South Africa and the Transvaal War (Vol. 1-8). Louis Creswicke
successful, would immediately arrest the threatened tide of rebellion. The worst of it was that everything depended on the strength of the move, and it was exactly this strength that was wanting. The Third Division was broken up and distributed in various parts of the country, and General Gatacre was forced to make a hazardous venture with only such forces as he could muster. On all sides the same unfortunate tale of weakness could be told. Our force was so divided up that each general was crippled with the consciousness that he had no hope of getting reinforcements for some time to come. Lord Methuen, now on the extreme west, while struggling for the relief of Kimberley, had kept the Free Staters at bay with great loss to himself, and was suffering from the weakness consequent on violent strain to his resources. General French, his eye fixed on Colesberg, with a diminutive and totally inadequate force, had dodged about from town to town, keeping the enemy ever on the alert and allowing him no time to snore behind his intrenchments, and no opportunity to proceed farther in his invasion of the Colony; while General Gatacre was now about to do his best in the midst of a swarming enemy to capture Stormberg. Thus we see that at one and the same time four different battles, in the most trying circumstances, were taking place in the Transvaal, and that the flower of our army was being exposed on all sides to the murderous shells of an overwhelming foe powerfully posted in places of his own choosing—at Modder River, at Arundel, at Stormberg, at Colenso—in each of these regions the continuous thunder of guns, the gallant advance of heroes, the stubborn and courageous defence of a preponderating enemy. It is some satisfaction to think that, though from the first the British suffered from inferiority in numbers, though they were out-fought by sheer weight of the Boer commandoes and guns, still they displayed an undismayed front, and those superb fighting qualities which tradition has taught us to look for in the British race, and which the enemy, misled or self-deceived, had chosen to under-estimate. It was also a matter for congratulation that the foe, with all the natural advantages of the situation, his knowledge of every inch of the ground, his great mobility and advanced preparations, merely succeeded in repelling the British attack, and never took the initiative in attempting one single forward movement in the face of the British army. But it must be allowed our own forward moves were so stubbornly resisted, that General Sir William Gatacre, while attempting to advance, recognised that in some bold and well-conceived plan of action lay his only chance of success. Such a plan he attempted to carry out, but with deplorable results, as we shall see.
THE REVERSE AT STORMBERG
General Gatacre left Putter's Kraal and concentrated at Molteno the 2nd Northumberland, 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, and Nos. 74 and 77 Batteries of Field Artillery, with Mounted Infantry, Cape Mounted Rifles, the 12th Company of Engineers, and details—in all about 2500 men. At 9 p.m. on December 9th, began the march that was destined to be so ill-fated. The night was black, the ground was rocky, and the guide, a local policeman, from ignorance, under-estimated the distance and led the troops by a circuitous route absolutely into the teeth of the enemy. Instead of going north-east for nine miles, the men were led north-west, a detour of twenty miles. A terrible night-march this, which none who undertook it can ever forget. Tramp, tramp, through the long midnight hours, over hills and down nullahs, through rivers and stumbling over stony kopjes with bayonets fixed, in grim silence, with scarce a whisper allowed, and with never a pipe as consolation lest the scent should betray the stealthy advance. For seven long hours the force, like a phantom procession, trudged and stumbled until they came to a small V-shaped plateau surrounded by kopjes, which, unknown to them, was fronting the enemy's position. This was on a high unscalable eminence called Rooi Kop, that jutted black against the clear grey of early morning. From here the Boers, chuckling doubtless at their own cunning, were slyly watching the approach of the party; for it was now dawn. On nearing the plateau below this eminence, the Irish Rifles, with General Gatacre and his staff at the head of the column, were greeted, to their astonishment, by a fierce tornado which was suddenly opened by the enemy on the right. Though the column was marching in fours and utterly unsuspicious of the position of the enemy, they gathered themselves together with marvellous rapidity. Following the Rifles were over a hundred of the Northumberland Fusiliers, and in the rear the artillery. In a very short space of time General Gatacre got his column into line for action, and a hot fight ensued, in which the Rifles—all honour to them!—distinguished themselves in distressing circumstances. It was not possible to recover easily from the surprise, and it was evident that the General and his men were totally unprepared to meet, and unequal to crushing, a powerful enemy in an intrenched position. Naturally the casualties were many. However, the artillery were soon climbing a small kopje on the left, while the Rifles and Northumberland Fusiliers, in skirmishing order, mounted the hill held by the Republicans. Footsore and weary with their long midnight march, they toiled up the steeps amidst a cruel hailstorm from the enemy's fire, which came pouring at the same time from three separate quarters in flank and rear. One of the almost impregnable hill-tops was gained at the point of the bayonet, but so furious became the storm of bullets that the British, now outnumbered at the rate of seven to one, were forced to retire. Meanwhile the artillery were drawing the fire of the enemy's guns and launching their shrieking shells into the fort that the Boers had constructed at the corner of the kopje. But the position was unassailable. The Boers had expected the attack, and by an elaborate system they had measured and marked off distances from their batteries—a system which could not be upset in a moment. The Dutchmen swarmed in hundreds behind excellent cover and were not to be routed. Our men, who, many of them, had been occupied the whole previous day in fatigue-work, were numb from exhaustion, dropping here and there, fainting or asleep, in the very face of death.
Map illustrating the Operations on the South of the Orange River
The infantry, with the Maxim detachment, were then ordered to retire towards Molteno, while the artillery remained to cover the retreat. But the retirement was not so easy. The triumphant Boers now brought their guns to the tops of the kopjes, and sent shell after shell to catch the troops as they slowly wound along the valley. Many of the shells burst with terrific force, ploughing up the roadway around our men, and shooting clouds of blinding dust into eyes and ears and throats, but fortunately doing little damage. The Boers also brought their rifles to bear on the little force, and our worn-out troops suffered the horrible experience of being hunted like hares along roads through which they had so laboriously, so hopefully, toiled the night before, tramping the weary ten miles to Molteno with the enemy taking long shots at them from innumerable points of vantage. Their progress was necessarily slow, for sometimes they had to hide in cornfields, to crouch among boulders, and occasionally to fall prone to earth when shells came screaming and bursting along their line of route. Afterwards they would rise again, still holding their life in their hands, and plod on in the expectation that every step would be their last. For eight long miles this exciting form of torture was experienced, numbers of the poor fellows dropping all along the road from wounds, exhaustion, and from the effects of the now fiercely blazing sun. Terrible was their plight both during the attack and after it, for the Boers, as usual, paid no heed to the sacred demand of the wounded or of the white flag, and no sooner saw a party of stretcher-bearers approach to pick up a man than they made the event the signal for a volley. All, therefore, that could be done for those stricken down was to wait patiently till they could crawl a short distance out of the line of fire and swoop down on them and bear them hastily away. The unfortunates who were too severely wounded to so crawl, and those who were killed, had to be left where they fell. Nor did those who were successfully removed in the ambulance waggon fare much better, for this was fired on continually, but luckily, owing to the shells not bursting, caused more horror than harm.
They reached Molteno at last in safety, but with numbers woefully thinned. When they formed up for the roll-call, the ominous silence that followed the call of name after name was more than tragic. Dismay blanched every face. Where were the 366 splendid fellows of the Northumberland Regiment who had started out in rude health only the night before? They were missing, perhaps dead! Where, too, were the roistering, cheery boys of the Royal Irish Rifles—some 294 of them—none of whom, when his name was spoken, was