CHAPTER XV.

THE FIRST BATTALION.

1900-1902.

SOUTH AFRICA (_continued_).

SLABBERT’S NEK: THE BRANDWATER BASIN: BERGENDAL: MONUMENT HILL: LYDENBURG: THE MOUNTED INFANTRY OF THE ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT.

Two days after Bethlehem was taken, General Hunter’s column entered the town, and Clements fell back towards Senekal to obtain the supplies of which his men were much in need. After a week’s halt at Biddulphsberg, the 12th brigade was recalled by General Hunter, now in command of the whole of the troops in the eastern Free State, to take part in a great combined movement against the burghers who had retired into the hilly region drained by the river Brandwater, and locally known as the Brandwater Basin. It is bounded on the south by the river Caledon, the frontier of the native state of Basutoland, whose savage warriors, longing for a pretext to attack their hereditary enemies the Boers, stood ready to resist any violation of their territory, and thus forbade the passage of the stream. To the west, north, and east the basin is enclosed by high, almost continuous ranges, which, springing from the right bank of the Caledon, form a huge horse-shoe, whose northern foot-hills sink into the plain a few miles south of Bethlehem. This mountain wall is about seventy miles in perimeter, and is crossed at five places by roads fit for wheeled traffic: the western face (the Wittebergen) is pierced by Commando Nek, the northern by Slabbert’s and Retief’s Neks, the eastern (the Roodebergen) by Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. Very soon after Hunter arrived at Bethlehem, he decided to fight his way with part of his force into the Brandwater Basin from the north and west, and to drive the burghers into the arms of detachments posted at the mouths of Naauwpoort Nek and Golden Gate: but before this plan could be carried into effect he had to wait for supplies of food and ammunition, and it was not until a fortnight after the occupation of Bethlehem that his troops were ready to begin work. On July 21st, his army was thus distributed: Rundle with the 8th and Colonial divisions stretched from Ficksburg to Senekal; the brigades of Clements and Paget lay at Wit Kop and Witnek, a few miles north-west of Slabbert’s Nek; the Highland brigade (the 3rd, under Major-General MacDonald), stood at Bethlehem ready to march on Retief’s Nek; and Major-General Bruce-Hamilton with the 12th brigade, to which part of the Royal Irish mounted infantry had been attached, commanded the exit from Naauwpoort Nek. Next day orders were issued for a general attack along the whole of the western and northern line; Rundle was to bombard Commando Nek, while Clements and MacDonald assaulted Slabbert’s Nek and Retief’s Nek respectively. Clements advanced on the 22nd to Bester’s Kop, the enemy’s outposts retiring before him towards Slabbert’s Nek. He had only two of his four battalions at that moment with him, for the Worcestershire had been temporarily detached, and the Bedfordshire had not rejoined from Lindley.

During the night, the draft of ninety-eight non-commissioned officers and men, with whom Major Lysaght had joined the battalion on the 18th, had a rough introduction to the joys of campaigning in South Africa: there was a great storm; rain fell in torrents; many of the horses broke loose and stampeded in every direction, and when the Royal Irish fell in after a hurried meal of sodden biscuit and bully beef, they were wet to the skin, and longed for the excitement of a fight to get their blood once more in circulation. But the General’s plans had been kept secret, and the Royal Irish, who were in advance-guard, had no idea that an action was imminent, and trudged wearily over the rough surface of the rolling down, scarcely glancing at the curious line of isolated kopjes which, at intervals of a mile or more, rose like watch towers across their path. Suddenly distant firing was heard; at the sound of the guns the XVIIIth stepped out vigorously, and soon discovered that Brabant’s Horse, the cavalry screen to the column, were being shelled by the defenders of Slabbert’s Nek. As Clements reconnoitred this formidable position, he found that its difficulties had not been exaggerated by his guides--loyal Britons settled in the Free State, who at the outbreak of the war had placed their local knowledge at the disposal of the Intelligence department. The Nek, or pass, ran through a defile about half a mile in width, overhung by steep, almost precipitous mountains, and its entrance was partially barred by a low rounded knoll, with smooth glacis-like sides, seamed with trenches which swept the ground to the front and flanks. To the left of the defile, as he looked at it, was a long square-topped kopje, with cliff-like walls that only a goat could climb: to the right stretched another kopje, higher, longer, and more irregular in shape, with five great spurs projecting from its rugged flank. Above these spurs rose a series of ledges, like the steps of a gigantic staircase; the hillside was strewn with boulders and honeycombed with caves, and the topmost peak raised its snowy crest nearly two thousand feet above the plain. The greater part of this kopje was held by the left wing of the enemy, and Clements realised that until he had taken it he could not hope to force the pass; therefore, as soon as his flanks were covered by mounted troops, and his artillery had begun to shell the trenches on the Nek, he directed Lieutenant-Colonel Grenfell, with part of his corps (the 1st Brabant’s Horse) and a few Imperial Yeomanry, to seize one of the projecting spurs. This mission the irregulars fulfilled, but when they began to scale the ledges they were brought to a standstill by a furious burst of musketry; the General at once ordered two companies of the Wiltshire to occupy a spur on the right of that ascended by Brabant’s Horse, and directed the Colonel of the Royal Irish, who were then about five thousand yards from Grenfell’s spur, to send two companies to reinforce the dismounted troopers. The choice fell on G (Captain Gloster) and H (Captain Daniell), the former being in command of the whole detachment.

After a stiff climb, H company joined Grenfell on one of the ledges or steps in the kopje, where they found Brabant’s Horse hotly engaged with the burghers, who held two tiers of rocks, the lower four or five hundred yards up the hillside, the higher about two hundred yards farther off; another body of the enemy enfiladed the ledge from a donga. In an hour or two Gloster joined Daniell, prolonging the line to the left, where, to quote from a letter of Lieutenant Kelly, a subaltern in G company, “we fired wildly at where we thought the enemy were, for we could not see a man, but had a good idea, as they were shooting uncommonly straight. Brabant’s were on the same ledge with us, and a real cheery lot they were--quite delighted with everything and full of jokes.” Just after the Royal Irish had snatched a mouthful of food, a message arrived from the General, “as soon as you have occupied the spur, send two companies to the top of the hill.” Gloster and Daniell reconnoitred the ground, and decided to “rush” the next belt of rocks, Gloster working up to them from the right, while Daniell made a dash across the open. After sending for ammunition and filling the men’s pouches, Gloster moved forward with half his company, leaving Kelly with the remainder of G company to support his advance with musketry. Following the plan made by the two captains, Daniell gave Gloster about ten minutes’ start, and then pushed on from both flanks, but though Kelly kept up a vigorous fusilade upon the ridge of rocks, the immediate object of the combined attack, the enemy was unshaken, and the bullets fell like hail among the men of H company as they ran up the slope. Suddenly Gloster’s half company began to appear on the right, moving in such a way as to come under the musketry of Kelly’s party, who from their position could not see Gloster’s men; the danger was so imminent that Daniell himself ran back across the fire-swept zone and ordered Kelly to follow him to the ridge, now held by the leading troops. When they reached the front line they found that Gloster, mortally wounded, was sinking rapidly. Again to quote his subaltern: “he had reached the top quite under cover, and in his usual dashing manner was pushing forward in front. He climbed up and looked over a rock; and seeing some Dutchmen quite close, raised his rifle, and as he did so was shot, as was another man in exactly the same way. The bullet passed through the right fore-arm and chest. He was a really gallant fellow, and died nobly.” When Daniell thus succeeded to the command of the detachment, the situation was very unpleasant. The ledge upon which the men crouched was so commanded by the enemy’s fire that every time a soldier peered over it he drew a storm of bullets: and on the left front the burghers seemed to be in force within twenty or thirty yards of our position. The men were anxious to avenge Gloster’s death with the bayonet, but a charge was impossible, for it could only have been delivered on a very narrow front and under converging fire. There was nothing for it but to lie under the crest of the ridge, to keep the men on the alert by shooting at the rocks behind which the Boers were ensconced, and to report by signal that any farther advance would be attended by very serious risk. Fortunately, cartridges never ran short, as the ammunition carriers were able to reach the firing line under cover from the left rear, where Lieutenant Panter-Downes with a few men showed so determined a front that he kept the burghers at a respectful distance, and prevented them from enfilading Daniell’s party.

While Gloster’s detachment was struggling for foothold on the hill the battalion marched towards the foot of Grenfell’s spur; on the way two companies (D under Captain Milner and F under Captain White) were diverted to the left front to watch the burghers in the trenches on the pass. The plain that these companies had to cross looked perfectly level from a distance, but in reality was a series of undulations over which without a landmark it was difficult to move in the right direction. Such a landmark was found in a cluster of Kaffir huts, but the Boers had taken the range accurately, and when D company passed between the kraals it was greeted by a storm of bullets, by one of which Captain Milner was dangerously wounded. Neither company halted until it was about nine hundred yards from the works on Slabbert’s Nek, with whose defenders for the rest of the day they exchanged a slow but steady fire; and from the right of D’s line the Boers who were facing Gloster’s party could be plainly seen; “but,” writes an eye-witness, “we did not dare to shoot much at them, as they were too much mixed up with our men.”

As two companies were acting as escort to the guns, the main body of the XVIIIth was now reduced to two companies of regular soldiers and one of volunteers. This skeleton battalion was finally halted about eighteen hundred yards to the left rear of Grenfell’s spur, and in widely extended lines, lay for many hours exposed to the shots of marksmen, who were so well concealed that they offered a very poor target in return. The headquarter companies of the Royal Irish had nothing to do except to fire an occasional round in the direction from which the enemy’s bullets came; to listen to the bursts of musketry from the hill, and to wonder how long the shells of a pom-pom playing on them from the Nek would continue to fall among the regiment without doing any harm. Happily only one of these horrible little projectiles found a billet: it shattered the big drum, greatly to the amusement of every one, except the drummer, who was fast asleep beside it. The damage to the drum was soon avenged by a 5-in. shell, which smashed the pom-pom and blew several Boer gunners to pieces.

When darkness put an end to the combat, the result of the day’s operations seemed meagre in the extreme. Brabant’s Horse and Gloster’s detachment of the Royal Irish had doubtless made a lodgment on the hill to the right of the pass; but they could do no more than hold their ground, and could expect no help from the two companies of the Wiltshire, who had failed to establish themselves on the spur which they had been ordered to seize. The works on the Nek had been vigorously bombarded, but their defenders appeared to be unshaken by the shells of the artillery and the threatening presence of Paget’s brigade on the left of the guns. But the General was in no way dispirited, for excellent news had reached him in the afternoon. An officer of Brabant’s Horse, who with a small party of mounted men was watching the outer flank of the big kopje, heard that Grenfell and Gloster were “held-up” on the ledges, and determined to ascertain if there was no other way to the top of the hill. By “a most daring and successful reconnaissance” on foot, he discovered a track leading to the summit, running well to the right of the ledges, through ground apparently unoccupied by the enemy. When Clements received this report he saw that once he had gained possession of the top, he could outflank the burghers facing Brabant’s Horse and the Royal Irish, drive them before him into the Nek, and then rake its defences with rifle-fire. As it was then too late to attempt any important movement, he ordered a squadron of Brabant’s (dismounted) to be at the summit by daybreak next morning, promising them the support of four companies of the Royal Irish and two of the Wiltshire regiment, who were not to follow the path discovered by the officer of Brabant’s, but to ascend by a ridge still farther to the right. While most of the infantry bivouacked on the ground they stood on, four companies of the Royal Irish were assembled, and moved to the farmhouse fixed as the rendezvous of the little column. At 4 A.M. on the 24th Lieutenant-Colonel Guinness, who commanded the combined force, began to ascend the kopje, described by General Clements as “an almost unclimbable hill”; four hours’ desperate scrambling brought the Royal Irish, breathless and exhausted, to its highest crest, where they found the dismounted troopers of Brabant’s Horse, who moving by a shorter and easier route had gained the summit some little time before their comrades of the XVIIIth. Hitherto the march had been unopposed, but now a few shots were fired by burghers who appeared more anxious to retire than to fight. Part of the infantry then joined hands with G and H companies whose adventures during the night will be told later; the remainder drove the enemy before them, turned the works upon the Nek, and swept them with musketry from the left rear. A great burst of cheering greeted the appearance of the Royal Irish on the top of the hill; a general advance was ordered; the Boer resistance suddenly collapsed, and by 11 A.M. Clements was master of Slabbert’s Nek.

