“I have had, in the last four years, the advantage, if it be an advantage, of many strange and varied experiences. But nothing was so thrilling as this: to wait and struggle among these clanging, rending iron boxes, with the repeated explosions of the shells and the artillery, the grunting and puffing of the engine – poor, tortured thing, harassed by at least a dozen shells, any one of which, by penetrating the boiler, might have made an end to it all”. W.L.S. Churchill.
Young Churchill (Imperial War Museum)
With Ladysmith besieged by Boer forces, by early November 1899 the main body of British troops had retired south of the Tugela River, basing itself at Estcourt. In a sort of “phoney war”, extensive scouting was carried out around Estcourt south to Willow Grange, west towards the Drakensberg Mountains and north towards Colenso, including the use of an “armoured train” which made periodic forays up the line to Frere, Chieveley and Colenso. However, the use of an armoured train as a reconnaissance vehicle was somewhat of an oxymoron. It could be seen and heard for miles, and any Boers in the vicinity merely had to take cover and wait for it to pass. Indeed, the armoured train that...
