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Updated: May 12, 2025
The Dorsets, Manchesters, Highland Light Infantry, Lancashire Fusiliers, and Borderers of the 32d Division were in possession of La Boisselle and clearing out communication trenches to which the Germans were hanging on with desperate valor.
Some other Manchesters were lending a hand in the battle already, and were struggling under heavy shrapnel fire to gain a footing in the trenches immediately to the north of the sector to be assaulted by the Brigade on the morrow. Then gradually the firing sank. By 4.45 P.M. there was a distinct lull. We knew little as to what had happened.
West Yorks, Yorks and Lancs, Lincolns, Durhams, Northumberland Fusiliers, Norfolks and Berkshires, Liverpools, Manchesters, Gordons, and Royal Scots, all those splendid men I had seen marching to their lines.
Major Grant, R.E., of the Intelligence Staff, was slightly wounded as he sat coolly sketching the scene of hostilities as he saw it from the front of Cæsar's Camp. A lieutenant of the Manchesters and three men of the Leicester Regiment were also hit by rifle bullets or shell splinters, but none very seriously.
They were falling in rapid succession from one end of Bulwaan on Helpmakaar Hill, where the Devons, thanks to having taken wise precautions in making bomb-proof shelters, suffered little, though "Puffing Billy" turned occasionally to hurl a 94-pounder in that direction when tired of raking Cæsar's Camp and Maiden's Castle, where the Manchesters had not only their flank exposed to this fire, but were smitten in front by a heavy gun the Boers had mounted on Flat-Top Mountain, some three miles off, and by smaller shells that came from automatic guns hidden among scrub on the nearer slopes across Bester's Farm.
A friendly sergeant then led me up to the fire trenches some two miles forward, where the Manchesters held both sides of Krithia nullah, a ravine running up into a sloping heath, where the Turks had lain dug in for the last two months. Our way, after passing "Clapham Junction," was fringed with the graves of the fallen. I noticed Staveacre's.
The Gordons, Devons, Manchesters, and three batteries were sent over to Grimwood's relief, and the 5th Lancers, acting as infantry, assisted him to hold on. At nine o'clock there was a lull, but it was evident that fresh commandoes and fresh guns were continually streaming into the firing line.
The Highlanders were suffering the most heavily, their dark kilts showing up strongly against the light sandy soil, and while the Devons and Manchesters sustained but few casualties, they were dropping fast. They and the Manchesters were somewhat in advance of the Devons, who were guarding their flank, which was threatened by a large number of Boers gathered on the ridges on that side.
It is evident that the Boers had from the beginning made up their minds that here lay the key of the position, as the two serious attacks that of November 9th and that of January 6th were directed upon this point. The Manchesters at Caesar's Camp had been reinforced by the 1st battalion 60th Rifles, who held the prolongation of the same ridge, which is called Waggon Hill.
The whole position completely overlooks the town to the north, and if it fell into the enemy's hands we should either have to retake it or quit the camps and town. The edge measures 4,000 yards, and the Manchesters had only 560 men to hold it. They were picked men who had volunteered for the exploit. Nearly all came from Harrismith.
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