An officer has supplied the author with a very spirited account of the proceedings of the headquarter companies, from which the following extracts have been taken:--

“We arrived at the farm about 7 or 8 P.M. on the 23rd, without transport, and consequently without blankets or food, on the coldest night I remember having spent during the war. After seeing the men settled and giving them leave to break open their emergency rations, we went into the farm building. Here the Wiltshire officers who had arrived before us, had already made themselves comfortable before a fire in the kitchen, and had a chicken roasting for their breakfast. There were six of us, and we had had nothing inside us since dawn--hence lowering of the moral sense and theft! We had only two emergency rations among us: we ate them: they were excellent, but not enough, and we eyed that bird hungrily until the Wilts nodded: then some one suggested the eating of that chicken. We needed very little persuasion to tear it limb from limb, and we devoured it hastily, like house-breakers at supper in a burgled house! The anger of the Wilts was great when a couple of hours later they awoke; they did not suspect us at the time, thinking we had been all asleep, and their wrath was directed against the men. So warped had our sense of right and wrong become that it was not until we had dined them next day in camp that we gave ourselves away.... After a few hours’ sleep we--_i.e._, A, D, F, and the volunteers, and two companies of the Wiltshire, started on our night march, led by Colonel Guinness and a guide, and a more miserable time we never had. It was bitterly cold, with a Scotch mist blowing sharply down from the hill above us. The necessity for secrecy forbade our smoking, and the effort to keep from coughing, kicking down stones, and otherwise making a noise was very trying. The track lay up a ‘razor-edge’ sort of ridge, very slippery and strewn with boulders. The higher we climbed the more difficult it became, until finally we were ‘clawing up’ on hands and knees, and the last bit, just as there was a glimmer of light, was the worst of all: we had to pull each other up by our rifles, yet, with precipitous ground all around us, we lost not a man.”

The column had now reached the shoulder of the kopje, and rested on the snow-covered ground for a short time while Colonel Guinness and the guide looked for a path towards the top. The path, when found, proved to be a mere goat-track, on a narrow ledge with a wall of rock on the right hand and a precipice on the left. On this track there was only room to walk in Indian file, and

“we were about half-way across this bit when the fog lifted a little and showed us what a giddy path we were following. It also showed us a few slouch-hatted figures on a spur below us. I can tell you we company officers were fairly alarmed, caught as we were in a place where movement of any sort, except fore or aft, was impossible, so it was to our great relief that we discovered these men to be a handful of Brabant’s scouts. A few shots were fired at us at about 8 A.M. when we got to the real top of the hill, by a few Boers, some on a knoll below us and others to our front, but these men soon cleared out. The fog was now lifting rapidly and the sun came out as we advanced down into position on the knoll overlooking the Nek itself and the Boer line of retreat. Heavy firing had been going on since dawn, down where the rest of the brigade was, and across the valley where Paget’s brigade was also trying to force the pass. For some time we saw nothing, then a few small mounted parties of Boers were seen riding off towards Fouriesberg. We opened fire, the range I think being about a thousand yards. This was the signal for a regular bolt of the whole Boer force. We fired rapidly on them, but I don’t know if we did much execution firing at such a steep angle downwards. Our right was hurried forward down the hill, but the steepness and difficulty of the ground prevented our getting much closer. By the time we had got well down, practically all the Boers had cleared out. It was wonderful to see how the men bucked up. Before the firing began they were moving about like a lot of cripples, ‘dead to the world,’ and anxious only to get a few minutes to sit down and sleep in. The moment they realised what was going on, all this was thrown off and they were as happy and as energetic as a parcel of schoolboys.”

While the headquarter companies of the battalion were doing this fine piece of rock climbing, G and H were clinging to their ground with the utmost determination. As soon as it became dark Daniell had posted the men with him, about a hundred of all ranks, along the ridge in little detachments of three or four; in front of each post lay a sentry, flat on his stomach, peering over the rocks to watch the movements of the enemy. Up to midnight the Boers “sniped” assiduously; then the fire died away, and Daniell and Kelly moved constantly up and down the line to make sure that the soldiers, lulled by the sudden silence and exhausted by hunger and fatigue, had not fallen asleep. About 4 A.M. on the 24th, Panter-Downes brought up the remainder of H company: while this welcome reinforcement was being posted there was an alarm, caused by the approach of a number of Kaffirs whom the Boers had sent to reconnoitre the position: the men promptly lined the top of the ridge, and speedily gave the burghers to understand that the Royal Irish were quite ready to receive them! When day broke, says one of the officers who was present--

“we quickly found out that the enemy were still there, but they had left the rocks on our left, so we occupied them. They ‘hotted’ us for a bit, but as soon as the companies appeared on the top of the mountain they began to disperse. The guns kept up a hot bombardment, and very soon we could see the enemy beating a retreat all round. We sent down for water and food, made ourselves comfortable, and watched the enemy retire. Brabant’s brought up our gun and the Hotchkiss, and made some splendid practice among the Boers as they left a hill, and we saw a good many of them knocked over.... We received tremendous congratulations for our part in the battle, especially the charge up the hill.... We buried poor Gloster and five men by a tree at the foot of the hill.”[302]

The capture of Slabbert’s Nek cost only forty-four casualties, of which many occurred among the Royal Irish. Captain W. Gloster was killed; Captain E. F. Milner was dangerously wounded; six of the other ranks were killed, and ten wounded, three of whom died of their injuries.[303]

In General Clements’ report of July 26, he gave high praise to the 1st battalion, Royal Irish regiment, in these terms--

“Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. N. Guinness has again proved himself a commanding officer of the first class. His battalion has throughout proved itself to be all that could be desired on service. His leading of a force on the 24th of July over an almost unclimbable hill, and by this means turning the enemy’s position at Slabbert’s Nek, is deserving of special mention.

“Captain W. Gloster, who I regret to say was killed while leading his company at Slabbert’s Nek on the 23rd of July, was an officer of great promise. By his death the Service loses a most valuable company leader.

“Captain E. H. Daniell has proved himself a first-rate company leader in difficult circumstances by the handling of his men on the 23rd and 24th of July, on both of which dates he showed great gallantry.

“Lieutenant J. A. M. J. P. Kelly did particularly good service on the night of the 23rd of July, in leading his men over an open space, 300 yards wide, swept by a heavy cross-fire, and maintaining his position all night at close quarters (20 yards) from the enemy who were holding the rocks and caves in his front.”

In the same report General Clements stated that Major K. P. Apthorp, who was temporarily employed as an intelligence officer on his staff, had afforded him “very great help until taken prisoner on June 6.”

The following non-commissioned officers and private soldiers were also mentioned:--

No. 4512, Lance-Corporal P. Doyle;[304] No. 4248, Lance-Corporal M. Tytherleigh; No. 4868, Lance-Corporal J. Rathbone; No. 1408, Private ---- Baker; No. 4129, Private ---- Ryan; and No. 5024, Private P. Dumphy, particularly distinguished themselves on the night of July 23. No. 4506, Private J. Kavanagh, who showed remarkable courage and coolness on the same occasion, was wounded while carrying a message across ground heavily swept by fire.

As soon as General Clements learned that the Highland brigade had driven the Boers from Retief’s Nek, he marched two or three miles along the road to Fouriesburg, the chief town in the Brandwater Basin, and then encamped. The halt was very welcome; an officer writes, “we were all very much done up, especially those who had been in Colonel Guinness’s night march, and after a good ‘square’ meal and a double issue of rum (Reger, our Quartermaster, surpassed himself on this occasion) there were few of us awake that afternoon.” Next day the whole of Hunter’s army was in motion. MacDonald was sent to help Bruce Hamilton in the task of sealing the mouths of Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate, the passes by which the Boers might dash eastward into the open country round Harrismith, the principal town in that part of the Free State. Clements and Paget marched through a fertile country, well watered and full of prosperous farms, towards Fouriesburg, whither Rundle, who had dislodged the burghers from Commando Nek, was also hastening. As the advance-guard of the 8th division was the first to reach the goal, Clements’ and Paget’s brigades were halted a few miles from Fouriesburg, and did not move again until the 27th, when they entered the place after a feeble opposition from a few snipers dropped by the main body of the enemy who, still ignorant that British troops awaited them at the eastern passes, were retreating at speed towards Naauwpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. But though most of the burghers were hurrying eastward, it was necessary to ensure that no detachments should break out through Slabbert’s, Retief’s, or Commando Neks, and so heavy was the call upon the infantry to garrison these defiles that Hunter could only muster five battalions to drive the Boers into the net spread by MacDonald and Bruce Hamilton. One of these was the 1st battalion, Royal Irish regiment, which with part of the Wiltshire formed the advance-guard under Clements on the 28th, when the burghers fought a rear-guard action near Slaap Kranz ridge with great tenacity and cunning. The position proved to be a very strong one, and Clements was unable to oust the enemy from it, though his artillery and infantry were engaged throughout the day. Colonel Guinness was anxious to be allowed to seize a commanding knoll in front of the left of the Boer line, which seemed to offer a good base for an assault upon the pass itself, but General Clements considered that the Royal Irish had done enough for the day, and ordered a battalion of the Scots Guards, recently arrived on the field, to occupy it. At midnight they advanced on the main position and found it undefended, for the Boers, after checking the whole column for many hours, had silently disappeared when they saw that the odds had become too heavy for them to face. The casualties of the day amounted to thirty-four killed and wounded, the Royal Irish losing one man killed and five wounded.[305]

With the encounter at Slaap Kranz the campaign in the Brandwater Basin came to an end. De Wet had always opposed the policy of retreating into the mountains of Fouriesburg, but his views had been over-ridden, and, as mentioned on page 330, he had fought Clements at Bethlehem to gain time for the main body to complete its concentration in the valley of the Brandwater. When he arrived there with his rear-guard, he set himself to convince the members of his very unruly army that the fastnesses to which they had betaken themselves would prove not a sanctuary but a trap, and urged them to follow him in a bold dash into the open veld. His rough eloquence appeared to convince the majority; his scheme for breaking out of the mountains was accepted, and on the night of July 15, he made his way with two thousand six hundred men across Slabbert’s Nek, and headed northwards, in the full belief that within twenty-four hours the remainder of the burghers would follow him. But as soon as De Wet’s commanding personality was removed the Free Staters fell into confusion; instead of carrying out the plan to which they had agreed they began to quarrel among themselves; they lost precious days in wrangling over the choice of another leader, and by the time that Hunter’s columns were advancing upon the passes they had become demoralised, suspicious of their chiefs and of each other. Dry rot spread so rapidly among them that on the 30th, Prinsloo, who claimed to have been elected General-in-Chief, surrendered with 4140 men, three guns (two of which had been lost by the Royal Horse artillery at Sannah’s Post), 4000 horses and ponies, many waggons, a large number of rifles, and a million rounds of small-arm ammunition.

The Royal Irish saw enough of the prisoners to form an idea of the manner of men with whom they had been fighting since the beginning of the year. The first impression was one of utter astonishment. Was it possible that this motley crowd of civilians formed part of the burgher levies which for many months had constantly opposed and frequently defeated the British army? Some were old men with long white beards; others were in the prime of life; others, again, were lads not half-way through their teens; none wore a vestige of uniform, and the majority were dressed in clothes so badly cut that no self-respecting peasant in Europe would have condescended to wear them. Yet among the captives every grade of society in the Free State republic was represented: there were land-owners, who possessed tens of thousands of acres and great wealth of flocks and herds; members of Parliament; civil servants; merchants; lawyers; doctors; and last, but by no means least in numbers, “bywohners,” or poor Boers, who, as they had no land of their own, were allowed to squat on the estates of their richer neighbours. The land-owning class, as a rule, were magnificent men, well-grown, sturdy, and inured to hardships; constant hunting on their farms had made them good rifle shots and excellent judges of distance,[306] and, as has already been mentioned, many of them had served in campaigns against the Kaffirs. In character they much resembled the British yeomen of two hundred years ago, for although brave, patriotic, and hospitable, they were ignorant, obstinate, and deeply distrustful of new men and new ideas. A certain number of the professional classes had been sent in their youth to Europe to complete their education; their travels had greatly widened their intellectual horizon, and as they did not stay away long enough to lose their sporting tastes or their hereditary instinct for irregular warfare, they proved a valuable asset in the Boer army. In dress as well as education these younger men presented a curious contrast to their fellow-citizens, who were still as uncouth in speech and manners as the original pioneers of the Free State, while the Europeanised burghers were dressed in well-cut Norfolk jackets, boots, and breeches, and spoke English admirably with accents acquired at the Universities of Oxford, Edinburgh, or Glasgow. The very baggage owned by the prisoners when they surrendered showed how wide a difference there was between the old school and the new. The old-fashioned burghers, however rich they were, had gone on active service with their few belongings packed in old and shapeless carpet-bags; the youngsters took the field with kit-bags or suit-cases imported from England.

