War On The Veldt

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 11 (Supplement)

War On The Veldt

"THE column is early afoot. The ■I advance guard and mounted flanks have duly filed off :into position; the outposts are recalled; the main body forms . into procession. Interpreters, with supply wagons and field gun. outfits, gradually break camp and stream slowly off into the blackness that comes before the dawn. Tlieir lead is headed in the direction the Boer general lias selected for a. decision. No fences or other hindrances, nothing but the open veldt. Progress is uninterrupted' until morning conies, when enemy snipers appear, and become busy, taking pot shots at the advance guard and flanking units from numerous vantage points; passing 011 ahead 011 -their fleet mounts to take up other positions to repeat their performance. Tlio column plods remorselessly— almost unmindfully along. About nine ack einiiia the British force of about 1500 men, has arrived at a point opposite the Boer laager, which, though still hidden from view, is known to be situated on rising ground backed by a moderately sized hilL Here a halt is called. <S> —

A Memory of South , African Days

Tho mounted men, some 400 New Zealariders and Australians, are ; dressed in squadrons to the front; .each .squadron in line and paced about two hundred yards .behind each other; four squadrons in all. The infantry regiments are in loose formation in the rear of these. Our general is evidently a believer in mass psychology. Ho shows the Boers the works. The. Boer laager is about a mile away within quite easy range of the modern magazine rifle. The characteristic "flipflop" of mauser rifle fire now swells, and is joined by the crackle of machineguns. Bullets fly in earnest and men drop hero and there, their horses, now riderless, • plunge madly about; are caught and taken from the lines. With a heavy "boom" and a succeeding "gr-r-r-umpli" a'lyddite shell, from the British guns, pitches across the intervening distance landing right 011 the spo<t'froni which a Boer had been making at the lines of colonial horsemen, using a heavy calibre elephant gun, charged with black powder, the smoke from which clearly portrays his position to the watching English . gunners.

. The explosion of .the lyddite shells tears "a • crater out of the rocky ground. ..The heavy, ' poisonous-looking yellow fumes spread slowly "over the ground like an evil-blanket of fog. Now the" 15-pounders join, 'and shell after shell speeds on its way, clearing everything. Strangely enough, though the Boer is well supplied with field guns—which are to be taken from him this day—no reply from these is made. "Not much of a life—this," grumbles long Sam next door a 6 he ducks liis head after a particularly close one lias whizzed by. "Time we were moving forword—then we'd be jakealoo." The desired order conies. The colonials advance to the attack in squadrons. 011 they thunder, and, as they advance, the opposing rifle fire dies away. The slim Boer is away on his paarde, in hurried retreat. Our spear-head thrust expands itself in the empty air; that is so far as decisive hand-to-hand combat is concerned. Is the Boer beaten? No. Not by a jugful. He has just moved on a bit! 4i He who fights and runs away will live to fight again another day." Another day comes, and other hills are stormed in just the same manner. Still Brother Boer emerges; most times as a fugitive, but undismayed; sometimes victorious and spectacular.

Wo return to the base laden with the spoils, live stock, prisoners, wagons, Held guns, and are assailed on all sides by the waspisli Boer out-riders, fearless men of the mobile commandos we have just routed, who force the- column to halt time and again to defend itself. The Boers taught adaptable frontier generals a new lesson in warfare in those days of 1900. F. W. WILKIN", Wellington.