose of 'Long Tom'--this gun never
missed a day without dropping shells into and round the station, it
was one of its favourite spots, and all the tin buildings about bore
evidence of its attentions. One shell, pitching in the parcels office,
blew the roof off and the floor in, having first penetrated
half-a-dozen walls to get there. We had trenches on our side of the
river, which we manned, as usual, at 4 a.m. We also had to man them in
the afternoon about 5 o'clock, when the train from Intombi Camp was
due. This used to be rather a comic proceeding: a 'key' was made in
the line about half a mile outside the station, where the train was
brought to a standstill, then either Higginson or myself had to walk
out and inspect the train to see there were no Boers inside it. We
often used to wonder what would have been our lot if the train had
been full of them. On our reporting 'all correct' to the Railway Staff
Officer (Captain Young, R.E.), the train was allowed to proceed into
the station, and the little play was over till the next day. This was
undoubtedly the most comfortable job we had, as the men lived in a
shed, whilst Higginson and I had a railway carriage.
On the afternoon of February 28th we heard the joyful tidings of
General Buller's victory at Pieter's Hill, and in the evening descried
Lord Dundonald and his men crossing the plain; our wild excitement may
be left to the imagination. I'm sure we all put on about seven pounds
of our lost weight at the mere thought of our being at last relieved.
Our troubles were not over yet, however, as the next morning we were
ordered back to Tunnel Hill, a spot we had learned to loathe with a
truly deep loathing. This move was due to our flying column going out
to hurry the enemy's retreat, most of the troops in our section taking
part in it. For some unknown reason we were kept four or five days in
that smelly fort, and it was not till March 7th that we received
orders to rejoin the battalion, which was encamped about two miles out
of Ladysmith. We all felt as though we had begun a new life; but it
was heartbreaking to see the havoc in our regiment; one had to look
about to find faces that one recognised.
Our rations were pretty well reduced towards the end of the siege: one
biscuit, one pound of horseflesh, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, and a
pinch of tea is not much to keep body and soul together, and we were
all pretty feeble and pulled down. I think we must have done the
record piquet duty of any men in any service, as we were never
relieved throughout the whole siege; I suppose this was on account of
being left as a separate unit all through, but we certainly thought it
rather hard work. It is a wonder that our little detachment stuck out
four months' constant exposure with so little sickness, whilst our
luck in sitting under that constant shelling without a man being hit
was nothing short of providential.
I have merely chronicled the chief moves and duties of the detachment
throughout the siege: it would take a small book to set down all our
little experiences, details, and troubles.