Part 20 (1/2)
The guns were a varied lot: there was a 12pr. belonging to U battery and lost by them at Sanna's Post, many months before; there was a 15pr.
which had belonged to the 14th Field Battery; two Krupp 9prs. in splendid condition; a Vickers-Maxim, or pom-pom; a one-pounder quick-firing Krupp, a Maxim with a portable tripod stand, and a large quant.i.ty of ammunition.
The successful capture of all these guns, prisoners, ammunition and wagons was largely due to our old friend, Major Lean, of the 5th M.I., and after a good deal of questioning (for, like all good soldiers, he was reluctant to talk about his own achievements), the story of the fight was extracted from him.
It seems that Le Gallais' force of Mounted troops, mostly Mounted Infantry, with U Battery, R.H.A., were near Bothaville, when intelligence was received of the presence of a Boer laager in the neighbourhood; so Major Lean with a few men of his own corps, all dismounted, went out one night to reconnoitre. They had to ford the river, the water reaching up to their waists, and then went on for some distance, until Major Lean observed some horses hobbled close to them: thinking this very curious, he went on a little further, and then saw, behind an ant heap, what looked like the head and shoulders of a man: without an instant's hesitation he dashed forward and yelled to the man, ”Hands up!”
To his astonishment several other men rose and put up their hands, and he discovered that he had inadvertently held up an entire Boer picket.
Handing over the prisoners to his men, he and his party went on cautiously, and on coming to the summit of a rise in the ground saw the whole Boer laager at their feet. The party was discovered, and a heavy fire opened on them at once; but the thirty men of the Mounted Infantry spread out under cover, and devoted themselves to preventing the Boers from inspanning their oxen into the guns and wagons. Word had been sent back to Colonel Le Gallais, who came up rapidly and joined in, U battery opening fire on the Boer guns at a range of 400 yards, but from the other side of a ridge, firing by indirect laying. The Boers answered the fire from their guns, and an artillery duel was in progress for some little time. A message had been sent back to General Knox, who, however, was out of reach, and also to Colonel De Lisle, who was some eight miles away; and the latter with his men came up rapidly, travelling the whole distance without drawing rein. They moved so as to envelope the flanks, but on their approach the enemy fled, leaving a large number of killed and wounded, and a considerable number of prisoners (114 in all), twenty-eight of whom were dressed in the blue uniform of the Staats Artillerie.
Unfortunately our loss had been severe, the gallant and das.h.i.+ng Le Gallais, Lieut.-Colonel Ross of the Durham Light Infantry, and two other officers having been mortally wounded, and seven officers severely wounded, while eight men were killed, and twenty-six wounded; but the success was great, and the rout of the Boers complete. They left the whole of their guns, wagons and Cape carts, and fled on their horses, some not even waiting to saddle up first. The prisoners said that De Wet and Steyn had both been with the laager, but that they had fled directly the firing commenced.
There is no false pride in the Boer commandants, nor any ridiculous notions about sticking to the s.h.i.+p and remaining with their comrades, who follow them so faithfully. Steyn possibly thought that it was time to move the seat of Government to some other place, Hoopstad for instance--probably the only town in the Free State which has not at some time or other been honoured with the designation of the capital of the Free State.
General Knox returned with the troops to Kroonstad soon afterwards, and received many congratulations on his success; at this time there were no less than four Generals in the town--General Knox, General Charles Knox, General Bruce Hamilton and Lieut.-General Kelly-Kenny, who was pa.s.sing through on his way to Natal, and was just in time to see the captured guns.
It had been at one time rumoured that De Wet was waiting in the neighbourhood with the intention of making a dash at our convoy, while on its way to Lindley; and it was known that many Boers had been seen travelling north, while De Wet himself had been hanging about on the west of the railway. This disaster to his force and the loss of all the guns he had, not to mention his wagons and ammunition, completely upset his little plan, and spoilt our prospects of a fight.
We had been counting upon this, and had even settled that De Wet was to attack us as we pa.s.sed over Doornkloof; but now there was no chance, unless the enemy round Lindley were to concentrate and give us a show before we reached that town.
The mail arrived just before we left, and we saw in the Gazette that Lieut. Hopkins had been promoted Captain in the Manchester Regiment in recognition of his gallantry at Retief's Nek, when he and two men were recommended for the Victoria Cross. Lieut. Hopkins was now the youngest Captain in the army, as he had hardly completed two years' service.
We left Kroonstad early on the morning of the 10th of November, and moved over to the other side of the drift to the north of the town, about a couple of miles away, where we concentrated.
The convoy, a large one as usual, of about 200 wagons, was waiting for us; the column of troops was not a very large one, consisting only of the Camerons and ourselves: but we had a considerable number of mounted men under Lieut.-Colonel Rimington, besides three guns of the 39th Field Battery, under Captain Brock, and one pom-pom; the Colonial Division was to follow us up as soon as they arrived at Kroonstad.
