Ten Months In The Field With The Boers Part 15

To be brief, a terrible explosion took place on the 24th, killing some hundred persons, and destroying a quarter of the town.

This was in the main what the inquiry that took place afterwards brought to light:

A little mine containing black powder had been dug in the suspected house, close to the dynamite reserve of the powder magazine. The authors of the explosion had afterwards connected the mine with the electric light of their rooms; then they had departed quietly to a place of safety, having still half a day to spare. In the evening, at five o'clock, when the electric light works turned on the current to distribute light in the town, the explosion was produced automatically.

The guilty persons were never discovered.

We spent our evening discussing all this news, and then went to bed in our encampment. On the morning of the 26th we loaded a trolley, to which we had harnessed eight strong mules, with cartridges, biscuit, and a few other necessary provisions. We started at two o'clock in the afternoon, and arrived late in the evening at a farm where an ambulance was installed.

We bivouacked several hundreds of metres off, as we were urgently recommended to do by the doctor, who was accompanied by his wife. He took advantage of the Geneva Convention to protect his domestic peace, no doubt with an eye to Wrangel, who is a very pretty fellow!

I do not know if the legislator foresaw such a case as this!

Our dinner was furnished by the roosters of the farmyard, which three of our number had initiated in the laws of hospitality. Certain protestations are raised by the victims, during which I call and scold my poor Nelly, who is lying perfectly innocent at my feet. But the ambulance men will think it was she who was pursuing the poultry....

One should always try to save appearances.

We take a very light sleep, and towards three o'clock a Kaffir comes to tell us that he has just met a numerous band of English. We harness up rapidly, and make off still more rapidly at a hand-gallop, while in the dawning light we make out the scouts of the enemy on the neighbouring kopjes.

All day we marched across the plain without a guide, and at six in the evening we reached Botha's camp. Our comrades, who had gone off on a little reconnaissance, which proved to be fruitless, came in at about 8.30.

A rumour that we had been taken prisoners together with the trolley had preceded us; it had been brought in by the Irish Americans, and confirmed by a heliographic message from the commissary at Brandfort.

On the 28th all the Europeans were told to hold themselves in readiness to start as an advanced guard. I meet with a very cordial reception from the officers of the staff, for I find among them the Adjutant,[#]

Marais, who was with us at Poplar Grove. The order to start was given at two in the afternoon.

[#] The t.i.tle of Adjutant to a Boer General often corresponds to that of head of the staff, and not to the subordinate rank implied by the grade in France.

We have just heard that Von Loosberg, an ex-lieutenant of the German army, whom we knew at Abraham's Kraal, and who had since taken service in the artillery, had received seven Maxim bullets at Dewetsdorp, two in the head and five in the body. He recovered!

At five o'clock we reach a little stream. Here we are to encamp for three days. From 1,200 to 1,500 are gathered here with Botha, Delarey and Kolby. The tents are set up a little apart. We are very comfortable.

At about 8.30 we had finished dinner, and were about to seek a well-earned repose; several of the party were already rolled up in their blankets. Suddenly there was a noise of the tramp of horses and strange murmurs. We went in search of information. All the camp was astir, and the Boers were making off quietly.

'The English! Be off!'

We struck our tents hastily, saddled our horses, and harnessed the mules, without getting any more precise information, and then we joined in the general retreat. The questions we ask call forth answers precisely like those given by young recruits at their first manoeuvres.

'The enemy!'

'Where?'

'Over there!'

A sweeping gesture embraces the whole horizon; the indication is all the more vague in that it is ten o'clock, and that the night is very dark.

'Are there many of them?'

'I don't know.'

'Which way are they going?'

'I don't know.'

I almost think that if one asked rather sharply, 'Did you see them?' the man would answer, 'No.'

Nevertheless, the convoy takes an easterly direction, and the men are so disposed as to cover the retreat. We are on a rocky kopje swept by an icy wind. Thinking we were to bivouac again further on, we had packed up our cloaks and rugs on the trolley. Our benumbed fingers can no longer grasp our rifles; we shiver, swear, and sneeze in chorus. It was a horrible experience!

After a night that seemed interminable, dawn and sunlight put an end to our torture. During the morning certain information is brought in. The camp has been broken up, 1,500 men have been mobilized, and have spent the night on the _qui vive_. A patrol of thirteen Lancers pa.s.sed close by.

