Curiously enough, while the beforesaid plan of attack was in course of being enacted, Lieutenant Mathias was visiting his posts. In the obscurity he all at once found himself confronted by Boers on every side. With amazing presence of mind he faced about, and seeing that the Dutchmen mistook him for one of themselves, acted as if he also were assaulting the hill. When near enough, however, he made a rush—a desperate rush—to warn the pickets of their danger. But he was too late. Two men were shot dead, whilst Lieutenant Mathias and a third trooper were wounded. There was no help at hand, and before assistance could be summoned, the enemy were already sweeping the hill. But the sound of the first shots had given the alarm.
Instantly all was flurry and confusion. Men that a moment before had been sleepily yawning after their heavy labours were racing hither and thither, groping in the darkness in search of arms. Others however, who were armed, forebore to fire, the felt hats of the foe being mistaken for those of the Imperial Light Horsemen. With a desperate effort Lieutenant Digby Jones gathered together his sappers. Hurried shots were fired, hurried orders given, but nothing could efface the effects of the sudden surprise. The Boers had gained the hill and driven the defenders over the crest! This all in a darkness that might have been felt. Such lanterns as there were had been overturned and extinguished in the hustle of the stampeding Kaffirs, who had been assisting at the arrangement of the gun, and who, at the first approach of the enemy, had fled. Forks and flashes of flame shining from the nek between the twin hills showed that the second column of the Dutch commando also was attaining its object. The gun, which fortunately had not yet been erected on the top of the hill, was instantly got to work under the direction of Lieutenant Parker; rifles were seized, and an effort was made in the obscurity to sweep the hill in the direction where the enemy was supposed to be. But the Boers were completely enveloped in the darkness of the night, and it was impossible to locate them; and the Hotchkiss gun was drawn back within the sandguard which had hurriedly been thrown up, only just in time. The Boers were now almost upon it. All the available men about Wagon Hill had instantly rushed to the rescue, and the Imperial Light Horse, some King’s Royal Rifles, and a few Gordon Highlanders were soon in the thick of the fray. The Highlanders, taking their place round the crest, fired, as hard as rifles would let them, down the slope. Some fierce fighting followed. Before the Boers could get farther up, the Imperial Light Horse with their wonted gallantry engaged them, and sent the invaders helter-skelter down hill into the mysterious mists of the dawn. But this was but for a moment—it was merely the commencement of affairs.
The whole garrison got under arms, not only the military, but every available man taking up some weapon to assist in withstanding the onslaught. It was felt to be a desperate situation, desperate for both sides, for the enemy knew that something must be done, and that quickly, to prevent the pending arrival of relief by Sir Redvers Buller, while the garrison, in face of reduced rations, disease, dysentery, and decreasing ammunition, was aware that it was a case of now or never. The alarm once given, Colonel Hamilton from the west had sent for reinforcements with amazing rapidity, and up came two and a half companies of Gordon Highlanders from the base of Cæsar’s Camp, while one company under Captain the Hon. R. T. Carnegie started to support the Manchester pickets on Cæsar’s Camp, and a company and a half went to Wagon Hill. It was while the Gordons were marching up and crossing the bridge of the Klip River that they met with their first mishap. Colonel Dick Cunyngham, only just recovered from his wound at Elandslaagte, was struck by a chance bullet and fell mortally wounded. Major Scott then took the command. Presently came the Rifle Brigade and half a battalion of the first 60th to the rescue, while the 21st Field Battery hurried to cover the western approaches to Wagon Hill, and the 53rd Battery took up a position to guard the most southern point of Cæsar’s Camp. But all this movement was not accomplished till much carnage had been wrought. As already mentioned, the Boers had nearly achieved their object and cut off Wagon Hill West from Wagon Hill proper. By dawn they were straggling on the plateau connecting the two hills, merely checked in their further advance on Wagon Hill by the remnant of the Light Horse. Firing at this time was so terrific and at such close range that it was impossible to move from cover and live. Bullets literally buzzed like bees in the serene morning air. On one side were the Boers making for the second hill, on the other were the British struggling to ward them off. Meanwhile, trickling along through the Fournier’s Spruit were arriving more desperate farmers, more picked men of skilled marksmanship and deadly purpose. At this time reinforcements also arrived for the brave little band who were so gallantly resisting the Dutchmen. But even the additional numbers were insufficient, it was impossible to cope with the marvellous marksmanship of the advancing horde. They came ever nearer and nearer, firing thick and fast—and with explosive bullets. The Colonel, two Majors, and four other officers of the Light Horse dropped—the enemy seized the position—and from thence it was impossible to dislodge them! To do this it would have been necessary to rush through some sixty yards of what seemed hell-fire—a perfect avalanche of death. Major Mackworth made the dashing effort, but in the very act he was stricken down, and most of the gallant fellows of the 60th Rifles who accompanied him. Another officer, Lieutenant Tod, pluckily attempted the same hazardous exploit. Twelve noble fellows followed him. Six were hit, and the valiant young leader dropped dead before he had moved three yards from cover. Colonel Codrington (11th Hussars), who was commanding a squadron of the Imperial Light Horse, made a rush forward to ascertain if it were possible to get cover for his men, but before he had gone thirty yards, he too shared the fate of the other officers. These experiences were sufficient. It was decided that the best plan would be to wait under cover till dusk, when the bayonet might be made to supersede the rifle.
