Chapter XV: The First Battalion (1)

1900-1902.

SOUTH AFRICA (_continued_).

SLABBERT’S NEK: THE BRANDWATER BASIN: BERGENDAL: MONUMENT HILL: LYDENBURG: THE MOUNTED INFANTRY OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT.

Two days after Bethlehem was taken, General Hunter’s column entered the town, and Clements fell back towards Senekal to obtain the supplies of which his men were much in need. After a week’s halt at Biddulphsberg, the 12th brigade was recalled by General Hunter, now in command of the whole of the troops in the eastern Free State, to take part in a great combined movement against the burghers who had retired into the hilly region drained by the river Brandwater, and locally known as the Brandwater Basin. It is bounded on the south by the river Caledon, the frontier of the native state of Basutoland, whose savage warriors, longing for a pretext to attack their hereditary enemies the Boers, stood ready to resist any violation of their territory, and thus forbade the passage of the stream. To the west, north, and east the basin is enclosed by high, almost continuous ranges, which, springing from the right bank of the Caledon, form a huge horse-shoe, whose northern foot-hills sink into the plain a few miles south of Bethlehem. This mountain wall is about seventy miles in perimeter, and is crossed at five places by roads fit for wheeled traffic: the western face (the Wittebergen) is pierced by Commando Nek, the northern by Slabbert’s and Retief’s Neks, the eastern (the Roodebergen) by Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. Very soon after Hunter arrived at Bethlehem, he decided to fight his way with part of his force into the Brandwater Basin from the north and west, and to drive the burghers into the arms of detachments posted at the mouths of Naauwpoort Nek and Golden Gate: but before this plan could be carried into effect he had to wait for supplies of food and ammunition, and it was not until a fortnight after the occupation of Bethlehem that his troops were ready to begin work. On July 21st, his army was thus distributed: Rundle with the 8th and Colonial divisions stretched from Ficksburg to Senekal; the brigades of Clements and Paget lay at Wit Kop and Witnek, a few miles north-west of Slabbert’s Nek; the Highland brigade (the 3rd, under Major-General MacDonald), stood at Bethlehem ready to march on Retief’s Nek; and Major-General Bruce-Hamilton with the 12th brigade, to which part of the Royal Irish mounted infantry had been attached, commanded the exit from Naauwpoort Nek. Next day orders were issued for a general attack along the whole of the western and northern line; Rundle was to bombard Commando Nek, while Clements and MacDonald assaulted Slabbert’s Nek and Retief’s Nek respectively. Clements advanced on the 22nd to Bester’s Kop, the enemy’s outposts retiring before him towards Slabbert’s Nek. He had only two of his four battalions at that moment with him, for the Worcestershire had been temporarily detached, and the Bedfordshire had not rejoined from Lindley.

During the night, the draft of ninety-eight non-commissioned officers and men, with whom Major Lysaght had joined the battalion on the 18th, had a rough introduction to the joys of campaigning in South Africa: there was a great storm; rain fell in torrents; many of the horses broke loose and stampeded in every direction, and when the Royal Irish fell in after a hurried meal of sodden biscuit and bully beef, they were wet to the skin, and longed for the excitement of a fight to get their blood once more in circulation. But the General’s plans had been kept secret, and the Royal Irish, who were in advance-guard, had no idea that an action was imminent, and trudged wearily over the rough surface of the rolling down, scarcely glancing at the curious line of isolated kopjes which, at intervals of a mile or more, rose like watch towers across their path. Suddenly distant firing was heard; at the sound of the guns the XVIIIth stepped out vigorously, and soon discovered that Brabant’s Horse, the cavalry screen to the column, were being shelled by the defenders of Slabbert’s Nek. As Clements reconnoitred this formidable position, he found that its difficulties had not been exaggerated by his guides--loyal Britons settled in the Free State, who at the outbreak of the war had placed their local knowledge at the disposal of the Intelligence department. The Nek, or pass, ran through a defile about half a mile in width, overhung by steep, almost precipitous mountains, and its entrance was partially barred by a low rounded knoll, with smooth glacis-like sides, seamed with trenches which swept the ground to the front and flanks. To the left of the defile, as he looked at it, was a long square-topped kopje, with cliff-like walls that only a goat could climb: to the right stretched another kopje, higher, longer, and more irregular in shape, with five great spurs projecting from its rugged flank. Above these spurs rose a series of ledges, like the steps of a gigantic staircase; the hillside was strewn with boulders and honeycombed with caves, and the topmost peak raised its snowy crest nearly two thousand feet above the plain. The greater part of this kopje was held by the left wing of the enemy, and Clements realised that until he had taken it he could not hope to force the pass; therefore, as soon as his flanks were covered by mounted troops, and his artillery had begun to shell the trenches on the Nek, he directed Lieutenant-Colonel Grenfell, with part of his corps (the 1st Brabant’s Horse) and a few Imperial Yeomanry, to seize one of the projecting spurs. This mission the irregulars fulfilled, but when they began to scale the ledges they were brought to a standstill by a furious burst of musketry; the General at once ordered two companies of the Wiltshire to occupy a spur on the right of that ascended by Brabant’s Horse, and directed the Colonel of the Royal Irish, who were then about five thousand yards from Grenfell’s spur, to send two companies to reinforce the dismounted troopers. The choice fell on G (Captain Gloster) and H (Captain Daniell), the former being in command of the whole detachment.

