Meanwhile Major Hornby, with four guns of his own command, and the only one remaining of U Battery, which had been recaptured after stampeding, moved southward to a position twelve hundred yards from Koorn Spruit Drift. There he brought them into action with a cool audacity and effect that paralysed the enemy. Though he could not save the guns that had been left behind, he could cover the retirement of Cavalry and Mounted Infantry of the rearguard, who, unable longer to hold the low ridge against heavy odds, were being forced back from the waterworks, fighting stubbornly, though threatened in flank by the force that had captured our convoy. Shelled at from right and left, smitten by storms of rifle bullets, the gunners of Q Battery never budged. Coolly, as if at target practice, they loaded and aimed. The shells burst among the Boers, checking more than one attempt at a rush, and then the remnants of a shattered brigade were enabled to retire upon their supports, who had rallied for a stand at the station buildings.
All the time officers and men of the Army Medical Corps were covering themselves with honour by brilliant services rendered to stricken soldiers, who lay helpless where the ground was torn by bullets. The coolest deed of all, however, was done by an American named Todd, a trooper in Roberts’s Horse. With a comrade he had first volunteered to go out and bring in some stray horses for the disabled guns. Before they had ridden fifty yards the second trooper was shot dead, but Todd galloped on straight towards the Boers, rounded up both horses, and had nearly brought them back when one was killed. When he rejoined his detachment Todd heard an officer asking for volunteers to go out in search of their doctor, who was lying wounded in a donga. Without waiting to hear more the trooper turned his horse’s head towards the Boer lines again and galloped off. Twenty minutes later he rode back slowly, bearing a heavy burden on his arms. ‘I couldn’t see the doctor anywhere,’ he said, ‘but I have brought back the only wounded man that I found alive there.’ If ever a man earned the right to wear the grim badge of Roberts’s Horse it is Trooper Todd. Deeds of heroism, however, were not rare that day. They could not avert disaster, but they shed a light upon it that dispels the shadow of humiliation.
Our men had still hard fighting to do before they could hope to extricate themselves. Brigadier-General Broadwood’s retirement upon the station buildings was not effected without difficulty, and it is wonderful that he should have been able to keep the remnants of so many broken squadrons in hand, while they were weakened by further losses every minute, and the on-coming enemy gathered strength. Several horsemen, escaping, got away across the veldt, and then, forming groups, headed towards Boesman’s Kop, Boers pursuing for some distance. But the main body made a stand at the station buildings, and fought it out for two weary hours, so fiercely that the enemy did not dare to come to closer quarters. The company of Burmese Mounted Infantry that had been on outpost duty west of Koorn Spruit, when they found themselves cut off by Boers in ambush, made an attempt to rejoin the main body, but were in turn surrounded. Having some advantage of ground, though outnumbered, they were enabled to hold their assailants off until 7 o’clock.
Then the scene changed. Troops appeared on Boesman’s Kop. They were the advanced guard of Colonel Martyr’s Mounted Infantry brigade, which had made a forced march to relieve the beleaguered column. Their commander halted only long enough to let the main body close up, and then ‘Queenslanders to the rescue’ came sweeping across the veldt as fast as their jaded horses could move. But the Boers were at their old tactics again, and the Queensland Mounted Infantry fell into a trap skilfully laid for them. Before the enemy could reap much advantage, however, Colonel Henry was at them with all his companies of Regular Mounted Infantry, which the astute Brigadier had ordered forward when he saw the Queensland men in difficulties. The young officer, who has spent many years with Egyptian Camel Corps, chasing Dervish raiders and scouting about their strongholds, was not to be caught by a Boer ambush. He advanced upon them in a formation too flexible even for their mobility, and gradually drove them before him until the Burmese and Queensland Mounted Infantry were enabled to fight their way through the weakened cordon.
This timely diversion gave General Broadwood his opportunity, Major Hornby’s battery fell back to another position, covering the retirement, and then the column, leaving its wounded under care of our own surgeons, retired slowly to join the welcome reinforcements. They had to turn again and again to face the foe, who still hung on their heels, and all the way they were shelled by Boer guns, until a final stand was made near the waterworks, where the enemy dared not attack, though the artillery fire continued for nearly two hours longer.
Late that afternoon the Highland Brigade, under General Hector MacDonald, passed Boesman’s Kop, and advanced to get touch of the enemy, near Modder River; but except for a few shells and sputtering rifle fire, no attempt was made by the Boers to resist this advance. When General Smith-Dorrien’s brigade, and other troops of the Ninth Division, joined MacDonald, the column that had fought so well after disaster fell upon it, dispersed into scattered remnants once more, each unit making for the appointed bivouac in any want of formation best adapted to the needs of weary men who had to walk because their horses were more tired than themselves.
What a roll-call it would have been if the Brigadier had not in mercy spared them that melancholy ordeal! When the losses came to be counted, they numbered, in dead, wounded, and prisoners, nearly a third of the force that had marched out of Thaba ’Nchu forty hours earlier. Of U Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, only a mere handful remained, and Q Battery had suffered heavily too. Seven out of twelve guns had been left in the enemy’s hands, with some eighty baggage waggons full of stores. Household Cavalry, 10th Hussars, and Mounted Infantry had losses to mourn, and Roberts’s Horse the most of all. Unhappily, it was too late to hope that either guns or convoy could be recaptured. They had all been taken off during the afternoon towards Thaba ’Nchu, and Boers were in possession of the waterworks, with artillery on heights behind, covering the road.
Next day a demonstration of the whole force under General Colvile’s command was made, as if to drive every Boer from the waterworks, where mischief had been done by the destruction of pumping engines; but it ended in nothing, and then we gradually drew in our forces. The Boers assumed the offensive again, and began to threaten our line of communications at several points.
These were the conditions that made Lord Roberts anxious to secure the services of every mounted corps on which he could rely for meeting the new Boer tactics by swift counter-strokes. Most of them he had foreseen when orders were sent for Lumsden’s Horse to be supplied with all the remounts necessary for repairing losses and pushed on to the front. Sanna’s Post with all its consequences had not been counted on; but it made the need for mounted troops all the more urgent in order that pressure round about Wepener might be relieved and lines of communication cleared. That action, lamentable because of the sacrifices it entailed, but glorious in its heroic incidents, gave to Lumsden’s Horse not only an opportunity, but an example; and we may be sure that, when the news reached them at Maitland Camp and at Queen’s Town, every trooper made up his mind to be a worthy comrade of the men who had risked their lives so nobly and fought with such stubborn valour in vain attempts to save the guns at Sanna’s Post.