General Hunter’s success in the Brandwater Basin, to which the Royal Irish contributed not a little, was far-reaching in its results; in the words of the official historian “it removed in a moment the possibility of attack in force from the west, which had kept Sir Redvers Buller’s army chained fast to the railway from Heidelberg down to Ladysmith. True, De Wet, Olivier, and other guerillas were still at large, but, vagrant and weakened, they were unlikely seriously to raid Natal across the Drakensberg, an eventuality which had never been absent, and with reason, from Sir R. Buller’s mind. None had known better than he how vulnerable still that many-gated colony was to incursions which would have undone in a few hours the heavy work of months.”[307] Now General Buller was able to organise a mobile force to march northwards against the Pretoria-Komati Poort railway in order to co-operate with Lord Roberts in the invasion of the Eastern Transvaal, where the remnants of the Boer army still kept the field. In this great movement the Royal Irish were destined to play their part, for on the 1st of August Clements’ brigade left Hunter’s army; on the 9th it marched into Kroonstad, and after many halts and delays on the railway reached Pretoria on the 18th. It was one of the peculiarities of the war in South Africa that no General could hope to keep his brigade intact for any length of time; so far Clements had been fortunate, but now his turn for dismemberment arrived, and after bidding farewell to the commander whom they admired and respected deeply, the Royal Irish were sent off to Belfast, a station on the Komati Poort line, where they joined Major-General Smith-Dorrien’s brigade (the 19th) in a column commanded by Lieutenant-General Ian Hamilton.[308]

The battalion was not actively engaged on the 27th of August in the battle of Bergendal, though some of the companies on outpost came under long-range artillery fire from the formidable position astride of the railway, which Lord Roberts and Sir Redvers Buller attacked respectively in front and flank. When the Boers fell back from their carefully prepared entrenchments they retired at first along the railway; but under the dispiriting influences of this, its latest defeat, the burgher army soon began to fall to pieces. One column struck southward; a second hurried eastward towards the Portuguese frontier; while a third, commanded by General L. Botha, turned northwards and headed for the maze of hills by which the town of Lydenburg is surrounded. This detachment made so firm a stand at Badfontein that Sir Redvers Buller, who had been entrusted with its pursuit, asked for reinforcements, and General Ian Hamilton was sent to his help with the greater part of his column. Starting from Belfast on September 3, Hamilton, after two days’ hard marching and continuous skirmishing, succeeded in placing himself on the right rear of Botha’s entrenched line at Badfontein; the Boers thereupon drew off eastward to Paardeplaatz, a huge mountain within distant cannon-shot of Lydenburg. As a preliminary to dislodging the burghers from this new position, the British troops occupied Lydenburg during the morning of the 7th; in the afternoon, after the bivouacs had been formed, the soldiers were allowed to bathe in the creeks; they were splashing about in the water, when suddenly two 6-in. guns began to fire from Paardeplaatz, ten or eleven thousand yards off, and an unlucky shell killed two men of the battalion and dangerously wounded another.[309] The Royal Irish were at once moved to a place of safety, and for the rest of the day had the satisfaction of watching the Boer gunners waste invaluable ammunition upon the empty shelters of the bivouac. Next day (the 8th) Paardeplaatz was carried by the British troops. The Boers held a precipitous hill, 1500 feet in height, and shaped exactly like a horse-shoe: the only track ran to the farthest point of the shoe up an ever-narrowing ridge, cleft asunder in various places by deep dongas, almost impassable even by infantry. Two 6-in. guns commanded the path, and lighter guns and pom-poms were posted on various points along the crest. Hamilton was ordered to attack in front and to turn the left flank, while Buller worked round the right of Botha’s line. Although the turning movements involved several hours of hard marching and scrambling, the frontal and flank attacks were delivered simultaneously, and carried the position with a rush. A wing of the Royal Irish (F, G, H companies, and the volunteers) under Major Hatchell were the first troops to reach the topmost ridge, which commanded the enemy’s only line of retreat, a natural causeway a few yards wide, with deep precipices on either side of it. This road was crowded with Boers, who, after saving their guns, were now in full retreat; the mass presented a splendid target for musketry, but just as the men were bringing their rifles into play down fell a mountain mist, completely veiling the burghers from their view. To pursue amidst the precipices in such a fog was impossible; the only thing left to do was to fire volleys in the direction taken by the enemy, who is said to have suffered some loss from these unaimed bullets. The British casualties were small; and in the Royal Irish only one man was wounded.[310]

Hamilton now returned to the railway, and then moved eastwards towards Komati Poort, over country in places so difficult as to be almost impassable. For instance, part of his route lay over hills so steep that in the ten miles between Godwaan station and Kaapsche Hoop the track rose 2200 feet. To lighten the loads, the wooden cases enclosing the biscuit tins were removed, and the soldiers were made to carry their second blankets, usually transported in the waggons. As the column toiled up the steep inclines, the troops hauled the vehicles after them by main force, and when the descent began, each waggon was held back by ten men, who steadied it with drag-ropes down the worst places on the road. Though Hamilton encountered none of the enemy, the march was in many ways an exciting one. A company of the battalion was crossing a railway bridge only wide enough to carry a train, when the sound of an engine was heard in a cutting hard by, and an officer who was present wrote--

“I know my hair stood on end. A scramble ensued, which is rather amusing to _look back upon_. Some of us just slipped over the edge and hung on by the sleepers, with the torrent, thirty or forty feet below, to fall into, and rocks to land on if you missed the water. The train was, however, pulled up before getting on to the bridge, and all got safely over. I believe the rear-guard saw a lion on the last march down the Kaap valley into Kaapmuiden. One of the men in my company woke up one fine morning to find a snake asleep beside him. It was with some difficulty he was able to persuade his fellows he was not a de Rougemont, and when at last they carefully pulled off the blankets--the wretched fellow was sweating at every pore with fright--they discovered a particularly venomous-looking puff adder coiled up between his legs! The snake was duly killed, but I imagine that man will never forget the horrible five minutes he must have spent before persuading those around he was not blarneying them.”

On September 25, Hamilton caught up the advance-guard of the army at Komati Poort, where an amazing amount of stores and railway plant had been found, but no enemy. On the approach of the British the burghers had broken into small bands and disappeared along the Portuguese frontier; some returned to their homes and either took no further part in the war or joined our side; others, to whom all honour as brave and determined enemies is due, reassembled to form the guerilla bands which kept the war alive for twenty-one weary months after the Boer army had ceased to exist as a formed and organised body of men.

The troops composing Hamilton’s column received his thanks for their exertions in a general order, dated October 1, 1900--

“General Ian Hamilton wishes to congratulate his force on the fine work which has been performed by them since they marched out of Belfast on September 3rd, 1900. During this period they have driven the enemy out of his most formidable selected positions--first on the main Lydenburg road, where they barred the progress of the Natal arms; and secondly, on the height overlooking Lydenburg itself. They have also encountered and overcome every sort of natural obstacle, and have carried the British flag through tracts of waterless bush, and over ranges of lofty mountains to the most remote frontier of the enemy. All this has been done with so much spirit, and so cheerfully, as to excite the G.O.C.’s greatest admiration, who will take the first opportunity of informing Lord Roberts of the splendid work done by all ranks under his command.”

In an unofficial letter, written after the war was over, General Smith-Dorrien stated that of all the troops which came under his orders in South Africa, “none served me more loyally or gave me less trouble than the Royal Irish; I have nothing but pleasant associations to remember with regard to the time I had the honour of having the battalion under my command.”

The Royal Irish spent a few days in clearing the railway and in attending a review of the British troops, held in honour of the birthday of the King of Portugal, and then were ordered to entrain for Belfast; the journey, by no means an uneventful one, is vividly described by Captain Dease.

“The regiment returned from Komati Poort in several trains, as there was an excess of rolling stock on the line which wanted moving up towards Pretoria. The Boers had made quite a mess of things on the railway. They had fired great numbers of trucks and disabled a good many engines. The big bridge across the Kaap at Kaapmuiden had also been destroyed, and rather cleverly too. They had blown down the upper part of one of the piers, got steam up in one of the heavier ‘Free State Railway’ engines, set it going from Kaapmuiden station, and succeeded in absolutely smashing up the damaged pier, as well as the spans on either side. The volunteers and C company did most of the work on the building of a deviation and temporary bridge, which was taken in hand immediately. We left Kaapmuiden at about 5 P.M. on the 30th September. As I had had some mechanical training as a boy, I took on the driving of the second train, in which were most of our officers. The first train was given five minutes’ grace before I was told to start. My fireman was a corporal in the Royal Scots, I think, who had ‘been on’ a traction engine at home, while the second man was also a soldier from some other regiment, with an equal recommendation for his present job! I myself had a fair knowledge of locomotive work, but (at that time) little of the vacuum brake: anyway, I certainly had not sufficient knowledge of the work for the job in hand. All went well till we got to the deviation and bridge we had made over the Kaap. Here the fun began. The road up the other side was at so steep a gradient that I couldn’t get my train up it. We stopped and rolled back over the bridge. A second try met with as little success. It then occurred to my fireman and myself that if we ‘backed’ up the grade behind the bridge, and then rushed forward down on to the bridge the momentum would carry us over. This it did, but the train must have had a narrow escape of wrecking that frail, temporary structure. After this we proceeded ‘with caution,’ going not more than about 10 miles an hour. Darkness fell about three or four miles beyond the Kaap bridge. The ‘road’ here runs along the sides of hills, with a steep slope to the Krokodil Valley, a couple of hundred feet below. Naturally the curves are very sharp, and cuttings numerous. I was very ‘jumpy’ at the time, not knowing the road and uncertain of myself as a driver, and kept the speed down. It was fortunate I did so, for as we rounded a corner a group of men on the hillside shouted to me to ‘stop,’ ‘danger,’ &c. I jammed down the air-brake hard and shut off steam, bringing the train up with a terrific jerk, to find the buffer of my engine within a few yards of the rear of the train in front. The sudden pull up had caused quite an upset in the trucks behind, as the jerk was hard enough to roll everyone and everything in the trucks over. We found that the driver of the first train’s engine (also an amateur like myself) had allowed the water to run too low in his boiler, melting the plug over his fire-box, and rendering the engine totally useless. We were still talking about our narrow escape when suddenly round the curve behind us were seen the front lights of a third train. We happened to have no ‘tail lights,’ and before warning could be given our train had been run into with a terrific smash from behind. For a few minutes the confusion was indescribable. Then things straightened themselves out. A piquet was sent some distance down the line to prevent another train colliding with the third train, and parties went to work extricating the injured. The extraordinary thing was that although quite a number of trucks had been ‘piled up’ in our train, nobody was killed, and only about thirty or forty hurt. One of the latter was Deane-Morgan: he had been standing on the edge of a culvert when the crash came, and, without thinking, he involuntarily took a step backwards, and dropped about thirty feet or so into the bed of a nullah. He hurt his knee badly, but no bones were broken--another extraordinary escape.

“We spent that night and part of the next morning clearing away the wreck, and at last arrived at Krokodil Poort, the next station, in the afternoon. The journey thence to Waterval Onder was exciting only to me on the engine, as it was performed through the night, but peaceful to everyone else.”

After these adventures the Royal Irish reached Belfast on the 4th of October, and at once relieved the troops then holding the outposts round the town, where the duty was so heavy that when the Commander-in-Chief ordered the battalion to Pretoria to represent Ireland at the formal annexation of the Transvaal to the British Crown, only three companies could be spared to take part in the ceremony. Along the whole of the Pretoria-Komati Poort railway, as indeed on all the lines throughout the theatre of war, every station was held as a fortress; every train was guarded by soldiers;[311] every bridge and almost every culvert absorbed a detachment, great or small, for its defence; while flying columns were often required to disperse the guerilla bands which threatened weak points on the line of communication. Until December, the Boers in the eastern Transvaal occupied themselves chiefly in train-wrecking; but on the 28th of that month they stormed a strongly entrenched post at Helvetia, captured a large number of men, and carried away in triumph a 4.7-in. gun. Encouraged by this success, they determined to attack the posts along eighty miles of railway; the stations at Pan, Wildfontein, Wonderfontein, Belfast, Dalmanutha, Machadodorp, and Nooitgedacht were to be assailed simultaneously, though the main effort was to be against Belfast, where a great depôt of stores and much ammunition formed a prize worth striving for. Though the headquarters of three battalions were stationed at Belfast, the Colonels of the Royal Irish, the Shropshire Light Infantry, and the Gordon Highlanders could muster between them no more than 1300 men--a small number of foot soldiers with which to furnish outposts, guard the town and guns, and reinforce threatened points on the enormous perimeter of fifteen miles rendered necessary by the formation of the ground around the place. The remainder of the garrison consisted of two hundred and eighty of the 5th Lancers, a hundred and eighty mounted infantry, a battery of field artillery, and two 4.7-in. guns.

