The 2nd of September found Lord Dundonald’s mounted troops at Nooitgedacht, and General French’s Cavalry at Waterval Onder, while General Buller was engaged in making a reconnaissance of the Boer position towards Lydenburg, the dispersed parties having so disposed themselves that the complete scouring of the surrounding country became necessary. (It must be noted that the Natal Field Force at this time was divided, part of it being occupied in guarding the line of communications. General Wolfe Murray protected the district between Ladysmith and Newcastle; General Hildyard that between Newcastle and Platrand; and General Clery that between Platrand and Heidelburg.) In the passes of the impenetrable mountains overlooking the town of Lydenburg, Botha, with 2000 burghers, was found to have fortified himself. He took care on the advent of the South African Light Horse to give the dashing Colonists a reception with three Long Toms and a high-velocity gun, which put to the test their admirable courage and that of the Composite Regiment which occupied the right of the basin into which murderous missiles poured the whole day without stint. The Boers in their precipitous cliffs and their forbidding ravines were too strong to be turned, and fortunately there was no necessity now for the frontal attacks which had been forced upon General Buller in the early days of the war when he had been left to fling himself against living mountains with the thinnest of “thin red (or khaki) lines.” He forthwith called for reinforcements, and quickly got them. General Ian Hamilton (who had arrived with a strong force at Belfast) pushed along the direct Belfast-Dulstroom road to his succour. Assisted by Brocklehurst’s brigade of cavalry, amidst passes, and gorges, and acclivities, he endeavoured to work round by Helvetia to turn the Boer right flank, while Buller thundered on their left; the Leicester Regiment and King’s Royal Rifles dragging a battery of artillery up the steeps with herculean vigour. The foe were ensconced in bush, and scrub, and tangle, and were protected by the creeks into which they had burrowed, but nevertheless, by Ian Hamilton’s turning movement, the way was cleared for Buller’s force, and on the 6th, Lydenburg was occupied.
An officer of the Royal Scots gave some interesting details of the stupendous undertaking. “On the 2nd September, General Smith-Dorrien, to whose brigade we had been posted, inspected us with a similar result. That night we got orders to move next day. At 6.30 A.M. on the 3rd we moved off. We were with the advanced guard, besides C.I.V., Mounted Infantry, two pom-poms, and a battery Royal Artillery. At about noon, as we neared Zwarteskopjes, our advanced mounted men came in contact with the enemy. We pushed on, and presently—and I must confess to every one’s surprise—‘bang,’ and a Long Tom 6-inch shell burst 200 yards from us—a bad shot. The Boers were in position on our right front. We at once opened out the companies, and moved to the left behind the brow of a spur, changing front so as to face the Boers. The men did this splendidly, and though we were shelled throughout the movement, at a range of about 5000 yards, never a man was hit. Two were knocked down by a shell that burst between them, and another had his helmet plugged, and a shell fell in the middle of the band, but no skin was broken. Our guns came into action; four of our companies attacked in front, two to the left to seize some kopjes. The Boers decamped, and we bivouacked on the position won. Next morning we were off again, found our friends, the Long Toms, which greeted us, but our “cow” guns (5-inch naval guns) were up, and the Long Toms made off, we after them. We were in the mountains now. The scenery was magnificent, quite Himalayan; but it was awful work for men and animals. We passed through Dullstroom that day, where we found the remains of a large Boer laager. On the 5th we reached Palmietfontein, rifle firing daily.
“That evening at five o’clock, our commanding officer got a message that the General wanted to see him. Going off, he found Generals Ian Hamilton and Smith-Dorrien in close consultation, and looking at a mountain at the exit of a gorge, through which the column had to pass next day. (After passing through it, General Hamilton told me that it was just like the Khyber, but shorter.) Our commandant was told that the General wanted this mountain seized that night. It is called Zwaggershoch, and was about five miles from our bivouac. Its possession would give us complete control of that side of the pass, and we should be behind the right of the Boer position, where they were holding Buller at Klipspruit. He had selected us to undertake this task. With 500 men and half-a-dozen mounted men we started off at 8 P.M. by moonlight. The men were splendid—not a sound. We sounded up three farms on the way, lest they concealed Boers, and we had no idea of being cut off. We reached the foot of the hill all right. The companies then advanced at attack formation, so as to envelop the top of the hill. Then commenced a most awful climb. What Boers there were there I cannot tell you. It was very misty. We ‘put up’ seven, and they bolted. It is impossible to say what they had behind them. We reached the summit at 12.30 A.M., drenched through and through with perspiration. We set to and made sangars, and then lay down in biting cold at about 2 A.M., one blanket apiece. In spite of the cold I should have slept had it not been for a man alongside me who snored vigorously all night. We were lying on flat rocks—none too soft. Our commanding officer was up before dawn looking out for our friends, the Boers, opposing Buller, for we were now in rear of their right, and if they had waited till daylight we should have gone for them; but our friends the seven must have warned them, for they had retired during the night.
