On the 18th General Lyttelton's Brigade advanced in widely extended order from One Tree Hill—as the chief of the kopjes near Potgieter's Drift was named—towards the Boer lines, supported by the fire of the naval guns and howitzers. The shells searched the eastern face of Spion Kop, which had been assiduously bombarded on the previous day, causing the Boers, as they themselves admitted, heavy losses, and interrupting communication between their camps and laagers. Clouds, now yellow and green with the fumes of lyddite, now brown with the dust which its explosion threw up, flecked the slopes of the hills. But the enemy made no reply whatever. The great war balloon rose slowly into the air near One Tree Hill, and the officer in the car signalled that he could see the Boers lining their entrenchments, but could discover no guns. Thereupon the British infantry—the Scottish Rifles on the left, the 3rd King's Royal Rifles in the centre, and the 1st Rifle Brigade on the right—pushed forward in a convex line, making all possible use of cover. The object was to draw the enemy, to distract their attention from Sir Charles Warren, and to discover their positions. But they obstinately refused to be drawn; instinctively they had divined our purpose. Only from the hill on the British right front, known as Brakfontein, came a few shots which wounded two men. A second line of kopjes, one mile in advance of One Tree Hill, was reached and gained without incident, and there the brigade halted till night, and then under cover of darkness fell back.
"THE OUTLOOK" OVER THE TUGELA.
An officer of the Scottish Rifles explaining to his men the dispositions of the enemy.
The cavalry seize Acton Homes.
[Jan. 18-19, 1900.
During this interval of inactivity and demonstrations the mounted men under Lord Dundonald had been employed on more serious work. While Sir Charles Warren was collecting his baggage and transport, and moving his infantry force slowly a couple of miles northward, under the shadow of Spion Kop, the cavalry and mounted infantry rode six miles up the road to the north-west to the hamlet of Acton Homes. About mid-day a small force of Boers was made out, also moving west, and Major Graham of the Natal Carbineers, with 350 men of that body, of the Imperial Light Horse, and of the King's Royal Rifles' Mounted Infantry, was permitted to snare it if he could. He pushed forward rapidly, unobserved by the enemy, and seized a point commanding the road, where his men lay in ambush and waited. The Boers with unusual carelessness had sent out a German to scout, who reported that the way was clear. They came on unsuspectingly, and, but for a carbineer who fired before orders had been given, would have been destroyed to a man. As it was, at 300 yards range, they received a deadly volley and at once broke and ran over the smooth, open plain, some to the nearest kopje, others, more daring, across the veldt towards the Boer camps some miles away. The party which had taken refuge in the kopje was speedily surrounded, and an attempt was made—and abandoned when the Boer fire showed that it must cause unnecessary loss—to rush the position with the bayonet. "We got within fifty yards of the Dutchmen," said one of the King's Royal Rifles, "but it was too hot to go further." So the storming force retired, and a steady rifle fire was directed upon the kopje to bring the Boers to their senses. Once they showed the white flag without ceasing their fire, but the British troops had been warned what to expect, and paid no attention. Then a second time the white flag fluttered up and the shooting of the Boers stopped; with difficulty the British officers checked their indignant men. Several of the enemy rose and held up their hands; the kopje was taken. Twenty-four unwounded Boers were made prisoners, and, in addition to these, eight were found badly wounded. Ten more lay dead on the kopje, among them Field-Cornet de Mentz of Heilbron, who, though badly wounded at the beginning of the fight, had continued firing till he bled to death. Besides these losses, the party of Boers which had made its escape eastwards had also suffered to the extent of fifteen or twenty killed and wounded. The British casualties were only four—two men shot through the head and killed, and an officer and a private wounded. The affair, however, had no serious results and no strategical importance, though it showed that our Colonials were fully a match for the Boers in wiliness. To the Natal Carbineers the credit belongs.
BOERS AMBUSCADED BY BRITISH AND COLONIAL TROOPS UNDER MAJOR GRAHAM OF THE NATAL CARBINEERS.
No sooner had the enemy surrendered, than the British soldiers vied with each other in striving to comfort and succour the Boer wounded. The soldiers crowded round them, "covering them up with blankets or mackintoshes, propping their heads with saddles for pillows, and giving them water and biscuits from their bottles and haversacks. In an instant anger had changed to pity. The desire to kill was gone," wrote Mr. Churchill. The British mounted troops were ordered to return after their success, as the news had been heliographed from Ladysmith that a large force of Boers was moving with guns to cut them off, and they were beyond the reach of infantry support. Thus the original intention of seizing the Boer line of communications to the Drakensberg was abandoned without further effort.