The History of Lumsden's Horse. Various
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qualified to give an impartial account of the trap in which our troops were caught were either dead or prisoners in the hands of the enemy. In the excitement following that swift surprise those who had to fight hard for their lives could not see much on either side of their immediate front. They were mainly concerned with the necessity for shooting quick and straight. It is therefore not surprising that stories of the fight, as seen from many different points of view, should vary so that it becomes a little difficult to follow the exact sequence of events.
Two or three points, however, seem tolerably clear. When Brigadier-General Broadwood halted his troops to bivouac at 4 o’clock on Saturday morning, March 31, after crossing the Modder River, they were worn out by a long night march that had entailed incessant watchfulness. He was then in touch with the small force of Mounted Infantry holding the waterworks, and, naturally supposing that their commander had taken all precautions to safeguard the drift across Koorn Spruit, he did not call upon his weary column to furnish additional patrols for duty in that direction, but formed a chain of outposts along ridges in rear towards the known enemy, who had been harassing his march all the way from Thaba ’Nchu.
It is known that the officer who was in command at Sanna’s Post did take more than ordinary precautions before dawn that morning by sending a company of Mounted Infantry westward across the drift near Pretorius’s Farm, and, if a Boer prisoner may be trusted, that very precaution contributed to the disaster. According to his story, a party of three hundred Boers, who had been cut off from the main Brandfort body by General French’s Cavalry, on Thursday, were making their way across country to join Grobelaar’sGrobelaar’s (or, rather, as it had then become, De Wet’s) command on the Ladybrand side. Hearing Koorn Spruit, this party saw the Mounted Infantry patrol, and, the first principle of Boers in warfare being to hide themselves from the enemy, they at once took shelter between the high banks of a water-course which is, in places, nearly as dry as a khor in the Soudan. Then they began to plan an ambush, with the object of cutting off that isolated Mounted Infantry company. Until that moment they had not thought of laying a trap for the convoy, about which, indeed, they knew nothing. Such is the story told by a Boer prisoner. If true, it proves that the capture of Broadwood’s convoy was by a force entirely independent of the one against which he had been fighting his rearguard actions, and therefore unpremeditated, or, at any rate, not the calculated result of skilful tactics.
At first it was hastily assumed that one of the ablest scouts in the British Army had been out-manœuvred, and allowed himself to be surrounded by Boers. That the officer who gained distinction for boldness, dash, and caution when reconnoitring successive Dervish positions in the Soudan, should allow himself to be caught in a trap by Boer farmers was almost inconceivable. It now seems as if the enemy had merely stumbled on an opportunity, of which they took advantage, not quite realising what it meant.
Against this, however, was the evidence of a civilian refugee who declared that there were many more than three hundred Boers concealed in Koorn Spruit, and believed that secret information must have been given to them of the fact that no force had been posted to guard the drift by which Broadwood’s column must cross. On Pretorius’s Farm he met a burgher who had given up his arms, and received a pass from our military authorities permitting him to return to his home and settle down in peace, secure from all fear of molestation at the hands of British troops. This disarmed burgher, who had been fighting against us up to the occupation of Bloemfontein by Lord Roberts, showed such an accurate knowledge of the Boer movements that he must have watched them very closely. He could tell the exact position from which every gun would open fire on the English, column before it came into action. This knowledge he imparted without reserve, and yet, apparently, he had no apprehensions of ill-treatment from his former comrades as the penalty for deserting them. The incident, whatever interpretation may be put upon it, is curious, and will, perhaps, help to explain many things that happened when submissions were accepted and passes granted with too lavish leniency.
It is more than probable that a Boer attack on the waterworks in order to destroy the pumping machinery there was part of a plan conceived directly after the occupation of Bloemfontein by our troops, but it could not be carried out before the column holding Thaba ’Nchu had been forced to retire. The artillery positions may therefore have been selected some time previously for the purpose of shelling out any force that might make a stand at the waterworks, and it is all consistent with the Boer prisoner’s statement that no deliberate attempt was made by General Broadwood’s pursuers to surround him until they found that his convoy had been accidentally headed off and partly destroyed at the drift across Koorn Spruit by a comparatively small body lying in ambush there for another purpose. Such a combination of accidents seems improbable, but certainly not more so than the assumption that a Boer commander, calculating all the chances to a nicety, had ventured to detach such a small force and send it round by a wide détour across some miles of open plain with the object of intercepting, by an ambush, a column that had been able to hold its own against odds for some time. If so, he gave more hostages to fortune than the Boers have risked elsewhere.
Whatever may be the truth in this respect, it is clear that neither the officer in charge of communications, whose Mounted Infantry held Sanna’s Post, nor Brigadier-General Broadwood, had reason to suspect the presence of any hostile force in that immediate neighbourhood.
When the retiring column got touch of its friends near the waterworks, bivouac was immediately formed, and tired men no sooner lay down, with saddles for pillows, and rifles by their sides, than they were sound asleep, leaving the duty of watchfulness to their rearguard, which, in outpost line, occupied a range of rough hills southward, overlooking the road by which they had retired from Thaba ’Nchu. It was then 4 o’clock. Little time could be given to rest, for the column had to start again in two hours. Just before 6 o’clock the convoy of a hundred waggons with mule-teams began to move off towards Koorn Spruit Drift. Such was the false sense of security that no armed body went ahead. Some dismounted men, whose horses had been shot or otherwise used up, marched as a baggage-guard, but most of them had stowed their rifles on the waggons while helping to get the column in marching order. Nothing warned them that danger was near as they approached the drift. Not a movement was to be seen across the broad veldt but dark shadows of hills creeping backwards as the sun rose.
At that moment, from a distant hill in rear, overtopping the outpost ridge, darted the flash of a Boer gun, then another and another from different positions, followed by the shriek of shells and the crash of bursting charges. Every shot, well aimed, struck with a dull thud, and threw up columns of earth among or near the masses of men who were saddling up or inspanning teams for the march, but did no damage beyond frightening mules and increasing the confusion, where Cape boys, in their haste to obey a peremptory order, got harness entangled and themselves bewildered. Our Horse Artillery, being in a hollow, and masked by the movement of troops about them, did not reply, but limbered up and followed the transport waggons, which by that time had begun to cross the drift. Nearly half of them had cleared it, when from behind steep banks in the winding spruit on each side Boers galloped forward in dense troops, and, halting with rifles at the present, summoned everybody to surrender.
Some men of the baggage guard got to their arms, and, lying between waggon wheels, opened fire, but they were few, and the Boers many. The others, unarmed, could do nothing but obey the stern mandate: ‘Hold up your hands; come this way and give us your bandoliers.’
Then U Battery of the Royal Horse Artillery, following close upon the waggons, was surrounded before a gun could be wheeled about for ‘Action front,’ and the drivers were ordered to dismount and outspan. Gunners, however, do not yield without a struggle, even when their eyes look into the barrel of an enemy’s levelled rifle. Hands were on revolvers in an instant, but before these could be drawn shooting had begun, and many a gallant fellow fell. Horses, too, were shot down, or, being wounded, plunged madly over the traces. One team, startled by the din about it, stampeded, and galloped off with gun and limber, but no drivers. Thus one gun was saved. The other five fell into Boer hands, their gunners being either killed, wounded, or taken prisoners.
Sergeant-Major Martin escaped and ran back to warn Major Hornby, who, in command of Q Battery, was then scarcely a hundred yards from the scene of disaster. That officer gave the order to unlimber and come into action, but could not open fire while our men and the enemy were mixed up