and Munster Fusiliers on either hand of us. Our section is in action now. We have just taken our waggon to the firing line and brought back the team. The corporal’s horse stepped in a hole just as we were reaching the guns and turned a complete somersault. He is all right, but his was our second mishap, as the near wheeler fell earlier in the day, and the driver was dragged some yards before we could stop. The ground is very dangerous, full of holes, some of them deep and half-covered with grass. Another driver is up, but the former is only a bit shaken, I think. Our section has silenced a Boer gun in three shots, at 4200 yards, a good bit of work, and a credit to Lieutenant Bailey as a judge of range. The right section also cleared the kopje they fired at, but had a narrow escape afterwards, coming suddenly, when on the move, under the fire of Boer guns, of whose presence they were ignorant, the shells falling thick but not bursting. Bivouacked at four on the veldt. The Boers had retired from the line they held. A long ride to water after unharnessing; nothing much to eat. Williams and I have taken to ending the day by boiling tea (from tablets) over the embers of the cook’s fire, or on one of our own if we have any fuel, which is very seldom. How the cooks get their wood is a mystery to me. The Kaffir drivers always have it, too, though there are no visible trees. We always seem to sit up late, short though our nights are. A chilly little group gathers sleepily round the embers, watching mess-tins full of nondescript concoctions balanced cunningly in the hot corners, and gossiping of small camp affairs or large strategical movements of which we know nothing. The brigade camp-fires twinkle faintly through the gloom. A line of veldt-fire is sure to be glowing in the distance, looking like the lights of a sea-side town as seen from the sea. The only sound is of mules shuffling and jingling round the waggons.
The “cook-house” is still the source of rumours, which are wonderfully varied. There is much vague talk now of General Clements and a brigade being connected somehow with our operations. But we know as little of the game we are playing as pawns on the chessboard. Our tea is strong, milkless, and sugarless, but I always go to sleep the instant I lie down, even if I am restless with the cold later.
_July 3._–Reveille at 4.30. Our section, under Lieutenant Bailey, started at once for a steep kopje looming dimly about three miles away. The right section, with the Major and Captain, left us and went to another one. We had a tough job getting our guns and waggons up.
_(8 A.M.)_–Just opening fire now. A Boer gun is searching the valley on our left, but they can’t see the limbers and waggons.
_(8.30.)_–The Boers seem to have some special dislike to our waggon. They have just placed two shells, one fifty yards in front of it, and the other fifty yards behind; one of them burst on impact, the other didn’t. The progress of a shell sounds far off like the hum of a mosquito, rising as it nears to a hoarse screech, and then “plump.” We mind them very little now. There is great competition for the fragments, as “curios.” It is cold, grey, and sunless today. Last night there was heavy rain, and our blankets are wet still. It seems the Boers are firing a Krupp at 7000 yards; our guns are only sighted up to 5000 yards, but we have managed to reach them by sinking the trail in the ground, and other devices.
_(12.30 P.M.)_–A long halt here, with nothing doing. The Boer gun has ceased to fire, and we call it “silenced,” possibly with truth, but the causes of silence are never quite certain. As far as I can make out, it was on the extreme left of their position, while our main attack is threatening their centre. It is raining hard, but we have made a roaring fire of what is the chief fuel in this country, dry cow-dung, and have made cocoa in our mess-tins, from a tin sent me a month ago; also soup, out of the scrapings of Maconochie tins.
—-. What seemed likely to be a dull day turned out very exciting. About two a staff officer came up with orders, and we marched down from our kopje and attacked another one[A] (which I made out to be their centre), taking up several positions in quick succession. The Boers had a gun on the kopje, which we dislodged, and the infantry took the position. (About 2.30 it began to rain again and poured all the afternoon in cold, slashing torrents.) We finally went up the kopje ourselves, over a shocking bit of rocky ground near the top, fired on the retreating Boers from there, and then came down on the other side. Soon afterwards came an old story. It was about five, and had cleared up. A staff officer had said that there were no Boers anywhere near now, and that we were to march on and bivouac. We and the Munsters and some Yeomanry were marching down a valley, whose flanks were supposed to have been scouted, the infantry in column of companies, that is, in close formation, and all in apparent security. Suddenly a storm of rifle-fire broke out from a ridge on our right front and showed us we were ambushed. The Munsters were nearest to the ridge, about 600 yards, I should say. We were a bit further off. I heard a sort of hoarse murmur go up from the close mass of infantry, and saw it boil, so to speak, and spread out. Our section checked for a moment, in a sort of bewilderment (my waggon was close behind our gun at the time), but the next, and almost without orders, guns were unlimbered and whisked round, a waggon unhooked, teams trotting away, and shrapnel bursting over the top of the ridge in quick succession. All this time the air was full of a sound like the moaning of wind from the bullets flying across the valley, but strange to say, not a man of us was hit. Some of them were explosive bullets. The whole thing was soon over. Our guns peppered their quickest, and it was a treat to see the shrapnel bursting clean and true along the ridge. The infantry extended and lay down; some Yeomanry made a flank move, and that episode was over. It might have been serious, though. If they had held their fire undiscovered for ten minutes longer we might have been badly cut up, for we were steadily nearing the spur which they occupied. It is right to say, though, that our Lieutenant, having doubts about the safety of the place, had shortly before sent forward ground-scouts, of whom Williams was one, who would possibly have been able to warn us in time. Needless to say, it was not our duty to scout for the column.
[Footnote A: The name of this kopje was Barking Kop, I believe, and we have since always applied it generally to the fighting on this day.]
It was nearly dark now, a burning farm ahead making a hot glow in the sky, and we moved off to join the rest of the column with its unwieldy baggage-train and convoy, and all camped together, after the usual tedious ride to water horses at a muddy pool. They had had a very hard day and had done well, but were very tired. On days like this they often get no water till evening. A feed is ordered when a free interval seems likely, but the chances are that it is snatched off, and their bits thrust in again, half-way through. When we got in and rejoined our right section, all were full of a serious mishap to the 38th Field Battery, with which they had been acting on the left flank. Both were in action in adjoining fields, when a party of Boers crept up unseen and got within fifty yards of the 38th guns, shooting down men and horses. The 38th behaved splendidly, but all their officers were killed or wounded, a number of gunners, and many horses. Two guns were for a time in the hands of the Boers, who, I believe, removed the tangent sights. It appears that the M.I. escort of the Battery, owing, I suppose, to some misunderstanding, retreated. The situation was saved by Captain Budworth, of our Battery, who collected and brought up some mounted infantry, whether Yeomanry or Bushmen I am not clear about. They beat the Boers off, and our teams helped to take the guns out of action. We came off all right, with only one gunner slightly wounded.
I was desperately hungry, and only coffee was issued, but later a sheep’s carcase turned up from somewhere, and I secured a leg, and Williams some chops, which we promptly laid as they were on one of the niggers’ wood fires and ate in our fingers ravenously. The leg I also cooked and kept for to-day (I am writing on the morning of the 4th), and it is hanging on my saddle. I was rather sleepless last night, owing to cramp from a drenched blanket, and got up about midnight and walked over to the remains of one of our niggers’ fires. Crouching over the embers I found a bearded figure, which hoarsely denounced me for coming to its fire. I explained that it was _our_ fire, but that he was welcome, and settled down to thaw. It turned out to be a sergeant of the 38th Battery. I asked something, and he began a long rambling soliloquy about things in general, in a thick voice, with his beard almost in the fire, scarcely aware of my presence. I can’t reproduce it faithfully, because of the language, but it dealt with the war, which he thought would end next February, and the difference between Boer and British methods, and how our cavalry go along, heels down, toes in, arms close to side, eyes front, all according to regulation, keeping distance regardless of ground, while the Boer cares nothing as long as he gets there and does his work. He finished with the gloomy prophecy that if we didn’t join Clements to-morrow we should never “get out of this.” Not knowing who or where Clements was, I asked him about the affair of that day, and produced a growling storm of expletives; then he muttered something about the Victoria Cross and driving a team out of action, asked the way to his lines, to which I carefully directed him, and drifted off in the opposite direction.
By the way, this General Clements seems to be a myth, and the talk now is of Rundle and Ian Hamilton, who are supposed to be getting round De Wet from other quarters, while we drive him up this way into their arms. It is said we are going to Bethlehem. I forgot an important event of the evening in the arrival of a bag of mails, parcels only, brought by a convoy from Kroonstadt, which has just come in. To my delight I got one with a shirt and socks (which I at once put on over the others), cigarettes (a long exhausted luxury), Liebig, precious for evening soup, and chocolate, almost too good to eat for fear of getting discontented. We are on half rations of biscuit, which means three, and a tin of Maconochie each, a supply about enough to whet your appetite for one meal in a life like this, but it has to last the day of about seventeen hours. The ration is issued the night before, to eat as we please, and, of course, there is coffee soon after reveille, and tea in the evening. There is a cupful of porridge also with the coffee, paid for by deduction from our pay, so that one starts in good fettle. I don’t know why the whole column shouldn’t get fresh meat every day, for the country is teeming with cattle, which are collected and driven along with the column in huge herds. Many of the farmhouses are smoking ruins, the enemy, after annexation, being rebels according to law, and not belligerents; but it seems to me that such a policy is to use a legal fiction for an oppressive end, for it is quite clear that this part of the Orange River Colony has never been conquered.[A]
[Footnote A: I leave this as I wrote it, but drivers are not politicians, and doubtless there were special circumstances, such as treachery, concealed arms or sniping, to justify what at the best must be a doubtful policy; for a burnt farm means a desperate farmer.]
_July 4._–_Wednesday._–Up at five after a bitterly cold night, but there was a long delay before starting. We are rear-guard to-day. Just before leaving an infantry man shot himself while cleaning his rifle. There was a little buzz and stir, and then all was quiet again. He was buried in half an hour.
A dull day’s marching. After about ten miles we halted to water horses and rest. While watering, the Boers sent over a futile shell from a big gun. On return we unhooked and grazed the horses. Things looked peaceful, and there was a warm sun, so I ventured to unstrap my kit-roll and spread my blankets out to dry. They were still wet from the rain of two nights ago. I had scarcely spread them out when “Hook in” was shouted, and back they had to go, half-folded, in a perilously loose bundle. (You can never count on five minutes, but it’s worth trying.) At about 4.30 we and the 38th Battery trotted ahead about a mile and a half, and began shelling a ridge; but I think it was soon abandoned, for shortly after we limbered up and camped with the rest of the brigade, which had followed us. I am “stableman” to-day for three days. On the march this involves drawing sacks of forage from the Quartermaster Sergeant in the early morning and late evening, and serving out the oats to the drivers of the sub-division. It is not so irksome a duty as in a standing camp, but has its trying moments; for instance, when drivers are busied with bed-making or cocoa-cooking in the evening, and are deaf to your shouts of “D drivers, roll up for your feeds!” a camp-cry which has not half the effect of “Roll up for your coffee!” or, more electrical still, “Roll up for your rum!”
_July 5._–We were up at 4.30, but as usual had to stand by our horses for over an hour, freezing our feet in the frosty grass before starting. Harnessing up with numbed fingers in the dark was a trying job. My harness sheets were stiff as boards with frozen dew, and I had to stamp them into shape for packing. I had a warm night, though. My bed is made thus: I place the two saddles on end, at the right distance for the length of my body, and facing inwards, that is, with the seats outwards; I leave the horse-blankets strapped on underneath them, as there is not much time to re-fold and re-strap them in the morning, and my head (pillowed on two feed-bags filled overnight for the early morning feed) goes in the hollow of one saddle, between the folds of the blanket, and my feet in the hollow of the other. The rest of each set of harness is heaped behind each saddle, and when the harness-sheets are spread over each set there is enough for the ends to lap over and make a roof for the head, and also for the feet. Then I wrap myself in my two blankets, and if an oatsack is obtainable, first get my feet into that. My waterproof sheet serves as counterpane. It is not wanted as a mattress, as no dew falls till the morning, and the ground is dry at bed-time. After rain, of course, it has to go beneath one. The great point is to keep your blankets as dry as you can, for, once wet with dew or rain, they remain wet, since we both start and arrive in the dark, and thus cannot count on drying them. It is a good plan before turning in to see that the horses in the lines near you are securely tied up, as it is vexatious to be walked on in the night by a heavy artillery horse; also to have all your kit and belongings exactly where you can lay hands on them in the dark. At reveille, which, by the way, takes the shape of a rude shake from the picket of the night (there is no trumpet used in campaigning), you shiver out of your nest, the Sergeant-Major’s whistle blows, and you at once feed your horses. Then you pack your off-saddle, rolling the ground-sheet, blankets, and harness-sheet, with the muzzles, surcingle-pads, hay-nets, etc., and strapping the roll on the saddle. Then you harness as fast as you can (generally helped by a gunner), make up two fresh feeds and tie them up in nose-bags on the saddle, and put on your belt, haversack, water-bottle, and other accoutrements. In the middle of this there will be a cry of “D coffee up!” and you drop everything and run with the crowd for your life to get that precious fluid, and the porridge, if there is any. You bolt them in thirty seconds, and run back to strap your mess-tin on your saddle, put the last touches to your harness, and hook in the team. Of course we sleep in our cloaks, and wear them till about eight, when the sun gets strength. Then we seize a chance to roll them at a halt, and strap them in front of the riding saddle.
