Withdrawal from spionkop

SPIOENKOP-THE RETIREMENT-an extract from “The Somerset Light Infantry 1645-1914 by Sir Henery Everett.

Captain Braithwaite (later General Sir Walter Braithwaite) gives the following account of the incident of the retirement from Spioenkop.

200 men were sent up the hill under Whatman and myself in order to dig trenches for the defenders. With us were Jack Hanwell and an RE officer whose name I forget.

Myself and Whatman started off with Jack Hanwell as the guide because he had been up during the daytime. Hen we got to about halfway we met Thorneycroft and Churchill coming down. They had nobody else with them. Thorneycroft stopped us and asked what we were doing and I gave him a note from Sir Charles Warren explaining our mission. There was not much light and Thorneycroft could not read Sir Charles small handwriting and he was also rather excited so Winston Churchill (I did not know it was him at the time) said here let me read it.

Winston took the note and read it to Thorneycroft. It was to the effect that Thorneycroft was to hang on and my part was to dig trenches for his exhausted troops. However Thorneycroft said “I have done all I can and I am not going back; my troops have been ordered to retire”, or words to that effect. He told us we were not wanted and that we were to go back down again as there were no troops to dig trenches for.

Jack Hanwell and I sat down for a moment and discussed this novel situation and got as far as debating whether we should go and dig trenches for ourselves and hold the place. In the end we decided to do as the other troops had been ordered to do and retire.

That is my story.