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Updated: September 26, 2025
How it was that the Turk did not also hear the inevitable disturbance caused by the arrival of some thousands of men, tool limbers, mules and camels, in utter darkness over unfamiliar and very rough country, will always be a mystery. But the fact remains that they appear to have been in complete ignorance of our proximity until made painfully aware of it the next morning.
To complete the illusion dummy guns fashioned from tree trunks and the wheels of useless limbers are rigged up, and partially hidden under branches, the idea being to convey the impression to the man aloft that they are the actual artillery. The aerial scout observes the dummies beneath the sparse covering of branches.
So the six guns had come by the general: first Hilary, sword out, pistols in belt; then his adjutant; then bugler and guidon, and then Bartleson and the boys; horses striding out ah, there were the Callenders' own span! whips cracking, carriages thumping and rumbling, guns powder-blackened and brown, their wheels, trails, and limbers chipped and bitten, and their own bronze pock-pitted by the flying iron and lead of other fights, and the heroes in saddle and on chests with faces as war-worn as the wood and metal and brute life under them cheering as they passed.
Some of the Lahore Division passed us on their way into the affair, the Indian gunners sitting on their limbers like statues. It was rather a wretched day we spent in this farm. A heavy rain had turned the orchard in which we lay into a "bit of a bog," and all the straw we could buy or steal from the inhabitants could not keep us out of the mud.
So did Lieutenant Schreiber. Colonel Hunt fell, shot in two places. Officers and men were falling fast. The guns could not be worked, and yet they could not be removed, for every effort to bring up teams from the shelter where the limbers lay ended in the death of the horses.
Bernard was now to be crossed, not by solitary travellers, but by an army. Cavalry, baggage, limbers, and artillery were now to wend their way along those narrow paths where the goat-herd cautiously picks his footsteps. On the one hand masses of snow, suspended above our heads, every moment threatened to break in avalanches, and sweep us away in their descent. On the other, a false step was death.
"Material: "Three guns with limbers and caissons; 28 horses and 16 saddles; 6 sets double harness, wheel, and 6 lead; 1 escort wagon, team and driver; and 100,000 rounds, .30 cal.
"Here, Smith, let's have your rifle," I said, turning to my servant. I had decided that he had best stay and look after the limbers. I seized his rifle, and slipping on a couple of bandoliers of cartridges, led on up the slight hill, followed by my section carrying the machine guns.
This gallant battery had three of its limbers blown up and replaced. Wheels were also smashed to pieces and guns put out of action, till only a single gun, with men enough to handle it, was left with only a single officer. Pickett advanced at three o'clock, to the breathless admiration of both friend and foe. He had a mile of open ground to cover.
In its place comes the picture of the first gaunt daylight on the 26th of March last at fifteen kilometres, just going into Swakopmund. The mist from the coast had rolled inland; through it after dawn came miles of horsemen and wagons, guns, limbers, lorries, ambulances. Every human unit in that column was covered in white dust, and every horse was weary.
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