Belfast was defended by three main groups of works, more of the nature of detached posts than of outposts in the ordinary acceptation of the term. South of the railway the Gordon Highlanders were in charge of a long stretch of rising ground; on the other side of the line the Shropshire Light Infantry held Colliery Hill, to the north-west of the town; while the Royal Irish were responsible for Monument Hill, a kopje two miles north-east of the centre of Belfast, and for one of the 4.7-in. guns, which was posted upon it. These hills, three miles apart, were linked by a party of mounted infantry at a drift half-way between them. Early on the 7th of January, 1901, Major Orr’s detachment at Monument Hill was relieved by Captain Fosbery, who was in command of his own company, A, and of D company (Captain Milner); Lieutenant Dease was the only subaltern with the party, which consisted of ninety-three officers, non-commissioned officers and men. Fosbery at once began to improve and complete the partially finished defences he had taken over from his predecessor, but the number of workers at his disposal was not great, for D company had just returned from an exhausting spell of train-escort duty, and as he wished to allow Captain Milner’s men time to rest, he kept them in reserve and gave them little to do. By sundown, however, much had been accomplished, and when General Smith-Dorrien came to visit the post he was satisfied with the progress made, though he disapproved of the loopholes, which he directed should be altered, but owing to the darkness it became impossible to carry out this order, and its execution was postponed till the morrow.

The top of the hill is a plateau about eight hundred yards long, and less than a quarter of a mile in width: at the northern end a rough stone sangar, four feet high, enclosed the 4.7-in. gun: farther to the south a semicircular trench partly surrounded the tents occupied by D company: a short way down the south-western slope of the hill a blockhouse of stone and sods was virtually completed, and scattered along the perimeter of the plateau were eight small trenches, two of which were not yet fit for use. By the scheme of fortification the whole of the post should have been ringed with a strong barbed-wire fence, but at nightfall this portion of the defences was not completely finished. After Fosbery had sent two sections to a subsidiary post connecting Monument Hill with the left of the Gordon Highlanders, there remained in hand six sections, which he thus disposed for the night. Two sections of A company were to man the perimeter trenches, with a sentry posted a few yards in front of each; the remaining section of A with the maxim was to act as a support in the sangar, from which, as will be seen, the 4.7-in. gun had been withdrawn; the three sections of D company were to sleep in their tents, but to be ready at a moment’s notice to line the trench near their little camp. In the course of the evening a mist settled down upon the country round Belfast, so heavy that in the town itself the range of vision was limited to twenty yards; on Monument Hill it was like a London fog, and effectually prevented patrolling to the north-east, east, and south-east, where the precipitous sides of the kopje fell into broken ground, difficult even by day to search with any degree of thoroughness. Thus the safety of the post was entirely dependent on the vigilance and sharp hearing of the sentries in front of the trenches.

Nothing occurred to disturb the garrison of Belfast until midnight, when heavy firing, beginning at Monument Hill, then spreading to Colliery Hill, and finally raging at the Gordons’ posts, showed that the burghers had surrounded the town and were assailing it vigorously on every side. From information obtained by the British officers captured during the engagement, it is known that General L. Botha, who had under him about two thousand men, had allotted to the Ermelo commando the task of driving the Gordon Highlanders from the southern works: the Middelburg commando was to engage the Shropshire Light Infantry at the Colliery, but not to press home the attack until General B. Viljoen, with seven hundred and fifty of the Johannesburg and Bocksburg commandos, had made himself master of Monument Hill--a post which was to be carried at all cost, not only on account of its tactical importance, but also because the burghers were determined to capture the big gun which they thought was left at night on the top of the kopje. Fortunately, during the 7th, General Smith-Dorrien had decided that it should be dragged down the hill and back into the artillery lines at nightfall; and thus the gun was preserved from the fate which overtook the defenders of the sangar in which the Boers expected to find the piece of ordnance they coveted so earnestly.

Owing to the fact that of the three officers on Monument Hill one was killed and the others wounded and carried away by the enemy, the official report of the part played by the Royal Irish is necessarily somewhat meagre. But, thanks to a narrative prepared by Captain Dease, and to information supplied by others who were present, it is possible to form some idea of the desperate struggle for the possession of the hill. The night piquets were posted at dusk, and the officers of A company divided the duty between them, Fosbery taking the watch till 2 A.M., when Dease was to relieve him. Everything was quiet till about a quarter to twelve, when Dease, who was in a shelter near the tents of the reserve, heard a distant challenge, followed almost immediately by the report of a rifle. Nothing happened, and as nervous sentries often fired at imaginary enemies, no one was disturbed by the single shot, though, as it turned out, it was fired not by a British soldier but by a burgher, who when the sentry at the north-east trench challenged, shot him dead. Dease was trying to go to sleep again, when two more rifles rang out; he dashed out of his shelter, and with Fosbery, whom he met in the fog, hurried to the centre of the plateau to ascertain the cause of the firing. On the way they came under a sudden fusilade from a party of Boers who, after scaling the northern and north-eastern slopes of the kopje, had surprised and carried a couple of the trenches, thus establishing themselves inside our line of works. The two officers rushed forward and reached the gun sangar just as the burghers were advancing upon it.

“The fog,” writes Captain Dease, “at this time was extremely dense, and the position of the enemy could only be distinguished by the flashes of the rifles. The Boers at first concentrated on the maxim gun, and a tremendous hand-to-hand combat took place. Our men used their bayonets with effect, and some of the machine gunners (who had slung their rifles in an abortive effort to get the gun to work) set-to with picks, axes, and anything they could lay hands on. In short, as the men said, ‘it was the father and the mother av a fight!’ The enemy suffered so severely that they ceased trying to get over the sangar wall, but remained a yard or two on the far side, pouring in a terrific rapid fire at the crest line of the sangar. It is difficult to be clear about the sequence of events, but I think that among the eighteen men originally in the sangar there were only one or two casualties during the hand-to-hand part of the fight; but during the next phase, when the Boers contented themselves with sweeping the crest, we lost very heavily, for our fellows, the lust of battle on them after the hand-to-hand fight near the machine gun, exposed themselves in a most reckless manner, and were with difficulty prevented from getting out of the sangar and charging into the enemy. The action had continued for about half an hour, when the Boers made a second rush on the gun, and being met at that point by a mere remnant, forced us back. At this moment, as we were gradually drawing back towards the entrance to the sangar, 3733 Private J. Barry,[312] who was nearest the maxim, picked up a pickaxe lying near it. As he forced his way to the gun through the Boers, efforts were made to stop him, and he had just time to drive in the point of the pick into the junction of the barrel and breech-casing before he was literally swept down by a hail of bullets from the enemy round him.[313] As he was shot at by about a dozen burghers within five yards’ distance and from all sides, I fancy they must have played havoc in their own ranks! Fosbery now realised that the position in the sangar was untenable, and shouting out to us to ‘charge through the entrance and make for the blockhouse,’ led the way. The Boers were there in great force, and we were met with a very hot but unaimed fire. Only Fosbery, Corporal Gorman, and myself took part in this charge; all the rest of us were either killed or wounded. About ten yards from the entrance Fosbery, in trying to club down a Boer with the butt of his carbine, was wounded in two places: I got a few yards farther, and while occupied with a couple of the enemy in front was hit on the head by a butt-ended rifle, and temporarily stunned: Corporal Gorman, I think, surrendered, but of this I am uncertain, as I was too busy to notice what he was doing, as he was behind me. When I recovered consciousness about ten, perhaps twenty, minutes later, I searched for and found Fosbery, who was still alive. I did what I could in the way of first aid, but he was hopelessly hit and had already lost a great deal of blood. The Boers were so close to him when they shot him down that his clothing was scorched all round the wounds. A little after this I suddenly ran into a group of wandering Boers, and having lost my carbine when I was knocked over, was easily collared and put under escort. But of this and all subsequent proceedings I can remember nothing. I had been singularly unfortunate in the fight in jamming my revolver (a Service Webley) as I reloaded it. It was no good to me, and I can remember using it as a missile during the charge--I hope with effect! A carbine that night was a useless weapon for officers. We had no bayonets, and the short length of the stock and barrel placed us at a great disadvantage in the hand-to-hand _mêlée_.”

While the support was fighting desperately in the gun sangar against overwhelming odds, most of the piquets on the perimeter were swamped by sheer weight of numbers. Their trenches were of a type found very useful by the battalion in actions where it had been exposed to continuous bombardment, such as those in the Colesberg campaign--narrow slits in the ground, 2 feet 6 inches wide, nearly 5 feet deep, loopholed with a parapet 2 feet in height and at least 3 feet in width. But excellent as this pattern had proved elsewhere, it was not a success in very close fighting at night, for the trench was so deep that its occupants could not see over the parapet, and the loopholes were ill adapted for firing on an enemy at a few yards’ range. Around these works parties of Boers, from twenty to two hundred strong, suddenly loomed up out of the fog and closed rapidly from all sides upon the defenders, whom they covered with their rifles, demanding instant surrender. Though thus caught in an absolute death-trap, most of these little groups of four or five soldiers showed fight, not laying down their arms until one or more of their number had been killed or wounded. Here Lance-Corporal Dowie, a veteran who had served in the Egyptian war of 1882, met a glorious death. He was in command of a small trench, which he succeeded in holding during the first assault: he refused to surrender, though he must have realised that resistance was hopeless, and with his men continued to fight on desperately until a number of burghers, rushing in from behind, overwhelmed the party and left Dowie dead in the work he had defended so gallantly.

The reserve fared no better than the piquets or the support. When awakened by the sound of battle, the men of D company manned the broad and shallow trench by which, as it has been said, their tents were enclosed, though very incompletely. At first the attack came from their front and right, but after the capture of the sangar had made the Boers masters of the northern end of the hill, a fresh body of the enemy fell upon them from the left rear. There was a short, wild struggle; then the burghers surged forward, and hemmed in the men of D so closely that many of them could not use their bayonets, and while the Boers in front seized the muzzles and pointed them in the air, those behind knocked our men down with the butts of their Mauser rifles. By this time Captain Milner was severely wounded: and those of his company who were not killed, wounded, or prisoners ceased to be a formed body of troops. Singly or in small groups they tried to make their way towards Belfast, but in the fog they stumbled across large parties of the enemy, into whose hands they fell. Out of the ninety-three officers and men of the Royal Irish on the hill only seven escaped; the remainder were killed, wounded, or captives in the hands of the enemy. Little more than half an hour after the first shot was fired the defence had been beaten down completely, and the only sounds to be heard on Monument Hill were the groans of the wounded, and the hoarse shouts of the burghers as they collected the rifles and ammunition and sought vainly for the 4.7-in. gun, which they hoped to turn upon the garrison of the town.

When the attack began General Smith-Dorrien had only two companies--(one of the Royal Irish and one of the Shropshire Light Infantry) available as reinforcements for the posts north of the line. Both companies turned out, stood to their arms, and awaited orders, while Lieutenant-Colonel Spens, Shropshire Light Infantry, at once reconnoitred towards Monument Hill, and before the firing had quite died down, met a soldier who gave him the grim news that Fosbery’s detachment had been cut to pieces. Halting his party, Spens went forward with two or three men to ascertain for himself the real position of affairs, and, undetected by the enemy, worked his way up the kopje until he reached a wire fence from which he could see the burghers swarming over the camp which they were looting. Then, convinced that the post was lost indeed, he withdrew, taking with him the men of two small outlying piquets whom the enemy had not discovered, but who, in his opinion, would inevitably be captured as soon as the fog lifted. This daring reconnaissance was equalled by that of a corporal in the 5th Lancers, who volunteered to find out what had happened to the Royal Irish. He thus described the scene upon the hill--

“I left the road and struck across the veld, and by running, creeping, crawling, and rolling I managed to get up to the wire entanglements which encircled the post. The difficulty now was to get through the wire. I could hear shouts and groans, and there was some shooting going on, but whether Briton or Boer was in possession I could not tell. I dared not go round the entanglement to the entrances, as I knew they would be guarded, and so by a series of wriggles soon found myself inside the post. What was to be done now? I knew if I were seen I should be shot, whoever held the hill, so I continued to wriggle and roll on my stomach. I soon came across the effects of the fight, the dead bodies of the infantry and Boers, and the tents which had been cut down on top of the Irishmen. Some one was calling ‘Water, for God’s sake give me water,’ and suddenly a dog barked a few yards to my right, and I could just distinguish a man. I immediately covered him with my rifle, but apparently he had not seen me. I remained where I was for some time, and then slowly crawled back a little and worked my way to where I heard the shouts for water coming from. I soon found two of the Irishmen badly wounded, and asked them in a whisper what had happened, but the only reply was a piteous appeal for water. I then crawled some fifty yards to the cook-house and found a camp kettle with some water in it, and slowly wriggled back to the two wounded men, and filling my cap with water gave them a good drink. They then told me that the Boers had rushed the sentries in the fog, cutting down the tents on their occupants, and shooting and clubbing the men as they rushed out, and although the garrison had made a gallant fight they were overpowered and the post captured. There was a lot of shouting going on by the Boers, and I quietly crawled towards it, and then there was a shot. Beyond a man standing on the monument I could see nothing, and so gradually crawled back to the wire entanglements; as soon as I was clear of these ran back to the horses, where I found Sergeant Evans and Aldridge safe, and we rode back to camp and made our report.”[314]

Along the rest of the line of outworks the enemy pressed home the attack with great gallantry and determination, but was repulsed at all important points. The Gordon Highlanders beat back Botha’s burghers, though with the loss of a small isolated post, and the Shropshire Light Infantry maintained their hold on the vital part of their position, though also with the loss of a small outlying detachment. Only at Monument Hill were the Boers successful, and this success, obtained solely by overwhelming numbers, they failed to turn to account. Whether they were dispirited by their losses, bewildered by the fog, or crippled by the want of trained staff officers to direct their movements and carry out Botha’s plans, it is impossible to say, but the fact remains that beyond capturing some scores of rifles, a few tents, and much ammunition from the Royal Irish, the burghers accomplished nothing, and retired so hastily with their prisoners and booty that when Spens returned in the early morning to Monument Hill he found it occupied only by the dead and wounded.

