In this fight the Dutchmen were unusually obstinate. Over and over again they advanced to within seventy yards of the captured trenches, and from thence were only routed at the point of the bayonet. Their rushes were most valiant and persistent, and nothing but the heroism of officers and men could have withstood the overwhelming nature of the attack made upon them.
But dodges with the white flag and other frauds continued to be practised by the Boers. Colonel Thorneycroft escaped merely by an accident from an endeavour to play a trick upon him. The leader of a commando facing Thorneycroft’s Horse advanced with a white flag. The Colonel approached to the parley, but being suspicious, he told the leader to go back, as he refused to confer with him. Both retired, but before the Colonel could return to his regiment a volley was poured on him by the enemy. Another and more curious trick was practised on some of the privates. They were approached by an officer in kharki and directed to follow him to a better position. This they began to do till, at last, seeing themselves being led into the jaws of the enemy, they halted, and some one demanded to know who this bogus officer might be. At that moment the party was met by a storm of Boer bullets, and scarcely a man came whole from the adventure. Fortunately, the miscreant—an Austrian—who had played the trick on them was bayoneted ere all our gallant fellows dropped down. Strange, too, was the fate of gallant Colonel Blomfield, whose regiment, one of the smartest of the smart regiments present, had done such splendid work, and had held on to its post to the bitter end. This officer was wounded early in the day, as already recorded, and lay in a trench helpless and fainting for hours and beyond the reach of help. Finally, he was able to crawl out and make his way down the side of the hill—down the wrong side, unluckily for himself—and when next he was heard of he was a prisoner in Pretoria. That his life was saved at all was a marvel. Captain Tidswell, on seeing his Colonel wounded, rushed out with Sergeant Lightfoot and dragged him under a heavy fire into a trench, where he remained till the action was over.
Plan of Engagement at Spion Kop.
During the early part of the day the Scottish Rifles and the 3rd Battalion of the King’s Royal Rifles had been sent off to storm the kopjes forming an extension of Spion Kop, and thus occupy the enemy and relieve the pressure of his attack. The river was forded at Kaffir Drift by Colonel Buchanan Riddell’s troops, and soon after the battalion divided, half being led by the Colonel to the right, and half under Major Bewicke-Copley advancing to the left, of the objective. The enemy was everywhere—at the base of the kopjes and in the trenches up the sides. Still the troops advanced. The Dutchmen were shifted upwards inch by inch from their defences. The best cold Sheffield glittered near the trenches, and—the trenches were vacated! Up and up moved the Boers, on and on went the Rifles—on and up, rushing wildly, gallantly, charging and cheering, and finally gaining the crest!
Meanwhile the Scottish Rifles had advanced on Spion Kop. Nothing could exceed the smartness with which they scaled the steeps. They marched straight to the front firing line, and, in a word, saved the situation. No sooner did the enemy show his nose than the Scottish Rifles held him in check, and over and over again showed him that British tenacity was equal to both Boer stubbornness and slimness combined. The enemy could make no headway against them.
But the gallant action of the King’s Royal Rifles was one of the grand deeds that end in the ineffectual. The battalion in its triumph had pressed the Boers upwards, but on doing so became practically isolated. The Boers were above and between them and our own troops, and as a result of its too forward movement the regiment stood in peril. Seeing their position of jeopardy, orders were sent up to retire. It was disgusting, heart-breaking, but it had to be done. The glorious company, after capturing two positions, slowly, reluctantly, moved down the hill they had ascended in the flush of triumph—moved again to their bivouac, sadder and wiser men. But they were only the first of many sad and sorry men that day. Meanwhile the battle on the great hill raged continuously, and shells, not alone those of the enemy, but those of our own guns which had attempted to assist, made the crowded kop a “veritable hell.”