After a stiff climb, H company joined Grenfell on one of the ledges or steps in the kopje, where they found Brabant’s Horse hotly engaged with the burghers, who held two tiers of rocks, the lower four or five hundred yards up the hillside, the higher about two hundred yards farther off; another body of the enemy enfiladed the ledge from a donga. In an hour or two Gloster joined Daniell, prolonging the line to the left, where, to quote from a letter of Lieutenant Kelly, a subaltern in G company, “we fired wildly at where we thought the enemy were, for we could not see a man, but had a good idea, as they were shooting uncommonly straight. Brabant’s were on the same ledge with us, and a real cheery lot they were--quite delighted with everything and full of jokes.” Just after the Royal Irish had snatched a mouthful of food, a message arrived from the General, “as soon as you have occupied the spur, send two companies to the top of the hill.” Gloster and Daniell reconnoitred the ground, and decided to “rush” the next belt of rocks, Gloster working up to them from the right, while Daniell made a dash across the open. After sending for ammunition and filling the men’s pouches, Gloster moved forward with half his company, leaving Kelly with the remainder of G company to support his advance with musketry. Following the plan made by the two captains, Daniell gave Gloster about ten minutes’ start, and then pushed on from both flanks, but though Kelly kept up a vigorous fusilade upon the ridge of rocks, the immediate object of the combined attack, the enemy was unshaken, and the bullets fell like hail among the men of H company as they ran up the slope. Suddenly Gloster’s half company began to appear on the right, moving in such a way as to come under the musketry of Kelly’s party, who from their position could not see Gloster’s men; the danger was so imminent that Daniell himself ran back across the fire-swept zone and ordered Kelly to follow him to the ridge, now held by the leading troops. When they reached the front line they found that Gloster, mortally wounded, was sinking rapidly. Again to quote his subaltern: “he had reached the top quite under cover, and in his usual dashing manner was pushing forward in front. He climbed up and looked over a rock; and seeing some Dutchmen quite close, raised his rifle, and as he did so was shot, as was another man in exactly the same way. The bullet passed through the right fore-arm and chest. He was a really gallant fellow, and died nobly.” When Daniell thus succeeded to the command of the detachment, the situation was very unpleasant. The ledge upon which the men crouched was so commanded by the enemy’s fire that every time a soldier peered over it he drew a storm of bullets: and on the left front the burghers seemed to be in force within twenty or thirty yards of our position. The men were anxious to avenge Gloster’s death with the bayonet, but a charge was impossible, for it could only have been delivered on a very narrow front and under converging fire. There was nothing for it but to lie under the crest of the ridge, to keep the men on the alert by shooting at the rocks behind which the Boers were ensconced, and to report by signal that any farther advance would be attended by very serious risk. Fortunately, cartridges never ran short, as the ammunition carriers were able to reach the firing line under cover from the left rear, where Lieutenant Panter-Downes with a few men showed so determined a front that he kept the burghers at a respectful distance, and prevented them from enfilading Daniell’s party.

While Gloster’s detachment was struggling for foothold on the hill the battalion marched towards the foot of Grenfell’s spur; on the way two companies (D under Captain Milner and F under Captain White) were diverted to the left front to watch the burghers in the trenches on the pass. The plain that these companies had to cross looked perfectly level from a distance, but in reality was a series of undulations over which without a landmark it was difficult to move in the right direction. Such a landmark was found in a cluster of Kaffir huts, but the Boers had taken the range accurately, and when D company passed between the kraals it was greeted by a storm of bullets, by one of which Captain Milner was dangerously wounded. Neither company halted until it was about nine hundred yards from the works on Slabbert’s Nek, with whose defenders for the rest of the day they exchanged a slow but steady fire; and from the right of D’s line the Boers who were facing Gloster’s party could be plainly seen; “but,” writes an eye-witness, “we did not dare to shoot much at them, as they were too much mixed up with our men.”

As two companies were acting as escort to the guns, the main body of the XVIIIth was now reduced to two companies of regular soldiers and one of volunteers. This skeleton battalion was finally halted about eighteen hundred yards to the left rear of Grenfell’s spur, and in widely extended lines, lay for many hours exposed to the shots of marksmen, who were so well concealed that they offered a very poor target in return. The headquarter companies of the Royal Irish had nothing to do except to fire an occasional round in the direction from which the enemy’s bullets came; to listen to the bursts of musketry from the hill, and to wonder how long the shells of a pom-pom playing on them from the Nek would continue to fall among the regiment without doing any harm. Happily only one of these horrible little projectiles found a billet: it shattered the big drum, greatly to the amusement of every one, except the drummer, who was fast asleep beside it. The damage to the drum was soon avenged by a 5-in. shell, which smashed the pom-pom and blew several Boer gunners to pieces.

