It took us all next day to get the commissariat supplies distributed and the empty waggons escorted down the hill again to the Blinkwater. A sudden stir was caused in camp through one of the guard-fires having been incautiously made without the usual precaution of clearing a space in the long dry grass, which took fire; in a few minutes a large extent was blazing furiously. Independently of the danger to our camp, the loss of pasture was a serious consideration. The General was in a furious rage, and instantly ordered every one in camp to assist in putting it out. In a few minutes a whole brigade appeared on the ground, armed with green boughs, and spread over the smoking plain, switching away most vigorously at the blazing grass; luckily there was no wind, and it was very soon extinguished, though not before several acres were burnt black, and one face of the camp thrown into the greatest confusion by the hasty removal of the ammunition, blankets, piles of arms, and patrol-tents, from the way of the spreading conflagration. In moving the muskets, one of them went off accidentally, the ball striking the tent in which the General was sitting, with several of his officers; rather astonishing the party within.
On the morning of the 23rd, Lieut.-Col. Michell's Brigade marched from camp for the Blinkwater valley below, to be in readiness to ascend the Heights by Fullers Hoek at daylight the following morning, and assail the enemy's position from that quarter, simultaneously with the attack of the 60th Rifles from the Wolfsback range on the other, and Lieut.-Col. Fordyce's direct on their front. In the evening orders were issued for the march before daylight; it was a dark cold morning, and we were enveloped in the chilly mist as we moved along the ridge, until day broke, when the clouds lifting we got fine views of the valleys below, lighted up with the morning sun. Some Kaffir horses, which had been grazing during the night, and had been left out longer than usual, were seen near the edge of the bush, and some of our horsemen, after a short chevy, captured them, a few shots being fired at the party out of the thick fog. Soon after, a body of Kaffirs was observed making across the open, for the forest above the Waterkloof, about half a mile distant on our right, and the 74th immediately gave chase; the horse guns and Cape Corps galloped to an eminence on our left, and fired several rounds of shell into another body assembled on a ridge, leading down into the Blinkwater, to oppose the ascent of Lieut.-Col. Nesbitt's force, which was steadily ascending the steep face of the hill under fire, driving the enemy from point to point. We advanced rapidly in extended order towards the forest, and in a few minutes were warmly engaged with the enemy, who were strongly posted in the rocks among the trees, one of our men being shot dead at the first volley. Entering the wood, we drove them before us till they were lost in impenetrable underwood; the 12th and Fingo Levies covering our movement as we brought right shoulders forward, in direction of the village at the head of the Pass, near the old sawpits, where the enemy had posted themselves, and were with some difficulty dislodged. Colonel Fordyce sent me, with half-a-dozen volunteers, to set fire to the village, which we had great difficulty in effecting, owing to the huts being perfectly green, and during the operation were annoyed by firing from the wood. The regiment held on through the forest, driving the enemy step by step from their cover, but not without loss, one man being killed and another badly wounded, whilst arms and accoutrements were struck and smashed on all sides, though on the whole we escaped with comparatively little damage. One man, in the act of capping his musket, had his finger shot off by a ball, which broke the lock, and two others were slightly wounded, one in the leg, the other in the ribs; many Kaffirs were killed. By nine o'clock the 60th Rifles had gained the Heights and joined our left, while Colonel Michell's brigade, which had ascended the Pass, was seen advancing towards the south-west corner of the plain, through a narrow belt of wood on the right of the position to which the enemy were now driven, and on clearing the bush the rear of the column was attacked, though no opposition had been made to the passage of the main body. The 91st faced to the right about, and after a sharp skirmish, in which they suffered one or two casualties, drove the enemy back with some loss, when the column crossed the front of the enemy's position, and reinforced our right, which had for some hours maintained the brunt of the fire on the most difficult ground; after a continued roar of rolling musketry and booming guns the last body of the enemy was driven from their position, and retreated through the opposite belt of forest and across the ridge beyond it towards the Kromme.
It was now noon, and having been under arms and actively engaged since four in the morning, we were right glad of the short rest which was allowed on the whole Division uniting at this point; and halting near a spring, we broke our fast on biscuit and beef. The 60th Rifles had captured about sixty head of cattle, having had one man killed and another badly injured. The poor fellow was brought up with the rest of our wounded, and amputation being found necessary, his arm was taken off on the field at once; one of the Marines was also dangerously wounded, and died two days after. We buried the two Highlanders on the mountain top, and piled a cairn above their grave. Fresh ammunition was issued to all the regiments, from the reserve on the pack-mules, and after a halt of about two hours, the force separated in different directions; Lieut.-Col. Michell's brigade consisting of the 2nd, 6th, 91st, and artillery bivouacking on the ground, in the centre of the enemy's late position. Lieut.-Col. Nesbitt's column, consisting of the 45th regiment, the 60th Rifles, and Marines, was sent down again to the camp in the Blinkwater valley, by the eastern spur of the range, covered by the artillery; the Fingo Levies descending the valley to waylay the Blinkwater passes, and prevent the enemy escaping in that direction with cattle to the Amatolas; while the 12th, 74th, and cavalry marched with the General for our old bivouac at Mundells Krantz. On our route across the table-land we were suddenly fired on from a belt of bush skirting the edge of the precipice and running up from the Waterkloof forests below, but we continued our march without taking further notice of them than throwing out a flank patrol of the 74th, and a few Cape Corps; they were merely a straggling party, more intent on annoying us than fighting, and did no other harm than wounding a couple of horses. Our total loss this day was only three men killed and seven wounded, after having driven the enemy from an almost impenetrable stronghold—a dense forest with close thorny underwood, and endless barriers of huge masses of detached rock.
