Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa

by Louis Eugène Du Moulin

Another important matter was the equalising of such rations as were in the possession of the Boers: stock was therefore taken by each officer, and Captain Wroughton arranged about the sharing of what flour and other stuff there was, and saw that the fat oxen were collected and put into a drove in charge of some of the burghers, until they were required for slaughtering.

During this day the battalion had been moved to the same spot upon which the laager was encamped: several pickets were furnished round the prisoners, and sentries placed on the roads leading in and out of the pass.

All the burghers paraded with their horses the next morning, so that those which were fit for use by the mounted troops might be taken, and others given in their place. An Artillery officer came down to select these horses, and from the way he went about the business, carefully examining each animal all round and passing his critical hand over fetlocks and back sinews, it was plain that he did not realise that he had about 1,200 horses to look through that morning. However, our time was precious, and we had plenty to do without meddling in other people's affairs, so the Artillery major was left to run his own show; it came to a climax a few hours afterwards, as we received orders to move before he had selected more than a few horses.

From that time on we were beset with people who either wanted another horse, or thought they saw their way to getting a better one. None of us had any peace; there was always someone who wished to exchange his horse for a better one, and on going down to the lines we were pretty certain to see several strangers "looking round," as they called it—but we soon knew what that meant. The Boer laager seemed to be considered a fair field for anyone to exploit, one officer going so far as to send his men down to take some of the Boers' blankets away from them!

A party of Basutos from across the border, which was only three or four miles away, came over to pay their respects to the General; they were a chief and his interpreter and a retinue of sorts. A more motley crew has never been seen; they were all mounted on ponies; the chief was an enormously fat young man, bursting out of a slate coloured tweed suit, and wearing a black pot hat; the interpreter was similarly rigged out in a suit of dittoes; but the retinue were equipped mostly with a simple tuft of feathers in their hair. Some of them had blankets, but, the day being close, they carried them strapped on to their saddles. Whilst the chief was making his salaams to the General the crowd of retainers strolled about, and eventually became such a nuisance that after the interview was concluded, the whole gang were requested to withdraw to their own territory.

The ammunition which could not be carried with us for want of the necessary transport was handed over to the Mounted Infantry and to our battalion to be destroyed. This was no easy matter, but some was burned and exploded, some buried, and a quantity thrown into the pools of water in the spruit.

Major Lean was very successful with five or six wagon loads of powder and ammunition which were given him to destroy; the powder was strewn broadcast over the ground, but the boxes of ammunition and the wheels and other woodwork of the wagons were piled, sandwich fashion, into a huge heap and set fire to just before leaving the camp. As the boxes burned the cartridges were exploded, and a terrific noise, like a general engagement or the last stage of the attack as practised at General's inspection, echoed and re-echoed among the hills for several hours. No doubt, a good many cartridges escaped destruction, but it was impossible in the time available to destroy the ammunition more thoroughly.

Amongst the Mauser ammunition which was given up in the bandoliers, there were many clips containing cartridges whose bullets were covered with bright green fat; this gave rise to the statement that the Boers had wilfully used poisoned bullets. This theory was regularly harped upon by some war correspondents in their letters, but a more disgraceful insinuation against our enemies never existed, nor one more erroneous from a musketry point of view.

It is quite plain to any unbiassed person that any grease which might be upon the bullet when it is placed in the chamber of the rifle would be completely wiped off during the passage of the tightly-fitting projectile through the barrel, from which it emerges as clean as when made, and bearing the marks of the grooving. Enquiries among the better class Boers regarding this rumour elicited the fact that many of them were in the habit of dipping the cartridges in fat prepared from bucks which they had killed, with a view to lubricating the chamber and barrel of the rifle: the buck fat, after exposure to the air, turned green; the Boers were much amused at the ridiculous conclusion at which these correspondents had arrived.