When darkness put an end to the combat, the result of the day’s operations seemed meagre in the extreme. Brabant’s Horse and Gloster’s detachment of the Royal Irish had doubtless made a lodgment on the hill to the right of the pass; but they could do no more than hold their ground, and could expect no help from the two companies of the Wiltshire, who had failed to establish themselves on the spur which they had been ordered to seize. The works on the Nek had been vigorously bombarded, but their defenders appeared to be unshaken by the shells of the artillery and the threatening presence of Paget’s brigade on the left of the guns. But the General was in no way dispirited, for excellent news had reached him in the afternoon. An officer of Brabant’s Horse, who with a small party of mounted men was watching the outer flank of the big kopje, heard that Grenfell and Gloster were “held-up” on the ledges, and determined to ascertain if there was no other way to the top of the hill. By “a most daring and successful reconnaissance” on foot, he discovered a track leading to the summit, running well to the right of the ledges, through ground apparently unoccupied by the enemy. When Clements received this report he saw that once he had gained possession of the top, he could outflank the burghers facing Brabant’s Horse and the Royal Irish, drive them before him into the Nek, and then rake its defences with rifle-fire. As it was then too late to attempt any important movement, he ordered a squadron of Brabant’s (dismounted) to be at the summit by daybreak next morning, promising them the support of four companies of the Royal Irish and two of the Wiltshire regiment, who were not to follow the path discovered by the officer of Brabant’s, but to ascend by a ridge still farther to the right. While most of the infantry bivouacked on the ground they stood on, four companies of the Royal Irish were assembled, and moved to the farmhouse fixed as the rendezvous of the little column. At 4 A.M. on the 24th Lieutenant-Colonel Guinness, who commanded the combined force, began to ascend the kopje, described by General Clements as “an almost unclimbable hill”; four hours’ desperate scrambling brought the Royal Irish, breathless and exhausted, to its highest crest, where they found the dismounted troopers of Brabant’s Horse, who moving by a shorter and easier route had gained the summit some little time before their comrades of the XVIIIth. Hitherto the march had been unopposed, but now a few shots were fired by burghers who appeared more anxious to retire than to fight. Part of the infantry then joined hands with G and H companies whose adventures during the night will be told later; the remainder drove the enemy before them, turned the works upon the Nek, and swept them with musketry from the left rear. A great burst of cheering greeted the appearance of the Royal Irish on the top of the hill; a general advance was ordered; the Boer resistance suddenly collapsed, and by 11 A.M. Clements was master of Slabbert’s Nek.

An officer has supplied the author with a very spirited account of the proceedings of the headquarter companies, from which the following extracts have been taken:--

“We arrived at the farm about 7 or 8 P.M. on the 23rd, without
transport, and consequently without blankets or food, on the
coldest night I remember having spent during the war. After
seeing the men settled and giving them leave to break open their
emergency rations, we went into the farm building. Here the
Wiltshire officers who had arrived before us, had already made
themselves comfortable before a fire in the kitchen, and had
a chicken roasting for their breakfast. There were six of us,
and we had had nothing inside us since dawn--hence lowering of
the moral sense and theft! We had only two emergency rations
among us: we ate them: they were excellent, but not enough,
and we eyed that bird hungrily until the Wilts nodded: then
some one suggested the eating of that chicken. We needed very
little persuasion to tear it limb from limb, and we devoured it
hastily, like house-breakers at supper in a burgled house! The
anger of the Wilts was great when a couple of hours later they
awoke; they did not suspect us at the time, thinking we had been
all asleep, and their wrath was directed against the men. So
warped had our sense of right and wrong become that it was not
until we had dined them next day in camp that we gave ourselves
away.... After a few hours’ sleep we--_i.e._, A, D, F, and the
volunteers, and two companies of the Wiltshire, started on our
night march, led by Colonel Guinness and a guide, and a more
miserable time we never had. It was bitterly cold, with a Scotch
mist blowing sharply down from the hill above us. The necessity
for secrecy forbade our smoking, and the effort to keep from
coughing, kicking down stones, and otherwise making a noise was
very trying. The track lay up a ‘razor-edge’ sort of ridge, very
slippery and strewn with boulders. The higher we climbed the
more difficult it became, until finally we were ‘clawing up’ on
hands and knees, and the last bit, just as there was a glimmer of
light, was the worst of all: we had to pull each other up by our
rifles, yet, with precipitous ground all around us, we lost not
a man.”

The column had now reached the shoulder of the kopje, and rested on the snow-covered ground for a short time while Colonel Guinness and the guide looked for a path towards the top. The path, when found, proved to be a mere goat-track, on a narrow ledge with a wall of rock on the right hand and a precipice on the left. On this track there was only room to walk in Indian file, and

“we were about half-way across this bit when the fog lifted a
little and showed us what a giddy path we were following. It also
showed us a few slouch-hatted figures on a spur below us. I can
tell you we company officers were fairly alarmed, caught as we
were in a place where movement of any sort, except fore or aft,
was impossible, so it was to our great relief that we discovered
these men to be a handful of Brabant’s scouts. A few shots were
fired at us at about 8 A.M. when we got to the real top of the
hill, by a few Boers, some on a knoll below us and others to our
front, but these men soon cleared out. The fog was now lifting
rapidly and the sun came out as we advanced down into position
on the knoll overlooking the Nek itself and the Boer line of
retreat. Heavy firing had been going on since dawn, down where
the rest of the brigade was, and across the valley where Paget’s
brigade was also trying to force the pass. For some time we saw
nothing, then a few small mounted parties of Boers were seen
riding off towards Fouriesberg. We opened fire, the range I think
being about a thousand yards. This was the signal for a regular
bolt of the whole Boer force. We fired rapidly on them, but I
don’t know if we did much execution firing at such a steep angle
downwards. Our right was hurried forward down the hill, but the
steepness and difficulty of the ground prevented our getting much
closer. By the time we had got well down, practically all the
Boers had cleared out. It was wonderful to see how the men bucked
up. Before the firing began they were moving about like a lot
of cripples, ‘dead to the world,’ and anxious only to get a few
minutes to sit down and sleep in. The moment they realised what
was going on, all this was thrown off and they were as happy and
as energetic as a parcel of schoolboys.”

