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Updated: May 14, 2025
Captain Towse, a brave, courteous soldier and gentleman, whom I had had the pleasure of meeting at Graspan, and whose guest I had been on several occasions, was the hero of the hour. He is a fine figure of a man, well set up, good-looking, strong, active. He was, I think, about the only soldier I have seen who could wear an eye-glass and not lose by it. In age he looked about forty.
Then followed Graspan or Enslin, where the Naval Brigade suffered so seriously; and then the fight that Lord Methuen considered the most terrible in British history the battle of the Modder River. For twelve hours the battle continued.
Most of them were already in the saddle, galloping off to Graspan, their next position. The unwounded Boers who did remain remained nearly all of them for good; rifle bullets and shrapnel and shell splinters are deadly enough, but deadliest of all is the bayonet thrust. So much tissue is severed by the broad blade of the Lee-Metford bayonet that the chances of recovery are often very slight.
The enemy, though driven back, retreated in good order, as at Belmont two days previously, there being no cavalry available for effective pursuit. Methuen pushed on to Witkoplaagte. The Boers were greatly discouraged by Belmont and Graspan, where, as at Talana and Elandslaagte, they had been ejected from strong kopje positions chosen by themselves.
In one of our engagements a Boer boy of seventeen was struck down by a bullet; the father, a man of sixty, left his cover and went to the succour of his son, when he himself was shot, and the two lay dead, one beside the other. A little to the north of the kopjes which formed the scene of the Graspan engagement lies the station of Enslin.
When we received notice to move away from Enslin down the line through Graspan, Belmont, Orange River, to De Aar, our fellows were naturally very wrathful; they had done splendid work for many weeks up that way; they had dug trenches, sunk wells, drilled unceasingly; they had watched the kopjes and scoured the veldt, and all that they were told to do they did like soldiers readily and uncomplainingly.
A victory there, and he was riding at the head of his men toward Kimberley. A skirmish here, a hard-fought battle there, and he had the Diamond City in a state of siege. Victories urged him on, and he led the way southward. A Magersfontein to his wreath, a Belmont and a Graspan and it seemed as if he were more than nominally the South African Napoleon.
Between the struggle at Modder River and the publication of its result there had been no interval to speak of. The fight of Belmont had occasioned no departure from the exercise of the "new diplomacy." We had heard of the collision and of the victory at Graspan almost simultaneously. But we were not yet acquainted with the sequel to the clash at Magersfontein; it was a solemn secret.
But for the day during which I stayed in Jacobsdaal I studied the little town and its alien inhabitants. General Chermside, commanding the 14th Brigade, left Enslin on the 11th and marched to Ramdam, where he was joined by General Wavell, commanding the 15th Brigade, who had moved from Graspan.
Yes, to such a pass had it come, that whenever your men were seen approaching, the poor sacrifices of the war, in all weathers, by day and by night, would flee from their dwellings in order that they might not be taken. I will give you an instance. Not long ago, on the 6th of June, at Graspan, near Reitz, a camp of women, falsely reported as a convoy to your Excellency, was taken by your troops.
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