A member of the 10th Hussars and a survivor of the sinking of the SS Ismore near Paternoster, Arthur John Montgomery recounts his part in the successful routing of the Boer forces in the Orange Free State and the Transvaal. In this episode Arthur Montgomery recalls his part in the mounted operations against the Boers subsequent to the victory at Diamond Hill north east of Pretoria in the Transvaal.
AJ’s narrative has been edited for readability and grammar, but it still largely remains the voice of the author narrating his impressions, concerns and fears while providing vivid images of war.
Main picture: Painting of A.J. Montgomery of the 10th Hussars
The next phase in our fighting was to operate in smaller mobile mounted forces, with the object of breaking up and scattering the Boer Armies. On this basis, the Household Composite Regiment, the Foot Guards and also the C.I.V.s were ordered to return to England. The general supposition was that as the British Army now occupied Johannesburg and Pretoria, relieved Ladysmith, Mafeking and Kimberley, and held the long railway lines down to the Cape, the Boers would surrender. In fact, Lord Roberts issued a proclamation to the Boer leaders to that effect. As they rejected it unanimously and with contempt, fighting continued.
The 2nd Cavalry Brigade, with General Broadwood in command, and two batteries of Royal Horse Artillery was despatched to the Rustenburg district. Here the fighting was mostly of the small outpost and reconnaissance type. The troops suffered terribly as they contracted malaria a great deal during this period. Our Brigade now consisted of the following units: 10th Hussars, 12th Lancers together with Q & R Batteries with their 12 pounder guns. There was also a small convoy of wagons composed mostly of light transport such as ammunition and water carts, and light ambulance wagons with a small Army Medical Corps detachment.
We always slept out in the open veld, rain or otherwise, as we had from the beginning except for one occasion at Bloemspruit when we were housed in tents. The method of food provisioning principally comprised of 3 to 5 men sharing their rations of tinned beef and hard biscuits as well as whatever we could scrounge in the way of chickens, ducks and pigs. We began to become very adept and creative at varying our meals by making Bully Beef stews using vegetables when we could obtain them. The tea and coffee ration was made to last by continually boiling the brew and to keep drying out the dregs. Eventually we hardly could taste whether it was coffee, tea or soup that we were drinking.
The party that I messed with, were a fine section. It included me, Lammie, Dicky Stone, Polly Parretts and later on Wally Simpson. All were cockneys, except Lammie, who was from Rochester, Kent. We were the finest bunch of scroungers in the Squadron. We were often the only party in the Troop who kept their bellies well filled by the way in which each would bring in something extra for the pot on returning from a patrol. Wood for the fire was a very difficult to acquire as well as the water as the Squadron water cart always had a guard on it.
Dicky Stone’s arm was now completely healed after the wound that he had sustained from a Mauser round at the Diamond Hill Battle. The wound to the thigh that Wally Simpson had incurred in the gallop to Kimberley had also healed satisfactorily. In Wally’s case, the splinter of a shell had lodged in his thigh but had not penetrated far enough to strike a bone. We had all started with the Regiment from Colesberg except for Lammie who had arrived with a draft and joined us at Bloemfontein.
In many ways, the greatest hardships suffered, were by our horses, principally due to the shortage of drinking water, suitable grazing and forage. Many times during this campaign, they went without food and water for extended periods thereby losing weight and often developing sores and saddle chafes. This kept the Cavalry men on guard to prevent it from happening which was preferably to treating it just after it had appeared. In this regard, we had the assistance and advise of our farrier N.C.O.s. Moreover, we all understood the great importance of keeping our mounts fit as we often depended upon them for our lives when moving quickly under fire. By now, “Tommy” had completely recovered from his wound which he received at Sanna’s Post and had proved himself to be an excellent all-round mount, always recognising me on approach if he was grazing with other horses on the veld by a short whinny and a snort of pleasure.