While the headquarter companies of the battalion were doing this fine piece of rock climbing, G and H were clinging to their ground with the utmost determination. As soon as it became dark Daniell had posted the men with him, about a hundred of all ranks, along the ridge in little detachments of three or four; in front of each post lay a sentry, flat on his stomach, peering over the rocks to watch the movements of the enemy. Up to midnight the Boers “sniped” assiduously; then the fire died away, and Daniell and Kelly moved constantly up and down the line to make sure that the soldiers, lulled by the sudden silence and exhausted by hunger and fatigue, had not fallen asleep. About 4 A.M. on the 24th, Panter-Downes brought up the remainder of H company: while this welcome reinforcement was being posted there was an alarm, caused by the approach of a number of Kaffirs whom the Boers had sent to reconnoitre the position: the men promptly lined the top of the ridge, and speedily gave the burghers to understand that the Royal Irish were quite ready to receive them! When day broke, says one of the officers who was present--

“we quickly found out that the enemy were still there, but
they had left the rocks on our left, so we occupied them. They
‘hotted’ us for a bit, but as soon as the companies appeared
on the top of the mountain they began to disperse. The guns
kept up a hot bombardment, and very soon we could see the enemy
beating a retreat all round. We sent down for water and food,
made ourselves comfortable, and watched the enemy retire.
Brabant’s brought up our gun and the Hotchkiss, and made some
splendid practice among the Boers as they left a hill, and we
saw a good many of them knocked over.... We received tremendous
congratulations for our part in the battle, especially the charge
up the hill.... We buried poor Gloster and five men by a tree at
the foot of the hill.”[302]

The capture of Slabbert’s Nek cost only forty-four casualties, of which many occurred among the Royal Irish. Captain W. Gloster was killed; Captain E. F. Milner was dangerously wounded; six of the other ranks were killed, and ten wounded, three of whom died of their injuries.[303]

In General Clements’ report of July 26, he gave high praise to the 1st battalion, Royal Irish regiment, in these terms--

“Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. N. Guinness has again proved himself
a commanding officer of the first class. His battalion has
throughout proved itself to be all that could be desired on
service. His leading of a force on the 24th of July over an
almost unclimbable hill, and by this means turning the enemy’s
position at Slabbert’s Nek, is deserving of special mention.

“Captain W. Gloster, who I regret to say was killed while leading
his company at Slabbert’s Nek on the 23rd of July, was an officer
of great promise. By his death the Service loses a most valuable
company leader.

“Captain E. H. Daniell has proved himself a first-rate company
leader in difficult circumstances by the handling of his men on
the 23rd and 24th of July, on both of which dates he showed great
gallantry.

“Lieutenant J. A. M. J. P. Kelly did particularly good service
on the night of the 23rd of July, in leading his men over an
open space, 300 yards wide, swept by a heavy cross-fire, and
maintaining his position all night at close quarters (20 yards)
from the enemy who were holding the rocks and caves in his front.”

In the same report General Clements stated that Major K. P. Apthorp, who was temporarily employed as an intelligence officer on his staff, had afforded him “very great help until taken prisoner on June 6.”

The following non-commissioned officers and private soldiers were also mentioned:--

No. 4512, Lance-Corporal P. Doyle;[304] No. 4248, Lance-Corporal M. Tytherleigh; No. 4868, Lance-Corporal J. Rathbone; No. 1408, Private ---- Baker; No. 4129, Private ---- Ryan; and No. 5024, Private P. Dumphy, particularly distinguished themselves on the night of July 23. No. 4506, Private J. Kavanagh, who showed remarkable courage and coolness on the same occasion, was wounded while carrying a message across ground heavily swept by fire.

