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diff --git a/16337-8.txt b/16337-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..98d9c39 --- /dev/null +++ b/16337-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3642 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of From Capetown to Ladysmith, by G. W. Steevens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: From Capetown to Ladysmith + An Unfinished Record of the South African War + +Author: G. W. Steevens + +Editor: Vernon Blackburn + +Release Date: July 20, 2005 [EBook #16337] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Taavi Kalju, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH + +AN UNFINISHED RECORD OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR + +BY + +G.W. STEEVENS + + +AUTHOR OF 'WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM,' 'IN INDIA,' ETC., ETC. + + +EDITED BY VERNON BLACKBURN + +_THIRD IMPRESSION_ + +WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON + +MDCCCC + + +_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + +WITH KITCHENER TO KHARTUM. With 8 Maps and Plans. Twenty-first Edition. +Crown 8vo, 6s. + +"This book is a masterpiece. Mr Steevens writes an English which is +always alive and alert.... The description of the battle of Omdurman +reaches, we do not hesitate to say, the high-water mark of +literature."--_Spectator._ + +IN INDIA. With a Map. Third Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. + +"To read this book is a liberal education in one of the most interesting +and least known portions of our Empire."--_St James's Gazette._ + +THE LAND OF THE DOLLAR. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. + +"One of the smartest books of travel which has appeared for a long time +past.... Brings the general appearance of Transatlantic urban and rural +life so clearly before the mind's eye of the reader, that a perusal of +his work almost answers the purpose of a personal inspection. New York +has probably never been more lightly and cleverly sketched."--_Daily +Telegraph._ + +WITH THE CONQUERING TURK. With 4 Maps. Cheaper Edition. Demy 8vo, 6s. + +"This is a remarkably bright and vivid book. There is a delicious +portrait of the jovial aide-de-camp, plenty of humorous touches of +wayside scenes, servants' tricks, dragoman's English, and vagaries of +cuisine."--_St James's Gazette._ + +EGYPT IN 1898. With Illustrations. Crown 8vo, 6s. + +"Set forth in a style that provides plenty of entertainment.... Bright +and readable."--_Times._ + +WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE + +I. FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE. + +First impressions--Denver with a dash of Delhi--Government House-- +The Legislative Assembly--A wrangling debate--A demonstration of +the unemployed--The menace of coming war 1 + +II. THE ARMY CORPS--HAS NOT LEFT ENGLAND! + +A little patch of white tents--A dream of distance--The desert of +the Karroo--War at last--A campaign without headquarters--Waiting +for the Army Corps 10 + +III. A PASTOR'S POINT OF VIEW. + +An ideal of Arcady--Rebel Burghersdorp--Its monuments--Dopper +theology--An interview with one of its professors 19 + +IV. WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR? + +On the border of the Free State--An appeal to the Colonial Boers-- +The beginning of warlike rumours--A commercial and social boycott-- +The Boer secret service--The Basutos and their mother, the Queen-- +Boer brutality to Kaffirs 28 + +V. LOYAL ALIWAL: A TRAGI-COMEDY. + +The Cape Police--A garrison of six men--Merry-go-rounds and naphtha +flares--A clamant want of fifty men--Where are the troops?--"It'll +be just the same as it was in '81" 35 + +VI. THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. + +French's reconnaissance--An artillery duel--Beginning of the attack-- +Ridge after ridge--A crowded half-hour 43 + +VII. THE BIVOUAC. + +A victorious and helpless mob--A break-neck hillside--Bringing down +the wounded--A hard-worked doctor--Boer prisoners--Indian bearers-- +An Irish Highlander in trouble 56 + +VIII. THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE. + +Superfluous assistance--A smiling valley--The Border Mounted Rifles-- +A rain-storm--A thirty-two miles' march--How the troops came into +Ladysmith 66 + +IX. THE STORY OF NICHOLSON'S NEK. + +An attenuated mess--A regiment 220 strong--A miserable story--The +white flag--Boer kindness--Ashamed for England 74 + +X. THE GUNS AT RIETFONTEIN. + +A column on the move--The nimble guns--Garrison gunners at work-- +The veldt on fire--Effective shrapnel--The value of the engagement 81 + +XI. THE BOMBARDMENT. + +Long Tom--A family of harmless monsters--Our inferiority in guns-- +The sensations of a bombardment--A little custom blunts sensibility 92 + +XII. THE DEVIL'S TIN-TACKS. + +The excitement of a rifle fusilade--A six-hours' fight--The picking +off of officers--A display of infernal fireworks--"God bless the +Prince of Wales" 106 + +XIII. A DIARY OF DULNESS. + +The mythopoeic faculty--A miserable day--The voice of the pompom-- +Learning the Boer game--The end of Fiddling Jimmy--Melinite at +close quarters--A lake of mud 114 + +XIV. NEARING THE END. + +Dulness interminable--Ladysmith in 2099 A.D.--Sieges obsolete +hardships--Dead to the world--The appalling features of a +bombardment 124 + +XV. IN A CONNING-TOWER. + +The self-respecting bluejacket--A German atheist--The sailors' +telephone--What the naval guns meant to Ladysmith--The salt of +the earth 134 + +THE LAST CHAPTER. By VERNON BLACKBURN 144 + + + + +MAPS. + + + PAGE + +MAP OF THE COUNTRY ROUND LADYSMITH 95 + +MAP ILLUSTRATING THE SEAT OF WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA _At end_ + + + + +FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH + + + + +I. + +FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE. + + FIRST IMPRESSIONS--DENVER WITH A DASH OF DELHI--GOVERNMENT + HOUSE--THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY--A WRANGLING DEBATE--A + DEMONSTRATION OF THE UNEMPLOYED--THE MENACE OF COMING WAR. + + +CAPETOWN, _Oct. 10._ + +This morning I awoke, and behold the _Norman_ was lying alongside a +wharf at Capetown. I had expected it, and yet it was a shock. In this +breathless age ten days out of sight of land is enough to make you a +merman: I looked with pleased curiosity at the grass and the horses. + +After the surprise of being ashore again, the first thing to notice was +the air. It was as clear--but there is nothing else in existence clear +enough with which to compare it. You felt that all your life hitherto +you had been breathing mud and looking out on the world through fog. +This, at last, was air, was ether. + +Right in front rose three purple-brown mountains--the two supporters +peaked, and Table Mountain flat in the centre. More like a coffin than a +table, sheer steep and dead flat, he was exactly as he is in pictures; +and as I gazed, I saw his tablecloth of white cloud gather and hang on +his brow. + +It was enough: the white line of houses nestling hardly visible between +his foot and the sea must indeed be Capetown. + +Presently I came into it, and began to wonder what it looked like. It +seemed half Western American with a faint smell of India--Denver with a +dash of Delhi. The broad streets fronted with new-looking, ornate +buildings of irregular heights and fronts were Western America; the +battle of warming sun with the stabbing morning cold was Northern +India. The handsome, blood-like electric cars, with their impatient +gongs and racing trolleys, were pure America (the motor-men were +actually imported from that hustling clime to run them). For Capetown +itself--you saw it in a moment--does not hustle. The machinery is the +West's, the spirit is the East's or the South's. In other cities with +trolley-cars they rush; here they saunter. In other new countries they +have no time to be polite; here they are suave and kindly and even +anxious to gossip. I am speaking, understand, on a twelve hours' +acquaintance--mainly with that large section of Capetown's inhabitants +that handled my baggage between dock and rail way-station. The niggers +are very good-humoured, like the darkies of America. The Dutch tongue +sounds like German spoken by people who will not take the trouble to +finish pronouncing it. + +All in all, Capetown gives you the idea of being neither very rich nor +very poor, neither over-industrious nor over-lazy, decently successful, +reasonably happy, whole-heartedly easy-going. + +The public buildings--what I saw of them--confirm the idea of a placid +half-prosperity. The place is not a baby, but it has hardly taken the +trouble to grow up. It has a post-office of truly German stability and +magnitude. It has a well-organised railway station, and it has the merit +of being in Adderley Street, the main thoroughfare of the city: imagine +it even possible to bring Euston into the Strand, and you will get an +idea of the absence of push and crush in Capetown. + +When you go on to look at Government House the place keeps its +character: Government House is half a country house and half a country +inn. One sentry tramps outside the door, and you pay your respects to +the Governor in shepherd's plaid. + +Over everything brooded peace, except over one flamboyant many-winged +building of red brick and white stone with a garden about it, an +avenue--a Capetown avenue, shady trees and cool but not large: +attractive and not imposing--at one side of it, with a statue of the +Queen before and broad-flagged stairs behind. It was the Parliament +House. The Legislative Assembly--their House of Commons--was +characteristically small, yet characteristically roomy and +characteristically comfortable. The members sit on flat green-leather +cushions, two or three on a bench, and each man's name is above his +seat: no jostling for Capetown. The slip of Press gallery is above the +Speaker's head; the sloping uncrowded public gallery is at the other +end, private boxes on one side, big windows on the other. Altogether it +looks like a copy of the Westminster original, improved by leaving +nine-tenths of the members and press and public out. + +Yet here--alas, for placid Capetown!--they were wrangling. +They were wrangling about the commandeering of gold and the +sjamboking--shamboking, you pronounce it--of Johannesburg refugees. +There was Sir Gordon Sprigg, thrice Premier, grey-bearded, dignified, +and responsible in bearing and speech, conversationally reasonable in +tone. There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost boyish with plump, +smooth cheeks and a dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks as if he +knows it: he, too, is conversational, almost jerky, in speech, but with +a flavour of bitterness added to his reason. + +Everything sounded quiet and calm enough for Capetown--yet plainly +feeling was strained tight to snapping. A member rose to put a question, +and prefaced it with a brief invective against all Boers and their +friends. He would go on for about ten minutes, when suddenly angry cries +of "Order!" in English and Dutch would rise. The questioner commented +with acidity on the manners of his opponents. They appealed to the +chair: the Speaker blandly pronounced that the hon. gentleman had been +out of order from the first word he uttered. The hon. gentleman thereon +indignantly refused to put his question at all; but, being prevailed to +do so, gave an opening to a Minister, who devoted ten minutes to a +brief invective against all Uitlanders and their friends. Then up got +one of the other side--and so on for an hour. Most delicious of all was +a white-haired German, once colonel in the Hanoverian Legion which was +settled in the Eastern Province, and which to this day remains the +loyallest of her Majesty's subjects. When the Speaker ruled against his +side he counselled defiance in a resounding whisper; when an opponent +was speaking he snorted thunderous derision; when an opponent retorted +he smiled blandly and admonished him: "Ton't lose yer demper." + +In the Assembly, if nowhere else, rumbled the menace of coming war. + +One other feature there was that was not Capetown. Along Adderley +Street, before the steamship companies' offices, loafed a thick string +of sun-reddened, unshaven, flannel-shirted, corduroy-trousered British +working-men. Inside the offices they thronged the counters six deep. +Down to the docks they filed steadily with bundles to be penned in the +black hulls of homeward liners. Their words were few and sullen. These +were the miners of the Rand--who floated no companies, held no shares, +made no fortunes, who only wanted to make a hundred pounds to furnish a +cottage and marry a girl. + +They had been turned out of work, packed in cattle-trucks, and had come +down in sun by day and icy wind by night, empty-bellied, to pack off +home again. Faster than the ship-loads could steam out the trainloads +steamed in. They choked the lodging-houses, the bars, the streets. +Capetown was one huge demonstration of the unemployed. In the hotels and +streets wandered the pale, distracted employers. They hurried hither and +thither and arrived nowhither; they let their cigars go out, left their +glasses half full, broke off their talk in the middle of a word. They +spoke now of intolerable grievance and hoarded revenge, now of silent +mines, rusting machinery, stolen gold. They held their houses in +Johannesburg as gone beyond the reach of insurance. They hated +Capetown, they could not tear themselves away to England, they dared not +return to the Rand. + +This little quiet corner of Capetown held the throbbing hopes and fears +of all Johannesburg and more than half the two Republics and the mass of +all South Africa. + +None doubted--though many tried to doubt--that at last it was--war! They +paused an instant before they said the word, and spoke it softly. It had +come at last--the moment they had worked and waited for--and they knew +not whether to exult or to despair. + + + + +II. + +THE ARMY CORPS--HAS NOT LEFT ENGLAND! + + A LITTLE PATCH OF WHITE TENTS--A DREAM OF DISTANCE--THE DESERT OF + THE KARROO--WAR AT LAST--A CAMPAIGN WITHOUT HEADQUARTERS--WAITING + FOR THE ARMY CORPS. + + +STORMBERG JUNCTION. + +The wind screams down from the naked hills on to the little junction +station. A platform with dining-room and telegraph office, a few +corrugated iron sheds, the station-master's corrugated iron +bungalow--and there is nothing else of Stormberg but veldt and, kopje, +wind and sky. Only these last day's there has sprung up a little patch +of white tents a quarter of a mile from the station, and about them move +men in putties and khaki. Signal flags blink from the rises, pickets +with fixed bayonets dot the ridges, mounted men in couples patrol the +plain and the dip and the slope. Four companies of the Berkshire +Regiment and the mounted infantry section--in all they may count 400 +men. Fifty miles north is the Orange river, and beyond it, maybe by now +this side of it, thousands of armed and mounted burghers--and war. + +I wonder if it is all real? By the clock I have been travelling +something over forty hours in South Africa, but it might just as well be +a minute or a lifetime. It is a minute of experience prolonged to a +lifetime. South Africa is a dream--one of those dreams in which you live +years in the instant of waking--a dream of distance. + +Departing from Capetown by night, I awoke in the Karroo. Between nine +and six in the morning we had made less than a hundred and eighty miles. +Now we were climbing the vast desert of the Karroo, the dusty stairway +that leads on to the highlands of South Africa. Once you have seen one +desert, all the others are like it; and yet once you have loved the +desert, each is lovable in a new way. In the Karroo you seem to be +going up a winding ascent, like the ramps that lead to an Indian +fortress. You are ever pulling up an incline between hills, making for a +corner round one of the ranges. You feel that when you get round that +corner you will at last see something: you arrive and only see another +incline, two more ranges, and another corner--surely this time with +something to arrive at beyond. You arrive and arrive, and once more you +arrive--and once more you see the same vast nothing you are coming from. +Believe it or not, that is the very charm of a desert--the unfenced +emptiness, the space, the freedom, the unbroken arch of the sky. It is +for ever fooling you, and yet you for ever pursue it. And then it is +only to the eye that cannot do without green that the Karroo is +unbeautiful. Every other colour meets others in harmony--tawny sand, +silver-grey scrub, crimson-tufted flowers like heather, black ribs of +rock, puce shoots of screes, violet mountains in the middle distance, +blue fairy battlements guarding the horizon. And above all broods the +intense purity of the South African azure--not a coloured thing, like +the plants and the hills, but sheer colour existing by and for itself. + +It is sheer witching desert for five hundred miles, and for aught I know +five hundred miles after that. At the rare stations you see perhaps one +corrugated-iron store, perhaps a score of little stone houses with a +couple of churches. The land carries little enough stock--here a dozen +goats browsing on the withered sticks goats love, there a dozen +ostriches, high-stepping, supercilious heads in air, wheeling like a +troop of cavalry and trotting out of the stink of that beastly train. Of +men, nothing--only here at the bridge a couple of tents, there at the +culvert a black man, grotesque in sombrero and patched trousers, +loafing, hands in pockets, lazy pipe in mouth. The last man in the +world, you would have said, to suggest glorious war--yet war he meant +and nothing else. On the line from Capetown--that single track through +five hundred miles of desert--hang Kimberley and Mafeking and Rhodesia: +it runs through Dutch country, and the black man was there to watch it. + +War--and war sure enough it was. A telegram at a tea-bar, a whisper, a +gathering rush, an electric vibration--and all the station and all the +train and the very niggers on the dunghill outside knew it. War--war at +last! Everybody had predicted it--and now everybody gasped with +amazement. One man broke off in a joke about killing Dutchmen, and could +only say, "My God--my God--my God!" + +I too was lost, and lost I remain. Where was I to go? What was I to do? +My small experience has been confined to wars you could put your fingers +on: for this war I have been looking long enough, and have not found it. +I have been accustomed to wars with headquarters, at any rate to wars +with a main body and a concerted plan: but this war in Cape Colony has +neither. + +It could not have either. If you look at the map you will see that the +Transvaal and Orange Free State are all but lapped in the red of +British territory. That would be to our advantage were our fighting +force superior or equal or even not much inferior to that of the enemy. +In a general way it is an advantage to have your frontier in the form of +a re-entrant angle; for then you can strike on your enemy's flank and +threaten his communications. That advantage the Boers possess against +Natal, and that is why Sir George White has abandoned Laing's Nek and +Newcastle, and holds the line of the Biggarsberg: even so the Boers +might conceivably get between him and his base. The same advantage we +should possess on this western side of the theatre of war, except that +we are so heavily outnumbered, and have adopted no heroic plan of +abandoning the indefensible. We have an irregular force of mounted +infantry at Mafeking, the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment at Kimberley, +the Munster Fusiliers at De Aar, half the Yorkshire Light Infantry at De +Aar, half the Berkshire Regiment at Naauwpoort--do not try to pronounce +it--and the other half here at Stormberg. The Northumberlands--the +famous Fighting Fifth--came crawling up behind our train, and may now be +at Naauwpoort or De Aar. Total: say, 4100 infantry, of whom some 600 +mounted; no cavalry, no field-guns. The Boer force available against +these isolated positions might be very reasonably put at 12,000 mounted +infantry, with perhaps a score of guns. + +Mafeking and Kimberley are fairly well garrisoned, with auxiliary +volunteers, and may hold their own: at any rate, I have not been there +and can say nothing about them. But along the southern border of the +Free State--the three railway junctions of De Aar, Naauwpoort, and +Stormberg--our position is very dangerous indeed. I say it freely, for +by the time the admission reaches England it may be needed to explain +failure, or pleasant to add lustre to success. If the Army Corps were in +Africa, which is still in England, this position would be a splendid one +for it--three lines of supply from