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Updated: May 10, 2025
On the mount itself, that in all may have covered eight or ten acres of ground, and surrounded by a deep donga or ditch, were three rings of fortifications, set one above the other, mighty walls which, it was evident, had been built by no modern hand.
When four or five miles away they halted at a donga, and leading the ponies down, turned them loose to feed, ate their supper, and were soon asleep. It was no longer necessary to travel by night, and at eight o'clock they started again. They kept a sharp look-out from every eminence, and once or twice saw parties of mounted men in the distance and made detours to avoid them.
I felt pretty certain now, as it was more probable that we had not crossed the old waggon tract, and every moment I expected to hear the switching of the long whips. But when I had gone some distance I was obliged to return to the donga, and retrace my way to the place where we had slept. A clever Boer would have succeeded in finding the way back, but I soon lost my way altogether.
We crept to the top of the rise like sportsmen stalking a buck. The slope on the other side was strewn with rocks, among which grew bushes and tall grass. "They must have gone down the Donga," I said to Indaba-zimbi, "I can't see one of them." As I spoke there came a roar of men all round me. From every rock, from every tuft of grass rose a Zulu warrior.
For two hours the little knot of heart-sick humiliated officers and men lay in the precarious shelter of the donga and looked out at the bullet-swept plain and the line of silent guns. Many of them were wounded. Their chief lay among them, still calling out in his delirium for his guns.
"Yes, Richard," she answered, placing her slim fingers into his big brown hand, "we shall meet again, I am sure I am quite sure. And I think that it will be to say, not good-night," and she looked up at him and smiled, "but good-morning." As Rachel spoke a puff of wind blew down the donga, rolling up the mist before it, and of a sudden shining above them they saw the glorious sun.
At 5.30 the Boers surprised the British by opening with artillery six guns at an estimated distance of 5,400 yards from the British camp. To this three batteries replied, two of which were soon moved down to the town side of the donga.
The third battalion of the Lancashire regiment remained to protect the camp should it be attacked by the Free Staters, while the Dublin Fusiliers and the Royal Irish Fusiliers were to march through the town to a donga or river-bed half a mile to the east. Beyond this the long ascent to Talana begins. The King's Royal Rifles were to take up a position under cover to the east of the town.
Not often is it given to a man to die so choice a death as that of this nameless soldier. But the detachment was already so placed that nothing could save it from heavy loss. The wagons had all passed but nine, and the leading battery of artillery was at the very edge of the donga. Nothing is so helpless as a limbered-up battery.
There was a dry river bed in which the troops could be formed up for attack, and, half a mile beyond, a farmhouse and a plantation afforded some cover; while a donga on the left at right angles to the river bed apparently offered a covered way up the hill to the crest. In the plantation occurred the first calamity of the war.
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