General Buller’s orders on the 23rd were brief. Push for Ladysmith to-day, horse, foot, and artillery; both cavalry brigades to cross the river at once. The advance, which had hitherto been slow, was now hurried on. At midday it was in full swing, the cavalry having crossed the Tugela and massed at Fort Wylie. Meanwhile the Boers had taken up a formidable position on the right—on the well-entrenched height called by the gunners Three Knoll Hill, to describe the three hills, Terrace, Railway, and Pieters, that formed the entire position—while on the left they plied their activities from Grobler’s Kloof. The artillery in front of Railway Hill concentrated a brisk fire upon the Boers therein entrenched, who returned some animated replies, assisted by other Dutchmen from a hidden vantage-point on the north-east of that eminence. General Hart’s Brigade, to whose valiant Irishmen the difficult task of capturing the position was entrusted, was ordered to advance. This advance from Onderbrook Spruit to the base of Terrace Hill, the companion of Railway Hill, was a feat of cool courage that has seldom been equalled. The hill, triangular and standing some three hundred feet above the Tugela, was approached by a wide open space, which was commanded by the Boers, whose complicated position on Railway Hill and its component ridges gave them every advantage. The correspondent of the Standard furnished a description of these precipitous steeps. “Railway Hill rises from the Tugela a mile from Platelayers’ House. It is, perhaps, best described as triangular in shape, with one angle pointing towards the river. It rises from the latter in a series of jagged, boulder-strewn kopjes, until three hundred feet or so above the Tugela. A kloof, through which the railway passes upwards on its way to Pieters Station, separates the last jagged ledge from the hill proper. From the last kopje or ledge, and immediately on the other side of the line, the main part of the hill rises abruptly, almost precipitously, with a sharp edge running back in a north-westerly direction for several hundred yards. The base of this north-westerly line of hill makes up a kloof thick with thorn trees, and this kloof recedes round the left end of the hill to the rear, where the enemy’s force, under Commandant Dupreez, had its quarters, while a little farther to the rear is still another kloof, in which the enemy’s Creusots were mounted. Along the beginning of the sharp edge referred to a long trench was cut out, and right ahead, as the hill ran still upwards on an incline for three hundred yards or so, were other trenches, until the hill terminated in a crest crowded with commanding fortifications.” To assail this formidable stronghold the troops moved off in the following order—the Inniskilling Fusiliers leading, followed by the Connaught Rangers, the Dublin Fusiliers, and the Imperial Light Infantry. Steadily marched the kharki-clad throng, advancing along the railroad in single file with rifles at the slope. At that time there was comparative silence save for the muffled drumming of artillery in the surrounding kopjes. These apparently frowned free of human influence, the dark, dull frown that portends many evil things to the eye of the advancing soldier. But nevertheless the troops moved nearer and nearer to the hill over the open ground by the railway bridge with a steady step and that air of consolidated distinction that marks acutely the difference between Briton and Boer armies. They had no sooner showed themselves in the open than the air grew alive, the trenches on the frowning hill vomited furiously. A casual observer remarked that it reminded him of the pantomimes of his youth, of Ali Baba’s cave, when, at a given signal, its jars opened and the forty thieves suddenly—simultaneously—popped up their heads. Only now there were not forty but thousands of brigandish forms—forms that hastened to deal death from their Mausers on the advancing men. These were now coming on at a rush, a rush through the hailstorm whose every shower meant disaster. But Hart the valiant had said, “That hill must be taken at all costs”—and that was enough! The hill was about to be seized and the payments had already begun. One, two, three, four, six—more and yet more down, one after another. So the men began to fall. The ironwork of the bridge had now its fringe of fainting forms. Still the splendid fellows pushed on. Still the air reverberated with the puissant pom-poming of the Boers’ automatic gun. This they had turned on to the position they knew must be passed by the advancing warriors. Meanwhile the British artillery was saluting the hill, throwing up to heaven dust and splinter spouts that filled the whole atmosphere with blinding, choking debris, and causing the purple boulders far and wide to give forth rumbling echoes of the infernal rampage.
