The moral effect of the relief of Kimberley soon became obvious. Barkly West was occupied by troops on the 21st of February, and there was evidence that the country west of Cape Colony and Kimberley was gradually settling down.
On the same day, General Brabant occupied Jamestown, some twenty miles north of Dordrecht, and seized quantities of horses belonging to the enemy, who in their retreat modestly had recourse to “Shank’s pony.”
During a reconnaissance of the Boer position at Stormberg, a party of scouts under Captain Montmorency, V.C., got within some fifty yards of the enemy, and a fierce and fatal combat ensued, which resulted in the sad loss of one of the most brilliant officers of the day.
The object of the reconnaissance was to ascertain the strength of the Boers at Stormberg. Accordingly, with four companies of Mounted Infantry drawn from the Royal Scots, the Northumberland Fusiliers, the Derbyshire Regiment, and the Royal Berkshire Regiment, with the 77th and four guns of the 74th Batteries Royal Field Artillery, the Derbyshire Regiment (Sherwood Foresters), a portion of De Montmorency’s Scouts, and some Cape Police, supported by the armoured train under the charge of Lieutenant F. J. Gosset, 2nd Royal Berkshire Regiment, Sir William Gatacre occupied Molteno early on Friday morning the 23rd. Preceded by thirty Scouts, Captain de Montmorency, Lieutenant Hockley, and Colonel Hoskier, the force marched in the same direction that was to have been taken on the night of the fatal affair in December. Unfortunately the Scouts, on nearing their destination, came on a party of dismounted Boers, and these, as the British rushed up a kopje, executed the same feat on the other side of the hill. Though both instantly took cover, the scouts got the worst of it, each one as he raised a head being laid low by the fatal bullets of the completely hidden foe. Among the first to fall was Captain de Montmorency,[9] who, gallant fellow, was creeping round to a flank to surprise the enemy. Not long after Colonel Hoskier[10] received his second wound, a mortal one, and two comrades, Collett and Vice, adventurous and dashing Colonials, were shot through the head. Lieutenant Hockley, rendered almost blind and senseless by a wound between the eyes, was taken prisoner. A gallant attempt to rescue the Scouts was made in the midst of a tremendous storm. All were drenched to the skin. The thunder and lightning rendered artillery fire almost impossible, and very few of the daring party got away from the scene of the fight. On the kopje by Shoeman’s Farm were left seven killed and five wounded.
On the following day the bodies were recovered by the military chaplains. Deeply to their regret, they discovered that the dead had been robbed, and it is asserted that a Boer was seen in the feathered hat of the heroic leader of the Scouts, while even the clothes of the others had been filched by some despicable Dutchmen. Mr. Duncombe-Jewell in the Morning Post gave a pathetic account of the affair:—“The chaplains to the forces, Father Ryan and Rev. R. Armitage, proceeded under a flag of truce on the following morning to recover the bodies. This they were permitted to do, but they found that the Boers had stripped and robbed the slain, one of them riding about in triumph with poor De Montmorency’s hat, with its black riband ornamented with the white skull and cross-bones and the black ostrich feather at the side, hanging at his saddle-bow. So far did they carry these ravages, that on the tunic, which they hastily replaced as the chaplains approached, there remained only one button. The rest of the unfortunate men were as shamefully treated, the three buried by the Boers before the arrival of the flag of truce being interred without either clothing or ceremony of any sort.”
A sad funeral took place on the Sunday following, when the remains were buried. The band played a dirge as the procession—in which was the younger officer’s gallant servant and comrade, Byrne, V.C., of Omdurman fame, and his favourite grey Arab pony—wound its way through the town to the Molteno Cemetery. Wreaths were placed on the newly-turned earth by the General and his staff—ephemeral symbols, but in this case emblems of lasting lament for heroes sacrificed on the altar of duty.
HINDOO REFUGEES FROM THE TRANSVAAL IN CAMP AT CAPE TOWN
Photo by Alf. S. Hosking, Cape Town.
In a Divisional Order General Gatacre recorded with deep regret the news of the death of Captain Montmorency, V.C., commanding Montmorency’s Scouts, and of Lieutenant-Colonel Hoskier, 3rd Middlesex Volunteer Artillery, who were killed at Schoeman’s Farm. “By their deaths,” the order concluded, “the division has lost two very valuable officers.”