To return to to-day. It has been very inconclusive and unsatisfactory. We have marched about twelve miles, I think, with some long halts, in one of which we unhooked and rode to a pool some distance off to water horses. I have been fearfully sleepy all day. Two guns of the 38th Battery have joined us, and we march as a six-gun battery under Major McMicking. They have no officers fit for duty, and our Captain looks after them. In the evening some shrapnel began bursting on a ridge ahead, and we went up and fired a bit; but I suppose the Boers decamped, for we soon after halted for the night. It is said that the mythical Clements is now one march behind us, our scouts having met to-day, and that Bethlehem is three miles ahead, strongly held by De Wet. Other mythical generals are in the air. I am getting used to the state of blank ignorance in which we live. Perfect sunset in a clear sky. One of the charms of Africa is the long settled periods of pure unclouded sky, in which the sun rises and sets with no flaming splashes of vivid colours, but by gentle, imperceptible gradations of pure light, waning or waxing. And as for rain, when it is once over it is thoroughly over (at this season, at any rate). This night the darkness was soon lit up by a flaming farm. All desperately hungry, when it was announced that an extra ration of raw meat was to be served out. If I can’t cook it, shall I eat it raw? To-morrow’s ration is a pound of fresh cooked meat, instead of the eternal Maconochie. It was drawn to-night, and looked so good that I ate half of it at once, thus yielding to an oft-recurring temptation. Orders for reveille at seven. Great joy.
_July 6._–Reveille was marked by a Boer shell coming over the camp, followed by others in quick succession, real good bursting shrapnel, a rare thing for the Boers to possess, but they came from a long range and burst too high. Nobody took the least notice, and we went on harnessing and breakfasting as usual. It is strange how soon one gets a contempt for shells. In about half an hour the firing stopped. We hooked in, but unhooked again, and rode to water. There is some delay; waiting for Clements, perhaps. I write this sitting by my horses in a hot sun, with the water frozen to a solid lump in the bottle at my back, through the felt cover, and after being under a harness sheet all the night. Had a jolly talk with some Paddies of the Munster Fusiliers, about Ireland, etc. They were miserable, “fed up,” but merry; that strange combination one sees so much of out here. They talked about the revels they would have when they got home, the beef, bacon, and stout, but chiefly stout. We have already learnt to respect and admire the infantry of our brigade, and I think the confidence is mutual. (Starting.)
_(4.30)._–We have had a hard day’s marching a long distance out on the right flank. There is a biggish battle proceeding.
I think Clements’s brigade has joined ours, for our front is some miles in length, with the wavy lines of khaki figures advancing slowly and steadily, covered by artillery fire. The 38th are with us. We have been in action several times in successive positions, but the chief attack seems to be on a steep conical kopje in the centre, behind and below which lies Bethlehem, I believe. It is just dark, but heavy rifle-firing is still going on in front. One of our gunners has been shot in the knee. We camped near our last firing position, but waited a long time for our transport and its precious freight of cooks and “dickseys” (camp-kettles). Williams and I ruthlessly chopped down parts of a very good fence, and made a fire with the wood and a lot of dry mealy stalks, which burn furiously. Then we and Ramsey cooked our meat in our mess-tin lids, and made cocoa with water which Ramsey fetched from some distance. It was a thick brown fluid, and froze while we were waiting to put it on, but it tasted excellent.
_July 7._–Reveille at 3.45. We marched out about a mile and waited for the dawn.
_7 A.M._–At first dawn firing began, and we went into action at once, as did the whole line of infantry. A tremendous fusillade of shells and bullets is now being poured upon the position in front, and chiefly on the central conical kopje. My waggon is halted, waiting to go up. The sun is just getting strength, warming our numbed feet, and spiriting away the white frost-mantle that the land always wears at dawn.
_(3 P.M.)._–Guns, Maxims, and rifles hailed lead into the Boer trenches for a long time, and then the infantry seized them, and the Boers retired. The practice of the 38th and our guns seemed to me to be very good. We have also a five-inch lyddite gun (Clements brought it), which sent up huge clouds of brown dust where the shell struck. We have now advanced over very heavy ground to the late Boer position, halted, and ridden some way to water down a precipitous slope, into a long, rocky hollow. From this point the country seems to change entirely to steep, rocky hills and hollows, rising and increasing to the whole Drakensberg range, which is blue and craggy on the sky-line. They say the Boers have evacuated Bethlehem with a baggage train three miles long. I don’t know why we are not following them up. Perhaps the mounted infantry are. Our horses are done up. It was cruel work spurring and lashing them over heavy ploughed land to-day.
_July 8._–Rest at last. It is Sunday morning, and we are all lying or sitting about, bathed in warm sunshine, waiting for orders, but it seems we shan’t move to-day. My blankets are all spread out, getting a much-wanted drying, but what I chiefly want is a wash. I have had three imperfect ones since leaving Bloemfontein and one shave, and my boots off for about ten minutes now and then.
_(3 P.M.)._–Nothing on to-day. I have had a wash in a thimbleful of water, and shaved, and feel another man. They gave us an hour of stables, but the horses certainly needed it, as they never get groomed now, and are a shaggy, scraggy-looking lot. I’m glad to say mine are quite free from galls and sore backs. As one never sees their backs by daylight, it is interesting to get a good look at them at last. They are very liable to sore backs (partly owing to the weight of the military saddle), if there is any carelessness in folding the blanket beneath the saddle. It has been a real hot day, and yet there was thick ice on the pool we watered at this morning.
As to yesterday, it appears that De Wet and his army effected a safe retreat, but our General was pleased with the day’s work, and congratulated us and the 38th. We put one Boer gun at least completely out of action, and it was captured by the infantry. The infantry lost but few that day, but rather heavily the day before, especially the Munsters. Paget is already very popular with us. We trust his generalship and we like the man, for he seems to be one of us, a frank, simple soldier, who thinks of every man in his brigade as a comrade. I understand now what an enormous difference this makes to men in the ranks. A chance word of praise dropped in our hearing, a joking remark during a hot fight (repeated affectionately over every camp-fire at night), any little touch of nature that obliterates rank, and makes man and general “chums” for the moment; such trifles have an effect on one’s spirits which I could never have believed possible, if I had not felt their charm. I wonder if officers know it, but it takes nothing for them to endear themselves to men.
It seems to be beyond doubt that our guns are a success, but their special ammunition is a source of great difficulty. We have stacks of it at Bloemfontein, but cannot carry much about with us, and of course the ammunition column with its fifteen-pounder shells is of no use to us. We have been short after every action, and have to depend on precarious waggonfuls, coming by convoy from somewhere on the railway. They say General Hunter and a division is concentrating here too, and a large force is visible in the valley, marching up. They are flooding us with fresh meat to-day, by way of a change. It is said that Paget has ordered a certain number of sheep and cattle to be slaughtered daily for the brigade.
_(Later)._–I had scarcely written the above lines when the order came to harness up at once. We did so, and were soon off; the sections separated, ours making for a steep hill about three miles away, on which we were ordered to take post. It was an awkward climb in the gathering darkness, with drag-ropes on the upper wheels, when moving along a very steep slope. A final rush of frantic collar work, and we were on a flat plateau, where we unlimbered the guns, so as to command the valley, and camped near them. I was on picket duty this night, and quite enjoyed it, though I had one three-hour spell at a go. It was warmer than usual, with a bonnie moon in a clear sky, a dozen veldt-fires reddening in the distance, mysterious mists wreathing about the valley beneath, and the glowing embers of a good wood-fire on which to cook myself some Maggi soup.
CHAPTER VII.
BULTFONTEIN.
_July 9._–A delicious, warm day. Reveille at six. I am afraid it looks as if we were to be kept on this lonely hill-top for some time. It’s true we deserve a rest, for we have been on the move for some time; but I would much prefer to march on and see the last of De Wet. After campaigning, the routine of a standing camp seems dull and irksome. We have just shifted our camp a few hundred yards, bringing it to the very brow of the hill, which drops straight down into the valley. In fact, it is below the brow, and the horses are on a most awkward slant. The Munsters are camped just above us. Below, and about two miles away, lies Bethlehem, with hills behind it, and the mountain range mistily seen behind all. Unlike Lindley, this is the first time Bethlehem has been occupied by the British. Williams has just come in from a foraging expedition he was sent on. He got mealy flour for the battery, and a chicken for ourselves, and had had cigarettes and marmalade with the Lifeguards, who, with the whole of Hunter’s division, are camped near here. He also got some Kaffir bread from a kraal, a damp, heavy composition, which, however, is very good when fried in fat in thin slices. We ate our tea sitting on rocks overlooking the valley, and at dark a marvellous spectacle began for our entertainment, a sight which Crystal-Palace-goers would give half-a-crown for a front place to see. As I have said, all day long there are casual veldt-fires springing up in this country. Just now two or three began down in the valley, tracing fine golden lines in spirals and circles. The grass is short, so that there is no great blaze, but the effect is that of some great unseen hand writing cabalistic sentences (perhaps the “Mene, Mene” of De Wet!), with a pen dipped in fire. This night there was scarcely a breath of wind to determine the track of the fires, or quicken their speed, and they wound and intersected at their own caprice, describing fantastic arcs and curves from which one could imagine pictures and letters. The valley gradually became full of a dull, soft glow, and overhung with red, murky smoke, through which the moon shone down with the strangest mingling of diverse lights. Very suddenly a faint breeze began to blow in from the valley directly towards our camp. At once the aimless traceries of fine flame seemed to concentrate into a long resolute line, and a wave of fire, roaring as it approached, gained the foot of the hill, and began to climb it towards us. Watchful eyes had been on the lookout. “Drivers, stand to your horses,” was shouted. “Out with your blankets, men,” to our gunners and the infantry behind, and in an instant the chosen sons of Cork were bounding out of their lines and down the hill, and belabouring the fire with blankets and ground-sheets and sacks. They seemed to think it a fine joke, and raised a paean of triumph when it was got under. “Wan more victory,” I heard one say.
_July 10._–Slack day, most of it spent in grazing the horses. For this duty each man takes four horses, so that only half of us need go; but on the other hand, if you stay, you may come in for a “fatigue,” which it requires some insight to predict. Beyond that, our whole energies were concentrated on cooking our meals, raw meat only being served out. Williams and I borrowed a camp-kettle from the Munsters, and cooked our mutton with a pumpkin which we had commandeered. The weather is a good deal warmer. We are camped near the scene of a hard stand made by the Boers, dotted with trenches and little heaps of cartridge-cases, and also unused cartridges. I found one complete packet sewn up in canvas roughly and numbered. In most cases they are Lee-Metfords, and not Mausers. The Boers have, of course, captured quantities of our rifles and ammunition in convoy “mishaps” of various dates. Spent the evening in trying cooking experiments with mealy flour and some Neave’s Food, which one of us had. One longs for a change of diet from biscuit and plain meat, which, without vegetables, never seem to satisfy. Even salt has been lacking till to-day, and porridge has ceased. It was announced that a convoy was to leave for Kroonstadt the same night, taking wounded and mails, and I hurriedly wrote two notes. I am afraid we are here for some time. I wish I could hear from Henry.
_July 11._–Reveille at 6.30. Stables, grazing, exercise, and more stables, till 1.30, and grazing again in the afternoon. Sat up late at night over embers of cook’s fire, talking to a Munster sergeant about the last two days’ fighting and other experiences of his. They had thirty-two casualties on the second day, including four officers wounded. All sorts of rumours to-day: that we stop a month on this hill; that we go to Capetown on Friday; that we march to Harrismith and Durban in a few days, etc., etc.
