All through the night of January 16-17 General Lyttelton's Brigade [Jan. 16-17, 1900. was crossing the Tugela at Potgieter's Drift, fording the river or ferrying over in the pontoons and ferry-boat. Before dawn the six 5-inch howitzers had followed the infantry and taken their post in the line of kopjes, at One Tree Hill, the foremost point which the British advance had reached. Meantime, General Hildyard with the Second Brigade, to impress the Boers with the belief that the main attack would be delivered from the east, and to divert attention from the west, had deployed his men and made as if to cross at Skiet's Drift. But, as night wore on, he too, had stolen off towards Trichardt's Drift, ten miles to the west, whither in eager haste all Sir Charles Warren's force was marching. Three brigades of infantry, six batteries of artillery, and almost all the cavalry and mounted infantry were concentrating upon this point. Rain fell in torrents, hampering the movement and delaying the transport; yet before dawn the combatants were in place and ready to begin. "It was not possible," says Mr. Churchill, "to stand unmoved and watch the ceaseless living stream—miles of stern-looking men, marching in fours so quickly that they often had to run to keep up, of artillery, ammunition columns, supply columns, baggage, slaughter-cattle, thirty great pontoons, white-hooded, red-crossed ambulance waggons, all the accessories of an army hurrying forward under cover of night—and before them a guiding star, the red gleam of war." The march through the mud, however, had wearied the men; still more so the alternations of running and halting, which showed that the staff, from unfamiliarity with the work of handling and moving large bodies of troops, had made faulty arrangements. And thus, when in the small hours of the early morning the column, anxious for action, looked down upon the river, and up across it at the solemn precipices of Spion Kop beyond, nothing happened. Perhaps the pontoons to bridge the stream had dropped behind on the muddy roads; perhaps the general thought it inexpedient to launch weary troops forthwith against the enemy. But to the men the delay seemed exasperating; they knew that they would pay dearly for it with their lives and that they had made haste in vain, since the Boers were to be allowed time to extend their lines yet further to the west, once more compelling a frontal attack.
[Photo by Middlebrook.
The enemy entrenching.
Jan. 17, 1900.] Warren's Divisions Cross the Tugela.
The night and the early hours of the day passed in inactivity. On the hills opposite the Boers were already at their work of raising stone breastworks and laboriously digging and blasting entrenchments, while hour after hour reinforcements poured in. To the Boer the spade was a weapon only one degree less useful than the rifle. Our soldiers, taught to despise cover and untrained in the use of entrenchments, watched with mingled contempt and apprehension these proceedings of the enemy, and, as line after line of defences showed faintly on the green and brown surface of the hills, wondered at the measured deliberation of their own generals, contrasting strangely as it did with the furious energy of the men opposed to them. At last, about 8 a.m. of January 17, the crossing began. A patrol of Light Horse rode down to the river; the Devons and West Yorkshires followed; the field batteries on the heights overlooking the drift drew up in line and prepared to open; from the right through the morning air came the thunder of the howitzers and the heavy thud of the naval guns on Spearman's Hill, telling that General Lyttelton was already in action. The uproar of battle re-echoed through this remote mountain land and reverberated in the lonely eyries of Taba Myama. Thick wet mist still enveloped the hill-tops and gave the country an air of eeriness and mystery; it lifted only towards mid-day as the sun's rays dispelled it. The West Yorkshires were the first to cross, ferried over in pontoons; the engineers set to work to build two bridges, both above the drift, the one of pontoons and the other of trestles. The first was completed in a couple of hours. The work was scarcely interrupted by the Boers. A handful of snipers fired a few shots at the British covering party of infantry and killed a soldier of the Devons, but beyond this the enemy showed no disposition to harass the attacking force, although, had they done so, there is little doubt that they could have inflicted considerable loss. Their unwillingness to leave cover, on this as on many other occasions during the campaign in Natal, permitted operations to be carried on with comparative safety, which a more enterprising enemy could have rendered highly dangerous, or even disastrous. With the Boers it was an object to risk as little as possible their lives and limbs; on our side the error was quite in the opposite direction.
A. J. Gough.]
Several men and horses were swept away by the current in the crossing of Wagon Drift, and one trooper was drowned in spite of Captain Tremayne's gallant attempt to rescue him.
The British field batteries opened fire and searched the north bank of the river with a storm of shrapnel, while the infantry discharged a few volleys. There was no return of their fire by the Boers, and the cannonade died away.