78 Pages - The Black Vault

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halted suspiciously, but came on in smal! groups or”clumps. They crossed the river in several pla~;es andexamined the bushy banks most carefully. but finfjing no “khakis” there, they evidently cxpw:!o[! rlf)r~~’on the open veld beyond them, for ttley a(.~v;li](;(!(;“anyway” without care. Several of the (;l IJrTIps Ioinwitogether, and came on chatting in (.)r]e body of sortlr;30 men. Would they examine the kraal, or woIJlci tt~~-~vpass on? My heart pounded. The little Ilill ,v(; wc>r(on would, unluckily, be certain to prove an attracti(~l]for them, because it was an excellent vantage qrolln~!whence to scan the horizon to the south, al]d to signal back to the main body to the north The kraal wasalso a suitable place to off-saddle fot- a few miiluteswhile the main body came up to the drift, and ii rncantpossibly a fire, and therefore a CLIp of coffee “TtIeyrode up towards it Iaughlng, chatting, an{i s(ll{~kirl~;quite unsuspectingly. We uttered no suunfj. (0111Dutch and Kaffir guests uttered no sc)un(~ ~~iti~er, fu~in their pits was a man with a rifle alongslde themAt last they halted a moment some 250 n~eters aw:],on the northeast, where the slope n! tt)!-> hill wasmore gradual and showed them ali up A few dismounted, the rest started again straight towar(~s usIt was not magnificent, but it was war ! wllist!~’,’About ten of them succeeded in galloping off,some loose horses; five or six of them on ttle grour][!threw up their hands and came into tile post. on th[:ground there remained a mass of kicking horses anddead or groaning men. The other parties of scoutsto east and west had at once galloped back 10 theriver where they dismounted under cover and begarlto pepper us. Anyway, we had done somelhtnq.As soon as our immediate enemy were disposr:d o!,55. .
we opened fire on the main body some 1500 metersaway, who had at once halted and opened out. Tothese we did a good deal of damage, causing greatconfusion, which was comforting to watch. The Boerin command of the main body must have gatheredthat the river-bed was clear, for he made a very boldmove; he drove the whole of the waggons, etc.,straight on as fast as possible over the odd 400meters to the river and down the drift into the riverbed,where they were safe from our fire. Their lossesmust have been heavy over this short distance, forthey had to abandon two of their waggons on the wayto the river. This was done under cover of the firefrom a large number of riflemen, who had at oncegalloped up to the river-bank, dismounted, andopened fire at us, and from two guns and a pompom,which had immediately been driven a short distanceback and then outwards to the east and west. It wasreally the best thing he could have done, and if hehad only known that we could not fire on the groundto the south of the drift, he might have come straighton with a rush.We had so far scored; but now ensued a period ofstalemate. We were being fired at from the riverbankon the north, and from ant-hills, etc., pretty well allround,and were also under the intermittent shellfirefrom the two guns. They made most excellentpractice at the huts, which were soon knocked tobits, but not till they had well served their turn. Someof the new white sandbags from inside the huts werescattered out in full view of the enemy, and it wasinstructive to see what a splendid target they made,and how often they were hit, They must have drawna lot of fire away from the actual trenches. Until the56
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FMFRP 12-33The DefenseofDuffer’sD
Page 6 and 7:
ABOUTTHE AUTHORMajor General Sir Er
Page 8 and 9:
BACKGROUNDINFORMATION(THE BOER WAR)
Page 10:
“/t was our own fault, and our ve
Page 13 and 14: — ,-
Page 15 and 16: UDUOFFHR’SUDUNIFT.GENERAL PLAN.Ma
Page 17 and 18: I had so often longed for. This was
Page 19 and 20: stores and tools, which had been du
Page 21 and 22: a most loyal Briton, and had been m
Page 23 and 24: silhouetted in the cheerful blaze o
Page 25 and 26: out the following lessons, the resu
Page 27 and 28: men each, one to the top of Waschou
Page 29 and 30: preached the guard of the north fro
Page 31 and 32: amazing alacrity, and looked as if
Page 33 and 34: teeth outside their kraals whilst t
Page 35 and 36: horseshoe bend of the river, as thi
Page 37 and 38: It was astonishing what difficulty
Page 39 and 40: on top of that kop-je on the fur si
Page 41 and 42: at first halted and begun to be sus
Page 43 and 44: Eh’eam‘(0 was some power the gi
Page 45 and 46: Map 5The Dutchmen and Kaffirs were
Page 47 and 48: presence, with a close-range volley
Page 49 and 50: By the time I had gathered what was
Page 51 and 52: “We lay bare as the paunchof the
Page 53 and 54: is frontall round.12. Beware of bei
Page 55 and 56: ifth &eam“A frif/ing sum of miser
Page 57 and 58: Map 6vialed with grooves to fire th
Page 59 and 60: distributed in case of a long and p
Page 61: and the road south to see how matte
Page 65 and 66: True, we were not captured, and had
Page 67 and 68: sixth!!)ream“Sweet are the uses o
Page 69 and 70: advantages of the proposal.I resist
Page 71 and 72: any degree hampered by a fear of hi
Page 73 and 74: scooped out a little, or a shelf cu
Page 75 and 76: dream; all we could do meanwhile wa
Page 77 and 78: and a coat there peeping over the t
Page 79: musketry in the distance, and saw a
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78 Pages - The Black Vault

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