Part 45 (1/2)
Unwounded and taken prisoners: Two Officers; sixty-eight N.C.O.s and men.
Wounded and returned to camp: One Officer; twenty-two N.C.O.s and men.
The Boers stated their losses as one officer and eight men killed, seventeen men wounded.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 6th.]
In the evening the 1st Ess.e.x relieved the 1st Suffolk at Kloof camp, the latter battalion being sent first to Rensburg, and subsequently to the lines of communication to be re-officered.
[Sidenote: Jan. 7th, 1900. French reconnoitres Boer left.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 9th. Slingersfontein Farm on Boer left occupied.]
It was now evident to General French that the Boer right was so strong and so watchful as to be proof against either stratagem or open attack. He therefore turned at once to the other flank for opportunities, seeking by a reconnaissance on the 7th January a suitable point to the eastward from whence to threaten the enemy's rear along the line of the Norval's Pont railway. The operation, which was carried out under long-range fire both of artillery and rifles,[270] disclosed the fact that owing to lack of water none of the kopjes that were near enough to the line were tenable as permanent posts. At Slingersfontein farm, however, eleven miles south-east of Colesberg, and seven miles from the nearest point of the Norval's Pont line, an excellent position was found. On January 9th it was occupied by two squadrons Household cavalry, three squadrons the 6th Dragoon Guards (Carabiniers), the N.S.W. Lancers and four guns, under command of Colonel Porter. To divert attention from this movement, the whole of the enemy's western flank was bombarded by twelve guns disposed from Kloof camp to Porter's Hill, whilst a section R.H.A. and a squadron 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons made an attack on the southern front above Palmietfontein farm, drawing in reply the fire of two field guns and two pom-poms.[271]
[Footnote 270: Casualties, January 7th:--One officer and four men missing.]
[Footnote 271: Casualties, January 9th:--Two men wounded; seventeen battery horses were struck by sh.e.l.ls during this engagement.]
[Sidenote: Feeling the enemy's left, Jan. 11th.]
During the 8th and 9th the 1st Yorks.h.i.+re regiment arrived, and was posted at Rensburg. On the 10th Schoeman also received reinforcements from Norval's Pont, and these he placed so as to cover the railway south of Joubert siding, opposite to Porter, who turned out his men at Slingersfontein to stop further advance southward. French, on the 11th January, made a reconnaissance, employing the whole of Porter's force in an attempt to turn the left of this new development of the enemy.
But the Boers, after a short retirement, received further strong reinforcements from Norval's Pont, and prolonging the threatened left, showed a bold front. French, therefore, who had no intention of becoming seriously engaged, ordered Porter to return to Slingersfontein. An attempt by Major A. G. Hunter-Weston, R.E., to reach the railway line round the enemy's left flank, and destroy the telegraph wire, was foiled at Achtertang when on the very point of success. A Boer laager was in fact close at hand. At the same time Captain de Lisle, pus.h.i.+ng out from the extreme left towards b.a.s.t.a.r.d's Nek, reconnoitred the country to the northward, and found the enemy in strength along the line b.a.s.t.a.r.d's Nek--Wolve Kop--Spitz Kop--Plessis Poort.[272]
[Footnote 272: Casualties, January 11th:--Wounded, five men; missing, one man.]
[Sidenote: Butcher places 15-pr. on precipitous height. Jan 11th.]
Whilst these affairs were in progress, a feat astonished both sides alike by its triumph over difficulty. Major E. E. A. Butcher, R.F.A., commanding the 4th Field battery, placed a 15-pr. gun upon the peak of Coles Kop, a kopje already described as standing by itself in the plain to the west of Colesberg. Rising to a height of 600 feet, its sides varying from the almost perpendicular to a slope of 30, and covered with boulders, the hill presented a formidable climb even to an unhampered man, and its use for any purpose but that of a look-out post seemed impossible. Nevertheless, aided by detachments of the R.A., R.E., and Ess.e.x regiment, Butcher had his gun on the summit in three hours and a half. The supply of ammunition for it, and of rations for the gunners, were more serious problems even than the actual haulage of the piece itself. These were ingeniously solved by the installation of a lift composed of wires running over s.n.a.t.c.h-blocks affixed to standards, which were improvised from steel rails, and driven in, in pairs, five yards apart, both at the top and bottom of the kopje. Those at the top were wedged into natural fissures in the rocks, the bottom pair being driven twelve inches into the ground, and held upright by guy-ropes fixed to bollards or anchorages. To the top of each upright was lashed a s.n.a.t.c.h-block, over which, from summit to base of the hill, were stretched the carrying wires. Along these, suspended by blocks and tackle, loads up to thirty pounds in weight were hauled by means of a thin wire, which was wound upon a drum fixed between, and pa.s.sed through, pulleys attached to the top of each of the two upper standards. The lift was so contrived as to be double-acting, the turning of the drum and a ratchet causing one wire bearing its load of supplies to ascend, whilst another descended, the hill.
