Chapter 16 - Page 2

A road was cut, sailors, engineers, and
gunners worked with a will under the general direction of Majors
Findlay and Apsley Smith. A mountain battery, two field guns, and six
naval 12-pounders were slung up by steel hawsers, the sailors
yeo-hoing on the halliards. The ammunition was taken up by hand. At
six o'clock on the morning of the 5th the other guns opened a furious
and probably harmless fire upon Brakfontein, Spion Kop, and all the
Boer positions opposite to them. Shortly afterwards the feigned
attack upon Brakfontein was commenced and was sustained with much fuss
and appearance of energy until all was ready for the development of
the true one. Wynne's Brigade, which had been Woodgate's, recovered
already from its Spion Kop experience, carried out this part of the
plan, supported by six batteries of field artillery, one howitzer
battery, and two 4.7 naval guns. Three hours later a telegram was on
its way to Pretoria to tell how triumphantly the burghers had driven
back an attack which was never meant to go forward. The infantry
retired first, then the artillery in alternate batteries, preserving a
beautiful order and decorum. The last battery, the 78th, remained to
receive the concentrated fire of the Boer guns, and was so enveloped
in the dust of the exploding. shells that spectators could only see a
gun here or a limber there. Out of this whirl of death it quietly
walked, without a bucket out of its place, the gunners drawing one
wagon, the horses of which had perished, and so effected a leisurely
and contemptuous withdrawal. The gallantry of the gunners has been
one of the most striking features of the war, but it has never been
more conspicuous than in this feint at Brakfontein.

While the attention of the Boers was being concentrated upon the
Lancashire men, a pontoon bridge was suddenly thrown across the river
at a place called Munger's Drift, some miles to the eastward. Three
infantry brigades, those of Hart, Lyttelton, and Hildyard, had been
massed all ready to be let slip when the false attack was sufficiently
absorbing. The artillery fire (the Swartz Kop guns, and also the
batteries which had been withdrawn from the Brakfontein demonstration)
was then turned suddenly, with the crashing effect of seventy pieces,
upon the real object of attack, the isolated Vaalkranz. It is
doubtful whether any position has ever been subjected to so terrific a
bombardment, for the weight of metal thrown by single guns was greater
than that of a whole German battery in the days of their last great
war. The 4-pounders and 6-pounders of which Prince Kraft discourses
would have seemed toys beside these mighty howitzers and 4·7's. Yet
though the hillside was sharded off in great flakes, it is doubtful if