Gradually, in face of the deluge of shot and shell, the Inniskilling Fusiliers, the Connaught Rangers, and one company each of the Dublin Fusiliers, had wound their way towards the eastern spurs of Railway Hill, and in the late afternoon were ready for the attack. General Hart gave the word. Then, up the rugged stone-strewn heights the troops laboriously began to climb. Soon they reached a point, some hundred yards above, whence the Boers could pepper them with ease. At the same time from the adjacent hill more bullets whizzed upon them. Yet, with this horrible fire on their flanks and the deadly fusillade from the front, they persevered, dropping one after another like ripe fruit in a gust of wind. Volley after volley poured down on them, but up they went, cutting through wire, leaping boulders, and hurling themselves forward, and in such grand style, that the Boers, seeing the determined glitter of the bayonet, thought it wiser to retreat. They receded some two hundred yards up the hill, while the troops occupied the first position. Then, in the growing dusk, the Dutchmen were seen taking a commanding place on a somewhat higher or parent peak of the hill. From this point the Inniskillings, flushed with their first triumph, deemed it necessary to rout them. Fire streamed and spouted, the dim gloom of twilight came on; still the Irishmen, through the mist of evening and flashings furious from every side, advanced along the hill—a glorious, a tragic advance. One after another bit the dust. Men in mute or groaning agony lay prone in the gathering dusk. First went a major, afterwards another, and then two captains of this gallant band. The Boers had known their business. Some of their kopjes are of the nature of spider-webs; the outer fringe involves entanglement; and this especial eminence was of that particular nature that the second Boer position commanded the first. The Dutchmen, even as they receded, were able to mow down the men as they advanced, by a converging fire, against which it was impossible to stand. It was now an almost hand-to-hand struggle between doughty Dutchman and dashing Briton. The Inniskillings were close, but every inch was gained with appalling loss to their numbers—indeed, the charging companies might almost have been described as individual men!
Finally, some one gave the order to retire. But how? Most of the valorous band were stricken down, or had perished. The wounded could not be removed. Yet those that remained were too few to hold the ground in the darkness. All that could be done was to retire below the crest and wait till morning. A retirement was attempted, under the personal direction of the Colonel (Colonel Sitwell),[4] but in the course of the movement he was hit, never to rise again. The troops at last got to the cover of the hill, where they built schanzes and bivouacked. But from this point throughout the night firing continued, while the Boers above, between the intervals of dozing, peppered the bivouacs with bullets.
At 7 A.M., while cannonading had elsewhere assumed dangerous proportions, the Irish regiments were again assailed in their schanzes by the persistent Dutchmen. These had crept round the base of the hill and attacked the trenches from the western side. Volleys poured from all directions on a scene that was already deplorable. Only four officers of the Inniskillings remained. Of the Connaught Rangers five officers were wounded. The Dublin Fusiliers had lost their gallant Colonel (Colonel Sitwell), and also Captain Maitland of the Gordon Highlanders (attached). The picture at dawn and on throughout the day was truly appalling. The trenches of the Boers and those of the attacking force were now only some three or four hundred yards apart, and between them was spread an arena of carnage heart-breaking as irremediable. It was impossible for any one to show a nose and live. Wounded lay here, there, and everywhere, heaped as they had fallen, drenched in their own gore and helpless, yet struggling pathetically to edge themselves with hands or knees or heels nearer some place of safety. Dead, too, were entangled with the sinking, huddled together in grievous ghastly comradeship....
For thirty-six hours some of these heroes lay in wretchedness, hanging between life and death. Mercifully the Boers brought them water, but all their acts were not equally generous. Unfortunately, some misinterpretation regarding the Red Cross flag accentuated the misfortunes of the day.
The Boers, it appeared, had begun by producing one. This signal should have been responded to by our troops, who, however, were not prepared to show another Red Cross flag, which display would have been the signal for truce. This being the case, the Boers, after carrying off their wounded and giving certain of the British wounded some water, removed their rifles. Further, they rifled their pockets and despoiled dead and wounded of boots and other property. Naturally, those who saw them were so infuriated at this wanton behaviour that they began to fire. From this time hostilities recommenced, and the innate cruelty of the Boers was evidenced in several cases. It was stated on the authority of an officer that many of the wounded in act of crawling away were deliberately shot. Let us hope that the aggravation at the non-appearance of the British Red Cross flag was the cause of the ugly display of character on the part of the enemy.