_July 12._–At breakfast, mealy porridge was served out with the coffee. It is eatable, but not pleasant without sugar.
Williams and I got leave to spend the morning out, and walked to Bethlehem over the veldt. A rather nice little town, but all the stores shut, and looking like a dead place. It was full of troops. Some stores had sentries over them, for there had been a great deal of looting. We hammered at a store door, and at last a man came out and said he had nothing to sell. However, he gave us leave to look round, which we did with an exhaustive scrutiny which amused him. At first there seemed to be nothing but linseed meal and mouth-organs, but by ferreting round, climbing to shelves, and opening countless drawers, we discovered some mealy flour, and reproached him for his insincerity. He protested that it was all he had to live on, but at last consented to sell us some, and some mixed spices, the only other eatable he had, besides a knife and fork, braces and sponges. Then we tried another store. A crusty, suspicious old fellow let us grudgingly in, locked the door, and made the same protests. We were just going when I descried some bottles on a distant shelf. He sourly brought them down. They were Mellin’s Food for Infants, and we bought six at half a crown each; also some mixed herbs, and essence of vanilla. Then we made a house-to-house visitation, but only got some milk from an Englishwoman, who was so full of stories of Boer rapacity that she forgot our wants, and stood, cup in hand, complaining about eight ponies they had taken, while we were deaf and thirsty. The whole town had an English appearance. They all abused De Wet. No fresh supplies had come in for nine months, and the whole place was stripped. On the whole, we thought we had done pretty well, as we had half a sack of things, and another one full of fuel laboriously collected on the way back.
Rumours in the town were rife. All agreed we could do nothing till a supply-convoy comes in, now expected from Kroonstadt. We are fifty-four miles, across mountains, from Harrismith on the east, and seventy or eighty from Kroonstadt on the west. All supplies from the latter must come by ox-waggons over dozens of bad drifts, with raiding Boers about, and it is easy to see how an army might be starved before it knew it. We are very short now, I believe. It seems De Wet is ten miles off in the mountains, being watched by Broadwood’s cavalry, and as soon as we can move I expect we shall go for him. Grazing in the afternoon. Williams and I played picquet, lying by our horses. This is always rather a precarious amusement, as the horses have a way of starting off suddenly to seek “pastures new,” and you look up and find them gone, and have to climb rocks and view them out. We tie them all four close together, but there is generally one predominant partner who personally conducts the rest. In the evening we baked cakes of our mealy flour, adding Mellin’s Food, mixed herbs, vanilla, and fat, and fried it in a fatty dish. It was very good, and was followed by meat fried in mealy crumbs, and later on, some mealy porridge and Mellin mixed. We tried Mellin alone first, but it seemed thin. We read the directions carefully, and used the proportions laid down for infants _over_ three months. I dare say it would have been all right had we been four months old, but being rather more mature, it seemed unsubstantial. Its main advantage is its sweetness. In this hungry life, one misses sugar more than anything.
_July 13._–Reveille 6.30, and grooming, while the infantry chaps sat up in their beds and watched us sarcastically. At nine, harness-cleaning for drivers, and grazing for gunners, but I have got a gunner who dislikes bare-back riding to do my harness while I graze. I am writing on the veldt; warm sunny day, pale blue sky–very pale.–Back to finish harness-cleaning. We always “grouse” at this occupation, as I believe all drivers do on active service. We don’t polish steel, but there is a wonderful lot of hard work in rubbing dubbin into all the leather. It is absolutely necessary to keep it supple, especially such parts as the collar, girths, stirrup-leathers, reins, etc. Grazing again all the afternoon. The horses have been on half rations of oats since we came here, so I suppose it is necessary. I was sitting writing by my horses, when a cart rattled by. Some one shouted, “Anything to sell?” It stopped, and there was a rush. In it was a farmer and a rascally old Yeomanry sergeant who had been buying bread for his men, and now sold us a loaf and a half for six shillings. There was no doubt about paying, and I got a third of one loaf, which we ate luxuriously in the evening. It was of mealy flour, and tasted velvety and delicious after eternal biscuit. We also organized a large bake of mealy cakes, which were a distressing failure, as the pan got red-hot. I am afraid food and eating have become very prominent in my diary. My only excuse is that they really are not disproportionately so, seeing their absorbing importance in the life of a soldier on active service, especially when he is far from a base and rations are short.
Some Boer tobacco was kindly sent to us by the Major, and was very welcome, for ‘baccy has been very scarce, and you see fellows picking the wet dottels out of the bottoms of their pipes and drying them in the sun for future use. Matches also are very precious; there are none to be got, and they are counted and cared for like sovereigns. The striking of a match is a public event, of which the striker gives previous notice in a loud voice. Pipes are filled, and every second in the life of the match is utilized.
_July 14._–We came back to camp after the last spell to find that the gunners had shifted the lines to the bottom of the hill, on a dismal patch of burnt veldt. We dragged and carried our harness and kit down the rocks, and settled down again, after the usual fatigues connected with change of camp. Everybody very irritable, for this looked like a long stay, but after tea the word went round that we were off next day, to our great delight. We are sick of this place.
_July 15._–We harnessed up at 6.30, and at 9.30 climbed to the top of the hill again, a hard pull for the horses. Then marched off with an escort of Highlanders, and halted on what it seems is the Senekal road, near to the site of our last camp after the battle. Here we joined our own right section and a large convoy with sick and wounded, besides the transport for our own brigade, which had mustered there too. They say we are going with the convoy to Senekal, which is quite unexpected, and a doubtful prospect. It seems to be taking us away from De Wet, and promises only hard marching and a dull time. We marched about ten miles entirely over burnt veldt, a most dismal country. There was a high cold wind, which drove black dust over us till we were all like Christy Minstrels. Camped at five.
_July 16._–Reveille at six. There was a deficiency in the meat ration, and at the last moment a sheep’s carcase for each sub-division was thrown down to be divided. Ours was hacked to bits pretty soon, but raw meat on the march is a great nuisance, as there is no convenient place to pack it, and very likely much difficulty in cooking it.
_1.15._–Marched from eight till one over very hilly country, mostly burnt. It seems there are Boers about; their laager was seen last night, and I believe our scouts are now in touch with them. The pet of the left section, a black and white terrier named Tiny, has been having a fine hunt after a hare, to the amusement of the whole brigade. She is a game little beast, and follows us everywhere. Jacko, of the right section, rides on a gun-limber. We passed a farm just now which was being looted. Three horsemen have just passed with a chair each, also picture-frames (all for fuel, of course), and one man carrying a huge feather mattress, also fowls and flour. Artillery don’t get much chance at this sort of game.
_(2 P.M.)._–Firing began on the right, and we were trotted up a long steep hill into action, bullets dropping round, but no one hit. In front are two remarkable kopjes, squat, steep, and flat-topped. We are shelling one of them.[A]
[Footnote A: We were (as we heard long after) in action against De Wet’s rear-guard. He had escaped from the cordon just before it was drawn tight, with a small and mobile force, and was now in retreat towards Lindley. Broadwood’s cavalry pursued him, but in vain.]
_(4.30 P.M.)._–This is the warmest work we have had yet. Our waggon is with the guns, unhooked, and we and the team are with the limbers in rear. There is no shelter, for the ground is level. Boer guns on a kopje have got our range, and at one time seemed much interested in our team, for four shells fell in a circle round us, from thirty to forty yards off. It was very unpleasant to sit waiting for the bull’s-eye.
_(4.35 P.M.)._–We have shifted the teams a bit, and got out of the music. To go back: we have been in action all the afternoon, shelling a kopje where the Boers have several guns. It is a wooded one, and they are very difficult to locate. They have a great advantage, as we are on the open level ground below, and they have been fairly raining shells round us. Fortunately most of them burst only on impact, and are harmless, owing to the soft ground, outside a very small radius; they seem to be chiefly segment shell, but I saw a good many shrapnel, bursting high and erratically. The aim was excellent, and well-timed shrapnel would have been very damaging. Still, we have been very lucky even so, only one man wounded, and no guns, waggons or horses touched. Once, when trotting out of action, a shell burst just beside our team–an excellent running shot for the sportsman who fired it! It made a deafening noise, but only resulted in chipping a scratch on my mare’s nose with a splinter. She thought she was killed, and made a great fuss, kicking over the traces, etc.; so that we had to halt to put things straight.
In this case, again, the veldt was alight everywhere, but it was only short grass, and we could trot safely through the thin lambent line of flame. I’m afraid we shall be short of ammunition soon. We started yesterday with only one hundred rounds per gun.
Can it be that De Wet has got round here, and that we are up against his main position? What is happening elsewhere I don’t know. There are a lot of cavalry, Yeomanry, infantry, etc., about somewhere, but here we seem alone with a small infantry escort, and no sound but the opposing guns. It shows how little a single Tommy sees or knows of a fight.
At dark we marched away about a mile, and bivouacked. Williams and I minced our meat in one of the battery mincing machines, and made a grand dish of it over the cook’s fire. There was a red glare over half the sky to-night, as though a Babylon were burning. It was only a veldt-fire.
_July 17._–_Tuesday._–Reveille at six. Our horses are grazing, harnessed. We are waiting for the Staff to say if this is a good position. It appears that De Wet retreated in the night, and went towards Lindley, which will complete the circle of the hunt. Our sections are separated again. The right, under Lieutenant Lowe, has gone on with the convoy to Senekal, and we and the 38th Battery (who have now fresh officers), and most of the brigade, have taken up a position just under one of the remarkable kopjes I spoke of, and are told we shall stay here four days. I suppose we are part of some endeavour to surround De Wet, but the whole operations seem to get more obscure. He has played this game for months in this part of the Free State, and is no nearer capture. Thinking over it, one’s mental state during a fight is a strange paradox. I suppose it arises from the nature of my work, but, speaking for myself at least, I feel no animosity to any one. Infantry, no doubt, get the lust of battle, but I don’t for my part experience anything like it, though gunners tell me they do, which is natural. One feels one is taking part in a game of skill at a dignified distance, and any feeling of hostility is very impersonal and detached, even when concrete signs of an enemy’s ill-will are paying us noisy visits. The fact is–and I fancy this applies to all sorts and conditions of private soldiers–in our life in the field, fighting plays a relatively small part. I doubt if people at home realize how much in the background are its dangers and difficulties. The really absorbing things are questions of material welfare–sordid, physical, unromantic details, which touch you at every turn. Shall we camp in time to dry my blankets? Biscuit ration raised from three to three and a half! How can I fill my water-bottle? Rum to-night! Is there time for a snooze at this halt? Dare I take my boots off to-night? Is it going to rain? There are always the thousand little details connected with the care of horses and harness, and all along the ever-present problem of the next meal, and how to make it meet the demands of your hunger. I don’t mean that one is always _worrying_ about such things. They generally have a most humorous side, and are a source of great amusement; on the other hand, they sometimes seem overwhelmingly important. Chiefly one realizes the enormous importance of food to a soldier. Shortage of sleep, over-marching, severe fighting, sink into insignificance beside an empty stomach. Any infantry soldier will tell you this; and it is on them, who form the bulk of a field force, that the strain really tells. Mounted men are better able to fend for themselves. (I should say, that an artillery _driver_ has in the field the least tiring work of all, physically; at home, probably the heaviest.) It is the foot-soldier who is the measure of all things out here. In the field he is always at the extreme strain, and any defect of organization tells acutely and directly on him. Knowing what it is to be hungry and tired myself, I can’t sufficiently admire these Cork and Yorkshire comrades of ours, in their cheerful, steady marching.
By the way, the General was giving orders close to me this morning. He said to our Major, “Your guns are the best–longest range; go up there.” So the Lord Mayor is justified; but the special ammunition is a great difficulty. This, however, is only a matter of organization. As to the guns themselves, we have always understood that the pattern was refused by the War Office some years ago; it would be interesting to know on what grounds. They are very simple, and have some features which are obvious improvements on the 15-pr.
There was a serious alarm of fire just now. There is a high wind, and the grass is unusually long. A fire started due to windward, and came rushing and roaring towards us. We drivers took the horses out of reach, and the gunners and infantry attacked it with sacks, etc. But nothing could stop it, though by great efforts they confined its width, so that it only reached one of our waggons and the watercart, which I don’t think are damaged. No sooner well past than fellows began cooking on the hot embers.–Stayed here all day, and unharnessed and picketed in the evening.