As soon as General Clements learned that the Highland brigade had driven the Boers from Retief’s Nek, he marched two or three miles along the road to Fouriesburg, the chief town in the Brandwater Basin, and then encamped. The halt was very welcome; an officer writes, “we were all very much done up, especially those who had been in Colonel Guinness’s night march, and after a good ‘square’ meal and a double issue of rum (Reger, our Quartermaster, surpassed himself on this occasion) there were few of us awake that afternoon.” Next day the whole of Hunter’s army was in motion. MacDonald was sent to help Bruce Hamilton in the task of sealing the mouths of Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate, the passes by which the Boers might dash eastward into the open country round Harrismith, the principal town in that part of the Free State. Clements and Paget marched through a fertile country, well watered and full of prosperous farms, towards Fouriesburg, whither Rundle, who had dislodged the burghers from Commando Nek, was also hastening. As the advance-guard of the 8th division was the first to reach the goal, Clements’ and Paget’s brigades were halted a few miles from Fouriesburg, and did not move again until the 27th, when they entered the place after a feeble opposition from a few snipers dropped by the main body of the enemy who, still ignorant that British troops awaited them at the eastern passes, were retreating at speed towards Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. But though most of the burghers were hurrying eastward, it was necessary to ensure that no detachments should break out through Slabbert’s, Retief’s, or Commando Neks, and so heavy was the call upon the infantry to garrison these defiles that Hunter could only muster five battalions to drive the Boers into the net spread by MacDonald and Bruce Hamilton. One of these was the 1st battalion, Royal Irish regiment, which with part of the Wiltshire formed the advance-guard under Clements on the 28th, when the burghers fought a rear-guard action near Slaap Kranz ridge with great tenacity and cunning. The position proved to be a very strong one, and Clements was unable to oust the enemy from it, though his artillery and infantry were engaged throughout the day. Colonel Guinness was anxious to be allowed to seize a commanding knoll in front of the left of the Boer line, which seemed to offer a good base for an assault upon the pass itself, but General Clements considered that the Royal Irish had done enough for the day, and ordered a battalion of the Scots Guards, recently arrived on the field, to occupy it. At midnight they advanced on the main position and found it undefended, for the Boers, after checking the whole column for many hours, had silently disappeared when they saw that the odds had become too heavy for them to face. The casualties of the day amounted to thirty-four killed and wounded, the Royal Irish losing one man killed and five wounded.[305]

With the encounter at Slaap Kranz the campaign in the Brandwater Basin came to an end. De Wet had always opposed the policy of retreating into the mountains of Fouriesburg, but his views had been over-ridden, and, as mentioned on page 330, he had fought Clements at Bethlehem to gain time for the main body to complete its concentration in the valley of the Brandwater. When he arrived there with his rear-guard, he set himself to convince the members of his very unruly army that the fastnesses to which they had betaken themselves would prove not a sanctuary but a trap, and urged them to follow him in a bold dash into the open veld. His rough eloquence appeared to convince the majority; his scheme for breaking out of the mountains was accepted, and on the night of July 15, he made his way with two thousand six hundred men across Slabbert’s Nek, and headed northwards, in the full belief that within twenty-four hours the remainder of the burghers would follow him. But as soon as De Wet’s commanding personality was removed the Free Staters fell into confusion; instead of carrying out the plan to which they had agreed they began to quarrel among themselves; they lost precious days in wrangling over the choice of another leader, and by the time that Hunter’s columns were advancing upon the passes they had become demoralised, suspicious of their chiefs and of each other. Dry rot spread so rapidly among them that on the 30th, Prinsloo, who claimed to have been elected General-in-Chief, surrendered with 4140 men, three guns (two of which had been lost by the Royal Horse artillery at Sannah’s Post), 4000 horses and ponies, many waggons, a large number of rifles, and a million rounds of small-arm ammunition.

The Royal Irish saw enough of the prisoners to form an idea of the manner of men with whom they had been fighting since the beginning of the year. The first impression was one of utter astonishment. Was it possible that this motley crowd of civilians formed part of the burgher levies which for many months had constantly opposed and frequently defeated the British army? Some were old men with long white beards; others were in the prime of life; others, again, were lads not half-way through their teens; none wore a vestige of uniform, and the majority were dressed in clothes so badly cut that no self-respecting peasant in Europe would have condescended to wear them. Yet among the captives every grade of society in the Free State republic was represented: there were land-owners, who possessed tens of thousands of acres and great wealth of flocks and herds; members of Parliament; civil servants; merchants; lawyers; doctors; and last, but by no means least in numbers, “bywohners,” or poor Boers, who, as they had no land of their own, were allowed to squat on the estates of their richer neighbours. The land-owning class, as a rule, were magnificent men, well-grown, sturdy, and inured to hardships; constant hunting on their farms had made them good rifle shots and excellent judges of distance,[306] and, as has already been mentioned, many of them had served in campaigns against the Kaffirs. In character they much resembled the British yeomen of two hundred years ago, for although brave, patriotic, and hospitable, they were ignorant, obstinate, and deeply distrustful of new men and new ideas. A certain number of the professional classes had been sent in their youth to Europe to complete their education; their travels had greatly widened their intellectual horizon, and as they did not stay away long enough to lose their sporting tastes or their hereditary instinct for irregular warfare, they proved a valuable asset in the Boer army. In dress as well as education these younger men presented a curious contrast to their fellow-citizens, who were still as uncouth in speech and manners as the original pioneers of the Free State, while the Europeanised burghers were dressed in well-cut Norfolk jackets, boots, and breeches, and spoke English admirably with accents acquired at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, or Glasgow. The very baggage owned by the prisoners when they surrendered showed how wide a difference there was between the old school and the new. The old-fashioned burghers, however rich they were, had gone on active service with their few belongings packed in old and shapeless carpet-bags; the youngsters took the field with kit-bags or suit-cases imported from England.

