Up before daybreak, but still not early enough, as the Imperial Light
Horse and a battery of Natal Artillery had already gone towards
Elandslaagte, about sixteen miles from here, at three o'clock.
It was bitterly cold when we started, and for a couple of hours of our
journey. About half a mile beyond Modder's Spruit Station we met a man
walking along the road in his socks, carrying a pair of heavy boots.
He told us he had just escaped from the Boers, after having been, with
thirty other miners, their prisoner since Thursday last. His feet were
sore from running in the big boots, and he was nearly exhausted.
The Boers had looted the stores, station, and mining office at
Elandslaagte, and in addition had looted a lot of luggage taken in
the captured train. The evening before he had seen a drunken Boer
strutting about dressed in a suit of evening clothes belonging to an
English officer. There were a lot of low-class Boers amongst the eight
hundred there who spent riotous evenings, getting drunk on the liquor
found in the stores; but others of them seemed decent sort of farmers,
and all the prisoners were very well treated by General Koch, and were
allowed to go about on parole, being merely required to report
themselves once a day.
[Illustration: Bringing Wounded Back Into Ladysmith.]
We pushed on, and in the distance could hear the report of cannon. We
soon discovered a little artillery duel in progress between the Natal
battery and the Boer guns. The Natals were barking away pluckily, but
quite ineffectually against their very superior opponents, who were
making really excellent practice, and they struck an artillery waggon,
blowing it to pieces, and missed the artillery train by barely twenty
yards, a shell falling on either side of it. It was clear we could
remain here no longer, so the order was given to retire. The guns
limbered up, leaving the shattered wreck of the waggon behind, and the
trains commenced to move back slowly, keeping pace with the cavalry
and artillery. The Boer guns kept firing until out of range, and then
there was a desultory pitter-patter of rifle fire at a sufficient
distance to be completely ineffectual.
We retired back just behind Modder's Spruit Station and rested there.
The sun had now broken through the clouds and poured down hot on the
yellow veldt, where we were. A beautiful scene stretched away before
us. The veldt was not all yellow, but in low-lying places, after the
recent rain, was beginning to be streaked with vivid green. Opposite
us, across the flat or gently undulating veldt in the middle distance,
were hills and kopjes, while beyond, purple under clouds or light blue
in sunshine, rose to the far horizon mountains, pointed, or of that
quite flat-topped shape so characteristic of this country.
No one who has been through this day can ever forget the beautiful
series of military tableaux, the gorgeous colouring, the constantly
varying effects of light and shade, under clear, blue sky, or when
piles of great white cumuli were passing, until, darkening with the
progress of the fight, an unnatural gloom blackened the heavens, and
from the inky clouds torrents of rain poured upon the combatants. The
variety of colour, light, and shade was only equalled by the variety of
the military movements during the day. A complete series of sketches or
photographs would serve for illustrations for a handbook of modern
tactics--the reconnaissance in force in the morning--engagement--orderly
retreat carried out exactly according to book--march out of main body;
advance of main body, cavalry on each flank, skirmishing outflanking
movement on the right, etc., etc., on to the cavalry charging through
and through retreating and beaten enemy.
At 11.20 two squadrons of cavalry and a battery of artillery arrive,
and shortly after another train full of troops is seen approaching in
the distance.
Chatting with Colonel Chisholme, of the Imperial Light Horse, I was
chaffing him about calling them "light," pointing out a group of
giants standing near him; but he agreed that their hearts were light,
anyhow, whatever their weight might be. He had commenced his military
career when eighteen in the 9th Lancers, and his Imperial Light Horse
was embodied on the 9, 9, 99. He was telling how all the important
dates of his life had a 9 in them, as Major Douglas Haig galloped up
and told him we were going to start. I said, "All these nines clearly
point to your living to ninety-nine." "Oh no," he laughed back,
cheerily, "I don't wish to live to be as old as that." His wish was
gratified.
"Saddle," "Prepare to mount," "Mount." We were going forward again.
At 1.30 we started, after just two hours' rest, in which the main body
had come up, so that our entire force now consisted of the 5th
Lancers, Imperial Light Horse, two field batteries of Royal
Artillery, the Devonshire Regiment, half a battalion of the
Manchester, and half a battalion of the Gordon Highlanders. At 1.55
fire opened from the tops of the line of ridges running parallel to
the railway line, which were all lined with men. Some of the 5th
Lancers have already gone off to the extreme right. At the foot of the
first hill, from which firing proceeds, a squadron of the Border
Mounted Rifles are dismounting, and now two lines of khaki figures are
climbing steadily up the hill. Long before they reach the top the
Boers are seen retiring. They have no idea of making a stand yet, and
as the khaki figures reach the summit the Lancers, sweeping round from
the extreme right flank, join them. During this time the Devons and
Manchesters have been pouring out of the train, and are now crossing
the veldt in dotted lines towards the ridge of hills.