Irish in the Anglo-Boer War
After some weeks trekking around the Rustenburg district, we received sudden orders to go to the relief of a small force of besieged Colonial Troops, cut off at Eland’s River, two days’ march from where we were operating. We came upon them after a hard night’s march. The Boers surrounding them had already killed all their transport oxen, nearly all their horses and caused many casualties among the troops. Amongst the units were the Rhodesian Mounted Rifles, the Bechuanaland Mounted Infantry and many others. They had been surrounded whilst in camp. They held out for many days, taking up good positions in a dry river bed, forming a larger with their wagons and stores of forage and food. When we relieved them, they informed us that their ammunitions had nearly been exhausted and they had suffered terribly through the lack of water.
On the first day of our forced march, I was acting as rear guard to our column and on passing a Troop of mounted infantry, we were greeted by some. When one of them was informed that we were the 10th Hussars, a trooper enquired whether he could point me out to him. As I rode closer, I recognised him as a school friend of mine, Herbert Page, who had joined Robert’s Horse in Cape Town on the outbreak of war. He was now helping to lead a number of sick horses back to the Rustenburg Camp. I had a brief chat with him on news about home but soon had to leave to catch up with my troop. It had been a strange meeting. Bert had been an apprentice on a ship returning from Australia. After leaving his ship in Cape Town, he had joined up. I was destined to meet him again several years later in London where we renewed our friendship and reminisced about different adventures.
Boer War
Our next move was to the Eastern Transvaal where the same kind of fighting was prevalent with hard trekking and the Boers employing hit-and-run tactics. En route we halted near Pretoria for several days in order to obtain fresh horses as well as supplies for our troops. We also exchanged our short carbines for the long 303 Lee Metford rifle which had a longer range. Instead of the carbine’s puny range of 500 yards, the Lee Metford’s range was about 1000 yards. The magazine might only have held 9 bullets, but we always carried a round in the chamber, 50 in a bandolier and 50 in the saddle wallets. Apart from this, we also carried our sword on the saddle as well as the large cavalry cloak, a waterproof sheet strapped onto the cantles at the back of the saddle, a forage bag at the side, spare horse shoes in a show case, spare underwear and socks in the wallets strapped on each side and the front of the saddle and finally the reins which were around the horse’s neck for haltering when resting.
On our bodies, as mentioned before, were our bandoliers with 50 rounds of 303 ammunition, haversack, water bottles, Jack knife with hoof pick as well as a spike for making holes in leather saddlery, emergency rations in a small packet sewn on the lower left side of our drill khaki coats while on the right side was the medical kit containing bandages, lint and condies crystals for treating wounds. In the haversack we carried our shaving kit, towel, balaclava knitted cap and other odds and ends such as spare biscuits and anything else we could scrounge. We were ordered never to open our emergency rations unless ordered to do so by a N.C.O.
Each one of us was a complete fighting unit, able to look after ourselves in all sorts of weather conditions, totally trained and different from what we were like when we commenced active service. After 10 months of front line service, we had gained confidence and acquired a toughness and ability to endure all types of fighting.
We trekked on, passing through Middelburg, Bethal, Carolina, Ermelo and then onward to the borders of Swaziland. In the process, we joined up with two more columns of mobile mounted troops. The general idea was to prevent a large force of Boers under the command of General Botha from invading the northern borders of Natal. Our orders were to form a line of strong outposts across the countyside to the Swaziland border, with Piet Retief being our Brigade centre. Botha was the most capable and offensive minded of the Boer Commandants. He had accumulated a large number of followers who had been raiding the Eastern Transvaal. Our intelligence reported that General Botha’s forces were intent on breaking through to Swaziland in order to obtain forage and food for their horses and men. After replenishing their supplies, the force would cross the Pongola and cross into Natal.
Marching on Pretoria
What a miserable period that we had to endure for the next six weeks as we were placed on starvation rations. First our rations were reduced to half and then later to a quarter. Forage for our horses was reduced until their rations were reduced to the point when they were barely sufficient to keep them going. To make matters worse, the raining had begun. The Pongola River bordering Natal and the Transvaal, as well as other rivers in northern Natal, were in flood preventing our supply transport from reaching us.
