With the Boer Forces

by Howard Clemens Hillegas

In the east the low hills were dotted with men in brown. To the right and left of them, a thousand yards apart, were Boer horsemen circling around kopjes and seeking positions for attacking the already vanquished but stubborn enemy. Rifle fire had ceased and cannon sounded only at intervals of a few minutes. Women at the doors of the two farmhouses in the centre of the battlefield, and a man drawing water at a well near by, were not inharmonious with the quietness and calmness of the moment, but the epoch of peace was of short duration. The Boer horsemen stemmed the retreat of the men in brown, and compelled them to retrace their steps. Another body of burghers made a wide détour north-eastward from the spruit, and, jumping from their horses, crept along under the cover of an undulation in the ground for almost a half-mile to a point which overlooked the route of the British retreat.

The enemy was slow in coming, and a few of the Boers lay down to sleep. Others filled their pipes and lighted them, and one abstracted a pebble from his shoe. As the cavalrymen drew nearer to them the burghers crept forward several paces and sought the protection of rocks or piled stones together in the form of miniature forts. “Shall we fire now?” inquired a beardless Free State youth. “Wait until they come nearer,” replied an older burgher close by. Silence was maintained for several minutes, when the youth again became uneasy. “I can hit the first one of those Lancers,” he begged, as he pointed with his carbine to a cavalryman known to the Boers as a “Lancer,” whether he carried a lance or not. The cannon in the south urged the cavalrymen forward with a few shells delivered a short distance behind them, and then the old burgher called to the youth, “See if you can hit him now.”

The boy missed the rider but killed the horse, and the British force quickly dismounted and sought shelter in a small ravine. The reports of volley firing followed, and bullets cut the grass beside the burghers and flattened themselves against the rocks. Another volley, and a third, in rapid succession, and the burghers pressed more closely to the ground. An interval of a minute, and they glanced over their tiny stockades to find a British soldier. “They are coming up the kopje!” shouted a burgher, and their rifles swept the hillside with bullets. More volleys came from below and, while the leaden tongues sang above and around them, the burghers turned and lay on their backs to refill the magazines of their rifles. Another interval, and the attack was renewed. “They are running!” screamed a youth exultingly, and burghers rose and fired at the men in brown at the foot of the kopje. Marksmen had their opportunity then, and long aim was taken before a shot was fired. Men knelt on the one knee and rested an elbow on the other, while they held their rifles to their shoulders. Reports of carbines became less frequent as the troops progressed farther in an opposite direction, but increased again when the cavalrymen returned for a second attack upon the kopje. “Lend me a handful of cartridges, Jan,” asked one man of his neighbour, as they watched the oncoming force.

“They must want this kopje,” remarked another burgher jocularly, as he filled his pipe with tobacco and lighted it.

The British cannon in the east again became active, and the dust raised by their shells was blown over the heads of the burghers on the kopje. The reports of the big guns of the Boers reverberated among the hills, while the regular volleys of the British rifles seemed to be beating time to the minor notes and irregular reports of the Boer carbines. At a distance the troops moving over the brown field of battle resembled huge ants more than human beings; and the use of smokeless powder, causing the panorama to remain perfectly clear and distinct, allowed every movement to be closely followed by the observer. Cannon poured forth their tons of shells, but there was nothing except the sound of the explosion to denote where the guns were situated. Rifles cut down lines of men, but there was no smoke to indicate where they were being operated, and unless the burghers or soldiers displayed themselves to their enemy there was nothing to indicate their positions. Shrapnel bursting in the air, the reports of rifles and heavy guns and the little puffs of dust where shells and bullets struck the ground were the only evidences of the battle’s progress. The hand-to-hand conflicts, the duels with bayonets and swords and the clouds of smoke were probably heroic and picturesque before the age of rapid-fire guns, modern rifles, and smokeless ammunition, but here the field of battle resembled a country fox-chase with an exaggerated number of hunters, more than a representation of a battle of twenty-five years ago.

