With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader

by G. A. Henty

CHAPTER XV — SPION KOP

The country immediately round Springfield was level and well cultivated, with pretty farmhouses and orchards scattered about. Some little distance to the west rose two hills, Swartz Kop, which had been occupied by the mounted infantry, and Spearman's Hill, named from a farm near its base. Here General Buller had established his head-quarters. Spearman's Hill, which was generally called Mount Alice, was a very important position, and here the naval guns were placed, their fire commanding the greater portion of the hills on the other side of the Tugela, and also Potgieter's Drift, where it was intended the passage of the river should be made. Swartz Kop was a less important position, though it also dominated a wide extent of country; but as ridges on the other side covered some important points from its fire, Mount Alice was selected as the position for the naval battery, and also for the signallers, as from here a direct communication could be kept up by heliograph and flash-light with one of the hills held by the defenders of Ladysmith.

[Image: THE NAVAL GUNS ON MOUNT ALICE]

It was late on the 16th when the convoy which the Maritzburg Scouts were escorting arrived at Springfield. All day they had heard the boom of artillery and the rattle of machine-guns and musketry along the line of hills on the other side of the Tugela and from the heights of Mount Alice, and groaned in spirit as they laboured at their work of assisting the waggons, that they were thus employed when hard fighting was going on within eight miles of them.

At half-past two that day Lyttleton's brigade had moved forward along the foot of Mount Alice to force the passage of the river at Potgieter's drift. As soon as the Boers caught sight of them, they could be seen galloping forward to take their places in the trenches.

A thunder-storm that burst and a torrent of rain screened the movements of the advancing troops from view for some time, and enabled them to near the river without having to pass through any shell fire from the Boer batteries on the hilltops. Between Mount Alice and the river the brigade passed across meadows and ploughed fields. They reached the ferry, but the boat was stuck fast, and an hour was lost at this point before a party of sailors and colonial troops accustomed to such work came forward to the aid of the Engineers, and speedily got it into working order. But in the meantime the Scottish Rifles and the Rifle Brigade had moved along the banks to the drift. Although usually almost dry, the water was now coming down it breast-deep. Two gallant fellows went across, and when they found the line of shallow water they returned and guided their comrades over. The rush of the water was so great that many would have been swept away; but, joining hands, they crossed in a line, and although this was broken several times, it was always reformed, and not many lives were lost.

As soon as some of the troops had passed, they lined the bank until the two battalions were over, and then advanced over some low hills, clearing out a few Boers who occupied some advanced trenches. By six o'clock the ferry-boat began to carry the main body across, taking over half a company at a time; but it was not until half-past three in the morning that the horses, waggons, the guns of the brigade, and a howitzer battery were on the northern bank, and the whole brigade established on a ridge a mile beyond the river.

The Maritzburg Scouts were delighted at receiving orders on the morning after their arrival at Springfield that they were to move forward at once and encamp close to Spearman's Farm, and to furnish orderlies for carrying messages for the general. They started at once, and after an hour's fast riding arrived at the point assigned to them.

Twenty men and an officer were at once sent to the farmhouse. They took with them three tents which they had brought in the regimental waggon, and erected these some fifty yards from the house; the rest of the troop established their camp at a point indicated by a staff officer a quarter of a mile away. It had been two o'clock in the morning before the convoy had reached Springfield, and horses and men were alike tired out; and as soon as breakfast had been prepared and eaten most of the troopers turned in to sleep. Chris and half a dozen of his party, however, obtained leave from Captain Brookfield to ascend Mount Alice and see what was going on. From half-past five a tremendous fire had been kept up on the Boer positions. The naval guns were distributing their heavy lyddite shells among the entrenchments distant from three to six miles, and occasionally throwing up a missile on to the summit of the lofty hill known as Spion Kop away to the left front. Not less steadily or effectively the howitzer battery was pounding the Boer position.

At eight o'clock the lads reached the top of Mount Alice, and watched with intense interest the picturesque and exciting scene. Here they were far better able than they had been when at Chieveley to see the general aspect of the country. On the right from Grobler's Kloof hill after hill, separated apparently by shallow depressions, rose, and from the higher points occasional flashes of fire burst out as the guns tried their range against those on Mount Alice, whose heights, however, they failed to reach. Spion Kop stood out steep and threatening, its summit being some hundred feet higher than that of Mount Alice. They could now see that it was not, as it had appeared from the distance, an isolated and almost conical hill, but was, in fact, connected with hills farther to the left by a ridge of which it was the termination.