“Thus he relieved Sir Redvers from what he told Ian Hamilton was the most difficult position he had found himself in since the beginning of the campaign. Besides that, we effectually stopped all sniping from our side of the pass, whilst the column marched through, though there was plenty on the other side, out of range from us. We climbed precipitous hilltops all that day as we pushed men on and on, so as to get command up to the very exit. I was a bit done when I got into bivouac. I hadn’t really had a meal since 6 P.M. the day before, and had been hard at work night and day. We were off again on the 6th—Buller level with us now on the other road—and we marched into Lydenburg.”
The Boers, turned back from their grand emplacements and cleverly constructed trenches, were forced to follow their plan of splitting into two forces, one taking the direction of Kruger’s Post, the other going to Pilgrim’s Rest, where the President was said to have gone. But still, though retiring, other marauding bands had found leisure to prowl in the region of the railway, for on the 5th, both morn and eve were made hideous by their murderous ingenuity.
At dawn they attempted to cut the line between Pan and Wonderfontein, but the Canadian Mounted Rifles briskly blazed on the raiders, and though there were but 125 of the British against a horde of Dutchmen with two guns and a pom-pom, they contrived to rout the enemy without needing the assistance of Colonel Mahon, who was promptly sent to their succour. “A very creditable performance,” telegraphed the Chief, who was well pleased with the smartness of Major Sanders and his men. The Major and Lieutenant Moodie were slightly wounded, and several men were injured and taken prisoners. At night a train between Belfast and Pretoria was derailed owing to the engine being blown up with dynamite, but nevertheless the “Tommies” who were in the train gathered themselves together with amazing rapidity, and drove off the Boers who were hovering like expectant vultures round what they hoped would be a scene of blood.
To return to Lydenburg. The town lies within the hollow of a gigantic mountainous range, which frowns some 1500 feet above it. Its aspect, foliaged and green, with running brooks rippling in every direction, delighted the hearts of the wayworn troops. Grateful to every eye, after the monotonous drab of sun-dried veldt, was the sight of its blue gum-trees and verdurous gardens; refreshing to the long parched and heated senses, the babble of many pellucid streams! Here at last, they thought, was a haven of rest, and here on the 7th, when Generals Buller and Ian Hamilton had joined hands, the Union Jack was hoisted with resonant cheers. But the joy was of short duration. Scarcely had the strains of “God Save the Queen” died away than the Boers from the region of Spitz Kop, a formidable hill some twenty-five miles east, to which Botha with all his big guns had retreated, celebrated the occasion by firing into the town, and that despite the fact that it contained some thirty burghers’ families!
Now it became evident that the troops must face the prodigious task of clearing the Boer positions—natural fortresses they may be called—above Lydenburg and beyond it—a task for which the heroes of Pieter’s and Laing’s Nek were well fitted. It was a curious fact that to the share of these warriors fell the opening and the closing scenes of an arduous campaign, a dramatic fact like the working of a stage play, which takes care that all the prominent characters of the piece shall say their last say before the falling of the curtain.
The plan of attack was simple to read of but complex to execute. North of the road, towards the lair of the enemy, Lyttelton with Kitchener’s Brigade was to march; south of it, Hamilton with Smith-Dorrien’s Brigade and three batteries of artillery were to clear the course.
Early the next morning, the 8th, the troops, as described, proceeded to attack the foe—who at once began to thunder at them from the serpentine sweeps round Spitz Kop—while part of the forces crossed the Mauchberg ridge, so as to give battle to another hostile section which was perched on a commanding ridge some 1500 feet high. The whole series of eminences, cleft asunder in different parts, forming deep and treacherous ravines, was forbidding in the extreme to infantry; yet undaunted, the Devons, Royal Irish, and Royal Scots, marching steadily on and on like a vast machine, swept towards both sides of the position, and gradually converged as they neared the hill. The 20th and 53rd Batteries raked the summit, and finally, with a mighty roar, the combined infantry carried the crest and sent the enemy scuttling to a narrow causeway, which, sheltering them in a dense fog, allowed them unpunished to disappear with their guns.