CHAPTER V
THE FIRST BOER ASSAULT
Joubert's boast—The preliminaries of attack—Shells in the town—A simultaneous advance—Observation Hill threatened—A wary enemy—A prompt repulse—Attack on Tunnel Hill—The colour-sergeant's last words—Manchesters under fire—Prone behind boulders—A Royal salute—The Prince of Wales's birthday—Stretching the Geneva Convention—The redoubtable Miss Maggie—The Boer Foreign Legion—Renegade Irishmen—A signal failure.
From the first moment of complete investment here my belief (continues Mr. Pearse, writing on 9th November) has been that the Boers would never venture to push an infantry attack against this place to the point of a determined assault. This opinion is strengthened by to-day's events. Yet it is said that Joubert believes he could take Ladysmith by a coup de main at any time were it not for his fear of mines, which he believes have been secretly laid at many points round our positions. His riflemen certainly did not come close enough to test the truth of this belief to-day, but contented themselves with shooting from very safe cover at long ranges. If they could have shaken our troops at any point they would doubtless have taken advantage of it to push forward and take up other equally sheltered positions, whence they might have practised their peculiar tactics with possibly greater effect. These methods, however, lack the boldness necessary for an assault on positions held by disciplined troops, and having no single objective they are gradually frittered away in isolated and futile skirmishes, whereby the defenders are to some extent harassed, but the defences in no way imperilled.
Our enemies began at five o'clock this morning with artillery fire from Bulwaan and Rietfontein on Pepworth's Hill. This unusual activity so early warned us that some movement of more than ordinary importance might be expected. All preparations for the possibility of an attack more determined than the feeble feelers of yesterday had been made in good time, so that there was no hurrying of forces to take up or strengthen positions that might be threatened, and the Boers were evidently somewhat puzzled where to look for the masses of men who showed no sign of movement They thereupon took to shelling the town as if they thought our troops might be concentrating there, and under cover of this vigorous bombardment their riflemen advanced, so far as caution would permit them, against several points wide apart. It must have been with the idea of a feint that they made the first attack from westward against Observation Hill, which was held by outposts of the 5th Lancers, dismounted and trusting to their carbine fire, the ineffectiveness of which, when opposed to Mauser rifles of greater accuracy at long range, soon became evident.
Two companies of the Rifle Brigade had, however, been moved forward to support the cavalry, and their steady shooting checked the enemy's frontal attack. Several officers and other picked shots, lying prone behind boulders, took on the Boers at their own game with perceptible effect at 1200 yards or more, thereby keeping down a fire that might otherwise have harassed our men, who were necessarily exposed at times in taking up positions to meet some change of tactics on the other side. Boers never expose themselves when they find bullets falling dangerously close to them. They will be behind a rock all day if need be, waiting for the chance of a pot-shot, and stay there until darkness gives them an opportunity to get away unseen. They give no hostages to fortune by taking any risks that can be avoided. The game of long bowls and sniping suits them best. When one place gets too hot for them to pot quickly at our men without risk of being potted in turn, they will steal away one by one, wriggling their way between boulders, creeping under cover of bushes, doing anything rather than show themselves as targets for other men's rifles.
They have made the most of physical features, that in this country lend themselves to such tactics, by occupying hills with heavy artillery, in front of which are rough kopjes strewed with trap rock, and round these the Boer riflemen can always move for advance or retirement well screened from our fire. They have, however, to reckon sometimes with the far-reaching power of shrapnel shells. When they ignore that we may manage to catch them in a cluster.
So it happened to-day. After being beaten off from the direct attack on Observation Hill they began feeling round its left flank by way of kopjes, between which and our outposts there is a long bare nek, and in rear of that the railway line to Van Reenan's Pass runs through a deep cutting with open ground beyond. To effect a turning movement of any significance the Boers had choice of two things: either they must show themselves on spurs where there was scant cover, or take to the cutting; and we knew by experience which they would prefer. In anticipation of such a development one field-battery had been placed on the rough slope that juts northward from Range Post, through which runs the main road to Colenso in the south and to several of the Drakensberg passes in the west. Up through a gorge deeply fretted by Klip River this battery commanded the long bare nek. Two other guns, the Maxim-Nordenfelts of Elandslaagte, manned by a comparatively weak detachment, took up a position on their own account at the foot of King's Post near our old permanent, but now disused, camp, whence they could bring a fire to bear on the same point. All tried a few percussion shells by way of testing the range and then turned to the use of shrapnel, which, admirably timed, burst just beyond the nek, searching its reverse slopes and enfilading the railway ravine with a hail of bullets, where apparently the Boers must have been caught in some numbers. At any rate they are said to have lost heavily there, and from that time the attack or rather fusilade directed against Observation Hill began to slacken. We had not many men hit considering that the skirmish had begun soon after daybreak and continued with little cessation up to nine o'clock, when the Rifle Brigade reported three wounded, one being young Lieutenant Lethbridge, who is so badly injured that recovery in his case can hardly be hoped for.
We had not, however, done with the enemy by repulsing him at one point. His big guns opened again presently from Blaauwbank and Rietfontein to the west and north. A smaller battery on Long Hill echoed the deep boom from "Long Tom," who was carrying on a duel with our naval gun, and throwing shells over the town, to burst very near Sir George White's headquarters. Field-guns from the nek near Lombard's Kop joined in chorus, shooting with effect on Tunnel Hill, held by the Liverpools, several of whom were hit. Colour-Sergeant Macdonald went out of the bomb-proof to mark where one shell had struck, when another burst on the same spot, and he fell terribly mangled by jagged fragments of iron. His comrades rushed to aid him, but he died in their arms, saying simply, "What a pity it was I went out to see." In truth the shells did not want looking for to-day. They were falling in rapid succession from one end of Bulwaan on Helpmakaar Hill, where the Devons, thanks to having taken wise precautions in making bomb-proof shelters, suffered little, though "Puffing Billy" turned occasionally to hurl a 94-pounder in that direction when tired of raking Cæsar's Camp and Maiden's Castle, where the Manchesters had not only their flank exposed to this fire, but were smitten in front by a heavy gun the Boers had mounted on Flat-Top Mountain, some three miles off, and by smaller shells that came from automatic guns hidden among scrub on the nearer slopes across Bester's Farm. These did little harm, though the repeated thuds of their discharge, like the rapid strokes of a Nasmyth hammer on its anvil, might have shaken the resolution of any but the steadiest troops, seeing that our field-battery on Maiden's Castle could not for a long time locate the exact hiding-place of those vicious little weapons, and when they did get a chance, the enemy's heavy artillery replied to their fire with a more persistent cannonade than ever. The Manchesters stood manfully the test of long exposure to this galling storm of iron and lead, their fighting line continuing to hold the outer slopes, where from behind boulders they could overlook the hollow between them and their foes, and get occasionally shots at any Boer who happened to show himself incautiously. That did not happen often, and their chances of effective reply to the bullets or shells that lashed the ground about them were few at first.