[Sidenote: It has immediate effect. Jan. 12th.]
At 6 o'clock next morning this gun opened upon a laager in the very midst of the enemy's main position. The effect was instantaneous; the Boers, thunderstruck by the sudden visitation of shrapnel, which came they knew not whence, abandoned their camp and fled to the kopjes for shelter. Another laager, 2,000 yards more distant, then became the target with the same result, the enemy's doubt as to the situation of the gun being deepened by the simultaneous practice of two 15-prs.
fired from the plain below the kop. A few days later Butcher succeeded in getting a second gun up the hill, and by means of his great command, forced the Boers to s.h.i.+ft every laager into sheltered kloofs, and caused them considerable losses.
[Sidenote: Jan. 14th. A flying column under Allenby threatens Boer connection with the bridge.]
[Sidenote: Jan. 15th. Boers attack Slingersfontein.]
[Sidenote: The Boers are repulsed.]
On Jan. 14th, a flying column[273] under Major E. H. H. Allenby (Inniskilling), marched northward along the Seacow river. Turning to the east, he demonstrated against the enemy's communications at the Colesberg road bridge, at which about twenty sh.e.l.ls were fired at 5,000 yards' range. The Boers thereupon appeared in three bodies in greatly superior numbers, and Allenby, having taken five prisoners, fell back, easily avoiding an attempt to cut him off. This reconnaissance had the effect of causing the enemy to cease to use the wagon road for transport purposes. Next day (15th) the Boers retaliated by a determined attack on the isolated post at Slingersfontein, held on that day by a half company 1st Yorks.h.i.+re regiment,[274] commanded by Captain M. H. Orr and a company (58 men) New Zealand Mounted Rifles under Captain W. R. N. Madocks, R.A.
(attached). These had their trenches above the farm, the New Zealanders upon the eastern and the Yorks.h.i.+re upon the western sides of a steep and high hill, the lower slopes of which were largely dead ground to those in the defences. Other kopjes, accessible to the Boers, were within rifle range. The position was thus to the Boer rifleman an ideal one for the most exceptional of his fighting practices, the close offensive. In the subsequent attack, every detail was typical of his methods on such occasions. At 6.30 a.m. a long-range sniping fire began to tease the occupants of the hill. They vainly searched amongst the broken kopjes for sight of an enemy.
Growing, certainly, but almost imperceptibly, in volume and accuracy, this fire was directed chiefly at the New Zealanders on the east, and by 10 a.m. had become so intense that an attack in that direction seemed imminent. Meanwhile, a body of the enemy had been crawling from exactly the opposite quarter towards the western side, upon which they succeeded in effecting a lodgment unseen. They then began to climb, scattering under cover of the boulders. Not until they were close in front of the sangars of the Yorks.h.i.+re regiment was their presence discovered by a patrol which Madocks had sent from his side of the hill. Thereupon the Boers opened a hot fire, striking down both the officer and the colour-sergeant of the Yorks.h.i.+re, whose men, taken by surprise and suddenly deprived of their leaders, fell into some confusion. The Boers then occupied the two foremost sangars. The hill seemed lost. Then Madocks, hearing the outburst on the further side from him, took a few of his men and hurried round to a.s.sist, appearing amongst the Yorks.h.i.+re just as the enemy were all but into them.
Rallying the soldiers, and perceiving the Boers a few yards away behind the rocks, he immediately ordered a charge, and followed by a few, cleared the enemy out of the nearer of the two abandoned sangars.
The Boers continued to shoot rapidly from the wall beyond, and Madocks, a few moments later, charged again. Accompanied this time by but three men, he closed to within a few feet of the more distant sangar. Two of the men with him were here killed, and Madocks, seeing the uselessness of remaining, made his way back again to the sangar in rear with his sole companion, called together the rest of the Yorks.h.i.+re detachment, and began hurriedly to strengthen the wall under a searching fire. At this moment a party of his own New Zealanders, for whom he had sent back, doubled up to the spot, and led by himself, whilst a storm of bullets broke over them from the surrounding kopjes, charged down on the Boers with fixed bayonets. The enemy fled at once, rising from behind the stones upon the hillside. Pursued by volleys from the crest of the British position, they made their way back to their lines, leaving twenty-one dead upon the field.[275]
[Footnote 273: Composition: One squadron 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, one squadron 10th Hussars, two companies M.I., and two guns R.H.A.]
[Footnote 274: This battalion had joined on January 8th and 9th. On January 12th, 1st half-battalion Welsh regiment and a squadron 10th Hussars had also arrived; they were followed on the 14th by half a battalion, 2nd Worcesters.h.i.+re regiment.]
[Footnote 275: Casualties, January 15th:--
Killed, six N.C.O.s and men; wounded, one officer, five N.C.O.s and men. Boer losses: twenty-one killed: about forty wounded.]