Chapter 13 - Page 2

relieving army should appear from
among the labyrinth of mountains which lay to the south of them. Some
there were who, knowing both the enemy and the mountains, felt a cold
chill within their hearts as they asked themselves how an army was to
come through, but the greater number, from General to private, trusted
implicitly in the valour of their comrades and in the luck of the
British Army.

One example of that historical luck was ever before their eyes in the
shape of those invaluable naval guns which had arrived so dramatically
at the very crisis of the fight, in time to check the monster on
Pepworth Hill and to cover the retreat of the army. But for them the
besieged must have lain impotent under the muzzles of the huge
Creusots. But in spite of the naive claims put forward by the Boers
to some special Providence -- a process which a friendly German critic
described as 'commandeering the Almighty' -- it is certain that in a very
peculiar degree, in the early months of this war there came again and
again a happy chance, or a merciful interposition, which saved the
British from disaster. Now in this first week of November, when every
hill, north and south and east and west, flashed and smoked, and the
great 96-pound shells groaned and screamed over the town, it was to
the long thin 4·7's and to the hearty bearded men who worked them,
that soldiers and townsfolk looked for help. These guns of Lambton's,
supplemented by two old-fashioned 6·3 howitzers manned by survivors
from No.10 Mountain Battery, did all that was possible to keep down
the fire of the heavy Boer guns. If they could not save, they could at
least hit back, and punishment is not so bad to bear when one is
giving as well as receiving.

By the end of the first week of November the Boers had established
their circle of fire. On the east of the town, broken by the loops of
the Klip River, is a broad green plain, some miles in extent, which
furnished grazing ground for the horses and cattle of the
besieged. Beyond it rises into a long flat-topped hill the famous
Bulwana, upon which lay one great Creusot and several smaller guns.
To the north, on Pepworth Hill, was another Creusot, and between the
two were the Boer batteries upon Lombard's Kop. The British naval guns
were placed upon this side, for, as the open loop formed by the river
lies at this end, it is the part of the defences which is most liable
to assault. From thence all round the west down to Besters in the
south was a continuous series of hills, each crowned with Boer guns,
which, if they could not harm the distant town, were at least
effective in holding the garrison to its lines. So formidable were
these positions that, amid much outspoken criticism, it has