It will be remembered that Botha’s scheme provided for the simultaneous attack on seven posts along the railway. These attacks were duly made, but in most cases they were not serious, and in none were they successful. The returns prove that Belfast was the real objective of the burghers, for out of 179 casualties sustained in the defence of these seven places, 143 fell upon the troops in Belfast. The Royal Irish were by far the greatest sufferers; of the three officers on Monument Hill, Captain Fosbery was killed, Captain Milner was severely wounded, Lieutenant Dease injured, and both were taken prisoners; while among the ninety non-commissioned officers and privates eight were killed outright, five died of their wounds, twenty-two were wounded in varying degrees of severity, and fifty-one were taken prisoner.[315] The Boers on their side also lost heavily: in the attack on Belfast fifty-eight burghers were killed, of whom fourteen fell at Monument Hill.

General Smith-Dorrien, in his report on the events of the 7th-8th of January, stated that the heavy loss in killed and wounded among the Royal Irish was “sufficient evidence that their defence was a fine one.” He specially mentioned Captain Fosbery for his “splendid work in command of the post,” adding that from all sides he heard how well this officer had behaved until he was shot down. In Force Orders, dated the 12th of January, 1901, he expressed his

“appreciation of the steadiness of the troops on the morning of the 8th. He would specially mention the fine defence of the Royal Irish piquet at the monument under that gallant officer, Captain Fosbery, whose death he deplores, until overwhelmed by vastly superior numbers after a hard fight.... He regrets the heavy losses, but does not consider them heavy, considering the determined nature of the attack. He also considers that had it not been for the fog the attack would have been much more easily repulsed.”

The General also wrote as follows of Private John Barry:--

“I would especially call attention to the heroic conduct of No. 3733 Private J. Barry, Royal Irish, who seeing the machine gun surrounded by Boers seized a pick and began to smash the action, which he completed in spite of the threats of the Boers. I regret to say that the Boers in retaliation shot him dead, or I would have recommended him for a V.C.”

The War Office decided to award this honourable decoration to Barry, although he was not alive to wear it, and it was presented to his widow to be held as a treasured heirloom in Barry’s family. Thus, for the third time since the Order of the Victoria Cross was instituted, did a member of the Royal Irish regiment win this, the highest prize for valour in the British army.

For several days the garrison of Belfast toiled continuously to make good the weak points in the defences revealed by the night attack, and then settled down into the old routine of occasional raids into the neighbouring country and frequent skirmishes on the line of communication. A party of the Royal Irish under Captain Grogan had an extraordinary escape while escorting a train about this time; the burghers had mined the railway with dynamite and expected to see the train and its guard of soldiers blown sky-high, but their hopes were disappointed; a couple of heavily laden trucks in front of the engine met the full force of the explosion and were hurled off the rails; none of the escort were hurt, and the greater part of the train was uninjured.

On February 22, F, G, and H companies under Major Orr were sent to Helvetia, where they spent a fortnight in remodelling the defences, and then moved on to Lydenburg as escort to a convoy of supplies for the troops holding that distant post. Though unopposed by the enemy the march was very trying, for the rain fell in torrents, and the road, deep in mud, led across three rivers where the water reached to the waists of the soldiers as they struggled through the fords. Very soon after the convoy reached its destination Lieutenant-Colonel C. W. Park, Devonshire regiment, who at that moment was senior officer at Lydenburg, learned that a small commando of about seventy Boers had established itself in a valley near Krugerspost, twelve or fourteen miles north of the British camp. He determined to capture the laager, and on the 13th of March issued orders for the night march by which the burghers were to be encircled and surprised. The infantry selected for the enterprise were three companies of the Rifle Brigade, three of the Devonshire, and the detachment of the Royal Irish, now under command of Captain W. H. White, vice Major Orr, who had been obliged to go into hospital. They were to be carried in ox waggons for six miles; then after dismounting they were to make a long sweep across the veld to avoid a Boer piquet, the position of which had been ascertained, and on reaching a specified point break into three small columns, and crown the hills commanding the laager. The operation was by no means easy, for its success demanded not only that the troops should accomplish the various stages of the march within the time allowed by the calculations of the staff, but also that the guides should lead the detachments quickly and unerringly to the appointed places.

As soon as the column left the road its troubles began: the surface of the veld was seamed with spruits, pitted with bogs, and covered with high grass; it was impossible to move in close formation, and once the companies had been opened out, it became so difficult to maintain connection between the various units that when the troops reached the spot where the encircling movement was to begin, they were half an hour “behind scheduled time.” The Royal Irish detachment was now handed over to a guide, who led it along a ravine which every moment grew narrower and steeper. At first the man seemed confident in himself; then suddenly he lost his head, and confessed he was doubtful about the exact position of the laager. The situation was serious, for if the Royal Irish did not succeed in making their way to the ground allotted to them in the scheme of attack, there would be a gap in the enveloping line through which the Boers might easily escape. Captain White accordingly sent Lieutenant Panter-Downes with H company up the ravine with orders to push on and connect with the left of the Devons, while he himself moved the remainder of the detachment farther to the left to feel for the Rifle Brigade. Just as the first glimmer of dawn was showing in the east a message from Panter-Downes arrived to report that he had discovered the laager, which was not visible from the slope up which White was climbing. While F and G companies linked up with the Riflemen and gained a crest commanding the Boer camp, H strove to get into touch with the Devons, but before Panter-Downes could make his way across a very difficult piece of broken ground the Boers took the alarm, discovered the gap in our line, and hurled themselves upon it, not without success, for though they left thirty-seven of their number in our hands, the remainder of the commando escaped. Some of them owed their liberty to the chivalry of the Royal Irish; in the words of the Record of Service they “would have been shot down had they not worn long night-drawers and so been mistaken for women.” Though about half the _personnel_ of the commando got away, all its _matériel_--tents, waggons, horses, and much grain--fell into Colonel Park’s hands at a cost of only five casualties, all among the Royal Irish.[316]

In a few days the detachment returned to the railway and rejoined the battalion, which now had been withdrawn from the garrison of Belfast to take part in active operations in the northern Transvaal. Early in the year the Intelligence department had become aware that the repeated attacks upon the railway were intended to divert attention from the preparations for a great raid to the southward, by which General Botha hoped to restore the shattered fortunes of the republican armies. Lord Kitchener, who on Lord Roberts’ departure for England in December, 1900, had succeeded to the supreme command of the British forces in South Africa, first sent General French with 22,000 combatants to harry Botha’s commandos south of the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay line, and then organised a body of nearly 10,000 men with whom Lieutenant-General Sir B. Blood was to sweep a huge piece of country, bounded on the south by the same railway, on the north by the 25th degree of latitude, on the east by the Stenkamps Berg, and on the west by the Oliphant river. The principal settlement in this district was Roos Senekal, on which Blood’s troops were to converge from various points. Three of the columns were commanded by Major-General F. W. Kitchener, the remainder by Major-General R. S. R. Fetherstonhaugh; the Royal Irish were allotted to that under the immediate orders of Colonel Park, who was one of Kitchener’s subordinate commanders. Leaving the railway on March 27, the battalion reached Lydenburg on April 11, where began six months of work as arduous, monotonous, and disagreeable as ever British soldiers were called upon to perform. On some occasions the Royal Irish formed part of an outer ring of troops whose business it was to block every Nek and every drift by which a commando could break from the net that was closing upon it; at other times, as part of the striking column, they made forced marches by day and night, too often to find that the burghers had taken the alarm and had fled, leaving behind them their womenkind, who they knew would be well treated by the British. They had to “round-up” great mobs of cattle, to remove women and children from farms used as headquarters by the local guerillas, to escort convoys, and to march incessantly “in a most difficult country over almost impossible roads.” For weeks together they never bivouacked twice in the same place, and whenever they found themselves for a few days at Lydenburg or at a station on the line, instead of resting, they had to build blockhouses. On one of these brief visits to the comparative civilisation of the railway the battalion was joined by Lieutenant W. G. Lindsey and thirty non-commissioned officers and men of the 5th (Irish volunteer battalion), the King’s (Liverpool) regiment, who on May 20, 1901 arrived to replace the volunteer company which on October 8, 1900, had started on its journey back to England.

A detailed account of the work of the regiment between April and October, 1901, would contain so little beyond a list of bivouacs at places with uncouth and unknown names, that no attempt will be made to follow the wanderings of the Royal Irish: the reader who desires to know their exact position on every day throughout this period will find the information in Appendix 8. At the end of September the battalion, to use the South African expression, “came off trek,” and as soon as it had been refitted, relieved the Manchester regiment at Lydenburg. An idea of the straits to which the men had been reduced by hard marching will be gathered from a report dated September 1: “many have no shirts at all, and others have no boots. All the boots and trousers are in a bad state and will not hold together much longer.”

Colonel Park took the opportunity of thanking the officers and men for their services in a farewell order dated October 1, 1901--

“It is with the greatest regret that the Officer Commanding the column has now to part with the first battalion, the Royal Irish regiment, the last remaining unit of the original force which started from Lydenburg under his command five and a half months ago.

“The splendid fighting qualities of the Royal Irish are well known to all, and their magnificent marching powers and the good spirit of all ranks under the hardships and privations of active service have been the admiration of the O.C. column, and of all ranks who have served with him. Colonel Park wishes them the best of good luck, and trusts that at some future time he may have again the honour of serving with this gallant and distinguished regiment.”

Though the war had already lasted for two years, the strenuous exertions of Botha, De Wet, and a few other Boer leaders prolonged the struggle, hopeless though it was, for nine months longer. During this time the battalion remained at Lydenburg, taking its share of duty in garrisoning the town, in escorting convoys, and in manning the fifty-five blockhouses by which the place was linked with the railway at Machadodorp, forty-five miles away. From the regimental point of view only two incidents worthy of record occurred in this phase of the war: the capture of B. Viljoen, the Boer general who had inflicted so heavy a loss upon the Royal Irish at Monument Hill, and the destruction by dynamite of a blockhouse held by a party of the Royal Irish.

At the beginning of the year 1902, Schalk Burger, the acting President of the Transvaal Republic, was in hiding near Dulstroom with the few adherents who formed his so-called government. Viljoen, the commander of the remnants of the commandos raised in the districts north of the Pretoria-Delagoa Bay railway, had been driven to Pilgrim’s Rest, whence Burger summoned him to a conference to arrange for the transfer of the “government” to the comparative safety of that remote settlement. The preliminaries being settled, Viljoen preceded Burger on the journey over the fifty miles of country between Dulstroom and Pilgrim’s Rest. This ride, writes the author of the Official History, “proved to be the last of the Boer leader’s many adventures. The British Intelligence Department was keenly watching the vagrant legislature; and ambuscades lay in many a likely spruit-bed and rail and river crossing. Into one of these traps--laid by a party of the Royal Irish regiment, sent out under Major A. S. Orr by Lieut.-Colonel H. Guinness--fell Viljoen as, having stolen past the outposts of Lydenburg, he made to ford the Spekboom river.” The details of the capture were as follows: at about 7 P.M. on January 25, 1902, Major Orr with five officers and a hundred and twenty of the other ranks was suddenly ordered to hasten to two drifts, where it was reported that a party of burghers would attempt to cross during the night.[317] Captain Farmer was sent with a detachment to block one of these drifts; near the other Major Orr hid the remainder of his force, posting twenty men in a ruined farmhouse a few hundred yards to his flank.

