British army was bent on my destruction. Like raindrops on a dusty road
the bullets struck around me. The pony snorted, shivered, and sometimes
stood stock still. I jerked the bridle savagely and struggled on,
without the slightest hope of escaping, and thinking what a cruel shame
it was that I should be shot at like a deer. Finally the shelter of a
dry watercourse was reached. Following this for some distance, I
encountered another party of our men, to whom I handed my charge, too
shaken to repeat the experiment. The firing now slackened off, and I
returned to my chief, full of mortification over my failure.

It was evident the hill would not be taken that afternoon, so we
returned to our tent, intending to come back the next morning. Late that
evening, however, Colonel Villebois passed and told us our forces had
been withdrawn, General Botha being ordered to Colenso, where Buller had
made a feint attack to help Ladysmith.

Our struggle was therefore a failure, but it had not been made in vain,
since it proved once again that we also could storm a fortified hill,
and fight a losing fight--the hardest fight of all.




SPION KOP


Something peculiar began to be observed about the British camp at
Chieveley. The naval guns still flashed by day, the searchlight still
signalled to Ladysmith of nights, the tents still glistened in the sun,
but the soldiers, where were they?