It was a bright moonlight night when the men set out on their march. Orders had been issued that absolute silence was to prevail, that no matches were to be struck, that orders were to be delivered by signs and not by word of command, and that at each halt the men were to kneel down. The ground was undulating, and wherever it was possible the column took advantage of the shadows thrown by the rising ground. The sight of these bodies of men moving almost without sound across the sandy soil, on which their feet fell noiselessly, was almost weird. Occasionally there[Pg 112] came a deep rumble of wheels as the guns passed over a piece of rocky ground, and a murmur of annoyance could be heard in the column, for all knew how important it was that they should get as near as possible to the Boer position unheard. The Grenadiers led the way in the right column, the Scots Guards were on their left rear, the two battalions of Coldstreams were in reserve. Unfortunately these positions were not maintained. The Scots Guards came up abreast of the Grenadiers, but some distance to their left; the Grenadiers, instead of maintaining their direction, bore to the left and marched against Kaffir Kop; the Coldstreams diverged still further to the left; thus, instead of being concentrated for the attack on the central kopje, the brigade were scattered over a front of two miles. No doubt the efforts of the various battalions to find out each others' position delayed the advance, and they did not arrive until day had broken. The sun was just rising over the eastern hills when the Grenadiers came within three hundred yards of the foot of Kaffir Kop. Suddenly some guns placed on an eminence to its right opened fire, and at once a roar of musketry came from the top of the hill, while a heavy flanking fire also opened from Gun Hill, and a storm of bullets swept the line, many men falling at once, while the dust rose thickly around them as the Mauser bullets pattered fast on the sand. The order had been given that the troops were not to fire, but were to carry the hill at the point of the bayonet.
The pause was a short one. Joined by some of the Northamptons, who apparently had also missed their way, the Grenadiers fought their way up the hill. The Boers here, as at Talana, on the other side, lost heart as soon as they found to their astonishment that, in spite of their tremendous fire, the troops whom they had despised still pressed up the hill. They did not await their arrival at the crest, but fled precipitately down into the valley behind it, and took up a fresh position on another hill there. While the Grenadiers[Pg 113] had been engaged in this short but desperate conflict, the Scots Guards on their left had effected the capture of the central kopje. They rushed to the attack as bravely as their brothers-in-arms. The Boers on the summit had opened as hot a fire upon their assailants as had the defenders of Kaffir Kop, but the troops were not exposed to such a terrible cross-fire, and the consequence was, their loss was comparatively small.
On the left the fighting had been sharp. The enemy had thrown out outposts towards the railway from Table Hill, and the Northamptons were soon engaged in driving them in. At the foot of the hill, however, the Boers made a stand. They had thrown up some stone breast-works, and held them until the Northamptons pushed forward to the right and so took the defenders of the sangars in flank, and forced them to quit their position and retire to the hill. The two regiments then advanced to storm the position. The defence of the Boers here was more feeble and half-hearted than that offered at Gun Hill and Kaffir Kop. On gaining the summit the infantry halted until the guns came up and opened fire on the next range of hills, where the Boers, driven from their first line of defences, had now ensconced themselves, keeping up a continuous fire from among the rocks. Two regiments advanced and seized a ridge to the south, from which the Boers had been maintaining a flanking fire; but they could advance no farther, for the Yorkshires and Munsters, who should have been their supports, had been withdrawn.
This was an unfortunate tactical error. Had they been with their brigade, and had this been strengthened by one of the Coldstream battalions, our left could have pressed steadily on and have driven the Boers by the south-east route, where they would have been harassed as they passed by the fire of the Guards Brigade, and cut up by the little body of cavalry that had arrived there from Witputs. The Coldstreams came late into action, but they attacked and carried the hill called Mont Blanc, while they aided the Scots Guards to capture another eminence to the south of that hill. They[Pg 114] were aided by the artillery and by the guns of the Naval Brigade, which now, after tremendous efforts by the marines and sailors, had been brought up.