By 10 o’clock at night the trap was set, and the soldiers were resting after their long march over heavy mealie-fields and through spruits swollen by recent rain, when the detachment in the farm opened a sharp fusilade on a small number of Boers approaching from the south-west, and drove them towards the drift where Orr had established himself. So perfectly in hand were the Royal Irish that, though they could hear horses galloping towards them, they remained silent and motionless until the leading horsemen, who rode in pairs, were almost under the muzzles of their rifles. Then Colour-Sergeant J. Boulger, who was nearest the road, shouted “Hands up.” Disregarding this summons the Boers galloped on: Boulger realising that they meant to dash through the drift, opened fire on the horses of the two Boers in front: his men followed his example, and the animals, one pierced by nine, the other by three bullets, dropped dead, in their fall pinning to the ground their riders, Viljoen and Bester, one of the General’s staff. Then there was a short confused skirmish, in which Nel, another of Viljoen’s staff, and a Cape Boer lost their lives; the remainder of the party, which numbered ten in all, escaped, though not across the drift. As soon as Viljoen and Bester had been drawn from beneath their horses, they were recognised by one of the civilian scouts, who told Major Orr the names of the prisoners. Between men who have frequently faced each other in battle arises a curious feeling of quasi-friendship, and the Royal Irish and the commandos led by Viljoen had frequently met on many a hard-fought field: moreover, after Monument Hill Viljoen had treated his prisoners, both officers and men, with great kindness: therefore, as Orr hurried his captives to Lydenburg he assured them that they had fallen into good hands, and during the few days that Viljoen remained at Lydenburg awaiting an escort to the railway the regiment did its best to make his captivity agreeable. The burghers were very anxious to rescue him; and one night, writes an officer, “two or three of them stole into the town to see if it was possible to dig him out, but finding a sentry at his door and another at his window gave up the attempt, leaving behind them a clever cartoon of Lord Kitchener sitting in a zariba of barbed wire, surrounded by surrendered burghers whom he was imploring to go out and persuade the others to come in, while floating above him was the spirit of Joe Chamberlain! The drawing was signed, ‘Phil Jung, with apologies to Phil May.’” In his report Colonel Guinness specially mentioned Major Orr, to whose good dispositions of the force at his command was due the successful issue of the affair, and Colour-Sergeant Boulger,[318] who had been very favourably reported upon by Major Orr.

The dynamite episode occurred two months later. Among the blockhouses held by the Royal Irish was one, named by the troops Ben Tor, which stood on a kopje so thickly covered with big boulders that the sentries could not watch all the approaches to it. The building was of stone, roofed with sheets of galvanised iron; and on the night of the 18th of March it was held by a non-commissioned officer--Sergeant M‘Grath--and nine private soldiers. About two o’clock in the morning of the 19th, the two men on sentry outside the blockhouse heard sounds which they rightly interpreted to be those of approaching feet. While one remained on the look-out, the other crawled into the blockhouse and reported to Sergeant M‘Grath, who immediately stood to arms and manned his loopholes, but almost before the men were in their places a bomb was hurled on the roof, which unfortunately being flat, not sloping, afforded the missile a secure lodgment. In a second there was a tremendous explosion: the blockhouse was wrecked; one of the walls was thrown down, and every man of the garrison dangerously or severely wounded, except the sentry outside who escaped all injury. After capturing this man the Boers waited for some minutes to see if any one was still on foot; then, satisfied that no resistance was to be expected, they rapidly looted the blockhouse and decamped, fortunately without finding the boxes of reserve ammunition hidden under the sheets of galvanised iron which formed the beds of the garrison. Beyond stripping some of the wounded, the burghers did their victims no harm, and sent off the uninjured soldier to summon medical aid from Lydenburg. By dawn a detachment of troops, a doctor, and an ambulance were on the way to Ben Tor, where, says one of the officers, “the place was like a shambles--too horrible to describe.” As soon as the wounded men had been removed,[319] the blockhouse was rebuilt and greatly strengthened.

Nothing of note occurred in the battalion during the remainder of the campaign, which was brought to an end by the declaration of peace on May 31, 1902. This is not the place to discuss the terms upon which the Boer guerillas were allowed to surrender their arms and return to their homes; to enumerate the enormous sums spent by the Imperial Treasury in rebuilding and restocking the burghers farms, or to speculate on what may be the ultimate effect on South Africa and the Empire of the policy by which, little more than five years after the last shot was fired in the war, all the rights and privileges of self-government were granted to our former enemies. Whatever the future may have in store for England, the Royal Irish regiment will always have the satisfaction of remembering that throughout the long struggle with the Boer republics, all ranks worthily maintained the honour of their corps.

* * * * *

The doings of the officers and men who served in the mounted infantry are in no degree less interesting than those of the first battalion, but, unfortunately, want of space renders it impossible to describe in detail the many engagements and operations of importance in which they took part. All that can be attempted is a bare outline of their work, with a few instances of the many exploits which the independent nature of their employment gave them the opportunity to perform. Though for a time the two contingents were in the same brigade, they were employed together so seldom that their movements are chronicled separately.

When the first battalion was called upon to provide a section for Captain St Leger’s Cork company of the 1st regiment of mounted infantry, commanded by Colonel E. A. H. Alderson, the choice fell upon Second Lieutenant P. U. Vigors and thirty-seven non-commissioned officers and men, who landing at Cape Town early in November, 1899, were sent up country to De Aar, a place important as a great railway junction and an advanced base, where large quantities of stores had been accumulated. Here they spent nearly three months, chiefly on detached duties, such as guarding the railway bridge at Hanover Road, outposts, and patrols, one of which once pushed out as far as Prieska in the north-west of Cape Colony. Early in February, 1900, the 1st regiment of mounted infantry was allotted to the 1st brigade of mounted infantry, a newly-formed body under Colonel O. C. Hannay, and composed of the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th regiments of mounted infantry (all regular soldiers) and several corps of Australian and South African volunteers. In the 5th regiment the Royal Irish were well represented; it was commanded by Major Hatchell, an officer of the XVIIIth; and one company, or a quarter of its total strength, had been contributed by the first battalion.

The Royal Irish section of the Cork company of the 1st mounted infantry charged with the cavalry at Klip Drift, and took part in the relief of Kimberley; reached Paardeberg some days before Cronje surrendered, and shared in the actions of Poplar Grove and Driefontein. In the operations outside Bloemfontein on March 12, the Cork company succeeded in forestalling the Boers in the occupation of an important kopje, just north of the Leper hospital. At the disastrous affair at Sannah’s Post on the 31st of March, where the section served in the rear-guard covering the retreat of our broken force, all did well, and an officer and a lance-corporal especially distinguished themselves. As Captain St Leger was superintending the retirement of the rear section of the Cork company he saw a big man, dismounted, running after the horsemen. St Leger called him, and ascertained that he was Corporal Parker, 1st Life Guards, who after escaping from the trap in the Korn spruit had attached himself to the mounted infantry. While the corporal was speaking he was shot through the right shoulder, and at that moment St Leger’s orderly, Drummer Radford, noticed that his officer was staying behind and rode back to him. Thinking he could manage the Life Guardsman alone, St Leger ordered Radford to return to the company, but when he tried to get the trooper on to his (St Leger’s) horse, failed to do so, for the man’s wound had made him incapable of helping himself, and he was too heavy to be lifted into the saddle. There was no time to be lost, so with his right arm round the trooper’s waist, he half supported, half dragged him in the direction in which the Cork company had retired. With his left hand St Leger led his horse, which grew very restive under the pitiless hail of bullets that literally tore up the ground under the animal’s belly. As the Boers followed up the little group, now completely isolated and a long way behind the last of the rear-guard, the outlook seemed almost hopeless. Suddenly St Leger realised that if he could succeed in getting his wounded man a few hundred yards farther on, they would not only find temporary cover in some low-lying and broken ground, but would also be protected by the fire of a party of Roberts’ Horse who, some distance off, were holding back the enemy on this part of the battlefield. The burghers came on fast, and three of them galloped up to within a hundred yards of the fugitives, and emptied their magazines at them as they disappeared into cover. As the Boers fired from the saddle none of their bullets took effect. Bad as the situation was, it grew worse when the section of Roberts’ Horse turned about, and galloped to a position farther to the rear. Happily St Leger managed to attract the attention of one of them--a gallant man, who raced back to him with a led horse, on which they managed to hoist the Life Guardsman, who, though faint from his wound, was still able to ride once he was in the saddle. Then they galloped hard, scattering in order to offer a smaller target to the shower of Mauser bullets by which they were pursued. Corporal Parker recovered from his wound completely; and neither the trooper in Roberts’ Horse nor Captain St Leger was hit; indeed, good luck followed the latter throughout the day, for thanks to the resolution of his groom, Private Ward, his favourite pony was saved from the general wreck of the column. Private Ward was riding with the waggons when they fell into the ambush; when called upon to surrender, he refused to do so, and though his own horse was hit, succeeded in escaping with St Leger’s pony, in whose saddle-bags were sixty sovereigns, just received for the men’s pay. Lance-Corporal Hall distinguished himself by two acts of signal bravery under very heavy fire. Noticing a wounded gunner staggering along in the retreat he rode back to him, and placed him upon his own horse: later in the day, when the Boers were pressing hard upon the mounted infantry, he saw a trooper of Roberts’ Horse whose pony had been killed and who was in imminent danger of being shot or captured. He dashed after a stray horse, caught it, and brought off the irregular in safety. Hall escaped unhurt; only three of the Royal Irish were wounded in this engagement.[320]

The section formed part of the army which invaded the Transvaal, and was at the passage of the Reit and the Zand rivers, the action of Johannesburg, the capture of Pretoria, and the battle of Diamond Hill (11th and 12th of June). For the next few weeks it remained in the neighbourhood of Pretoria, chiefly engaged in outpost duty, sometimes of a very exciting nature. Thus at Reitvlei, on July 15, a piquet of sixteen men was saved from capture or destruction by the intelligence of Sergeant Connolly who, discovering that a party of two hundred burghers with three guns was threatening the post, reported so clearly and so promptly that his officer was able to signal for reinforcements, which fortunately arrived in time. When Lord Roberts began to advance towards Komati Poort the Cork company pushed on with the remainder of the mounted infantry; a few of the Royal Irish section were fortunate enough to be engaged at Bergendal, but none reached Komati Poort, the company remaining at Kaapsche Hoop until November, when it was ordered back to Pretoria and thence to the northern frontier of Cape Colony.

Since the beginning of June, De Wet had kept the Free State in a blaze, and although after his failure in various minor enterprises he was chased up and down the country, and very roughly handled at Bothaville on November 6, he rallied enough burghers around him to be able to swoop upon the British garrison of Dewetsdorp, which surrendered to him on the 23rd of November, 1900. The fall of this place seemed to remove one of the chief obstacles to the raid into Cape Colony which for months had been discussed round the camp fires of every Free State commando,[321] and De Wet pushed towards the Orange river, believing that once he gained its southern bank the Dutch population in the colony would welcome him with enthusiasm. As soon as his plan was discovered, troops were hurried from all parts of the theatre of war towards the Orange river, among them the column to which the Cork company was attached. After a long and weary journey by train from Pretoria to Bethulie, it shared in the operations in December by which De Wet was prevented from crossing the river, and driven backwards into the eastern Free State, where though harried incessantly by our troops he never abandoned his scheme for a second invasion of British territory. The Cork company was soon called away from the pursuit of De Wet to that of two of his lieutenants, Kritzinger and Hertzog, who succeeded in passing across the river and waged guerilla warfare in many districts of Cape Colony. Early in February, 1901, De Wet, with extraordinary skill and equally extraordinary good fortune, threaded his way through the troops closing round him, and dashed across the Orange at an unguarded drift, but there his lucky star failed him, and the British mounted troops, though almost spent by their unending pursuit of Kritzinger and Hertzog’s raiders, who had now joined the commandos of their leader, drove the invaders back into the Free State at the end of February, 1901.

Between March and November 1901, the section was in the south of the Free State, occupied in clearing the country and similar uncongenial duties, the monotony of which was relieved by occasional skirmishes. In one of these affairs two soldiers distinguished themselves. Private W. Sweeney found himself surrounded by four mounted Boers who, covering him with their rifles, called upon him to surrender; though they were all within fifty yards of him he refused to do so, and firing at them from the saddle succeeded in making his escape. His name was specially mentioned to the General commanding the column for his gallantry on this occasion.[322] Private Radford, while carrying a message for Lieutenant Vigors, was wounded and his horse was hit under him; nevertheless he delivered his message and then made his way back to report that he had done so. The next two months were spent at Winburg, and in January, 1902, the section began to take part in the “drives” which marked the final phase of the war in the north-east of the Free State. In addition to the non-commissioned officer and men already mentioned, Lieutenant Vigors, in the statement he prepared for the regimental records, gives praise to the good conduct throughout the war of Sergeants Kennedy and Colthorpe, Lance-Corporals Mackay and Griffin, Privates Tobin and (5914) Power.

