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The doings of General Gatacre's force during the long interval which passed between his disaster at Stormberg and the final general advance may be rapidly chronicled. Although nominally in command of a division, Gatacre's troops were continually drafted off to east and to west, so that it was seldom that he had more than a brigade under his orders.
The rattling of musketry became incessant. Advancing under cover of rocky bluffs, the shells passed harmlessly over the Brigade. We soon ascertained that the Rebels had made a stand at a point where our advance, from the character of the country, necessarily narrowed into the compass of a strip of meadow-land. Here a brigade of Rebel infantry were drawn up in line of battle.
Darkness began to fall and great difficulty was experienced in keeping touch with the battalion in front and even between the different companies, a difficulty increased by the first line camels of the 7th, who were perpetually, though inevitably, getting in our way. When daylight had actually failed it must be admitted the Brigade had become somewhat disintegrated.
The 303rd Field Artillery Brigade was supporting the brigade, and they were to move up a track from Kullundia while the foot-sloggers used the high road, but the track was found impassable for wheels and the guns had to be brought to the road. The attack was postponed till the guns were in position.
As soon as the camp of my brigade was pitched at Booneville, I began to scout in every direction, to obtain a knowledge of the enemy's whereabouts and learn the ground about me.
Into the wrecked streets of Neuve Chapelle swung two battalions of the Twenty-fifth Brigade. The few of their enemy who offered resistance were soon overpowered being captured or slain. These men of the Twenty-fifth Brigade found terrible scenes of destruction. The village had been knocked literally into a rubbish heap.
It was hoped, that this might be accomplished in a single day, and that the brigade, having asserted its strength, would be able to march on the 17th to Nawagai and take part in the attack on the Bedmanai Pass, which had been fixed for the 18th.
Out of the red lightning, the thunder, the dust and the smoke, above the frenzied shouting and the crying of the wounded, their presence was electrically known. A cheer rushed from the First Brigade; at the guns Rockbridge, Staunton, Loudoun, Alexandria, and New Orleans took up the cry, tossed it with grape and canister across to the opposite hill.
It is after 2 o'clock P.M., when Howard's Brigade, of Heintzelman's Division, reaches the battle-field, almost broken down with exhaustion. By order of Heintzelman it has moved at double-quick for a mile of the way, until, under the broiling heat, it can do so no longer.
"True!" agreed the Brigade Major amiably. He turned and surveyed the garden. "That lawn looks a bit of a golf course. What lovely bunkers!" "They appear to be quite new, too," remarked the Staff Captain thoughtfully. "Come to breakfast!" On their way back they found the Brigadier, the Machine-Gun Officer, and the Padre, gazing silently upward.
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