Part 2 (1/2)
All this means enormous labour, carried on frequently under a galling cannonade from the enemy's smaller guns, and interrupted occasionally by the necessity of having to keep down the rifle-fire that comes from a distant kopje, while standing on the front of these works.
Yesterday, watching a cavalry patrol that tried in vain to feel for a way through the scrubby nek into more open ground beyond, General Brocklehurst and his staff were nearly hit by a sh.e.l.l from some newly-mounted battery the exact position of which could not be located, for its smokeless powder made no flash that anybody could see in broad daylight, nor generated even the faintest wreath of vapour. Its projectile travelled faster than sound, so that the range could not have been great, but there was nothing by which our own batteries might have been directed to effective reply. We all abused ”Long Tom” at first because of his unprovoked attack on a defenceless town, but by contrast with what is known among Devon men as the ”Bulwaan Sneak,” and among bluejackets as ”Silent Susan,” the big Creusot gun with its loud report, the low velocity of its projectiles, and the puff of white smoke giving timely warning when a shot is on its way, is regarded as quite a gentlemanly monster.
Following the example thus set by regiments on the main defensive positions, others temporarily in reserve have begun to build or dig for themselves splinter-or bomb-proof retreats, in which they may take shelter when the sh.e.l.ling becomes too hot. The Imperial Light Horse were first to hit upon the idea of burrowing into the river-banks. They began by forming mere niches, in which there was only just room enough for three or four men to stand huddled together when they heard a sh.e.l.l coming. Finding, however, that the soil could be easily dug out, they set gangs of natives to work lengthening the tunnels and connecting them by ”cross drives,” in the planning of which several Johannesburg mine managers found congenial occupation. This went on until the river-bank for a hundred yards in length was honeycombed by dark caves, in which a whole regiment might have been hidden with all its ammunition, secure from sh.e.l.l fire, the walls and roofs being so formed that they needed no additional support. There was no danger of the stiff alluvial soil falling in even if a sh.e.l.l had buried itself and burst above the entrance to any of these cool grottoes.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Sh.e.l.l-PROOF RESORT
A culvert under a road used as a living-place by day for civilians, who returned to their houses when the sh.e.l.ling ceased after sunset]
I spent half an hour in one of them, and found the air there delightful by contrast with scorching suns.h.i.+ne outside. What it will be, however, after many people have been crowded together for some time is less pleasant to contemplate, but even for that the resourceful Imperial Light Horse are prepared, and they already begin to talk of air-shafts so cunningly contrived that light and air may enter, but sh.e.l.ls be rigidly excluded. Civilians in their turn emulate the Light Horse, but with unequal success, and their excavations a.s.sume such primitive forms that future archaeologists may be puzzled to invent satisfactory explanations of curious differences in the habits of the cave-dwellers of Ladysmith, as exemplified by the divergent types of their underground abodes.
And, indeed, these habits are strangely various even as presented to the eyes of a contemporary student. Some people, having spent much time and patient labour in making burrows for themselves, find life there so intolerably monotonous that they prefer to take the chances above ground. Others pa.s.s whole days with wives and families or in solitary misery where there is not light enough to read or work, scarcely showing a head outside from sunrise to sunset. They may be seen trooping away from fragile tin-roofed houses half an hour before daybreak carrying children in their arms, or a cat, or monkey, or a mongoose, or a cage of pet birds, and they come back similarly laden when the night gets too dim for gunners to go on shooting. There would be a touch of humour in all this if it were not so deeply pathetic in its close a.s.sociation with possible tragedies. One never knows where or at what hour a stray shot or splinter will fall, and it is pitiful sometimes to hear cries for dolly from a prattling mite who may herself be fatherless or motherless to-morrow. We think as little as possible of such things, putting them from us with the light comment that they happen daily elsewhere than in besieged towns, and making the best we can of a melancholy situation.
There are, I believe, many good reasons why Sir George White should allow his army to be hemmed in here defending a practically deserted town, apart from the ignominy that abandonment would entail, and it is probably sound strategy to keep Boer forces here as long as possible while preparations are being matured for attacking them from other directions. On the latter point one cannot express an opinion without full knowledge of the circ.u.mstances such as we cannot hope to get while communications are cut off. But n.o.body can pretend to regard our present inaction following investment as anything but a disagreeable necessity, or affect a cheerful endurance of conditions that become more intolerable day after day. Now and then we have hopes that the Boers may risk everything in a general attack with the object of carrying this place by storm, when they would most certainly be beaten off and lose heavily.
