The battlefield at this moment was a strange spectacle. Though hill and plain spurted continuous flame, a man standing midway between the two armies could have discerned little. It was not the battle of the past with masses of men theatrically manœuvring amidst clouds of smoke, but the battle of to-day—of the future—a weird, empty-looking smokeless field, where only the fearful din of hidden guns and rifles, of Maxims, Nordenfelts and Hotchkisses, of bursting shell and shrapnel, told of the presence of two combatant peoples. The troops, even the guns, were, as far as could be, behind cover, whence it followed that the effects of the artillery fight, though nerve-shaking enough, were incommensurate on either side with all the tremendous sound and fury. The air was thick with splinters, shells, shrapnel, and bullets, yet this mighty storm burst for the most part ineffectually on the veldt.
NAVAL 45-POUNDER (4·7) GUN.
This is one of the guns of H.M.S. Doris, mounted on Captain Scott's improvised carriage, and brought from the Cape to Durban by H.M.S. Powerful. The photograph was taken while the gun was on its way to the front.
[From a Photograph taken at Simonstown.
Brought half a battalion from Mauritius, on Captain Lambton's own initiative, when proceeding from China to the Cape; and furnished the contingent which arrived so opportunely at Ladysmith during the battle.
The guns brought off.
The two battalions of the King's Royal Rifles were the leading infantry, and as they were ordered to retreat came under a heavy fire, and were thrown into disastrous confusion. Indeed, for a moment it looked like complete rout, and had the enemy snatched his opportunity that would have been the end of the Ladysmith army. But with superb devotion the 53rd Field Battery galloped forward and prepared to offer the last sacrifice which artillery can make—to save the army at the cost of its own annihilation. The automatic Maxim shells rained upon the guns; a cloud of dust hid the 15-pounders from view; but the gunners stuck manfully, heroically to their task under a terrible cross-fire. For half-an-hour they held their ground; one limber was shattered; five out of six horses of one gun were killed. Then, at last, the five intact guns fell back. Nor was the sixth gun abandoned. Bombardier Saunders, Gunners Bright and Barron, and Drivers Macpherson, Darcy, and Stoddard, under Captain Thwaites, dashed back with a team and limber from the waggons and under a tremendous fire brought off the last weapon.
