Spion Kop had always been spoken of with awe in m family. "I yonder whether General Buller ever discovered the words 'God Bless You' I sewed in the lining of his haversaek," said my mother, from time to time. So I felt a queer sensation of having been there before as I climbed up the southern slope here the Lancashire men had surprised the Boer sentry on January 24th, forty-three years before. < My own wound, recently received in Burma, made the climb a difficult one, but the forty-five degree slope of rough grass littered with rocky outcrops was far lest formidable than has been suggested in drawings 'by our artist in the field.' The summit of this tragic hill is little larger than a football field and is covered with grass mounds and rocks, ideal for the Boer marksman. The trench itself, a pitiful zigzag of concrete; seemed to be waiting for something. For months afterwards you could see trouser legs and boots sticking out in all directions," said Oom Jan whom I had met at Potgeiter's Drift that morning. He had been a field cornet in the battle. "Our ovn men were so half-hearted that we could not get more than thirty of them up there at times. We nearly had to break off the fight with the rooeneks still in position." "The British never came back after the bottle, and we just threw earth and stones over the bodies as they lay in a heap." Much has been said about the murderous fire from surrounding hills, but the many small memorial tablets on the summit itself are silent witnesses to much closer combat. They surround the trench on three sides. "Here lies a brave burgher" says many a cunningly chosen depression in the ground, a perfect firing position beneath on overhanging rock or a narrow gap between two grassy mounds; and an interesting war game could be played in terms of individual combat at a hundred yards range with morale as a 'dicey' factor. I say no sign of the life-giving spring our men had discovered, but it could have dried up many years before. Thirst must have been a great torment, for January is a hot month it that area and the trench is in the full glare of the mid-day sun. Oom Jan was the second of our former enemies I had met that morning. Despite my British enemy uniform, the first stopped his car as I left Springfield and offered me a lift to Potgieter's Drift. As soon as we were well away from houses he opened his Glove pocket and pulled out a pistol which he pointed at me. Now, none of your dam' British propaganda," he said. "Of course not, let's talk about the weather." He put the gun back again. Then I felt a sharp jab in my spine. The hairs on the beck of my neck suggested another pistol, but it was mwrely the forefinger of his very fat wife. "'Ere," she said, "How do you treat your kaffirs in England?" "We have no kaffirs." "Who does the dirty work?" "We do." "I always said the English were dam' liars. You treat your kaffirs so dam' badly you dare not admit you have any." In the somewhat uneasy silence that followed, the husband began to look more friendly. Baring his right arm he showed me a rugged trench of a scar from wrist to elbow. t "That was one of your dam' English bullets." He spoke with approval rather than with bitterness. "I was in the First pom-pom battery. Come on up to our place and have some food." Although I knew from past experience that the food would be good and the hospitality genuine, I declined with thanks on account of time. Soon afterviards I met Oom Jan, who seemed to have lost all his old hatred.. At over eighty, his main interest no longer lay in war. "I like a girl with a bit of a kick in her," he told one for no reason at all. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 28 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1964 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com