New Scotland Yard: July 31, 1901.
Dear Playfair,—You asked me last night to note down briefly some details of the attack on the Chimes West mine. Here are the facts as well as I remember them.
We had a Police post at this mine on the Rand about nine miles from Boksburg, a place you will find on all maps. Our force consisted of sixteen Railway Pioneer Regiment and nine Lumsden’s Horse, the latter under Sergeant Walker.
On the morning of December 26 this small force—which, by-the-by, was located in what I may term the first floor of the head-gear of the Chimes West mine—was attacked by 300 Boers, who had with them two pom-poms.
H. KELLY
The Boers fired volleys, and a good many pom-pom shells went through the quarters occupied by Lumsden’s Horse. I saw dozens of shell-holes, not only through the iron sheets which formed the walls of their quarters, but also through the great wooden beams or baulks of a foot or more in diameter. From one of the earliest of these volleys Sergeant Walker was killed as he was kneeling behind a sandbag.
Our men were under fire for several hours, and, seeing that we were so greatly outnumbered, Tolley volunteered to ride through the Boers into Boksburg, a distance of nine miles, and did so—a gallant feat. Kelly, Grenville, and Jones volunteered to make a dash for a tailings or dump-heap, so as to enfilade the Boers. Kelly and Grenville got home, Jones’s horse fell, and he fractured his arm and lay there. Kelly and Grenville did excellent work from the tailings heap, and made it so uncomfortable for the Boers that they had to shift their position. I was there next day and met General Barton on the ground. On receipt of his report the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Kitchener, wired us the following message: ‘Congratulate Police on gallant defence Benoni. Deplore loss of their sergeant.’ Lord Kitchener is temperate in praise, so I take it his commendation meant much. I understand that three of the men whose names I have given above have been since mentioned in despatches on account of their behaviour on December 26.
E.I. Lockhart, of Lumsden’s Horse, became senior sergeant on Walker’s death, and is a gallant old fellow. He is much younger than I, but everyone dubs him old. He behaved very well. His name should be mentioned in any account of this particular incident.
Our men saved the Chimes West mine. What this means you can infer from what the Boers did to the Modderfontein mine, close by, which our men could not defend. In less than half an hour the Boers did damage estimated at from 250,000l. to 300,000l.