General Hunter’s success in the Brandwater Basin, to which the Royal Irish contributed not a little, was far-reaching in its results; in the words of the official historian “it removed in a moment the possibility of attack in force from the west, which had kept Sir Redvers Buller’s army chained fast to the railway from Heidelberg down to Ladysmith. True, De Wet, Olivier, and other guerillas were still at large, but, vagrant and weakened, they were unlikely seriously to raid Natal across the Drakensberg, an eventuality which had never been absent, and with reason, from Sir R. Buller’s mind. None had known better than he how vulnerable still that many-gated colony was to incursions which would have undone in a few hours the heavy work of months.”[307] Now General Buller was able to organise a mobile force to march northwards against the Pretoria-Komati Poort railway in order to co-operate with Lord Roberts in the invasion of the Eastern Transvaal, where the remnants of the Boer army still kept the field. In this great movement the Royal Irish were destined to play their part, for on the 1st of August Clements’ brigade left Hunter’s army; on the 9th it marched into Kroonstad, and after many halts and delays on the railway reached Pretoria on the 18th. It was one of the peculiarities of the war in South Africa that no General could hope to keep his brigade intact for any length of time; so far Clements had been fortunate, but now his turn for dismemberment arrived, and after bidding farewell to the commander whom they admired and respected deeply, the Royal Irish were sent off to Belfast, a station on the Komati Poort line, where they joined Major-General Smith-Dorrien’s brigade (the 19th) in a column commanded by Lieutenant-General Ian Hamilton.[308]

The battalion was not actively engaged on the 27th of August in the battle of Bergendal, though some of the companies on outpost came under long-range artillery fire from the formidable position astride of the railway, which Lord Roberts and Sir Redvers Buller attacked respectively in front and flank. When the Boers fell back from their carefully prepared entrenchments they retired at first along the railway; but under the dispiriting influences of this, its latest defeat, the burgher army soon began to fall to pieces. One column struck southward; a second hurried eastward towards the Portuguese frontier; while a third, commanded by General L. Botha, turned northwards and headed for the maze of hills by which the town of Lydenburg is surrounded. This detachment made so firm a stand at Badfontein that Sir Redvers Buller, who had been entrusted with its pursuit, asked for reinforcements, and General Ian Hamilton was sent to his help with the greater part of his column. Starting from Belfast on September 3, Hamilton, after two days’ hard marching and continuous skirmishing, succeeded in placing himself on the right rear of Botha’s entrenched line at Badfontein; the Boers thereupon drew off eastward to Paardeplaatz, a huge mountain within distant cannon-shot of Lydenburg. As a preliminary to dislodging the burghers from this new position, the British troops occupied Lydenburg during the morning of the 7th; in the afternoon, after the bivouacs had been formed, the soldiers were allowed to bathe in the creeks; they were splashing about in the water, when suddenly two 6-in. guns began to fire from Paardeplaatz, ten or eleven thousand yards off, and an unlucky shell killed two men of the battalion and dangerously wounded another.[309] The Royal Irish were at once moved to a place of safety, and for the rest of the day had the satisfaction of watching the Boer gunners waste invaluable ammunition upon the empty shelters of the bivouac. Next day (the 8th) Paardeplaatz was carried by the British troops. The Boers held a precipitous hill, 1500 feet in height, and shaped exactly like a horse-shoe: the only track ran to the farthest point of the shoe up an ever-narrowing ridge, cleft asunder in various places by deep dongas, almost impassable even by infantry. Two 6-in. guns commanded the path, and lighter guns and pom-poms were posted on various points along the crest. Hamilton was ordered to attack in front and to turn the left flank, while Buller worked round the right of Botha’s line. Although the turning movements involved several hours of hard marching and scrambling, the frontal and flank attacks were delivered simultaneously, and carried the position with a rush. A wing of the Royal Irish (F, G, H companies, and the volunteers) under Major Hatchell were the first troops to reach the topmost ridge, which commanded the enemy’s only line of retreat, a natural causeway a few yards wide, with deep precipices on either side of it. This road was crowded with Boers, who, after saving their guns, were now in full retreat; the mass presented a splendid target for musketry, but just as the men were bringing their rifles into play down fell a mountain mist, completely veiling the burghers from their view. To pursue amidst the precipices in such a fog was impossible; the only thing left to do was to fire volleys in the direction taken by the enemy, who is said to have suffered some loss from these unaimed bullets. The British casualties were small; and in the Royal Irish only one man was wounded.[310]

Hamilton now returned to the railway, and then moved eastwards towards Komati Poort, over country in places so difficult as to be almost impassable. For instance, part of his route lay over hills so steep that in the ten miles between Godwaan station and Kaapsche Hoop the track rose 2200 feet. To lighten the loads, the wooden cases enclosing the biscuit tins were removed, and the soldiers were made to carry their second blankets, usually transported in the waggons. As the column toiled up the steep inclines, the troops hauled the vehicles after them by main force, and when the descent began, each waggon was held back by ten men, who steadied it with drag-ropes down the worst places on the road. Though Hamilton encountered none of the enemy, the march was in many ways an exciting one. A company of the battalion was crossing a railway bridge only wide enough to carry a train, when the sound of an engine was heard in a cutting hard by, and an officer who was present wrote--

“I know my hair stood on end. A scramble ensued, which is rather
amusing to _look back upon_. Some of us just slipped over the
edge and hung on by the sleepers, with the torrent, thirty or
forty feet below, to fall into, and rocks to land on if you
missed the water. The train was, however, pulled up before
getting on to the bridge, and all got safely over. I believe the
rear-guard saw a lion on the last march down the Kaap valley into
Kaapmuiden. One of the men in my company woke up one fine morning
to find a snake asleep beside him. It was with some difficulty he
was able to persuade his fellows he was not a de Rougemont, and
when at last they carefully pulled off the blankets--the wretched
fellow was sweating at every pore with fright--they discovered a
particularly venomous-looking puff adder coiled up between his
legs! The snake was duly killed, but I imagine that man will
never forget the horrible five minutes he must have spent before
persuading those around he was not blarneying them.”

