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Updated: May 7, 2025
As in the latter case their patrolling limits would have been restricted, and they would no longer have been able to watch the army at Metemma, he determined to leave them on the enemy's side of the obstruction. To guard this little dockyard half the 3rd Egyptian battalion was moved from Berber and posted in a small entrenchment. The other half-battalion followed in a few weeks.
For a quarter of an hour the one-sided action was maintained, then still under the covering fire of the machine gun a battalion of Askaris advanced at the double in company formation en échelon. Simultaneously a half-battalion debouched on the opposite side of the kraal. The front attack stopped dead, the Askaris in open order falling in heaps before the accurate fire of the trained Rhodesians.
As the night wore on additional parties joined up from the beach. The Whitby Abbey had now arrived and was disembarking the left half-Battalion. The first party of "C" Company reached the trenches about 5 a.m. The enemy must have spotted us soon after daylight, for they saluted us with a few rounds of shrapnel at irregular intervals.
That night they were to receive 700 or 800 more from Smithfield, and thereon would ride through Aliwal on their way to eat up the British half-battalion at Stormberg. On our side of the bridge slouched a score of Boers waiting, they said, to join and conduct their kinsmen.
The infantry column began to march out of Akasha at 3.30 in the afternoon of the 6th, and trailed southwards along the track by the river in the following order: Lewis's brigade, with the Xth Soudanese leading; two Maxim guns and the artillery; MacDonald's brigade; Maxwell's brigade; and, lastly, the field hospitals and a half-battalion forming rearguard. The Sirdar marched behind the artillery.
To their aid also came two hundred of the Imperial Light Horse, burning to assist their comrades. Another half-battalion of Rifles came with them. At each end of the long ridge the situation at the dawn of day was almost identical.
At noon came another speck, developing in a similar manner into a supply train, also carrying its own water, food and water for the half-battalion of the escort and the 2,000 artificers and platelayers, and the letters, newspapers, sausages, jam, whisky, soda-water, and cigarettes which enable the Briton to conquer the world without discomfort.
Thence the first half-battalion were brought to Kunur in steamers. The second wing since the need was urgent and the steamers few were jolted across the desert from Railhead on camels, an experience for which neither their training nor their clothes had prepared them. By the 16th the whole force was concentrated at Kunur, and on the following day they were reviewed by the Sirdar.
Accordingly, the men of one half-battalion received rations and water, and were then sent to their zereba with the Gardner guns, while the other half, still lying in reserve by their piled arms, received their rations. The marines also sat down for brief rest and refreshment. Among them was our sedate friend Stevenson, who invariably carried his small Bible with him in all his campaigns.
They came as a complete surprise upon the British outposts. Wagon Hill West was held by two squadrons, about 70 men, of Natal troopers the Imperial Light Horse; Wagon Hill proper by a half-battalion of infantry. This, with an escort of engineer troops, a half company of infantry, and some seamen in all sixty rifles had reached the foot of the hill by 2.30 A.M., the hour the attack was made.
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