The shadows of evening were falling rapidly as we once more entered the lines of burnt out fires on our old bivouacking ground, and we were not long in turning in to rest, lying down round the fires. One or two of us now began to feel the effects of our late wet work, in the shape of acute rheumatism and lumbago, which kept us awake in spite of fatigue.
We marched early in falling sleet, to join the other brigade, on the ridge facetiously denominated "Mount Pleasant." Several large Kaffir fires were seen on the heights on the opposite side of the Waterkloof valley, the smoke hanging heavily in the damp air. The tops of the distant mountains and most of the nearer peaks were white with snow that had fallen during the night, and the breeze from that direction blew so bitterly cold on our saturated clothes, that we were perfectly benumbed in our light marching dress, which, though warmer than agreeable under the mid-day sun, was a very indifferent protection against such weather. On reaching the bivouac of the brigade in occupation, we found they had suffered much more than ourselves; the chill wind swept unbroken over the bleak exposed ridge which was covered with snow, and the trenches which the men had dug before the rain came on, to sleep in under shelter of the earth thrown out of them, were full of water. A consultation took place between the two Commanders as to the advisability, or rather practicability of making any movement in such weather. During this, partly to keep themselves warm, and partly to commemorate the death of an unfortunate Kaffir spy whom they had just assegaied, the Fingoes gathered in a circle and performed a war dance, with unusually savage yells and gesticulations. The rain was evidently determined to make a day of it, and about eleven o'clock we were driven back again to our old bivouac,—of the very sight of which we were thoroughly weary. It had been visited during our absence by the Kaffirs, the spoor of whose bare feet was traceable round nearly every fire, on which we found they had been roasting the offal of our slaughtered cattle, and actually eating the bones, which were gnawed off, as if by large dogs. The sloppy ground, after twenty-four hours' rain, and trampling of men, horses and cattle, had become a perfect bog, in which we sank at every step; and with the driving rain, which, like a white cloud, came sweeping across the bleak plain till it dashed in our faces, with the fitful gusts of wind that scattered the ashes of our wretched fires in every direction, our day's halt was anything but a lounge. One of our men, wounded in the fight of the day before, died in the afternoon, and was buried near the graves of Norris and the other brave fellows interred here. The pitiless rain changed only for sleet at night, and the men suffered very much, their blankets having been completely soaked as well as their clothes for many hours, while the ground was unfit even for the cattle and horses to lie on. In the morning we found ourselves whitened over with hail and sleet, the fog so thick that all operations, were out of the question, and another day in this cheerful spot was before us. All day long the belt of wood rang with the sound of the axe; Officers and men, for the sake of exercise, busily occupied themselves in cutting down trees, chopping up and carrying wood for the fires; those that could not borrow an axe or bill-hook, made fires round the standing trunks and burnt them down, when the branches were torn off and carried smoking to the camp, and piled on the fires, which at last burned up, high and cheerily, in spite of the descending deluge.
As there appeared to be no chance of the weather improving, the General determined to move the following morning at all hazards. The troops mustered without bugle call, and silently took their places, the blazing fires casting a bright ruddy light on the dripping ranks, standing motionless in the heavy rain in which the men had lain all night without a murmur. At five we moved off, and after an hour's march through very long grass reached the edge of the heights above the Waterkloof valley, into which we at once descended, scrambling down a tremendously steep rocky path leading abruptly into the deep glen, the advanced sections of the 12th looking like Lilliputian soldiers far beneath, as the breaking daylight showed them already landed at the bottom. Having re-formed our ranks, we proceeded up the valley to attack the new position taken up by the enemy on the southern head of the Kromme range. The big guns and musketry on the heights above our left told that the other brigade was already engaged, and soon after, as we got further up the valley, we saw heavy clouds of smoke rising from the huts they had fired. On reaching the point where the valley branches into two, we took the road leading up the one on our right, and presently came on a village prettily situated, and indeed almost hidden in the bush; the Kaffirs had but barely escaped, and one or two lurking in the bush were caught by the Fingoes; a small body of them were also seen creeping on hands and knees through the long grass over the crest of an opposite hill, and a party of our horse dashed after in pursuit, and cut them off. We ascended the mountain by a steep winding road; the rain had at last ceased, and the sun was now overpoweringly hot, though a few hours before we had thought it impossible to be too warm. We worked our way through two belts of wood on the ridge without finding any recent spoor of the enemy; and after marching some distance across the grassy table top of the Kromme came to the little basin, on several previous occasions the scene of our bivouacs. The 91st regiment detached from Michell's Brigade, which now held the belt of forest on the top of the range, between Fullers Hoek and Waterkloof, came through the forest in our front and reinforced the column, when we advanced on the enemy's position, and entering the bush had a sharp skirmish, killing several Kaffirs and capturing some horses, after which there being no further opposition, or, indeed, any one to be seen, we returned in a heavy shower to the flat, and bivouacked for the night.