Foraging parties were sent out in all directions to scrounge for anything that was edible. By now all the tinned Bully Beef and Biscuit rations had been consumed. However there was still a small quantity of tough mutton and goat meat as well as half ripe peaches and quinces which was available to consume. Our foraging parties often came under Boer sniper fire as they were also scrounging for the same thing that our parties were. With no dry wood for fires, there was no tea or coffee or even salt available. Imagine a goat stew or mielie meal porridge without sugar or salt. We were perpetually wet, and our horse lines were invariably a mess of mud. We had to keep on changing them, but we couldn’t move too far on account of the flooded condition of the veld.
New South Wales Lancers in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer war
Our horses went down with dysentery through continually grazing of the wet grass. When I say that they “went down”, I mean that in the worst cases they were unable to stand up on their four feet. Instead they lay on the ground, continually purging out a bloody concoction of long coarse grass. Our C.O. found great difficulty in mounting sufficient men to man the outposts and the occasional small patrols. Most of the troops joined one of their sleeping blankets with another’s in order to construct small V-shaped bivouac shelters to keep some of the rain off themrselves. As soon as we moved about in the long coarse grass, we got soaking wet up to our thighs. To add to the misery, an epidemic of malaria broke out among the troops which reduced our duty outposts to about half the normal number.
As for actual fighting, neither side seemed to want any contact. I suspect that the Boer forces were equally as starving and as wet as we were. I remember that over a three week period, we had not seen the sun once while all the veld seemed to be under a blanket of mist and fine rain. Then one day, a convoy of supplies got through to the troops who cheered it as the wagons passed through our lines. What a treat we had. Our first dixie of tea but what a job to find enough dry wood to start a fire. This deficiency had caused one of our principal hardships. Then we reverted to quarter rations of Bully Beef and Biscuits to start with and only much later to full rations.
Boer War
At last the sun came out. That buoyed up our spirits as much as the extra food. It also afforded us an opportunity to dry out our blankets and clothes. Finally at last after six weeks of starvation, our main supplies came through. Apparently they had been waiting on the Natal side for the rivers to subside.
The following dramatic incident to happen to A Squadron is one that I will never forget, however long I live. We were ordered to entrain at a siding on the Natal line from the Transvaal to fetch horses from Newcastle. We carried only our saddles and arms onto open trucks which had previously used for carrying coal. About 25 men were allocated to each truck which meant that we were packed like sardines on these railcars. We thought nothing of this and settled down, chatting to each other, mostly about the places we were passing through, such as Majuba Hill and Laing’s Nek where the Boers had fought the British in a war nearly 20 years before.
Suddenly we entered a tunnel. At first nobody worried too much but then suddenly we all started couching. The coal dust shifted about the floors of our trucks. This, together with the smoke from the engine, enveloped us in clouds of dust, nearly suffocating us. I got out my Balaklava and pulled it over my head to prevent the gritty coal dust and smoke from getting into my eyes and mouth. Some men started yelling out, cursing the driver of the train, which of course was silly, as he was not responsible. It was in fact the military authorities to blame for using open trucks. The tunnel seemed to be endless. We were all gasping for breath as we lay there helpless in the pitch dark. At long last, we came out into the bright sunlight. What a sight! When I could open my eyes and pulled off my Balaclava cap, every one of us was covered in a coat of black coal dust. Many men were still couching and choking. Some were more seriously affected than others. The effect of it was as near to suffocation as possible but still to survive.
Interior of an armoured train
Sometime later, when we arrived at our destination, Newcastle, many of the troops had to be carried to the Military Hospital Marquee for treatment. We were all exhausted and sick. For instance, my throat was sore for several days thereafter. My friend, Harry, who was lying next to me, complained of his sore eyes. Apparently he had dust in his Balaclava cap. I remember that one of the men from the truck that I was in, did not rejoin us until weeks later. As a result of the coal dust, he had nearly gone blind. I am certain that we would all have choked to death if the tunnel had been much longer. After a long drink of water and clean up in the camp, we all just flopped down and were not fit for anything until the next day.
Later we received our new horses and then rejoined our Brigade.
Sources
Hand written memoirs by AJ Montgomery
Photographs of AJ Montgomery supplied by Alan Derek Montgomery, grandson of AJ Montgomery