86 AWARDED FOR VALOUR
back to the shelter of a smaller donga about 50 yards to the rear of the
artillery park to await ammunition resupply.^51 The guns sat deserted while
the Boer cannon, now unopposed, returned to action.
Buller and his staff moved forward to oversee the infantry assault on
Colenso. While en route they encountered one of the two officers sent to
speed the artillery resupply and learned that the guns sat unattended in
front of friendly lines. Buller rode immediately for Long’s battery to find its
commander delirious and raving about his poor brave gunners and the guns
themselves exposed and unmanned.^52 Possibly suffering from shell-shock
himself, having less than an hour earlier been bruised by the near-miss of
a Boer shell that killed his personal surgeon, Buller lost control and focused
on recovering the guns to the exclusion of all else.^53
Buller first ordered Captain Harry Norton Schofield to take some teams
and drivers out to recover them, but they were met with such a hail of fire
that they were forced to turn back short of the guns. Then, according to
Captain Walter Norris Congreve, who won his own Victoria Cross that day:
Generals Buller and Clery stood out in it [the donga] and said ‘some of
you go out and help Schofield.’ ADC Roberts, myself, and two or three
others went to the waggons and we got two waggons horsed up with the
help of a corporal and six gunners. I have never seen even at field firing
the bullets fly thicker.^54
Freddy Roberts got about 30 yards from the donga, laughing and twirling
his riding crop, before a Boer shell blew his horse to bits and mortally
wounded the young officer.^55 Congreve and the others were either wounded
or driven to cover, and the attempt to save the guns failed. A further attempt
managed to drag two of the guns to safety, but Buller then lost his resolve.
Unwilling even to wait for cover of darkness to retrieve the others, he
ordered a general withdrawal; the remaining ten guns were handed over to
the Boers.^56 Buller had given the order that killed the only remaining son
of England’s most beloved soldier and had been soundly defeated by the
upstart Boers.
Exactly what went through Buller’s mind the next day cannot be stated
with any certainty; his own recollections of Colenso and the aftermath
became thoroughly muddled in the process of explaining what had happened
to the War Office. What he did on 16 December 1899 is a matter of official
record, however. As Freddy Roberts lay dying, Buller recommended him
for the Victoria Cross, and in so doing discarded 42 years of precedent
regarding badly wounded heroes.
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