_July 18._–Reveille at six, and harnessed up; but did nothing all the morning but graze the horses, and at twelve unharness and groom them. I believe we have to take it in turn with the 38th to be in readiness for instant departure. Firing is heard at intervals. We are, I believe, about twenty miles from Senekal, eighteen from Bethlehem, and thirty from Lindley. We call the place Bultfontein, from a big farm near, where the General has his head-quarters. Water is bad here; a thick, muddy pool, used also by cattle and horses.
There has been some to-do about the sugar, and we now draw it separately ourselves, two ounces, and find it goes further. There is enough for the morning mealy porridge, which is very nasty without it.
_July 19._–Reveille at six. Harnessed up. Cleaning lines, and grazing all the morning. Grazing is now practically a standing order in all spare time. I believe it is necessary for the horses; but it acts as an irksome restraint on the men. When not on the move, we have the three stable-hours as in a standing camp, and often “grouse” over them a good deal; but the horses are certainly in wonderfully good condition with the care taken of them. The weather is warmer. Frost at night, but no dew; and a hot sun all the windless, cloudless day.
Visited a pile of loot taken by some 38th men, and got a lump of home-made Boer soap, in exchange for some English tobacco. It has a fatty smell, but makes a beautiful white lather. They had all sorts of household things, and a wag was wearing a very _piquante_ piece of female head-gear. In the afternoon I got leave away, and washed in the muddy pool aforesaid. It seems odd that it can clean one; but it does. On the way back found a nigger killing a sheep, and bought some fat, which is indispensable in our cooking; if there is any over, we boil it and use it as butter. We cooked excellent mealy cakes in it in the evening. “We don’t know where we are” to-day; we had mutton, rice, and cheese for dinner!
_July 20._–Harnessed up as usual at dawn, and “stood by” all the morning. The rumour now is that De Wet never went to Lindley at all, but only a small commando, and that he is at Ficksburg, fifty miles away on the Basuto border. What an eel of a man!
Clements’s brigade arrived to-day from somewhere, and is just visible, camped a few miles away. The biscuit ration was raised from three to four and a half to-day. Five is the full number. Rations are good now. Cooked mutton is served out at night, and also a portion of raw mutton. Drawing rations is an amusing scene. It is always done in the dark, and the corporal stands at the pot doling out chunks. It is a thrilling moment when you investigate by touch the nature of the greasy, sodden lump put into your hand; it may be all bone, with frills of gristle on it, or it may be good meat. Complaints are useless; a ruthless hand sweeps you away, and the _queue_ closes up. Later on, a sheep’s carcass (very thin) is thrown down and hewed up with a bill-hook. There is great competition for the legs and shoulders, which are good and tender. If you come off with only ribs, you take them sadly to the public mincing machine, and imagine they were legs when you eat the result. A rather absurd little modicum of jam is also served out, but it serves to sweeten a biscuit. There is rum once a week (in theory). Duff at midday the last few days. It is difficult to say anything general about rations, because they vary from day to day, often with startling suddenness, according to the conditions of the campaign. I was on picket this night, a duty which is far less irksome when in the field than when in a standing camp. Vigilance is of course not relaxed, but many petty rules and regulations are. There is no guard-tent, of course, in which you must stay when not on watch; as long as it is known where you can be found at a moment’s notice, you are free in the off hours. You can be dressed as you like as long as you carry your revolver.
By the way, I have lost my C.I.V. slouch hat long ago. It came of wearing a very unnecessary helmet, merely because it was served out. That involved carrying the hat in my kit, and it is wonderful how one loses things on the march, in the hurried nocturnal packings and unpackings, when every strap and article of kit must be to your hand in the dark, or you will be late with your horses and cause trouble. My great comfort is a Tam-o’-Shanter, which I wear whenever we are not in marching order.
As for the revolver, I got into trouble with the Sergeant-Major this night for parading for picket without it. It was not worth while to explain that I had no ammunition for it; to take your “choking-off,” and say nothing, is always the simplest plan. I once had one cartridge given me, but lost this precious possession. I suppose there was some hitch in the arrangements, for our revolvers are only cumbrous ornaments.
There are three pickets and a corporal in charge; each of the three takes two hours on and four off, which works out at about four hours on watch for each, but less if reveille is early. Personally I don’t mind the duty much, even after a long day’s march. On a fine still night two hours pass quickly in the lines, especially if one or two picket ropes break, and the horses get tied up in knots. If there is a lack of incident, you can meditate. Your head is strangely clear, and for a brief interval your horizon widens. In the sordid day it is often narrowed to a cow’s.
_July 21._–The same old game; harnessed up and remained ready. There was a sudden alarm about three, and we jumped into our kit, hooked in, and moved off, only to return in a few minutes. The General possibly gave the order to see if we were ready. He reviewed us before we went back, and seemed pleased. I heard him admiring the horses, and saying there was plenty of work in them. “You’ve been very lucky after that shell-fire the other day,” he said.
A much-needed convoy turned up from Bethlehem to-day with ammunition for us. We took our waggon down in the morning and filled it. A box of matches per man was also served out. In the evening came the joyful news that we were to start tomorrow, two days’ fighting expected. Williams and I made a roaring fire of an ammunition box in honour of the occasion, and a grand supper of mealy-cakes and tea, and smoked and talked till late. Summing up our experiences, we agreed that we enjoyed the life thoroughly, but much preferred marching to sitting still. Both thoroughly fit and well, as nearly all have been since campaigning began. In numbers, I hear, we are twenty-two short of our full complement.
One thing that makes a great difference is that campaigning has become routine. One doesn’t worry over little things, as one did in early days, when one dreamt of nose-bags, bridoons, muzzles, etc., and the awful prospect of losing something important or unimportant, and when one harnessed-up in a fever of anxiety, dreading that the order “hook in” would find one still fumbling for a strap in the dark, in oblivion of the hot coffee which would be missed cruelly later. In a score of little ways one learns to simplify things, save time, and increase comfort. Not that one ever gets rid of a strong sense of responsibility. Entire charge, day and night, of two horses and two sets of harness, is no light thing.
_July 22._–_Sunday._–Reveille at six. Boot and saddle at 7.30; started at 8.30–a lovely day. Marched out about three miles with the brigade, and are now halted. An officer has just explained to the non-coms, what is going to happen. The Boer forces are in the mountains east of us, whence there are only three outlets, that is, passes (or neks, as the Dutch call them), one at each corner of a rough triangle. British columns are watching all these, Hunter, Paget, Clements, and Bruce Hamilton. Ours is called Slabbert’s Nek, and to-day’s move is a reconnaissance in force towards it, without likelihood of fighting. The delay here has been to allow every column to get into position, so that when an attack is made there may be no escape from the trap. The trap, of course, is a very big one, one corner, I believe, being at the Basuto border. Something like a whole army corps is engaged. It is most novel and unusual to know anything about what one is doing. It makes a marvellous difference to one’s interest in everything, and I have often wondered why we are not told more. But I suppose the fact is that very few people know.
We halted while the mounted troops made a long reconnaissance, and then came back to camp. It clouded up in the evening, and about eight began to rain, and suddenly, with no warning, to blow a hurricane. I rushed to my harness, covered up my kit in it, seized my blankets and bolted for a transport-waggon, dived under it, tripping over the bodies of the Collar-maker sergeant and his allies, breathlessly apologized, and disposed myself as best I could. But the rain drove in, and there seemed always to be mules on my feet; so, when fairly wet through, I crept out and joined a circle at a great fire which similar unfortunates had built, where we cooked two camp-kettles full of mysteriously commandeered tea and porridge, and made very merry till reveille at 4.30 in the morning.
CHAPTER VIII.
SLABBERT’S NEK AND FOURIESBERG.
_July 23._–Harnessed up at 4.30, and marched out in a raw, cold fog, all wet, but very cheerful. While halting at the _rendezvous_ to await our escort, there were great stories of the night, especially of a tempestuous scene under a big waggon-sheet crowded with irreconcilable interests. We marched straight towards the mountains, ten or twelve miles, I suppose, till we were pretty close up, and then Clements’s two great lyddite five-inch guns came into position and fired at long range. They are called “Weary Willie” and “Tired Tim,” and each is dragged by twenty-two splendid oxen. We soon moved on a mile or two farther, crossed one of the worst spruits I remember, climbed a very steep hill, and came into action just on its brow, firing at a distant ridge. All this time the infantry had been advancing on either flank in extended order.
_(3.30 P.M.)_–We and the 38th and the cow-guns, as they are called, have been raining shell on the Boer positions and on their guns. The situation, as I see it, is this: we are exactly opposite the mouth of the nek, stretching back into the mountains like a great grass road, bordered with battlements of precipitous rock, which at this end–the gate we are knocking at–swell out on either side into a great natural bastion of bare rock. On these are the Boer trenches, tier above tier, while their guns are posted on the lower ground between. It looks an impregnable position. The Royal Irish, I hear, are attacking the right hand bastion; the Munsters, I think, the left, and there is a continuous rattle of rifle-fire from both.
Our teams, waggons, and limbers, have been shell-dodging under the brow of the hill. They have fallen all around us, but never on us. One, which I saw fall, killed five horses straight off, and wounded the Yeomanry chap who was holding them. We have shifted position two or three times; it is windy, and very cold. A new and unpleasant experience in the shape of a pom-pom has come upon the scene. Far off you hear pom-pom-pom-pom-pom, five times, and directly afterwards, like an echo, pom-pom-pom-pom-pom in your neighbourhood, five little shells bursting over an area of about eighty yards, for all the world like a gigantic schoolboy’s cracker. The new captain of the unlucky 38th has been hit in two places by one.
At the close the day was undecided; the infantry had taken some trenches, but were still face to face with others, and fire was hottest at sunset. But I believe the pom-pom was smashed up, and a big gun silenced, if not smashed. We bivouacked where we were, but desultory rifle-fire went on long after dark.
_July 24._–Reveille at five. Directly after breakfast we took our waggon back to the convoy to fill up with shells from the reserve. All the artillery, including ours, took position again, and began hammering away, but not for long, as the Boers had been evacuating the whole position in the night, and the last of their trenches was now occupied. I believe the Royal Irish have lost heavily, the Munsters only a few. We got away, and marched through the nek, up and down steep grassy slopes, and through the site of the Boer laager. I was struck by its remarkable cleanliness; I thought that was not a Boer virtue. We halted close to the emplacement where one of the Boer guns had been yesterday. There was a rush to see some horrible human _debris_ found in it. I was contented with the word-pictures of enthusiastic gunners, and didn’t go myself. From the brow, a glorious view opened out. The nek, flanked by its frowning crags, opened out into an immense amphitheatre of rich undulating pasture-land, with a white farm here and there, half hidden in trees. Beyond rose tier on tier of hills, ending on the skyline in snow-clad mountain peaks. You could just conjecture that a “happy valley” ran right and left. After the scorched monotony of the veldt it was a wonderful contrast. We camped just where the nek ends, near an empty farm, which produced a fine supply of turkeys, geese, and chickens. The Captain, who has charge of our commissariat, never misses a chance of supplementing our rations. Williams was sent to forage, and for personal loot got some coffee and a file of Boer newspapers, or rather war-bulletins, published in Bethlehem, and roughly lithographed, chiefly lies, I expect.[A] The Boers have retired south, deeper into the trap. Poultry was issued, and the gunners and drivers of our waggon drew by lot the most amazing turkey I have ever seen. It had been found installed in a special little enclosure of its own, and I fear was being fattened for some domestic gala-day which never dawned. It was prodigiously plump.
[Footnote A: Here is an extract, since translated, from one of these precious “newspapers,” which ought to be one day edited in full. It is a telegram from General Snyman at the Boer laager at Mafeking, dated March 2, 1900, when the famous siege had been going on for five months and a half. After some trivial padding about camp details, it concludes: “The bombardment _by the British_ (sic) is diminishing considerably. Our burghers are still full of courage. _Their sole desire is to meet the enemy!_” This is only a mild specimen of the sort of intelligence that was allowed to penetrate to a remote farm like this at Slabbert’s Nek, whose owner was now fighting us, probably, to judge from these documents, in utter ignorance of the hopelessness of his cause.]
_July 25._–_Wednesday._–Reveille at six. Started at 8.30, at the outset crossing a very awkward drift. It was a sort of full dress crossing, so to speak, when all the officers collect and watch the passage. We dived down a little chasm, charged through a river, and galloped up the side of a wall. One waggon stuck, and we had to lend it our leaders. There was a strong, cold wind, and we kept on our cloaks all day; a bright sun, though, in which I thought the brigade made a very pretty spectacle in its advance, with long streamers of mounted troops and extended infantry on either flank. About one, our section was ordered to march back some miles and meet the rearguard. On the way we passed Hunter and his staff, and his whole brigade, followed by miles of waggons, which we halted to allow to pass, and then followed. They might have discovered they wanted the rearguard strengthening a little sooner, for the road was very bad, and our horses had a hard job. The united brigades camped at sunset. Rumours rife, and one, that De Wet has cut the line near Kroonstadt, seems really true. Very cold.
