The men crossed
this fire zone warily, looking to one side or the other, as the
bullets struck the earth heavily, like drops of rain before a shower.
The men had their heads and shoulders bent as though they thought a
roof was about to fall on them; some ran from rock to rock, seeking
cover properly; others scampered toward the safe vantage-ground
behind the railroad embankment; others advanced leisurely, like men
playing golf. The silence, after the hurricane of sounds, was
painful; we could not hear even the Boer rifles. The men moved like
figures in a dream, without firing a shot. They seemed each to be
acting on his own account, without unison or organization. As I have
said, you ceased considering the scattered whole, and became intent
on the adventures of individuals. These fell so suddenly, that you
waited with great anxiety to learn whether they had dropped to dodge
a bullet or whether one had found them. The men came at last from
every side, and from out of every ridge and dried-up waterway. Open
spaces which had been green a moment before were suddenly dyed yellow
with them. Where a company had been clinging to the railroad
embankment, there stood one regiment holding it, and another sweeping
over it. Heights that had seemed the goal, became the resting-place
of the stretcher-bearers, until at last no part of the hill remained
unpopulated, save a high bulging rampart of unprotected and open
ground. And then, suddenly, coming from the earth itself,
apparently, one man ran across this open space and leaped on top of
the trench which crowned the hill. He was fully fifteen yards in
advance of all the rest, entirely unsupported, and alone. And he had
evidently planned it so, for he took off his helmet and waved it, and
stuck it on his rifle and waved it again, and then suddenly clapped
it on his head and threw his gun to his shoulder. He stood so,
pointing down into the trench, and it seemed as though we could hear
him calling upon the Boers behind it to surrender.
A few minutes later the last of the three hills was mounted by the
West Yorks, who were mistaken by their own artillery for Boers, and
fired upon both by the Boers and by their own shrapnel and lyddite.
Four men were wounded, and, to save themselves, a line of them stood
up at full length on the trench and cheered and waved at the
artillery until it had ceased to play upon them. The Boers continued
to fire upon them with rifles for over two hours. But it was only a
demonstration to cover the retreat of the greater number, and at
daybreak the hills were in complete and peaceful possession of the
English.
These hills were a part of the same Railway Hill which four nights
before the Inniskillings and a composite regiment had attempted to
take by a frontal attack with the loss of six hundred men, among whom
were three colonels. By this flank attack, and by using nine
regiments instead of one, the same hills and two others were taken
with two hundred casualties. The fact that this battle, which was
called the Battle of Pieter's Hill, and the surrender of General
Cronje and his forces to Lord Roberts, both took place on the
anniversary of the battle of Majuba Hill, made the whole of Buller's
column feel that the ill memory of that disaster had been effaced.
II - THE RELIEF OF LADYSMITH
After the defeat of the Boers at the battle of Pieter's Hill there
were two things left for them to do. They could fall back across a
great plain which stretched from Pieter's Hill to Bulwana Mountain,
and there make their last stand against Buller and the Ladysmith
relief column, or they could abandon the siege of Ladysmith and slip
away after having held Buller at bay for three months.
Bulwana Mountain is shaped like a brick and blocks the valley in
which Ladysmith lies. The railroad track slips around one end of the
brick, and the Dundee trail around the other. It was on this
mountain that the Boers had placed their famous gun, Long Tom, with
which they began the bombardment of Ladysmith, and with which up to
the day before Ladysmith was relieved they had thrown three thousand
shells into that miserable town.
If the Boers on retreating from Pieter's Hill had fortified this
mountain with the purpose of holding off Buller for a still longer
time, they would have been under a fire from General White's
artillery in the town behind them and from Buller's naval guns in
front. Their position would not have been unlike that of Humpty
Dumpty on the wall, so they wisely adopted the only alternative and
slipped away. This was on Tuesday night, while the British were
hurrying up artillery to hold the hills they had taken that
afternoon.
By ten o'clock the following morning from the top of Pieter's Hill
you could still see the Boers moving off along the Dundee road. It
was an easy matter to follow them, for the dust hung above the trail
in a yellow cloud, like mist over a swamp. There were two opinions
as to whether they were halting at Bulwana or passing it, on their
way to Laing's Neck. If they were going only to Bulwana there was
the probability of two weeks' more fighting before they could be
dislodged. If they had avoided Bulwana, the way to Ladysmith was
open.
Lord Dundonald, who is in command of a brigade of irregular cavalry,
was scouting to the left of Bulwana, far in advance of our forces.
At sunset he arrived, without having encountered the Boers, at the
base of Bulwana.
