Note (Back) — Chapter VI

Somewhat less of success attended the surprise on Wagon Hill proper. Nevertheless, there also the Boers effected a lodgment on the plateau, and along the nek connecting with Wagon Hill West. A group of stragglers, from the Imperial Light Horse and the Wagon Hill garrison, had got together among the boulders of a knoll off the latter hill, near the nek, and thence kept up a cross-fire on Wagon Hill West. The Boers doing the same from their side, that summit was untenable to either party. Here, at the west end of Wagon Hill, the two lines were but 30 yards apart. To the eastward, towards Cæsar's Camp, as the plateau widened, the space increased to 100 yards. The danger to the British in this situation was, that if the knoll were lost, Wagon Hill West, losing the support of its fire, would probably fall with it. Wagon Hill proper would then be taken in flank as well as in front, and so rendered untenable; while Wagon Hill once gone, Cæsar's Camp would be exposed to a like concentration and probably to the same fate. Deprived of the ridge, the British line of defences would be broken and the enemy established on a commanding height in easy range—5,000 yards—of the town. Two or three desperate attempts to reinforce the knoll by crossing the open were therefore made by small parties, but these were cut down, the officers leading them being killed. At this time the colonel, two majors, and four other officers of the Light Horse were hit. It was to this resolute tenure of the key of the situation by a handful of men that Sir George White referred in a speech at Belfast. "On January 6th, which has been alluded to as a tight day, had it not been for the Imperial Light Horse, Joubert might have been spending his Sunday (January 7) where I spent mine. I think I may say of them they were the bravest men I ever had under my command." Colonel Ian Hamilton, the brigadier in command on the ridge, also wrote of them, "It will be made quite clear in my despatch that the Imperial Light Horse were second to none. No one realizes more clearly than I do that they were the backbone of the defence during that long day's fighting."[30] In other parts of the field also the British loss of officers at this moment was heavy.