_July 26._–Reveille at 6.30. We waited for orders all the morning, with the horses hooked in ready. While sitting by my team I had my hair cut by a Munster, and an excruciating shave. Rumour is that the Boers have been given till two to surrender. Rumour that they have surrendered. Stated as a fact. Rumour reduced to story that the town of Fouriesberg (five miles on) has surrendered. Anyway, some British prisoners have escaped and come in. Grazing in harness for the rest of the day.
_July 27._–Reveille at 5.15. Hooked in and waited for the whole convoy to file by, as we are to be rearguard. It took several hours, and must be five or six miles long. It was a heavy, misty day, and some rain fell. Started at last and marched up the valley, which narrowed considerably here, under the shadow of beetling cliffs, for about eight miles, with incessant momentary halts, as always happens in the rear of a column. Suddenly the valley opened out to another noble circle bounded by mountains on all sides, some wearing a sprinkling of snow still. Here we came to the pretty little town of Fouriesberg, and joined the general camp, which stretched as far as you could see, thousands of beasts grazing between the various lines, and interminable rows of outspanned waggons. At night camp fires twinkled far into the distance, and signals kept flashing from high peaks all round. An officer has been telling us the situation, which is that the trap is closed, the Boers being surrounded on all sides; that they are expected to surrender; that it will be a Paardeberg on a bigger scale–the biggest haul of prisoners in the war.
Some commandeered ham was served out, and we fried ours over the cook’s fire with great success. I may say that the service mess-tin is our one cooking utensil, and the work it stands is amazing; it is a flat round tin with a handle and a lid. It is used indiscriminately for boiling, frying, and baking, besides its normal purpose of holding rations.
_July 28._–Reveille at six. After waiting in uncertainty for some time we were left, with the Staffords from Hunter’s column, to guard the town, while the other troops moved off. We camped just outside the town, and there was a rush for loot directly, of course only from unoccupied houses, whose rebel owners are fighting. Unhappily others had been there before us, and the place was skinned. But we got a Kaffir cooking-pot, and a lot of fuel, by chopping up a manger in a stable. My only domestic loot was a baby’s hat, which I eventually abandoned, and a table and looking-glass which served for fuel. But we found a nice Scotch family in a house, and bought a cabbage from them. There was a dear old lady and two daughters. Williams dropped two leaves of the cabbage, and got a playful rebuke from her. She said he must not waste them, as they were good and tender. By the way, we bought this cabbage with our last three-penny bit. We had sovereigns, but they are useless in this country, for there is no change. These people told us that they had been ten months prisoners (at large) of the Boers. Their men had gone to Basutoland, like many more. They had been well treated, and suffered little loss, till the advent of the conquering British, when forty or fifty hens were taken by Highlanders at night.
A lovely warm afternoon, and for a wonder freedom till four, the first spell of it for weeks. Went to a puddle some way off, near a Kaffir kraal, and washed. Some women came with calabashes for water, and I tried to buy the bead bangles and waist-lace off a baby child, but failed. Then I invaded the kraal for meal and chickens, but failed again. I never thought, when I visited Earl’s Court a year ago, that I should look on the African original so soon. Round mud hovels, with a tall plaited-straw portico in front. Most of the men look like worthless loafers; the women finely-built, capable creatures.
Heavy firing has been going on all day, mostly with lyddite, on our side, by the sound. You can see the shells bursting on the top of a big kopje.
This is a funny little place: pleasant cottages dotted round in desultory fashion, as though the town had been brought up in waggons and just tipped out anyhow. Half the houses are empty and gutted; we are all going to sleep in houses to-night. There has been a row about looting a chemist’s shop; our fellows thought he was away with the Boers, but he turned up in the middle. There were some curious bits of plunder.
We are much disappointed at being left out of the fighting to-day, but it’s only natural. We are only half a battery, and have no reserve ammunition, actual or prospective, for some time.
I have struck my last match. I have now to rely on cordite, which, however, only acts as a spill. You get a rifle cartridge (there are plenty to be got, the infantry seem to drop them about by hundreds), wrench out the bullet and wad, and find the cordite in long slender threads like vermicelli. You dip this in another man’s lighted pipe, when it flares up, and you can light your own.
In the evening Williams and I made a fire, and cooked our cabbage in our Kaffir pot, a round iron one on three legs, putting in meat and some (looted) vinegar. How good it was! It was the first fresh green food we had eaten since leaving England, and it is what one misses most. Two escaped prisoners of the Canadian Mounted Infantry came to our fire, and we had a most interesting chat with them till very late. They spoke highly of the way they had been treated. In food they always fared just as the Boers did, and were under no needlessly irksome restrictions. They said that in this sort of warfare the Boers could always give us points. They laugh at our feeble scouting a mile or two ahead, while their own men are ranging round in twos and threes, often fifteen miles from their commando, and at night venturing right up to our camps. In speed of movement, too, they can beat us; in spite of their heavy bullock transport they can travel at least a third quicker than we. Their discipline was good enough for its purpose. A man would obey a direct order whatever it was. They only wanted a stiffening of our own class of military discipline to make them invulnerable. They sang hymns every night in groups round their fires, “but are hypocrites.” (On this point, however, my informants differed a little.) They said the leader of this force was Prinsloo, and that we had not been fighting De Wet at all. It seems there are two De Wets, Piet and Christian. There was a rumour yesterday that Piet had been captured near Kroonstadt, though Christian seems to be the important one. But the whole thing is distracting, like constructing history out of myths and legends.
_July 29._–_Sunday._–Church parade at eleven. It is reported, and is probably true, that the whole Boer force has surrendered. If so we have missed little or nothing. About twenty prisoners came in in the morning, quaint, rough people, shambling along on diminutive ponies. In the afternoon Williams went foraging for the officers, and I visited our Scotch friends, the donors of the cabbage, who were very kind, and asked me in. The married son had just come in from Basutoland, where he had been hiding, a great red, strapping giant, with his wife and babies by him. He had originally been given a passport to allow him to remain neutral, but later they had tried to make him fight, so he ran away, and had been with a missionary over the border, whose house he repaired. It was pleasant to see this joyful home-coming.
Rations to-day, one biscuit and a pound of flour. How to cook it? Some went to houses, some made dough-nuts (with deadly properties, I believe). No fat and no baking-powder. Fortunately, Williams brought back from his expedition, besides fowls, etc., for the officers, some bread and, king of luxuries, a big pot of marmalade, which he bought from a pretty little Boer girl, the temporary mistress of a fine farm. Her father, she proudly explained, was away fighting us, “as was his duty.” Williams was quite sentimental over this episode. The Canadians came round to our fire again, and we had another long talk. They said there were very few Transvaalers in this army. The Free Staters hate them. The remains we found in the gun-emplacement at Slabbert’s Nek were those of Lieutenant Muller, a German artillerist. The Boers always had plenty of our harness, stores, ammunition, etc.
_July 30._–After stables Williams and I went foraging in the town and secured scones, a fowl (for a shilling), another cabbage, and best of all, some change, a commodity for which one has to scheme and plot. We managed it by first getting into a store and buying towels, spoons, note-books, etc., up to ten shillings, and then cajoling and bluffing a ten-shilling bit out of the unwilling store-keeper. This was changed by the lady who sold us the fowl, an Englishwoman. On our return there was harness-cleaning, interrupted by a sudden order to move, but only to shift camp about a mile. This is always annoying, because at halts you always collect things such as fuel and meal and pots, which are impossible to carry with you. Of course this is no matter, if regular marching and fighting are on hand, but just for shifting camp it is a nuisance. However, much may be done by determination. I induced the Collar-maker to take our flour on his waggon; marmalade, meal, etc., were hastily decanted into small tins, and stuffed into wallets, and just before starting Williams furtively tossed the fuel-sack into a buck-waggon, and hitched up the Kaffir pot somewhere underneath. I strung a jug on my saddle, which, what with feed-bags (contents by no means confined to oats), and muzzles, with meat and things in them, is rather Christmas-tree-like. We marched through the town, and to the base of a kopje about a mile away, where preparations for a big camp had been made. It is confirmed that the Boers have surrendered _en masse_, and they are to be brought here.
After we had unharnessed, I got leave to go back to town and send a joint telegram home from a dozen of us. The battery has a telegraphic address at home from which wires are forwarded to our relations. The charge for soldiers is only 2s. a word, so a dozen of us can say “quite well” to our relations for about 2s. 8d. The official at the office said the wire was now open, but that he had no change. However, he produced 5s. when I gave him L2. It was a little short, but the change was valuable. He said that to pass the censor it must be signed by an officer, so I had to look for one. After some dusty tramping, I found a captain of the Staffords, saluted, and made my request. We were, I suppose, about equal in social station, but I suddenly–I don’t know why–felt what a gulf the service put between us. He was sleek and clean, and talking about the hour of his dinner to another one, just as if he were at a club. I was dirty, unshaven, out at knees, and was carrying half a sack of fuel–a mission like this has to serve subsidiary purposes–and felt like an abject rag-and-bone-picking ruffian. He took the paper, signed it, and went on about his confounded dinner. However, I expect mine rivalled his for once in a way, for when I got back one of the “boys” (nigger drivers) had cooked our chicken and cabbage, and we ate it, followed by scones and marmalade, and, to wind up with, black coffee, made from some rye coffee given us by one of our Canadian prisoner friends. I had met one of them near the telegraph office, and visited his quarters. Rye makes remarkably good strong coffee, with a pleasant burnt taste in it. The camp had filled up a bit, the Manchesters, Staffords and 2nd Field Battery, of Rundle’s division, having come in. We also played with flour and fat over our fire, and made some chupatties. The Captain had sent a foraging party out to secure fat at any price. Quite a warm night. A deep furrow passed near my harness, and I had a most comfortable bed in it.
_July 31._–The first batch of 250 prisoners have come in, and are herded near. They are of all ages from sixty to fifteen, dressed in all varieties of rough plain clothes, with some ominous exceptions in the shape of a khaki tunic, a service overcoat, etc. Some seemed depressed, some jocular, the boys quite careless. All were lusty and well fed. Close by were their ponies, tiny little rats of things, dead-tired and very thin. Their saddles were mostly very old, with canvas or leather saddle-bags, containing cups, etc. I saw also one or two horses with our regimental brands on them. Some had bright-coloured rugs on them, and all the men had the same, which lent vivid colour to the otherwise sombre throng.
We watered and grazed near an outlying picket, and saw many prisoners coming in in twos and threes, and giving up their rifles. What will they do with them? They are nominally rebels since the 15th of June; but I doubt if a tenth of them ever heard of Roberts’s proclamation. Communications are few in this big, wild country; and their leaders systematically deceive them. Besides, to call the country conquered when Bloemfontein was taken, is absurd. The real fighting had not begun then, and whole districts such as this were unaffected. It seems to me that morally, if not legally, these people are fair-and-square civilized belligerents, who have fought honestly for their homes, and treated our prisoners humanely. Deportation over-sea and confiscation of farms seem hard measures, and I hope more lenience will be shown.
In the evening Doctor Moon, of the Hampshire Yeomanry, a great friend of Williams, turned up, and had supper with us. We had no fatted calf to kill; but fortunately could show a tolerable _menu_, including beef and marmalade.
I was on picket this night. About midnight a lot of Boer prisoners, and a long train of their ox-waggons, began coming in. It was very dark, and they blundered along, knocking down telegraph posts, and invading regimental lines, amidst a frightful din from the black drivers, and a profane antiphony between two officers, of the camp and the convoy respectively.
In my second watch, in the small hours, a Tommy with a water-cart strayed into our lines, asking for the Boer prisoners, for whom he had been sent to get water. He swore copiously at the nature of his job in particular, and at war in general. I showed him the way, and consoled him with tobacco.