Capetown, Port Elizabeth, and East +London, and three converging lines of advance by Norval's Pont, +Bethulie, and Aliwal North. But with tiny forces of half a battalion in +front and no support behind--nothing but long lines of railway with +ungarrisoned ports hundreds of miles at the far end of them--it is very +dangerous. There are at this moment no supports nearer than England. Let +the Free Staters bring down two thousand good shots and resolute men +to-morrow morning--it is only fifty miles, with two lines of +railway--and what will happen to that little patch of white tents by the +station? The loss of any one means the loss of land connection between +Western and Eastern Provinces, a line open into the heart of the Cape +Colony, and nothing to resist an invader short of the sea. + +It is dangerous--and yet nobody cares. There is nothing to do but +wait--for the Army Corps that has not yet left England. Even to-day--a +day's ride from the frontier--the war seems hardly real. All will be +done that man can do. In the mean time the good lady of the +refreshment-room says: "Dinner? There's been twenty-one to-day and +dinner got ready for fifteen; but you're welcome to it, such as it is. +We must take things as they come in war-time." Her children play with +their cats in the passage. The railway man busies himself about the new +triangles and sidings that are to be laid down against the beginning of +December for the Army Corps that has not yet left England. + + + + +III. + +A PASTOR'S POINT OF VIEW. + + AN IDEAL OF ARCADY--REBEL BURGHERSDORP--ITS MONUMENTS--DOPPER + THEOLOGY--AN INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF ITS PROFESSORS. + + +BURGHERSDORP, _Oct. 14._ + +The village lies compact and clean-cut, a dot in the wilderness. No +fields or orchards break the transition from man to nature; step out of +the street and you are at once on rock-ribbed kopje or raw veldt. As you +stand on one of the bare lines of hill that squeeze it into a narrow +valley, Burghersdorp is a chequer-board of white house, green tree, and +grey iron roof; beyond its edges everything is the changeless yellow +brown of South African landscape. + +Go down into the streets, and Burghersdorp is an ideal of Arcady. The +broad, dusty, unmetalled roads are steeped in sunshine. The houses are +all one-storeyed, some brick, some mud, some the eternal corrugated +iron, most faced with whitewash, many fronted with shady verandahs. As +blinds against the sun they have lattices of trees down every +street--white-blossoming laburnum, poplars, sycamores. + +Despite verandahs and trees, the sunshine soaks down into every +corner--genially, languorously warm. All Burghersdorp basks. You see +half-a-dozen yoke of bullocks with a waggon, standing placidly in the +street, too lazy even to swish their tails against the flies; pass by an +hour later, and they are still there, and the black man lounging by the +leaders has hardly shifted one leg; pass by at evening, and they have +moved on three hundred yards, and are resting again. In the daytime hens +peck and cackle in every street; at nightfall the bordering veldt hums +with crickets and bullfrogs. At morn come a flight of locusts--first, +yellow-white scouts whirring down every street, then a pelting +snowstorm of them high up over the houses, spangling the blue heaven. +But Burghersdorp cared nothing. "There is nothing for them," said a +farmer, with cosy satisfaction; "the frost killed everything last week." + +British and Dutch salute and exchange the news with lazy mutual +tolerance. The British are storekeepers and men of business; the Boers +ride in from their farms. They are big, bearded men, loose of limb, +shabbily dressed in broad-brimmed hats, corduroy trousers, and brown +shoes; they sit their ponies at a rocking-chair canter erect and easy; +unkempt, rough, half-savage, their tanned faces and blue eyes express +lazy good-nature, sluggish stubbornness, dormant fierceness. They ask +the news in soft, lisping Dutch that might be a woman's; but the lazy +imperiousness of their bearing stamps them as free men. A people hard to +rouse, you say--and as hard, when roused, to subdue. + +A loitering Arcady--and then you hear with astonishment that +Burghersdorp is famous throughout South Africa as a stronghold of +bitter Dutch partisanship. "Rebel Burghersdorp" they call it in the +British centres, and Capetown turns anxious ears towards it for the +first muttering of insurrection. What history its stagnant annals record +is purely anti-British. Its two principal monuments, after the Jubilee +fountain, are the tombstone of the founder of the Dopper Church--the +Ironsides of South Africa--and a statue with inscribed pedestal complete +put up to commemorate the introduction of the Dutch tongue into the Cape +Parliament. Malicious comments add that Afrikander patriotism swindled +the stone-mason out of £30, and it is certain that one of the gentlemen +whose names appear thereon most prominently, now languishes in jail for +fraud. Leaving that point for thought, I find that the rest of +Burghersdorp's history consists in the fact that the Afrikander Bond was +founded here in 1881. And at this moment Burghersdorp is out-Bonding the +Bond: the reverend gentleman who edits its Dutch paper and dictates its +Dutch policy sluices out weekly vials of wrath upon Hofmeyr and +Schreiner for machinating to keep patriot Afrikanders off the oppressing +Briton's throat. + +I went to see this reverend pastor, who is professor of a school of +Dopper theology. He was short, but thick-set, with a short but shaggy +grey beard; in deference to his calling, he wore a collar over his grey +flannel shirt, but no tie. Nevertheless, he turned out a very charming, +courteous old gentleman, well informed, and his political bias was +mellowed with an irresistible sense of humour. He took his own side +strongly, and allowed that it was most proper for a Briton to be equally +strong on his own. And this is more or less what he said:-- + +"Information? No, I shall not give you any; you are the enemy, you see. +Ha, ha! They call me rebel. But I ask you, my friend, is it natural that +I--I, Hollander born, Dutch Afrikander since '60--should be as loyal to +the British Government as a Britisher should be? No, I say; one can be +loyal only to one's own country. I am law-abiding subject of the Queen, +and that is all that they can ask of me. + +"How will the war go? That it is impossible, quite impossible, to say. +The Boer might run away at the first shot and he might fight to the +death. All troops are liable to panic; even regular troop; much more +than irregular. But I have been on commando many times with Boer, and I +cannot think him other than brave man. Fighting is not his business; he +wishes always to be back on his farm with his people; but he is brave +man. + +"I look on this war as the sequel of 1881. I have told them all these +years, it is not finish; war must come. Mr Gladstone, whom I look on as +greatest British statesman, did wrong in 1881. If he had kept promises +and given back country before the war, we would have been grateful; but +he only give it after war, and we were not grateful. And English did not +feel that they were generous, only giving independence after war, +though they had a large army in Natal; they have always wished to +recommence. + +"The trouble is because the Boer have never had confidence in the +English Government, just as you have never had confidence in us. The +Boer have no feeling about Cape Colony, but they have about Natal; they +were driven out of it, and they think it still their own country. Then +you took the diamond-fields from the Free State. You gave the Free State +independence only because you did not want trouble of Basuto war; then +we beat the Basutos--I myself was there, and it was very hard, and it +lasted three years--and then you would not let us take Basutoland. Then +came annexation of the Transvaal; up to that I was strong advocate of +federation, but after that I was one of founders of the Bond. After that +the Afrikander trusted Rhodes--not I, though; I always write I distrust +Rhodes--and so came the Jameson raid. Now how could we have confidence +after all this in British Government? + +"I do not think Transvaal Government have been wise; I have many times +told them so. They made great mistake when they let people come in to +the mines. I told them, 'This gold will be your ruin; to remain +independent you must remain poor.' But when that was done, what could +they do? If they gave the franchise, then the Republic is governed by +three four men from Johannesburg, and they will govern it for their own +pocket. The Transvaal Boer would rather be British colony than +Johannesburg Republic. + +"Well, well; it is the law of South Africa that the Boer drive the +native north and the English drive the Boer north. But now the Boer can +go north no more; two things stop him: the tsetse fly and the fever. So +if he must perish, it is his duty--yes, I, minister, say it is his +duty--to perish fighting. + +"But here in the Colony we have no race hatred. Not between man and man; +but when many men get together there is race hatred. If we fight here +on this border it is civil war--the same Dutch and English are across +the Orange as here in Albert. My son is on commando in Free State; the +other day he ride thirteen hours and have no food for two days. I say to +him, 'You are Free State burgher; you have the benefit of the country; +your wife is Boer girl; it is your duty to fight for it.' I am +law-abiding British subject, but I hope my son will not be hurt. You, +sir, I wish you good luck--good luck for yourself and your +corresponding. Not for your side: that I cannot wish you." + + + + +IV. + +WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR?[1] + + ON THE BORDER OF THE FREE STATE--AN APPEAL TO THE COLONIAL + BOERS--THE BEGINNING OF WARLIKE RUMOURS--A COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL + BOYCOTT--THE BOER SECRET SERVICE--THE BASUTOS AND THEIR MOTHER, THE + QUEEN--BOER BRUTALITY TO KAFFIRS. + + +_Oct. 14 (9.55 p.m.)_ + +The most conspicuous feature of the war on this frontier has hitherto +been its absence. + +The Free State forces about Bethulie, which is just over the Free State +border, and Aliwal North, which is on our side of the frontier, make no +sign of an advance. The reason for this is, doubtless, that hostilities +here would amount to civil war. There is the same mixed English and +Dutch population on each side of the Orange river, united by ties of +kinship and friendship. Many law-abiding Dutch burghers here have sons +and brothers who are citizens of the Free State, and therefore out with +the forces. + +In the mean time the English doctor attends patients on the other side +of the border, and Boer riflemen ride across to buy goods at the British +stores. + +The proclamation published yesterday morning forbidding trade with the +Republics is thus difficult and impolitic to enforce hereabouts. + +Railway and postal communication is now stopped, but the last mail +brought a copy of the Bloemfontein 'Express,' with an appeal to the +Colonial Boers concluding with the words:-- + +"We shall continue the war to the bloody end. You will assist us. Our +God, who has so often helped us, will not forsake us." + +What effect this may have is yet doubtful, but it is certain that any +rising of the Colonial Dutch would send the Colonial British into the +field in full strength. + +Burghersdorp, through which I passed yesterday, is a village of 2000 +inhabitants, and, as I have already put on record, the centre of the +most disaffected district in the colony. If there be any Dutch rising in +sympathy with the Free State it will begin here. + + +_Later._ + +And so there's warlike news at last. + +A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, shifted camp to-day to within +three miles of the bridge across the Orange river. Well-informed Dutch +inhabitants assert that these are to be reinforced, and will march +through Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack Stormberg Junction, +sixty miles south. + +The bridge is defended by two Cape policemen with four others in +reserve. + +The loyal inhabitants are boiling with indignation, declaring themselves +sacrificed, as usual, by the dilatoriness of the Government. + +Besides the Boer force near here, there is another, reported to be 450 +strong, at Greatheads Drift, forty miles up the river. + +The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, are believed to be pulling up +the railway on their side of the frontier, and to be marching to Norvals +Pont, which is the ferry over the Orange river on the way to Colesberg, +with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort Junction, on the +Capetown-Kimberley line; but as there are no trains now running to +Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, and, indeed, all +reports must be received with caution. + +The feeling here between the English and Dutch extends to a commercial +and social boycott, and is therefore far more bitter than elsewhere. +Several burghers here have sent their sons over the border, and promise +that the loyal inhabitants will be "sjambokked" (you remember how to +pronounce it?) when the Boer force passes through. + +So far things are quiet. The broad, sunny, dusty streets, fringed with +small trees and lined with single-storeyed houses, are dotted with +strolling inhabitants, both Dutch and natives, engrossed in their +ordinary pursuits. The whole thing looks more like Arcady than +revolution. + +The only sign of movement is that eight young Boers, theological +students of the Dopper or strict Lutheran college here, left last night +for the Free State for active service. + +The Boers across the Orange river so far make no sign of raiding. Many +have sent their wives and families here into Aliwal North, on our side +of the border, in imitation, perhaps, of President Steyn, whose wife at +this moment is staying with her sister at King William's Town, in the +Cape Colony. + +Many British farmers, of whom there are a couple of hundred in this +district, refuse to believe that the Free State will take the offensive +on this border, considering that such aggression would be impious, and +that the Free State will restrict itself to defending its own frontier, +or the Transvaal, if invaded, in fulfilment of the terms of the +offensive and defensive alliance. + +Nevertheless there is, of course, very acute tension between the Dutch +and English here. No Boers are to be seen talking to Englishmen. The +Boers are very close as to their feelings and intentions, which those +who know them interpret as a bad sign, because, as a rule, they are +inclined to irresponsible garrulity. A point in which Dutch feeling here +tells is that every Dutch man, woman, or child is more or less of a Boer +secret service agent, revealing our movements and concealing those of +the Boers. + +If there be any rising it may be expected by November 9, when the Boers +hold their "wappenschouwing," or rifle contest--the local Bisley, in +fact--which every man for miles around attends armed. Also the +Afrikander Bond Congress is to be held next month; but probably the +leaders will do their best to keep the people together. + +The Transvaal agents are naturally doing their utmost to provoke +rebellion. A lieutenant of their police is known to be hiding +hereabouts, and a warrant is out for his arrest. All depends, say the +experts, on the results of the first few weeks of fighting. + +The attitude of the natives causes some uneasiness. Every Basuto +employed on the line here has returned to his tribe, one saying: "Be +sure we shall not harm our mother the Queen." + +Many Transkei Kaffirs also have passed through here, owing to the +closing of the mines. Sixty-six crammed truckloads of them came by one +train. They had been treated with great brutality by the Boers, having +been flogged to the station and robbed of their wages. + +[Footnote 1: This chapter has been deliberately included in this volume +notwithstanding its obviously fragmentary nature. The swift picture +which it gives of flying events is the excuse for this decision.] + + + + +V. + +LOYAL ALIWAL: A TRAGI-COMEDY. + + THE CAPE POLICE--A GARRISON OF SIX MEN--MERRY-GO-ROUNDS AND NAPHTHA + FLARES--A CLAMANT WANT OF FIFTY MEN--WHERE ARE THE TROOPS?--"IT'LL + BE JUST THE SAME AS IT WAS IN '81." + + +ALIWAL NORTH, _Oct. 15._ + +"Halt! Who goes there?" The trim figure, black in the moonlight, in +breeches and putties, with a broad-brimmed hat looped up at the side, +brought up his carbine and barred the entrance to the bridge. Twenty +yards beyond a second trim black figure with a carbine stamped to and +fro over the planking. They were of the Cape Police, and there were four +more of them somewhere in reserve; across the bridge was the Orange Free +State; behind us was the little frontier town of Aliwal North, and +these were its sole garrison. + +The river shone silver under its high banks. Beyond it, in the enemy's +country, the veldt too was silvered over with moonlight and was blotted +inkily with shadow from the kopjes. Three miles to the right, over a +rise and down in a dip, they said there lay the Rouxville commando of +350 men. That night they were to receive 700 or 800 more from +Smithfield, and thereon would ride through Aliwal on their way to eat up +the British half-battalion at Stormberg. On our side of the bridge +slouched a score of Boers--waiting, they said, to join and conduct their +kinsmen. In the very middle of these twirled a battered +merry-go-round--an island of garish naphtha light in the silver, a jarr +of wheeze and squeak in the swishing of trees and river. Up the hill, +through the town, in the bar of the ultra-English hotel, proceeded this +dialogue. + +_A fat man_ (_thunderously, nursing a Lee-Metford sporting rifle_). +Well, you've yourselves to blame. I've done my best. With fifty men I'd +have held this place against a thousand Boers, and not ten men'd join. + +_A thin-faced man_ (_piping_). We haven't got the rifles. Every +Dutchman's armed, and how many rifles will you find among the English? + +_Fat man_ (_shooting home bolt of Lee-Metford_). And who's fault's that? +I've left my property in the Free State, and odds are I shall lose every +penny I've got--what part? all over--and come here on to British soil, +and what do I find? With fifty men I'd hold this place-- + +_Thin-faced man._ They'll be here to-night, old De Wet says, and they're +to come here and sjambok the Englishmen who've been talking too much. +That's what comes of being loyal! + +_Fat man._ Loyal! With fifty men-- + +_Brown-faced, grey-haired man_ (_smoking deep-bowled pipe in corner_). +No, you wouldn't. + +_Fat man_ (_playing with sights of Lee-Metford_). What! Not keep the +bridge with fifty men-- + +_Brown-faced, grey-haired man._ And they'd cross by the old drift, and +be on every side of you in ten minutes. + +_Fat man_ (_grounding Lee-Metford_). Ah! Well--h'm! + +_Thick-set man._ But we're safe enough. Has not the Government sent us a +garrison? Six policemen! Six policemen, gentlemen, and the Boers are at +Pieter's farrm, and they'll be here to-night and sjambok-- + +_Thin-faced man._ Where are the troops? Where are the volunteers? Where +are the-- + +_Brown-faced, grey-haired man._ There are no troops, and the better for +you. The strength of Aliwal is in its weakness. (_To fat man_.) Put that +gun away. + +_Thin-faced man, thick-set man, and general chorus._ Yes, put it away. + +_Thin-faced man._ But I want to know why the Boers are armed and we +aren't? Why does our Government-- + +_Brown-faced man._ Are you accustomed to shoot? + +_Thin-faced man_ (_faintly_). No. + +_Fat man_ (_returning from putting away Lee-Metford_). But where do you +come from? + +_Brown-faced man._ Free State, same as you do. Lived there +five-and-twenty years. + +_Thin-faced man._ Any trouble in getting away? + +_Brown-faced man._ No. Field-cornet was a good old fellow and an old +friend of mine, and he gave me the hint-- + +_Thin-faced man._ Not much like ours! Why, there's a lady staying here +that's friendly with his daughters, and she went out to see them the +other day, and the old man said they'd stop here and sjam-- + +_Fat man._ Gentlemen, drinks all round! Here's success to the British +arms! + +_All._ Success to the British arms! + +_Thick-set man._ And may the British Government not desert us again! + +_Fat man._ I'll take a shade of odds about it. They will. I've no trust +in Chamberlain. It'll be just the same as it was in '81. A few reverses +and you'll find they'll begin to talk about terms. I know them. Every +loyal man in South Africa knows them. (_General murmur of assent._) + +_Hotel-keeper._ Gentlemen, drinks all round! Here's success to the +British arms! + +_All._ Success to the British arms! + +_Thick-set man._ And where are the British arms? Where's the Army Corps? +Has a man of that Army Corps left England? Shilly-shally, as usual. +South Africa's no place for an Englishman to live in. Armoured train +blown up, Mafeking cut off, Kimberley in danger, and General +Butler--what? Oh yes--General Buller leaves England to-day. Why didna +they send the Army Corps out three months ago? + +_Brown-faced man._ It's six thousand miles-- + +_Thick-set man._ Why didna they send them just after the Bloemfontein +conference, before the Boers were ready? British Gov-- + +_Brown-faced man._ They've had three rifles a man with ammunition since +1896. + +_I_ (_timidly_). Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months +ago, wouldn't the Boers have declared war three months ago too? + +_All except brown-faced man_ (_loudly_). No! + +_Brown-faced man_ (_quietly_). Yes. Gentlemen, bedtime! As Brand used to +say, "Al zal rijt komen!" + +_All_ (_fervently_). Al zal rijt komen! Success to the British arms! +Good night! + +(All go to bed. In the night somebody on the Boer side--or +elsewhere--goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general +grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their +revolvers. In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked. The +hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter's farm can be +reconnoitred: there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a +single Boer.) + +It is a shame to smile at them. They are really very, very loyal, and +they are excellent fellows and most desirable colonists. Aliwal is a +nest of green on the yellow veldt, speckless, well-furnished, with +Maréchal Niel roses growing over trellises, and a scheme to dam the +Orange river for water-supply, and electric light. They were quite +unprotected, and their position was certainly humiliating. + + + + +VI. + +THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. + + FRENCH'S RECONNAISSANCE--AN ARTILLERY DUEL--BEGINNING OF THE + ATTACK--RIDGE AFTER RIDGE--A CROWDED HALF-HOUR. + + +LADYSMITH, _Oct. 22._ + +From a billow of the rolling veldt we looked back, and black columns +were coming up behind us. + +Along the road from Ladysmith moved cavalry and guns. Along the railway +line to right of it crept trains--one, two, three of them--packed with +khaki, bristling with the rifles of infantry. We knew then that we +should fight before nightfall. + +Major-General French, who commanded, had been out from before daybreak +with the Imperial Light Horse and the battery of the Natal Volunteer +Artillery reconnoitring towards Elandslaagte. The armoured +train--slate-colour plated engine, a slate-colour plated loopholed +cattle-truck before and behind, an open truck with a Maxim at the tail +of all--puffed along on his right. Elandslaagte is a little village and +railway station seventeen miles north-east of Ladysmith, where two days +before the Boers had blown up a culvert and captured a train. That cut +our direct communication with the force at Dundee. Moreover, it was +known that the Free State commandoes were massing to the north-west of +Ladysmith and the Transvaalers to attack Dundee again. On all grounds it +was desirable to smash the Elandslaagte lot while they were still weak +and alone. + +The reconnaissance stole forward until it came in sight of the little +blue-roofed village and the little red tree-girt station. It was +occupied. The Natal battery unlimbered and opened fire. A round or +two--and then suddenly came a flash from a kopje two thousand yards +beyond the station on the right. The Boer guns! And the next thing was +the hissing shriek of a shell--and plump it dropped, just under one of +the Natal limbers. By luck it did not burst; but if the Boer ammunition +contractor was suspect, it was plain that the Boer artillerist could lay +a gun. Plump: plump: they came right into the battery; down went a +horse; over went an ammunition-waggon. At that range the Volunteers' +little old 7-pounders were pea-shooters; you might as well have spat at +the enemy. The guns limbered up and were off. Next came the vicious +_phutt!_ of a bursting shell not fifty yards from the armoured +train--and the armoured train was puffing back for its life. Everybody +went back half-a-dozen miles on the Ladysmith road to Modder Spruit +Station. + +The men on reconnaissance duty retired, as is their business. They had +discovered that the enemy had guns and meant fighting. Lest he should +follow, they sent out from Ladysmith, about nine in the morning, half a +battalion apiece of the Devonshire and Manchester Regiments by train, +and the 42nd Field Battery, with a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards, +by road. They arrived, and there fell on us the common lot of +reconnaissances. We dismounted, loosened girths, ate tinned meat, and +wondered what we should do next. We were on a billow of veldt that +heaved across the valley: up it ran, road and rail; on the left rose +tiers of hills, in front a huge green hill blocked our view, with a +tangle of other hills crowding behind to peep over its shoulders. On the +right, across the line, were meadows; up from them rose a wall of +red-brown kopje; up over that a wall of grass-green veldt; over that was +the enemy. We ate and sat and wondered what we should do next. Presently +we saw the troopers mounting and the trains getting up steam; we +mounted; and scouts, advance-guard, flanking patrols--everybody crept +slowly, slowly, cautiously forward. Then, about half-past two, we turned +and beheld the columns coming up behind us. The 21st Field Battery, the +5th Lancers, the Natal Mounted Volunteers on the road; the other half +of the Devons and half the Gordon Highlanders on the trains--total, with +what we had, say something short of 3000 men and eighteen guns. It was +battle! + +The trains drew up and vomited khaki into the meadow. The mass separated +and ordered itself. A line of little dots began to draw across it; a +thicker line of dots followed; a continuous line followed them, then +other lines, then a mass of khaki topping a dark foundation--the kilts +of the Highlanders. From our billow we could not see them move; but the +green on the side of the line grew broader, and the green between them +and the kopje grew narrower. Now the first dots were at the base--now +hardly discernible on the brown hill flanks. Presently the second line +of dots was at the base. Then the third line and the second were lost on +the brown, and the third--where? There, bold on the sky-line. Away on +their right, round the hill, stole the black column of the Imperial +Light Horse. The hill was crowned, was turned--but where were the Bo-- + +A hop, a splutter, a rattle, and then a snarling roll of musketry broke +on the question,--not from the hill, but far on our left front, where +the Dragoon Guards were scouting. On that the thunder of galloping +orderlies and hoarse yells of command--advance!--in line!--waggon +supply!--and with rattle and thunder the batteries tore past, wheeled, +unlimbered as if they broke in halves. Then rattled and thundered the +waggons, men gathered round the guns like the groups round a patient in +an operation. And the first gun barked death. And then after all it was +a false alarm. At the first shell you could see through glasses mounted +men scurrying up the slopes of the big opposite hill; by the third they +were gone. And then, as our guns still thudded--thud came the answer. +Only where? Away, away on the right, from the green kopje over the brown +one where still struggled the reserves of our infantry. + +Limbers! From halves the guns were whole again, and wheeled away over +ploughland to the railway. Down went a length of wire-fencing, and gun +after gun leaped ringing over the metals, scoring the soft pasture +beyond. We passed round the leftward edge of the brown hill and joined +our infantry in a broad green valley. The head of it was the second +skyline we had seen; beyond was a dip, a swell of kopje, a deep valley, +and beyond that a small sugar-loaf kopje to the left and a long +hog-backed one on the right--a saw of small ridges above, a harsh face +below, freckled with innumerable boulders. Below the small kopje were +tents and waggons; from the leftward shoulder of the big one flashed +once more the Boer guns. + +This time the shell came. Faint whirr waxed presently to furious scream, +and the white cloud flung itself on to the very line of our batteries +unlimbering on the brow. Whirr and scream--another dashed itself into +the field between the guns and limbers. Another and another, only now +they fell harmlessly behind the guns, seeking vainly for the waggons +and teams which were drawn snugly away under a hillside on the right. +Another and another--bursting now on the clear space in rear of the guns +between our right and left infantry columns. All the infantry were lying +down, so well folded in the ground that I could only see the Devons on +the left. The Manchesters and Gordons on the right seemed to be +swallowed by the veldt. + +Then between the bangs of their artillery struck the hoarser bay of our +own. Ball after ball of white smoke alighted on the kopje--the first at +the base, the second over, the third jump on the Boer gun. By the fourth +the Boer gun flashed no more. Then our guns sent forth little white +balloons of shrapnel, to right, to left, higher, lower, peppering the +whole face. Now came rifle-fire--a few reports, and then a roll like the +ungreased wheels of a farm cart. The Imperial Light Horse was at work on +the extreme right. And now as the guns pealed faster and faster we saw +mounted men riding up the nearer swell of kopje and diving over the +edge. Shrapnel followed; some dived and came up no more. + +The guns limbered up and moved across to a nearer position towards the +right. As they moved the Boer gun opened again--Lord, but the German +gunners knew their business!--punctuating the intervals and distances of +the pieces with scattering destruction. The third or fourth shell +pitched clean into a labouring waggon with its double team of eight +horses. It was full of shells. We held our breath for an explosion. But, +when the smoke cleared, only the near wheeler was on his side, and the +waggon had a wheel in the air. The batteries unlimbered and bayed again, +and again the Boer guns were silent. Now for the attack. + +The attack was to be made on their front and their left flank--along the +hog-back of the big kopje. The Devons on our left formed for the front +attack; the Manchesters went on the right, the Gordons edged out to the +extreme rightward base, with the long, long boulder-freckled face above +them. The guns flung shrapnel across the valley; the watchful cavalry +were in leash, straining towards the enemy's flanks. It was about a +quarter to five, and it seemed curiously dark for the time of day. + +No wonder--for as the men moved forward before the enemy the heavens +were opened. From the eastern sky swept a sheer sheet of rain. With the +first stabbing drops horses turned their heads away, trembling, and no +whip or spur could bring them up to it. It drove through mackintoshes as +if they were blotting-paper. The air was filled with hissing; underfoot +you could see solid earth melting into mud, and mud flowing away in +water. It blotted out hill and dale and enemy in one grey curtain of +swooping water. You would have said that the heavens had opened to drown +the wrath of man. And through it the guns still thundered and the khaki +columns pushed doggedly on. + +The infantry came among the boulders and began to open out. The supports +and reserves followed up. And then, in a twinkling, on the stone-pitted +hill-face burst loose that other storm--the storm of lead, of blood, of +death. In a twinkling the first line was down behind rocks firing fast, +and the bullets came flicking round them. Men stopped and started, +staggered and dropped limply as if the string were cut that held them +upright. The line pushed on; the supports and reserves followed up. A +colonel fell, shot in the arm; the regiment pushed on. + +They came to a rocky ridge about twenty feet high. They clung to cover, +firing, then rose, and were among the shrill bullets again. A major was +left at the bottom of that ridge, with his pipe in his mouth and a +Mauser bullet through his leg; his company pushed on. Down again, fire +again, up again, and on! Another ridge won and passed--and only a more +hellish hail of bullets beyond it. More men down, more men pushed into +the firing line--more death-piping bullets than ever. The air was a +sieve of them; they beat on the boulders like a million hammers; they +tore the turf like a harrow. + +Another ridge crowned, another welcoming, whistling gust of perdition, +more men down, more pushed into the firing line. Half the officers were +down; the men puffed and stumbled on. Another ridge--God! Would this +cursed hill never end? It was sown with bleeding and dead behind; it was +edged with stinging fire before. God! Would it never end? On, and get to +the end of it! And now it was surely the end. The merry bugles rang out +like cock-crow on a fine morning. The pipes shrieked of blood and the +lust of glorious death. Fix bayonets! Staff officers rushed shouting +from the rear, imploring, cajoling, cursing, slamming every man who +could move into the line. Line--but it was a line no longer. It was a +surging wave of men--Devons and Gordons, Manchester and Light Horse all +mixed, inextricably; subalterns commanding regiments, soldiers yelling +advice, officers firing carbines, stumbling, leaping, killing, falling, +all drunk with battle, shoving through hell to the throat of the enemy. +And there beneath our feet was the Boer camp and the last Boers +galloping out of it. There also--thank Heaven, thank Heaven!--were +squadrons of Lancers and Dragoon Guards storming in among them, +shouting, spearing, stamping them into the ground. Cease fire! + +It was over--twelve hours of march, of reconnaissance, of waiting, of +preparation, and half an hour of attack. But half an hour crammed with +the life of half a lifetime. + + + + +VII. + +THE BIVOUAC. + + A VICTORIOUS AND HELPLESS MOB--A BREAK-NECK HILLSIDE--BRINGING DOWN + THE WOUNDED--A HARD-WORKED DOCTOR--BOER PRISONERS--INDIAN + BEARERS--AN IRISH HIGHLANDER IN TROUBLE. + + +LADYSMITH, _Oct. 23._ + +Pursuing cavalry and pursued enemy faded out of our sight; abruptly we +realised that it was night. A mob of unassorted soldiers stood on the +rock-sown, man-sown hillside, victorious and helpless. + +Out of every quarter of the blackness leaped rough voices. "G Company!" +"Devons here!" "Imperial Light Horse?" "Over here!" "Over where?" Then a +trip and a heavy stumble and an oath. "Doctor wanted 'ere! 'Elp for a +wounded orficer! Damn you there! who are you fallin' up against? This +is the Gordon 'Ighlanders--what's left of 'em." + +Here and there an inkier blackness moving showed a unit that had begun +to find itself again. + +But for half an hour the hillside was still a maze--a maze of bodies of +men wandering they knew not whither, crossing and recrossing, circling, +stopping and returning on their stumbles, slipping on smooth rock-faces, +breaking shins on rough boulders, treading with hobnailed boots on +wounded fingers. + +At length underfoot twinkled lights, and a strong, clear voice sailed +into the confusion, "All wounded men are to be brought down to the Boer +camp between the two hills." Towards the lights and the Boer camp we +turned down the face of jumbled stumbling-block. A wary kick forward, a +feel below--firm rock. Stop--and the firm rock spun and the leg shot +into an ankle-wrenching hole. Scramble out and feel again; here is a +flat face--forward! And then a tug that jerks you on to your back again: +you forgot you had a horse to lead, and he does not like the look of +this bit. Climb back again and take him by the head; still he will not +budge. Try again to the right. Bang! goes your knee into a boulder. +Circle cannily round the horse to the left; here at last is something +like a slope. Forward horse--so, gently! Hurrah! Two minutes gone--a +yard descended. + +By the time we stumbled down that precipice there had already passed a +week of nights--and it was not yet eight o'clock. At the bottom were +half-a-dozen tents, a couple of lanterns, and a dozen waggons--huge, +heavy veldt-ships lumbered up with cargo. It was at least possible to +tie a horse up and turn round in the sliding mud to see what next. + +What next? Little enough question of that! Off the break-neck hillside +still dropped hoarse importunate cries. "Wounded man here! Doctor +wanted! Three of 'em here! A stretcher, for God's sake!" "A stretcher +there! Is there no stretcher?" There was not one stretcher within +voice-shot. + +Already the men were bringing down the first of their wounded. Slung in +a blanket came a captain, his wet hair matted over his forehead, brow +and teeth set, lips twitching as they put him down, gripping his whole +soul to keep it from crying out. He turned with the beginning of a smile +that would not finish: "Would you mind straightening out my arm?" The +arm was bandaged above the elbow, and the forearm was hooked under him. +A man bent over--and suddenly it was dark. "Here, bring back that +lantern!" But the lantern was staggering up-hill again to fetch the +next. "Oh, do straighten out my arm," wailed the voice from the ground. +"And cover me up. I'm perishing with cold." "Here's matches!" "And 'ere; +I've got a bit of candle." "Where?" "Oh, do straighten out my arm!" +"'Ere, 'old out your 'and." "Got it," and the light flickered up again +round the broken figure, and the arm was laid straight. As the touch +came on to the clammy fingers it met something wet and red, and the +prone body quivered all over. "What," said the weak voice--the smile +struggled to come out again, but dropped back even sooner than +before--"have they got my finger too?" Then they covered up the body +with a blanket, wringing wet, and left it to soak and shiver. And that +was one out of more than two hundred. + +For hours--and by now it was a month of nights--every man with hands and +legs toiled up and down, up and down, that ladder of pain. By Heaven's +grace the Boers had filled their waggons with the loot of many stores; +there were blankets to carry men in and mattresses whereon to lay them. +They came down with sprawling bearers, with jolts and groans, with "Oh, +put me down; I can't stand it! I'm done anyhow; let me die quiet." And +always would come back the cheery voice from doctor or officer or +pal,--"Done, colour-sergeant! Nonsense, man! Why, you'll be back to duty +in a fortnight." And the answer was another choked groan. + +Hour by hour--would day never break? Not yet; it was just twenty minutes +to ten--man by man they brought them down. The tent was carpeted now +with limp bodies. With breaking backs they heaved some shoulder-high +into waggons; others they laid on mattresses on the ground. In the +rain-blurred light of the lantern--could it not cease, that piercing +drizzle to-night of all nights at least? The doctor, the one doctor, +toiled buoyantly on. Cutting up their clothes with scissors, feeling +with light firm fingers over torn chest or thigh, cunningly slipping +round the bandage, tenderly covering up the crimson ruin of strong +men--hour by hour, man by man, he toiled on. + +And mark--and remember for the rest of your lives--that Tommy Atkins +made no distinction between the wounded enemy and his dearest friend. To +the men who in the afternoon were lying down behind rocks with rifles +pointed to kill him, who had shot, may be, the comrade of his heart, he +gave the last drop of his water, the last drop of his melting strength, +the last drop of comfort he could wring out of his seared, gallant +soul. In war, they say,--and it is true,--men grow callous: an afternoon +of shooting and the loss of your brother hurts you less than a week +before did a thorn in your dog's foot. But it is only compassion for the +dead that dries up; and as it dries, the spring wells up among good men +of sympathy with all the living. A few men had made a fire in the +gnawing damp and cold, and round it they sat, even the unwounded Boer +prisoners. For themselves they took the outer ring, and not a word did +any man say that could mortify the wound of defeat. In the afternoon +Tommy was a hero, in the evening he was a gentleman. + +Do not forget, either, the doctors of the enemy. We found their wounded +with our own, and it was pardonable to be glad that whereas our men set +their teeth in silence, some of theirs wept and groaned. Not all, +though: we found Mr Kok, father of the Boer general and member of the +Transvaal Executive, lying high up on the hill--a massive, white-bearded +patriarch, in a