We continued skirmishing as they retired before us, dodging from tree to rock, and from rock to bush, taking advantage of every cover to give us a shot, while we kept up an incessant "independent-file-firing," as they retreated, step by step, till lost in thickets, impervious to anything but wild beasts or Kaffirs. Having driven them into their inaccessible retreats among the extensive forests clothing the higher steppes of the mountain, and inflicted a considerable loss upon them, we skirmished through a belt of wood on our right, and after completely scouring it debouched on an open, where we halted in column, and for the first time for nine hours sat down to rest our weary limbs. Here we assisted the surgeon in performing different operations on the wounded, whose cries for water were so constant, that our canteens were soon left without a drop to moisten our own lips, parched and blistered by the sun.
It was now two o'clock, and as not one of us had yet broken his fast, it may easily be imagined with what appetite we gnawed at our black biscuit. While thus engaged the enemy was observed stealing out, one by one, from the forest, and collecting on the open table-land, where our gallant fellows lay dead; and to our indignation we saw them, through the telescope, stripping the bodies, without our being able to prevent it, a deep gorge separating us; a few well-directed conical balls, from heavy metalled rifles by Egg and Purday, dispersed them at a distance of three-quarters of a mile; one was seen to fall. The party were rebel Hottentots (Cape Corps deserters), and Kaffirs, the latter perfectly naked, and armed with guns and assegais; two or three we could distinguish wearing the kaross, with head-dresses of feathers, from which fact, and their being the centre of divers knots, we concluded they were chiefs and headmen, holding councils of war.
We were joined here by the General and the rest of the forces, including Colonel Sutton's column, which had successfully attacked the enemy on the Victoria Heights, driving them from their position, and killing twenty, but with a loss of three men killed and five wounded (two of them mortally), and had burnt and destroyed two of their villages, which we saw blazing away fiercely, and sending up volumes of smoke on the Little Amatola across the valley. During our brief rest the rebels sent a messenger of truce to say they wished to surrender. Lieut.-Col. Sutton, riding out by desire of the General, held a parley with about fifty or sixty of them at the edge of the wood. They stated that they wished to leave their Kaffir allies, and requested a week to collect their own people, when they would give themselves up. But, as the General, of course, insisted on immediate surrender, and granted only half an hour instead of a week, they quickly disappeared into the forest, their object having evidently been only to gain time.
Observing the enemy again assembling on their former ground, the General ordered the 74th to return through the forest once more. As we worked our difficult way through the underwood, taking care not to lose sight of our right and left files, we kept a sharp look out every step of our way; for each thicket, hollow trunk, or jackal's hole, tuft of grass, or lofty tree, may conceal the stealthy Kaffir when least expected; in an instant the silent forest is suddenly peopled with a legion of naked savages, springing, as it were, out of the earth, with a deadly volley from their unsuspected ambuscade.
We passed the dead body of one of our men stripped naked, lying in the jungle with a ghastly wound in his chest; but having orders to advance through the belt, and join the column on the other side, it was impossible to stop to bury or remove it. When the column came up, a grave was dug for the other men; and the Colonel, on my reporting having seen the body, sent me back with half a dozen men to bring it in. We had, therefore, to retrace our steps about a quarter of a mile through the forest, at the edge of which a guard was placed to render us assistance if attacked. The magnificent trees, and the fallen trunks in various stages of decay, overgrown with creepers, or green with moss, forcibly reminded one of the backwoods of Canada. We proceeded in perfect silence, with arms ready at a moment's warning, and again came up to the body. The stems of two or three young trees, picked up by the way, and tied together by wild vine, served as a stretcher, on which we bore the body back, and without interruption, nearly to the edge of the wood. As we stopped at this point to change bearers, a sound like the sharp crack of a dry stick was heard; but as we could see no one, and a dead silence reigned around, we resumed our burden, from whose reopened wound a pool of blood had flowed where it had rested. We had just gained the open ground, when suddenly along the face of the wood there blazed a sharp fire of musketry, and the enemy sprang from every bush; our comrades of the extended company at the same moment briskly returning their fire. The balls again whistled past us, lodging in the trees with a sharp thud, or ploughing up the ground. One of our men was severely wounded in the knee, and died afterwards while undergoing amputation; the rest plunged into the forest in pursuit of the enemy, who left seven dead on the ground, carrying off many more dead and wounded. This interruption passed, we proceeded with the corpse to the grave, which the men had dug in the soft soil with their hands, billhooks, and bayonets, where we buried it with the two other bodies of the poor fellows who had fallen; and, having filled up the grave, carefully sprinkled it with dead leaves and sticks, a precaution which, as we afterwards learned from a Kaffir prisoner, was of no avail, for the crafty wretches soon found the spot, and dragging the bodies out, exposed them, as they said white men ought to be, "to the sun and the vulture."
