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In the Ranks of the C. I. V

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In the Ranks of the C. I. V
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Author(s): Erskine Childers
Date Published: 2009/01
Page Count: 160
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-563-5
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-84677-564-2

The Boer War with the Horse Gunners

Erskine Childers, the famed author of the classic novel of sailing and spying 'The Riddle of the Sands' served with London's finest—The City Imperial Volunteers within its artillery arm—associated with the Honourable Artillery Company. Childers—together with his enthusiastic colleagues from the professions of the city were keen to fight the Boers of South Africa and he has written an engaging and detailed account of his time with the regiment during the war. It is written in an easy informal style—of the kind that has ensured that his better known writing has endured for over a century—as he takes the reader through training to experiences on the battlefield itself.

June 26—Eight a.m.—We are in action, my wagon at present halted in the rear. We harnessed up at 3.45 this morning, and marched some miles to the top of another hill, overlooking another plain, a crescent of steep kopjes on the left, occupied by Boers. The convoy halted just as a spattering rifle-fire ahead struck on the still morning air (it was just dawn), and the chatter of a Maxim on the left flank. We were all rather silent. A staff-officer galloped up, “Walk,—March,” “Trot,” rang out to the Battery, and we trotted ahead down the hill, plunged down a villainous spruit, and came up on to the level, under a pretty heavy fire from the kopje on our left. For my part, I was absorbed for these moments in a threatened mishap to my harness, and the dread of disgrace at such an epoch. My off horse had lost flesh in the last few days, and the girth, though buckled up in the last hole, was slightly too loose. We had to gallop up a steep bit of ascent out of the drift, and to my horror, the pack-saddle on him began to slip and turn, so I had to go into action holding on his saddle with my right hand, in a fever of anxiety, and at first oblivious of anything else. Then I noticed the whing of bullets, and dust spots knocked up, and felt the same sort of feeling that one has while waiting to start for a race, only with an added chill and thrill.<br>
The guns unlimbered, and came into action against the kopje, and we and the limbers trotted about 300 yards back, and are waiting there now. A gunner and a driver slightly wounded, and some horses hit. One bullet broke our wheel-driver’s whip. Our shrapnel are bursting beautifully over the Boer lines.<br>
——Later—We have just taken our wagon up to the firing line, and brought back an empty one with our team.<br>
——Later—We have been back to the convoy, and refilled the empty wagon from the reserve, and are back again. The Boers seem to be dislodged from the ridge, and infantry have occupied it. I hear some Boers made for a farm, but we plumped a shell right into it, and they fled. The convoy is now coming on, and crossing the drift with discordant yells. Infantry and mounted infantry pressing on both flanks. Our guns have taken up another position farther on. The Captain asked after the broken whip, and told us we could not have gone into action better. He has been riding about all day on his stumpy little Argentine, radiant and beaming, with his eternal pipe in his mouth!<br>
——Later—We marched on a few miles, and bivouacked, while the whole convoy slowly trailed in, and formed up in laager. This operation, and the business of posting the troops for the night, is horribly tedious. It has to be done in the dark, and one is continually mounting and dismounting, and moving on a bit, and making impossible wheels round mules and wagons. Probably we get too small a space allotted, and the horses are all jammed together in the picket-lines, causing a vast loss of temper at unharnessing. After unharnessing and feeding horses, which you have to look sharp about, or you will miss coffee, every one crowds round the cook’s fire, and looks with hungry eyes at the pots. Coffee or tea, biscuits and tinned meat, are served out. You are ravenous, as you have lived on chance scraps during the day. Then you make your bed, stretching your blankets behind your harness, standing a saddle on end, and putting a feed-bag behind it for a pillow. Next morning’s feeds have first to be made up, and then you sleep like a log, if you can, that is. I generally have to get up at least once, and walk about for the cold. Fellows who are lucky enough to have fuel make small fires (an anthill provides a natural stove), and cook soup, but it’s hard to spare the water, which is as precious as gold in this country. Besides, drivers are badly placed for such luxuries; their work is only begun when camp is reached, while gunners can go off and find beds under wagons, etc. It is the same all day, except, of course, in action, when the gunners have all the work. At all halts we have to be watching a pair of horses, which have manifold ways of tormenting one. To begin with, they are always hungry, because they get little oats and no hay. One of mine amuses himself by chewing all leather-work in his reach, especially that on the traces, and has to be incessantly worried out of it. The poor brutes are standing all the time on rich pasture, and try vainly to graze. They are not allowed to, as it involves taking out big bits, undoing wither straps, etc., and you have to be ready to start at a moment’s notice. There are thousands of acres of rich pasture all about, vast undeveloped wealth. Farms are very few and far between; mostly dismal-looking stone houses, without a trace of garden or adornment of any sort. There was a load off all our minds this night, for the H.A.C. had at last been in action and under fire. All went well and steadily. My friend Ramsey, the lead-driver of our team, brushed his teeth at the usual intervals. I don’t believe anything on earth would interfere with him in this most admirable duty. He does it with miraculous dexterity and rapidity at the oddest moments, saying it rests him!
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