The Last Horseman (17 page)

The Irishmen swore and prayed in equal measure. It had been a two-mile march under fire.

‘Come on, come on, for Christ’s sake,’ Flynn muttered as the Royal Irish trudged on in closed formation around the base of the first hill. Rifle fire rattled from unseen Boers scattered among the rocks and shrubs; men fell, abandoned in their agony as the close-ordered men were forced to skirt a defile and face more sniper fire.

‘I’m fucked if I’m marching to my death,’ someone muttered, breath rasping with exertion and fear. ‘Come on! Open order. Come on. Jeezus! We’re like pigs to the slaughter! What the fuck are they waiting for?’

Men’s screams echoed down the line as they fell. An officer tumbled from his horse; the beast bucked free and ran. As each company reached their position they were sent up the hill, too narrow an attack to be effective, but a chance to break free from the lethal formation.

Men ducked as shellfire exploded above them, but kept marching until ordered otherwise. Shell bursts scoured the road ahead, forcing the column to falter; men dived for whatever cover they could find. Officers and NCOs bellowed their commands above the roar of explosions. Behind them a field artillery howitzer suddenly roared and laid shrapnel on to the high ground.

Baxter spurred his horse on at the head of the formation. He drew fire but miraculously was not hit. Whistles blew and trumpet calls finally allowed the men to abandon their suicidal formation. Cries of command echoed up and down the columns.
Open order! Open order! Thirty paces!

They burst free like pigeons from a cage and quickly ran into a single extended line, each man putting thirty yards’ distance between himself and the next man, stumbling and jumping over their dead. Officers ran with them, corporals and sergeants staying with their sections and platoons, urging them to be steady. They were exposed from kopjes on their left and a lethal crossfire tore into them. They were brought down like ducks at a fairground shooting gallery. Then a howitzer found the Boers and their shells bought respite as the Royal Irish advanced. Progress would be agonizingly slow across the harsh landscape and although the morning was wet and cool following a rainstorm, the dusty ground had turned to a boot-hugging clay. Boer artillery had yet to be silenced, their 75-mm guns puffing out a lethal bombardment that had crept to within striking distance of the soldiers. The air hummed with shellfire. Shrapnel burst in all directions. Pockets of men fell as they held their ground; others steeled themselves for the dash across the open before they reached the higher ground of the rising hills that rolled back upon themselves like a gathering tide. No sooner would the men who survived the initial assault claim the first ridge than they would have to press on, fight the entrenched sharpshooters on the reverse slope and then start the process again against the second rising hill. The flanking hills were under siege by other regiments that had greater artillery support, but the Royal Irish were to go down the throat and dig out the Boers with rifle and bayonet.

Officers, pistol in hand, led the assault. Lawrence Baxter craved water, his mouth already dry with fear. But he held his ground and kept his eyes on the broken hills several hundred yards away. He flinched when shells exploded in no man’s land, but felt shame each time that he did. Squaring his shoulders to try and show the troops behind him that they could rely on him to lead them forward he watched as Colonel Baxter guided his horse along the line of soldiers, shouting over the increasing noise.

‘All right, lads, you wanted a fight, here it is!’

A salvo of British artillery peppered the distant hills.

‘We will advance in extended line.’ The men’s fear of what seemed to be a hopeless assault rippled like a caterpillar across their backs. Baxter rode to their front and stood in his stirrups, so all could see him, roaring so that all could hear: ‘Because those are our orders!’

He beckoned his orderly forward, who took the horse from him. Colonel Alex Baxter would lead his battalion from the front, on foot. ‘The battalion will advance!’

The barrage splintered the air as they ran across the exposed plateau. Lung-bursting fear drove them forward. If they could run hard and fast enough they would get beneath the artillery shells before the Boers could adjust their guns. Soldiers fell, their bodies ripped by shrapnel; dying men screamed and squirmed in agony; others lay contorted from the violence inflicted on them. There was no time to stop for those who survived; the rest just had to get through the smoke and terror. Above it all the colonel’s voice bellowed back and forth, urging his men on. Lawrence Baxter could barely keep pace as soldiers began to pass him, their hands clasping the wooden stock of their rifles, desperate to plunge the twelve-inch blade of their bayonets into any damned
boojer
that they could find. The urge to kill had overtaken their fear of dying. Men screamed with blood lust. None looked anywhere other than straight ahead; men disappeared in a storm of explosions. Wet shreds of a man splattered Lieutenant Baxter. He gasped in horror and smeared the blood from his face; tears stung his cheeks and he faltered. But then he felt raw hatred flood through him. The banshee wails of attacking men rang in his ears as he added to them his own primal scream.

