South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 3 (of 8): From the Battle of Colenso, 15th Dec. 1899, to Lord Roberts's Advance into the Free State, 12th Feb. 1900Creswicke, Louis
History
South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 3 (of 8): From the Battle of Colenso, 15th Dec. 1899, to Lord Roberts's Advance into the Free State, 12th Feb. 1900
Creswicke, Louis
South African War, 1899-1902; Transvaal (South Africa) -- History
"I missed the first, in which we had much the best of it. We only had
one man hit, and that only slightly, and in return we bowled over a
couple of Dutchmen (others may have been wounded), stampeded their
horses, over a hundred in number (we surprised their grazing guard),
killed or wounded twenty of the horses, and jumped seven. The next fight
was warm for a bit. We had only half the squadron--about forty-five
men--who were reconnoitring round the enemy's fort dismounted. This was
only three miles from our camp and in British territory. We had four men
wounded, and did an equal amount of damage to them, if not more. We got
off very cheap, for their fire was very hot, and very close too. The
third fight came off on November 2, and that was a scorcher. On the
night before it I was on guard. It was a beastly night, raining and
blowing hard, so I got very little sleep when it was my turn off. In the
day I was in charge of the grazing guard with three other men.
"About one o'clock I got orders to bring in the horses, which I did, and
had just got all the horses tied up when the Dutch started firing on us.
I'd just got into a nice position behind a good big rock when I was
ordered to ride out to warn our outlying pickets. There were three of
them, four men in each, about a mile or a mile and a half away. A risky
job it was too. Two of us were sent. I asked the other man which he
would go to. He chose the one I had wanted, so I had the worst job--two
pickets to warn, and had to ride right through the line of fire. As I
started, one of our officers shouted, 'Don't spare your horse; ride like
h--ll;' and I did too. Directly I got out, ping-ping came two bullets, a
bit high, but others soon followed much closer. I got out, though, all
right, warned the two pickets, and came in with them. We got a bit of a
fusillade on us when we got near the fort, but had no casualties. The
man who rode to the other picket had his horse shot under him; so I
scored--not for long, though, for my own horse was shot soon after.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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