Spionkop Walter West

The account was written by Walter West 1940 and there are several points that need to be clarified as they do not ring true. The copy was sent to me by Rob Milne.

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I and Tassie (Tassie could be Goodwin who West mentions later as his friend) were detailed to go as special dispatch riders to General Warren’s HQ and ran several messages up to the front firing lines. Sitting in a tent close by the General’s, playing cards but ready to jump and mount when called; and as the fellow was just picking up his winning hand at cards, I said I’d go in his place – two miles to the front and came back with a message about the attack on Spioenkop. The man who went on the job I should have gone, but for the change, had had bad luck and was shot and killed by a bullet that might have been my Bete Noir – you never know your luck in war. The evening of the second day we were sent back to the regiment and drew rations for the next day and fell-in on foot for a night attack, afterwards whispered to be Spioenkop. I shall never forget that momentous night, marching some four miles away between the hills.

The every air seemed tense with expectancy and tragedy for most of us. Nearing the foothills we saw a Great Dane dog or Boer-Hound tied to a kennel to give warning of our approach, but he never said a word and completely ignored us – he was wise. At the foothills we were met by detachments from the KRR’s (the KRR’s did not go up Spioenkop), the Yorks and Lancs and the Lancaster regiment. But Thornecrofts had the honour of leading the attack and climbing the hill first. Going up this hill I was in the leading file with Captain Petre and Corporal Goodwin, and every now and then we sat down on the boulders and talked in low voices. Captain Petre was telling us of his beautiful old home in Essex and of his father, Lord Petre, and seemed to have presentiment that he would never see either of them again. Goodwin and I also told reminiscences of our home life and incidents that leave a mark on one’s memories. Both these fine fellows were killed that day for this was the memorable 21st Jan 1900 (Spioenkop battle was 24th not 21st). Halfway up the mountain were three fir trees, the only ones there were and some men found a Boer sentry leaning against one, asleep. One put his hand over his mouth to stop outcry, for we knew there was a strong picket on the top. Then, as we reached to fire his gun, another bayoneted him through the heart: many lives depended on that as this was war.

But now we had a veritable krantz to climb, yet big boulders everywhere and the rumbling of many feet climbing the kopjie-side did wake the picket. “Vees dar?’ (“who’s there?”), then “Vee kom dar?” (who comes there?”) came the voice of their captain, loud and challenging in the night. Then, as no answer was given, we heard several more words then “skiet kerels” (“shoot men”). As the picket started firing, the Colonel said: “Lay down boys! Take cover!”. Then as the firing slackened it was “up and at them”. Then we charged the picket in two arrows. The KRR on the left and Thorneycrofts on the right. But when we got to their trenches they had all cleared off towards the “pimple” and a mighty cheer we gave as we started on the charge: my comrade, Goodwin, fell down beside me fatally wounded thro’ the neck; and I tripped up by one of the little jagged rocks, the place was full of them, I fell and hurt my knee just as I stabbed at the nearest foe. I must have got him in the lower leg as there was blood on the point of my bayonet. There was some 80 men in this picket, entrenched some 40 or 50 yards from the brow of the hill. But the Boer knew his tracks and got safely away, while we were set to work building sangars with all the loose stones we could find – the hill was full of them. After awhile, this was about 2am (it is accepted that the forward troops reached the top at about 3am), I went back and got a stretcher bearer to take Goodwin to the Doctors theatre, on a low ledge to the right of where we charged the picket.. He died half an hour afterwards. So we all set to build some breast fortifications some 80 yards square on the top of the hill and the first Boer attack came. But as soon as daylight came they started sniping our menfrom the shoulder, some 50 yards from the South side. Three Lancasters fell shot thro’ the brain: the Boers sticking on this ridge all day and their marksmanship was deadly, as more foes came back from the “pimple” to their ridge. Then about 9 am Thorneycroft sent ‘D’ company men to guard the west and precipice to prevent the foe from coming in that way, as the precipice was climbable. About 10am Captain Bettington sent word for more reinforcements, also for a case of cartridges and eight men went under who tried to race across with that case of cartridges. Then I, seeing the only way was to crawl to the left along a slight depression and so dodge these men on the ridge, whose marksmanship at 60 yards was so deadly.

So about 10.30 the Colonel gave me permission to take a box over and with a mate to follow me I dropped the case over the sangar, some three feet high, when a burst of Pompom from the Boer artillery on Green Hill crumbled all that stone away. Still I jumped about a couple of yards away and began dragging that box over to my objective about 100 yards away, with not a bit of cover from the foes’ shell and Pom Pom to help you through – only a sloping lawn-like grassy field.

