With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader

by G. A. Henty

"You don't say so, Chris? Then you had better luck than you deserved. One of the correspondents told me this morning that there was news in the town by a telegram from Lorenzo Marques that there had been an accidental explosion at Komati-poort, but it did not seem to be anything serious. Tell me all about it."

"I congratulate you most heartily," he said, when Chris had finished the story. "Of course you have written a report of it?"

"Here it is, sir. I have made it very brief, merely saying that I had the honour to report that, with Messrs. Peters, Brown, and Willesden, I succeeded in blowing up, with two hundredweight of dynamite, the things I have mentioned to you, destroying a large quantity of rolling stock, badly damaging five locomotives, and destroying roads and sidings to such an extent that traffic can hardly be resumed for a fortnight. Is the general here, sir?"

"No, but he will be here this afternoon. Now, I will not detain you from your friends. No doubt they saw you ride in, and will be most anxious to hear of your doings. You will hardly know them again. When they came up to join us they adopted the uniform of the corps, feeling that it would be uncomfortable going about in a large camp in civilian dress. They brought with them uniforms for you all, for they seemed very certain that you would return alive."

"I am very glad of that, sir, for the soldiers all stared at us as we came up here. I suppose they took us for sight-seers who had come up to witness the battle."

As they left the tent they found the rest of their party, gathered in a group twenty yards away, and the heartiest greeting was exchanged. The delight of the party knew no bounds when they found that their four friends had not had their journey in vain. They had two tents between them, and gathering in one of them they listened to Peters, who told the story, as Chris said he had told it twice, and should probably have to tell it again. The four lads at once exchanged their civilian clothes for the uniforms that had been brought up. They were, like those of the other Colonial corps, very simple, consisting of a loose jacket reaching down to the hip, with turned-down collar and pockets, breeches of the same light colour and material, loose to the knee and tighter below it; knee boots, and felt hats looped up on one side.

The first step when they were dressed was to mount an eminence some distance in rear of the camp, whence they had a view of the whole country. In front of them was a wide valley with a broad river running through it. Beyond it rose steep hills, range behind range. It was crossed by two bridges, that of the railway, which had been blown up and destroyed, and the road bridge, which was still intact; though, as Sankey, who had accompanied them, told them, it was known to be mined. To the left of the line of railway was a hill known as Grobler's Kloof, on the summit of which a line of heavy guns could be seen. There were other batteries on slopes at its foot commanding the bridge, to the right of which on another hill was Fort Wylie, and in a bend of the river by the railway could be seen the white roof of the church tower of Colenso. There was another battery behind this, and others still farther to the right on Mount Hlangwane. Heavy guns could be seen on other hills to the left of Grobler's Kloof; while far away behind Colenso was the crest of Mount Bulwana, from which a cannonade was being directed upon Ladysmith and an occasional white burst of smoke showed that the garrison were replying successfully. On all the lower slopes of the hills were lines, sometimes broken, sometimes connected, rising one above another. These were the Boer entrenchments, and Cairns said that he heard that they extended for nearly twenty miles both to the right and left.

"It is believed that we don't see anything like all of them," he went on, "but we really don't know much about them, for the Boers only answer occasionally from their great guns on the hilltops, and although yesterday the sailors fired lyddite shells at these lower trenches, there was no reply."

"It is an awful place to take," Chris said, after examining the hills for a quarter of an hour with his glasses. "We have seen that the Boers are no good in the open, but I have no doubt they will hold their entrenchments stubbornly, and it is certain that a great many of them are good shots. I have gone over the ground at Laing's Nek, and that was nothing at all in comparison to this position. Do you know how many there are supposed to be of them, Cairns?"

"They say that there are about twenty-five thousand of them, but no one knows exactly. Natives get through pretty often from Ladysmith, but they know no more there than we do here. They are all jolly and cheerful there, in the thought that they will soon be relieved."