With Rimington | Page 8

a line of kopjes and hills rising
like reefs and detached islands out of it. You might think the plain was
empty at first glance, but, if you look hard, you will see it crawling
with little khaki-clad figures, dotted all over it; not packed anywhere,
but sprinkled over the whole surface. They are steadily but very
leisurely converging on the largest end hill of the opposite range.
Meantime, from three or four spots along the sides of those hills, locks
and puffs of white smoke float out, followed at long intervals by deep,
sonorous reports; and if you look to the left a bit, where our naval guns
are at work, you will see the Boer shells bursting close to or over them.
The artillery duet goes on between the two, while still the infantry,
unmolested as yet, crawls and crawls towards those hills."
This is our first sight of an infantry attack, and it doesn't impress me at
first at all. Its cold-bloodedness, the absence of all excitement, make it
so different from one's usual notions of a battle. It is really difficult to
believe that those little, sauntering figures are "delivering an attack."
They don't look a bit as if they were going to fight. The fact is, they
have a long distance to cover before reaching the hills, and must go
fairly slow. Accordingly, you see them strolling leisurely along as if
nothing particular were happening; while the hills themselves, except
for the occasional puffs of smoke, look; quite bare and empty; ridges of

stone and rock, interspersed with grass tussocks, heaped up against the
hot, blue sky.
But now, as they advance farther across the plain, the muffled,
significant sound of the Mauser fire begins. The front of the attack is
already so far across that it is impossible to see how they are faring
from here; but it is evident that our shell fire, heavy though it has been,
for all our guns have been in action some time now, has not turned the
Boers out of their position. The big chunks of rock are an excellent
defence against shrapnel, and behind them they lie, or down in the
hollow of the hills, as we saw them earlier in the day, to be called up
when the attack approached; and now, gathering along the crest, their
fire quickens gradually from single shots to a roar. But it has no effect
on that fatal sauntering! Of the men who leave this side nigh on two
hundred will drop before they reach the other, but still, neither hurrying
nor pausing, on they quietly stroll, giving one, in their uniform motion
over that wide plain, a sense as of the force and implacability of some
tidal movement. And, as you watch, the significance of it all grows on
you, and you see that it is just its very cold-bloodedness and the
absence of any dash and fury that makes the modern infantry attack
such a supreme test of courage.
Of the details of the attack, when it came to the last charge, we could
see nothing. The Naval Brigade, who had the hardest part of the
position to take, lost terribly, but did the job in a way that every one
says was perfectly splendid. It is said, however, that they made the
mistake, in the scaling of the hill, of closing together, and so offering a
more compact mass to the enemy's fire. We came on behind the
infantry with our friends the Lancers, and passed through a gap in the
range and on across some open ground and through a few more kopjes
as fast as we could go. Then we came in sight of the enemy, and the
same thing happened as at Belmont. A lot of horsemen, enough to have
eaten us up, that were hanging about the rear of the Boer column, came
wheeling out against us, and as we continued to approach, opened fire.
Luckily there was good cover for our ponies behind some hillocks, and,
leaving them there, we crawled out among the rocks and blazed at the
Boers. But this was all we could do. We daren't attack. The only hope

was guns, and it was a long and inexplicable time before any guns
came up. By that time the Boer column was almost across the plain,
winding its way in among the kopjes on the farther side, but the
15-pounders made some very pretty practice at the rear-guard, and
considerably hastened their movements. The Boer retreat seems to have
been conducted with much coolness and method. They ceased firing
their big guns while the attack was still a good way distant, and
limbered up and sent them on, the riflemen remaining till the attack
was close upon them, and firing