With rifles pointed through the creepers at the edge of the rock on which we lay stretched, we waited with fingers on the trigger for a fair shot, and I fancied I could hear my heart beating. At a signal, bang went twenty muskets, echoing from crag to crag in the silent wood, and the treacherous savages met the death they had been plotting for us.
We still remained here for some hours, the General requiring the position to be held during his other movements; the men took out their pipes and smoked to allay their hunger, which they had no chance of satisfying until the night's bivouac, while an occasional bullet lodged in the trees around us, fired by some skulking Tottie or Kaffir. One or two of us were so fatigued that notwithstanding the roar of the big guns, we fell asleep.
At three in the afternoon the clouds again settled on the ridge, and the fog became so heavy that all further operations were at an end, and the enemy having evacuated all his positions, and being nowhere visible, we were withdrawn from our tiresome duty of occupation. The whole of the troops were called in, and assembled in column on the open; a mule waggon came down for the wounded, and we bivouacked for the night on the bare bleak ridge close by.
The troops moved mournfully about their duties, every soldier appearing to feel the heavy loss we had sustained; the cries and groans of the wounded, which could be heard in every part of the little camp, added to the general feeling of sadness; and, like a pall hanging over the gallant dead that lay in the solitary tent, in front of which there slowly paced a sentinel, the cold dark clouds rested on the lonely peak, and enveloped us in a mist so dense that our evening fires were hardly visible at a few yards, and our moving figures loomed through it like giants. We went to take a farewell look at the bodies of our late gallant Chief, and poor Carey, as brave a young fellow as ever lived, highly talented, and beloved by us all. They lay side by side with the men who had fallen that day, the corpses ranged on the grass, each covered by a blanket; reverently uncovering their heads, we gazed silently on their familiar faces; the Colonel's was as tranquil as though he were sleeping, which, but for the blood that covered his uniform and hands, might have been supposed. A change had passed over poor Carey's. The men lay with fixed and rigid features, some with their stony eyes still open, or their lower jaws fallen; it was a mournful and touching spectacle. I could scarcely realize the death of two officers, whom I had daily met for years, and had only a few hours before conversed with in the full vigour of life. Slowly and silently we left the tent, and without speaking sought our own fires.
The wounded, who lay on their stretchers on the ground, received every possible attention; their own comrades, on such occasions, rough as they may appear, move gently about the sick man, anticipating such wants, and administering such comforts as are in their power, with a woman's delicacy and forethought. Poor Gordon, over whose head we had built a shelter of green boughs, suffered dreadful agonies all night. The doctors, when questioned as to his case, shook their heads in doubt; the ball had entered the outside of the right thigh, and, passing through it, entered the inside of the left one fracturing the bone close to the socket, and leaving two frightful lacerated wounds. So close was the Kaffir who fired it, that Gordon had attempted to seize his gun.
Soon after dark a drizzling rain came on, and the wind swept piercingly cold over our lofty resting place; the men threw up little walls of the loose stones and rock that lay about, or dug holes in the softer parts, and piling the earth round them and large slabs of stone over, crept in for shelter, and all but the orderly officers and weary sentinels were soon slumbering after the fatigues of the day, in happy forgetfulness of its horrors.
A white frost covered the ground when we were roused at dawn by the bugle's réveillé; the clouds still hung round us, and rolled along in the deep valley beneath, while officers and men crowded indiscriminately round the few still burning fires in vain endeavours to warm their half frozen feet and fingers. The bodies of the dead were placed in a mule waggon for burial at Post Retief, fifteen miles across the table-land, for which place it set off, accompanied by a party of officers, who had obtained permission from the General to join in this last sad office. I followed slowly after them with a strong escort guarding the wounded, accompanied by our surgeon, Frazer. Poor Gordon, from the nature of his wounds, was unable to bear the motion of a waggon, and was carried on a stretcher the whole distance, by the men of his company.
As we proceeded across the wide grassy plain, its cheerfulness after the dusky bush, and the brilliant flowers, as they waved joyously in the bright morning sun, seemed in strange contrast with our sad cortège. The whole ridge literally glowed with gladiolus, amaranth, aphelexis, and a host of other beautiful flowers; the slopes of the little Winterberg Mountain rising verdant from the plain, about half a mile off, were covered with patches of the scarlet gladiolus, which were so brilliant and thickly studded, that, as even the men observed, they looked like pieces of red cloth spread out on the grass. All along the way we gathered mushrooms in such quantities that we were soon laden with as many as we could conveniently carry. In one or two places belts of bush, running up from the wooded kloofs below, encroached on the green plain, and as Kaffir spies were hovering round, we kept out of musket range of the treacherous cover.
Heavy firing from the artillery in our rear now announced that our Division was again engaged, and we fervently hoped with happier results than the day before. After a few miles farther we looked down on our right into the celebrated Kat River Valley, well known, as the birthplace of the Hottentot rebellion, and one of the finest and most fruitful districts in the whole colony. Surrounded by vast chains of fine mountains, this extensive valley spread its smiling uplands and fertile holms, picturesquely relieved by belts of valuable timber, and watered by the winding Kat River; the villages and farms now levelled with the ground, and silent and deserted except by prowling Kaffirs and wild beasts. The whole hill-side was here covered with the Protea grandiflora, a bush about eight or ten feet high, very much resembling the rhododendron in leaf and general appearance, and bearing a large pink and white cup-shaped flower, something like an artichoke.
Gordon's sufferings were very great, though borne with a fortitude only equalled by his courage in the field; his thirst was insatiable. When about half way, one of the stretcher poles broke in two; we had, however, taken the precaution to bring a spare stretcher, which was laid on the ground, the other placed gently on it, its poles withdrawn, and we went on again as before.