A West Pointer with the Boers /

by John Y. Fillmore Blake

General Buller had failed to get permission of a small band of Boer patriots who were near at hand. About ninety men of the Carolina Commando crawled up the kop, and, having reached the crest, immediately opened fire on the British force. Thus began the great battle, the bloody and disastrous Battle of Spion Kop. The ninety Boers were soon re-enforced by small detachments following each other up the kop until the total number reached about 250 men. The English held the kop, occupied the defences, and besides had at least fifteen men to every Boer.

GOOD ENGLISHMEN AFTER SPION KOP LYING ON THE SIDE HILL.

Counting the Boers on the right and left sides of the kop who also took part in the fight, the total number of them engaged was about 600, but the actual number on the kop, who alone fought the big English force, was about 250 men. The Boers and the English were within easy point-blank range of each other, and at some points no more than fifty yards separated them. Here was the time, the place and the opportunity for the British to display that bold courage, that dash and fighting quality of which they have been boasting for centuries, for, with their overwhelming numbers, they would have easily swept that little handful of Boers off the kop. But they positively declined to take advantage of such conditions to display British pluck and courage, and, in the end, were themselves swept off. In their wars with the blacks, it had been their rule to hoist the Union Jack, boldly advance as at Khartoum, and when they discovered a horde of unarmed and defenceless negroes, make a mad rush, fall upon them and shoot them down; then apply the cold steel, and when they have murdered the last one and see him lying at their feet, with blood gurgling from his mouth, give three cheers for the Union Jack, and everyone at once apply for a Victoria Cross.

But on Spion Kop it was different, for no Union Jack was hoisted, no Union Jack brought to the battlefield, no rush was made, because a Boer was there, with a mauser in his hand—and that was a horse of another color.—So the British halted and trembled, and then threw up the sponge and retreated as fast as their legs would take them, each hoping that he might escape the fatal bullet and receive his well deserved Victoria Cross. I may here add that when you find any one so decorated with the Victoria Cross, you may generally put him down as a worthless son of a lord, or as a puny specimen of a puny, dissolute, diseased nobility, or the son of some moneyed, unscrupulous politician to whom the English Government must bow in obeisance. One in a thousand who has been decorated may deserve it, but I even have my doubts about that. Nearly all the officers and men of the British army who have been given the Victoria Cross you will find in an English company's cigarette packages, and that is just where they belong.

I shall not try to tell all that happened about Spion Kop, because every reader would cry out, "the same old story." I must tell this, however; Buller's fifty or more cannon fairly tore the top off all our hills on both sides of Spion Kop, ploughed them up, pulverized them, and put them in perfect condition for sowing oats and planting mealies, but up to January 24th had killed only two Boers, an old man and his son, although more than 3000 lyddite shells had been fired. Joe Chamberlain and his pals made plenty of money that week, for tons of lyddite were consumed. The whole atmosphere was fairly laden with the yellow, sulphurous-looking lyddite fumes, and the Boers who finally emerged from their trenches looked like so many Chinamen. They were yellow about the eyes, nose, mouth and neck, and their clothes were yellow too; but when they washed their faces they were Boers again, and very lively ones at that. The effect, and the only affect of Mr. Joe Chamberlain's lyddite fumes was to give the Carolina boys strength and courage enough to paralyze the Tommies as fast as they could show themselves on Spion Kop. This was a great blow to Mr. Chamberlain, because it meant a great future loss to him financially, for it disclosed the fact that lyddite in itself was very harmless; indeed, if any of Mr. Chamberlain's lyddite should, by accident, strike a Boer squarely in the chest, it is my honest opinion that that Boer would be put out of action; but, as is usually the case, if Mr. Chamberlain's lyddite shell should happen to miss the Boer by an inch or two, why, that Boer would be liable to drop more Tommies before that fight was over.

Louis Botha showed himself in great form, for he so placed his cannon and maxims that they could sweep the side hills and the Tugela Valley below Spion Kop, and, like a new broom, they made a clean sweep of everything. How that fight did rage during that whole day! It was heartrending to stand and watch the little band of heroic Boers face fifteen bullets for every one they could send; but bravely and unflinchingly they held their ground and won the admiration of the world. Spion Kop and the adjacent hills were in a shiver, convulsion after convulsion followed, as lyddite shell after lyddite shell penetrated and tore up the earth.

I must here mention that at one time during the struggle on the kop, the English felt that it was too hot for them, and naturally they hoisted three or four white flags. The Boers stopped firing at once, and four or five of them advanced to accept the surrender. Before reaching the defences, Colonel Thornycroft with re-enforcements arrived on the scene, hauled down the white flags and ordered the firing to recommence. The four or five Boers would have been shot down, had not the twenty-three English, who had already laid down their arms, accompanied them as they ran back to their lines. Fighting was now resumed and continued as if nothing had happened, until it grew too hot for the English again, and once more the white flags were hoisted. The Boers continued in their good work, regardless of the flags, and, as a result, the English are howling to this day about the Boers firing upon the white flags. If they hadn't fired upon them every one would have deserved being shot himself. Time and time again during the war, the English would hoist the white flag for no other reason than to get the Boers to cease firing until they could get their own men in proper position, when they would declare that no one was authorized to hoist the white flag, and that the fighting must continue. The result was that after a time the Boer would not recognize the white flag, for he could no longer trust the English, and to surrender, the latter had to throw down their rifles, hold up their hands and advance towards the Boers. Although the English denounced this way of having to surrender as low, suspicious and cowardly, yet thousands upon thousands of them went through the formula before the war came to an end. It never occurred to them that the Boers were forced to adopt that precaution as a safeguard against treachery!

MORE GOOD ENGLISHMEN LYING ON THE SIDE HILL.