We camped at night at our old spot, Welgevrede, where H company took the opportunity to erect a fence round and to turf over the grave of Private Shutton, who was killed on the last occasion of our coming this way.
The column moved the next morning at five o'clock, our half battalion with a gun and some Yeomanry being rear guard; there was a long halt just before reaching Doornkloof, while the mounted troops searched the surrounding country: and then the convoy and the baggage were pa.s.sed over and parked on the open ground on the other side of the kloof.
Remembering how our rear guard had been sniped when pa.s.sing through once before, we took special precautions this time, keeping the pickets out until the convoy had moved again, and giving the latter a good start before our last company left the top of the kopje. Not a Boer was to be seen, so we trekked on in peace, and camped once more at Quaggafontein, leaving that place at five o'clock the next morning. There were three bad drifts to cross on the way, and at one of them we had some hours'
hard work. We were advanced guard, and seeing how impa.s.sable in its then state the drift was, our companies were set to work in reliefs making a roadway across the mud and slush. There was a broken-down wagon at the drift, the bottom of which we utilised, to the horror of Major Cardew, the Brigade Transport Officer, filling in the s.p.a.ce with stones and earth. The Camerons came up soon, and some of them were told off to bring more stones so as to make a solid roadway; yet in places the terribly heavy, narrow-wheeled wagons sank to their axles each time, and there was hard work getting them over, what with the bad driving of the natives and the half wild state of the bullocks.
It was wonderful how the men worked, and how willing they all were to do their utmost to help matters on; there was no s.h.i.+rking or loafing about, but real solid work going on. Of course, we all knew that the sooner the job was got through and the wagons across, the earlier we would get into camp; but, apart from that, the willing cheerfulness to follow the lead of their officers has always been a prominent characteristic of Suss.e.x men.
While we were busy, the Colonial Division overtook us and pa.s.sed to the front; they were only a small force, composed of the Cape Mounted Riflemen and their four gun battery, but they were a fine smart lot of men, looking splendid soldiers.
We had a rest of an hour or so while the convoy was being got over, and started again about mid-day. Alongside the road ran the field telegraph wire, which had been dismantled for miles by the Boers, the wire being carried off and the poles broken; with an eye to their camp fires, the men soon began to pick up these poles and carry them along with them, so that we reached camp more like a regiment of dismounted Lancers than tired-out infantry: Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane was nothing to it!
Before reaching camp at Palmeitfontein we saw troops on the sky-line, and eventually found that they were two companies of our other half battalion, two of the Bedfords, and a gun, the whole under Lieut.-Colonel Donne, who had come out to meet us in case of any opposition among the hills between Quaggafontein and Lindley; there were some Boers about, but a few shots from the pom-pom made them scurry off.
The convoy got under weigh the next morning, at earliest dawn, and trekked the six miles which separated us from the town; and the troops followed a few hours later. Having got permission from the General, I rode on ahead to make arrangements about opening the Brigade Canteen as early as possible; the garrison of Lindley were very badly off for luxuries such as milk, jam and the like, and there had not been a box of matches or a bit of soap in the town for many days. Having secured five wagons at Kroonstad, by the good nature of Captain Atcherly, of the Divisional Staff, and other officers, it had been possible to load these up and bring them along with us for the beleaguered garrison, starving for cigarettes. A house had been secured and fitted up as a shop on our last visit to Lindley, the pioneer sergeant having painted the words, ”Canteen, 21st Brigade,” in enormous letters over the roof on both sides; they will remain for years as a memorial of our visit. Here the five wagons were off-loaded, the contents stacked inside the shop, and sold in limited quant.i.ties all that day and all the next day to the long queue of men at the door, patiently waiting their turn to get inside.
About 1,500 worth had been bought in Kroonstad, the traders this time, all smiles and bows, tumbling over each other and quoting lower and lower prices each day, in their eagerness to sell. Of this lot, quite 1,000 worth was sold in three days--of course only to soldiers.
Pay had been issued to our men and to the Camerons, so they all had lots of money to spend: having managed to secure a safe in Bothaville, advantage had been taken of the opportunity to bring out in it 1,000 in gold for the use of the half battalion which had remained in Lindley.
So now the whole battalion was together again, and we had a great deal to talk about, and plenty of news to give: the departure of the Volunteer company, the capture of the eight guns and the death of Le Gallais, and our own adventures during the time we had been away, forming topics of conversation for a long while. We had gone off for a seven days' trek, and had returned at the end of six weeks; we had been constantly on the move, we had been on six occasions under fire, and we had marched 278 miles.
The story of the garrison of Lindley showed that they must have had a somewhat anxious time during our absence--ever on the look out, and entirely ignorant of what was going on in the Orange River Colony, or of what had become of the rest of the battalion and the Brigade.