Ladysmith - free ebook by Henry Woodd Nevinson

NOTE

This book has been reprinted, by kind permission of the Proprietors of the Daily Chronicle , from the full text of the Letters sent to the paper....

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ON THE EDGE

NEWCASTLE, NATAL, Thursday, October 5, 1899 . Late last Sunday night I found myself slowly crawling towards the front from Pretoria in a commandeered train crammed full of armed Boers and their horses. I had rushed from the Cape to quiet little Bloemfontein, the centre of one of the best administered States in the world, where the heads of the nation in the intervals of discussing war proudly showed me their pianos, their little gardens, little libraries of English books, little museums of Afric

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AT THE BRITISH FRONT

LADYSMITH, NATAL, Wednesday, October 11, 1899 . Ladysmith breathes freely to-day, but a week ago she seemed likely to become another Lucknow. Of line battalions only the Liverpools were here, besides two batteries of field artillery, some of the 18th Hussars, and the 5th Lancers. If Kruger or Joubert had then allowed the Boers encamped on the Free State border to have their own way, no one can say what might have happened. Our force would have been outnumbered at least four to one, and probably

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THE FIRST WEEK'S WAR

LADYSMITH, Thursday, October 19, 1899 . It is a week to-day since the Boers of the Transvaal and Free State began their combined invasion of Natal. So far all action has been on their side. They have crept down the passes with their waggons and half-organised bands of mounted infantry, and have now advanced within a short day's march of the two main British positions which protect the whole colony. It will be seen on a map that North Natal forms a fairly regular isoceles triangle, having Charles

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BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE

LADYSMITH, October 22, 1899 . It was a fair morning yesterday, cool after rain, the thin clouds sometimes letting the sun look through. At half-past ten I was some six or seven miles out along the Newcastle road—a road in these parts being merely a worn track over the open veldt, distinguishable only by the ruts and mud. Close on the left were high and shapely hills, like Welsh mountains, but on the right the country was more open. A Mr. Malcolm's farm stood in the middle of a waving plain, with

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BATTLE OF TINTA INYONI

LADYSMITH, October 27, 1899 . If you want to "experience a shock," as the doctors say, be with the head of a column advancing leisurely along a familiar road only six miles from camp, and have a shell flung almost at your feet from a neighbouring mountain top. That was my fortune about the breakfast time of peaceable citizens last Tuesday morning. A squadron of Lancers and some of the Natal Carbineers were in front. Just behind me a battery was rumbling along. A little knot of the staff was clos

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THE REVERSE AT NICHOLSON'S NEK

LADYSMITH, October 31, 1899 . On Sunday we were all astir for a big battle. But no village Sabbath in the Highlands could have been quieter, though it might have been more devotional. We rode about as usual, though our rides are very limited now, and the horse that took me forty miles last Wednesday is pining because the Boers have cut off his exercise. We sweated and swore, and suffered unfathomable thirst, but still there was no more battle than the evening hymn. Next day we knew it would be d

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HEMMED IN

LADYSMITH, November 2, 1899 . "Long Tom" opened fire at a quarter-past six from Pepworth Hill, and was replied to by the Naval Brigade. Just as I walked up to their big 4.7 in. gun on the kopje close to the Newcastle road, a shell came right through our battery's earthwork, without bursting. Lieutenant Egerton, R.N., was lying close under the barrel of our gun, and both his legs were shattered. The doctors amputated one at the thigh, the other at the shin. In the afternoon he was sitting up, dri

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TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

Sunday, November 5, 1899. The armistice lasted all day, except that the enemy threw two shells at a waggon going up the Helpmakaar road and knocked it to pieces, and, I hear, killed a man or two—I don't know why. The townspeople were very busy building shelters for the bombardment. The ends of bridges and culverts were closed up with sandbags and stones. Circular forts were piled in the safest places among the rocks. The Army Service Corps constructed a magnificent work with mealy-bags and corn-

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INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, AND REALITIES

LADYSMITH, November 9, 1899 . [1] A day of furious and general attack. Just before five I was wakened by a shell blustering through the eucalyptus outside my window, and bursting in a gully beyond. "Lady Anne" answered at once, and soon all the Naval Brigade guns were in full cry. What should we have done without the Naval guns? We have nothing else but ordinary field artillery, quite unable to reply to the heavy guns which the Boers have now placed in position round the town. Yet they only came

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ENNUI ENLIVENED BY SUDDEN DEATH

LADYSMITH, November 15, 1899 . This drama is getting too long for the modern stage, and so far the Dutch have obeyed none of the dramatic rules. To-day was one monotony of rain, and may be blotted out from the memory of all but the men who lay hour after hour miserably soaking upon the edges of the hills. After the early morning not a shell was fired. The mist was too thick to allow even of wild shots at the town. I had another try at getting a Kaffir runner to carry a telegram through to Estcou

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FLASHES FROM BULLER

December 1, 1899. A kaffir came in to-day, bringing the strange story that the old "Long Tom" of Pepworth Hill was hit full in the muzzle by "Lady Anne," that the charge inside him burst, the gun was shattered, and five gunners killed. The Kaffir swore he himself had been employed to bury them, and that the thing he said was true. If so, our "Lady Anne" has made the great shot of the war. The authorities are inclined to believe the story. The new gun on Gun Hill is perhaps too vigorous for our o