_August 1._–Grazing and harness-cleaning all day. More prisoners came in, and also our old friends the Munsters, and General Paget. Rumours galore. We are going to Cape Town with the prisoners; to Harrismith; to Winberg; to the Transvaal on another campaign, etc. Definite orders came to move the next morning. In the evening an unusual flood of odds and ends of rations was poured on us; flour, a little biscuit, a little fat for cooking, diminutive hot potatoes, a taste of goose, commandeered the same day by the mounted gunners, a little butter from the same source, besides the usual sugar, cooked meat, and tea. Drawing from this _cornucopia_ was a hard evening’s work. We also got hold of some dried fruit-chips, and as a desperate experiment tried to make a fruit pudding, wrapping the fruit in a jacket of dough and baking it in fat in our pot. The result, seen in the dark, was a formless black mass, very doughy and fatty; but with oases of palatable matter.
CHAPTER IX.
TO PRETORIA.
_August 2._–Reveille at six. Harnessed up, and started out to join the brigade and its long column of prisoners, mounted on their ponies, and each leading another with a pack on it. We only went about seven miles (back towards the Nek), and camped at midday. I had been suffering from toothache for some days, and was goaded into asking the doctor to remove the offender. He borrowed a forceps from the R.A.M.C. and had it out in a minute. The most simple and satisfactory visit to the dentist I have ever had. No gloomy fingering of the illustrated papers, while you wait your turn with the other doomed wretches, no horrible accessories of padded chair and ominous professional plant; just the open sunny veldt, and a waggon pole to sit on! In the evening I got some 38th fellows to cook us some chupatties of our flour. They treated me to fried liver over their fire, and we had a jolly talk. It is said that we are to take the prisoners to Winberg, and then go to the Transvaal. Cold night; hard frost.
_August 3._–Reveille at six. Sunrise this day was peculiarly beautiful; a milky-blue haze lay in festoons along the hills, and through this the sun shot a delicate flush on the rocks and grassy slopes, till the farther side of the valley looked unreal as a dream.
Started at nine; marched as far as the inward end of the Nek, and camped. I got a splendid wash, almost a bath, in a large pond, in the company of many Boer prisoners, who, I am bound to say, seemed as anxious for cleanliness as we were. I talked to two most charming young men, who discussed the war with me with perfect freedom and urbanity. They dated their _debacle_ from Roberts’s arrival, and the use of flanking movements with large numbers of mounted men. They made very light of lyddite, and laughed at the legend that the fumes are dangerous. In action they leave all their horses in the rear, unwatched, or with a man or two. (Our mounted infantry leave a man to every four horses.) I asked if a small boy, who was sitting near, fought. They said, “Yes: a very small stone suffices to shelter him.” They talked very good English.
The right section have turned up and, I hear, are camped about two miles away. They have been a fortnight away doing convoy work, to Senekal, Winberg, and back. They brought us no mails, to our great disappointment. We have had no letters now since June 15th. Strange rumours come in about 40,000 troops going to China. A very cold night; I should say 15 degrees of frost.
_August 4._–Did a rapid five hours’ march through the Nek, and back to Bultfontein, as part of the advance-guard. On the way we picked up the right section, and exchanged our experiences. They had had no fighting, but a very good time. They had distractingly luscious stones of duff, rum, and jam at Winberg, and all looked very fat and well. We camped, unharnessed, and watered at the same old muddy pool, muddier than ever. I visited an interesting trio of guns which were near us, in charge of Brabant’s Horse; one was German, one French, one British. The German was a Boer gun captured the other day, a 9-pr. Krupp, whose bark we have often heard. It has a very long range, 8000 yards, but otherwise seemed clumsy compared with ours, with a cumbersome breech action and elevating gear. The French one was a Hotchkiss, made by the French company, belonging to Brabant’s Horse–a smart little weapon, but not so handy, I should say, as ours. The British one was a 15-pr. field gun, of the 77th Field Battery, lost at Stormberg and recaptured the other day. It had evidently had hard and incessant use, and was much worn. Brabant’s Horse were our escort to-day, a fine, seasoned body of rough, wild-looking fellows, wearing a very noticeable red puggaree round their slouch hats. They are fine scouts, and accomplished marauders, for which the Boers hate them. Jam for tea, and milk in the tea–long unknown luxuries, which the right section brought with them. In the evening I went to a sing-song the 38th gave round their camp fire. It was very pleasant, and they were most hospitable to us.
_August 5._–Reveille at five. Harnessed up; but some hitch ahead occurred, and we unhooked, watered, and grazed. Finally started about 8.30, and made a rapid march as advance guard, of about fourteen miles, with only momentary halts. Country very hilly; steep, squat, flat-topped kopjes and several bad drifts. We camped about 1.30 near five small houses in a row, with the novel accessory of some big trees–probably a town in large letters on the map. It appears the convoy has halted some way back for the four midday hours dear to the oxen. The rest of the column came in at dusk. A warm night. Every night in camp you may hear deep-throated choruses swelling up from the prisoners’ laager. The first time I heard it I was puzzled to know what they were singing; the tune was strangely familiar, but I could not fix it. It was not till the third night that I recognized the tune of “O God, our help,” but chanted so slowly as to be difficult to catch, with long, luxurious rests on the high notes, and mighty, booming crescendos. Coming from hundreds of voices, the effect was sometimes very fine. At other times smaller groups sang independently, and the result was a hideous noise. I wonder if the words correspond to our tune. If so, every night these prisoners, who have staked and lost all in a hopeless struggle, sing, “O God, our help in ages past.” This is faith indeed.
_August 6._–_Bank Holiday._–At 6.45 we started as advance-guard again, and marched for five and a half hours, with only a halt or two of a few minutes, to Senekal. The country gradually became flatter, the kopjes fewer and lower, till at last it was a great stretch of arid, dusty plain. It seemed quite strange to be driving on level ground, after endless hills and precipitous drifts. We and Brabant’s Horse were advance guard, and clattered down in a pall of blinding white dust into a substantial little tin-roofed town, many stores open, and people walking about in peace (the ladies all in black). Full of soldiers, of course, but still it was our first hint for months of peace and civilization, and seemed home-like. One of the first things I saw was a jar of Osborne biscuits in a window, and it gave me a strange thrill! The convoy and prisoners follow this evening. The column is miles long, as besides our own transport, there are all the Boer waggons, long red ones, each with some prisoners on it and a soldier. Also scores of Cape carts, with a fat farmer in each. There was a wild rush for provisions in the town by our orderlies and Brabant’s. They got bread, and I bought some eggs and jam on commission. After camping and unharnessing, I had a good wash in the river, an orange-coloured puddle. I wonder how it is that by some fatality there is always a dead quadruped, mule, horse, or bullock, near our washing places. We don’t mind them on the march; they are dotted along every road in South Africa now, I should think; but when making a refreshing toilette they jar painfully. Kipling somewhere describes a subtle and complex odour, which, he says, is the smell of the great Indian Empire. That of the great African Empire in this year of grace is the direct and simple one which I have indicated. In the evening we had a grand supper of fried eggs, jam, chupatties, and cocoa. This meal immediately followed tea. We made our fire in the best place for one, an ant-hill, about two feet high. The plan is to hack two holes, one in the top, another on the windward side, and to connect the two passages. There is then a fine draught, and you can cook both on the top and at the side. Inside, the substance of the hill itself gets red-hot and keeps a sustained heat.
_Recipe for jam chupatties._–Take some suet and melt rapidly in a mess-tin, over a quick fire (because you are hungry and can’t wait); meanwhile make a tough dry dough of flour and water and salt; cut into rounds to fit the mess-tin, spread with jam, double over and place in the boiling fat; turn them frequently. Cook for about ten minutes. A residual product of this dish is a sort of hard-bake toffee, formed by the leakage of jam from the chupatties.
Brabant’s Horse left in the night.
_August 7._–A bitterly cold, windy day. Marched for several hours over a yellow, undulating plain and camped, near nothing, about 12.30. After dinner I walked over to a Kaffir kraal and bought fuel, and two infants’ copper bangles. I was done over the bangles, so I made it up over the fuel (hard round cakes of prepared cow’s dung), filling a sack brim-full, in spite of the loud expostulations of the black lady. They were a most amusing crowd, and the children quite pretty. I also tasted Kaffir beer for the first, and last, time. Kaffir bangles abound in the Battery. In fact, you will scarcely see a soldier anywhere without them. The fashion is to wear them on the wrist as bracelets. They are of copper and brass, and often of beautiful workmanship. The difficulty about collecting curios is that there is nowhere to carry them, though some fellows have a genius for finding room for several heavy bits of shell, etc. Empty pom-pom shells, which are small and portable, are much sought after; and our own brass cartridge, if one could take an old one along, would make a beautiful lamp-stand at home. Rum to-night.
_August 8._–Reveille at six. Off at 7.30. Another march over the same bare, undulating plain. About eleven we passed a spruit where there was a camp of infantry and the 9th Field Battery, who told us they came out when we did, but had only fired four rounds since! Near here there was a pathetic incident. A number of Boer women met us on the road, all wearing big white linen hoods; they stood in sad groups, or walked up and down, scanning the faces of the prisoners (we were with the main body today) for husbands, brothers, sweethearts. Many must have looked in vain. The Boers have systematically concealed losses even from the relatives themselves; and one of the saddest things in this war must be the long torture of uncertainty suffered by the womenfolk at home.
We camped at twelve near a big dam, and unharnessed, but only for a rest, resuming the march at about three, and halting for the night about ten miles farther on. A profligate issue of rations–five biscuits, four ounces of sugar (instead of two or three), duff and rum again. A lovely, frosty night, the moon full, delicate mists wreathing the veldt, hundreds of twinkling camp-fires, and the sound of psalms from the prisoners’ laager.
_August 9._–In to-day’s march the character of the country changed, with long, low, flat-topped kopjes on either side of us, and the road in a sharp-cut hollow between them, covered with loose round stones–a parched and desolate scene. After about ten miles we descended through a long ravine into Winberg, with its red-brick, tin-roofed houses baking in the sun. We skirted the town, passing through long lines of soldiers come to see the prisoners arrive, and out about a mile on to a dusty, dreary plain, where we camped. We were all thrilling with hopes of letters. (Winberg is at the end of a branch of railway, and we are now in touch with the world again.) Soon bags of letters arrived, but not nearly all we expected. I only got those of one mail, but they numbered thirteen, besides three numbers of the _Weekly Times_, and a delightful parcel from home. I sat by my harness in the sun, and read letters luxuriously. It was strange to get news again, and strike suddenly into this extraordinary Chinese _imbroglio_. It appears the war is still going on in the Transvaal, and the rumour is that we shall be sent there straight. Among other news it seems that the H.A.C. are sending the Battery a draft of twenty men from home, to bring us up to strength. I heard from my brother at Standerton, dated July 21. He was with Buller; had not done much fighting yet; was fit and well. There was a disturbance just at dusk, caused by a big drove of Boer ponies, which were being driven into town, getting out of hand and running amok in the lines of the 38th. Wrote a letter home by moonlight. Very cold, after a hot day. I should think the temperature often varies fifty degrees in the twenty-four hours. Some clothing served out; I got breeches and boots. I wish I could get into the town. There are several things I badly want, though, as usual, the home parcel supplied some.
_August 10._–We were rather surprised to hear we might move that day, and must hold ourselves in readiness. We all much wanted to buy things, but there was no help for it. Had a field-day at button-sewing and letter-writing. At eleven there was harness-cleaning, and I was sadly regarding a small remnant of dubbin and my dusty girths and leathers, when the order came for “boot and saddle,” and that little job was off. In the end we did not start till three, and marched with the whole brigade nine miles, with one five-minute halt, through easy country, with an unusual number of clumps of trees, and camped just at dusk, near a pool, unharnessed and watered. There was a curious and beautiful sight just before, the sun sinking red into the veldt straight ahead, and the moon rising golden out of it straight behind us. It seems we are bound to Smalldeel, a station on the main line, now eleven miles off. We left all the prisoners at Winberg. Some chaps bought schamboks, saddle-bags, and spurs from them, but being stableman, I hadn’t time. I write this by moonlight, crouching close to a fine wood fire, 10 P.M. Well, I shall turn in now.