The enemy, disheartened at the manner in which they had been driven from position after position, now gave way altogether. Their only means of retreat was to cross the level ground to the north-east, and had there been a strong force of cavalry, with a battery or two of horse-artillery, under Lord Methuen's orders, their defeat would have been converted into a disastrous rout. But half of the little force were on the other flank, there was no horse-artillery, and although the little party of Lancers and Rimington's Guides attempted to perform the work assigned to them, they were unable to do so. The broken ground running north from Table Hill was held by a strong body of Boers, who covered the retreat of their waggons and guns. In no case could they have overtaken the flying horsemen, for their chargers were worn out by the heavy work of scouting they had carried on. Water, too, had been short since they had left the Orange River, and after suffering a good many casualties they fell back. The battle was virtually over by six o'clock, having lasted about two hours.
Yorke had ridden with Rimington's Guides from Belmont, and, as they were on the extreme left of the fighting-line, had seen little indeed of the combat. That the British were gaining ground was evident from the direction from which the roar of battle reached them, and when at length the order came for them to advance, they had ridden forward eagerly until checked by the heavy fire opened from the low line of rocky eminences facing them. To have pressed on against riflemen hidden among rocks would have been to incur certain and heavy loss, and might have deprived the army of its already utterly insufficient cavalry force; consequently Colonel Gough, who was in command, reluctantly gave the order for them to retire. Yorke had the evening before handed over his Kaffirs to the medical department as stretcher-bear[Pg 115]ers, and as soon as firing ceased and it was evident that the battle was over, he rode across the country to give what aid he could in the work.
He found that the greater part of the British wounded had already been carried off by the troops, some in the ambulance waggons, some on stretchers. By half-past ten the infantry were already in camp, and by one all the wounded were being attended to in the hospitals. The loss of the Grenadiers, 117 men killed or wounded and 10 officers, exceeded that suffered by the whole of the rest of the division. The Northumberlands and Northamptons had over 60 casualties among the men and 6 among their officers; of these the Northumberlands had by far the larger share. Yorke, after seeing the last of the wounded, Briton and Boer, placed on ambulances, was now free, and fastening his horse to a sagebush, he and Hans ascended the hill the Grenadiers had won.
On reaching the summit he saw that it had been carefully prepared for defence, and had evidently been occupied for a long time. The wall was not, as it had appeared, continuous, but was broken up into little enclosures or forts, each sufficiently large for two or three men to live and sleep in; straw, old sacking, and brushwood formed the beds. In each were generally to be seen the ashes of a fire, a cooking pot, meat tins, fragments of bread, and other signs of continued occupation.
Empty cartridge-cases littered the ground everywhere, while many still loaded showed how hasty had been the flight of the Boers. Several dead bodies lay in these little forts; they were for the most part of men of the lower class, farm-servants and others, with rough ill-fitting clothes and closely-cropped heads. Among them, however, were a few of a very much superior class, clean and carefully dressed, but these were quite the exception; and Yorke afterwards heard from the prisoners that men of that class generally sent on their best horses, and rode in on spare animals or in light carriages and carts, and as soon as they saw that the fight was going against[Pg 116] them, ran down the hill, jumped on to their fresh horses, and rode off, leaving the unmounted men to fight and die. Eighty-three Boers were found dead, but it was certain that the bodies of many of the better-class Boers had been carried off when they fell. More than fifty prisoners were taken, and twenty wounded; sixty-four waggons and a considerable number of horses were captured.
The next day all the wounded were sent down by train. That afternoon the troops moved forward again, knowing that another Boer force was collected at Graspan, some seven miles to the North. The Ninth Brigade and the Naval Brigade started in the afternoon for Swingspan, while the Guards moved on somewhat later with the Naval guns, armoured train, and baggage. Lord Methuen's intention was this time to attack the left of the Boer position, which was planted along a low range of hills, the highest and most commanding of which lay on their left.
The Ninth Brigade, with Rimington's horse and the Lancers, bivouacked at Swingspan, a deep depression in a valley surrounded on all sides by hills of volcanic origin. The march had been an uneventful one. The cavalry had scouted the ground in front of them, but beyond beating up a herd of springbok, and startling an occasional covey of partridges, scaring up the little birds called dikkopfs, and sending the lizards hurrying to their shelters, they saw no signs of life. The effect of the previous day's fight was evident from the fact, that although the line of march was everywhere commanded by low hills, no shot was fired. It was difficult for the troops gathered round the pool to believe that the smooth circle of hills around them was ages ago a number of active volcanoes, and that the pool might itself have been a crater; but the fact has been well ascertained. Fires were lighted, but these soon burnt down, for the men were glad to stretch themselves on the sands and fall to sleep as soon as the kettles were boiled and their bread had been eaten. Pickets went up to the surrounding hills, and one of these found in a sangar[Pg 117] a field-glass and walking-stick, showing that the Boers had occupied it but a short time before.
