The covenant - James A. Michener [440]
Two additional officers were sent in to take charge, one by Buller, one by Warren, and once again each assumed that he was in sole command. One way or another, the hill now contained four commanders leading nineteen hundred of the empire's finest, while another eighteen thousand were kept in reserve; they would be sorely needed as the terrible struggle developed, but no one would command them to march.
In grandeur General Buller sat in his tent like a sulking Achilles, out of contact with the progress of the battle and doing nothing to sort out the mess his 'ex-policeman' was getting his men into. 'It's Warren's fight,' he insisted when Saltwood galloped back from the other general's camp, begging for clarifications.
On the other hand, Buller was not loath to intervene whenever a particularly brilliant idea occurred to him, and he issued commands that would have bewildered generals as quick-minded as Hannibal and Napoleon. As for Warren, he was a fool who moved at a snail's pace, fighting a night battle on a hill he did not comprehend. Not once did he move to Spion Kop; not once did he try to see for himself the dreadful slaughter occurring there.
He issued some twenty crucial orders, half to one of his commanders on the hill, half to others battling toward it. A German observer watching this amazing battle said, 'The English army is composed of ordinary soldiers who are lions of bravery led by officers who are asses of stupidity.' And he said this before the two generals had an opportunity to display their true talents.
General de Groot chafed. Much against his counsel, his truncated commando was being held in reserve behind Spion Kop. 'We'll throw you in at the crucial moment,' he was told, but two more of his men, seeking action, had slipped away.
The scene behind the hill was extraordinary. Row after row of sleek Boer ponies stood with their halters tied to trees or rocks while their masters fought on foot up the steep hill. Some five hundred wagons huddled at a distance, field ambulances and Red Cross units outspanned among them, their oxen peacefully grazing. Near them waited the wives who had accompanied their husbands, and in one tent Sybilla de Groot tended such men as were dragged to her impromptu hospital ward. Other women helped their servants do the cooking, and from time to time everyone would stop to listen to the raging battle which was taking place less than a quarter of a mile from where they worked.
When, toward noon, General de Groot walked back through the dust to talk with his wife, the women learned that whereas the English troops had captured the top of the hill, they had placed their trench so poorly that the Boers had a good chance of taking it away from them. 'Will there be many dead?' Sybilla asked.
'A great many,' the old man said.
'Will you be going up?'
'Soon as they set us free.'
'Be careful, Paulus,' she said as he shuffled back to the hill.
It was men of the Carolina Commando, from the small town east of Venloo, who won the honors for bravery this day. They were led by Commandant Henrik Prinsloo and a short, stocky veldkornet named Christoffel Steyn, almost as thick through the belly as he was tall; when Steyn ran forward, rolling from side to side, men muttered, 'If he can do it, I can do it.' What he did was run straight through a heavy barrage to the top of Hill Three, a kopje opposite the summit of Spion Kop, where he positioned his men behind rocks so that they could fire directly into the side openings of the English trenches. This fat fellow, who had never fought before, could not believe that the highly trained English officers opposing him could have allowed him to occupy this fatal hill, but he accepted his