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Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



Fiction genre suitable for people of all ages. Everyone will find something interesting for themselves. Our electronic library is always at your service. Reading online free books without registration. Nowadays ebooks are convenient and efficient. After all, don’t forget: literature exists and develops largely thanks to readers.
The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader by G. A. Henty (e book reader android TXT) 📖

Book online «With Buller in Natal, Or, a Born Leader by G. A. Henty (e book reader android TXT) 📖». Author G. A. Henty



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rain continued to pour down in torrents. Each man carried three days' provisions; they tramped along silently through the night; stoppages by swollen streams were frequent, and by daybreak the next morning they had only accomplished nine miles of their journey. Early in the morning the townspeople had woke up to the fact that the army had gone, and there was a general exodus of all who could obtain conveyances. The Boers remained for some time in ignorance that the force whose capture or destruction they had regarded as certain had slipped away. They saw the tents, but the fact that neither men nor horses were visible puzzled them, and it was eleven o'clock before some of the more venturesome galloping down found that the English force had escaped.

Then from all sides they poured into the town. Had they at once pursued they might still have overtaken the retreating force before nightfall; but they immediately set to work to loot the great stores of provisions left behind, and to gather their pickings from the deserted houses of Dundee, and so let slip their opportunity, and no pursuit whatever was attempted. For four days the column continued its march, resting for a few hours each day and usually marching all night. The road was terribly bad, leading through narrow mountain passes, and had but a small force of the enemy held the Waschbrank gorge, where the sides were for three miles nearly perpendicular, a terrible calamity might have taken place. Happily, however, the Boers were in absolute ignorance of the road which the British troops were following, and concluded that they must have somewhere crossed the railway and were making their way down by the roads to its west. That they had gone through Helpmakaar does not appear to have occurred to them, for after marching some thirty miles to that town the column was as far off Ladysmith as when it started.

The anxiety at the latter town was intense. The line being still uncut, the arrival of the column at Helpmakaar was known, but beyond that no communication could be received. On Tuesday the 24th Colonel Dartnel arrived in Ladysmith with the news that the column was now twenty miles away, all well, and he at once returned to them with supplies and a small relief force. On Wednesday many of the men came in, and on Thursday the remainder arrived and were heartily greeted. On the 24th—in order to divert the attention of Joubert and the Free State Boers, both of whom were converging upon General Yule's column, still making its way through the passes—a force composed of three regiments of cavalry, four of Colonial Mounted Infantry, three batteries, and four infantry regiments went out. The enemy were found near Reitfontein. No actual engagement took place, but for some hours an artillery and rifle duel was maintained and the Boers fell back. The number of casualties was not large, and these were principally among the Gloucester regiment, who, on entering a valley supposed to be untenanted, were received by a heavy fire from a strong party of the enemy hidden there. The fight, however, fulfilled the object for which the advance was undertaken, that of occupying the Boers' attention and enabling the column from Dundee to make its way into Ladysmith unmolested. The Boers were now closing in on the latter town from all directions, and preparations for defence at once began. The town-hall and the schools were fitted up as hospitals and everything arranged for the reception of wounded. As the Boers had already been seen near Colenso, sixteen miles to the south, it was certain that the communications would ere long be cut.

No more unsuitable place for a military camp could well have been selected than Ladysmith, which had indeed been chosen, years before the war was thought of, on account of its position on the railway, and the vicinity of the Klip river. The fact that the country immediately round was fertile and forage was obtainable no doubt influenced the military authorities in their selection. Lying in the heart of a mountainous country, it was commanded by steep and rocky hills at a distance of from two to four miles. Just as many castles built in the days before firearms were in use were rendered untenable against even the clumsy cannon of early days placed on eminences near, so the improvement in artillery and the possession of powerful modern guns by the Boers had gravely imperilled the position of Ladysmith. The military authorities could never have anticipated that the town would be besieged by foes armed with artillery that could carry over five miles. But such was the case now, and all there felt, as soon as it was decided to defend the place till the last, that the position was a precarious one.

Fortunately, a considerable store of provisions had been collected, and so long as the line was open additions were being sent up by every train. The line was a single one, winding along through passes among the hills, and therefore open to attack by small bodies of the enemy. In point of size Ladysmith was the third largest town in Natal. Durban boasted a population of thirty thousand, Pietermaritzburg of twenty thousand, and Ladysmith of four thousand five hundred, being four hundred larger than that of Dundee. It was the point at which the line of railway forked, one branch running north through Glencoe to the Transvaal, the other northwest through Van Reenen's Pass to Bloemfontein. It was a pretty straggling town with its barracks, government buildings and large stores. Almost all the houses were detached and standing in their own gardens, and as these were largely wooded its appearance was very picturesque, with the Klip river, a branch of the Tugela, running through it. The houses were, for the most part, one-storied, and the roofs were all painted white for the sake of coolness. No perfectly open town had ever before undergone a siege by an army of some thirty thousand men provided with excellent guns, and yet the garrison awaited the result with perfect confidence.







CHAPTER VII — LADYSMITH BESIEGED

On the 30th, the Boers being now in force on many of the hills around the town, and having inflicted the first annoyance upon Ladysmith by cutting the conduit that brought down the water-supply to the town from a reservoir among the hills, and so forced it for the future to depend upon a few wells and the muddy water of the river, it was determined to make an effort to drive them back and to gain possession of some of the hills from which it was now evident the town would stand a risk of being bombarded. Hitherto there had been considerable apathy in taking measures for keeping the enemy as far as possible out of range. A few redoubts thrown up during the last week and strongly held would have been invaluable, but it seemed to be considered by the military authorities that the siege could be but a short one, and that the Boers would speedily be driven off by the troops now pouring into Durban.

An effort was now to be made to repair the consequences of this remissness and to drive the Boers off the positions they occupied, and it was hoped that if a heavy blow were dealt them they would draw off altogether. The forces of Joubert, Meyer, and the Free Staters were now all within a distance of a few miles, and were all to be beaten up. Their central position was on a hill afterwards known as Signal Hill, and on this they had already planted a forty-pounder gun. A force composed of six companies of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, four and a half of the Gloucesters, a mountain battery and a troop of Hussars started at midnight towards a hill known as Nicholson's Nek, occupied by the Free Staters. Major General Hunter with

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