RHENOSTER KOP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CV, Issue 12398, 11 January 1901, Page 2

RHENOSTER KOP.

. FURTHER DETAILS. , Trooper A. Syme, of tlbje Third Contingent, writing to las parents 'of tie Rhanoster Kop affair, states that the column engaged comprised the Second and Third Com tingonts, four guns of the 38th Battery Royal Artillery, Victorian and Queensland Bushmen, Yeomanry, and two pom-poms, under Brigadier-General Plumer, and the West Riding and Munster Fusiliers regiments and naval guns, under General Paget. On the Sunday (Nov. 25) previous to the big engagement, the Australian Bushmen, working on the flanks, captured a number of prisonous and 1000-cattle. Each day there was a skirmish with the enemy, and <Jn Nov. 28 the Field Artillery, escorted by the New Zealanders, opened fire on a kopje occupied by a Boer gun, but could not reach it, while the enemy’s nine-poundler Krupp sent shell after shell.right among the New Zealanders and the guns, luckily without doing'any damage. Paget’s naval guns then came up and engaged the Boer -gun until dark, but tho enemy took their guilt to a rough kopje where it could! not he reached. Next' day came the attack on .Rbeiwster Kop.' The New Zealanders moved out at four o’clock, Nm 1 Company of the Third Contingent acting as advance guard, and were shelled. After this, writes Trooper ■Syime, there was some sharp rifle fir© ahead, and it appears our advance guard had dismounted and was moving up to a crest when Lieutenant Tucker was shot in the leg. The advance guard then lay down, and the pom-poms galloped into action. We were dismounted and doubled forward, but soon ■came to a walk, and then had to travel on our hands and knees till we got just near the sky-line. It was at this time that poor young George Hyde was shot dead. It must have been about a quarter-past five in the morning when we got to our positions! Nearly all the casualties happened before nine in the morning, as our men did not know exactly -where to fire, and as they put their heads up the Boers were usually waiting for them. Sergeant Russell was killed just as .he got up and fired. Jack Anderson spotted.a Boer among the rocks, and fired several shots at him, but as he-got up'to fire again the Boer got him in the thigh. Several of his mates near him carried .him out under a hot fire, but none of them got hit. The only words that L heard along the line all day were: “ Pass the word for the doctor, and that came very often. The doctors were very! game, doing their work under, very hot fire, The only cover anybody got all . along the line was grass about six inches high. Out of . twenty men in our section two were killed and two wounded, including our . doctor. When the guns and our lines got the range the Boers must have had a terribly hot time, as shell after shell and thousands of- bullets went right in among the!rocks held by them. To the rear of the line, of kopjes which formed the Boer position was about a mile of flat -counitry commanded by our-guns, and if the Boers had. , retired we could have blown them ..to pieces. After-we got the range we, kept •the Boer fire down a great deal, and they . must have suffered heavily, although they •had good.cover.’ When the* infantry . charging a kopje Whe firing-' with’ maxims, rifles and heavy guns was terrific. The West Riding regiment had the heaviest casualties. .While they, were charging their colonel'wasshot through the ankle,- and his men went to carry him out, but the Boers shot them nearly all down, besides prititing two more bullets, into the colonel and killing him. The Boers even shot the stretcher-bearers, who did not carry arms-when they went to their colonel. It was terrible lying down in the hot. sun,' and we, had no water tO about- eleven, when a chap named Butler, who-belongs to the Second Contingent, and is in the B Battery, crawled up to us with several bottles' of water and some coffee-. The first time we get a show we are all going to shout for- Butler. The firing was very quiet about- mid-day, and several of us went to sleep. When I awoke, about 1 p.m., there was heavy firing on, and it lasted all the rest of the day. Every now and-then a bullet would strike the ground near us. .Near sunset the Boers must have been reinforced, and tunned the nine-pounder and a pom-pom on. to the Second Contingent, which had to retire. The Boers charged our gunsfi which gave them a couple of founds of .case,- a nd then limbered up and galloped away. The Boers then got their pom-pom and gun on to us, sending shells right among us,, and we retired, a few yards at a time, the Boers keeping up a heavy rifle fire as well. All the time we could hear the Boers talking quite plainly. We left all the dead where they fell that night, and marched back to camp at a quarter-past eleven.. Next-morning we started out at 1 a.m., and expected the Boers-to attack, but. at daybreak nothing was to be seen of them. I had a look at the kopjes which the Boers held, and the rocks had the faces completely smashed off by our shells.