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Military History – South Africa – Europe – England 19th Century
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.Page 309
armoured train – and the armoured train was puffing back for its life. Everybody went back halfa-dozen miles on the Ladysmith road to Modder Spruit Station.
The men on reconnaissance duty retired, as is their business. They had discovered that the enemy
had guns and meant fighting. Lest he should follow, they sent out from Ladysmith, about nine in the
morning, half a battalion apiece of the Devonshire and Manchester Regiments by train, and the 42nd
Field Battery, with a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards, by road. They arrived, and there fell on us
the common lot of reconnaissances. We dismounted, loosened girths, ate tinned meat, and wondered
what we should do next. We were on a billow of veldt that heaved across the valley: up it ran, road
and rail; on the left rose tiers of hills, in front a huge green hill blocked our view, with a tangle of
other hills crowding behind to peep over its shoulders. On the right, across the line, were meadows;
up from them rose a wall of red-brown kopje; up over that a wall of grass-green veldt; over that was
the enemy. We ate and sat and wondered what we should do next. Presently we saw the troopers
mounting and the trains getting up steam; we mounted; and scouts, advance-guards, flanking patrols –
everybody crept slowly, slowly, cautiously forward. Then, about half-past two, we turned and beheld
the columns coming up behind us. The 21st Field Battery, the 5th Lancers, the Natal Mounted
Volunteers on the road; the other half of the Devons and half the Gordon Highlanders on the trains –
total, with what we had, say something short of 3000 men and eighteen guns. It was battle!
The trains drew up and vomited khaki into the meadow. The mass separated and ordered itself.
A line of little dots began to draw across it; a thicker line of dots followed; a continuous line
followed them, then other lines, then a mass of khaki topping a dark foundation – the kilts of the
Highlanders. From our billow we could not see them move; but the green on the side of the line grew
broader, and the green between them and the kopje grew narrower. Now the first dots were at the
base – now hardly discernible on the brown hill flanks. Presently the second line of dots was at the
base. Then the third line and the second were lost on the brown, and the third – whereff There, bold
on the skyline. Away on their right, round the hill, stole the black column of the Imperial Light Horse.
The hill was crowned, was turned – but where were the Bo——
A hop, a splutter, a rattle, and then a snarling roll of musketry broke on the question, – not from
the hill, but far on our left front, where the Dragoon Guards were scouting. On that the thunder of
galloping orderlies and hoarse yells of command – advance! – in line! – waggon supply! – and with
rattle and thunder the batteries tore past, wheeled, unlimbered as if they broke in halves. Then rattled
and thundered the waggons, men gathered round the guns like the groups round a patient in an
operation. And the first gun barked death. And then after all it was a false alarm. At the first shell you
could see through glasses mounted men scurrying up the slopes of the big opposite hill; by the third
they were gone. And then, as our guns still thudded – thud came the answer. Only whereff Away,
away on the right, from the green kopje over the brown one where still struggled the reserves of our
infantry.
Limbers! From halves the guns were whole again, and wheeled away over ploughland to the
railway. Down went a length of wire-fencing, and gun after gun leaped ringing over the metals,
scoring the soft pasture beyond. We passed round the leftward edge of the brown hill and joined our
infantry in a broad green valley. The head of it was the second skyline we had seen; beyond was a
dip, a swell of kopje, a deep valley, and behond that a
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