We learned that whilst we were returning with the dead body an armed party of Hottentots came up, and sat down with Lieut. Gordon, who was posted with the company extended along the edge of the forest, and asked for bread and tobacco, stating themselves to belong to one of our native Levies, at that time at no great distance, and whom they strongly resembled in dress. Among them was a man in the Cape Corps uniform, who, when questioned as to his being on foot and in the bush, said he belonged to "troop A, Captain C——'s" and had, with several others, been ordered to dismount, and skirmish with the Levies, their horses being done up. Strongly suspecting they were rebels, but not liking to act on mere suspicion, Gordon went to request the Colonel to see them; but the moment the rascals saw them approaching the spot where they sat talking to our men, they jumped to their feet, and just as the Colonel shouted, "Shoot them down," fired a random volley, followed so instantaneously by the fire of the company that the two appeared as one report, three of the rebels falling on the spot, beside those killed and wounded at the moment we emerged from the wood.
Simultaneously with the above attack, a combined movement was effected by the 2nd division, under Colonel Mackinnon, which was separated into two columns; the first, under his own immediate command, moving from the Quilliquilli along the left bank of the Keiskamma; and the second, under Lieut.-Col. Michell, proceeding to the Keiskamma Hoek. In conjunction with the operations of the two main divisions, the troops from the garrison of Fort Cox, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Cooper, harassed the enemy in the valleys of the Keiskamma, thus "penetrating the mountains in four columns, converging to a common centre upon the principal strongholds of the enemy." A large native force, under Captain Tylden, R.E., was also placed in position on the Windogelberg, in order to prevent them making for the country beyond the Kei.
It was now near dusk, and having been out since five in the morning we were not sorry to hear the order to return to camp. As we descended the steep pass, stormed in the morning, the lines of camp-fires were seen blazing cheerfully on the darkening plain below, where the rest of the division was already bivouacked. Having again forded the river, on approaching the lines, the officers and men of the 91st came out to meet us. They had got fires lighted, and wood and water ready for our wearied men, and helping to carry in our wounded, shared their coffee with us. Whilst sitting round the fires we talked over the stirring events of the day, lamenting the fate of the brave fellows who had marched out with us that morning in as high health and spirits as ourselves, and now lay in their lonely graves on the heights above.
Shortly after nightfall it was discovered that there was no water left in camp, and, being the orderly officer, I was sent with an armed party to bring a supply from the river, about a quarter of a mile from the sentries, and (being thickly skirted with bush) a very likely ambuscade for Kaffirs, who have a taste for lurking round camps at night. We left the lines quietly, made our way across the dark plain, and soon reached the river, which we heard, rather than saw, rushing along between its shady banks. The water-party filled their load of canteens without interruption, but the return to camp, which on this side was occupied by the Levies, was rather a hazardous affair, for the Fingoes have a stupid way of firing first and challenging afterwards. As a precautionary measure, therefore, before he could see our approach, we commenced shouting "Friend!" to the sentry who had passed us out, and also been specially warned of our return; a bright flash was the immediate answer, and a ball whizzed close over our heads: down we all went flat on our faces, shouting "Friend!" more lustily than before, as a second shot was fired at us; the stir and jabber among the rest of the Fingoes, which also prevented our being heard, promised a general sortie, in which case we should be shot or assegaied to a moral, so we took advantage of the sentry's reloading to jump to our feet, and make a dash for it; to their great astonishment, rushing almost into their arms, shouting "Friend, friend, you scoundrels, friend!"
The wounded, who lay groaning all night by a fire on the open field, suffered acutely from the cold; their distressing cries, together with the unusual hardness of the ground, kept us awake a great part of the night.