Chapter 17

BULLER'S FINAL ADVANCE

THE heroic moment of the siege of Ladysmith was that which witnessed
the repulse of the great attack. The epic should have ended at that
dramatic instant. But instead of doing so the story falls back to an
anticlimax of crowded hospitals, slaughtered horses, and sporadic
shell fire. For another six weeks of inactivity the brave garrison
endured all the sordid evils which had steadily grown from
inconvenience to misfortune and from misfortune to misery. Away in
the south they heard the thunder of Buller's guns, and from the hills
round the town they watched with pale faces and bated breath the
tragedy of Spion Kop, preserving a firm conviction that a very little
more would have transformed it into their salvation. Their hearts
sank with the sinking of the cannonade, and rose again with the roar
of Vaalkranz. But Vaalkranz also failed them, and they waited on in
the majesty of their hunger and their weakness for the help which was
to come.

It has been already narrated how General Buller had made his three
attempts for the relief of the city. The General who was inclined to
despair was now stimulated by despatches from Lord Roberts, while his
army, who were by no means inclined to despair, were immensely cheered
by the good news from the Kimberley side. Both General and army
prepared for a last supreme effort. This time, at least, the soldiers
hoped that they would be permitted to burst their way to the help of
their starving comrades or leave their bones among the hills which had
faced them so long. All they asked was a fight to a finish, and now
they were about to have one.

General Buller had tried the Boers' centre, he had tried their extreme
right, and now he was about to try their extreme left. There were
some obvious advantages on this side which make it surprising that it
was not the first to be attempted. In the first place, the enemy's
main position upon that flank was at Hlangwane mountain, which is to
the south of the Tugela, so that in case of defeat the river ran
behind them. In the second, Hlangwane mountain was the one point from
which the Boer position at Colenso could be certainly enfiladed, and
therefore the fruits of victory would be greater on that flank than on
the other. Finally, the operations could be conducted at no great
distance from the railhead, and the force would be exposed to little
danger of having its flank attacked or its communications cut, as was
the case in the Spion Kop advance. Against these potent considerations
there is only to be put the single fact that the turning of the Boer
right would threaten the Freestaters' line of retreat. On the whole,
the balance of advantage lay entirely with the new attempt, and the
whole