At three in the morning the troops were in motion again, and marched for five miles towards a line of kopjes some three miles from the railway-station. The station bore the two names of Enslin and Graspan, by both of which the battle was afterwards called. The Lancers scouted ahead, while Rimington's Guides watched the hills on the right. At last the enemy's entrenchments were seen extending along a series of kopjes. Their right was on two hills, one lying on each side of the railway, the left upon a high conical hill three miles to the east of it. On the ridges between were several guns, and through field-glasses the Boers could be seen hurrying towards the eastern kopje, against which they already perceived our main attack would be delivered. One of the field-batteries at once advanced and opened fire against this hill.
The armour-plated train had moved to Graspan station, and the sailors got out two of their twelve-pounder guns, leaving the others in the waggons, as there were not hands enough to work them. Presently these were joined by two batteries of artillery, and at half-past six all opened fire. Two companies of the Northumberlands acted as a covering party, and the rest were to line a low crest to the right and keep touch with the other battalions of the brigade posted there to oppose any movement that might be made from the Boer centre. Of such a movement, however, there was but little probability, as the Boers from that point were galloping with all haste to reinforce the defenders of the hill which was about to be assailed.
For two hours the fight was purely an artillery duel, the Naval guns and those of the two batteries being answered by six guns, a Hotchkiss, and a Maxim. These were well hidden from sight behind the crest line, and it was only by the light smoke that rose above them that our gunners were enabled to direct their fire. The Guards were in rear, and were held in[Pg 118] reserve to take part in the fight wherever their services might be most required. The Naval Brigade were upon the extreme right, and it was upon them that the honour of the assault was to fall. Entrenchments had been thrown up by the enemy along the whole range of kopjes. It was evident that the Boers were in no way discouraged by their defeat two days before, for a very large body of mounted men were seen far out on our flank, in readiness to swoop down if we recoiled in confusion after failing to carry their position. Rimington's Guides were detached to watch and keep in check this force. At eight o'clock the two batteries of Royal Artillery moved away to the right to concentrate their fire on the kopje about to be attacked, and the Naval guns were ordered to withdraw, as the Boers had now accurately obtained their distance and were keeping up a tremendous fire with shrapnel upon them.
The enemy's fire, however, was so incessant and well-directed, that the officer in command, feeling that to attempt to withdraw the guns would lead to the annihilation of the men engaged in the work, maintained his position, the men throwing themselves on the ground at each flash of the enemy's guns and then leaping up and working their own pieces. So well were these served and directed that the guns opposed to them were gradually silenced.
The Naval Brigade, composed of two hundred marines and forty blue-jackets, at last advanced in skirmishing order, and pushed round to the right of the kopje. Although they were within nine hundred yards of it not a rifle was fired, and it seemed as if the fire of the two batteries had completely cleared out its defenders. The Lancers had moved still farther to the right, to prevent any body of Boers coming down through a break in the hills there to take the Naval Brigade in flank.
The ground over which they were moving was completely exposed. Having gained the desired position, the Naval Brigade now moved direct for the kopje, closing up somewhat[Pg 119] as they converged upon its base. When within six hundred yards from the summit, from every rock and boulder a storm of fire flashed out, and a hail of bullets swept the line. The men lay down and returned the fire, but that of the hidden foe, enormously superior in numbers, was not to be checked. The North Lancashires who were following the Naval men completely lost sight of them, so great was the cloud of dust raised by the bullets ploughing up the sand. It was evident that to remain inactive was to court annihilation, and Captain Prothero, R.N., gave the word for the advance at the double, and the men leaping to their feet rushed to within four hundred yards of the base. Then a terrific fire was opened from a projecting spur.