On the summit of the kopje the burghers were firing leisurely but accurately. One man aimed steadily at a soldier for fully twenty seconds, then pressed the trigger, lowered his rifle and watched for the effect of the shot. Bullets were flying high over him, and the shrapnel of the enemy’s guns exploded far behind him. There seemed to be no great danger, and he fired again. “I missed that time,” he remarked to a burgher who lay behind another rock several yards distant. His neighbour then fired at the same soldier, and both cried simultaneously: “He is hit!” The enemy again disappeared in the little ravine, and the burghers ceased firing. Shells continued to tear through the air, but none exploded in the vicinity of the men, and they took advantage of the lull in the battle to light their pipes. A swarm of yellow locusts passed overhead, and exploding shrapnel tore them into myriads of pieces, their wings and limbs falling near the burghers. “I am glad I am not a locust,” remarked a burgher farther to the left of the others, as he dropped a handful of torn fragments of the insects. Shells and bullets suddenly splashed everywhere around the burghers, and they crouched more closely behind the rocks. The enemy’s guns had secured an accurate range, and the air was filled with the projectiles of iron and lead. Exploding shells splintered rocks into atoms and sent them tearing through the grass. Puffs of smoke and dirt were springing up from every square yard of ground, and a few men rose from their retreats and ran to the rear where the Basuto servants were holding their horses. More followed several minutes afterwards, and when those who remained on the summit of the kopje saw that ten times their number of soldiers were ascending the hill under cover of cannon fire they also fled to their horses.

An open plain half a mile wide lay between the point where the burghers mounted their horses, and another kopje in the north-east. The men lay closely on their horses’ backs, plunged their spurs in the animals’ sides, and dashed forward. The cavalrymen, who had gained the summit of the kopje meanwhile, opened fire on the fleeing Boers, and their bullets cut open the horses’ sides and ploughed holes into the burgher’s clothing. One horse, a magnificent grey who had been leading the others, fell dead as he was leaping over a small gully, and his rider was thrown headlong to the ground. Another horseman turned in his course, assisted the horseless rider to his own brown steed, and the two were borne rapidly through the storm of bullets towards the kopje. Another horse was killed when he had carried his rider almost to the goal of safety, and the Boer was compelled to traverse the remainder of the distance on foot. Apparently all the burghers had escaped across the plain, and their field-cornet was preparing to lead them to another position when a solitary horseman, a mere speck of black against a background of brown, lifeless grass, issued from a rocky ravine below the kopje occupied by the enemy, and plunged into the open space. Lee-Metfords cracked and cut open the ground around him, but the rider bent forward and seemed to become a part of his horse. Every rod of progress seemed to multiply the fountains of dust near him; every leap of his horse seemed necessarily his last. On, on he dashed, now using his stirrups, now beating his horse with his hands. It seemed as if he were making no progress, yet his horse’s legs were moving so swiftly. “They will get him,” sighed the field-cornet, looking through his glasses. “He has a chance,” replied a burgher. Seconds dragged wearily, the firing increased in volume, and the dust of the horse’s heels mingled with that raised by the bullets. The sound of the hoofs beating down on the solid earth came louder and louder over the veld, the firing slackened and then ceased, and a foaming, panting horse brought his burden to where the burghers stood. The exhausted rider sank to the ground, and men patted the neck and forehead of the quivering beast.

Down in the valley, near the spruit, the foreign military attachés in uniforms quite distinct were watching the effect of the British artillery on the saddle belonging to one of their number. “They will never hit it,” volunteered one, as a shell exploded ten yards distant from the leathern mark.

“They must think it is a crowd of Boers,” suggested another, when a dozen shells had fallen without injuring the saddle. Fifteen, twenty tongues of dust arose, but the leather remained unmarred by scratch or rent, and the attachés became the target of the heavy guns. “I am hit,” groaned Lieutenant Nix, of the Netherlands-Indian army, and his companions caught him in their arms. Blood gushed from a wound in the shoulder, but the soldier spirit did not desert him. “Here, Demange!” he called to the French attaché, “Hold my head. And you, Thompson and Allen, see if you cannot bind this shoulder.” The Norwegian and Hollander bound the wound as well as they were able. “Reichman!” the injured man whispered, “I am going to die in a few minutes, and I wish you would write a letter to my wife.” The American attaché hastily procured paper and pencil, and while shells and shrapnel were bursting over and around them the wounded man dictated a letter to his wife in Holland. Blood flowed copiously from the wound and stained the grass upon which he lay. He was pale as the clouds above him, and the pain was agonising, but the dying man’s letter was filled with nothing but expressions of love and tenderness.

In the south-eastern part of the field a large party of cavalrymen was speeding in the direction of Thaba N’Chu. On two sides of them, a thousand yards behind, small groups of horsemen were giving chase. At a distance, the riders appeared like ants slowly climbing the hillside. Now and then a Boer rider suddenly stopped his horse, leaped to the ground, and fired at the fleeing cavalrymen. A second afterwards he was on his horse again, bending to the chase. Shot followed shot, but the distance between the forces grew greater, and one by one the burghers turned their animals’ heads and slowly retraced their steps. A startled buck bounded over the veld, two rifles were turned upon it, and its flight was ended.