In half an hour the guns
were in full action against those low hills. The enemy's one gun there
was silenced, but not before it had blown away half the head of a poor
fellow among the Dragoon Guards. For an hour and a half we poured
shrapnel over the rocks, till, except for casual rifle fire, there was
no reply. Then another battery came up to protect the line to our rear,
across which the Boers were throwing shells from positions on both
sides, though without much effect. Soon after one, up cantered the
Volunteers--Imperial Light Horse and Border Mounted Infantry--and they
were sent forward, dismounted, to take the main position in front and
occupy a steep hill on our left. To front and left they went gaily on,
but they failed.
At their approach the rocks we had so persistently shelled, crackled and
hammered from end to end with rifle fire. The Boers had hidden behind
the ridge, and now crept back again. Perhaps no infantry could have
taken that position only from the front. I watched the Volunteers
advance upon it in extended lines across a long green slope studded with
ant-hills. I could see the puffs of dust where bullets fell thick round
their feet. It was an impossible task. Some got behind a cactus hedge,
some lay down and fired, some hid behind ant-hills or little banks.
Suddenly that moment came when all is over but the running. The men
began shifting uneasily about. A few turned round, then more. At first
they walked and kept some sort of line. Then some began to run. Soon
they were all running, isolated or in groups of two or three. And all
the time those puffs of dust pursued their feet. Sometimes there was no
puff of dust, and then a man would spring in the air, or spin round, or
just lurch forward with arms outspread, a mere yellowish heap, hardly to
be distinguished from an ant-hill. I could see many a poor fellow
wandering hither and thither as though lost, as is common in all
retreats. A man would walk sideways, then run back a little, look round,
fall. Another came by. The first evidently called out and the other gave
him a hand. Both stumbled on together, the puffs of dust splashing round
them. Then down they fell and were quiet. A complacent correspondent
told me afterwards, with the condescending smile of higher light, that
only seven men were hit. I only know that before evening twenty-five of
the Light Horse alone were brought in wounded, not counting the dead,
and not counting the other mounted
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