*

Liam’s men sheltered in the boulder-strewn hillside, huddled with men from other commandos. The British artillery had concentrated on the distant ridges, not on these unseen men well concealed on the forward slopes behind slabs of rocks and shrubbery. Old and young alike waited, shoulder to shoulder, knowing that their own were being killed behind them. Explosions thundered down the hillsides, clouds of grey and black smoke from the impact of the high explosive lyddite shells that killed anything within a hundred yards. Distant figures of men engulfed in flames had fallen from the top of the hills. It would not be long before the Boer artillery fell silent, forced into retreat to save their guns. And that would leave the commandos alone to stop the British assault.

Colonel Baxter’s Irish had faltered under the Boer’s mind-numbing artillery fire and fallen back. Smashed bodies stained the veld. Men desperately sought cover that wasn’t there, pressing their faces into the coarse dirt, hunched behind anthills or lying, barely moving, scraping dirt with their mess tins into a shallow sangar in front of their faces. No banter escaped any man’s lips, but whispered prayers for God’s forgiveness were common enough.

Colonel Baxter clawed the ground.

‘Major Drew!’ He called for his second in command.

Ten yards behind Baxter’s right shoulder a dust-covered khaki-clad figure dared rise from the ground, zigzagged towards the colonel and then threw himself down.

‘Guns are falling silent, Henry,’ Baxter said. ‘We must make up lost ground and push on. Take your company on the flank before the Boers regroup and strengthen their positions. They’ll have more men in trenches than we realize and behind every damned boulder. We’ve got this far. We must not lose momentum again.’

‘I have no company commanders left, sir, only junior officers.’

Baxter knew the carnage that lay behind him. He had to ask the question but he dreaded the man’s answer: ‘My son?’

‘Took command of C Company.’

There was no hesitation in Baxter’s order: ‘Take him.’

Both men knew that survival that day might be nothing short of a miracle. Major Drew nodded, got to his feet and ran back.

Colonel Baxter looked to where his men lay like mounds of dust. The smoke from the artillery shells lingered in the dry, still air. Perhaps the drifting smoke might give them a few precious minutes before the Boer marksmen picked their targets.

He stood and called to his men, turning his back to the hidden enemy, and then pulled the khaki cover from the puggaree on his helmet, exposing the regiment’s band of colour.

‘All right, the Irish, let’s have you. Come on, my boys. Put a brave face on it. We’ve only to go forward. Who’s with me? Who’ll race me to the top of that damned hill?’

Frightened, but inspired, the men clambered up from their kneeling and lying positions. Shots began to buzz and crack. Adrenaline-fuelled fear brought them to their feet. Flynn gripped his rifle and shook it at Baxter.

‘You’re a mad bastard you are, colonel, and so must I be, by God!’

‘Flynn! You’ll be on field punishment!’ shouted Sergeant McCory.

‘Damned if I will, hey, colonel?’

Baxter laughed: ‘Damned if any of us will, lad. Come on the Irish! Come on!’

He turned and ran for the misshapen hill with the roar of his men’s cries bellowing behind him like a storm coming off the wild Irish Sea.

Seven hundred yards, and then six.

As the drifting smoke cleared and the artillery fell silent, the Irish emerged howling for the blood of their enemy. Liam and the others waited until the khaki-clad figures were two hundred yards from their positions and then, from somewhere on the hillside, one of the senior Boer commanders shouted the order to fire.

*

Barely a few hundred yards from the first line of Boer positions the Royal Irish flattened themselves into the dirt, scrambling to push whatever rocks they could find in front of them to deflect the Mausers’ bullets. British artillery boomed again, shells whooshing overhead as the naval guns fired beyond the Royal Irish positions, trying to knock out the Boer guns. The punishing explosions beat at a man’s skull, forcing tiredness into exhaustion. As night fell so did the artillery fire. Occasionally shots rang out as Boers listened for men’s voices in the darkness and fired in their direction. Cold, stiff and exhausted, the attacking troops took advantage of the darkness and remained on their bellies, pushing more rocks in front of their faces. Scattered groups of men huddled in the drizzle that only added to their misery. They stayed mostly silent and unmoving, thankful for the rest but desperate for water. Twelve hours of hard fighting across the broken ground had taken its toll on them all.