They did something to encourage this hope yesterday. It began with a heavy artillery duel between ”Long Tom” and the naval gun that is known as ”Lady Anne.” After vain attempts to silence our battery, the enemy's fire, generally so accurate, became wild, several sh.e.l.ls going so high that they struck the convent hospital hundreds of yards in rear. This, at any rate, is the most charitable explanation of acts that would otherwise be inexcusable. The Red Cross was at that time, and for days before, flying above the convent, in which Colonel d.i.c.k-Cunyngham and Major Riddell were patients, under the care of nursing sisters.
Fortunately, good shelter was found for them in the convent cellars until they could be removed to safer quarters, but before this much of the upper rooms had been reduced to ruins by persistent sh.e.l.ling. When the Boers thought they had sufficiently demoralised our defensive forces by artillery ”preparation,” a brisk attack by riflemen began to develop against Maiden's Castle, Caesar's Camp, and Waggon Hill, a continuous range forming the southern key to our position, and held by the Manchester Regiment. Brigadier-General Hamilton and his staff were there from the outset, ready, if need be, to call up the Gordons in support.
This necessity, however, never arose, though the attack, as I can testify from personal observation on the spot, was pushed for some time with great persistence, the Boers trying again and again to creep up by the western slopes of Waggon Hill, while sh.e.l.ls raked the whole face of Caesar's Camp to Maiden's Castle, and burst repeatedly among the tents of the Manchester battalion, without doing serious harm.
A colour-sergeant with only fourteen men defended the crest of Waggon Hill until nightfall, when the Boers retired sullenly. To repeated offers of reinforcements the sergeant warmly replied that he had men enough for the job, and proved it by repelling every attack, the Boers declining to face the steady fire that was poured upon them whenever they showed themselves. Colonel Hamilton, however, had a firm conviction that the Boer movement against that flank was only a feeler for more determined enterprises to follow, and he accordingly stiffened the defensive lines there by mounting half a field battery in strong earthworks during the night, and sending up bodies of mounted infantry to support the Manchesters.
As the sun was setting in clouded splendour behind Mount Tinwa's n.o.ble crags and peaks, throwing their dark shadows across the lower hills near us, a flash so quick, that it could hardly be seen, darted from out the gloom there, and with the cras.h.i.+ng report that followed came a sh.e.l.l plump into one of our most crowded camps. This was evidently from a gun newly mounted on Blaauwbank. Two other sh.e.l.ls burst in quick succession about the same place, but fortunately n.o.body was. .h.i.t. Then, satisfied with having got the range to a nicety, our enemy left us in undisturbed quiet for the night, but with an uncomfortable consciousness that fresh links were being forged in the chain of artillery fire by which Ladysmith is now completely girdled, for two batteries that cannot be exactly located have been sh.e.l.ling steadily all day from each end of Bulwaan, with accurate aim and far-reaching effect, as if to disprove all the theories that led to the error of abandoning that position.
This morning fallacious prophecies were further shattered by a sh.e.l.l from works placed far back on the table top of Bulwaan. It did not demolish anything else, but it makes us very chary now about predicting what the Boers can or cannot do. Through telescopes they had been watched building that strong fort, and everybody knew it was being thrown up as an emplacement for heavy artillery, yet few people thought that another gun, akin to ”Long Tom” in calibre and range, could have been mounted there so soon, until they saw the dense cloud of smoke from a black powder charge, and heard the familiar gurgling screech of a big sh.e.l.l, followed by the thundering report.
”Puffing Billy” was the appropriate name bestowed on this new enemy by Colonel Rhodes, who has an amusing faculty for applying quaintly descriptive phrases to every fresh development in this state of siege. I am told on high authority that the word ”siege” is not quite applicable to our case here, but if the Boers are not sitting down before Ladysmith in a very leisurely way, intent upon keeping us under bombardment as long as they may choose to stay, I do not know the meaning of such movements. It was we who provoked ”Puffing Billy” to his first angry roar by a trial shot from one of our big naval guns into the Bulwaan battery. ”Long Tom” presently joined in the chorus, and it took our two 4.7 quick-firers all their time to keep down that cross-fire. Though ”Lady Anne's” twin-sister had been mounted some days, her voice was seldom heard, until this morning, when, after a few rounds, ”Long Tom”
paid silent homage to her sway, and in celebration of that temporary knock-out, Captain Lambton christened his new pet ”Princess Victoria,”
but the bluejackets called it by another name, to indicate their faith in its destructive effect.
