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He lay stretched outside the railway station into which many shells had crashed. It was as though he had walked from his own comrades toward our line before a bullet caught him. Ludendorff writes of the broken morale of the German troops, and of how his men surrendered to single troopers of ours, while whole detachments gave themselves up to tanks.
When we went into battle we had not had a wink of sleep for ten nights, but I tell you that it kept us wide awake while it lasted! In the middle of the day the air was so thick with bullets and shells that it seemed to be as dark as twilight, and the blood at one time made such a river down one of the gulleys that dozens of men and horses were drowned in it!"
We had not long to wait before fighting began, fighting confined for the most part to the artillery. The English shells were at first directed against Abraham's Kraal, which was subjected to a terrific bombardment; later on they turned their guns upon Rietfontein, where the Transvaalers and a part of the Free State commandos, under General De la Rey, were posted.
I often wished I had brought my "Napier's History" of Wellington's campaigns with me. When we got back to St. Julien the staff told me that the Germans had registered pretty nearly all over the place during the evening, and that it was a case of shells from north, south, east and west.
On November 7th the bombardment of the town commenced from nine 9-pounder guns to which the artillery of the garrison could give no adequate reply. The result, however, of a fortnight's fire, during which seven hundred shells were discharged, was the loss of two non-combatants. The question of food was recognised as being of more importance than the enemy's fire.
Later in the afternoon the Light Horse went out again, and got near enough to unlimber their guns and to plant a few shells among the Boers who guarded the route to the Reservoir. In this skirmish one of the Cape Police was killed a regrettable circumstance which brought our list of deaths up to five.
I remember one long procession of stately shops, with their high windows, their floors crowded with machines, their roofs lined with cranes, the flame of the forges, and the smoke of the fizzling steel lighting up the dark groups of men, the huge howitzer shells, red-hot, swinging in mid-air, and the same shells, tamed and gleaming, on the great lathes that rough and bore and finish them.
We get fifteen rounds per minute from our rifles and our orders are to shoot low and to full capacity. In the attacks of the enemy which I have seen they certainly have been brave. One must give them their due. It takes courage to advance in face of rifle fire, machine gun fire and artillery shells, in this close formation.
No gaming or drinking must be allowed, blowing of shells or beating of drums must be forbidden, and every free negro or mulatto must wear on his arm a sign perhaps a cross in blue or red." "Slavery is doomed," said Sheila firmly. "Its end is not far off." "Well, they still keep slaves in the land of Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
Gronovius also informed me that the land on the western sides both of Timor and Borneo was gaining on the sea, particularly at the latter place; and a report prevailed that on some of the elevated parts of the former chama shells had been found.
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