A VIVID WAR PICTURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7327, 13 February 1902, Page 2

A VIVID WAR PICTURE.

__— — ♦ THE STORY OF A NIGHT ATTACK. A THRILLING EXPLOIT. (By " LINESMAN," in " Blackwood's Magazine.") > I. " Linesman " is, perhaps, the most vivid and graphic writer the South African war has evolved. In the current number of "Blackwood's" he gives a very thriving description of a mosfc dashing exploit, performed by a party of British scouts, on the . night of July 28, 1901— -the surprise of Joubert's Farm. We give some extracts from this very fine sketch : — A night attack ! Let him who has ever taken part in one recall the sickening, wearing anxiety of it. Did he not feel as jf tho force he rode with was clothed in luminous paint and hung with bells, because of his very agony of hope it was invisible amd soundless? Was he not morally certain that he was leading them in a futile circle because his whole honour and hopes for life depended upon invisible and ■'soundless? Was he not discovered every moment by hostile bushes— nay, shadows — because discovery meant Tuin? Few men can lead or accompany many night attacks and keep their nerve, but of those few the army in South Africa has luckily numbered manymen whom an era of dangerous nightwork, coming after two years of incessaufe strain, still sees unshaken and confident, and with confident men behind tham.- And the leader of this little band being such a man, they steal through ___ Ahe night over the anxious miles with no qualms, on their part at anyrate, straight for the invisible berg ahead. Behind it li€S their prey, 120 Boers sheltering, and, let us hope, sleeping under the lee of the great grassy wall. A "pesky" irreconcilable lot of ruffians, led by a certain Erasmus, -who have been' swooping so often afc the line of defences from their eyrie that their destruction has become a necessity; and as one may as well attempt to arrest soot-flakes as Bosrs in the daytime, the blow must fall suddenly at night, and' in the very eyrie itself. A hazardous offchance, indeed, even with equal numbers, with many hundred chances against it, and ruin too hideous to contemplate if unsuccessful; but with numbers actually less than those of the ..objective, a night onslaught on a wary, semi-animal enemy^ is an enterprise bordering on.--, the des^ perate. Yet such has been -the unique and dangerous nature of the fighting in South Africa, that what in other wars has been considered a job too risky to bs often attempted, is . here looked upon as all in a day's work; and tliis is by no means the first time that these eighty troopers have found themselves upon the open waste at night, with .the camp - far behind them and the tremendous unknown close in front. THE NIGHT MARCH. On they gio, over the flats, down into the, dark hollows, up tlie darker rises beyond, every man locked close to his neighbour, staring from side to side, and knocking his neignbour's knee when he starts, as he does, momentarily, at a fancied sound outside the squadron, or a fancied sight away out in the blackness. Nob a word must be spoken, even when Bill on the left of you clutches your bridlerarm, and paints, with- his up to the left, where the rise we • are breasting ends in a dim knob. Upon its very summit stand three bkck figures of horses, too dark to see more,- motionless as the kopjo they stand on. They disappear, and irom the knob comes the faint , ring of a hoof upon a stone. Are we discovered? The olficer in front (holds up liis hand, the leading files halt, those in rear bump into them, and the whole party stands huddled together half-way up the slope, every man's head bent sideways in a lever of listening. If those were Boers, the game is up ; they are galloping back to the laager now, and very few of those eighty blankets and picket-pegs in camp will see their proper occupants again. The commanding) officer is whispering to tho guide, a little active figure in a slouch hat, and one of his subalterns, who dismount and vanish on foot towards the knob. They are going to solve this riddle somehow. Quietly they creep upwards, ten yards apart, and worm their way to the sum- . Mit, and from there, to their intense relief, perceive the three black shapes some distance down th& farther slope. Not Boers, . evidently ; probably not even Kaffirs. The subaltern and guide, taking no chances, stalk them carefully down hill through the long grass, revolvers at the '*' ready," and fill-illy lie staring and frowning a few yards above the suspicious .objects. A strained pause, then a low chuckle from the guide, which would lift a ton of anxiety from the band of listeners behind if they could hear it— ioose horses! The two rise and walk swiftly back over the knob down to their friends; still no word, that is oniy one of a thousand chances made good, and the march is resumed. A mile or two more of these riskyrises and hollows bring them to tho first certaia danger of the enterprise, tbs mouth of a long t narrow pass which runs around ihe western flank of the berg, emerging like, a great drain from its opposite side, close to the farms, about whicn the laager is collected. The farm to be- negotiated tonight is of exceptional size, tne property of one of the Joubert family,' and scattered around it lie several smaller, holdings, the abodes of the- great man's '* beiwomers," or tenants. It is, these outlying buildings that constitute the chief danger to an attacking force, forming, as -they do, a readymade encircling line of outposts, difficult . to surround and isolate collectively, as must be done if the main laager is to be kept in ignorance of the presence .of danger. And the firsfc of these lies four miles this side of it, at the narrow gates of the pass itself', shut in by steep stony peaks and walls. A Boer picket is known to lie in wait there, >and must be rushed, because it cannot be avoided. GETTING PAST THE OUTPOST. Tb'a little force draws near, so near that the sentinel kopjes look like huge black fingers splayed out over it, and the men, as they commence to breast the long rise leading up to the rift, obey instructions previously given by noiselessly extending into three separate lines, those on the flanks trendinc up towards the peaks on cither tide of°the nek, the centre' one heading stoutly for the nek itself, through which they can see the sky as a deep blue V cut out of the black mass of the berg. At thafc moment a mounted Kaffir appears like a phantom amongst them, to be gripped desperately by a couple of troopers. But he is a friend, and is doing a friend's work. From his kraal by a distant spruit his animal instinct has told him that there was something up to-night. So the shabby horse and execrable saddle were- pulled out, and Umpungan set out to work his way towards the disturbance, whatever it was, crawlin"-, sidling, listening, placing his face to the grourxl upon every hard flat, until at last the drumming and the clink, of steel bits has reached his wonderful ears, and finally the body of horsemen has been, picked out from the gloom by his wonderful eves. The British soldiers, who pay for what they take, and do not abuse his women. or vac the sjambok without ian extraordinary amount of palaver, and, mirabi'c dictu, good reason, are blundering across 'his domain in_th«r stupid noisy, white-man *"*'«». H * . RU ? h * at ih ™ cohesion, at tho iron on then* horse, hoofs and the Rteel in their mouths-as well miaht hi-** father-? have blown upon the coiioh when ambushing the sleeping lion in .li* .good old day*: ** laui.l"; at the -mercy m Vir hearts for a vanquished enemy— twas not thus that his nation avenged the c_.,i.-nn . _ne of thoir women by Bum. s C, but they are /his friends, and,'

