THE THIRD CONTINGENT

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6827, 21 June 1900, Page 4

THE THIRD CONTINGENT

« MARCH TO ALIWAL NORTH. EIRST ENCOUNTERS WITH THE lINEMY. LIGHTING ON THE ROAD TO WEPENER. Hardships of a soldier's life. The following extracts have b«ai taken from letters written at different times by Saddler Ellison, of the Third Contingent, fo a friend in ChristchTirch:— ' ON THE MARCH. • We have been on the march since April 9, and it is now May 3, I think, so that I .; have had no time for .writing, this being the • Brat opportunity since we left East London. We are, at the time of writing, marching from a small town named Smffihfield to BethuHe Bridge, a distance of about forty miles. We are having a rather rough time of it, and I can tell you I do not oaro how Goon the war is over. We are now on daily rations of one ship's biscuit and. half a tin of bully beef, and 1 wonder how this, m -addition -to sleeping out at nigihts, would . suit some of the Christchurch boys. FROM EAST LONDON TO ALIWAL NORTH. After stopping at East London, for two weeks we received word to entrain for Aliwal North, about 270 miles up. We were very soon ready to start, and had a good journey up, at somo of the statioins getting hot coffee and cakes. Among tie stations we passed were Queenstown, Burghersdprp, Stormberg, Cathcart, and Fort Jackson, so, if. you look at the map you can see the road We took. The scenery is not -wrath mentioning, and only a few sheep and cattle amd to odd farmhouse were to be seen. Many : of the bridges we crossed had been blown up and repaired, a picket of sixteen .men being left to guard each bridge. We passed on the way a train load of Boer prisoners going to. East London, "and also saw signs of the recent engagements at Stormberg and Burghersdorp. We were in the train (covered trucks) for two nights and days, expecting to attack which never came. THE CAMP AT ALIWAL NORTH. without molesa big camp of infantry, artillery, and mount; ed men, about a mile out of the town. " Fif i ty members of No. 2 Company went away fa an escort for ammunition waggons to . Wepener, a small town which we eventually reached. The Boers were all round us a few miles out, trying to destroy the bridge over i the Orange River, so as to prevent our ■■ troops entering the Free State. An expected attack on Good Friday did not come off. She nights are dreadfully cold, and we had . a rough time sleeping out in our overcoats. Xjre* on sentry duty for two hours witih £««B- : -to challenge everybody twice, and tfl faded to receive a satisfactory answer . . toy instructions were to shoot. Ibis order there was no necessity to carry cart, as all I Ae people in this town Bad to be inside by Hght o clock. • ; IK) TBE RELIEF OF WEPEaSIER. -We left Aliwal North in company with KMO infantry, including the Border Horse, feae Queenstown Mounted' Infantry BraWa Horse, the Malta Mounted Infantry, tod a few field guns. We had a slight sku--nmh during fas gj. sfc oJ jj^^l *i»ut 200 Boars. • -After camping at a small town named pouxville, we set out on a few days' march ux order to relieve Wepener, where there gad been a lot of fighting. It was not till fine following Saturday tha* we found the Aenty again. ; HARDSHIPS ENCOUNTERED. ■ Tiere has been a lot of sickness amongst oa, owing to the rough nature of the life flria kmd of travelling entails, and we have left men at almost every town. The horses, «teo, .suffer much, owing to the scarcity of feed and the hard work they have to en- . toe. We left two saddlers 'in the East Umdon Hospital, so I have only one left ifcxw-j but I have no chance of doing any gwrk whale on the march. We are getting fed better at the time I am writing, from Bloemfontein, for we get plenty of fresh button and beef, and sometimes geese or fowls— no biscuits now. We get a kind of aeal served, which we make into pancakes Jnd so on. But we were nearly starved on -.: *ra? way to Wepener. All our cooks have £raoe— «ome joined other troops, and some left. They could not cook when we were £ijtihe march, so we have to cook for ourV F* ves ' /Firewood is veiy scarce; we have to cut % out of fences, and it is fun to see 2*e men coming in at night with hear© 6i ttats in front of their saddles. -jThe country here is smothered with ant-! *33a.r You may see some in pictures of the &*' they are very handy for cooking. Dig a hole down, and one in the side, and fou have a fine fireplace. fiNGAGEMENT AT BUSHMAN'S KOP. .As I said, we found t&e enemy on Satttr. fay, a week after Easter, and I was among 2» first who went oiio on Sunday m#rning io start the engagement;. The name of the dace is Bushman's Kop, and we found the Boos entrenched on a high, stony hill. lie Border Horse and No. 1 Company of fe«r Zealandera were sent "to attack the j front, and were afterwards employed at '> xouihig, -while our big guna opened fire on •' fl» liia at about 4000 yards. ' The inianitry i •enfc as-close as possible, and did a bit of ! £w»tiTig- Onr guns, and those of the Boeis, were at it all day. j In the evening the mounted men had col- j fected cm a hill for rest, andi were moving iff to camp, when. 4 shell fell just behind *s. ' Wo went, off at a trot, when anotherr 2seH iefi behind us again. Had we been tedfchsg instead of trotting, it would have faEsn in our midst, and blown some of us «£.. . We galloped njund a hill, dismounted, , fcmi -weh± into action at once. Some Boera aniter cover of the big gun fire had crossed '[ & -raiQey to a small hill near us, and opened fire. We had a. hill to climb, and then to ealk aixroi; half a. mile -under fire before we got to shatter., and started fire. My section J iras cm t&e extreme right, and the Boera ! «rere sending- shell after shell at us, but fibey were going too wide. Four fen close to me, -vrithin thirty yards, and seat stones sad eaxth flying. The ballets were singing | «rer our heads, aad aili round us. My ifFiH'd ! libsy d© mske a noisa — " phjg," •".fena." I dca't mind the bullets Bo much, . but I cannot stssid those shells ; £hey fail! -with a spitcfoi hum, and th«i j Bang tibey ge, and sead siausa and earth \ flying in &U directions. We got under cover behind some* on tfcs «3g« of tire hill, ted sfraanfcßil shooting. You cannot see the tßoers:; you earn only gwss where they are. JThty tk& smokeless pooler, and you can , .' ©illy, hear ••Che', bang "frf their rifles-.. You, ' ' fciglvt be scooting all day at fcb.em aiai never, j ises ana. One Beer got oat' an tie rigfct •'. Baar a bssik, and was snapping away at Us for a long time., till some on«. spotted him, jms e% tot of nsput in a volley, and h* gred n-9 more. We were sho&ting fa? ofeettt \wo hwHiSj, ti& -W iras uearbr vrh&n

