The column, clambering up the steep laborious path, looked like flies swarming on the heights. The horses panted for breath; and the men were quite "pumped," having been marching two whole nights.
The summit gained, we halted on a burnt and blackened table-land, where we were facetiously ordered to breakfast, having nothing with us but black biscuit, which we sat down on the dewy ground to gnaw at.
A thick heavy cloud or fog hung around; so dense as to hide everything at a few yards distance, saturating our canvas blouses, and striking so chilly that we were heartily glad to move on again, after waiting two hours in vain for a glimpse of the General's column; it had, however, one advantage; enabling us to take up our position unseen, and totally unsuspected by the enemy, whose attention was occupied with the movements of the other Brigade.
At half-past seven we moved forward along the grassy undulating ridge, with flank-patrols thrown out right and left, and had not proceeded a quarter of a mile when the boom of a gun indicated the direction of the co-operating division; and almost immediately afterwards, through an opening in the driving clouds, we caught sight of the red coats and gleaming arms moving along the heights on the opposite side of the sunny valley, towards its head. The howitzers belched out their white smoke, and we saw a couple of shells burst over a Kaffir village; the cavalry moved rapidly forward, the battalion following, and again all was hidden in the mist. The rattle of small arms, and the occasional roar of the big guns told they were actively engaged; and, continuing for some time, created no little impatience and excitement amongst us.
Meanwhile, we had advanced about seven miles; and halting, piled arms near the spot where we had been attacked on the 8th of September, and about three-quarters of a mile from the belt of bush in front, separating us from the other division. Several companies of the 12th and 74th were extended, lying down to watch the forest, in case any of the enemy should attempt to escape from it: and detached parties of Fingoes were sent into the bush on the right, where they set fire to a number of huts, and with their usual activity, kept up an uninterrupted firing for a quarter of an hour, at some fifteen or twenty Kaffirs. The horses were off-saddled, and turned out to graze, not having had any food since the previous night.
After we had lain in this way for rather more than an hour, a party of the 91st, and Cape Corps was seen issuing from the forest, and an officer galloped forward with an order from the General for our brigade to join him. The picquets were instantly called in, and while the horses were being saddled, we crowded to learn news of the other column. They had had some severe fighting, and had driven a large body of the enemy from their position on the forest heights, into the Blinkwater and Waterkloof, though not without loss. Captain Addison, of the 2nd Queen's, had been severely wounded, Lieutenant Norris of the 6th mortally, two or three men killed or wounded, and Lieut.-Col. Burn's charger shot under him.
On entering the belt of wood, passable only by a narrow rocky path, we had to march in file. The timber was very fine, with luxuriant evergreens beneath, immense creepers and baboon-ropes hanging in festoons, or pendant to the ground, from branches fifty or sixty feet high.
The rear of our column had nearly gained the other side of the belt, from which the head had already emerged, when a sudden volley from a dark thicket above us made the forest ring, while the balls whistled past our heads and struck the trees on the opposite side the path, sending splinters flying on every side. We continued advancing, firing at every puff of smoke, the only indication of the whereabouts of our hidden enemy, until we gained the open, when we were saluted by a succession of volleys from an angle of the forest on our left, especially directed at each officer as he came up, though fortunately, without doing further injury than grazing a few of the men's accoutrements.
We were moving along the open to join the General, when an alarm was given that the 12th regiment, in rear, with the pack horses, was cut off in the pass. Our companies, just formed into open column, were ordered to the right about, and sent back again at "the double" to extend along the edge of the wood; when a very pretty skirmish took place; our men sheltered by the rocky ground, and the enemy dodging behind the trees and firing from breastworks of loose stones, thrown up in front of their village, along the edge of the forest. Under cover of our fire the 12th cleared the pass, bearing a wounded man with them; half a dozen of our mounted men were wounded, and several riderless horses galloped wildly past. The artillery, posted on a rising ground, about a quarter of a mile in our rear, opened on the bush, wherever the Kaffirs showed themselves in parties, and sent round shot and "spherical case" right in amongst them, whirring and hurtling over our heads with an astounding, and, at first, rather startling noise, splintering the trees and killing all within their deadly range. In the hottest of the fire, poor Ricketts, of the 91st, was carried past us, dangerously wounded in the chest. After a sharp skirmish, of about a quarter of an hour, the enemy's fire was completely silenced, and the wood apparently totally deserted;—the "recall" sounded, the skirmishers closed and retired, the regiments were re-formed, and the heavy masses of infantry, moving from all sides across the green flat, joined the General's party.