black frock-coat and trousers. With simple dignity, +with the right of a dying man to command, he said in his strong voice, +"Take me down the hill and lay me in a tent; I am wounded by three +bullets." It was a bad day for the Kok family: four were on the field, +and all were hit. They found Commandant Schiel, too, the German +free-lance, lying with a bullet through his thigh, near the two guns +which he had served so well, and which no German or Dutchman would ever +serve again. Then there were three field-cornets out of four, members of +Volksraad, two public prosecutors--Heaven only knows whom! But their own +doctors were among them almost as soon as were ours. + +Under the Red Cross--under the black sky, too, and the drizzle, and the +creeping cold--we stood and kicked numbed feet in the mud, and talked +together of the fight. A prisoner or two, allowed out to look for +wounded, came and joined in. We were all most friendly, and naturally +congratulated each other on having done so well. These Boers were +neither sullen nor complaisant. They had fought their best, and lost; +they were neither ashamed nor angry. They were manly and courteous, and +through their untrimmed beards and rough corduroys a voice said very +plainly, "Ruling race." These Boers might be brutal, might be +treacherous; but they held their heads like gentlemen. Tommy and the +veldt peasant--a comedy of good manners in wet and cold and mud and +blood! + +And so the long, long night wore on. At midnight came outlandish Indians +staggering under the green-curtained palanquins they call doolies: these +were filled up and taken away to the Elandslaagte Station. At one +o'clock we had the rare sight of a general under a waggon trying to +sleep, and two privates on top of it rummaging for loot. One found +himself a stock of gent's underwear, and contrived comforters and gloves +therewith; one got his fingers into a case and ate cooking raisins. +Once, when a few were as near sleep as any were that night, there was a +rattle and there was a clash that brought a hundred men springing up and +reaching for their rifles. On the ground lay a bucket, a cooking-pot, a +couple of tin plates, and knives and forks--all emptied out of a sack. +On top of them descended from the waggon on high a flame-coloured shock +of hair surmounting a freckled face, a covert coat, a kummerbund, and +cloth gaiters. Were we mad? Was it an apparition, or was that under the +kummerbund a bit of kilt and an end of sporran? Then said a voice, "Ould +Oireland in throuble again! Oi'm an Oirish Highlander; I beg your +pardon, sorr--and in throuble again. They tould me there was a box of +cigars here; do ye know, sorr, if the bhoys have shmoked them all?" + + + + +VIII. + +THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE. + + SUPERFLUOUS ASSISTANCE--A SMILING VALLEY--THE BORDER MOUNTED + RIFLES--A RAIN-STORM--A THIRTY-TWO MILES' MARCH--HOW THE TROOPS + CAME INTO LADYSMITH. + + +LADYSMITH, _Oct. 27._ + +"Come to meet us!" cried the staff officer with amazement in his voice; +"what on earth for?" + +It was on October 25, about five miles out on the Helpmakaar road, which +runs east from Ladysmith. By the stream below the hill he had just +trotted down, and choking the pass beyond, wriggled the familiar tail of +waggons and water-carts, ambulances, and doolies, and spare teams of old +mules in new harness. A couple of squadrons of Lancers had off-saddled +by the roadside, a phalanx of horses topped with furled red and white +pennons. Behind them stood a battery of artillery. Half a battalion of +green-kilted Gordons sunned their bare knees a little lower down; a +company or two of Manchesters back-boned the flabby convoy. The staff +officer could not make out what in the world it meant. + +He had pushed on from the Dundee column, but it was a childish +superstition to imagine that the Dundee column could possibly need +assistance. They had only marched thirty odd miles on Monday and +Tuesday; starting at four in the morning, they would by two o'clock or +so have covered the seventeen miles that would bring them into camp, +fifteen miles outside Ladysmith. They were coming to help Ladysmith, if +you like; but the idea of Ladysmith helping them! + +At his urgency they sent the convoy back. I rode on miles through the +openest country I had yet seen hereabouts--a basin of wave-like veldt, +just growing thinly green under the spring rains, spangled with budding +mimosa-thorn. Scarred here and there with the dry water-courses they +call sluits, patched with heaves of wire-fenced down, livened with a +verandah, blue cactus-hedged farmhouse or two, losing itself finally in +a mazy fairyland of azure mountains--this valley was the nearest +approach to what you would call a smiling country I had seen in Africa. + +Eight miles or so along the road I came upon the Border Mounted Rifles, +saddles off, and lolling on the grass. All farmers and transport riders +from the northern frontier, lean, bearded, sun-dried, framed of steel +and whipcord, sitting their horses like the riders of the Elgin marbles, +swift and cunning as Boers, and far braver, they are the heaven-sent +type of irregular troopers. It was they who had ridden out and made +connection with the returning column an hour before. + +Two miles on I dipped over a ridge--and here was the camp. Bugles sang +cheerily; mules, linked in fives, were being zigzagged frowardly down to +water. The Royal Irish Fusiliers had loosened their belts, but not their +sturdy bearing. Under their horses' bellies lay the diminished 18th +Hussars. Presently came up a subaltern of the regiment, who had been on +leave and returned just too late to rejoin before the line was cut. They +had put him in command of the advanced troop of the Lancers, and how he +cursed the infantry and the convoy, and how he shoved the troop along +when the drag was taken off! Now he was laughing and talking and +listening all at once, like a long wanderer at his home-coming. + +No use waiting for sensational stories among these men, going about +their daily camp duties as if battles and sieges and forced marches with +the enemy on your flank were the most ordinary business of life. No use +waiting for fighting either; in open country the force could have +knocked thousands of Boers to pieces, and there was not the least chance +of the Boers coming to be knocked. So I rode back through the rolling +veldt basin. As I passed the stream and the nek beyond the battery of +artillery, the Gordons and Manchesters were lighting their bivouac +fires. This pass, crevicing under the solid feet of two great stony +kopjes, was the only place the Boers would be likely to try their luck +at. It was covered; already the Dundee column was all right. + +Presently I met the rest of the Gordons, swinging along the road to +crown the heights on either side the nek. Coming through I noticed--and +the kilted Highlanders noticed, too, they were staying out all +night--that the sky over Ladysmith was very black. The great inky stain +of cloud spread and ran up the heavens, then down to the whole +circumference. In five minutes it was night and rain-storm. It stung +like a whip-lash; to meet it was like riding into a wall. Ladysmith +streets were ankle deep in half an hour; the camps were morass and pond. +And listening to the ever-fresh bursts hammering all the evening on to +deepening pools, we learned that the Dundee men had not camped after +all, had marched at six, and were coming on all night into Ladysmith. +Thirty-two miles without rest, through stinging cataract and spongy +loam and glassy slime! + +Before next morning was grey in came the 1st Rifles. They plashed uphill +to their blue-roofed huts on the south-west side of the town. By the +time the sun was up they were fed by their sister battalion, the 2nd, +and had begun to unwind their putties. But what a sight! Their putties +were not soaked and not caked; say, rather, that there may have been a +core of puttie inside, but that the men's legs were embedded in a +serpentine cast of clay. As for their boots, you could only infer them +from the huge balls of stratified mud men bore round their feet. Red +mud, yellow mud, black mud, brown mud--they lifted their feet +toilsomely; they were land plummets that had sucked up specimens of all +the heavy, sticky soils for fifteen miles. Officers and men alike +bristled stiff with a week's beard. Rents in their khaki showed white +skin; from their grimed hands and heads you might have judged them half +red men, half soot-black. Eyelids hung fat and heavy over hollow cheeks +and pointed cheek-bones. Only the eye remained--the sky-blue, +steel-keen, hard, clear, unconquerable English eye--to tell that +thirty-two miles without rest, four days without a square meal, six +nights--for many--without a stretch of sleep, still found them soldiers +at the end. + +That was the beginning of them; but they were not all in till the middle +of the afternoon--which made thirty-six hours on their legs. The Irish +Fusiliers tramped in at lunch-time, going a bit short some of them, +nearly all a trifle stiff on the feet, but solid, square, and sturdy +from the knees upward. They straightened up to the cheers that met them, +and stepped out on scorching feet as if they were ready to go into +action again on the instant. After them came the guns--not the sleek +creatures of Laffan's Plain, rough with earth and spinning mud from +their wheels, but war-worn and fresh from slaughter; you might imagine +their damp muzzles were dripping blood. You could count the horses' +ribs; they looked as if you could break them in half before the +quarters. But they, too, knew they were being cheered; they threw their +ears up and flung all the weight left them into the traces. + +Through fire, water, and earth, the Dundee column had come home again. + + + + +IX. + +THE STORY OF NICHOLSON'S NEK. + + AN ATTENUATED MESS--A REGIMENT 220 STRONG--A MISERABLE STORY--THE + WHITE FLAG--BOER KINDNESS--ASHAMED FOR ENGLAND. + + +LADYSMITH, _Nov. 1_. + +The sodden tents hung dankly, black-grey in the gusty, rainy morning. At +the entrance to the camp stood a sentry; half-a-dozen privates moved to +and fro. Perhaps half-a-dozen were to be seen in all--the same hard, +thick-set bodies that Ladysmith had cheered six days before as they +marched in, square-shouldered through the mud, from Dundee. The same +bodies--but the elastic was out of them and the brightness was not in +their eyes. But for these few, though it was an hour after _reveillé_, +the camp was cold and empty. It was the camp of the Royal Irish +Fusiliers. + +An officer appeared from the mess-tent--pale and pinched. I saw him when +he came in from Dundee with four sleepless nights behind him; this +morning he was far more haggard. Inside were one other officer, the +doctor, and the quarter-master. That was all the mess, except a second +lieutenant, a boy just green from Sandhurst. He had just arrived from +England, aflame for his first regiment and his first campaign. And this +was the regiment he found. + +They had been busy half the night packing up the lost officers' kits to +send down to Durban. Now they were packing their own; a regiment 220 +strong could do with a smaller camp. The mess stores laid in at +Ladysmith stood in open cases round the tent. All the small luxuries the +careful mess-president had provided against the hard campaign had been +lost at Dundee. Now it was the regiment was lost, and there was nobody +to eat the tinned meats and pickles. The common words "Natal Field +Force" on the boxes cut like a knife. In the middle of the tent, on a +table of cases, so low that to reach it you must sit on the ground, were +the japanned tin plates and mugs for five men's breakfast--five out of +five-and-twenty. Tied up in a waterproof sheet were the officers' +letters--the letters of their wives and mothers that had arrived that +morning seven thousand miles from home. The men they wrote to were on +their way to the prisoners' camp on Pretoria racecourse. + +A miserable tale is best told badly. On the night of Sunday, October 29, +No. 10 Mountain Battery, four and a half companies of the +Gloucestershire Regiment, and six of the Royal Irish Fusiliers--some +1000 men in all--were sent out to seize a nek some seven miles +north-west of Ladysmith. At daybreak they were to operate on the enemy's +right flank--the parallel with Majuba is grimly obvious--in conjunction +with an attack from Ladysmith on his centre and right. They started. At +half-past ten they passed through a kind of defile, the Boers a +thousand feet above them following every movement by ear, if not by eye. +By some means--either by rocks rolled down on them or other hostile +agency, or by sheer bad luck--the small-arm ammunition mules were +stampeded. They dashed back on to the battery mules; there was alarm, +confusion, shots flying--and the battery mules stampeded also. + +On that the officer in command appears to have resolved to occupy the +nearest hill. He did so, and the men spent the hours before dawn in +protecting themselves by _schanzes_ or breastworks of stones. At dawn, +about half-past four, they were attacked, at first lightly. There were +two companies of the Gloucesters in an advanced position; the rest, in +close order, occupied a high point on the kopje; to line the whole +summit, they say, would have needed 10,000 men. Behind the schanzes the +men, shooting sparely because of the loss of the reserve ammunition, at +first held their own with little loss. + +But then, as our ill-luck or Boer good management would have it, there +appeared over a hill a new Boer commando, which a cool eye-witness put +at over 2000 strong. They divided and came into action, half in front, +half from the kopjes in rear, shooting at 1000 yards into the open rear +of the schanzes. Men began to fall. The two advanced companies were +ordered to fall back; up to now they had lost hardly a man, but once in +the open they suffered. The Boers in rear picked up the range with great +accuracy. + +And then--and then again, that cursed white flag! + +It is some sneaking consolation that for a long time the soldiers +refused to heed it. Careless now of life, they were sitting up well +behind their breastworks, altering their sights, aiming coolly by the +half-minute together. At the nadir of their humiliation they could still +sting--as that new-come Boer found who, desiring one Englishman to his +bag before the end, thrust up his incautious head to see where they +were, and got a bullet through it. Some of them said they lost their +whole firing-line; others no more than nine killed and sixteen wounded. + +But what matters it whether they lost one or one million? The cursed +white flag was up again over a British force in South Africa. The best +part of a thousand British soldiers, with all their arms and equipment +and four mountain guns, were captured by the enemy. The Boers had their +revenge for Dundee and Elandslaagte in war; now they took it, full +measure, in kindness. As Atkins had tended their wounded and succoured +their prisoners there, so they tended and succoured him here. One +commandant wished to send the wounded to Pretoria; the others, more +prudent as well as more humane, decided to send them back into +Ladysmith. They gave the whole men the water out of their own bottles; +they gave the wounded the blankets off their own saddles and slept +themselves on the naked veldt. They were short of transport, and they +were mostly armed with Martinis; yet they gave captured mules for the +hospital panniers and captured Lee-Metfords for splints. A man was +rubbing a hot sore on his head with a half-crown; nobody offered to take +it from him. Some of them asked soldiers for their embroidered +waist-belts as mementoes of the day. "It's got my money in it," replied +Tommy--a little surly, small wonder--and the captor said no more. + +Then they set to singing doleful hymns of praise under trees. Apparently +they were not especially elated. They believed that Sir George White was +a prisoner, and that we were flying in rout from Ladysmith. They said +that they had Rhodes shut up in Kimberley, and would hang him when they +caught him. That on their side--and on ours? We fought them all that +morning in a fight that for the moment may wait. At the end, when the +tardy truth could be withheld no more--what shame! What bitter shame for +all the camp! All ashamed for England! Not of her--never that!--but for +her. Once more she was a laughter to her enemies. + + + + +X. + +THE GUNS AT RIETFONTEIN. + + A COLUMN ON THE MOVE--THE NIMBLE GUNS--GARRISON GUNNERS AT + WORK--THE VELDT ON FIRE--EFFECTIVE SHRAPNEL--THE VALUE OF THE + ENGAGEMENT. + + +LADYSMITH, _Oct. 26._ + +The business of the last few days has been to secure the retreat of the +column from Dundee. On Monday, the 23rd, the whisper began to fly round +Ladysmith that Colonel Yule's force had left town and camp, and was +endeavouring to join us. On Tuesday it became certainty. + +At four in the dim morning guns began to roll and rattle through the +mud-greased streets of Ladysmith. By six the whole northern road was +jammed tight with bearer company, field hospital, ammunition column, +supply column--all the stiff, unwieldy, crawling tail of an army. +Indians tottered and staggered under green-curtained doolies; Kaffir +boys guided spans of four and five and six mules drawing ambulances, +like bakers' vans; others walked beside waggons curling whips that would +dwarf the biggest salmon-rod round the flanks of small-bodied, +huge-horned oxen. This tail of the army alone covered three miles of +road. At length emerging in front of them you found two clanking +field-batteries, and sections of mountain guns jingling on mules. Ahead +of these again long khaki lines of infantry sat beside the road or +pounded it under their even tramp. Then the General himself and his +Staff; then best part of a regiment of infantry; then a company, the +reserve of the advanced-guard; then a half-company, the support; then a +broken group of men, the advanced party; then, in the very front, the +point, a sergeant and half-a-dozen privates trudging sturdily along the +road, the scenting nose of the column. Away out of sight were the +horsemen. + +Altogether, two regiments of cavalry--5th Lancers and 19th Hussars--the +42nd and 53rd Field Batteries and 10th Mountain Battery, four infantry +battalions--Devons, Liverpools, Gloucesters, and 2nd King's Royal +Rifles--the Imperial Light Horse, and the Natal Volunteers. Once more, +it was fighting. The head of the column had come within three miles or +so of Modderspruit station. The valley there is broad and open. On the +left runs the wire-fenced railway; beyond it the land rises to a high +green mountain called Tinta Inyoni. On the left front is a yet higher +green mountain, double-peaked, called Matawana's Hoek. Some call the +place Jonono's, others Rietfontein; the last is perhaps the least +outlandish. + +The force moved steadily on towards Modderspruit, one battalion in front +of the guns. "Tell Hamilton to watch his left flank," said one in +authority. "The enemy are on both those hills." Sure enough, there on +the crest, there dotted on the sides, were the moving black mannikins +that we have already come to know afar as Boers. Presently the dotted +head and open files of a battalion emerged from behind the guns, +changing direction half-left to cover their flank. The batteries pushed +on with the one battalion ahead of them. It was half-past eight, and +brilliant sunshine; the air was dead still; through the clefts of the +nearer hills the blue peaks of the Drakensberg looked as if you could +shout across to them. + +Boom! The sound we knew well enough; the place it came from was the left +shoulder of Matawana's Hoek; the place it would arrive at we waited, +half anxious, half idly curious, to see. Whirr--whizz--e-e-e-e--phutt! +Heavens, on to the very top of a gun! For a second the gun was a whirl +of blue-white smoke, with grey-black figures struggling and plunging +inside it. Then the figures grew blacker and the smoke cleared--and in +the name of wonder the gun was still there. Only a subaltern had his +horse's blood on his boot, and his haversack ripped to rags. + +But there was no time to look on that or anything else but the amazing +nimbleness of the guns. At the shell--even before it--they flew apart +like ants from a watering-can. From, crawling reptiles they leaped into +scurrying insects--the legs of the eight horses pattering as if they +belonged all to one creature, the deadly sting in the tail leaping and +twitching with every movement. One battery had wheeled about, and was +drawn back at wide intervals facing the Boer hill. Another was pattering +swiftly under cover of a ridge leftward; the leading gun had crossed the +railway; the last had followed; the battery had utterly disappeared. +Boom! Whirr--whizz--e-e-e-e--phutt! The second Boer shell fell stupidly, +and burst in the empty veldt. Then bang!