the Boers left cover and cleared. You should have heard tihe fire we opened on them as soon as they (Showed themselves. It was awful. We killed six and wounded a lot, but had none of our men killed. One man's horse got a bullet through the saddle and- into his ribs, but it was extracted next day. There were some narrow escapes. ANOTHER ENCOUNTER AND ANOTHER VICTORY. We left a picket on the hill and went back to camp, and next day moved towards Wepener. We came on the .enemy again on the following Tuesday. I had been out all night on a hill, with about thirty others^ doing sentry duty. We had jus-fc come into camp and started to cook breakfast, at about 6 a.m., when we were ordered out again, for the enemy had been found on another hill. We went out and r walked a long way over some rough country, before we found them. The Border Horse had already engaged the enemy, but our division did not get near enough to do any shooting, so we watched the fight from start to finish. A few big guns, fifteenpounders, went round on the right of the onemv and opened fire. Some of the North Islanders and Brabant's Horse were With the artillery, and while riding out to try and get round to the rear of the Boer position, were surprised and had to gallop for it, but. not before four or five had been shot and several wounded. I forgot to mention that Lord Kitchener was with us when we left Aliwal North, but went back, and we were at the time of this engagement under General Brabant. Our guns shelled the Boers till evening, then we (No. 1 Company) were ordered to take the hill. Off we went, and after galloping for some way, dismounted and climbed the hill, keeping under cover as much, as possible. It took us about one hour to get up, for it was very rough and steep, but when we got to the top the enemy had cleared, so we had our trouble for nothing. RELIEF OF WEPENER AND THE MARCH ON SMITHFIELD. We reached Wepener on Wednesday, and expected a big fight there, but found that the enemy had lef o when they knew that we were coming. We stopped there two days, and left on Saturday for Smithfield, about forty miles off. After travelling for a few days we camped a few miks from the town at about 7 p.m., and were off again at fen minutes to one in the 'morning, to try to surprise the Boers. Wo rode till nearly daybreak, reaching i»be- place just as it was getting light. .We sent Out divisions all round the town, and the men hid themselves in different hills, having, orders to let anyone go in, but to let none out. My mate and I captured the first two prisoners caught by any of the Tihird Contingent. In the meantime two others had been caught, so we marched them off to Major Jowsey, who had gone into the town. Just as we reached the town shoda were heard and bullets began to fly about us. Just then out came the Major and his men at full gallop, while bullets were falling about them. We handed our prisoners over to Major Jowsey, and he com- < plimented us on our capture. We discov-' ered late in the day that the shots had been fired by our own men, who had mistaken us for Boers. We stopped there all day, and camped ttere tiwit night. W« released, some English prisoners from the gaol in Smith-field,-and left next morning for BethuEe Bridge, some forty miles away. On Saturday, May 5, we were to entrain for Bloemfontein, but had to wait till Sunday, May 6. NEWS OP THE FIRST CONTINGENT. At Spriugfontein. we met a few of the First Contingent They say that there are only a few of the First at the front ; some have joined the police and a lot are sick, only about eighty out of 211 being left. There, are a number of them prisoners, some at Pretoria. BLOEMFONTEIN. We are now in Bloem&mtein, having arrived here after a rough trip, the trucks being overcrowded, and there being no room to sleep A. There are about 20,000 soldiers here now, and Lord Roberts left the town last week with 70,000 men. He is now about thirty miles from Bloemfomtein, and we will join him in a few days. Owing to our horses being in a poor state we are to have a few days' rest. Bloemfontein ; s not a bad sort of place. It is about the size of Timaru, or perhaps a little larger. At present there is notihing but waggons, mules, and soldiers to be seen here. The railway yard and station are fine big places, and there is , much more traffic aJid many more engines than are ti> be seen in Christchurch. Great stacks of horse-feed, covering acres, and large sheds full of other stores are to be seen. Eight or ten men, victims of fever, are buried every day. The waiter supply is good, but not plentiful. The flies are very bad ; they are enough, in fact, to send the horses mad. \ Half of our men suffer from dysentery, and we leave somo men in every hospital we pass. There is no place like Christchurch, after all. This country is no good, as far as we have seen it.