On September 25, Hamilton caught up the advance-guard of the army at Komati Poort, where an amazing amount of stores and railway plant had been found, but no enemy. On the approach of the British the burghers had broken into small bands and disappeared along the Portuguese frontier; some returned to their homes and either took no further part in the war or joined our side; others, to whom all honour as brave and determined enemies is due, reassembled to form the guerilla bands which kept the war alive for twenty-one weary months after the Boer army had ceased to exist as a formed and organised body of men.

The troops composing Hamilton’s column received his thanks for their exertions in a general order, dated October 1, 1900--

“General Ian Hamilton wishes to congratulate his force on the
fine work which has been performed by them since they marched
out of Belfast on September 3rd, 1900. During this period they
have driven the enemy out of his most formidable selected
positions--first on the main Lydenburg road, where they barred
the progress of the Natal arms; and secondly, on the height
overlooking Lydenburg itself. They have also encountered and
overcome every sort of natural obstacle, and have carried the
British flag through tracts of waterless bush, and over ranges
of lofty mountains to the most remote frontier of the enemy. All
this has been done with so much spirit, and so cheerfully, as to
excite the G.O.C.’s greatest admiration, who will take the first
opportunity of informing Lord Roberts of the splendid work done
by all ranks under his command.”

In an unofficial letter, written after the war was over, General Smith-Dorrien stated that of all the troops which came under his orders in South Africa, “none served me more loyally or gave me less trouble than the Royal Irish; I have nothing but pleasant associations to remember with regard to the time I had the honour of having the battalion under my command.”

The Royal Irish spent a few days in clearing the railway and in attending a review of the British troops, held in honour of the birthday of the King of Portugal, and then were ordered to entrain for Belfast; the journey, by no means an uneventful one, is vividly described by Captain Dease.

“The regiment returned from Komati Poort in several trains, as
there was an excess of rolling stock on the line which wanted
moving up towards Pretoria. The Boers had made quite a mess of
things on the railway. They had fired great numbers of trucks
and disabled a good many engines. The big bridge across the Kaap
at Kaapmuiden had also been destroyed, and rather cleverly too.
They had blown down the upper part of one of the piers, got
steam up in one of the heavier ‘Free State Railway’ engines, set
it going from Kaapmuiden station, and succeeded in absolutely
smashing up the damaged pier, as well as the spans on either
side. The volunteers and C company did most of the work on the
building of a deviation and temporary bridge, which was taken in
hand immediately. We left Kaapmuiden at about 5 P.M. on the 30th
September. As I had had some mechanical training as a boy, I took
on the driving of the second train, in which were most of our
officers. The first train was given five minutes’ grace before I
was told to start. My fireman was a corporal in the Royal Scots,
I think, who had ‘been on’ a traction engine at home, while the
second man was also a soldier from some other regiment, with an
equal recommendation for his present job! I myself had a fair
knowledge of locomotive work, but (at that time) little of the
vacuum brake: anyway, I certainly had not sufficient knowledge
of the work for the job in hand. All went well till we got to
the deviation and bridge we had made over the Kaap. Here the fun
began. The road up the other side was at so steep a gradient
that I couldn’t get my train up it. We stopped and rolled back
over the bridge. A second try met with as little success. It
then occurred to my fireman and myself that if we ‘backed’ up
the grade behind the bridge, and then rushed forward down on to
the bridge the momentum would carry us over. This it did, but
the train must have had a narrow escape of wrecking that frail,
temporary structure. After this we proceeded ‘with caution,’
going not more than about 10 miles an hour. Darkness fell about
three or four miles beyond the Kaap bridge. The ‘road’ here runs
along the sides of hills, with a steep slope to the Krokodil
Valley, a couple of hundred feet below. Naturally the curves are
very sharp, and cuttings numerous. I was very ‘jumpy’ at the
time, not knowing the road and uncertain of myself as a driver,
and kept the speed down. It was fortunate I did so, for as we
rounded a corner a group of men on the hillside shouted to me to
‘stop,’ ‘danger,’ &c. I jammed down the air-brake hard and shut
off steam, bringing the train up with a terrific jerk, to find
the buffer of my engine within a few yards of the rear of the
train in front. The sudden pull up had caused quite an upset in
the trucks behind, as the jerk was hard enough to roll everyone
and everything in the trucks over. We found that the driver
of the first train’s engine (also an amateur like myself) had
allowed the water to run too low in his boiler, melting the plug
over his fire-box, and rendering the engine totally useless.
We were still talking about our narrow escape when suddenly
round the curve behind us were seen the front lights of a third
train. We happened to have no ‘tail lights,’ and before warning
could be given our train had been run into with a terrific smash
from behind. For a few minutes the confusion was indescribable.
Then things straightened themselves out. A piquet was sent
some distance down the line to prevent another train colliding
with the third train, and parties went to work extricating the
injured. The extraordinary thing was that although quite a
number of trucks had been ‘piled up’ in our train, nobody was
killed, and only about thirty or forty hurt. One of the latter
was Deane-Morgan: he had been standing on the edge of a culvert
when the crash came, and, without thinking, he involuntarily
took a step backwards, and dropped about thirty feet or so into
the bed of a nullah. He hurt his knee badly, but no bones were
broken--another extraordinary escape.