Pulling out to the left, where I could see a slight depression gave a chance I got 3/4 of the way over, when the Boer gunners got sight of me and “BANG” burst a 15 inch shell within 4 feet of me, throwing ground and bits of rock all over me. Then another came the other side, throwing the debris into my ears and eyes – my left eye being blind ever since from a broken principal nerve, and my hair burnt with the blaze of the explosion. The next shell, disabling my mate, who followed me some 6 yards behind. Also Pompom shells buzzed over within a couple of foot, but could not get lower. However after half an hours hard work I got across and handed the case over to Captain Beddinton, who looked very downhearted with a bandage round his head. Back I crawled and drew my wounded mate behind a boulder for shelter, giving him my water bottle; yet how I would have loved to have emptied it myself. But now I got and sprinted my way across this flat bit of grass to where my Colonel sat watching events. I could hear the rifles sizzling fast from the ‘shoulder’ still, so I jumped haphazard over the wall and dropped into my Colonel’s lap, trying to dodge their bullets. “Hello, what’s the matter son?” says the Colonel. I apologised saying “if I had known he was there I would have sent my card in first, but there was not time, Colonel, besides the Pompoms – there were 50 sizzling rifles some 50 yards away, with those dead-shot Boers behind them, hidden by the boulders up on the shoulder. “Captain Bettington says he wants a score more men, sir!” “Alright my boy! Now just run down to the Doctors and get a stretcher, for your Captain is badly wounded and won’t last much longer without proper attendance.” “Right Colonel, also for my mate, left wounded three parts way over on that bare Devils tennis-court there”.

So off I went, sprinting from HQ to the nearest boulder some 30 yards away when ‘Whipp’ right in between mylegs went a 15 pound shell striking the ground and bursting only 3 or 4 yards away; the rush of wind somersaulting me right over. I could feel a burn too in my legs and the >>>> of bursting shell was confusing. However I kicked my legs out to see if they were alright, then crawled to the boulder for a minute’s rest. Realising where the burn was, I saw the brown mark of a shell, half way between hip and knee one in the front and one behind. I thanked my lady luck for saving my legs by just a tenth fraction of a second.

Ereaching the boulder I found a poor Tommy with a foot blown off and bleeding to death. I got another Tommy near to help lift him on to my back to take him to the Doctors, pick-a-back. I got halfway across when a dumdum bullet took the top of his skull off, scattering his brains over my head and shoulders. I dropped the poor fellow right there exclaiming, looking towards my foes, “Stop it Jan Boer! You are crowding me too much!” But I don’t think the Boers heard me.

Then I saw another horror, a soldier running towards the “Twin Peaks” when another krupp shell took his head off, as clean as if cut by a sword, but the wonderful thing about it waas that he kept on running 5 or 6 yards to fall in a sickening thud. Such was the impetus of his physical energy. At the Doctors I got “little” Steve to get a mate, his fourth that day, and fasten the Captain in. Then leaning on the boulder at the very edge of the precipice, I looked down the abyss and saw a tiny spring rippling out of the mountain side some 300 feet below me. So collecting some half a dozen dead men’s bottles, down the precipice I went for that spring was my salvation for nothing had passed my lips since 7 the day before and that cartridge case job pulling the sweat out of me by spoonfulls. Yet I was glad I had given my bottle away, for that poor chap could not find the spring and I could. Well with many a slip and slide, sometimes hanging on to a bush, sometimes a chip of rock, I reached my destination and had the grandest drink I remember. For my throat was dry as a brick kiln and I drank and drank till I had to let my belt out a hole. I then had a necessary wash, ‘blood and brains’. Then filling all my bottles I started to reclimb the krantz. Going round to the left I got into the path we climbed in the night when we took the hill. Reaching the top I saw many dead and wounded soldiers who had paid for war’s gluttony, some with their lives some to be mutilated cripples. Those which make these wars should pay in likewise, then there would be less sacrifices. Among the boulders on the top I saw three fine fellows, two dead and one going, I thought. I gave him a drink which revived him, then shouted for an ambulance man to come and take him in. It was not far but big boulders hid them. But the other two, one I shall never forget because the shell that killed him had set his clothes alight and they had burnt half off him, leaving his body black with the burning. One of his arms with a diamond ring on one finger was pointing straight to the sky as though appealing to heaven against this barbarism. I could never explain to myself the cause of this uplifted arm, unless it was that some other shell had turned him over after ‘rigor mortis’ had set in. I found several more wounded men for my other bottles. Then keeping two for mates I made my way to the front. The Doctor’s Theatre was situated some 20 feet below our front on a sort of ledge.

 

The “Rally Call” 

But what’s the hubub and shouting that I heard now? Shouts in Dutch then spasmodic bursts of firing and yet no big guns but rifles. Then I heard my Colonel’s voice. “TMI. Come on my men. TMI to the rescue”. With some others I rush up (and) pick up a rifle. “Now lie low and give ‘em a volley”. And we did. Load and fire. Load and fire, as hard as we could. This was the time the Boers charged our position and nearly took the hill and 150 of the Lancashire regiment gave in. Four fellows with their officers all shot, they did not know what to do. And it was Thorneycrofts noted “Rally Call” that saved the situation and only that that sent the Boers running back to cover again, with our rallying to his call. And soon the big guns started their blatter again. And so it went on until nightfall when Thorneycroft decided to evacuate “Hell” and retire with the few good men he could get together under cover of the night. And I saw some men so prostrated and overwrought that they slept through that stirring scene.

And all honour to our Colonel, he was brave and looked after the men under his charge, careful not to  throw one life away. And hid “Rally Call” will live down thew ages when such third rate strategists as Buller and Warren will be lost amid the mists of mediocrity.

That night about 8pm we got the order to retire. When we crossed back over the Tugela we had 104 empty saddles.

 

General Warren was dubbed “Old feint heart” by some of us.