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Updated: May 4, 2025
The defence had no marked advantage as compared with the attack, neither trench, sangar, nor wire entanglement, and in numbers they were immensely inferior. Two companies of the 60th Rifles and a small body of the ubiquitous Gordons happened to be upon the hill and threw themselves into the fray, but they were unable to turn the tide.
The 31st were now joined by the West Kent, who came down from a spur on the west, and were able to drive the enemy out of several strong positions above the other village. On their way a half company, on reaching a sangar, were suddenly charged by a body of Ghazis. From the melee which ensued, many of the West Kents were killed and wounded, among them the officer in command.
Then we went on building at the sangar, but without much spirit. They laughed when I told them how a shell from "Long Tom" fell into the Crown Hotel garden this morning, and all the black servants rushed out to pocket the fragments.
We had our ponies brought up and rode across the stream, the men fording, then we scrambled up the high slope of the opposite bank and shouted for the remainder to follow. A short distance up the hill, and I could see the end of the nullah, with a large sangar covering the road.
The new gun which Boers were mounting yesterday on Middle Hill opened to-day, shelling first the Rifle Brigade piquets on King's Post and then the sangar of the Manchesters in Cæsar's Camp. It enfilades both positions with equal ease. The Rifles had a narrow escape as they were at work on a wall, the top of which was struck by a shell, and splinters flew all round without hitting anybody.
The Boers were within point-blank range of them on two sides, while beyond the crest and down into Bester's Valley hundreds of others were waiting for the first sign of panic among our men to rush the position, but held in check by a company of the 60th Rifles and a few Light Horse occupying a small sangar on that side.
They lay in their blood, their glazed blue eyes looking over the rocks or up to the sky, their ashen hands half-clenched, their teeth yellow between their pale blue lips. Beside the outer wall of "Lady Anne's" sangar, his head resting on its stones, lay a white-bearded man, poorly dressed, but refined in face.
The officer who hoisted it could see no one unhurt save himself, for all in his sangar were hit, and the others were so placed that he was under the impression that they had withdrawn altogether.
"To explore the north-west and south-west coasts of Japan," says Kruzenstern, "to ascertain the situation of the Straits of Sangar, the width of which in the best charts Arrowsmith's 'South Sea Pilot' for instance, and the atlas subjoined to La Pérouse's Voyage is laid down as more than a hundred miles, while the Japanese merely estimated it to be a Dutch mile; to examine the west coast of Yezo; to find out the island of Karafuto, which in some new charts, compiled after a Japanese one, is placed between Yezo and Sachalin, and the existence of which appeared to me very probable; to explore this new strait and take an accurate plan of the island of Sachalin, from Cape Crillon to the north-west coast, from whence, if a good harbour were to be found there, I could send out my long boat to examine the supposed passage which divides Tartary from Sachalin; and, finally, to attempt a return through a new passage between the Kuriles, north of the Canal de la Boussole; all this came into my plan, and I have had the good fortune to execute part of it."
From the top of the knoll there was an extended view of the valley, and I was able to point out the position of Mastuj, which was hidden by some rising ground, and also the general direction of the road. About three miles ahead we could distinctly see a sangar filled with men on the left bank of the river. That sangar was, as far as we could judge, on the right flank of the enemy's line.
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