The wounded moaned and cried as they lay in no man’s land, abandoned to their torment. Perhaps there was a small mercy in the drizzle: it might ease their thirst and cool their fever. No one could do anything to help them, and silence crept across the ground as they finally succumbed to their hurts.

‘They need a truce, for Christ’s sake,’ muttered Mulraney in little more than a whisper, fearful that his voice might carry and attract a Boer sniper. They could not be seen but the Boers knew roughly where the men had gone to ground. ‘Give them poor buggers a chance. It’s a heartless place of misery right enough. Not a stretcher-bearer or chaplain to be had for love or money.’

‘You’re complaining, are you?’ said a slightly built Dubliner, hugging his rifle to his chest as he lay crooked behind a few stones he had managed to gather for protection. ‘You don’t know when you’re well off.’

Mulraney raised his face as the first soft rain began to fall. ‘Jesus on the Cross, you’d think the day hadn’t been bad enough, now the angels are pissing on me.’ He sighed. ‘Still, it’ll be a soft old day tomorrow. Not too hot. If I’m to run up this bloody mountain best to be done with a bit of moisture on m’face.’

‘Sweat’s not good enough for you, Mulraney?’ said another.

‘That’s all down my back,’ he answered.

‘Did anyone see the colonel get into cover?’ someone asked.

‘Cover. As bare-arsed as a billiard table,’ one of the men muttered.

‘Last I saw of him he was running up there over to the left. Flynn went down, I think, though I can’t be sure,’ said the Dubliner.

‘Flynn?’ said Mulraney.

‘Aye.’

‘Jeezus, he owes me, y’know. We had a bet.’

‘On what? A bloody horse race?’

‘On who would get killed first,’ Mulraney answered. ‘I hope he’s left the wager in his kitbag down at the camp.’

‘He wasn’t hit,’ one of the men said, ‘he tripped. Went arse over tit.’

‘Now isn’t that just like him?’ said Mulraney. ‘Still, maybe he broke his neck. There might still be a few bob in it.’ He sighed. ‘You’d think the Naval Brigade with their great bloody booming guns would’ve knocked these
boojers
off their perch by now,’ he added in barely a whisper.

One of their group coughed, the damp air congealing the dust from the day’s efforts into his chest. He hawked and spat and a sudden crack of a rifle shot made them press their faces into the dirt even though the bullet tore harmlessly above their heads. Two more shots came out of the darkness, their bullets striking stone, sparking like a flint.

‘Mother of God. Don’t even breathe. I swear those bastards have cat’s eyes,’ whispered Mulraney.

No one spoke for a minute, but it was impossible not to hear the distressing moans from the wounded that haunted the night.

‘Some of them Dutchies are hurtin’ an’ all,’ said a man from another section who, like many others, had joined any Royal Irish soldiers found among the scattered troops.

‘And I’m supposed to feel for them, am I?’ said Mulraney. ‘I’ve seen some of our boys trying to help a wounded Dutchy and the minute they turned their back took a bullet for their trouble. Fucking treacherous bastards, the lot of ’em. Finish ’em off is what I say – bayonet or bullet – if you’ve a mind to save your own neck. By first light most of ’em will be dead with any luck. Fewer snipers to worry about.’

A sudden scuffling had them snatching at their weapons. ‘Quiet!’ hissed Sergeant McCory. ‘You’re like bloody washerwomen. Mulraney, is that yourself there?’

‘Sergeant,’ Mulraney said, happy for once to see the three-striper, ‘what’s happenin’? Much more of this come first light and we’ll be rat food.’

‘How many men here?’ McCory whispered, unable to see the bodies that lay scattered around him. They muttered their names. Nine men clinging by their eyelids to the sloping terrace.

‘Lancs and Yorks are coming up in support to try and outflank ’em. We’re going straight at them, weed the bastards out with the bayonet. Our field guns are fucked, horses and gunners dead where they stood, so between here and the top of that hill we’re on our own. Navy will use their long guns to hit the farthest ridge but there’s no close support. Sorry, lads, there’s not much good news.’