--from across the +railway--e-e-e-e--whizz--whirr--silence--and then the little white +balloon just over the place the Boer shell came from. It was twenty-five +minutes to nine. + +In a double chorus of bangs and booms the infantry began to deploy. +Gloucesters and Devons wheeled half left off the road, split into +firing line and supports in open order, trampled through the wire fences +over the railway. In front of the Boer position, slightly commanded on +the left flank by Tinta Inyoni, was a low, stony ridge; this the +Gloucesters lined on the left. The Devons, who led the column, fell +naturally on to the right of the line; Liverpools and Rifles backed up +right and left. But almost before they were there arrived the +irrepressible, ubiquitous guns. They had silenced the enemy's guns; they +had circled round the left till they came under cover of the ridge; now +they strolled up, unlimbered, and thrust their grim noses over the brow. +And then--whew! Their appearance was the signal for a cataract of +bullets that for the moment in places almost equalled the high-lead mark +of Elandslaagte. The air whistled and hummed with them--and then the +guns began. + +The mountain guns came up on their mules--a drove of stupid, +uncontrolled creatures, you would have said, lumbered up with the odds +and ends of an ironworks and a waggon-factory. But the moment they were +in position the gunners swarmed upon them, and till you have seen the +garrison gunners working you do not know what work means. In a minute +the scrap-heaps had flow together into little guns, hugging the stones +with their low bellies, jumping at the enemy as the men lay on to the +ropes. The detachments all cuddled down to their guns; a man knelt by +the ammunition twenty paces in rear; the mules by now were snug under +cover. "Two thousand," sang out the major. The No. 1 of each gun held up +something like a cross, as if he were going through a religious rite, +altered the elevation delicately, then flung up his hand and head +stiffly, like a dog pointing. "Number 4"--and Number 4 gun hurled out +fire and filmy smoke, then leaped back, half frightened at its own fury, +half anxious to get a better view of what it had done. It was a little +over. "Nineteen hundred," cried the major. Same ritual, only a little +short. "Nineteen fifty"--and it was just right. Therewith field and +mountain guns, yard by yard, up and down, right and left, carefully, +methodically, though roughly, sowed the whole of Matawana's Hoek with +bullets. + +It was almost magical the way the Boer fire dropped. The guns came into +action about a quarter-past nine, and for an hour you would hardly have +known they were there. Whenever a group put their heads over the +sky-line 1950 yards away there came a round of shrapnel to drive them to +earth again. Presently the hillside turned pale blue--blue with the +smoke of burning veldt. Then in the middle of the blue came a patch of +black, and spread and spread till the huge expanse was all black, pocked +with the khaki-coloured boulders and bordered with the blue of the +ever-extending fire. God help any wounded enemy who lay there! + +Crushed into the face of the earth by the guns, the enemy tried to work +round our left from Tinta Inyoni. They tried first at about a +quarter-past ten, but the Natal Volunteers and some of the Imperial +Light Horse met them. We heard the rattle of their rifles; we heard the +rap-rap-rap-rap-rap of their Maxim knocking at the door, and the Boer +fire stilled again. The Boer gun had had another try at the Volunteers +before, but a round or two of shrapnel sent it to kennel again. So far +we had seemed to be losing nothing, and it was natural to suppose that +the Boers were losing a good deal. But at a quarter-past eleven the +Gloucesters pushed a little too far between the two hills, and learned +that the Boers, if their bark was silent for the moment, could still +bite. Suddenly there shot into them a cross-fire at a few hundred yards. +Down went the colonel dead; down went fifty men. + +For a second a few of the rawer hands in the regiment wavered; it might +have been serious. But the rest clung doggedly to their position under +cover; the officers brought the flurried men up to the bit again. The +mountain guns turned vengeful towards the spot whence the fire came, and +in a few minutes there was another spreading, blackening patch of +veldt--and silence. + +From then the action nickered on till half-past one. Time on time the +enemy tried to be at us, but the imperious guns rebuked him, and he was +still. At length the regiments withdrew. The hot guns limbered up and +left Rietfontein to burn itself out. The sweating gunners covered the +last retiring detachment, then lit their pipes. The Boers made a +half-hearted attempt to get in both on left and right; but the +Volunteers on the left, the cavalry on the right, a shell or two from +the centre, checked them as by machinery. We went back to camp +unhampered. + +And at the end of it all we found that in those five hours of straggling +bursts of fighting we had lost, killed and wounded, 116 men. And what +was the good? asked doubting Thomas. Much. To begin with, the Boers must +have lost heavily; they confessed that aloud by the fact that, for all +their pluck in standing up to the guns, they made no attempt to follow +us home. Second, and more important, this commando was driven westward, +and others were drawn westward to aid it--and the Dundee force was +marching in from the east. Dragging sore feet along the miry roads they +heard the guns at Rietfontein and were glad. The seeming objectless +cannonade secured the unharassed home-coming of the 4000 way-weary +marchers from Dundee. + + + + +XI. + +THE BOMBARDMENT. + + LONG TOM--A FAMILY OF HARMLESS MONSTERS--OUR INFERIORITY IN + GUNS--THE SENSATIONS OF A BOMBARDMENT--A LITTLE CUSTOM BLUNTS + SENSIBILITY. + + +LADYSMITH, _Nov. 10._ + +"Good morning," banged four-point-seven; "have you used Long Tom?" + +"Crack-k--whiz-z-z," came the riving answer, "we have." + +"Whish-h--patter, patter," chimed in a cloud-high shrapnel from Bulwan. +It was half-past seven in the morning of November 7; the real +bombardment, the terrific symphony, had begun. + +During the first movement the leading performer was Long Tom. He is a +friendly old gun, and for my part I have none but the kindest feelings +towards him. It was his duty to shell us, and he did; but he did it in +an open, manly way. + +Behind the half-country of light red soil they had piled up round him +you could see his ugly phiz thrust up and look hungrily around. A jet of +flame and a spreading toad-stool of thick white smoke told us he had +fired. On the flash four-point-seven banged his punctilious reply. You +waited until you saw the black smoke jump behind the red mound, and then +Tom was due in a second or two. A red flash--a jump of red-brown dust +and smoke--a rending-crash: he had arrived. Then sang slowly through the +air his fragments, like wounded birds. You could hear them coming, and +they came with dignified slowness: there was plenty of time to get out +of the way. + +Until we capture Long Tom--when he will be treated with the utmost +consideration--I am not able to tell you exactly what brand of gun he +may be. It is evident from his conservative use of black powder, and +the old-gentlemanly staidness of his movements, that he is an elderly +gun. His calibre appears to be six inches. From the plunging nature of +his fire, some have conjectured him a sort of howitzer, but it is next +to certain he is one of the sixteen 15-cm. Creusot guns bought for the +forts of Pretoria and Johannesburg. Anyhow, he conducted his enforced +task with all possible humanity. + +On this same 7th a brother Long Tom, by the name of Fiddling Jimmy, +opened on the Manchesters and Cæsar's Camp from a flat-topped kopje +three or four miles south of them. This gun had been there certainly +since the 3rd, when it shelled our returning reconnaissance; but he, +too, was a gentle creature, and did little harm to anybody. Next day a +third brother, Puffing Billy, made a somewhat bashful first appearance +on Bulwan. Four rounds from the four-point-seven silenced him for the +day. Later came other brothers, of whom you will hear in due course. + +[Illustration: THE COUNTRY ROUND LADYSMITH.] + +In general you may say of the Long Tom family that their favourite +habitat is among loose soil on the tops of open hills; they are slow +and unwieldy, and very open in all their actions. They are good shooting +guns; Tom on the 7th made a day's lovely practice all round our battery. +They are impossible to disable behind their huge epaulements unless you +actually hit the gun, and they are so harmless as hardly to be worth +disabling. + +The four 12-pounder field-guns on Bulwana--I say four, because one day +there were four; but the Boers continually shifted their lighter guns +from hill to hill--were very different. These creatures are stealthy in +their habits, lurking among woods, firing smokeless powder with very +little flash; consequently they are very difficult guns to locate. Their +favourite diet appeared to be balloons; or, failing them, the Devons in +the Helpmakaar Road or the Manchesters in Cæsar's Camp. Both of these +they enfiladed; also they peppered the roads whenever troops were +visible moving in or out. + +Altogether they were very judiciously handled, though erring perhaps in +not firing persistently enough at any one target. But, despite their +great altitude, the range--at least 6000 yards--and the great height at +which they burst their time shrapnel made them also comparatively +harmless. + +There were also one or two of their field-guns opposite the Manchesters +on the flat-topped hill, one, I fancy, with Long Tom on Pepworth's Hill, +and a few others on the northern part of Lombard's Kop and on Surprise +Hill to the north-westward. + +Westward, on Telegraph Hill, was a gun which appeared to prey +exclusively on cattle. I am afraid it was one of our own mountain guns +turned cannibal. The cattle, during the siege, had of course to pasture +on any waste land inside the lines they could find, and gathered in +dense, distractingly noisy herds; but though this gun was never tired of +firing on the mobs, I do not think he ever got more than one calf. + +There was a gun on Lombard's Kop called Silent Susan--so called because +the shell arrived before the report--a disgusting habit in a gun. The +menagerie was completed by the pompons, of which there were at least +three. This noisome beast always lurks in thick bush, whence it barks +chains of shell at the unsuspecting stranger. Fortunately its shell is +small, and it is as timid as it is poisonous. + +Altogether, with three Long Toms, a 5-inch howitzer, Silent Susan, about +a dozen 12-pounders, four of our screw guns, and three Maxim automatics, +they had about two dozen guns on us. Against that we had two +47-inch--named respectively Lady Ann and Bloody Mary--four naval +12-pounders, thirty-six field-guns, the two remaining mountain guns, an +old 64-pounder, and a 3-inch quickfirer--these two on Cæsar's Camp in +charge of the Durban Naval Volunteers--two old howitzers, and two +Maxim-Nordenfeldts taken at Krugersdorp in the Jameson raid, and retaken +at Elandslaagte,--fifty pieces in all. + +On paper, therefore, we had a great advantage. But we had to economise +ammunition, not knowing when we should get more, and also to keep a +reserve of field-guns to assist any threatened point. Also their guns, +being newer, better pieces, mounted on higher ground, outranged ours. We +had more guns, but they were as useless as catapults: only the six naval +guns could touch Pepworth's Hill or Bulwan. + +For these reasons we only fired, I suppose, one shell to their twenty, +or thereabouts; so that though we actually had far more guns, we yet +enjoyed all the sensations of a true bombardment. + +What were they? That bombardments were a hollow terror I had always +understood; but how hollow, not till I experienced the bombardment of +Ladysmith. Hollow things make the most noise, to be sure, and this +bombardment could at times be a monstrous symphony indeed. + +The first heavy day was November 3: while the troops were moving in and +out on the Van Keenen's road the shells traced an aerial cobweb all over +us. After that was a lull till the 7th, which was another clattering +day. November 8 brought a tumultuous morning and a still afternoon. The +9th brought a very tumultuous morning indeed; the 10th was calm; the +11th patchy; the 12th, Sunday. + +It must be said that the Boers made war like gentlemen of leisure; they +restricted their hours of work with trade-unionist punctuality. Sunday +was always a holiday; so was the day after any particularly busy +shooting. They seldom began before breakfast; knocked off regularly for +meals--the luncheon interval was 11.30 to 12 for riflemen, and 12 to +12.30 for gunners--hardly ever fired after tea-time, and never when it +rained. I believe that an enterprising enemy of the Boer strength--it +may have been anything from 10,000 to 20,000; and remember that their +mobility made one man of them equal to at least two of our reduced +11,000--could, if not have taken Ladysmith, at least have put us to +great loss and discomfort. But the Boers have the great defect of all +amateur soldiers: they love their ease, and do not mean to be killed. +Now, without toil and hazard they could not take Ladysmith. + +To do them justice, they did not at first try to do wanton damage in +town. They fired almost exclusively on the batteries, the camps, the +balloon, and moving bodies of troops. In a day or two the troops were +far too snugly protected behind schanzes and reverse slopes, and grown +far too cunning to expose themselves to much loss. + +The inhabitants were mostly underground, so that there was nothing +really to suffer except casual passengers, beasts, and empty buildings. +Few shells fell in town, and of the few many were half-charged with +coal-dust, and many never burst at all. The casualties in Ladysmith +during a fortnight were one white civilian, two natives, a horse, two +mules, a waggon, and about half-a-dozen houses. And of the last only one +was actually wrecked; one--of course the most desirable habitation in +Ladysmith--received no less than three shells, and remained habitable +and inhabited to the end. + +And now what does it feel like to be bombarded? + +At first, and especially as early as can be in the morning, it is quite +an uncomfortable sensation. + +You know that gunners are looking for you through telescopes; that every +spot is commanded by one big gun and most by a dozen. You hear the +squeal of the things all above, the crash and pop all about, and wonder +when your turn will come. Perhaps one falls quite near you, swooping +irresistibly, as if the devil had kicked it. You come to watch for +shells--to listen to the deafening rattle of the big guns, the shrilling +whistle of the small, to guess at their pace and their direction. You +see now a house smashed in, a heap of chips and rubble; now you see a +splinter kicking up a fountain of clinking stone-shivers; presently you +meet a wounded man on a stretcher. This is your dangerous time. If you +have nothing else to do, and especially if you listen and calculate, you +are done: you get shells on the brain, think and talk of nothing else, +and finish by going into a hole in the ground before daylight, and +hiring better men than yourself to bring you down your meals. Whenever +you put your head out of the hole you have a nose-breadth escape. If a +hundredth part of the providential deliverances told in Ladysmith were +true, it was a miracle that anybody in the place was alive after the +first quarter of an hour. A day of this and you are a nerveless +semi-corpse, twitching at a fly-buzz, a misery to yourself and a scorn +to your neighbours. + +If, on the other hand, you go about your ordinary business, confidence +revives immediately. You see what a prodigious weight of metal can be +thrown into a small place and yet leave plenty of room for everybody +else. You realise that a shell which makes a great noise may yet be +hundreds of yards away. You learn to distinguish between a gun's report +and an overturned water-tank's. You perceive that the most awful noise +of all is the throat-ripping cough of your own guns firing over your +head at an enemy four miles away. So you leave the matter to Allah, and +by the middle of the morning do not even turn your head to see where the +bang came from. + + + + +XII. + +THE DEVIL'S TIN-TACKS. + + THE EXCITEMENT OF A RIFLE FUSILADE--A SIX-HOURS' FIGHT--THE PICKING + OFF OF OFFICERS--A DISPLAY OF INFERNAL FIREWORKS--"GOD BLESS THE + PRINCE OF WALES." + + +When all is said, there is nothing to stir the blood like rifle-fire. +Rifle-fire wins or loses decisive actions; rifle-fire sends the heart +galloping. At five in the morning of the 9th I turned on my mattress and +heard guns; I got up. + +Then I heard the bubble of distant musketry, and I hurried out. It came +from the north, and it was languidly echoed from Cæsar's Camp. Tack-tap, +tack-tap--each shot echoed a little muffled from the hills. Tack-tap, +tack-tap, tack, tack, tack, tack, tap--as if the devil was hammering +nails into the hills. Then a hurricane of tacking, running round all +Ladysmith, running together into a scrunching roar. From the hill above +Mulberry Grove you can see every shell drop; but of this there was no +sign--only noise and furious heart-beats. + +I went out to the strongest firing, and toiled up a ladder of boulders. +I came up on to the sky-line, and bent and stole forward. To the right +was Cave Redoubt with the 4·7; to the left two field-guns, unlimbered +and left alone, and some of the Rifle Brigade snug behind their stone +and earth schanzes. In front was the low, woody, stony crest of +Observation Hill; behind was the tall table-top of Surprise Hill--the +first ours, the second the enemy's. Under the slope of Observation Hill +were long, dark lines of horses; up to the sky-line, prolonging the +front leftward, stole half-a-dozen of the 5th Lancers. From just beyond +them came the tack, tack, tack, tap. + +Tack, tap; tack, tap--it went on minute by minute, hour by hour. + +The sun warmed the air to an oven; painted butterflies, azure and +crimson, came flitting over the stones; still the devil went on +hammering nails into the hills. Down leftward a black-powder gun was +popping on the film-cut ridge of Bluebank. A Boer shell came fizzing +from the right, and dived into a whirl of red dust, where nothing was. +Another--another--another, each pitched with mathematical accuracy into +the same nothing. Our gunners ran out to their guns, and flung four +rounds on to the shoulder of Surprise Hill. Billy puffed from +Bulwan--came 10,000 yards jarring and clattering loud overhead--then +flung a red earthquake just beyond the Lancers' horses. Again and +again,--it looked as if he could not miss them; but the horses only +twitched their tails, as if he were a new kind of fly. The 4·7 crashed +hoarsely back, and a black nimbus flung up far above the trees on the +mountain. And still the steady tack and tap--from the right among the +Devons and Liverpools, from the right centre, where the Leicesters were, +from the left centre, among the 60th, and the extreme left, from +Cæsar's Camp. + +The fight tacked on six mortal hours and then guttered out. From the +early hour they began and from the number of shells and cartridges they +burned I suppose the Boers meant to do something. But at not one point +did they gain an inch. We were playing with them--playing with them at +their own game. One of our men would fire and lie down behind a rock; +the Boers answered furiously for three minutes. When they began to die +down, another man fired, and for another three minutes the Boers +hammered the blind rocks. On six hours' fighting along a front of ten or +twelve miles we lost three killed and seventeen wounded. And, do you +know, I really believe that this tack-tapping among the rocks was the +attack after all. They had said--or it was among the million things they +were said to have said--that they would be in Ladysmith on November 9, +and I believe they half believed themselves. At any rate I make no +doubt that all this morning they were feeling--feeling our thin lines +all round for a weak spot to break in by. + +They did not find it, and they gave over; but they would have come had +they thought they could come safely. They began before it was fully +light with the Manchesters. The Manchesters on Cæsar's Camp were, in a +way, isolated: they were connected by telephone with headquarters, but +it took half an hour