Before dawn we entered the belt of forest separating us from the other brigade, and met with no obstruction; the bush was still as death, and at the top of the path leading out of it lay the corpses of the Kaffirs killed on the 14th. The stench was intolerable. It was impossible to remove them, and as they lay right along the centre of the narrow track we had to file singly past them. A few yards further on lay the clean picked skeleton of the Serjeant of the 12th, killed at the same time, which was recognised by the fragments of his red coat, torn to pieces, and trampled in the dirt by the hyænas and jackals, which invariably attack white flesh in preference to black. Just at the edge of the wood on the open, lay many dead Kaffirs, and the putrifying carcases of four horses shot on the above occasion; we were nearly all ill from the continued insufferable stench, and hurried along to escape it.
We now stood on the N.W. corner of the Horseshoe, and on the site of the principal Kaffir village; the ground was covered with the remains of burnt and levelled huts; native utensils and ornaments lay about, burnt dogs and dead horses, and here and there the corpse of a Kaffir or Tottie, with hundreds of flattened bullets and fragments of exploded shells that had torn up the rocks around. In front of the position was a line of small stone breastworks, ingeniously constructed of loose rocks, built up about three or four feet high, and from three feet, to twenty, in length, invisible at musket range, on account of their similarity to the rocky ground on which they stood.
We halted for some time here, and the sun was so blazing hot that we stretched blankets over the stands of piled arms, as a shelter from its burning rays; in front of us, rising in the distance above the dark forest that sloped abruptly into the valley below, stood the grand and lofty Winterberg, its lower ranges of a deep purple tint, the higher white with snow. Along the front of the forest the huts were totally destroyed, but just within its shelter we found many still standing, untouched and quite deserted, also cattle kraals and stables, made of young trees, felled and twined in and out between the larger standing ones; in the huts were all sorts of odd things—calabashes, beads, bridles, hatchets, karosses, bags of seeds and of the red clay with which they cover their bodies, rheims, large pieces of the root of the Noë-boom root, peeled for food; two or three litters of blind puppies, jealously guarded by half-famished curs; quantities of sheep-skins and piles of bullocks' horns, and all kinds of minor rubbish, with several bullet moulds, and a quantity of newly-cast balls. The trees around were scored with bullet marks high and low, and many shivered into splinters by the shells; one or two large and recently-made graves were found, and a sickening odour arose from the thick underwood, where there must have been many more bodies hidden among the tangled thickets. While clambering among the huge masses of creeper-grown rock, which were rudely thrown together in every size and form, among the forest trees growing out of their clefts, I accidentally observed, half covered by the wild vine, a narrow opening between two enormous crags, and peeping in with some trouble, found, to my astonishment, a cave or chamber capable of holding a dozen or fifteen men, the floor covered with grass matting and sheep-skins, while the entrance was naturally concealed by a clump of thick bushes. From such hiding places our troops were shot down by unseen enemies, and officers picked off at the head of their astonished men.
At noon a mule waggon was sent over to us from the General's party, across the "Horseshoe," containing a supply of meal, which, as we had not tasted food since the previous evening, was at once made into a sort of water porridge, and greedily devoured; an order arriving for us to move up to the support of the 2nd Queen's hotly engaged just in front, we took our half-emptied mess-tins in our hands, eating the parboiled mess as we went along. We were extended and lay down among the loose rocks in support, the firing heavy on both sides and stray shots each moment falling among us or striking the stones and flying off with a ringing whirr. For more than an hour we impatiently lay here inactive, though under fire. The 6th took up a flanking position in a clump of large trees and opened a steady fire on the enemy; the 2nd were then withdrawn, and retired through our line, their faces begrimed with gunpowder, bearing one dead and one wounded man. As soon as they were clear of the range, the artillery of the 2nd Brigade opened fire on the Krantz; the Kaffirs, however, maintained their ground, and greatly annoyed the 6th by a dropping fire from invisible marksmen. Shortly after, the howitzers of the other column were brought round to the south front of the position, all the guns were going at once, and in a few minutes completely drove the enemy from their stand in the rocky cover, scattering and killing the groups that kept appearing in front. A round shot striking a rock, ricocheted obliquely, and passed between our regiment and the 12th, and close to two officers, but fortunately did no harm, and went bounding and crashing through the forest, clearing its terrific course with a humming roar. The enemy completely dislodged by the infantry from their fastnesses in the bush, and now driven from their successive rallying points, by the admirable practice of the guns, under Lieutenant Field, were seen in the distance retreating over the hills and down the valleys in every direction towards the Kromme Forest, the women carrying large bundles on their heads, a sure sign of their "trekking."