The sun coming out, our spirits rose somewhat, and our fingers became warm enough to pull out bits of biscuit from our haversacks and so have a sumptuous breakfast on horseback. An hour and a half’s march brought us to a deep creek with a good drift over it, and this we crossed in safety. On the other side we found a long and broad expanse of plain gradually sloping up to a ridge of high kopjes some four miles in front of us. On these kopjes our friends the Boers were supposed to be waiting for us, so we spread out into extended single ranks with about eleven yards interval. A kind friend having given me a cheroot, I lit up and enjoyed a peaceful smoke, while at the same time I could not help wondering how many more smokes the Boers would allow me to have. Shortly afterwards we got the order to advance at the canter, which we did; as our scouts were barely 1,500 yards ahead and had not had time to ‘search’ the kopjes properly, this was, in my opinion, a risky order. However, we got there.
Firing had meanwhile commenced on our left, and two of our Victorian scouts were bagged. Our pom-poms and guns then tuned up; boom! pom-pom-pom, pom-pom! boom—and after a little of this double-bass tune the Boers bolted and left us in possession. Skirting along the scrub-covered banks of the Modder River, we at length reached Waggon Bridge, over which my subsection took the lead as scouts; and about midday arrived at a Boer farm some two and a half miles further on. Here we stayed the night, camping out on some commanding kopjes. A strict watch was, of course, kept up all night. Next day we duly received some nice compliments from the General in command on our rapid march and successful capture of Waggon Bridge; and then, like the celebrated Duke of York’s Army, we marched back again to our camp.
An officer of the corps, writing to friends at Calcutta, adds some interesting details:
We are right up at the front now holding a line of kopjes overlooking a large plain all round. There is nothing in the plain except one or two small kopjes occupied by the Boers between here and Brandfort. They come close in every night, and often do a little sniping at our outposts, but they disappear at daybreak. The other morning four Australians went out to a farm about three miles off; there were supposed to be only women there, and they had a couple of white flags up; but as soon as the first man got into the yard several Boers jumped out of the pigsty, shot his horse, wounded him and took him prisoner—the others had to clear. They say about a dozen Boers come there every night. The Australians have a picket a mile off, but they have not succeeded in catching anybody. The General won’t allow firing into the farm, because he says the women can’t help the Boers coming for supplies and things. The farm where we get our milk and stuff is owned by a Boer who has given up his arms; he fought against us, and bucks that he shot a Gordon Highlander officer at ten paces at Magersfontein. This Boer was in an awful funk lest his old friends should reach his farm and shoot him; at least, he said so. The night before last our sentries on one of the pickets were quite certain they saw our Boer friend lamp-signalling, and our signallers on the kopje noticed it also. Twenty Boers were seen in the distance in the afternoon, and he was evidently signalling to them. To-day there was a quantity of ammunition found in one of his kraals, so he will probably find himself in chokee. The day before I rejoined from hospital we attacked, or, rather, the Boers attacked us, but were shelled out of their position. Two of our officers who were left in camp saw from one kopje a shell burst in the middle of five men, and saw them all go down.
On the 23rd, when our men were sent away to the right with some other M.I. and the Cheshires to seize a bridge and to drive Boer raiders from some kopjes, they did not apparently wait to be turned out, but cleared and trekked across the plain to Brandfort. Our men never fired a shot, though Loch’s Horse on their left had a little shooting and lost one man, an advance scout. The Boers let him walk right into their midst, and as he turned round to bolt his horse came down and they took him prisoner. Our position is about, as far as I can make out, the centre of a half circle from Karree Siding to the Glen. One quarter circle is held by the 7th Division, two batteries, and various M.I. The other afternoon some Boers started sniping at our signal-post, but came nowhere near hitting; we all stood to arms, and when thirty men were sent out they cleared. They generally amuse themselves sniping at our outposts at something like 2,000 yards with no effect. We have to furnish three night pickets—three officers, five non-commissioned, and sixty men every night; it falls rather hard on the section officers, as one is sick, and the company commanders and the staff, of course, don’t do it, so it means three of the seven are out every night. There is not very much to do on picket except post the sentries, visit them two or three times in the night, and get them in again a little before sunrise, when they return to camp. There is also a day outpost of twenty men and two non-commissioned officers, and generally a convoy of similar size into Karree Siding; so the men, too, have enough to do.
There was a fight expected to-day (29th), but it has not come off, only a few shots on our left. The order has just come for us to go out to-morrow, leaving a sufficient guard to strike our tents and bring them on if necessary. We hope it is the real advance this time.
Douglas Jones proved himself such an excellent Assistant-Quartermaster that, as B Company’s appointments were all probationary, he has been made Company Quartermaster-Sergeant. We lost poor old Roger at Kruger Siding on the way up. He had quite turned into a regimental dog, and on the march used generally to come along with the rearguard. We halted to feed there one march, and he may have stopped with the Royal Scots. It is quite possible he went back to Jagersfontein, and made up to the Gloucester Yeomanry. They are bringing in two of our lame horses, so if he did we may get him again.
Photo: Bourne & Shepherd
CAPTAIN NOBLETT (Major Royal Irish Rifles)
(Commanding B Company Lumsden’s Horse)
Another correspondent who was kept in camp by a slight ailment while his comrades were away on patrol or some more exciting expedition records how he got out kits and collected firewood, ‘a thing I never did before,’ and how when others of his section came back they lay by the dying embers to keep themselves warm and occasionally made the fire flicker up by throwing more wood on it, reckless of danger from snipers, who were always on the prowl. While the main body of Lumsden’s Horse were away on that dash for Waggon Bridge the Boers made a counter demonstration from Brandfort, supported by pom-poms, and got within a thousand yards of the Red House Farm, but did no damage beyond interfering with the domestic arrangements of a Regular regiment, whose officers, being too far from the point of attack to see what really happened, thought their position was being seriously threatened and wanted 28,000 rounds of ammunition brought up from Karree Siding for emergencies. The orderly corporal who sent that request on got jeered at as an alarmist, when nothing happened except a retirement of the Boers. The next day Lee Stewart, who had been left behind in hospital at Cape Town, rejoined, and got a cordial welcome from all his comrades when they marched back from their first little expedition. The section mess was enabled to regale him at dinner that night on ‘chicken cooked by N—— and beefsteaks,’ so that one hardly wonders to find in the next day’s record the melancholy note, ‘There little was to eat; sat round the cook-house—two tins on the open veldt—and talked.’