With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader

by G. A. Henty

At ten o'clock General Woodgate was mortally wounded by the fragment of a shell that struck him in the eye, and Colonel Crofton took the command. He at once flashed a message to General Warren, stating that Woodgate was killed, and that reinforcements must be sent at once; General Coke was therefore ordered to take the Middlesex and Dorset regiments, and assume the command. Immediately afterwards Warren received an order from General Buller to appoint Lieutenant-colonel Thorneycroft, who was colonel of a colonial force, to take the command. It was now hoped that all was well there. Unfortunately, neither Buller nor Warren was able to give his undivided attention to the struggle on the mountain, for Lyttleton's brigade had advanced before daybreak against the eastern slopes of the hills running north from Spion Kop. They advanced briskly, their Maxims clearing out the Boers, from whose fire they suffered but little; but they sustained some loss from the shell fire from Mount Alice, the sailors having been as uninformed of the advance the brigade were to make as they were of the capture of Spion Kop. The Scottish Rifles and the 3rd King's Royal Rifles pushed on rapidly and gained the spur farthest north. Had there been guns on Spion Kop the object of the movement would have been attained, and the advance by direct road on Ladysmith have become a possibility; but no guns had reached the summit, and the troops there were so far from being able to render assistance that they were with difficulty maintaining their desperate resistance. As the two rifle regiments were therefore exposed to a concentrated fire from the Boer batteries, and were without support, they were directed to withdraw, but the order had to be repeated three times before it was obeyed. The fire slackened at this point to some extent in the afternoon, no farther advance being attempted, but it raged as hotly as ever on the summit of Spion Kop.

As neither General Buller nor Warren had come up to see the state of things on the all-important position of Spion Kop, General Coke went down in the evening to explain the situation. He stated that unless the artillery could silence the enemy's guns the troops could not support another day's shelling. In the evening two naval twelve-pounders, the R. A. mountain battery, and one thousand two hundred men as reliefs, started to ascend the hill and to strengthen the entrenchments. On the way up they met Colonel Thorneycroft and the rest of the force coming down, that officer, who had displayed splendid gallantry throughout the day, having decided on his own responsibility that the position could not be longer held. Strangely enough, the news of the retirement was not communicated to General Buller, who, after reporting in his despatches written next morning that Spion Kop was firmly held, was riding to the front when he for the first time learned the news. Altogether it was a day of strange blunders, redeemed only by the splendid bravery of the troops engaged. The news came as a heavy blow to the army, but it was supposed that a fresh attempt would be made to capture the position by ascending the northern spurs that had been carried and held for a time by the two rifle battalions. But while soldiers think only of the chances of battle, and burn to engage the enemy, a feeling only accentuated by previous failures, generals in command have to take other matters into consideration. They may feel that they may conquer in the next fight, but what is to follow? In this case the chances of success would be smaller than before, the loss more serious, for the Boers from all parts had united to oppose us. Many of the cannon had been brought over from the positions from which Ladysmith was bombarded. The advantage of surprise gained by the long march from Chieveley had been lost; more serious still was it that a large proportion of the provisions, brought at the cost of so much labour and exhaustion of the transport animals, was consumed, and what remained would be insufficient had fresh battles to be fought to capture the positions, one behind another, held by the Boers.

General Buller was the last man to retire as long as there was a hope of success. He knew that not only at home, but all over the civilized world, men were anxiously awaiting the news of his second attempt to relieve Ladysmith, and it must have been hard indeed for him to have to acknowledge a second reverse; but in spite of this he sternly determined to fall back. The movement was admirably executed; every horse, waggon, gun, and soldier was taken safely across the Tugela without hindrance by the Boers, a fact that showed how deeply they had been impressed with the valour of our soldiers. Sullenly and angrily the troops marched away. Had they had their will they would have hurled themselves against the Boer entrenchments until the last man had fallen. To them the necessities of the situation were as nothing; to retreat seemed an acknowledgment that they had been beaten, a feeling that is seldom entertained by British soldiers. Their losses had been heavy, but there were still enough of them, they thought, for the work they had to do, and it was with a deep feeling of unmerited humiliation that they received the order to retire.

The feeling, however, was not of long endurance, for two days later, when they had settled down in camp near the Tugela and round Spearman's Farm, the general rode through the lines, congratulating the troops on the valour they had displayed, and promising them that ere long they would be in Ladysmith.

"I shall be heartily glad when we are there," Chris said when he heard what the general had promised, "not only for the sake of the town, but for our own. We are really doing no good here. It is hateful to look on when other fellows are fighting so desperately. If it were not that the orders were strict against the mounted Colonial corps going out over the country, to clear the scattered Boers out, we might be doing useful service; and as soon as Ladysmith is relieved—that is to say, if we can hold out till we get there—I should certainly vote that we come back here instead of staying with the army, and go on again on our own account."

"I quite agree with you," Carmichael said. "Still, it is something to have seen two big fights."

"Yes," Brown grumbled, "but if we tell anybody that we were there, naturally the first question will be, 'What part did you take in it', and we shall have to own that we took no part at all, and only looked on at a distance at the other fellows fighting. I call it sickening."

"Well, never mind, Brown," Chris said; "after all, during this business, we have killed twice our own number of Boers at the least, and if everyone had done as much the Boers would be pretty well extinct."

"Yes, there is certainly something in that," Brown admitted, "but if we had been allowed to scout on our own account it would be hard if we had not killed twice as many more by this time."

"We certainly might have done so, but you must remember, also, that a great many of us might have been killed too. One cannot always expect to have the luck we had in those two fights; and, I am sure, we should bitterly regret gaps being made in our number."