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Updated: June 13, 2025
Many, indeed, had already begun to make their way along the southern face of the hill, either to join their comrades on the hill between Pieter's and Hart's, or to escape up the valleys between them, and so make their way to Bulwana, where a large force was still encamped. "We may as well help," Chris said; "the general can but blow us up."
On the same morning Sir Redvers Buller advanced on Bulwana Hill. Down from the commanding positions which they had won by their courage and endurance marched the incomparable infantry, and by 2 o'clock the plain of Pieters was thickly occupied by successive lines of men in extended order, with long columns of guns and transport trailing behind them.
They are impossible to disable behind their huge epaulements unless you actually hit the gun, and they are so harmless as hardly to be worth disabling. The four 12-pounder field-guns on Bulwana I say four, because one day there were four; but the Boers continually shifted their lighter guns from hill to hill were very different.
There was the boom of a heavy gun, and, turning, I saw the white cloud of smoke hanging on the crest of Bulwana. 'That goes on always, said the Boer. 'Can any soldiers bear that long? Oh, you will find all the English army at Pretoria. Indeed, if it were not for the sea-sickness we would take England. Besides, do you think the European Powers will allow you to bully us?
We had been riding through a roofless tunnel, with the mountain and the great dam on one side, and the high wall of the railway cutting on the other, but now just ahead of us lay the open country, and the exit of the tunnel barricaded by twisted rails and heaped-up ties and bags of earth. Bulwana was behind us.
'High time, too, say the impatient audience, and with this I must agree; for, looking from my tent as I write, I can see the smoke-puff bulging on Bulwana Hill as 'Long Tom' toils through his seventy-second day of bombardment, and the white wisp seems to beckon the relieving army onward. Spearman's Hill: January 13, 1900.
It was an easy matter to follow them, for the dust hung above the trail in a yellow cloud, like mist over a swamp. There were two opinions as to whether they were halting at Bulwana or passing it, on their way to Laing's Neck. If they were going only to Bulwana there was the probability of two weeks' more fighting before they could be dislodged.
Anxious to find out the impression produced on the Boers by the late actions, I hastened to meet the ambulances, which, preceded by three horsemen carrying a large white flag, were now coming from the direction of Bulwana. They were stopped at our cavalry picket line, and a report of their arrival was sent back to the nearest brigadier.
Wagon Point was saved from a turning movement by one battery, while the other, though itself under artillery fire from Bulwana, opened on the Boers clinging on to the eastern shoulder, and by checking the advance of their supports, caused them to withdraw the hook with which they were grappling that flank.
Forthwith came orders for the cavalry to cross the river, and we mounted in high expectation, knowing that behind the captured hill lay an open plain stretching almost to the foot of Bulwana. We galloped swiftly down to the pontoon bridge, and were about to pass over it, when the General-in-Chief met us. He had ridden to the other bank to see for himself and us.
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