During the late afternoon the worn-out troops in their trenches at the base of the hill were fiercely attacked by the enemy’s guns from all quarters. No such effective shell fire had been experienced since Spion Kop. Indeed, with the assistance of Krupps, and Creusots, and Maxims, and other diabolical instruments, the Boers managed to make a fitting concert for Beelzebub. Many of our positions on the lower slopes of the kopjes were enfiladed, and thus many gallant fellows in Hildyard’s and Kitchener’s brigades were killed. Several officers among those who were fighting on the left also fell, among them Colonel Thorold, Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
At this juncture, finding that the original passage of the river was commanded by entrenchments on every side, and that further advance would be costly in the extreme, the General decided that he must reconnoitre for another passage across the Tugela. This was forthwith discovered. Meanwhile, the day being Sunday, there was an armistice for the interment of the dead on both sides. Grievous were the sensations of those whose duty brought them to the awesome scene of death, who spent the long hours surrounded by sights hideous and forms uncouth, the remains of heroes, discoloured from days of exposure to the sun’s scorching rays, to the damps and dews of night—lying limply rigid and rigidly limp in the unmistakable and undescribable abandonment of untenanted clay; or succouring still more pitiable wrecks, wrecks joined perhaps by an invisible handclasp with comrades in the other world, but still here, making a last struggle for the dignity of manhood, or fainting slowly, peaceably, beyond all knowledge of pain as of the splendid heroism that had placed them where they were!
One who was present contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine a curious account of that armistice—that was not entirely an armistice—of Colonel Hamilton’s approach with the flag of fraternity (so often misused and abused by the Dutchmen), and of the strange apparitions that came forth suspiciously one by one from the depths of the hostile trenches. He said: “Seldom have I set eyes on a more magnificent specimen of male humanity than the Commandant of the trenchful of Boers, Pristorius by name, a son of Anak by descent, and a gallant, golden-bearded fighting-man by present occupation; for in far-away Middleburg those mighty limbs—he told it us without any of that stupid deprecation which would probably have characterised a similar confession on the part of an Englishman—were wont to stretch themselves beneath a lawyer’s desk. Close on his heels came what a person who had never seen Boers before would have thought the strangest band of warriors in the world—old men with flowing, tobacco-stained, white beards; middle-aged men with beards burnt black with the sun and sweat of their forty years; young men, mostly clean shaven, exhibiting strongly the heavy Dutch moulding of the broad nose and chin; big boys in small suits, suits of all kinds and colours, tweed, velveteen, homespun, and ‘shoddy,’ all untidy in the extreme, but mostly as serviceable as their wearers.” These strange beings formed a strong contrast to the men who joined them, particularly in their attitude when confronted with the ghastly foreground of death which made the prominent feature of the amicable picture. The eye-witness before quoted declared that “it was much more difficult for them to conceal the natural discomposure which all men feel in the presence of the silent dead than for their more artificial opponents. From the airy and easy demeanour of the uniformed British officers, that dreadful plateau might have been the lobby of a London club. A Briton is at all times prone to conceal his emotions, and certainly in this instance the idiosyncrasy gave him a great social advantage over the superstitious Burghers, with their sidelong glances and uneasy shiftings.” By-and-by, however, both parties grew even friendly, and the writer went on to describe an animated dialogue between himself and “a deep-chested old oak-tree of a man, whose swarthy countenance was rendered more gipsy-like by the addition of ear-rings. The opening of the conversation had its humours. ‘Good-morning!’ quoth I. ‘Gumorghen,’ rumbled the oak-tree sourly. ‘Surely we can be friends for five minutes,’ I ventured, after a pause. The rugged countenance was suddenly, not to say startlingly, illumined with a beaming smile. ‘Why not, indeed! why not, officer! Have you any tobacco?’ Out came my pouch, luckily filled to bursting that very morning, and the oak-tree proceeded to stuff a huge pipe to the very brim, gloating over the fragrance of the ‘best gold flake’ as he did so. The rumour of tobacco had the effect of dispelling the chill that still lingered on the outskirts of that little crowd, and many a grimy set of fingers claimed their share as the price of the friendship of the owners, the Commandant himself not disdaining to accept a fill with a graceful word of thanks. They were out of tobacco in that trench, it appeared, and suffering acutely from the deprivation of what to a Boer is more necessary than food.”