It was said on page 311 that just before the battalion sailed from England Captain R. A. Smyth, Lieutenants S. H. L. Galbraith and E. Lloyd, with sixty-seven of the other ranks went to the mounted infantry at Shorncliffe. From this nucleus developed a company, composed of the same officers and a hundred and thirty-six non-commissioned officers and men, who landed at Cape Town on January 31, 1900, and formed part of the 5th regiment of mounted infantry. The company received its baptism of fire on February 11, 1900, while reinforcing the flank-guard of a convoy in difficulties between Ramah and Roodipan. In this affair Private M. Maher greatly distinguished himself by volunteering to carry a written order to a detachment, separated from the main body by a broad stretch of ground completely swept by the enemy’s fire. He set an excellent example by walking, not running, across the danger zone; delivered the note, and then, refusing to remain with the detachment which was under cover, coolly returned to report that the order had duly reached the officer to whom it was addressed. Maher was not hit; in this affair there were only two casualties among the Royal Irish, neither fatal.[323] The company was at a skirmish near Jacobsdal, where Major Hatchell was wounded; and after a long night march arrived at Klip drift on the Modder river on the 15th, too late to take part in Lieutenant-General French’s charge through the Boer position, though in time to see the cavalry division re-form and start on its final advance upon Kimberley. The Royal Irish were sent on outpost at once, and remained on piquet until dawn, when they were ordered to work eastward down the river to Klipkraal drift, one of the fords by which it was expected that Cronje, now in full retreat from the kopjes of Magersfontein, would attempt to cross the stream. The company was engaged all day with the Boer rear-guard, and several men were wounded, among whom was Sergeant Peebles, whose experiences were singularly unpleasant;[324] while on patrol he was shot through the thighs, and falling helpless on the ground was stripped naked by marauding Boers, and left for dead, until late in the evening he was rescued by a party of his comrades. After spending the night in guarding a battery of artillery, the company at daybreak on the 17th was sent to ascertain if the burghers still held the ground they had occupied when darkness put an end to the combat. As soon as the Royal Irish reported that the position had been evacuated, the column was set in motion, but the Boers had gained a long start; their rear-guard again fought stoutly, and it was not until late in the evening of the 17th that the mounted infantry bivouacked two miles south of Paardeberg drift, near the laager which Cronje had formed a few hours sooner, when to his dismay he found that he had been “headed off” by French, who with a weak brigade of cavalry and two batteries of Royal Horse artillery from Kimberley had thrown himself boldly across the Boer general’s path. At 4 A.M. on the 18th, Hannay’s brigade marched eastwards to form the right of the line of troops with which Lord Kitchener proposed to attack the enemy’s position on every side. The Royal Irish company was engaged all day, and in the ill-fated charge led by Colonel Hannay against the north-east face of the laager was represented by Captain Smyth, Lieutenant Lloyd, and thirteen or fourteen non-commissioned officers and men, of whom several privates were wounded.[325] During the remainder of the operations, ending in Cronje’s surrender on February 27, the company was employed in scouting and patrolling the country south-east of Paardeberg; and after taking part in the action of Poplar Grove it marched into Bloemfontein with Lieutenant-General Tucker’s column on March 16th.

During the next five weeks the 5th regiment of mounted infantry was not employed in any important operation, but at the end of April it joined a force under Lieutenant-General Ian Hamilton, which forced its way through the defile of Israel’s Poort, and after co-operating in driving the Boers from Thabanchu, marched northwards as right flank-guard to the main column in Lord Roberts’ advance from Bloemfontein to the Transvaal. Between the 23rd of April, when the Royal Irish company left Bloemfontein, and the 4th of June, when it entered Pretoria, there were few days when it was not under fire, and it was present at nearly all the actions in which the enemy was driven from one fortified position after another. Considering how constantly the company was engaged its casualties were not heavy: at Thabanchu, Captain Smyth and a private soldier were wounded; at Welkom, Private Murphy was killed by a shell, which striking him on the back of the head, hurled him ten feet out of the saddle; and in a fight between Heilbron and Lindley on May 20, Lieutenant M. H. E. Welch and several men were wounded by the burghers, who after driving in the rear-guard succeeded in getting between the main column and the right flank-guard, of which the Royal Irish company formed part.[326] In this skirmish, where Britons and Boers were fighting in a confused mass, Captain Smyth had a narrow escape: he had given up his horse to a wounded Royal Irishman when a mounted burgher tried to ride him down, but Smyth “dodged” the charge, and then laid his enemy low by a well-aimed shot. Though the company was exposed to heavy artillery fire at the battle of Diamond Hill, none of the officers and men were hit; and the same good fortune attended them for many weeks, for though as part of Hamilton’s (afterwards Hunter’s) Force, the 5th M.I. fought their way from Heidelberg to the Brandwater Basin, there were no casualties among them until July 28, when at Naauwpoort Nek Corporal Hogan was blown to pieces by a shell, and a private soldier was wounded. After Prinsloo’s surrender the company helped to escort two thousand prisoners to the railway, reaching Winburg on August 12, and in less than a fortnight was again “on trek,” this time in a column hurriedly despatched to the help of a detachment which, while reconnoitring in the Doornberg range, a few miles from Winburg, had been surrounded by a body of Boers five times its strength. This detachment, composed of South African volunteers and a handful of British militia, was hard pressed, and had lost nearly fifteen per cent of its numbers when the Boers retired on the approach of the relieving column. The only casualty among the Royal Irish was Captain Smyth, who was so severely hurt by a fall that he was obliged to go into hospital. Captain Brush replaced him in command of the company, at that moment only about thirty strong, the remainder of the men being either in hospital or stranded in various parts of South Africa waiting for remounts.

A few hours after the return of the troops to Winburg on the 27th of August, the town was attacked by the Boers, who finding it too strong to take, drew off and sent a portion of their force against Ladybrand. The 5th mounted infantry and all other available troops were at once concentrated at Bloemfontein, and after relieving Ladybrand hunted the commandos up and down the Orange Free State for many weeks. As a rule the burghers succeeded in eluding their pursuers, but on November 6, 1900, C. De Wet with a strong body of men was surprised near Bothaville by the 5th mounted infantry under Major K. E. Lean, Royal Warwickshire regiment, who when Major Hatchell was wounded at Jacobsdal had succeeded him in command. The fight began at dawn and lasted till midday, when the timely arrival of reinforcements broke down the enemy’s resistance; De Wet and the greater part of his followers retired in confusion, leaving behind them a detachment of brave men, who fought stubbornly until, threatened by a charge of bayonets, they hoisted the white flag. Our spoils of war included a 12-pr. Horse Artillery gun, taken by the Boers at Sannah’s Post, and one of the 15-prs. lost by us at Colenso; four Krupps, a pom-pom, a machine gun, much artillery and rifle ammunition, many horses and carts, and a hundred and thirty prisoners. The Boers lost twenty-five men killed and thirty wounded; our casualties were thirteen killed and thirty-three wounded, among whom were three of the Royal Irish.[327] Most of the company were hotly engaged on the right of the line throughout the action, often at very close range; while a few were attached to the guns, where three privates of the Royal Irish greatly distinguished themselves. One of the gun detachments was reduced to a single man, who served his piece alone; while Privates Radigan and Maher by their steady and well-aimed shooting kept back a party of the enemy who threatened to take the gun in flank. In another part of the field Private Murphy was conspicuous by his bravery in dragging a wounded officer from under a deadly fire. Two or three days later Major-General Knox thanked the whole of the company for their services at Bothaville, and gave especial praise to these three men for their behaviour during the fight.

Soon after the 5th regiment of mounted infantry had refitted at Kroonstad important news reached them: De Wet had recovered from his losses at Bothaville, and had appeared in the south-east of the Free State, where he was attacking Dewetsdorp, whose defenders were hard pressed. The regiment was sent off by rail to Edenburg, where it joined the relieving column, which unfortunately did not arrive in time to prevent the surrender of the garrison. The company for the next two months marched almost incessantly in the eastern half of the Free State, chasing De Wet, who, like the rainbow, was always “in the next field.” They had a couple of days’ rest at Christmas, when they bivouacked at a farm near Ficksburg, where, according to the diary of one of the officers, “the only liquid available for our dinner was of so substantial a nature that a mugful evaporated would leave enough solid matter to make a good-sized brick! We shared the only dam in the place with the horses, mules, and oxen. Tea was an impossibility, and the coffee we swallowed with our eyes shut.” Towards the end of January, 1901, it was discovered that De Wet was secretly concentrating his burghers for another attempt to raid into Cape Colony. Many columns, including that in which the 5th M.I. were serving, were directed against him and caught up his rear-guard at the Tabaksberg, where on the 29th of January the Boers fought a delaying action, in the course of which a handful of the Royal Irish earned praise first for their dash in “rushing” a kopje, and then for holding it against very heavy odds. The 5th were now ordered to Bloemfontein, and after a slow railway journey detrained at Bethulie to take part in the movements by which De Wet and his guerilla bands were to be expelled from Cape Colony. They were sent off to the north-west, and so hard was the marching that when the Royal Irish company reached Hopetown at the end of February, it had lost sixty out of the eighty horses it possessed a month before. In the course of the trek Private Maher again came to the fore by volunteering to cross a drift, in order to ascertain if the farther bank of the river was occupied by the enemy.

From Hopetown the company worked its way back to the east of the Free State, on one occasion bivouacking near Ramah, where it had smelt powder for the first time, on another halting at Hout Nek, where under Hamilton it had fought at the beginning of May, 1900. During the remainder of the war the 5th regiment of mounted infantry was chiefly employed in patrolling, escorting convoys, and clearing farms, duties which entailed incessant and monotonous work. The process of clearing a farm of food and forage was by no means easy, especially when it had to be done very quickly by a flank-guard under stringent orders to keep its proper place in the column. After a harassing day’s work, an officer in the regiment wrote in his diary that “to tell a flank-guard to clear farms on its march is all very well in theory, but when it comes to getting sacks of wheat or tons of loose mealies [_i.e._, Indian corn] out of a back room through several narrow doors or narrower windows, the flank-guard often finds itself left behind the rear-guard. Some people seem to think that in clearing a farm you have only to blow a whistle, and all the animals commit suicide and all the grain jumps into the nearest dam.” It must not be imagined that these duties were carried on unopposed. There were frequent skirmishes; in one of these affairs (October 17, 1901) a detachment of the Royal Irish company, finding itself surrounded by an overwhelming force of burghers in a place from which there was no possibility of fighting its way out, was compelled to lay down its arms after the officer in command and three soldiers had been wounded.

* * * * *

The British losses in South Africa were by no means heavy, considering that the war lasted two years and eight months, and that during a great part of the time more than a quarter of a million of troops were in the field. The casualties were--

Officers |Other ranks.| Total. (exclusive of staff).| | --------------------------------------------+------------+------- Killed 518 | 5,256 | 5,774 Died of wounds, disease, or | | from accident 554 | 15,614 | 16,168 Wounded 1851 | 20,978 | 22,829

The casualties in the Royal Irish regiment were as follows:[328]--

Officers--

Killed Captains S. G. French, W. Gloster, and F. L. Fosbery.

Died of wounds Captains J. B. S. Alderson, R. R. Arbuthnot, and Sir John Power, Bart. (5th battalion).

Died of disease Captain G. A. Ashfordby-Trenchard (5th battalion) and 2nd Lieutenant A. C. S. Fletcher.

Wounded Majors H. M. Hatchell and B. J. C. Doran; Captains E. F. Milner, R. A. Smyth, and T. Warwick-Williams (volunteer company); Lieutenants M. H. E. Welch and J. A. M. J. P. Kelly.

Severely injured Captain G. Hearn (4th battalion).

Other ranks--

| Died of | Died from | Died from | Killed.| wounds. | accidents. | disease. | Total. | | | | 27 | 15 | 6 | 61 | 109

Wounded, 128; severely injured, 2.

In recognition of the services of the Royal Irish regiment the words “South Africa 1900-02” were added to the battle honours on the Colours, and the following officers, non-commissioned officers, and private soldiers were mentioned in despatches and received special rewards for their services:--

To be Companion of the Order of the Bath--Lieutenant-Colonel H. W. N. Guinness.

To be Companions of the Distinguished Service Order--

Major H. M. Hatchell, Major A. S. Orr, Major and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel W. R. B. Doran, Major H. J. Downing, Captain E. H. E. Daniell, Lieutenant J. A. M. J. P. Kelly.

Promotions by brevet--

Major A. G. Chichester, Major A. N. Lysaght, and Major B. J. C. Doran to be Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonels.

Captain R. A. Smyth (mounted infantry) and Captain E. M. Panter-Downes to be Brevet-Majors.

To be Honorary Major--

Quartermaster and Honorary Captain F. P. Reger.

Mentioned in Despatches--

Major K. P. Apthorp, Captain E. F. Milner, Captain A. W. Brush, Lieutenants S. H. L. Galbraith, P. U. Vigors, E. C. Lloyd, and H. G. Gregorie (while serving in the Imperial Light Infantry before he joined the Royal Irish regiment).

The Victoria Cross was awarded to No. 3733 Private John Barry.