_August 11._–Reveille at 5.45. We started at eight, and marched the remaining eleven miles in a blinding dust-storm, blown by a gale of cutting wind right in our faces. My eyes were sometimes so bunged up that I couldn’t see at all, and thanked my stars I was not driving leads. The worst march we have had yet. About 11.30 we came to the railway, and groped through a dreary little tin village round a station, built on dust, and surrounded by bare, dusty veldt. This was Smalldeel. There was a general rush to the stores after dinner, as we hear we are to entrain for Pretoria to-morrow. To-day we revolutionized our harness by giving up our off-saddles, our kit to be carried on a waggon. Some time before centre and lead horses had been relieved of breeching and breast-strap, which of course are only needed for wheelers. In the ordinary way all artillery horses are so harnessed that they can be used as wheelers at any moment. The off horse is now very light therefore, having only collar, traces, and crupper, with an improvised strap across the back to support the traces. Of course there are always “spare wheelers,” ready-harnessed, following each subdivision in case of casualties. As far back as Bethlehem we discarded big bits also and side-reins, which are quite useless, and waste time in taking in and out when you want to water rapidly, or graze for a few moments. The harness is much simplified now, and takes half the time to put on. The mystery is why it is ever considered necessary to have so much on active service, or even at home, unless to keep drivers from getting too much leisure. Several houses in this place have been wrecked, and many fellows slept under the shells. In one of them a man was selling hot coffee in the evening, at 6d. a cup. It was a striking scene, which I shall always remember–a large building, floorless and gutted inside, and full of heaps of rubble, very dimly lit by a couple of lanterns, in the light of which cloaked and helmeted figures moved. I thought of sleeping in a house, for it was the coldest night I remember; but habit prevailed, and I turned in as usual by my harness. The horses have got a head-rope-eating epidemic, and seemed to be loose all night.
_August 12._–_Sunday._–Reveille at six. Harnessed up, and waited for orders to entrain for Pretoria. The 38th Battery have gone already, and the Wilts Yeomanry. A draft of twenty new men from England came in by train. They looked strangely pale and clean and tidy beside our patched and soiled and sunburnt selves. Marched down to station, and were entraining guns, waggons, horses, etc., till about four. The usual exciting scenes with mules, but it all seems routine now. Our subdivision of thirty men were packed like herrings into an open truck, also occupied by a gun and limber.
_August 13._–I write sitting wedged among my comrades on the floor of the truck, warm sun bathing us after an Arctic night, and up to my knees in kit, letters, newspapers, parcels, boxes of cigarettes, chocolate, etc., for all our over-due mails have been caught up in a lump somewhere, and the result of months of affection and thoughtful care in distant England are heaped on us all at once. I have about thirty letters. It is an orgie, and I feel drunk with pleasure. All the time the train rolls through the wilderness, with its myriad ant-hills, its ribbon of empty biscuit tins and dead horses, its broken bridges, its tiny outpost camps, like frail islands in the ocean, its lonely stations of three tin houses, and nothing else beyond, no trees, fields, houses, cattle, signs of human life. We stopped all last night at Zand River. All trains stop at night now, for the ubiquitous De Wet is a terror on the line. To-day we passed the charred and twisted remains of another train he had burnt; graves, in a row, close to it. Williams and I slept on the ground outside the truck, after feeding and watering horses and having tea. It was an uneasy slumber, on dust and rubble, interrupted once by the train quietly steaming away from beside us. But it came back. We were off again at 4.30 A.M., a merry crowd heaped together under blankets on the floor of the truck. We ground slowly on all day, and halted for the night at Viljoen’s Drift, the frontier station.
_August 14._–Sleepy heads rose from a sea of blankets, and blinked out to see the crossing of the Vaal river, and a thin, sleepy cheer hailed this event; then we relapsed and waited for the sun. When it came, and we thawed and looked about, we saw an entire change of country; hills on both sides, trees here and there, and many farms. Soon the upper works of a mine showed, and then more, and all at once we were in a great industrial district. At Elandsfontein, the junction for Johannesburg, we had a long halt, and a good breakfast, getting free coffee from a huge boiling vat.
_(9 P.M.)_–We reached Pretoria just at dusk, the last five miles or so being a very pretty run through a beautiful pass, with woods and real _green_ fields in the valley, a refreshing contrast to the outside veldt. We detrained by electric light, and bivouacked in an open place just outside the station. I write this in the station bar, where some of us have been having a cup of tea. Paget’s Brigade are all here, and I hear Roberts is to review us to-morrow. A Dublin Fusilier, who had been a prisoner since the armoured-train affair at Estcourt until Roberts reached Pretoria, told us we “had a good name here,” for Bethlehem, etc. He vaguely talked of Botha and Delarey “dodging round” near here. We have heard nothing of the outside world for a long time, and as far as I can make out, the Transvaal has still to be conquered, just as the Free State has had to be, long after the capture of both capitals.
_August 15._–I had gone to sleep in splendid isolation under the verandah of an empty house, but awoke among some Munsters, who greeted dawn with ribald songs. Harnessed up after breakfast, and marched off through the town, past the head-quarters, where Roberts reviewed us and the 38th. He was standing with a large Staff at the foot of the steps. The order “eyes right” gave us a good view of him, and very small, fit, and alert he looked.
“‘E’s little, but ‘e’s wise,
‘E’s a terror for ‘is size.”
I liked what we saw of the town, broad boulevards edged with trees, and houses set back deep in gardens; the men all in khaki uniforms, or niggers, but a good many English ladies and nurses. We marched to a camp on the top of a hill outside the town, and joined the rest of the brigade. A lovely view of the town from here, in a hollow of encircling hills, half-buried in trees, looking something like Florence in the distance. I can hardly believe we are really here when I think of the hopeless depression of June and May at Bloemfontein. Much to our disgust, we weren’t allowed to go down to the town in the afternoon. However, we visited a reservoir instead, where a pipe took away the overflow, and here we got a real cold bath in limpid water, on a shingly bottom, a delicious experience. After evening stables Williams and I got leave to go down to town. We passed through broad tree-bordered streets, the central ones having fine shops and buildings, but all looking dark and dead, and came to the Central Square, where we made for the Grand Hotel, and soon found ourselves dining like gentlemen at tables with table-cloths and glasses and forks, and clean plates for every course. The complexity of civilized paraphernalia after the simplicity of a pocket-knife and mess-tin, was quite bewildering. The room was full of men in khaki. Heavens! how hungry that dinner made me! We ordered a bottle of claret, the cheapest being seven shillings. The waiter when he brought it up paused mysteriously, and then, in a discreet whisper to Williams, said he supposed we were sergeant-majors, as none under that rank could be served with wine. Gunner Williams smilingly reassured him, and Driver Childers did his best to look like a sergeant-major, with, I fear, indifferent success. Anyway the waiter was easily satisfied, and left us the claret, which, as there were three officers at the table, was creditable to him. We walked home about 8.30, the streets all silent as death, till we were challenged by a sentry near the outskirts of the town, and asked for the countersign, which we didn’t know. There were muttered objections, into which a bottle of whisky mysteriously entered, and we bluffed it out. I have never found ignorance of a countersign a serious obstacle.
_August 16._–Grazing most of the morning, during which I have managed to get some letters written, but I have great arrears to make up. Several orders countermanding one another have been coming in, to the general effect that we are probably to start somewhere to-day. The usual crop of diverse rumours as to our future. One says we go to Middelberg, another Lydenberg, another Petersberg. There seem to be several forces of Boers still about, and De Wet, who ought to become historic as a guerilla warrior, is still at large, nobody knows where. I only trust our ammunition-supply will be better managed this time. Anyway, we are all fit and well, and ready for anything, and the horses in first-class order. I forgot to say that I had to part with one of my pair, the riding-horse, a few days before we reached Smalldeel. He was taken for a wheeler in our team. I now ride the mare and lead my new horse, which is my old friend the Argentine, whose acquaintance I first made at Capetown. Hard work has knocked most of the vice out of her, though she still is a terror to the other horses in the lines. She looks ridiculously small in artillery harness, but works her hardest, and is very fit, though she declines to oats unless I mix them with mealies, which I can’t always do.
CHAPTER X.
WARMBAD.[A]
[Footnote A: In this new campaign Paget’s Brigade was, in conjunction with the forces of Baden-Powell, Plumer, and Hickman, to scour the district whose backbone is the railway line running due north from Pretoria to Petersberg. He was to occupy strategic points, isolate and round up stray commandos, and generally to engage the attention of the enemy here, while the grand advance under Roberts and Buller was taking place eastward.]
_August 16, continued._–We started at 4 P.M., and had a most tedious march for about four miles only, with incessant checks, owing to the badness of the ground, so that we arrived long after dark at the camping-ground in indifferent humour. We had followed a narrow valley in a northerly direction. Most of the transport waggons, including our own, stuck in a drift some way back, so that we had no tea, and the drivers no blankets to sleep in (gunners carry their kit on the gun-carriages and limbers and ammunition-waggons). However, I got up at midnight and found the kit-waggon had arrived, and got mine; also some tea from a friendly cook of the 38th, so I did well.
_August 17._–Reveille at 4.15. Started at five, and to our surprise marched back about a mile and a half. Picked up the rest of our buck waggons on the way, and halted for a hurried breakfast at dawn. Then marched through what I hear is called Wonderboom Port, a narrow nek between two hills, leading due north, to judge by the sun. We forded a girth-deep river on the way. The nek led out on to a long, broad valley, about six miles in width, bordered on the Pretoria side with a line of steep kopjes, and on the north by low brown hills. Long yellow grass, low scrub, and thorny trees, about the size of hawthorns; no road, and the ground very heavy.
_(2 P.M.)_–We are halted to feed. There is some firing on the left front. Had a good sleep for an hour. Later on we went into action, but never fired, and in the evening marched away behind a hill and camped. The Wilts and Montgomery Yeomanry are with us, and at the common watering-place, a villainous little pool, with a steep, slippery descent to it, I recognized Alexander Lafone, of the latter corps. I walked to their lines after tea, found him sergeant of the guard, and we talked over a fire. We had last seen one another as actors in some amateur theatricals in a country town at home. They had been in action for the first time that day, and had reported 500 Boers close by. A warm night. Quite a change of season has set in.
_August 18._–A big gun was booming not far off, during breakfast. A hot, cloudless day. Started about 8.30, and marched till twelve, crossing the valley diagonally, till we reached some kopjes on the other side. A pom-pom of ours is now popping away just ahead, and there is a good deal of rifle-fire.
_(3.15.)_–The old music has begun, a shell coming screeching overhead and bursting behind us. We and the convoy were at once moved to a position close under a kopje between us and the enemy. Shells are coming over pretty fast, but I don’t see how they can reach us here. A most curious one has just come sailing very slowly overhead, and growling and hiccoughing in the strangest way. I believe it was a ricochet, having first hit the top of the kopje. When it fell there was a rush of gunners to pick up the fragments. I secured one, and it turned out to be part of a huge forty-pounder siege-gun shell. Such a gun would far out-range ours, and I believe the scouts have not located it yet, which explains our inactivity.
_(3.30.)_–Our right section has gone into action, and is firing now. Some wounded Yeomen just brought in. One of them, I’m sorry to say, is Lafone, with a glancing wound under the eye, sight uninjured. We camped at five, and unharnessed. It seems the Yeomanry lost ten men prisoners, but the Boers released them after taking their rifles.
_August 19._–_Sunday._–Reveille at four. Some days are very irritating to the soldier, and this was a typical one. We harnessed up and stood about waiting for orders for five hours. At last we moved off, only to return again immediately; again moved off, and after a few minutes halted; finally got more or less started, and marched five or six miles, with incessant short halts, at each of which the order is to unbuckle wither-straps and let horses graze. This sounds simple, but is a horrible nuisance, as the team soon gets all over the place, feet over traces, collars over ears, and so on, if not continually watched and pulled about. When it is very hot and you are tired, it is very trying to the temper. At one halt you think you will lunch. You get out a Maconochie, open it, and take a spoonful, when you find the centres tying themselves up in a knot with the leaders. Up you get, straighten them out, and sit down again. After two more spoonfuls, you find the wheelers playing cat’s-cradle with the centres’ traces. Perhaps the wheel-driver is asleep, and you get up and put them right. Then the grazing operations of the leaders bring them round in a circle to the wheelers. Up you get, and finally, as the fifth spoonful is comforting a very empty stomach, you hear, “Stand to your horses!” “Mount!” You hurriedly stuff the tin into a muzzle hanging from the saddle, where you have leisure to observe its fragrant juices trickling out, stick the spoon under a wallet-strap, buckle up wither-straps, and mount. At the next halt you begin again, and the same thing happens. It is a positive relief to hear the shriek of a shell, and have something definite to do or interest you. About two the 38th fired a few shots at some Boers on the sky-line, and then we came to Waterval, where we camped and watered. The Petersberg railway runs up here, and this was a station on it, with a few houses besides. Its only interest is the cage in which several thousand English prisoners were kept, till released by Roberts’ arrival. I visited it on the way to a delicious bathe in the river after tea. It is a large enclosure, full of the remains of mud huts, and fitted with close rows of tall iron posts for the electric light, which must have turned night into day. It is surrounded by an elaborate barbed-wire entanglement. In one place was a tunnel made by some prisoners to escape by. It began at a hole inside a hut, and ran underground for quite forty yards, to a point about five yards outside the enclosure. Some of our chaps passed through it. In a large tin shed near the enclosure was a fine electric-lighting plant for lighting this strange prison on the open veldt.