The men fell fast, but again made a rush to within two hundred yards of the base of the hill. Prothero had fallen wounded; Ethelston, the second in command, was killed, Major Plumbe of the marines called upon his men, who nobly responded; he himself was shot dead before he had gone ten yards, and Lieutenant Saunders of the Powerful now rushed to the front. The Maxim gun that had accompanied them remained immovable, every one of the men who worked it having fallen. They reached the base of the kopje and there threw themselves down to breathe. They had left half their comrades and nearly all their officers behind them. The din was appalling, the two British batteries maintaining a continuous fire on the face and summit of the hill. The Yorkshire Light Infantry, followed by the North Lancashires, came rushing forward to the support of the naval men, and in open order with bayonets fixed they and the marines began to make their way up.
The Boers did not await the onslaught, but deserted their entrenchments and rocks and fled, the greater portion making their way along a valley through which ran a road to the north, only a few joining their friends along the line of hills. In the centre of the position a handful of desperate men defended the rocks to the last, and were bayoneted there.[Pg 120] Seeing that the position they had deemed impregnable had been captured the Boers began to retreat, drawing off their guns with them. Again the weakness in cavalry prevented pursuit; and indeed both the Lancers and Rimington's Guides were too far away to be brought up in time for a successful pursuit of the mounted men, who formed the majority of the enemy's force. As to those unprovided with ponies, they had but to scatter over the hills where cavalry could not follow them, lie hidden among the boulders, and make off after nightfall.
The loss had been heavy. Of the Naval Brigade six officers and ninety-nine men were killed or wounded; the Yorkshires had fifty-three casualties, and the North Lancashires twenty. The Guards' Brigade were not engaged; they closed up at the end of the action, but were not called upon to fire a shot.
All but two of Yorke's Kaffirs who had been away came into camp after the battle was over. They had left the waggons while the fight was going on, and had hidden among the rocks until night fell. None had gained any information as to the Boer position on the Modder. None of the Boers whom they had heard conversing had been there. They had been told that the British would never get across the river, and even if they did so they would assuredly never be able to break through the strong position at Magersfontein, where Cronje intended to arrest their further advance. They had heard that no natives had been allowed to accompany the Boers who were posted on the Modder River, and that all new-comers had been directed to Graspan, a step which Yorke concluded was designed to prevent spies or well-wishers to the British from seeing the preparations that were made. He reported as usual to the quartermaster-general.
"It is a pity that we can't get some news as to what they are doing, Mr. Harberton, but certainly you have done all that is possible that way."
"I will try and go in disguise, sir, if you will give me leave."
[Pg 121]
"I do not think there is any chance whatever that your attempt would be successful. It is evident that Cronje is determined that his plans shall be kept secret. I have no doubt that you could, as you have already done, join any commando you wished, with a fair chance of a plausible story being believed. But the fact that all the new arrivals were sent on here, and that even Kaffir drivers are not allowed to approach the river, shows that no ordinary story would pass muster for a moment. You would simply be going to your death."
"It has been tougher work than we expected, Harberton," one of the officers of the Tigers said to Yorke the next day. "Of course we thrashed them, but the loss has been heavy, and as these kopjes are scattered all over the country, we may have to fight any number of battles like this. You see, the beggars only have to ride off on their ponies and take up a fresh position; necessarily we are kept at a distance out of fire; and before we can take up the pursuit and cross the hills they have been defending, they have got a couple of miles start of us. Besides, their horses are ever so much fresher than ours, so they could go on at that game for a very long time, and there can be no doubt their losses are much lighter than ours as we are always fighting in the open, while they are so hidden behind rocks that we don't get sight of them until they begin to bolt. However, we shall be stronger to-morrow, for I hear that the Argyle and Sutherlands will be up. That will a good deal more than fill up the vacancies caused by our casualties at Belmont and here."
The next day was passed in quiet, but on the 27th, after the wounded had been sent off by train, the force moved forward to the pools of Honeynest, eight miles south of the Modder. The march had been short, for the heat was great, and after halting the troops revelled in the luxury of a bath, the fact that the water was thick and muddy scarcely detracting from their enjoyment. The next morning one of Rimington's Guides came in and reported that he had been[Pg 122] fired at from an apparently empty house near the river, and half an hour later another of Yorke's Kaffirs came in and told Yorke that the Boers with whom he had been, had made a long detour after the battle and had arrived at the Spytfontein kopjes. He found that there were very strong works there, but that they were not strongly occupied; and he had learned that a part of the force had some days before moved towards the Modder, but that no communication was............