Four Months Besieged | Page 6

and glad of the chance to be with two such battalions as the Royal Irish Fusiliers and the Gloucesters in such an enterprise.
Possibly all might have gone well with it but for a deplorable accident. In the dead of night some boulders rolling down from a hill startled the transport and mountain-battery mules, which stampeded, taking with them nearly all the reserve rifle ammunition. As to what happened after that, accounts vary greatly. Few of the Gloucester men or Royal Irish Fusiliers got back to tell the story, except as wounded men on parole, and they had not seen the whole thing through. It seems certain, however, from concordance of evidence, that the Gloucesters and Fusiliers, instead of outflanking the Boers, were actually between two strong bodies of Free State men, when they seized a strong position and established themselves there. At any rate, they were attacked in turn soon after daybreak by Boers who crept up the slopes in rear, firing on them from both flanks--some say all round. Notwithstanding this, the thousand men held their ground against odds until nearly every round of ammunition had been expended, and the casualties numbered nearly a hundred and fifty killed or wounded.
Both regiments begged that they might be allowed to charge the rough slopes from which the ceaseless stings of rifle-fire came, and the Fusiliers, whose colonel would have led them willingly enough, had their bayonets fixed, when some one hoisted the white flag, and by this act the remnants of two gallant regiments became prisoners of war. "Flags of truce!" said an "old brag" who recounted the story, with tears in his voice; "I wish they would leave the damned rags at home, or dye them all khaki colour, so that neither Dutchmen nor us could ever see them."
News of that disaster travelled fast. It was told on the battlefield in front of Ladysmith two hours later, and it probably had some effect on the fortunes of a fight that cannot be recalled by Englishmen with unmixed satisfaction. The result may be regarded as a drawn battle, in that each side remained at the finish in possession of its own position, but on us who watched every phase, first with confidence and then with increasing anxiety, the impression made was a very unpleasant one, closely akin to humiliation.
The Boers were left in command of heights on which, if given time, they may plant artillery to shell the town and camp with a fire to which we can make no effective reply until the quick-firing naval guns of heavy calibre and long range are mounted. Bluejackets have been working hard to that end all day, unmolested by the enemy, who have declared a truce for twenty-four hours in order that the wounded of both sides may be placed in comparative safety.
General Joubert has sent to us an ambulance with wounded under parole from the captured column, and in exchange his surgeons have taken a similar number of Boer wounded from our hospitals. All who have come in speak highly of the treatment they have received at the enemy's hands.
CHAPTER III
LADYSMITH INVESTED
The exodus of the townsfolk--Communications threatened--Slim Piet Joubert--Espionage in the town--Neglected precautions--A truce that paid--British positions described--Big guns face to face--Boers hold the railways--French's reconnaissance--The General's flitting--A gauntlet of fire--An interrupted telegram--Death of Lieutenant Egerton--"My cricketing days are over"--Under the enemy's guns--"A shell in my room"--Colonials in action--The sacrifice of valuable lives.
October closed without further hostilities, and its last day was uneventful in a military sense, though full of forebodings in the town, because all knew that the Boers were taking advantage of a brief armistice to bring up reinforcements. On this last day of the month civilians eager to get away from Ladysmith crowded every train. Writing on November 1st, Mr. Pearse said:--
All Saints' Day is observed with some strictness by Boers who do not show similar veneration for other festivals in the Church Calendar. There have at any rate been no hostilities to-day, but from Captain Lambton's Battery on Junction Hill, where the naval 4.7-inch quick-firing gun is being mounted, we have by the aid of the signalman's powerful telescope watched a significant Boer movement going on for hours. We can see them among the scrubby trees between Lombard's Kop and Umbulwaana (or Bulwaan as it is more generally called), and hurrying off behind that hill along the road that leads southwards. That road cuts the railway not more than six or seven miles out, and their movement threatens our line of communications that way, unless we can manage to check it by judicious use of cavalry and mounted troops. The flight of townsfolk southward continues. They do not even trouble about luggage now, but lock their doors and clear off. Half the houses are empty, and many shops