Spytfontein, May 1.
Dear Colonel Rendell,—I am writing to give you an account of the first action the gun has been in, and to tell you how admirably the men behaved in what were really very trying circumstances. When we left Calcutta I had the gun arranged to go on pack saddles on horses; but when we arrived here we found this would not do, as our animals were not properly trained, and in jumping about they were always knocking pieces of skin off and otherwise damaging themselves. We therefore fitted up one of our transport carts as a carriage, and with two mules as wheelers and four horses in front we get along pretty well. The first day we went out to fight we saw nothing, although there was a little firing about two miles from us. On the way we came to a very nasty piece of ground, and we succeeded in turning the gun head over heels down the side of a kopje. By a miracle it was not injured in the least, and I felt sure it must be going to do some work. Yesterday we went out again, and had only gone about four miles when firing began all along the line. We were on the right, next to a pom-pom; the Boer guns very soon found out the latter, and it had to be moved out of action. In the meanwhile I had been having a go at the Boer gunners at about 3,000 yards. No sooner had the pom-pom gone than a shell missed my head by about a foot, fell twenty yards behind me and burst, wounding four of my horses slightly. This wasn’t quite good enough and I got out of action as soon as I could, but not before they had sent two more shells right among us, or too close to be pleasant; the last one killed two horses and blew a trooper’s foot to pieces.
The Boers outnumbered us by about four to one, and shortly after this we received an order to retire with the rest, which we did. We had gone about half a mile, with rifle bullets sprinkling around us, when I was ordered to come into action behind a few stones that were lying on the plain. There wasn’t an atom of cover for my horses or the men holding them, although the gun was partly protected. I opened fire on the Boers at 1,000 yards, had fired about 250 rounds of rapid traversing fire when they began to retire. I fired about another 230, when the gun jammed, and at the same moment an officer came dashing up to tell me to retire immediately. We did so under a perfect hail of bullets, and although I had six horses wounded out of ten, not one of them was so badly injured as to be unable to go on, and not a single man of us was touched. After going about half a mile I gave my horse to Corbett to lead, and got into the cart and managed to get the gun into action again. We lost three belts and boxes in our hasty retirement, but that of course could not be helped. The men with me were Sergeant Bale, of Jubbulpur; Private Booth, of Howrah; Privates Dowd, Dickens, Corbett, and Burnand, of Jamalpur; and Private Bolst, of Asonsole; Private Burnand is my driver. There was one other man of Lumsden’s Horse with me, named Mercer, who was helping to hold horses. Sergeant Dale, Privates Booth, Corbett, and Bolst, and myself were on the gun. Colonel Ross, who was in charge of our brigade, expressed pleasure at the work done by the gun, and said that we knocked over several of the enemy, which was distinctly satisfactory. Our casualties were heavy. We lost our Second-in-Command (Major Showers) killed, Lieutenant Crane missing and wounded, and one private known to be killed, and probably one or two others of the wounded have since died, our killed, wounded, and missing being seventeen in all.
How our team escaped injury is to me little short of a miracle. The men behaved splendidly, and if ever we get into as tight a place again I have perfect confidence in their standing by me and the gun. Our ambulance is out now looking for wounded, but the Boers have probably attended to them long ago—at any rate, I hope so. Our men have certainly had their baptism of fire, and I for one should not object if we never got it as hot again.
You would hardly recognise the gun now, I fancy; it is a dirty khaki colour, with the paint knocked off it in, places and smothered with dirt and stuff outside. But the inside is, I think, quite as clean as when at Jamalpur; anyhow, it still knows how to work.
Yours very sincerely,
B.W. Holmes
From the personal experiences of a non-commissioned officer who was wounded and captured by the Boers we get side-lights that help more than anything else towards a clear understanding of the temper and actions of men on the battlefield. To some extent this story touches on ground that has already been covered by previous descriptions. Partly for that reason, but mainly because it is a complete picture of one incident the nobility of which would have been lost if woven into the continuous narrative, it has been kept distinct, so that the writer’s impressions may be reproduced here with all the minor touches and bits of local colour that made them vivid at the time of occurrence. He begins with the march out of camp at 3 o’clock that memorable morning:
We fell in punctually and moved off to the rendezvous, the moon shining brightly and making wonderful black shadows among the surrounding kopjes-pronounced ‘koppies,’ by the way. The cold was intense, and numbed our fingers so that our reins could scarce be felt; The order to trot was received with satisfaction, for we were all shivering, men and horses alike. A few minutes later we joined company with a pom-pom battery of two guns, and a body of Mounted Infantry composed of Australians and details from various regiments. Our strength in all was, we have since heard, some 800, while the opposing Boers numbered three or four thousand, with several big guns. When our little band was complete, the order was given to trot, and we proceeded at a sharp pace for about a mile. Daylight was then breaking and a halt was called, the order being given to dismount and charge magazines—a sign of business received with much satisfaction. Thereafter we moved forward in extended order, with scouts in advance for three or four miles, when stray shots in front showed us that we were coming into touch with the enemy.
Before us the country lay in ridges running parallel with each other, and at right angles to our line of advance. As we surmounted each rising we expected to view the enemy, but the order to dismount came without our being vouchsafed any visible sign of their presence. Before us lay some 800 yards of rising ground, and we swarmed up in a long open line, fully expecting a volley ere we reached the top. However, our hour of trial had not yet come, though the scattered shots heard to our front as we advanced had increased to a sharp fusillade on our left front. The order then came to extend away into a narrow valley running at right angles and crossing the ends of the succession of ridges we had covered. Thus, lying on the slope, we could see behind for a mile or so, and in the opposite direction, up the valley, right into the country which the enemy were known to occupy.