H.M.S. “POWERFUL.”
Photo by Symonds, Portsmouth.
While all this was taking place on Wagon Hill, a terrific drama was being enacted at Cæsar’s Camp; and exciting assaults, defeats, and re-assaults were following each other on Wagon Hill West. Soon after dawn, the 52nd Field Battery, under Major Abdy, commenced to shell the slopes below Cæsar’s Camp, and keep the enemy from ascending in that direction. The operation was one fraught with extreme difficulty, as the shells were forced to travel over the heads of our own men in order to effect a lodgment at the desired spot. But the work of the gunners was admirable, and the shells burst with a precision that wrought awful destruction on the enemy. The whole of the eastern slopes of the hill were covered with dead Dutchmen lying amidst fragments of steel and iron in the blood-clotted grass. The scene around Ladysmith at this time was appalling. Away in the direction of Wagon Hill, fiercely every inch of ground was being contested, and here the Naval guns and artillery were bellowing and roaring and sending their deadly messages all along the ridge of Cæsar’s Camp, driving off the enemy, who came back again and again. There was a hard tussle, particularly for the Gordons and the Rifle Brigade. Their lives hung by a thread. The Boers were inflamed with either hope or desperation, and, contrary to custom, advanced to death and destruction with dogged and, one may say, admirable pluck. Day broke and grew to its zenith, and still the fighting raged; still the guns roared and snorted; still the dust and dirt flew to the skies, coming down again to stop the mouths of gasping, dying men, and blind the eyes of those who, blood-stained and sweltering, were yet selling their lives at the dearest price that could be asked.
Just as the fire was slackening, possibly from sheer fatigue on both sides, the heavily charged thunder-clouds burst over the position, and a terrific downpour of hail and rain scourged the contesting forces and flooded the trenches. The Boers at this time had been driven to a corner like wolves at bay, and could not emerge without running the gantlet of a tremendous fire from the Ladysmith guns. Wet to the skin, the ground one vast meadow of slush, the combatants still held on with grim tenacity, each side watching lynx-eyed, each being now almost mad with an insatiable and ferocious desire for victory.
The storm continued and grew. Instead, as imagined, of relinquishing the fight, the Boers took courage from the tempest. The tornado from heaven only served to increase the tornado below! It seemed to suit the stormy state of human passions, to stimulate rather than subdue. Under cover of the thunder and the swirl of the elements the Federals made one desperate onward rush, but the furious fire which met them from Volunteers and British Infantry hurled them back and sent them spinning in heaps or rushing with howls down the hill. The 53rd Battery swept the bush country with a storm of shrapnel, and away to cover they went, and with them their reinforcements, who had been hiding in the neighbouring nullahs, waiting for the great, the final hour of triumph.
So much for Cæsar’s Camp. On Wagon Hill before noon the Devons, with their gallant commander, had come to the forefront, Colonel Park again leading them to renewed success. As we know, the Boers were already on the hill, and the Gordons, who had lost their officers, were falling back when Major Milner Wallnutt rallied them. The enemy were soon removed from the emplacement which they held; but they rushed towards the west, and were there as dangerously fixed as ever. About two o’clock the most horrible moment of the fight arrived. The hill that had been the subject of such eager contest was again attacked, this time by a small but desperate body of Dutchmen. De Villiers, their Commandant, made a wild forward rush to secure the position. In an instant Major Wallnutt and a sapper were shot dead, but the rest of the sappers magnificently fronted the invaders with fixed bayonets. Presently the brilliant youth, the hero of the Surprise Hill affair, Lieutenant Digby Jones, R.E., led them forward, shot De Villiers, and dropped! A bullet had sent him home to his last account. The hoary-headed Burghers were stayed in their onward march by the splendid action of the noble boy, who so many times had risked his young life in the service of his country. At this juncture up came a dismounted squadron of the 18th Hussars, and the situation was saved. The plateau was reoccupied.