With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader eBook

“In spite of what Field says, I will adopt your suggestion, Peters.  We had better help the Kaffirs to get up our tents first,” Chris said, “then we can do the scraping while they are getting our supper ready.  It is very lucky that we had the water-skins filled before starting.  We should hardly taste the tea if it had been made from water from any of these spruits.”

The tents were erected, and then jack-knives were taken out; and giving mutual aid to each other, they succeeded in removing at least the main portion of the mud.  That done, they sat down to supper.  Fortunately, the rain that had come down steadily the greater portion of the day had now ceased, and with a tin of cocoa and milk, and some fried ham and biscuits, they made an excellent meal.  Their less fortunate comrades brought their kettles, which were boiled for them one after another, until all who had waited up in hopes of their turn coming had been served.  As they carried tea and their ration bread, they were able to make a fairly comfortable meal, instead of going supperless to bed, which they would otherwise have done, as few would have cared after their hard work to go out into the veldt to gather soaked sticks, which they would hardly have been able to light had they found them.  A small ration of spirits and water was given to each of the five natives, and then the lads crept into their tents feeling that after all, things might have been much worse.

CHAPTER XV

SPION KOP

The country immediately round Springfield was level and well cultivated, with pretty farmhouses and orchards scattered about.  Some little distance to the west rose two hills, Swartz Kop, which had been occupied by the mounted infantry, and Spearman’s Hill, named from a farm near its base.  Here General Buller had established his head-quarters.  Spearman’s Hill, which was generally called Mount Alice, was a very important position, and here the naval guns were placed, their fire commanding the greater portion of the hills on the other side of the Tugela, and also Potgieter’s Drift, where it was intended the passage of the river should be made.  Swartz Kop was a less important position, though it also dominated a wide extent of country; but as ridges on the other side covered some important points from its fire, Mount Alice was selected as the position for the naval battery, and also for the signallers, as from here a direct communication could be kept up by heliograph and flash-light with one of the hills held by the defenders of Ladysmith.

[Illustration:  The naval guns on mount Alice]

It was late on the 16th when the convoy which the Maritzburg Scouts were escorting arrived at Springfield.  All day they had heard the boom of artillery and the rattle of machine-guns and musketry along the line of hills on the other side of the Tugela and from the heights of Mount Alice, and groaned in spirit as they laboured at their work of assisting the waggons, that they were thus employed when hard fighting was going on within eight miles of them.