Part 6 (1/2)

Every officer who showed got a round of shrapnel at him. Their riflemen would follow an officer about all day with shots at 2200 yards; the day before they had hit Major Grant, of the Intelligence, as he was sketching the country. Tommy, on the other hand, could swagger along the sky-line unmolested. No doubt the Boers thought that exposed Caesar's Camp lay within their hands.

But they were very wrong. Snug behind their _schanzes_, the Manchesters cared as much for sh.e.l.ls as for b.u.t.terflies. Most of them were posted on the inner edge of the flat top with a quarter of a mile of naked veldt to fire across. They had been reinforced the day before by a field battery and a squadron and a half of the Light Horse. And they had one _schanze_ on the outer edge of the hill as an advanced post.

In the dim of dawn, the officer in charge of this post saw the Boers creeping down behind a stone wall to the left, gathering in the bottom, advancing in, for them, close order. He welted them with rifle-fire: they scattered and scurried back.

The guns got to work, silenced the field-guns on Flat Top Hill, and added scatter and scurry to the a.s.sailing riflemen. Certainly some number were killed; half-a-dozen bodies, they said, lay in the open all day; lanterns moved to and fro among the rocks and bushes all night; a new field hospital and graveyard were opened next day at Bester's Station. On the other horn of our position the Devons had a brisk morning. They had in most places at least a mile of clear ground in front of them. But beyond that, and approaching within a few hundred yards of the extreme horn of the position, is scrub, which ought to have been cut down.

Out of this scrub the enemy began to snipe. We had there, tucked into folds of the hills, a couple of tubby old black-powdered howitzers, and they let fly three rounds which should have been very effective. But the black powder gave away their position in a moment, and from every side--Pepworth's, Lombard's Nek, Bulwan--came spouting inquirers to see who made that noise. The Lord Mayor's show was a fool to that display of infernal fireworks. The pompon added his bark, but he has never yet bitten anybody: him the Devons despise, and have christened with a coa.r.s.e name. They weathered the storm without a man touched.

Not a point had the Boers gained. And then came twelve o'clock, and, if the Boers had fixed the date of the 9th of November, so had we. We had it in mind whose birthday it was. A trumpet-major went forth, and presently, golden-tongued, rang out, ”G.o.d bless the Prince of Wales.”

The general up at Cove Redoubt led the cheers. The sailors' champagne, like their sh.e.l.ls, is being saved for Christmas, but there was no stint of it to drink the Prince's health withal. And then the Royal salute--bang on bang on bang--twenty-one shotted guns, as quick as the quickfirer can fire, plump into the enemy.

That finished it. What with the guns and the cheering, each Boer commando must have thought the next was pounded to mincemeat. The rifle-fire dropped.

The devil had driven home all his tin-tacks, and for the rest of the day we had calm.

XIII.

A DIARY OF DULNESS.

THE MYTHOPOEIC FACULTY--A MISERABLE DAY--THE VOICE OF THE POMPOM--LEARNING THE BOER GAME--THE END OF FIDDLING JIMMY--MELINITE AT CLOSE QUARTERS--A LAKE OF MUD.

_Nov. 11._--Ugh! What a day! Dull, cold, dank, and misty--the spit of an 11th of November at home. Not even a sh.e.l.l from Long Tom to liven it.

The High Street looks doubly dead; only a sodden orderly plashes up its spreading emptiness on a sodden horse. The roads are like rice-pudding already, and the paths like treacle. Ugh! Outside the hotel drip the usual loafers with the usual fables. Yesterday, I hear, the Leicesters enticed the enemy to parade across their front at 410 yards; each man emptied his magazine, and the smarter got in a round or two of independent firing besides. Then they went out and counted the corpses--230. It is certainly true: the narrator had it from a man who was drinking a whisky, while a private of the regiment, who was not there himself, but had it from a friend, told the barman.

The Helpmakaar road is as safe as Regent Street to-day: a curtain of weeping cloud veils it from the haunting gunners on Bulwan. Up in the schanzes the men huddle under waterproof sheets to escape the pitiless drizzle. Only one sentry stands up in long black overcoat and grey woollen nightcap pulled down over his ears, and peers out towards Lombard's Kop. This position is safe enough with the bare green field of fire before it, and the st.u.r.dy, sh.e.l.l-hardened soldiers behind.

But Lord, O poor Tommy! His waterproof sheet is spread out, mud-slimed, over the top of the wall of stone and earth and sandbag, and pegged down inside the schanz. He crouches at the base of the wall, in a miry hole.

Nothing can keep out this film of water. He sops and sneezes, runs at the eyes and nose, half manful, half miserable. He is earning the s.h.i.+lling a-day.

At lunch-time they began to sh.e.l.l us a bit, and it was almost a relief.

At anyrate it was something to see and listen to. They were dead-off Mulberry Grove to-day, but they dotted a line of sh.e.l.ls elegantly down the High Street. The bag was unusually good--a couple of mules and a cart, a tennis-lawn, and a water-tank. Towards evening the voice of the pompom was heard in the land; but he bagged nothing--never does.

_Nov. 12._--Sunday, and the few rifle-shots, but in the main the usual calm. The sky is neither obscured by clouds nor streaked with sh.e.l.ls. I note that the Sunday population of Ladysmith, unlike that of the City of London, is double and treble that of week-days.

Long Tom chipped a corner off the church yesterday; to-day the archdeacon preached a sermon pointing out that we are the heaven-appointed instrument to scourge the Boers. Very sound, but perhaps a thought premature.

_Nov. 13._--Laid three sovs. to one with the 'Graphic' yesterday against to-day being the most eventful of the siege. He dragged me out of bed in aching cold at four, to see the events.

At daybreak Observation Hill and King's Post were being sh.e.l.led and sh.e.l.ling back. Half battalions of the 1st, 60th, and Rifle Brigade take day and day about on Observation Hill and King's Post, which is the continuation of Cove Redoubts. To-day the 60th were on Leicester Post.

When sh.e.l.ls came over them they merely laughed. One ring sh.e.l.l burst, fizzing inside a schanz, with a steamy curly tail, and splinters that wailed a quarter of a mile on to the road below us; the men only raced to pick up the pieces.

When this siege is over this force ought to be the best fighting men in the world. We are learning lessons every day from the Boer. We are getting to know his game, and learning to play it ourselves.

Our infantry are already nearly as patient and cunning as he; nothing but being shot at will ever teach men the art of using cover, but they get plenty of that nowadays.