This morning the Captain came back, to our great delight. He had been away since Winberg, getting stores for us at Bloemfontein. He brought a waggon full of clothing and tobacco, which was distributed after we had come in. There were thick corduroy uniforms for winter use. If they had reached us in the cold weather they would have been more useful. It is hot weather now; but a light drill tunic was also served out, and a sign of the times was stewed dry fruit for tea. The ration now is five biscuits (the full ration) and a Maconochie, or bully beef. Only extreme hunger can make me stomach Maconochies now. They are quite sound and good, but one gets to taste nothing but the chemical preservative, whatever it is. We have had no fresh meat for a long time back, but one manages with an occasional change of bully beef or a commandeered chicken.
The camp is a big one, for infantry reinforcements have come in, and two cow-guns.
_August 20._–There was no hour appointed for reveille overnight, but we were wakened by the pickets at 2.30 A.M. At once harnessed up, and marched off without breakfast. Went north still, as yesterday, following the railway. Dawn came slow, silent, and majestic into the cloudless sky, where a thin sickle of waning moon hung. It was a typical African dawn, and I watched every phase of it to-day with care. Its chief feature is its gentle unobtrusiveness. About an hour before sunrise, the east grows faintly luminous; then just one arc of it gradually and imperceptibly turns to faint yellow, and then delicate green; but just before the sun tops the veldt there is a curious moment, when all colour fades out except the steel blue of a twilight sky, and the whole firmament is equally lighted, so that it would be hard to say where the sun was going to rise. The next moment, a sharp rim of dazzling gold cuts the veldt, and in an instant it is broad day. The same applies to sunset. There are no “fine sunsets” here, worthy of Ruskinian rhapsodies; they are just exquisitely subtle transitions from day to night. But, of course, directly the sun is below the horizon, night follows quickly, as in all countries in these latitudes. There is very little twilight.
_(9.30 A.M.)_–The country we cross is studded thickly with small trees. About 6.30 the enemy’s rifle-fire began on our front. Our side at first answered with pom-poms, Maxims, and rifle-fire, but our guns have just come into action. The enemy’s position appears to be a low ridge ahead covered with bush.–I fancy they were only a skirmishing rear-guard, for after a bit of shrapnel-practice we moved on, and had a long, tiring day of slow marching and halting, with scattered firing going on in front and on the flanks. The country must demand great caution, for the bush is thick now, and whole commandos might be concealed anywhere. The Wilts Regiment (some companies of which are brigaded with us) lost several men and an officer. We camped on an open space just at dark. Watering was a long, tiresome business, from buckets, at a deep, rocky pool. There were snipers about, and a shot now and then during the evening.
_August 21._–We harnessed up at four; but waited till seven to move off. This is always tiresome, as drivers have to stay by their horses all the time; but of course it is necessary that in such a camp, with the enemy in the bush near, all the force should be ready to move at an early hour. The nights are warm now, but there is a very chilly time in the small hours. We marched through the same undulating, wooded country, crossing a brute of a drift over a river, where we hooked in an extra pair of horses to our team. In the summer this must be a lovely region, when the trees and grass are green; very like the New Forest, I should think. We had a long halt in the middle of the day, and then marched on till five, when we camped. We waited till eight for tea, as the buck-waggons had stuck somewhere; but I made some cocoa on a fire of mealy-stalks. I forgot to say that Baden-Powell has joined the column with a mounted force and the Elswick Battery, and is now pushing on ahead. I hear that Paget’s object is to prevent De Wet from joining Botha, and that Baden-Powell has seized some drift ahead over which he must pass. Fancy De Wet up here! An alternative to Maconochie was issued to-day, in the shape of an excellent brand of pressed beef.
_August 22._–Reveille at 3 A.M. for the right section, who moved off at once, and at 3.45 for my section. We started at 5.30, and marched pretty quickly all the morning to Pynaar’s River, which consists of a station on the railway, and a few gutted houses. A fine iron bridge over the river had been blown up, and was lying with its back broken in the water. We camped here about one, and thought we were in for a decent rest, after several very short nights. I ate something, and was soon fast asleep by my saddle; but at three “harness up” was ordered, and off we went, but only for a few hundred yards, when the column halted, and after wasting two hours in the same place, moved back to camp again. One would like to know the Staff secrets now and then in _contretemps_ like this; but no doubt one cause is the thick bush, which makes the enemy’s movements difficult to follow. Rum to-night. We went to bed without any orders for reveille, which came with vexatious suddenness at 10.45 P.M. I had had about two hours’ sleep. Up we got, harnessed up, hooked in, and groped in the worst of tempers to where the column was collecting, wondering what was up now. We soon started–no moon and very dark–on a road composed of fine, deep dust, which raised a kind of fog all round, through which I could barely see the lead-driver’s back. The order was no talking, no smoking, no lights, and we moved silently along under the stars, wrapped in darkness and dust. Happily the road was level, but night marching is always rather trying work for a driver. One’s nerves are continually on edge with the constant little checks that occur. The pair in front of you seem to swim as you strain your eyes to watch the traces, and keep the team in even draught; but, do what you can, there is a good deal of jerking into the collar, and narrow shades of getting legs over traces. Once I saw the General’s white horse come glimmering by and melt into the darkness. About 3.30 A.M. lights and fires appeared ahead, and we came on the camp of some other force of ours, all ready to start; soldiers’ figures seen silhouetted against the dancing light of camp fires, and teams of oxen in the gloom beyond. A little farther on the column stopped, and we were told we should be there two hours. We fed the horses, and then lit fires of mealy-stalks, and cooked cocoa, and drowsed. At six our transport-waggons came up, and we got our regular breakfast. Then we rode to water, and now (August 23) I am sitting in the dust by the team, writing this. There was a stir and general move just now. I got up and looked where all eyes were looking, and saw a solitary Boer horseman issuing from the bush, holding a white flag. An orderly galloped up to him, and the two went into a hut where the General is. The rumour is that a thousand Boers want to surrender.–Rumour reduces number to one Boer.
In the end we stopped here all day, and what in the world our forced march was for, is one of the inexplicable things that so often confront the tired unit, and which he doesn’t attempt to solve.
The camp was the most unpleasant I ever remember, on a deep layer of fine dust, of a dark, dirty colour. A high wind rose, and eyes, ears, mouth, food, and kit, were soon full of it. Roasting hot too. There was a long ride to water, and then I got some sleep behind my upturned saddle, waking with my eyes glued up. To watering again and evening stables. The wind went down about six and things were better. None of us drivers had blankets, though, for the kit-waggon had for some reason been left at Pynaar’s River. However, I shared a bed with another chap, and was all right.
_August 24._–I am now cursing my luck in an ambulance waggon. For several days I have had a nasty place coming on the sole of my foot, a veldt-sore, as it is called. To-day the doctor said I must go off duty, and I was told to ride on one of our transport-waggons. This sounds simple; but I knew better, and made up my mind for some few migrations, before I found a resting place. With the help of Williams I first put myself and my kit on one of our waggons. Then the Major came up, and was very sympathetic, but said he was sending back one waggon to Pynaar’s River, and I had better go on that, and not follow the Battery. So I migrated there and waited for the next move. It came in a general order from the Staff that nothing was to go back. I was to seek an asylum in an R.A.M.C. ambulance waggon. So we trudged over to an officer, who looked at my foot and said it was all very well, but he had no rations for me. However, rations were sent for, and I got into a covered waggon, with seats to hold about eight men, sat down with six others, Munsters and Wilts men, and am now waiting for the next move. It is 11 A.M. and we have not inspanned yet, though the battery and most of the brigade have started. I hear the whole column is to go to Warm Baths, sixteen miles farther on.
We didn’t start till 1.30, and halted about five. They are very pleasant chaps in the waggon, and we had great yarns about our experiences. They were in a thorough “grousing” mood. To “grouse” is soldiers’ slang for to “complain.” They were down on their scanty rations, their hot brown water, miscalled coffee, their incessant marching, the futility of chasing De Wet, everything. Most soldiers out here are like that. To the men-calculators and battle-thinkers it doesn’t matter very much, for Tommy is tough, patient, and plucky. He may “grouse,” but he is dependable. It came out accidentally that they had been on half-rations of biscuit for the last two days, and that day had had no meat issued to them, and only a biscuit and a half. By a most lucky hap, Williams and I had the night before bought a leg of fresh pig from a Yeomanry chap, and had it cooked by a nigger. In the morning, when we separated, I had hastily hacked off a chunk for him, and kept the rest, and we now had a merry meal over the national animal of the Munsters. It was pleasant to hear the rich Cork brogue in the air. It seems impossible to believe that these are the men whom Irish patriots incite to mutiny. They are loyal, keen, and simple soldiers, as proud of the flag as any Britisher. At five we outspanned, with orders to trek again at the uncomfortable hour of 1 A.M. The Orderly-corporal left me and a Sergeant Smith of the Munsters to sleep on the floor of the waggon, and the rest slept in a tent. They gave us tea, and later beef-tea. The sergeant and I sat up till late, yarning. He is a married reservist with two children, and is more than sick of the war. They gave us three blankets between us, and we lay on the cushions placed on the floor, and used the rugs to cover us both. After some months of mother earth this unusual bed gave me a nightmare, and I woke the sergeant to tell him that the mules were trampling on us, which much amused him. These worthy but tactless animals were tethered to the waggon, and pulling and straining on it all the time, which I suppose accounted for my delusion.
_August 25._–_Saturday._–At 1 A.M. the rest tumbled in on us, and we started off for the most abominable jolt over the country. For a wonder it was a very cold night, and of course we were all sitting up, so there was no more sleep to be got. At sunrise we arrived at Warm Baths, which turns out to be really a health-resort with hot springs. The chief feature in this peculiar place is a long row of tin houses, containing baths, I hear; also an hotel and a railway station, then the bush-covered veldt, abrupt and limitless. Baden-Powell and his troops are here, and I believe the Boers are behind some low hills which lie north of us, and run east and west. Our cart halted by a stream of water, which I washed in, and found quite warm. Coffee and biscuits were served out. A lovely day, hot, but still, so no dust. The column stops here a day or so, I hear. We have been transferred to a marquee tent, where fifteen of us lie pretty close. The Battery is quite near, and Williams has been round bringing my blankets, for it appears the drivers’ kits have come on from Pynaar’s River. Several fellows came round to see me, and Williams brought some duff, and Ramsey some light literature; Williams also brought a _Times_, in which I read about the massacre in China. I’m afraid the polyglot avengers will quarrel among themselves. Restless night. I believe I shall never sleep well under a roof again. A roof in London will be a bit smutty, though.
_August 26._–Breakfast at seven. Told we were going to shift. Packed up and shifted camp about a mile to some trees; the other site was horribly smelly. Installed again in a tent. I have a hardened old shell-back of a Tommy (Yorkshire Light Infantry) on my right, and a very nice sergeant of the Wilts Regiment on my left. Some of the former’s yarns are very entertaining, but too richly encrusted with words not in the dictionary to reproduce. How Kipling does it I can’t think. The sergeant is a fine type of the best sort of reservist. He astonished me by telling me he had been a deserter, long ago, when a lad, after two years in the Rifle Brigade, where he was sickened by tyranny of some sort. He confessed, after re-enlistment, and was pardoned. He had been fourteen years in his present corps, and had got on well. Opposite is a young scamp of Roberts’s Horse. Looks eighteen, but calls it twenty-two: his career being that he was put in the Navy, ran away, was apprenticed to the merchant service, ran away (so forfeiting the premium his parents had paid), shipped to the Cape, and joined Roberts’s Horse. I asked him what he would do next. “Go home,” he said, “and do nothing.” If I were his father I’d kick him out. He’s a nice boy, though. There are several Munsters, jolly chaps, and a Tasmanian of the Bush contingent, tall, hollow-eyed, sallow-faced fellow, with dysentery–a gentleman, and an interesting one. Williams has been here a good deal. He made some tea for the two of us in the