to ride up to their eyrie. They were shelled +religiously for a part of every day by Puffing Billy from Bulwan and +Fiddling Jimmy from Middle Hill. + +Every officer who showed got a round of shrapnel at him. Their riflemen +would follow an officer about all day with shots at 2200 yards; the day +before they had hit Major Grant, of the Intelligence, as he was +sketching the country. Tommy, on the other hand, could swagger along the +sky-line unmolested. No doubt the Boers thought that exposed Cæsar's +Camp lay within their hands. + +But they were very wrong. Snug behind their _schanzes_, the Manchesters +cared as much for shells as for butterflies. Most of them were posted on +the inner edge of the flat top with a quarter of a mile of naked veldt +to fire across. They had been reinforced the day before by a field +battery and a squadron and a half of the Light Horse. And they had one +_schanze_ on the outer edge of the hill as an advanced post. + +In the dim of dawn, the officer in charge of this post saw the Boers +creeping down behind a stone wall to the left, gathering in the bottom, +advancing in, for them, close order. He welted them with rifle-fire: +they scattered and scurried back. + +The guns got to work, silenced the field-guns on Flat Top Hill, and +added scatter and scurry to the assailing riflemen. Certainly some +number were killed; half-a-dozen bodies, they said, lay in the open all +day; lanterns moved to and fro among the rocks and bushes all night; a +new field hospital and graveyard were opened next day at Bester's +Station. On the other horn of our position the Devons had a brisk +morning. They had in most places at least a mile of clear ground in +front of them. But beyond that, and approaching within a few hundred +yards of the extreme horn of the position, is scrub, which ought to have +been cut down. + +Out of this scrub the enemy began to snipe. We had there, tucked into +folds of the hills, a couple of tubby old black-powdered howitzers, and +they let fly three rounds which should have been very effective. But the +black powder gave away their position in a moment, and from every +side--Pepworth's, Lombard's Nek, Bulwan--came spouting inquirers to see +who made that noise. The Lord Mayor's show was a fool to that display of +infernal fireworks. The pompon added his bark, but he has never yet +bitten anybody: him the Devons despise, and have christened with a +coarse name. They weathered the storm without a man touched. + +Not a point had the Boers gained. And then came twelve o'clock, and, if +the Boers had fixed the date of the 9th of November, so had we. We had +it in mind whose birthday it was. A trumpet-major went forth, and +presently, golden-tongued, rang out, "God bless the Prince of Wales." +The general up at Cove Redoubt led the cheers. The sailors' champagne, +like their shells, is being saved for Christmas, but there was no stint +of it to drink the Prince's health withal. And then the Royal +salute--bang on bang on bang--twenty-one shotted guns, as quick as the +quickfirer can fire, plump into the enemy. + +That finished it. What with the guns and the cheering, each Boer +commando must have thought the next was pounded to mincemeat. The +rifle-fire dropped. + +The devil had driven home all his tin-tacks, and for the rest of the day +we had calm. + + + + +XIII. + +A DIARY OF DULNESS. + + THE MYTHOPOEIC FACULTY--A MISERABLE DAY--THE VOICE OF THE + POMPOM--LEARNING THE BOER GAME--THE END OF FIDDLING JIMMY--MELINITE + AT CLOSE QUARTERS--A LAKE OF MUD. + + +_Nov. 11._--Ugh! What a day! Dull, cold, dank, and misty--the spit of an +11th of November at home. Not even a shell from Long Tom to liven it. +The High Street looks doubly dead; only a sodden orderly plashes up its +spreading emptiness on a sodden horse. The roads are like rice-pudding +already, and the paths like treacle. Ugh! Outside the hotel drip the +usual loafers with the usual fables. Yesterday, I hear, the Leicesters +enticed the enemy to parade across their front at 410 yards; each man +emptied his magazine, and the smarter got in a round or two of +independent firing besides. Then they went out and counted the +corpses--230. It is certainly true: the narrator had it from a man who +was drinking a whisky, while a private of the regiment, who was not +there himself, but had it from a friend, told the barman. + +The Helpmakaar road is as safe as Regent Street to-day: a curtain of +weeping cloud veils it from the haunting gunners on Bulwan. Up in the +schanzes the men huddle under waterproof sheets to escape the pitiless +drizzle. Only one sentry stands up in long black overcoat and grey +woollen nightcap pulled down over his ears, and peers out towards +Lombard's Kop. This position is safe enough with the bare green field of +fire before it, and the sturdy, shell-hardened soldiers behind. + +But Lord, O poor Tommy! His waterproof sheet is spread out, mud-slimed, +over the top of the wall of stone and earth and sandbag, and pegged down +inside the schanz. He crouches at the base of the wall, in a miry hole. +Nothing can keep out this film of water. He sops and sneezes, runs at +the eyes and nose, half manful, half miserable. He is earning the +shilling a-day. + +At lunch-time they began to shell us a bit, and it was almost a relief. +At anyrate it was something to see and listen to. They were dead-off +Mulberry Grove to-day, but they dotted a line of shells elegantly down +the High Street. The bag was unusually good--a couple of mules and a +cart, a tennis-lawn, and a water-tank. Towards evening the voice of the +pompom was heard in the land; but he bagged nothing--never does. + +_Nov. 12._--Sunday, and the few rifle-shots, but in the main the usual +calm. The sky is neither obscured by clouds nor streaked with shells. I +note that the Sunday population of Ladysmith, unlike that of the City of +London, is double and treble that of week-days. + +Long Tom chipped a corner off the church yesterday; to-day the +archdeacon preached a sermon pointing out that we are the +heaven-appointed instrument to scourge the Boers. Very sound, but +perhaps a thought premature. + +_Nov. 13._--Laid three sovs. to one with the 'Graphic' yesterday against +to-day being the most eventful of the siege. He dragged me out of bed in +aching cold at four, to see the events. + +At daybreak Observation Hill and King's Post were being shelled and +shelling back. Half battalions of the 1st, 60th, and Rifle Brigade take +day and day about on Observation Hill and King's Post, which is the +continuation of Cove Redoubts. To-day the 60th were on Leicester Post. +When shells came over them they merely laughed. One ring shell burst, +fizzing inside a schanz, with a steamy curly tail, and splinters that +wailed a quarter of a mile on to the road below us; the men only raced +to pick up the pieces. + +When this siege is over this force ought to be the best fighting men in +the world. We are learning lessons every day from the Boer. We are +getting to know his game, and learning to play it ourselves. + +Our infantry are already nearly as patient and cunning as he; nothing +but being shot at will ever teach men the art of using cover, but they +get plenty of that nowadays. + +Another lesson is the use of very, very thin firing-lines of good shots, +with the supports snugly concealed: the other day fourteen men of the +Manchesters repulsed 200 Boers. The gunners have momentarily thrown over +their first commandment and cheerfully split up batteries. They also lie +beneath the schanzes and let the enemy bombard the dumb guns if he +will--till the moment comes to fire; that moment you need never be +afraid that the R.A. will be anywhere but with the guns. + +The enemy's shell and long-range rifle-fire dropped at half-past six. +The guns had breached a new epaulement on Thornhill's Kop--to the left +of Surprise Hill and a few hundred yards nearer--and perhaps knocked +over a Boer or two,--perhaps not. None of our people hurt, and a good +appetite for breakfast. + +In the afternoon one of our guns on Cæsar's Camp smashed a pompom. +Fiddling Jimmy has been waved away, it seems. The Manchesters are cosy +behind the best built schanzes in the environs of Ladysmith. Above the +wall they have a double course of sandbags--the lower placed endwise +across the stone, the upper lengthwise, which forms a series of +loopholes at the height of a man's shoulder. + +The subaltern in command sits on the highest rock inside; the men sit +and lie about him, sleeping, smoking, reading, sewing, knitting. It +might almost be a Dorcas meeting. + +I won the bet. + +_Nov. 14._--The liveliest day's bombardment yet. + +A party of officers who live in the main street were waiting for +breakfast. The new president, in the next room, was just swearing at the +servants for being late, when a shell came in at the foot of the outside +wall and burst under the breakfast-room. The whole place was dust and +thunder and the half-acrid, half-fat, all-sickly smell of melinite. Half +the floor was chips; one plank was hurled up and stuck in the ceiling. +All the crockery was smashed, and the clock thrown down; the pictures on +the wall continued to survey the scene through unbroken glasses. + +Much the same thing happened later in the day to the smoking-room of the +Royal Hotel. It also was inhabited the minute before, would have been +inhabited the minute after, but just then was quite empty. We had a +cheerful lunch, as there were guns returning from a reconnaissance, and +they have adopted a thoughtless habit of coming home past our house. +Briefly, from six till two you would have said that the earth was being +shivered to matchwood and fine powder. But, alas! man accustoms himself +so quickly to all things, that a bombardment to us, unless stones +actually tinkle on the roof, is now as an egg without salt. + +The said reconnaissance I did not attend, knowing exactly what it would +be. I mounted a hill, to get warm and to make sure, and it was exactly +what I knew it would be. Our guns fired at the Boer guns till they were +silent; and then the Boer dismounted men fired at our dismounted men; +then we came home. We had one wounded, but they say they discovered the +Boer strength on Bluebank, outside Range Post, to be 500 or 600. I doubt +if it is as much; but, in any case, I think two men and a boy could have +found out all that three batteries and three regiments did. With a +little dash, they could have taken the Boer guns on Bluebank; but of +dash there was not even a little. + +_Nov. 15._--I wake at 12.25 this morning, apparently dreaming of +shell-fire. + +"Fool," says I to myself, and turn over, when--swish-h! pop-p!--by the +piper, it is shell-fire! Thud--thud--thud--ten or a dozen, I should say, +counting the ones that woke me. What in the name of gunpowder is it all +about? But there is no rifle-fire that I can hear, and there are no more +shells now: I sleep again. + +In the morning they asked the Director of Military Intelligence what the +shelling was; he replied, "What shelling?" Nobody knew what it was, and +nobody knows yet. They had a pretty fable that the Boers, in a false +alarm, fired on each other: if they did, it was very lucky for them +that the shells all hit Ladysmith. My own notion is that they only did +it to annoy--in which they failed. They were reported in the morning, +as usual, searching for bodies with white flags; but I think that +is their way of reconnoitring. Exhausted with this effort, the +Boers--heigho!--did nothing all day. Level downpour all the afternoon, +and Ladysmith a lake of mud. + +_Nov. 16._--Five civilians and two natives hit by a shrapnel at the +railway station; a railway guard and a native died. Languid shelling +during morning. + +_Nov. 17._--During morning, languid shelling. Afternoon, +raining--Ladysmith wallowing deeper than ever. + +And that--heigh-h-ho!--makes a week of it. Relieve us, in Heaven's name, +good countrymen, or we die of dulness! + + + + +XIV. + +NEARING THE END. + + DULNESS INTERMINABLE--LADYSMITH IN 2099 A.D.--SIEGES OBSOLETE + HARDSHIPS--DEAD TO THE WORLD--THE APPALLING FEATURES OF A + BOMBARDMENT. + + +_November 26, 1899._ + +I was going to give you another dose of the dull diary. But I haven't +the heart. It would weary you, and I cannot say how horribly it would +weary me. + +I am sick of it. Everybody is sick of it. They said the force which +would open the line and set us going against the enemy would begin to +land at Durban on the 11th, and get into touch with us by the 16th. Now +it is the 26th; the force, they tell us, has landed, and is somewhere on +the line between Maritzburg and Estcourt; but of advance not a sign. + +Buller, they tell us one day, is at Bloemfontein; next day he is coming +round to Durban; the next he is a prisoner in Pretoria. + +The only thing certain is that, whatever is happening, we are out of it. +We know nothing of the outside; and of the inside there is nothing to +know. + +Weary, stale, flat, unprofitable, the whole thing. At first, to be +besieged and bombarded was a thrill; then it was a joke; now it is +nothing but a weary, weary, weary bore. We do nothing but eat and drink +and sleep--just exist dismally. We have forgotten when the siege began; +and now we are beginning not to care when it ends. + +For my part, I feel it will never end. + +It will go on just as now, languid fighting, languid cessation, for ever +and ever. We shall drop off one by one, and listlessly die of old age. + +And in the year 2099 the New Zealander antiquarian, digging among the +buried cities of Natal, will come upon the forgotten town of Ladysmith. +And he will find a handful of Rip Van Winkle Boers with white beards +down to their knees, behind quaint, antique guns shelling a cactus-grown +ruin. Inside, sheltering in holes, he will find a few decrepit +creatures, very, very old, the children born during the bombardment. He +will take these links with the past home to New Zealand. But they will +be afraid at the silence and security of peace. Having never known +anything but bombardment, they will die of terror without it. + +So be it. I shall not be there to see. But I shall wrap these lines up +in a Red Cross flag and bury them among the ruins of Mulberry Grove, +that, after the excavations, the unnumbered readers of the 'Daily Mail' +may in the enlightened year 2100 know what a siege and a bombardment +were like. + +Sometimes I think the siege would be just as bad without the +bombardment. + +In some ways it would be even worse; for the bombardment is something to +notice and talk of, albeit languidly. But the siege is an unredeemed +curse. Sieges are out of date. In the days of Troy, to be besieged or +besieger was the natural lot of man; to give ten years at a stretch to +it was all in a life's work; there was nothing else to do. In the days +when a great victory was gained one year, and a fast frigate arrived +with the news the next, a man still had leisure in his life for a year's +siege now and again. + +But to the man of 1899--or, by'r Lady, inclining to 1900--with five +editions of the evening papers every day, a siege is a thousand-fold a +hardship. We make it a grievance nowadays if we are a day behind the +news--news that concerns us nothing. + +And here are we with the enemy all round us, splashing melinite among us +in most hours of the day, and for the best part of a month we have not +even had any definite news about the men for whom we must wait to get +out of it. We wait and wonder, first expectant, presently apathetic, and +feel ourselves grow old. + +Furthermore, we are in prison. We know now what Dartmoor feels like. The +practised vagabond tires in a fortnight of a European capital; of +Ladysmith he sickens in three hours. + +Even when we could ride out ten or a dozen miles into the country, there +was little that was new, nothing that was interesting. Now we lie in the +bottom of the saucer, and stare up at the pitiless ring of hills that +bark death. Always the same stiff, naked ridges, flat-capped with our +intrenchments--always, always the same. As morning hardens to the brutal +clearness of South African mid-day, they march in on you till Bulwan +seems to tower over your very heads. There it is close over you, shady, +and of wide prospect; and if you try to go up you are a dead man. + +Beyond is the world--war and love. Clery marching on Colenso, and all +that a man holds dear in a little island under the north star. But you +sit here to be idly shot at. You are of it, but not in it--clean out of +the world. To your world and to yourself you are every bit as good as +dead--except that dead men have no time to fill in. + +I know now how a monk without a vocation feels. I know how a fly in a +beer-bottle feels. + +I know how it tastes, too. + +And with it all there is the melinite and the shrapnel. To be sure they +give us the only pin-prick of interest to be had in Ladysmith. It is +something novel to live in this town turned inside out. + +Where people should be, the long, long day from dawn to daylight shows +only a dead blank. + +Where business should be, the sleepy shop-blinds droop. But where no +business should be--along the crumbling ruts that lead no +whither--clatters waggon after waggon, with curling whip-lashes and +piles of bread and hay. + +Where no people should be--in the clefts at the river-bank, in bald +patches of veldt ringed with rocks, in overgrown ditches--all these you +find alive with men and beasts. + +The place that a month ago was only fit to pitch empty meat-tins into is +now priceless stable-room; two squadrons of troop-horses pack flank to +flank inside its shelter. A scrub-entangled hole, which perhaps nobody +save runaway Kaffirs ever set foot in before, is now the envied +habitation of the balloon. The most worthless rock-heap below a +perpendicular slope is now the choicest of town lots. + +The whole centre of gravity of Ladysmith is changed. Its belly lies no +longer in the multifarious emporia along the High Street, but in the +earth-reddened, half-in visible tents that bashfully mark the +commissariat stores. Its brain is not the Town Hall, the best target in +Ladysmith, but Headquarters under the stone-pocked hill. The riddled +Royal Hotel is its social centre no longer; it is to the trench-seamed +Sailors' Camp or the wind-swept shoulders of Cæsar's Camp that men go to +hear and tell the news. + +Poor Ladysmith! Deserted in its markets, repeopled in its wastes; here +ripped with iron splinters, there rising again into rail-roofed, +rock-walled caves; trampled down in its gardens, manured where nothing +can ever grow; skirts hemmed with sandbags and bowels bored with +tunnels--the Boers may not have hurt us, but they have left their mark +for years on her. + +They have not hurt us much--and yet the casualties mount up. Three +to-day, two yesterday, four dead or dying and seven wounded with one +shell--they are nothing at all, but they mount up. I suppose we stand at +about fifty now, and there will be more before we are done with it. + +And then there are moments when even this dribbling bombardment can be +appalling. + +I happened into the centre of the town one day when the two big guns +were concentrating a cross-fire upon it. + +First from one side the shell came tearing madly in, with a shrill, a +blast. A mountain of earth, and a hailstorm of stones on iron roofs. +Houses winced at the buffet. Men ran madly away from it. A dog rushed +out yelping--and on the yelp, from the other quarter, came the next +shell. Along the broad straight street not a vehicle, not a white man +was to be seen. Only a herd of niggers cowering under flimsy fences at a +corner. + +Another crash and quaking, and this time in a cloud of dust an +outbuilding jumped and tumbled asunder. A horse streaked down the street +with trailing halter. Round the corner scurried the niggers: the next +was due from Pepworth's. + +Then the tearing scream: horror! it was coming from Bulwan. + +Again the annihilating blast, and not ten yards away. A roof gaped and a +house leaped to pieces. A black reeled over, then terror plucked him up +again, and sent him running. + +Head down, hands over ears, they tore down the street, and from the +other side swooped down the implacable, irresistible next. + +You come out of the dust and the stench of melinite, not knowing where +you were, hardly knowing whether you were hit--only knowing that the +next was rushing on its way. No eyes to see it, no limbs to escape, no +bulwark to protect, no army to avenge. You squirm between iron fingers. + +Nothing to do but endure. + + + + +XV. + +IN A CONNING-TOWER. + + THE SELF-RESPECTING BLUEJACKET--A GERMAN ATHEIST--THE SAILORS' + TELEPHONE--WHAT THE NAVAL GUNS MEANT TO LADYSMITH--THE SALT OF THE + EARTH. + + +LADYSMITH, _Dec. 6._ + +"There goes that stinker on Gun Hill," said the captain. "No, don't get +up; have some draught beer." + +I