CHAPTER XIII

BATTLE OF BELMONT

IT was on the southern and western sides of the Orange Free State that offensive warfare was begun by the British.

Like a tiger stalking its prey by night, in almost absolute silence, Lord Methuen's splendid flying column of nearly ten thousand men started from Belmont Farm at half-past three on the morning of the 23rd of November. The moonlight fell softened through fleecy clouds, and the battalions, marching in a long, narrow queue, hugged the nearer hills so as to be hidden in their shadow.

The army knew that the Boers held the greater range, which ran north and south to form the easterly wall of the four which enclose a noble but desolate

valley.

Like a colossal centipede with twenty thousand legs, the column moved along the shadow of the more friendly hills, crawling a few score yards, then halting, then crawling a little farther. At each halt all the officers and men sank upon one knee. The orders to

march, to halt, to kneel, and to rise were given by movements of the hands of the commanders, no word being spoken.

Here and there a few men whispered now and then, but the light breeze which sifted through the wild sage of the veldt was louder than these hushed voices. Once, when we were leaving the hill shadows and crossing the corner of the valley to crouch for the deadly spring upon our foe, we came to a rocky patch, and our guns and ammunition waggons jolted and creaked among the obstacles, making our only noise, yet one which we felt the Boers must hear. The faint flush in the sky at the end of the Boer position told us that very soon they would also see us.

And now a golden rim was pushed above the farthest kopje; the wind-rumpled clouds that reached half across the plain took on the hue of blood-the look of curdled blood. The strange little birds called “dikkopfs," or thickheads, so abundant here, began their work of shooting up from the veldt twenty feet, and crying "Hui!" and dropping back again upon the ground. "Hui! hui!" sounded ever so sadly all over the parched desert, so soon to quaff the blood of hundreds.

At that moment we saw our valiant British moving in thin lines nearly two miles long. They looked like sportsmen stalking game, as each held his rifle ready in both hands, and all crouched as they strode along

with frequent haltings. At that moment too there ran along the crest of the great southern kopje quick, vivid jets of fire, like jewels flashing in a coronet on the hills' brow. It was the flame of a volley from the Boers fired at the nearest British!

This was the beginning of a fearful fight, one of the severest that even English soldiers have ever faced. It fell to the lot of the Grenadier Guards to storm that particular hill. They saw the rim of fire beads flash along the crest, and die away, and race along the crest again, as tiny gas jets blow out and re-ignite in heavy wind. But it was what they felt-a deadly hail of bullets-that tried them, without finding them wanting. For protection and retort they could only shoot almost straight above their heads, without ever seeing their foe hidden behind the topmost boulders.

mass.

They were advancing in too close formation, giving the bullets but little chance to miss the aggregate Mown down as grass before a scythe, still they climbed up and onward, never dreaming of another course. Some men of the Northamptonshire Regiment dashed up after them, and, all together, they drove the Boers from that fastness, and saw them leaping down the further side of the hill, and across a little valley to the heights beyond.

The Grenadiers, out of but a part of the battalion, lost something like 120 men in a few minutes. But almost as severe work was done by their comrades in

arms, by the Scots Guards, the Northamptonshires, the Northumberland Fusiliers, and the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, in different parts of the field. The Northumberlands tackled a Boer position next in strength to that stormed by the Grenadiers, and also lost heavily.

The battle opened at about 4.20 a.m., and it was precisely three hours later that a volley of British cheers proclaimed the capture of the last of the strongly-fortified hills. The artillery and naval guns, which had not been brought into action until five o'clock, silenced the last of two Boer batteries at the moment of this cheering.

After that the Boers ran down from the hills like flowing water, and took up new positions on some lower land behind. Fierce attacks, notably by the Yorkshires, Northumberlands, and Northamptons, quickly made the new positions untenable, and the rest of that day's drama revealed the rapid flight of the Boers over the open veldt, and the ineffectual pursuit of them by the 9th Lancers.

During this engagement the Boers fought their own style of battle obstinately and with courage. Butand it seems there must always be a "but " when one endeavours to give credit generously to this foe-they marred the day most shockingly.

In two places they displayed flags of truce in order to bring the British out of cover, and then shoot them

down. In one case, where the famous correspondent, E. F. Knight, was wounded, every one of the offenders was killed. In the other the man who tied his handkerchief to his rifle was subsequently taken prisoner. Besides this treachery, twelve of our men were shot with dum-dum bullets.

I went upon the field with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, and a description of the manner in which they went into action will serve as illustrating the course pursued by all the forces except the Naval Brigade. The privates were, as already described,

with dulled buttons, muddied straps and belts and pouches, and with the handles and scabbards of their bayonets painted khaki colour.

On this eventful morning, for the first time in their lives, perhaps for the first time in British history, the officers threw aside their swords and put on the accoutrements of privates, even to their rifles. Thus I saw Colonel Barter, of the Yorkshires, stride off with his battalion, and thus he led them into the hell's rain of lead, obeying the letter of the new regulation by an attempt at disguise, which took no note of his towering and athletic figure, or his natural pose and carriage of command. Thus dressed I also saw the gallant commander of the Grenadier Guards lying in the broiling sun, propped against a rock, wounded-and telling the ambulance men to look after his gashed and bloodstained men who lay around him among the rocks.

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