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THE NIGHT SURPRISE ON GUN HILL

December 5, 1899. We have now been shut up nearly five weeks. Some 15,000 people or more have been living on a patch of ground roughly measuring three miles each way. On that patch of ground at the lowest estimate 3,500 cases of explosive iron have been hurled at high velocity, not counting an incalculable number of the best rifle bullets. One can conceive the effect on a Londoner's mind if a shell burst in the city. If another burst next day, the 'buses would begin to empty. If a hundred a day

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THE CAPTURE OF SURPRISE HILL

Sunday, December 10, 1899. Just as we were lazily washing our clothes and otherwise enjoying the Sabbath rest and security at about eight in the morning, "Puffing Billy," of Bulwan, began breaking the Fourth Commandment with extraordinary recklessness and rapidity. He sent nine of his shells into the town, as fast as he could fire them. "Bloody Mary" flung two over his head and one into his earthwork, but he paid no attention to her protests. The fact was, the 5th Dragoon Guards, trusting to Boe

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THE SEASON OF PEACE AND GOODWILL

Sunday, December 17, 1899. We are sick of the siege. Enteric and dysentery are steadily increasing. Food for men and horses is short and nasty. Ammunition must be used with care. The longing for the English mail has almost become a disease. Only two days more, we thought, or perhaps we could just stick it out for another week. Now we are thrown back into vague uncertainty, and seem no nearer to the end. All the correspondents were summoned at noon to the Intelligence Office. That the Intelligenc

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SICKNESS, DEATH, AND A NEW YEAR

LADYSMITH, December 26, 1899 . Good news came through the heliograph about General Gatacre's force at Dordrecht. There were rumours about Lord Methuen, too, for which Dr. Jameson was quoted as authority. But the best evidence for hope was the unusual violence of the bombardment. It began early, and before the middle of the afternoon the Boers had thrown 178 shells at us. They were counted by a Gordon officer on Moriden's Castle, and the total must have reached nearly 200 before sunset. Such feve

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THE GREAT ATTACK

January 6, 1900. It has been a commonplace of the war that the Boers could cling to a position of their own choosing from behind stones, but would never venture to attack a position or fight in the open. Like all the comforting commonplaces about the Boers, this is now overthrown. The untrained, ill-equipt farmers have to-day assaulted positions of extraordinary strength, have renewed the attack again and again, have rushed up to breastworks, and died at the rifle's mouth, and have only been rep

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A PAUSE AND A RENEWAL

January 8, 1900. All was ready to receive another attack, but the Boers made no sign beyond the usual bombardment. One of the wounded—a Harrismith man—says there is a strong party in favour of peace, men who want to get back to their farms and their families. We have heard that tale before, but still, here the Boers are fighting for freedom and existence if ever men did. To-day's bombardment nearly destroyed the tents and dhoolies of our field hospital, but did little else save beheading and man

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"WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE"

January 22, 1900. Twelve weeks to-day since Black Monday, when our isolation really began! A heliogram came from Buller to say all was going well, and in this evening's Orders we were officially informed that relief is "within measurable distance." I don't know about time, but in space that measurable distance is hardly more than fifteen miles. From Observation Hill I again watched the British shells breaking over the ridge above the ford. The Boers had moved one of their waggon laagers a little

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HOPE DEFERRED

January 29, 1900. The only change to-day was the steady passage of Boers westward, to concentrate afresh round Taba Nyama. Their new laager up the Long Valley had disappeared. Large bodies of men had been seen coming up from Colenso. The crisis of the war in Natal is evidently near. Meantime Kaffir deserters brought in a lot of chatter about the recent fighting. On one point they generally agreed—that Kruger himself was with his men. It is very likely. The staunch old prophet and patriot would h

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SUN AND FEVER

February 3, 1900. The day was fairly quiet. Old "Bulwan Billy" did not fire at us at all, and there was no movement in the distant Boer camps, though the universal belief is that the enemy is concentrating round Ladysmith for a fresh attack. In the evening the rations were issued to the civilians under Major Thompson's new regulations in the Market House. Each child, or whoever else is sent, now brings his ticket; it is verified at a table, the cost is added daily to each account, the child is s

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RELIEVED AT LAST

Tuesday, February 27, 1900. This is Majuba Day, and in the afternoon the garrison was cheered by the news that Roberts had surrounded Cronje and compelled him to surrender. For ourselves, relief seems as far off as ever, though it is said shells were seen bursting not far beyond Intombi Camp. The bread rations are cut down again to half, after a few days' rise; though, indeed, they can hardly be called bread rations, for the maize bread was so uneatable that none is made now. The ration is biscu

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HOW LADYSMITH WAS FED

LADYSMITH, March 23, 1900 . Where all worked so well it would be a shame to say Ladysmith was saved by any particular branch of the service—the naval guns, the Army Service Corps, or the infantry soldier. But it is quite certain that without the strictest control on the food supply we could not have held out so long, and by the kindness of one whose authority is above question I am able to give the following account of how the town was fed for the seventeen weeks of the siege. A celebrated Frenc

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