guessing what sport they are at, he ridea on invisible and soundless at their flank, marvelling at their slowness and their daring. For he knows the risk, none betterhave not his people had many a terrible lesson from those crafty, keen-eyed white blackmen, the Dutch from the south country? And rfdiing thus he does theni the best of ' good turn®. Tho Boer picket on- the nek has been- uneasy, too-, amid instead of sitting quiet and! silent as usual i.ru the lii'fcie round' kraal which fcjims* their shelter, have been raovicg inquiringly over the neighbouring 1 round!, and- axe at this precise moment poking round the right foot of fche biggest of the right-hand- kopjes, well away frooi a>nd out of sight and; sound * ■cf the rek and the slopes approaching it. Here Ihey are spotted by the self-cocs'titu-ted British, flack-guard, who, risking Hidden death 'by many bayonets, swerves sharply inwards towtefe the startled' squadragr, and, as related', is at onco roughly collared. Explanation®, satto voce, to the guide, with much gesticulaitiion, but in the softest of •hium'ter's whSspers. "Iso brand-, waeht om th-e nek, baas, brandwaeht hie dthw-n t-hered Be queek, he kern, back soon* !" They, push on. quickly, with more 'care now for speed than.' silence, witb the native well in the centre, in case, h© has lied, wUuen ! Bub ho Jta-s net lied, and they shuflle successfully over tihe dreaded spot, pass the little kraal with the embeis of a small fire still glowing behind it, and are a mile diown tibe gorge* before the Dutch picket, having seen and hea.rd nothing on its excursion,, climbs thankfully* up to its rest again, knowing nothing of proverbs aboub horses and stable-doors! IN THE MOONLIGHT. And then the moon, rose, mot with tihe leisurely gravity cf her British habits, but sending a lance of steel light witih magnificent suddenness acrois* the world of grass from some particularly black coiner of th? horizon away to the north-east. Like some enormous opalescent balloon she swings above the banks of night clouds, until halving moved above everything definite in th© iky by which one could perceive her movements, «ihe rides apparently stationary like a white shining hole in the vast level of blue velvet above. What a change upon the earth beneath! The flats ai-a resplendent, the hollows alternate with, silver tracts c_ ligiht and sharper trinmgiilar shadow® as the contours of the knobs-* amd kopje® are flung into them. The veldt road is a broad riVer of glory, the goat-tracks, like electric flashes interlacing and cris-cross-ing the broad) surface of the veldt, "and all little humble things like tufte of grass and solitary stones 'stand out witih so much, beauty that one makes a , mental • note to look if scan© of dt is not «itill upon, them in the daytime. And the gorge along which our squadron is pressing beooimes a splendid iUuminated! peril. If there! are any Boers upon t!h» walls on eitdrer side, they must see the -hoisemen, w'foo move ailong pursued! . by a thousand scintillations froni rifle-barrels, stirruijs, even the little brass badges on sibou-dea*-straps and hats. But luck is attending pluck to-night ; they pass between the great silvery ramparts unchallenged, though many of them are so certain of hearing the harsh "Wias da!" which will call ruin to them, that the still . air seems to be 'full ' of the sound. But they pass on, thread their way amongst the dongas which mark the farthest exit of the pass — a broad vague opening with none of the dangers of its' brother gate,; now four miles back in charge ©_ its deluded warders, and in a few moments are again in the open .-jrfth, the berg .behind them, in the very midst of the enemy's secret preserves. (To ba continued.) x