2.15.--Another train now appears, bringing further reinforcements.
2.30.--Quite a hot fire now opens on the extreme left, and in a few
minutes the artillery are ordered forward, and the six guns pass us at
a gallop. They are soon lined up and firing shrapnel at some Boers,
who scurry away over the brow of a kopje. The guns limber up and jump
the railway line--a pretty stiff little obstacle--the narrow gauge
metals being on top of a narrow embankment. Then across a level field
of veldt, and they commence to ascend a slight depression, which is
just behind a shouldering billow of veldt. It is hard work for the
artillery horses over this ground, but it is fine the way they tug and
strain at their work. The officers urge the men to hurry forward.
Already a gun is heard from the Boers. They have opened fire. Two
wheelers of an artillery waggon drop down, apparently dead, from
exhaustion.
I had just been watching their heavy sweating sides and foam-streaming
mouths before they collapsed. Already two spare horses are being
brought round to replace them as we hurry forward.
Now, all of a sudden, things become lively, and do not slacken again
until the finish. No sooner have the first of the cavalry appeared
than the Dutch guns open fire. R-r-r-r rip--a shell drops amongst the
artillery and cavalry just ahead of us. The cavalry wheel and spread
themselves into more open order none too soon, as now the shells come
fast. The Boers have got the range exactly. Bang bursts a shell
amongst the Imperial Light Horse near me. A shell bursts quite close,
and a piece drops between Bennett Burleigh and me. The life, vigour,
and swing of movement of these few minutes when we first came under
fire was magnificent, the cavalry wheeling and circling, infantry
deploying, the rattle of the artillery waggons, the cracking of the
drivers' whips on the backs of the straining, struggling horses, the
rending sound of the shells in the air like the tearing of a great
canvas mainsail; the loud report when a shell exploded, or the dull
thud when they simply buried themselves in the veldt.
How lucky for us so few of them exploded! There would have been
terrible damage done, especially by the first few shots, when the
cavalry and artillery were massed together. It was now for a while an
artillery duel, but the Devons were quietly getting forward for the
front attack. The cavalry had swung out on the extreme right flank,
and the Manchesters and Gordons were going on to the ridge to take
them on their right flank there, while the Devons went up the face.
The Boers changed their artillery fire from time to time; first it was
at our artillery and cavalry, then into the Devons as they advanced or
as they lay down in the last field of veldt, waiting for the final
charge; and then they sent a few shells into a body of cavalry that
was on our extreme left. The very last shot they fired was a good one,
just when the fight was over, right into our guns.
I saw a little rocky point ahead of me, as if made on purpose for a
war correspondent. By running across some open ground I was on to it.
There was good if not ample cover on the top. It was in the middle of
the angle made by the line of advance of the men along the ridge and
the line of the Devons' main advance, and quite close to the hill.
Stretching away on our left over a level khaki-coloured sloping field
(if I may so call it) of veldt, were the Devons lying behind
ant-hills, placed as if on purpose to give scant but welcome shelter
to troops advancing under fire. The colour-scheme of the whole stretch
was perfect for concealment, and there was Tommy learning more of how
to take advantage of scant cover in this half-hour, under the bitter
pitter-patter of Mauser bullets, than he would learn at home in years
of manoeuvres.
That was a trying wait for Mr. Atkins; yet how steadily he stood
it--or not exactly stood it, but crouched it, lay it, or
mother-earth-hugged it! On our right was the level sky-lined hill,
ending in a rounded, precipitous point, on which the Boer guns were
stationed. Under that heavy-hanging bank of clouds, yet just behind
it, a clear steel-like light was showing. Against this, upon the top
of the hill, silhouetted with most delicately accurate sharpness, were
the figures of the Manchesters. The Gordons were in the same line over
the rounded top of the hill. They advanced at a run, crouched, then
swarmed forward again, and again lay low. Then the little runs became
shorter, the rests longer, and the fire hotter and more continuous.
Were they going to take that hill before complete nightfall, or was it
going to be a two-day job, notwithstanding the five hours' hard
fighting we had had already? A man near me said to me, "Do you hear
the steam escaping? I expect it is the Boers letting it off from the
colliery which they took on Thursday." It was the sound of steam, of
escaping steam, right enough, but that sound was made by bullets. It
went on continuously from the time the final infantry advance took
place, and rose in a crescendo of hissing vehemence as we neared the
supreme climax of the struggle. How eagerly we watched these creeping
figures going forward! Would they succeed? Would they ever reach the
point of the hill? How slow it seemed, but steadily, steadily on along
the ridge they went.