The 29th is a Sunday. The Boers sing hymns. We pitch our tents again about two hours' distance from our camp of the night before.

On the 30th, at eight o'clock, orders are given to transport our laager to the foot of the high kopjes we see four or five miles off in the direction of Taba N'chu.

Towards 9.30 the Maxim suddenly opens fire, without our having seen or heard anything to account for it. We gallop off to the kopjes straight in front of us, making for one of the highest, which is called Taba N'berg. But a field-cornet comes after us at a gallop, and sends us more to the left to join General Kolby. It is all the same to us, as we know nothing of what is on hand. We take up a position on a little rocky peak.

The kopjes form a large semicircle, slightly oval, the curve of which lies to the north-east and the opening to the south-east. A group of trees in the midst of the arid yellow basin is Taba N'chu. To the west of our position twenty miles off is Bloemfontein. All the bottom of the vast hollow is full of men in khaki.

It is ten o'clock. We have one cannon on our left, and on our right, between us and the big kopje, another cannon and a Maxim gun. Later in the day two or three Grobler guns appeared on the scene. One English battery took up a position about 4,000 metres from us, then another, distributing common sh.e.l.l and shrapnel all along our line. A brisk fusillade was also brought to bear upon us at a long range (about 2,500 yards).

Judging the distance to be too great for effective rifle-fire, we did not respond to this, but did our best with our guns. At eleven o'clock, however, our Maxim was silenced.

The Duke of Edinburgh's Volunteers and the Royal Irish charged our right wing four times, and finally succeeded in establishing themselves on the flank of the incline, which was relatively slight on their side.

Von Braschel was killed, and Brostolowsky, both former officers in the German army; also Baudin, a former sergeant of marines, who had served his fifteen years, and had come to the Transvaal while waiting for the liquidation of his retiring pension.

About 4.30 we were ourselves vigorously charged by the infantry, but a brisk fire, unerringly delivered, dispersed those who did not fall.

The fighting ceased with the day. In the evening, owing to the unexpected nature of the engagement, we had neither provisions nor coverings. A box of sardines between ten of us was our dinner, and the intense cold debarred us from the sleep that would have consoled us for our missing meal.

We remained in position, and at daybreak on May 1 the battle began again.

With the Germans, we were sent to occupy the big kopje against which the English attack had been most violent the night before. Its dominant position made it of great strategic value; but the Boers who had held it were guilty of the disastrous negligence, only too habitual with them, of retiring from it in order to sleep comfortably, instead of strengthening their position upon it.

The English, on the other hand, had spent the night digging trenches, and were firmly established on the ground they had gained in the two days. From the very beginning, therefore, our position was less favourable.

The ascent of Taba N'berg by a rocky, steep, and almost precipitous incline took about thirty-five minutes. So rugged was the hillside that it was impossible to use litters to bring down the wounded. We were forced to drag them down by the feet, or to make them slide down sitting. Our shelters were therefore often stained with long trails of blood.

Our horses were left at the bottom of the hill, without anyone on guard as usual. On reaching the top, we were greeted by steady infantry fire and by a few shrapnel sh.e.l.ls, which we received without responding till ten o'clock. Then, leaning a little upon our right, we began to fire.

We numbered about a hundred--fifty foreigners, and as many Boers; for the majority of those who had been with us the night before--perhaps 500 Europeans, and a rather smaller number of Burghers--had returned to the laager, and had not come back.

It is true that the day had been a hard one for them, and that they had had to bear the brunt of the battle under a heavy artillery fire.

Up to this moment nothing serious had been attempted. But about eleven o'clock the whole of the Royal Canadian contingent arrived in open formation. They were greeted on their pa.s.sage by our two 75 millimetre guns, which had taken up a position on our left at the foot of the kopje.

I heard afterwards that the guns, though they had been remarkably well laid, had not been very effective, the sh.e.l.ls with fuses having fallen without exploding. In consequence of this, only two or three men, who had been struck full by the sh.e.l.ls as if they had been bullets, had been killed. Several others were knocked over by the shock, but picked themselves up unharmed. I got this information later from a superior officer of an English regiment who had been present in the engagement.