did have some draught beer. + +"Wait and see if he fires again. If he does we'll go up into the +conning-tower, and have both guns in action toge--" + +Boom! The captain picked up his stick. + +"Come on," he said. + +We got up out of the rocking-chairs, and went out past the swinging +meat-safe, under the big canvas of the ward-room, with its table piled +with stuff to read. Trust the sailor to make himself at home. As we +passed through the camp the bluejackets rose to a man and lined up +trimly on either side. Trust the sailor to keep his self-respect, even +in five weeks' beleaguered Ladysmith. + +Up a knee-loosening ladder of rock, and we came out on to the green +hill-top, where they first had their camp. Among the orderly trenches, +the sites of the deported tents, were rougher irregular blotches of +hole--footprints of shell. + +"That gunner," said the captain, waving his stick at Surprise Hill, "is +a German. Nobody but a German atheist would have fired on us at +breakfast, lunch, and dinner the same Sunday. It got too hot when he put +one ten yards from the cook. Anybody else we could have spared; then we +had to go." + +We come to what looks like a sandbag redoubt, but in the eyes of heaven +is a conning-tower. On either side, from behind a sandbag epaulement, a +12-pounder and a Maxim thrust forth vigilant eyes. The sandbag plating +of the conning-tower was six feet thick and shoulder-high; the rivets +were red earth, loose but binding; on the parapets sprouted tufts of +grass, unabashed and rejoicing in the summer weather. Against the +parapet leaned a couple of men with the clean-cut, clean-shaven jaw and +chin of the naval officer, and half-a-dozen bearded bluejackets. They +stared hard out of sun-puckered eyes over the billows of kopje and +veldt. + +Forward we looked down on the one 4·7; aft we looked up to the other. On +bow and beam and quarter we looked out to the enemy's fleet. Deserted +Pepworth's was on the port-bow, Gun Hill, under Lombard's Kop, on the +starboard, Bulwan abeam, Middle Hill astern, Surprise Hill on the +port-quarter. + +Every outline was cut in adamant. + +The Helpmakaar Ridge, with its little black ants a-crawl on their hill, +was crushed flat beneath us. + +A couple of vedettes racing over the pale green plain northward looked +as if we could jump on to their heads. We could have tossed a biscuit +over to Lombard's Kop. The great yellow emplacement of their fourth big +piece on Gun Hill stood up like a Spit-head Fort. Through the big +telescope that swings on its pivot in the centre of the tower you could +see that the Boers were loafing round it dressed in dirty +mustard-colour. + +"Left-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said a bluejacket, with his eyes glued +to binoculars. "At the balloon"--and presently we heard the weary +pinions of the shell, and saw the little puff of white below. + +"Ring up Mr Halsey," said the captain. + +Then I was aware of a sort of tarpaulin cupboard under the breastwork, +of creeping trails of wire on the ground, and of a couple of sappers. + +The corporal turned down his page of 'Harmsworth's Magazine,' laid it on +the parapet, and dived under the tarpaulin. + +Ting-a-ling-a-ling! buzzed the telephone bell. + +The gaunt up-towering mountains, the long, smooth, deadly guns--and the +telephone bell! + +The mountains and the guns went out, and there floated in that roaring +office of the 'Daily Mail' instead, and the warm, rustling vestibule of +the playhouse on a December night. This is the way we make war now; only +for the instant it was half joke and half home-sickness. Where were we? +What were we doing? + +"Right-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," came the even voice of the bluejacket. +"At the balloon." + +"Captain wants to speak to you, sir," came the voice of the sapper from +under the tarpaulin. + +Whistle and rattle and pop went the shell in the valley below. + +"Give him a round both guns together," said the captain to the +telephone. + +"Left-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said the bluejacket to the captain. + +Nobody cared about left-hand Gun Hill; he was only a 47 howitzer; every +glass was clamped on the big yellow emplacement. + +"Right-hand Gun Hill is up, sir." + +Bang coughs the forward gun below us; bang-g-g coughs the after-gun +overhead. Every glass clamped on the emplacement. + +"What a time they take!" sighs a lieutenant--then a leaping cloud a +little in front and to the right. + +"Damn!" sighs a peach-cheeked midshipman, who-- + +"Oh, good shot!" For the second has landed just over and behind the +epaulement. "Has it hit the gun?" + +"No such luck," says the captain: he was down again five seconds after +we fired. + +And the men had all gone to earth, of course. + +Ting-a-ling-a-ling! + +Down dives the sapper, and presently his face reappears, with +"Headquarters to speak to you, sir." What the captain said to +Headquarters is not to be repeated by the profane: the captain knows +his mind, and speaks it. As soon as that was over, ting-a-ling again. + +"Mr Halsey wants to know if he may fire again, sir." + +"He may have one more"--for shell is still being saved for Christmas. + +It was all quite unimportant and probably quite ineffective. At first it +staggers you to think that mountain-shaking bang can have no result; but +after a little experience and thought you see it would be a miracle if +it had. The emplacement is a small mountain in itself; the men have run +out into holes. Once in a thousand shots you might hit the actual gun +and destroy it--but shell is being saved for Christmas. + +If the natives and deserters are not lying, and the sailors really hit +Pepworth's Long Tom, then that gunner may live on his exploit for the +rest of his life. + +"We trust we've killed a few men," says the captain cheerily; "but we +can't hope for much more." + +And yet, if they never hit a man, this handful of sailors have been the +saving of Ladysmith. You don't know, till you have tried it, what a worm +you feel when the enemy is plugging shell into you and you can't +possibly plug back. Even though they spared their shell, it made all the +world of difference to know that the sailors could reach the big guns if +they ever became unbearable. It makes all the difference to the Boers, +too, I suspect; for as sure as Lady Anne or Bloody Mary gets on to them +they shut up in a round or two. To have the very men among you makes the +difference between rain-water and brine. + +The other day they sent a 12-pounder up to Cæsar's Camp under a boy who, +if he were not commanding big men round a big gun in a big war, might +with luck be in the fifth form. + +"There's a 94-pounder up there," said a high officer, who might just +have been his grandfather. + +"All right, sir," said the child serenely; "we'll knock him out." + +He hasn't knocked him out yet, but he is going to next shot, which in a +siege is the next best thing. + +In the meantime he has had his gun's name, "Lady Ellen," neatly carved +on a stone and put up on his emplacement. Another gun-pit bears the +golden legend "Princess Victoria Battery," on a board elegant beyond the +dreams of suburban preparatory schools. A regiment would have had no +paint or gold-leaf; the sailors always have everything. They carry their +home with them, self-subsisting, self-relying. Even as the constant +bluejacket says, "Right Gun Hill up, sir," there floats from below +ting-ting, ting-ting, ting. + +Five bells! + +The rock-rending double bang floats over you unheard; the hot iron hills +swim away. + +Five bells--and you are on deck, swishing through cool blue water among +white-clad ladies in long chairs, going home. + +O Lord, how long? + +But the sailors have not seen home for two years, which is two less +than their usual spell. This is their holiday. + +"Of course, we enjoy it," they say, almost apologising for saving us; +"we so seldom get a chance." + +The Royal Navy is the salt of the sea and the salt of the earth also. + + + + +THE LAST CHAPTER + +BY + +VERNON BLACKBURN. + + +I will give no number to the last chapter of George Steevens's story of +the war. There is no reckoning between the work from his and the work +from this pen. It is the chapter which covers a grave; it does not make +a completion. A while back, you have read that surrendering wail from +the beleaguered city--a wail in what contrast to the humour, the +vitality, the quickness, the impulse, the eagerness of expectation with +which his toil in South Africa began!--wherein he wrote: "Beyond is the +world--war and love. Clery marching on Colenso, and all that a man holds +dear in a little island under the north star.... To your world and to +yourself you are every bit as good as dead--except that dead men have no +time to fill in." And now he is dead. And I have undertaken the most +difficult task, at the command--for in such a case the timorous +suggestion, hooped round by poignant apologies, is no less than a +command--of that human creature whom, in the little island under the +north star, he held most dear of all--his wife, to set a copingstone, a +mere nothing in the air, upon the last work that came from his pen. I +will prefer to begin with my own summary, my own intimate view of George +Steevens, as he wandered in and out, visible and invisible, of the paths +of my life. + +"Weep for the dead, for his light hath failed; weep but a little for the +dead, for he is at rest." Ecclesiasticus came to my mind when the news +of his death came to my knowledge. Who would not weep over the +extinction of a career set in a promise so golden, in an accomplishment +so rare and splendid? Sad enough thought it is that he is at rest; +still--he rests. "Under the wide and starry sky," words which, as I have +heard him say, in his casual, unambitious manner of speech, he was wont +to repeat to himself in the open deserts of the Soudan--"Under the wide +and starry sky" the grave has been dug, and "let me lie." + + "Glad did I live, and gladly die, + And I laid me down with a will." + +The personality of George Steevens was one which might have been complex +and obscure to the ordinary acquaintance, were it not for one shining, +one golden key which fitted every ward of his temperament, his conduct, +his policy, his work. He was the soul of honour. I use the words in no +vague sense, in no mere spirit of phrase-making. How could that be +possible at this hour? They are words which explain him, which are the +commentary of his life, which summarise and enlighten every act of every +day, his momentary impulses and his acquired habits. "In Spain," a great +and noble writer has said, "was the point put upon honour." The point +of honour was with George Steevens his helmet, his shield, his armour, +his flag. That it was which made his lightest word a law, his vaguest +promise a necessity in act, his most facile acceptance an engagement as +fixed as the laws of motion. In old, old days I well remember how it +came to be a complacent certainty with everybody associated with +Steevens that if he promised an article, an occasional note, a +review--whatever it might be--at two, three, four, five in the morning, +at that hour the work would be ready. He never flinched; he never made +excuses, for the obvious reason that there was never any necessity for +excuse. Truthful, clean-minded, nobly unselfish as he was, all these +things played but the parts of planets revolving around the sun of his +life--the sun of honour. To that point I always return: but a man can be +conceived who shall be splendidly honourable, yet not lovable--a man who +might repel friendship. Steevens was not of that race. Not a friend of +his but loved him with a great and serious affection for those +qualities which are too often separable from the austerity of a fine +character, the honour of an upright man. His sweetness was exquisite, +and this partly because it was so unexpected. A somewhat shy and quiet +manner did not prepare men for the urbanity, the tolerance, the +magnanimity that lay at the back of his heart. Generosity in +thought--the rarest form of generosity that is reared among the flowers +of this sorrowful earth--was with him habitual. He could, and did, +resent at every point the qualities in men that ran counter to his +principles of honour, and he did not spare his keen irony when such +things crossed his path; but, on the other side, he loved his friends +with a whole and simple heart. I think that very few men who came under +his influence refused him their love, none their admiration. + +Into all that he wrote--and I shall deal later with that point in +detail--his true and candid spirit was infused. Just as in his life, in +his daily actions, you were continually surprised by his tenderness +turning round the corner of his austere reserve, so in his work his +sentiment came with a curious appeal, with tender surprises, with an +emotion that was all the keener on account of the contrast that it made +with the courage, the hope, and the fine manliness of all his thought +and all his word. Children, helplessness of all kinds, touched always +that merciful heart. I can scarcely think of him as a man of the world, +although he had had in his few and glorious days experience enough to +harden the spirit of any man. He could never, as I think of him, have +grown into your swaggering, money-making, bargaining man of Universal +Trade. Keen and significant his policy, his ordering of his affairs must +ever have been; but the keenness and significance were the outcome, not +of any cool eye to the main chance, but of a gay sense of the pure need +of logic, not only in letters but also in living. + +There, again, I touch another characteristic--his feeling for logic, for +dialectic, which made him one of the severest reasoners that it would +be possible to meet in argument. He used, in his admirably assumed air +of brag, an attitude which he could take with perfect humour and perfect +dignity--to protest that he was one of two or three Englishmen who had +ever mastered the philosophical systems of Germany, from Kant to Hegel, +from Hegel to Schopenhauer. Though he said it with an airy sense of fun, +and almost of disparagement, I am strongly inclined to believe that it +was true. He was never satisfied with his knowledge: invariably curious, +he was guided by his joy in pure reasoning to the philosophies of the +world, and in his silent, quiet, unobtrusive way he became a master of +many subjects which life was too brief in his case to permit him to show +to his friends, much less to the world. + +This, it will be readily understood, is, as I have said, the merest +summary of a character, as one person has understood it. Others will +reach him from other points of view. Meanwhile Ladysmith has him--what +is that phrase of his?--"You squirm between iron fingers." Fortunate he, +so far that he is at rest, squirming no longer; and with the wail on his +lips, the catch in the throat, he went down in the embrace of a deadlier +enemy than the Bulwan horror, to which he made reference in one of the +last lines he was destined to write in this world. He fell ill in that +pestilent town, as all the world knows. His constitution was strong +enough; he had not lived a life of unpropitious preparation for a +serious illness; but his heart was a danger. Typhoid is fatal to any +heart-weakness, particularly in convalescence; and he was caught +suddenly as he was growing towards perfect health. + +I have been privileged to see certain letters written to his wife by the +friend with whom he shared his Ladysmith house during the course of his +illness. "How he contracted enteric fever," says Mr Maud, "I cannot +tell. It is unfortunately very prevalent in the camp just now. He began +to be ill on the 13th of December, but on that day the doctor was not +quite sure about its being enteric, although he at once commenced with +the treatment for that disease. The following day there was no doubt +about it, and we moved him from our noisy and uncomfortable quarters in +the Imperial Light Horse Camp to our present abode, which is quite the +best house in Ladysmith. Major Henderson of the Intelligence Department +very kindly offered his own room, a fine, airy, and well-furnished +apartment, although he was barely recovered of his wound. At first I +could only procure the services of a trained orderly of the 5th Dragoon +Guards lent to us by the colonel, but a few days later we were lucky +enough to find a lady nurse, who has turned out most excellently, and +she takes charge at night.... I am happy to tell you that everything has +gone on splendidly".... After describing how the fever gradually +approached a crisis, Mr Maud continues: "When he was at his worst he was +often delirious, but never violent; the only trouble was to prevent him +getting out of bed. He was continually asking us to go and fetch you, +and always thought he was journeying homewards. It never does to halloa +before one gets out of the wood, but I do really think that he is well +on the road to recovery." Alas! + +Not so much as a continued record of Steevens's illness, as in the +nature of a pathetic side-issue to the tragedy of his death, I subjoin +one or two passages from a letter sent subsequently from Ladysmith by +the same faithful friend before the end: "He has withstood the storm +wonderfully well, and he is not very much pulled down. The doctor thinks +that he should be about again in a fortnight"--the letter was written on +the 4th of January--"by which time I trust General Buller will have +arrived and reopened the railway. Directly it is possible to move, I +shall take him down to Nottingham Road.... There has been little or +nothing to do for the last month beyond listening to the bursting of the +Long Tom shells." That touch about General Buller's arrival is surely +one of the most strangely appealing incidents in the recent history of +human confidence and human expectation! Another friend, Mr George Lynch, +whose name occurred in one of his letters in a passage curiously +characteristic of Steevens's drily incisive humour, writes about the +days that must immediately have preceded his illness: "He was as fit and +well as possible when I left Ladysmith last month." (The letter is dated +from Durban, January 11.) "We were drawing rations like the soldiers, +but had some '74 port and a plum-pudding which we were keeping for +Christmas Day.... Shells fell in our vicinity more or less like angels' +visits, and I had a bet with him of a dinner. I backed our house to be +hit against another which he selected; and he won. I am to pay the +dinner at the Savoy when we return." + +There is little more to record of the actual facts at this moment. The +following cable, which has till now remained unpublished, tells its own +tale too sadly:-- + + "Steevens, a few days before death, had recovered so far as to be + able to attend to some of his journalistic duties, though still + confined to bed. Relapse followed; he died at five in the + afternoon. Funeral same night, leaving Carter's house (where + Steevens was lying during illness) at 11.30. Interred in Ladysmith + Cemetery at midnight. Night dismal, rain falling, while the moon + attempted to pierce the black clouds. Boer searchlight from Umbala + flashed over the funeral party, showing the way in the darkness. + Large attendance of mourners, several officers, garrison, most + correspondents. Chaplain M'Varish officiated." + +When I read that short and simple cablegram, the thought came to my mind +that if only the greater number of modern rioters in language were +compelled to hoard their words out of sheer necessity for the cable, we +should have better results from the attempts at word-painting that now +cumber the ground. And this brings me directly to a consideration of +Steevens's work. In many respects, of course, it was never, even in +separate papers, completed. Journalist and scholar he was, both. But the +world was allowed to see too much of the journalist, too little of the +scholar, in what he accomplished. 