Every one I spoke to expressed the warmest admiration for
their coolness and pluck.
A sergeant in the Black Watch, when all the officers had apparently been
struck down, cried out to the Highlanders near him: "Charge, men, and
prepare to meet your God!" He rushed forward at the head of a few
comrades and fell dead with a bullet through his brain within a yard or
two of the trenches. There is something truly sublime in this man's
devotion to his duty. Many and many an individual act of heroism was
displayed during those awful moments in the semi-darkness when the enemy
opened fire on our crowded battalions. British officers stood upright,
utterly regardless of self, doing their best to rally the shaken troops,
and then falling beneath the pitiless hail of bullets. Later on the
hillside was littered with field-glasses.
Almost 1,000 yards from the line of kopjes three lines of wire had been
placed, which were cut during our advance, and other entanglements were
stretched just in front of the trenches. Several men in each company
carried wire-cutters with them, but to stand up and snip through lines
of barbed wire when the Mauser bullets and the deadly shells of the
Pom-Pom gun are tearing up the soil around is perilous work. Some of
these entanglements had already been removed after the bombardment on
Sunday night, for E Company of the Black Watch and a company of the
Seaforths went forward about 7 P.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89