The Distinguished Conduct Medal was awarded to the following non-commissioned officers and men who were also mentioned in despatches:--

_Sergeant-Major_ J. Bergin. _Sergeants_ J. O’Connor, H. Loney, T. Connolly. _Lance-Corporals_ P. Doyle, E. Lovely, P. Dumphy, W. Tytherleigh. _Privates_ T. Baker, W. Sweeney, M. Maher, J. Murphy, J. Radigan.

Mentioned in Despatches--

_Colour-Sergeants_: T. Mahoney, J. Reddan, E. Murray.

_Sergeants_: H. Hall, T. McHale. _Lance-Sergeants_: C. Kennedy and T. Kelly.

_Corporals_: M. Kelly, J. Chaffey. _Lance-Corporals_: J. Moran, M. Tobin, J. Rathbone, C. Beresford.

_Privates_: J. Kavanagh, J. Kennedy, J. O’Neill, J. Ryan, J. McCullough, W. Patterson, M. Healey, H. Densmore (volunteer company).

_Special promotions_--

Corporal Wallace was appointed Lance-Sergeant for good service during the campaign, and Private P. Doyle was promoted to be Corporal to reward his excellent behaviour at the action of Slabbert’s Nek.

In the militia battalions affiliated to the Royal Irish the following were mentioned in despatches:--

Captain C. Langford, 4th battalion, serving with Imperial Yeomanry.

Captain A. B. Crabbe, 5th battalion, with Imperial Yeomanry.

Lance-Corporal J. Mahood, 5th battalion, while on railway patrol on May 16, 1901, “was suddenly fired at by a party of Boers who were mining the line. Though mortally wounded he continued to fire as long as he could hold his rifle.”

To all who served in South Africa one, and in many cases two medals were granted. Towards the end of 1900, it was believed officially in England that the war was virtually at an end, and a medal was struck, bearing the effigy of Queen Victoria, for issue to those who had taken part in the campaign. But after the war had dragged on for more than a year longer, it was decided to prepare a second medal with the effigy of King Edward VII., which was to be given to all who had served in the war for eighteen months and who had been in South Africa on January 1, 1902. Clasps were granted for various battles, sieges, and series of operations, and for service in certain specified areas during the years 1899-1900; and also for service in any part of South Africa during the years 1901-1902. The battle clasps obtained by the first battalion were for Wittebergen (_i.e._, Bethlehem, Slabbert’s Nek, Brandwater Basin), and Bergendal; the Royal Irish section of the 1st mounted infantry received clasps for the Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Driefontein, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, and Bergendal, and the Royal Irish company of the 5th mounted infantry for the Relief of Kimberley, Paardeberg, Johannesburg, Diamond Hill, and Wittebergen.

During the war the militia battalions of the regiment were embodied, and formed part of the garrison of the United Kingdom.[329]

In memory of the members of the regular or militia battalions who died in South Africa two memorials have been erected, one in St Patrick’s Cathedral, the other in the barracks at Clonmel. Both are described in Appendix 10.

It has been decided that this history should end with the close of the South African war, and therefore nothing will be said about the doings of the regiment since May, 1902. And indeed, a detailed record would show little beyond that unceasing training for active service for which the army and the nation have to thank the campaign in South Africa. During this period there have been only two incidents of note. In December, 1905, the first battalion had the honour of sending three officers and a hundred men to guard His Majesty George V. when, during his tour in India as Prince of Wales, he was encamped at Kala-Ki-Serai. Three years later the same battalion was mobilized for active service in the expedition against the Mohmands on the north-west frontier of India; but unfortunately for the Royal Irish, this hill campaign was brought to so speedy and successful a conclusion that they were not called up to the front.

During the two hundred and twenty-seven years of its existence the XVIIIth regiment has served in nearly all the important wars in which England has been engaged, and has earned undying laurels whenever it has had an opportunity of distinguishing itself. The roll of battle honours, long as it is, by no means commemorates all the achievements of the regiment: in the Low Countries the Royal Irish took a leading part in the storming, not only of Namur, but of many other fortresses; in the capture of the Schellenberg, in the engagement at Bunker’s Hill, in the defence of Toulon, and in the fighting in Corsica the regiment won great praise, but the names of none of these operations are emblazoned on its Colours. Early in its career, the regiment earned the reputation of being second to none in the British army. This reputation it has maintained to the present day; and the author is convinced that when in years to come, his successor writes the continuation of this history, it will be seen that the future generations of officers and men of the Royal Irish regiment have carried on the glorious traditions of the XVIIIth, and have rivalled, though they could not surpass the brilliant feats of arms which have been described in these pages.

APPENDIX 1.

THE MOVEMENTS OF THE XVIIITH ROYAL IRISH REGIMENT FROM THE TIME OF ITS FORMATION IN 1684 TO THE END OF THE WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA IN 1902, AND THE PLACES WHERE IT HAS BEEN QUARTERED IN TIME OF PEACE.

1685 Sailed for England; quartered at Chester, and then returned to Ireland. 1687 At the Curragh during the summer. 1688 At the Curragh during the summer: then sailed for England, and marched to London, thence to Salisbury; returned to Colnbrook near London, and in the winter quartered in Hertfordshire. 1689. April Hertfordshire to Chester; thence to Wales. 1689. August Ordered to Ireland on active service. (See Chapter I.) 1689 to 1691 On active service in Ireland. (See Chapter I.) 1691. December At Waterford and Youghal. 1692 Embarked at Waterford for Bristol; marched to Portsmouth and sailed to the Low Countries on active service, returning in the autumn to Bristol. 1693. May Bristol to Portsmouth where the regiment was embarked on men-of-war to serve as Marines; in the autumn it was landed, and after a short time at Norwich, returned to the Low Countries on active service. (See Chapter I.) 1694 to 1697 On active service in the Low Countries until the end of 1697, when the regiment was sent to Cork. (See Chapter I.) 1698 Moved from Cork to Waterford. 1699 Moved from Waterford to Dublin. 1700 Moved from Dublin to Kinsale. 1701 Ordered to Low Countries in anticipation of active service. 1702 to 1712 On active service in the Low Countries and Germany. (See Chapter II.) 1713-14 In garrison at Ghent. 1715 In the autumn part of the regiment returned to England, and was quartered at Gloucester. 1716. February The remainder arrived at Gloucester; later in the year the whole regiment moved from Gloucester to Oxford. 1717. May Moved to Portsmouth. 1718 Embarked at Portsmouth for Minorca. 1727 A detachment was sent from Minorca to reinforce the garrison of Gibraltar during the siege of 1727. (See Chapter III.) 1727 to 1741 At Minorca. 1742 Embarked at Minorca for Portsmouth; quartered on arrival in and around Taunton. 1743 Taunton to Exeter and Plymouth. 1744 Exeter and Plymouth to the neighbourhood of Hounslow and thence to Fareham. 1745 To the Low Countries on active service (see Chapter III.); returned to England in the autumn and quartered at Dartford. 1746. March Dartford to Gravesend, where the regiment embarked for Scotland, but arrived too late to take part in the suppression of the Jacobite rising. Leith to Nairn, Inverness, and Elgin. 1747 Concentrated for the summer at Fort Augustus; during the winter quartered at Edinburgh and Stirling. 1748 Edinburgh and Stirling to Berwick, Newcastle, and Carlisle, and thence to Glasgow. 1749. February Glasgow to Ireland; stationed at Enniskillen and Ballyshannon. 1750 At Kinsale. 1751 At Cork. 1752 At Waterford. 1753 At Dublin. 1754 At Londonderry and Ballyshannon. 1755. April Embarked for Liverpool; marched to Berwick, in October to Edinburgh. 1756. May Edinburgh to Fort William, with detachments in the Highlands. 1757 Returned to Ireland. 1758 to 1766 In Ireland. 1767 Ireland to Philadelphia, North America. 1775 On active service in North America. (See Chapter III.) 1776 North America to England; quartered at Dover. 1777 At Dover. 1778 At Coxheath encampment. 1779 At Warley encampment. 1780 At the encampments at Finchley, and “Hyde Park in London.” 1782 England to Jersey and Guernsey. 1783. July Guernsey to Portsmouth, and in October to Gibraltar. 1784 to 1792 At Gibraltar. 1793 Embarked at Gibraltar for active service at Toulon. (See Chapter IV.) 1794 to 1797 On active service in the Mediterranean. 1798-1799 At Gibraltar. 1800-1801 On active service in the Mediterranean. (See Chapter IV.) 1802 In the summer embarked at Elba for Cork, where they landed on August 29th; quartered at Armagh. 1803 In the summer ordered from Armagh to Newry, where a second battalion was raised. Both battalions were quartered in Scotland during the autumn of 1803, at Edinburgh, Haddington, and Dunbar. 1804 In the summer both battalions sent to the camp on Barham Downs near Canterbury; the _second battalion_ sent later in the year to Jersey. 1805. January _First battalion_ embarked for Jamaica, where it arrived at the end of April or beginning of May. 1806 _First battalion_ in Jamaica; _second battalion_ in Jersey. 1807 _First battalion_ in Jamaica; _second battalion_ embarked for West Indies and was stationed at the island of Curaçoa. 1808 No change of stations. 1809. June 7th _First battalion_ from Jamaica to the Island of San Domingo (see Chapter IV.) on active service and back to Jamaica; _second battalion_ at Curaçoa. 1810 _First battalion_ at Jamaica: _second battalion_ returned to England. 1811 _First battalion_ at Jamaica: _second battalion_ ordered to Jersey. 1812 to 1813 No change of stations. 1814 _First battalion_ at Jamaica: _second battalion_ disbanded. 1815-16 The regiment at Jamaica. 1817 Returned to England, landing in March, and was stationed at Brighton, Chatham, Sheerness, and finally at Hilsea Barracks. 1818 Hilsea Barracks to Haslar and Gosport; in December returned to Ireland, landing at Cork, and was stationed at Fermoy. 1819 January Fermoy to Waterford, Wexford, Carlow, Duncannon Fort, Kilkenny. 1820. July Ordered to Cork. 1821. February Cork to Malta. 1824. May-June Malta to Ionian Isles. 1825 to 1831 In the Ionian Isles. 1832. February 6 Embarked for Portsmouth; landed on March 7th, and marched to Weedon, whence a Wing was sent in July to Tynemouth and Sheffield; the remainder of the regiment followed soon afterwards to Ashton. Later in the year the regiment sent detachments to Wigan, Chester, and Mold. 1833 August Headquarters ordered to Salford Barracks, Manchester, where the detachments rejoined. 1834. May 8 Manchester to Dublin. ” October Dublin to Limerick, with detachments at Newcastle, Killaloe, Tipperary, Tarbert Fort, Carrick Island, and New Port. ” August Limerick to Birr. 1836. March Birr to Athlone, with detachments at Roscommon and Shannon Bridge. ” Nov. 15 Detachment of the regiment embarked at Cork for Ceylon. 1837 to 1840 ” Jan. 10 Headquarters and remainder of regiment embarked at Cork for Ceylon. ” April 10 The detachment arrived in Ceylon. ” May 31 Headquarters and remainder of regiment arrived in Ceylon; regiment stationed at Colombo with detachment at Point de Galle; later headquarters moved to Trincomalee. 1840. May 1 Headquarters and part of regiment embarked for the China war, followed shortly by the remainder of the XVIIIth. (See Chapter V.) On active service. 1841 On active service. 1842 On active service till peace signed: then quartered at Chusan and Kulangsu. 1845. May Concentrated at Hong Kong. 1846 At Hong Kong. 1847 At Hong Kong, and for a few days on active service in the Canton river. ” Nov. 20 Embarked for Calcutta. 1848. January 10 Landed at Calcutta and quartered at Fort William, with a detachment at Dum-Dum. ” Dec. 19 Headquarters and the greater part of regiment embarked on river steamers for Allahabad, whither they had been preceded by a detachment. 1849. Jan. 22 Headquarters arrived at Allahabad; ordered to Umballa. ” March 24 Arrived at Umballa. ” Dec. 25 Began the march to Meerut. 1850. Jan. 4 Arrived at Meerut; detachment sent to Cawnpore. 1850. Oct. 14 Began the march to Allahabad. ” Nov. 21 Arrived at Allahabad. ” Nov. 22 A wing of the regiment embarked at Allahabad for Calcutta. ” Dec. 14 Arrived at Calcutta. 1851. January 22 Headquarters and the other wing embarked at Allahabad for Calcutta. ” Feb. 15 Arrived at Calcutta. 1852. Jan. 19 Headquarters and a wing of the regiment embarked for Burma on active service. (See Chapter VI.) ” March 14 The remainder of the regiment followed. 1853 On active service in Burma; returned in November to Calcutta. ” Dec. 27 Embarked in four transports for England. 1854. May-June Arrived in England: stationed at Chatham with a detachment at Canterbury, and for a short time also at Windsor Castle and Wellington Barracks, London. ” Dec. 8 Embarked for active service in the Crimea. (See