“We spent that night and part of the next morning clearing away
the wreck, and at last arrived at Krokodil Poort, the next
station, in the afternoon. The journey thence to Waterval Onder
was exciting only to me on the engine, as it was performed
through the night, but peaceful to everyone else.”

After these adventures the Royal Irish reached Belfast on the 4th of October, and at once relieved the troops then holding the outposts round the town, where the duty was so heavy that when the Commander-in-Chief ordered the battalion to Pretoria to represent Ireland at the formal annexation of the Transvaal to the British Crown, only three companies could be spared to take part in the ceremony. Along the whole of the Pretoria-Komati Poort railway, as indeed on all the lines throughout the theatre of war, every station was held as a fortress; every train was guarded by soldiers;[311] every bridge and almost every culvert absorbed a detachment, great or small, for its defence; while flying columns were often required to disperse the guerilla bands which threatened weak points on the line of communication. Until December, the Boers in the eastern Transvaal occupied themselves chiefly in train-wrecking; but on the 28th of that month they stormed a strongly entrenched post at Helvetia, captured a large number of men, and carried away in triumph a 4.7-in. gun. Encouraged by this success, they determined to attack the posts along eighty miles of railway; the stations at Pan, Wildfontein, Wonderfontein, Belfast, Dalmanutha, Machadodorp, and Nooitgedacht were to be assailed simultaneously, though the main effort was to be against Belfast, where a great depôt of stores and much ammunition formed a prize worth striving for. Though the headquarters of three battalions were stationed at Belfast, the Colonels of the Royal Irish, the Shropshire Light Infantry, and the Gordon Highlanders could muster between them no more than 1300 men--a small number of foot soldiers with which to furnish outposts, guard the town and guns, and reinforce threatened points on the enormous perimeter of fifteen miles rendered necessary by the formation of the ground around the place. The remainder of the garrison consisted of two hundred and eighty of the 5th Lancers, a hundred and eighty mounted infantry, a battery of field artillery, and two 4.7-in. guns.

Belfast was defended by three main groups of works, more of the nature of detached posts than of outposts in the ordinary acceptation of the term. South of the railway the Gordon Highlanders were in charge of a long stretch of rising ground; on the other side of the line the Shropshire Light Infantry held Colliery Hill, to the north-west of the town; while the Royal Irish were responsible for Monument Hill, a kopje two miles north-east of the centre of Belfast, and for one of the 4.7-in. guns, which was posted upon it. These hills, three miles apart, were linked by a party of mounted infantry at a drift half-way between them. Early on the 7th of January, 1901, Major Orr’s detachment at Monument Hill was relieved by Captain Fosbery, who was in command of his own company, A, and of D company (Captain Milner); Lieutenant Dease was the only subaltern with the party, which consisted of ninety-three officers, non-commissioned officers and men. Fosbery at once began to improve and complete the partially finished defences he had taken over from his predecessor, but the number of workers at his disposal was not great, for D company had just returned from an exhausting spell of train-escort duty, and as he wished to allow Captain Milner’s men time to rest, he kept them in reserve and gave them little to do. By sundown, however, much had been accomplished, and when General Smith-Dorrien came to visit the post he was satisfied with the progress made, though he disapproved of the loopholes, which he directed should be altered, but owing to the darkness it became impossible to carry out this order, and its execution was postponed till the morrow.

The top of the hill is a plateau about eight hundred yards long, and less than a quarter of a mile in width: at the northern end a rough stone sangar, four feet high, enclosed the 4.7-in. gun: farther to the south a semicircular trench partly surrounded the tents occupied by D company: a short way down the south-western slope of the hill a blockhouse of stone and sods was virtually completed, and scattered along the perimeter of the plateau were eight small trenches, two of which were not yet fit for use. By the scheme of fortification the whole of the post should have been ringed with a strong barbed-wire fence, but at nightfall this portion of the defences was not completely finished. After Fosbery had sent two sections to a subsidiary post connecting Monument Hill with the left of the Gordon Highlanders, there remained in hand six sections, which he thus disposed for the night. Two sections of A company were to man the perimeter trenches, with a sentry posted a few yards in front of each; the remaining section of A with the maxim was to act as a support in the sangar, from which, as will be seen, the 4.7-in. gun had been withdrawn; the three sections of D company were to sleep in their tents, but to be ready at a moment’s notice to line the trench near their little camp. In the course of the evening a mist settled down upon the country round Belfast, so heavy that in the town itself the range of vision was limited to twenty yards; on Monument Hill it was like a London fog, and effectually prevented patrolling to the north-east, east, and south-east, where the precipitous sides of the kopje fell into broken ground, difficult even by day to search with any degree of thoroughness. Thus the safety of the post was entirely dependent on the vigilance and sharp hearing of the sentries in front of the trenches.