It was interesting to watch these weapons at work. Their gunners would wait until they saw a flash from ”Long Tom” or ”Puffing Billy” and then fire, their sh.e.l.ls getting home first by two or three seconds, owing to the greater velocity imparted by cordite charges. Soon after ten o'clock the enemy's artillery fire from different directions grew brisker. The damage, whatever it may have been, inflicted on ”Long Tom,” or his crew, having been made good under cover of a white flag, which the Boers seem to think they are at liberty to use whenever it suits them, Rietfontein called to Bulwaan, and Blaauwbank in the west echoed the dull boom that came from the distant flat-topped hill in the east. Then along our main positions, against the Leicesters and Rifles on one side, and the Manchesters on another, an attack by rifles developed quickly.
Intermittently these skirmishes lasted most of the day, our enemy never pressing his attack home, but contenting himself with long-range shooting from good cover. Neither heavy guns nor small arms did much damage. Major Grant, R.E., of the Intelligence Staff, was slightly wounded as he sat coolly sketching the scene of hostilities as he saw it from the front of Caesar's Camp. A lieutenant of the Manchesters and three men of the Leicester Regiment were also hit by rifle bullets or sh.e.l.l splinters, but none very seriously.
CHAPTER V
THE FIRST BOER a.s.sAULT
Joubert's boast--The preliminaries of attack--Sh.e.l.ls in the town--A simultaneous advance--Observation Hill threatened--A wary enemy--A prompt repulse--Attack on Tunnel Hill--The colour-sergeant's last words--Manchesters under fire--p.r.o.ne behind boulders--A Royal salute--The Prince of Wales's birthday--Stretching the Geneva Convention--The redoubtable Miss Maggie--The Boer Foreign Legion--Renegade Irishmen--A signal failure.
From the first moment of complete investment here my belief (continues Mr. Pea.r.s.e, writing on 9th November) has been that the Boers would never venture to push an infantry attack against this place to the point of a determined a.s.sault. This opinion is strengthened by to-day's events. Yet it is said that Joubert believes he could take Ladysmith by a _coup de main_ at any time were it not for his fear of mines, which he believes have been secretly laid at many points round our positions. His riflemen certainly did not come close enough to test the truth of this belief to-day, but contented themselves with shooting from very safe cover at long ranges. If they could have shaken our troops at any point they would doubtless have taken advantage of it to push forward and take up other equally sheltered positions, whence they might have practised their peculiar tactics with possibly greater effect. These methods, however, lack the boldness necessary for an a.s.sault on positions held by disciplined troops, and having no single objective they are gradually frittered away in isolated and futile skirmishes, whereby the defenders are to some extent hara.s.sed, but the defences in no way imperilled.
Our enemies began at five o'clock this morning with artillery fire from Bulwaan and Rietfontein on Pepworth's Hill. This unusual activity so early warned us that some movement of more than ordinary importance might be expected. All preparations for the possibility of an attack more determined than the feeble feelers of yesterday had been made in good time, so that there was no hurrying of forces to take up or strengthen positions that might be threatened, and the Boers were evidently somewhat puzzled where to look for the ma.s.ses of men who showed no sign of movement They thereupon took to sh.e.l.ling the town as if they thought our troops might be concentrating there, and under cover of this vigorous bombardment their riflemen advanced, so far as caution would permit them, against several points wide apart. It must have been with the idea of a feint that they made the first attack from westward against Observation Hill, which was held by outposts of the 5th Lancers, dismounted and trusting to their carbine fire, the ineffectiveness of which, when opposed to Mauser rifles of greater accuracy at long range, soon became evident.
Two companies of the Rifle Brigade had, however, been moved forward to support the cavalry, and their steady shooting checked the enemy's frontal attack. Several officers and other picked shots, lying p.r.o.ne behind boulders, took on the Boers at their own game with perceptible effect at 1200 yards or more, thereby keeping down a fire that might otherwise have hara.s.sed our men, who were necessarily exposed at times in taking up positions to meet some change of tactics on the other side.
Boers never expose themselves when they find bullets falling dangerously close to them. They will be behind a rock all day if need be, waiting for the chance of a pot-shot, and stay there until darkness gives them an opportunity to get away unseen. They give no hostages to fortune by taking any risks that can be avoided. The game of long bowls and sniping suits them best. When one place gets too hot for them to pot quickly at our men without risk of being potted in turn, they will steal away one by one, wriggling their way between boulders, creeping under cover of bushes, doing anything rather than show themselves as targets for other men's rifles.