Now all the great orchestra of battle was playing--from behind us on
the right our artillery were firing at the hill in advance of the
Manchesters and Gordons--in one minute that I timed with my watch I
counted sixteen discharges. How the shells shrieked and whirled over
us! I found myself somehow humming the "Ride of the Valkyrie," which
these shells had suggested; then the Maxims would play a few bars, or
a sharp volley ring from the left. The rocky kopje was vocal with
rattling echoes, while with piccolo distinctness the air above and
about us sang with the sharp Mauser notes.
It was now a quarter to six. Rapid movements could be seen amongst the
Boers on top of the hill; some were beginning to gallop off, over the
sky line, but others galloped in the opposite direction. Our
artillery fire had now reached a nicety of deadly accuracy. They were
firing impact shells. I had my glasses on one horseman who appeared to
me to be firing from his saddle, and fighting stubbornly. There was no
sign of running away about him. As I looked the figure became a little
cloud of smoke--the smoke cleared--horse nor rider was any longer
there. Chancing to look at another, who was darting about irregularly,
as if confused and not knowing which way to fly, a fountain of smoke
flew up in front of his horse as a shell burst. When the smoke cleared
he and the horse were lying on the ground, and immediately after to a
third exactly the same thing happened.
The crescendo of battle had now reached a climax in a perfect roar of
sound. The bugles sounded the charge. God bless the man that wrote
these heart-cheering notes. Forward--rattling, stumbling, falling over
the rocks, cheering, swearing, forward anyhow--formation be hanged!
How the Devons climbed these rocks! Following in the right of the
Devons' wake, passing their wounded across that slopy field of veldt,
and the flat to the base of the hill, it was a sweating, breathless
climb up; the men were already cheering on the top above my head. The
first sign of mortality on the Boer side I encountered was a hairy
little black pig lying on his side bleeding proverbially--then a tall
Boer lying headlong down the rocks. On the top--what confusion! Tommy,
drunk with delight of battle. Prisoners, wounded, Gordons,
Manchesters, Devons--all mixed inexplicably. A Boer gun still in
position was a centre for gathering. In another place the ground was
strewn with rugs, broken provisions, empty and half-empty bottles,
saddles galore.
"'Av a 'oss, guv'nor, 'av a 'oss?" said a dirty-faced, sweaty, but
generous Tommy to me, as he led a black Boer steed by the bridle. Not
liking to take his capture from him, I went off to where he told me
several were standing, and picked out a likely-looking grey. Darkness
was now rapidly falling. A Tommy came up and led off another horse.
"I'm taking this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on
well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but
I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He
went off in the darkness, towing the present by the bridle.
At this moment very few officers were at this point of the hill; the
Gordons, for instance, had lost thirteen. I came then upon General
French, who had come along the ridge in the fighting line with the
Manchesters and Gordons, and was glad to have so early a chance of
offering him my heartiest congratulations on the day. The last time I
had met him was when the artillery on both sides were hard at it; he
appeared then more like a man playing a game of chess than a game of
war, and was not too busy to sympathise with me on the badness of the
light when he saw me trying to take snapshots of the Boer shells
bursting amongst the Imperial Light Horse near us.
General French is deservedly very popular with officers, men,
correspondents, and all who meet him, and we were all glad at the
brilliant ending of this hard-fought day.
The 5th Lancers and 5th Dragoon Guards were now pursuing the
retreating Boers. The Dragoons carried lances, which may account for
the credit which was equally due to them with the Lancers being unduly
given to the latter. Another hour or half-hour of light and they would
have played the very mischief with the retreating Boers. The Dragoons
chased them past a Red Cross tent, where a man was waving a Red Cross
flag. They respected those gathered about the tent; but one ruffian,
waiting until they came abreast, shot point-blank at a private. As he
fell dead from the saddle Captain Derbyshire rode at his slayer and
shot him dead with his revolver. A big Dragoon would put his foot to
the back of a Boer and tug to get his lance out. Some of the Boers
stood firing till the cavalry came within twenty yards. The ground was
broken veldt with patches of outcropping stones, which, added to the
fading light, made it terrible ground for charging over. Already Tommy
on top of the hill and down its sides was groping for the wounded.
Tommy had behaved magnificently throughout the long fight, and now
Tommy was finishing the day by behaving well to the Boer wounded. A
rug here and a drink there, and later on the best place near the camp
fire. In the previous five hours, Tommy's respect for the enemy had
risen enormously; now he was treating his wounded with a rough but
genuine kindness positively chivalrous. One might write for days upon
the incidents of this glorious day, into which the events of a
stirring lifetime seem crowded. Our artillery got a good chance, and
showed up magnificently. The dauntless bravery of English officers we
seem to take for granted as a national heritage; but in something
stronger than admiration--in positive love--my heart goes out to Tommy
Atkins--sweating, swearing, grimy, dirty, fearless, and
generous--Tommy is a bit of "all right."
[Illustration: Advance Of The Gordons At Elandslaagte.]