Four Months Besieged: The Story of Ladysmith

by Henry H. S. Pearse

Not all in Ladysmith are of this heroic temper, but very few make open parade of fear if they have any, and though precautions are taken against exposure to unnecessary risks, there is no sign of panic yet. Soldiers, every one of whom may be very valuable as a fighting unit before this siege closes, are ordered to protect themselves by such shelter trenches or bomb-proofs as can be constructed out of loose stones, sandbags, forage bales, or other material that lies ready at hand. The works have to be built under shell-fire, but when finished they will be an inestimable advantage to regiments that occupy day and night hill-crests where they might be enfiladed by long-range artillery fire. That risk must, of course, be taken if the enemy's riflemen should harden their hearts for a determined frontal attack upon any position supported by flank fire from guns, but until such a critical moment arrives the men not actually on duty as sentries or outlying pickets will be little harassed by bursting shells or flying splinters or showers of shrapnel bullets, if they dig themselves good pits to lie in, with sufficiently thick coverings overhead.

The 1st Devon battalion, which, as one of the best here, and trusted for its steadiness in all circumstances, was given the most vulnerable point to hold, has busied itself in the formation of works that promise to make Helpmakaar Hill impregnable, though its long, low spur is exposed to artillery fire from Bulwaan and Lombard's Kop and the scrub-screened nek between them. The works there show what can be done under difficulties by a good regiment toiling cheerfully to carry out the orders of good officers. The original breastworks were traced by engineers who had in view rather the necessity of throwing up light defences against rifle fire than the probability that these works would be battered at by heavy artillery from one side and taken in reverse from another. It soon became evident that the entrenchments if left in that state would be untenable, and yet they could not be abandoned without serious risk that Boers might then be able to advance under cover near enough to threaten other posts, if not to command by rifle fire, within twelve hundred yards or so, the heights on which naval guns are mounted. Only by holding the contours of extreme spurs on Helpmakaar Hill could the Devons hope to sweep by rifle fire a wide zone of slightly undulating veldt, and thus command all possible approaches from Lombard's Kop or Bulwaan in that direction. So they stuck generally to the lines traced by engineers for their outer defences, but deepened the trenches, widened the banks in front of them, built bomb-proof traversers overlaid with balks and earth to neutralise the effects of enfilading fire, and then began to form for themselves dug-out huts in which to sleep, with solid earth roofs supported on railway sleepers.

All this means enormous labour, carried on frequently under a galling cannonade from the enemy's smaller guns, and interrupted occasionally by the necessity of having to keep down the rifle-fire that comes from a distant kopje, while standing on the front of these works.

Yesterday, watching a cavalry patrol that tried in vain to feel for a way through the scrubby nek into more open ground beyond, General Brocklehurst and his staff were nearly hit by a shell from some newly-mounted battery the exact position of which could not be located, for its smokeless powder made no flash that anybody could see in broad daylight, nor generated even the faintest wreath of vapour. Its projectile travelled faster than sound, so that the range could not have been great, but there was nothing by which our own batteries might have been directed to effective reply. We all abused "Long Tom" at first because of his unprovoked attack on a defenceless town, but by contrast with what is known among Devon men as the "Bulwaan Sneak," and among bluejackets as "Silent Susan," the big Creusot gun with its loud report, the low velocity of its projectiles, and the puff of white smoke giving timely warning when a shot is on its way, is regarded as quite a gentlemanly monster.

Following the example thus set by regiments on the main defensive positions, others temporarily in reserve have begun to build or dig for themselves splinter-or bomb-proof retreats, in which they may take shelter when the shelling becomes too hot. The Imperial Light Horse were first to hit upon the idea of burrowing into the river-banks. They began by forming mere niches, in which there was only just room enough for three or four men to stand huddled together when they heard a shell coming. Finding, however, that the soil could be easily dug out, they set gangs of natives to work lengthening the tunnels and connecting them by "cross drives," in the planning of which several Johannesburg mine managers found congenial occupation. This went on until the river-bank for a hundred yards in length was honeycombed by dark caves, in which a whole regiment might have been hidden with all its ammunition, secure from shell fire, the walls and roofs being so formed that they needed no additional support. There was no danger of the stiff alluvial soil falling in even if a shell had buried itself and burst above the entrance to any of these cool grottoes.

I spent half an hour in one of them, and found the air there delightful by contrast with scorching sunshine outside. What it will be, however, after many people have been crowded together for some time is less pleasant to contemplate, but even for that the resourceful Imperial Light Horse are prepared, and they already begin to talk of air-shafts so cunningly contrived that light and air may enter, but shells be rigidly excluded. Civilians in their turn emulate the Light Horse, but with unequal success, and their excavations assume such primitive forms that future archæologists may be puzzled to invent satisfactory explanations of curious differences in the habits of the cave-dwellers of Ladysmith, as exemplified by the divergent types of their underground abodes.

And, indeed, these habits are strangely various even as presented to the eyes of a contemporary student. Some people, having spent much time and patient labour in making burrows for themselves, find life there so intolerably monotonous that they prefer to take the chances above ground. Others pass whole days with wives and families or in solitary misery where there is not light enough to read or work, scarcely showing a head outside from sunrise to sunset. They may be seen trooping away from fragile tin-roofed houses half an hour before daybreak carrying children in their arms, or a cat, or monkey, or a mongoose, or a cage of pet birds, and they come back similarly laden when the night gets too dim for gunners to go on shooting. There would be a touch of humour in all this if it were not so deeply pathetic in its close association with possible tragedies. One never knows where or at what hour a stray shot or splinter will fall, and it is pitiful sometimes to hear cries for dolly from a prattling mite who may herself be fatherless or motherless to-morrow. We think as little as possible of such things, putting them from us with the light comment that they happen daily elsewhere than in besieged towns, and making the best we can of a melancholy situation.

There are, I believe, many good reasons why Sir George White should allow his army to be hemmed in here defending a practically deserted town, apart from the ignominy that abandonment would entail, and it is probably sound strategy to keep Boer forces here as long as possible while preparations are being matured for attacking them from other directions. On the latter point one cannot express an opinion without full knowledge of the circumstances such as we cannot hope to get while communications are cut off. But nobody can pretend to regard our present inaction following investment as anything but a disagreeable necessity, or affect a cheerful endurance of conditions that become more intolerable day after day. Now and then we have hopes that the Boers may risk everything in a general attack with the object of carrying this place by storm, when they would most certainly be beaten off and lose heavily.