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Updated: May 12, 2025
This afternoon I paid a visit to Brigadier-General Hamilton in his tent beside the Manchesters on Cæsar's Camp. Through all the glorious history of their services in Flanders, the Peninsula, the Crimea, or Afghanistan, men of the gallant 63rd have never done harder work than on breezy Bester's Ridge, where they have furnished outposts and fatigue parties every day for four weary months.
Undeterred by our howitzers, he continued nearly all morning throwing shells at every point within sight. By one supreme effort, tilting his nose high up into the air, he threw one sheer up to the Manchesters on Cæsar's Camp a range of some 12,000 yards, the gunners say. Perhaps he was trying to make up for the silence of his Bulwan brother.
A couple of squadrons of Lancers had off-saddled by the roadside, a phalanx of horses topped with furled red and white pennons. Behind them stood a battery of artillery. Half a battalion of green-kilted Gordons sunned their bare knees a little lower down; a company or two of Manchesters back-boned the flabby convoy. The staff officer could not make out what in the world it meant.
Their rule apparently was to wait for the sound of firing on Waggon Hill, whereby our attention might be diverted that way, and then to begin their own attack on a weakened flank. This is nearly what happened, except that the Manchesters were put on the alert by signs of an attack about Waggon Hill more serious than any preceding it, and made preparations for strengthening their own outpost line.
Colonel Ian Hamilton, with the second infantry brigade, consisting of the Gordon Highlanders, Rifle Brigade, Manchesters, and 1st Devons, formed a strong reserve behind the long ridge connecting these points with their left on the Newcastle road, where the Imperial Light Horse were held ready for action when the proper time should come.
The main Manchesters' defences are circular like forts; so are the Gordons' and the K.R.R.'s. All are provisioned for fourteen days. I spent the afternoon searching for a runner, a Kaffir the colour of night, who would steal through the Boer lines in the dark with a telegram.
With the first glimmer of light between the stars over Bulwan, those few who had stayed the night under roofs began creeping away to the holes in the river bank or the rough, scrubby ground at the foot of the hills south-west of the town, where the Manchesters guard the ridge. Then we all waited, silent with expectation. The clouds turned crimson. At five the sun marched up in silence.
Joubert's boast The preliminaries of attack Shells in the town A simultaneous advance Observation Hill threatened A wary enemy A prompt repulse Attack on Tunnel Hill The colour-sergeant's last words Manchesters under fire Prone behind boulders A Royal salute The Prince of Wales's birthday Stretching the Geneva Convention The redoubtable Miss Maggie The Boer Foreign Legion Renegade Irishmen A signal failure.
On December 20th we moved to Kilo 129 and took over a bit of the outpost line from the 6th Manchesters and that evening we occupied the trenches in orderly silence as usual. Sentry groups were put out, rifles loaded and all hope of a smoke put away till the dawn.
No use waiting for fighting either; in open country the force could have knocked thousands of Boers to pieces, and there was not the least chance of the Boers coming to be knocked. So I rode back through the rolling veldt basin. As I passed the stream and the nek beyond the battery of artillery, the Gordons and Manchesters were lighting their bivouac fires.
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