'The Monologues of the Dead' was a +brilliant beginning. It proved the splendid work of the past, it +presaged more splendid work for the future. And then, if you please, he +became a man of action; and a man of action, if he is to write, must +perforce be a journalist. The preparations had made it impossible that +he should ever be anything else but an extraordinary journalist; and +accordingly it fell out that the combination of a wonderful equipment of +scholarship with a vigorous sense of vitality brought about a unique +thing in modern journalism. Unique, I say: the thing may be done again, +it is true; but he was the pioneer, he was the inventor, of the +particular method which he practised. + +I began this discussion with a reference to the spare, austere, but +quite lucid message of the cablegram announcing the death of Steevens; +and I was carried on at once to a deliberate consideration of his +literary work, because that work had, despite its vigour, its vividness, +its brilliance, just the outline, the spareness, the slimness, the +austerity which are so painfully inconspicuous in the customary painter +of word-pictures. Some have said that Steevens was destined to be the +Kinglake of the Transvaal. That is patently indemonstrable. His war +correspondence was not the work of a stately historian. He could, out of +sheer imaginativeness, create for himself the style of the stately +historian. His "New Gibbon"--a paper which appeared in 'Blackwood's +Magazine'--is there to prove so much; but that was not the manner in +which he usually wrote about war. He was essentially a man who had +visions of things. Without the time to separate his visions into the +language of pure classicism--a feat which Tennyson superlatively +contrived to accomplish--he yet took out the right details, and by +skilful combination built you, in the briefest possible space, a +strongly vivid picture. If you look straight out at any scene, you will +see what all men see when they look straight out; but when you inquire +curiously into all the quarters of the compass, you will see what no man +ever saw when he simply looked out of his two eyes without regarding the +here, there, and everywhere. When Tennyson wrote of + + "flush'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh + Half-buried in the Eagle's down, + Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky + Above the pillar'd town"-- + +you felt the wonder of the picture. Applied in a vastly different way, +put to vastly different uses, the visual gift of Steevens belonged to +the same order of things. Consider this passage from his Soudan book:-- + + "Black spindle-legs curled up to meet red-gimleted black faces, + donkeys headless and legless, or sieves of shrapnel; camels with + necks writhed back on to their humps, rotting already in pools of + blood and bile-yellow water, heads without faces, and faces without + anything below, cobwebbed arms and legs, and black skins grilled + to crackling on smouldering palm-leaf--don't look at it." + +The writer, swinging on at the obvious pace with which this writing +swings, of course has no chance to make as flawless a picture as the +great man of leisure; but the pictorial quality of each is precisely the +same. Both understood the fine art of selection. + +I have sometimes wondered if I grudged to journalism what Steevens stole +from letters. I have not yet quite come to a decision; for, had he never +left the groves of the academic for the crowded career of the man of the +world, we should never have known his amazing versatility, or even a +fraction of his noble character as it was published to the world. +Certainly the book to which this chapter forms a mere pendant must, in +parts, stand as a new revelation no less of the nobility of that +character than of his extraordinary foresight, his wonderful instinct +for the objectiveness of life. I believe that in his earliest childhood +his feeling for the prose of geography was like Wordsworth's +cataract--it "haunted him like a passion." And all the while the +subjective side of life called for the intrusion of his prying eyes. So +that you may say it was more or less pure chance that led him to give +what has proved to be the bulk of his active years to the objective side +of things, the purely actual. Take, in this very book, that which +amounts practically to a prophecy of the difficulty of capturing a point +like Spion Kop, in the passage where he describes how impossible it is +to judge of the value of a hill-top until you get there. (Pope, by the +way--and I state the point not from any desire to be pedantic, but +because Steevens had a classical way with him which would out, disguise +it how he might--Pope, I say, in his "Essay on Criticism," had before +made the same remark.) Then again you have in his chapter on Aliwal the +curiously intimate sketch of the Boer character--"A people hard to +arouse, but, you would say, very hard to subdue." Well, it is by the +objective side of life that we have to judge him. The futility of death +makes that an absolute necessity; but I like to think of a possible +George Steevens who, when the dust and sand of campaigns and daily +journalism had been wiped away from his shoon, would have combined in a +great and single-hearted career all the various powers of his fine mind. + +His death, as none needs to be told, came as a great shock and with +almost staggering surprise to the world; and it is for his memory's sake +that I put on record a few of the words that were written of him by +responsible people. An Oxford contemporary has written of him:-- + + "I first met him at a meeting of the Russell Club at Oxford. He was + a great light there, being hon. sec. It was in 1890, and Steevens + had been head-boy of the City of London School, and then Senior + Scholar at Balliol. Even at the Russell Club, then, he was regarded + as a great man. The membership was, I think, limited to twenty--all + Radical stalwarts. I well remember his witty comments on a paper + advocating Women's Rights. He was at his best when opening the + debate after some such paper. Little did that band of ardent souls + imagine their leader would, in a few short years, be winning fame + for a Tory halfpenny paper. + + "He sat next me at dinner, just before he graduated, and he was in + one of those pensive moods which sometimes came over him. I believe + he hardly spoke. In '92 he entered himself as a candidate for a + Fellowship at Pembroke. I recollect his dropping into the + examination-room half an hour late, while all the rest had been + eagerly waiting outside the doors to start their papers at once. + But what odds? He was miles ahead of them all--an easy first. It + was rumoured in Pembroke that the new Fellow had been seen smoking + (a pipe, too) in the quad--that the Dean had said it was really + shocking, such a bad example to the undergraduates, and against all + college rules. How could we expect undergraduates to be moral if Mr + Steevens did such things? How, indeed? Then came Mr Oscar Browning + from Cambridge, and carried off" Steevens to the 'second university + in the kingdom,' so that we saw but little of him. Some worshipped, + others denounced him. The Cambridge papers took sides. One spoke of + 'The Shadow' or 'The Fetish,' _au contraire_: another would praise + the great Oxford genius. Whereas at Balliol Steevens was boldly + criticised, at Cambridge he was hated or adored. + + "A few initiated friends knew that Steevens was writing for the + 'Pall Mall' and the 'Cambridge Observer,' and it soon became + evident that journalism was to be his life-work. Last February I + met him in the Strand, and he was much changed: no more crush hat, + and long hair, and Bohemian manners. He was back from the East, and + a great man now--married and settled as well--very spruce, and + inclined to be enthusiastic about the Empire. But still I remarked + his old indifference to criticism. Success had improved him in + every way: this seems a common thing with Britishers. In September + last I knocked up against him at Rennes during the Dreyfus trial. + As I expected, Steevens kept cool: he could always see the other + side of a question. We discussed the impending war, and he was + eagerly looking forward to going with the troops. I dare not tell + his views on the political question of the war. They would surprise + most of his friends and admirers. On taking leave I bade him be + sure to take care of himself. He said he would." + +What strikes me as being peculiarly significant of a certain aspect of +his character appeared in 'The Nursing and Hospital World.' It ran in +this wise--I give merely an extract:-- + + "Although George Steevens never used his imperial pen for personal + purposes, yet it seems almost as if it were a premonition of death + by enteric fever which aroused his intense sympathy for our brave + soldiers who died like flies in the Soudan from this terrible + scourge, owing to lack of trained nursing skill, during the late + war. This sympathy he expressed to those in power, and we believe + that it was owing to his representations that one of the most + splendid offers of help for our soldiers ever suggested was made by + his chief, the editor of the 'Daily Mail,' when he proposed to + equip, regardless of expense, an ambulance to the Soudan, organised + on lines which would secure, for our sick and wounded, _skilled + nursing on modern lines_, such nursing as the system in vogue at + the War Office denies to them. + + "The fact that the War Office refused this enlightened and generous + offer, and that dozens of valuable lives were sacrificed in + consequence, is only part of the monstrous incompetence of its + management. Who can tell! If Mr Alfred Harmsworth's offer had been + accepted in the last war, might not army nursing reform have, to a + certain extent, been effected ere we came to blows with the + Transvaal, and many of the brave men who have died for us long + lingering deaths from enteric and dysentery have been spared to + those of whom they are beloved?" + +Another writer in the 'Outlook':-- + + "As we turn over the astonishing record of George Warrington + Steevens's thirty years, we are divided between the balance of loss + and gain. The loss to his own intimates must be intolerable. From + that, indeed, we somewhat hastily avert our eyes. Remains the loss + to the great reading public, which we believe that Steevens must + have done a vast deal to educate, not to literature so much as to a + pride in our country's imperial destiny. Where the elect chiefly + admired a scarcely exampled grasp and power of literary + impressionism, the man in the street was learning the scope and + aspect of his and our imperial heritage, and gaining a new view of + his duties as a British citizen. + + "A potent influence is thus withdrawn. The pen that had taught us + to see and comprehend India and Egypt and the reconquest of the + Soudan would have burned in on the most heedless the line which + duty marks out for us in South Africa. Men who know South Africa + are pretty well united. Now Steevens would have taken all England + to South Africa. Nay, more, we are no longer able to blink the + truth that all is not for the best in the best of all possible + armies, and the one satisfaction in our reverses is that, when the + war is over, no Government will dare to resist a vigorous programme + of reform. Steevens would not have been too technical for his + readers; he would have given his huge public just as many prominent + facts and headings as had been good for them, and his return from + South Africa with the materials of a book must have strengthened + the hands of the intelligent reformer. That journalism which, in a + word, really is a living influence in the State is infinitely the + poorer. And so we believe is literature. There is much literature + in his journalism, but it is in his 'Monologues of the Dead' that + you get the rare achievement and rarer promise which made one + positive that, his wanderings once over, he would settle down to + write something of great and permanent value. Only one impediment + could we have foreseen to such a consummation: he might have been + drawn into public life. For he spoke far better than the majority + of even distinguished contemporary politicians, and to a man of his + knowledge of affairs, influence over others, and clearness of + conviction, anything might have been open. + + "Well! he is dead at Ladysmith of enteric fever. Turning over the + pages of his famous war-book we find it written of the Soudan: 'Of + the men who escaped with their lives, hundreds more will bear the + mark of its fangs till they die; hardly one of them but will die + the sooner for the Soudan.' And so he is dead 'the sooner for the + Soudan.' It seems bitter, unjust, a quite superfluous dispensation; + and then one's eye falls on the next sentence--'What have we to + show in return?' In the answer is set forth the balance of gain, + for we love 'to show in return' a wellnigh ideal career. Fame, + happiness, friendship, and that which transcends friendship, all + came to George Steevens before he was thirty. He did everything, + and everything well. He bridged a gulf which was deemed impassable, + for from being a head-boy at school and the youngest Balliol + scholar and a Fellow of his College and the very type of rising + pedagogue, with a career secure to him in these dusty meadows, he + chose to step forth into a world where these things were accounted + lightly, to glorify the hitherto contemned office of the reporter. + Thus within a few years he hurried through America, bringing back, + the greatest of living American journalists tells us, the best and + most accurate of all pictures of America. Thus he saw the face of + war with the conquering Turk in Thessaly, and showed us modern + Germany and Egypt and British India, and in two Soudanese campaigns + rode for days in the saddle in 'that God-accursed wilderness,' as + though his training had been in a stable, not in the quad of + Balliol. These thirty years were packed with the happiness and + success which Matthew Arnold desired for them that must die young. + He not only succeeded, but he took success modestly, and leaves a + name for unselfishness and unbumptiousness. Also he 'did the State + some service.' + + "'One paces up and down the shore yet awhile,' says Thackeray, 'and + looks towards the unknown ocean and thinks of the traveller whose + boat sailed yesterday.' And so, thinking of Steevens, we must not + altogether repine when, 'trailing clouds of glory,' an 'ample, + full-blooded spirit shoots into the night.'" + +I take this passage from 'Literature,' in connection with Steevens, on +account of the grave moral which it draws from his life-work:-- + + "His career was an object-lesson in the usefulness of those + educational endowments which link the humblest with the highest + seats of learning in the country. If he had not been able to win + scholarships he would have had to begin life as a clerk in a bank + or a house of business. But he won them, and a good education with + them, wherever they were to be won--at the City of London School, + and at Balliol College, Oxford. He was a first-class man (both in + 'Mods' and 'Greats'), _proxime accessit_ for the Hertford, and a + Fellow of Pembroke. He learnt German, and specialised in + metaphysics. A review which he wrote of Mr Balfour's 'Foundations + of Religious Belief' showed how much more deeply than the average + journalist he had studied the subjects about which philosophers + doubt; and his first book--'Monologues of the Dead'--established + his claim to scholarship. Some critics called them vulgar, and they + certainly were frivolous. But they proved two things--that Mr + Steevens had a lively sense of humour, and that he had read the + classics to some purpose. The monologue of Xanthippe--in which she + gave her candid opinion of Socrates--was, in its way, and within + its limits, a masterpiece. + + "But it was not by this sort of work that Mr Steevens was to win + his wide popularity. Few writers, when one comes to think of it, do + win wide popularity by means of classical _jeux d'esprit_. At the + time when he was throwing them off, he was also throwing off 'Occ. + Notes' for the 'Pall Mall Gazette.' He was reckoned the humorist + _par excellence_ of that journal in the years when, under the + editorship of Mr Cust, it was almost entirely written by humorists. + He was one of the seceders on the occasion of Mr Cust's retirement, + and occupied the leisure that then presented itself in writing his + book on 'Naval Policy.' His real chance in life came when he was + sent to America for the 'Daily Mail.' It was a better chance than + it might have been, because that newspaper did not publish his + letters at irregular intervals, as usually happens, but in an + unbroken daily sequence. Other excursions followed--to Egypt, to + India, to Turkey, to Germany, to Rennes, to the Soudan--and the + letters, in almost every case, quickly reappeared as a book. + + "A rare combination of gifts contributed to Mr Steevens's success. + To begin with, he had a wonderful power of finding his way quickly + through a tangle of complicated detail: this he owed, no doubt, in + large measure to his Oxford training. He also was one of the few + writers who have brought to journalism the talents, and sympathies, + and touch hitherto regarded as belonging more properly to the + writer of fiction. It was the dream of Mr T.P. O'Connor, when he + started the 'Sun,' to have the happenings of the passing day + described in the style of the short-story writer. The experiment + failed, because it was tried on an evening paper with printers + clamouring for copy, and the beginning of the story generally had + to be written before the end of the story was in sight or the place + of the incidents could be determined. Mr Steevens tried the same + experiment under more favourable conditions, and succeeded. There + never were newspaper articles that read more like short stories + than his, and at the same time there never were newspaper articles + that gave a more convincing impression that the thing happened as + the writer described it." + +A more personal note was struck perhaps by a writer in the 'Morning +Post':-- + + "Few of the reading public can fail to be acquainted with the + merits of his purely journalistic work. He had carefully developed + a great natural gift of observation until it seemed wellnigh an + impossibility that he should miss any important detail, however + small, in a scene which he was watching. Moreover, he had a + marvellous power of vivid expression, and used it with such a skill + that even the dullest of readers could hardly fail to see what he + wished them to see. It is given to some journalists to wield great + influence, and few have done more to spread the imperial idea than + has been done by Mr Steevens during the last four or five years of + his brief life. Still it must be remembered that, in order to + follow journalism successfully, he had to make sacrifices which he + undoubtedly felt to be heavy. His little book, 'Monologues of the + Dead,' can never become popular, since it needs for its + appreciation an amount of scholarship which comparatively few + possess. Yet it proves none the less conclusively that, had he + lived and had leisure, he would have accomplished great things in + literature. Those who had the privilege of knowing him, however, + and above all those who at one period or another in his career + worked side by side with him, will think but little now of his + success as journalist and author. The people who may have tried, as + they read his almost aggressively brilliant articles, to divine + something of the personality behind them, can scarcely have + contrived to picture him accurately. They will not imagine the + silent, undemonstrative person, invariably kind and ready unasked + to do a colleague's work in addition to his own, who dwells in the + memory of the friends of Mr Steevens. They will not understand how + entirely natural it seemed to these friends that when the long + day's work was ended in Ladysmith he should have gone habitually, + until this illness struck him down, to labour among the sick and + wounded for their amusement, and in order to give them the courage + which is as necessary to the soldier facing disease as it is to + his colleague who has to storm a difficult position. Those who + loved him will presently find some consolation in considering the + greatness of his achievement, but nothing that can now be said will + mitigate their grief at his untimely loss." + +Another writer says:-- + + "What Mr Kipling has done for fiction Mr Steevens did for fact. He + was a priest of the Imperialist idea, and the glory of the Empire + was ever uppermost in his writings. That alone would not have + brought him the position he held, for it was part of the age he + lived in. But he was endowed with a curious faculty, an + extraordinary gift for recording his impressions. In a scientific + age his style may be described as cinematographic. He was able to + put vividly before his readers, in a series of smooth-running + little pictures, events exactly as he saw them with his own intense + eyes. It has been said that on occasion his work contained passages + a purist would not have passed. But Mr Steevens wrote for the + people, and he knew it. Deliberately and by consummate skill he + wrote in the words of his average reader; and had he desired to + offer his work for the consideration of a more select class, there + is little doubt that he would have displayed the same felicity. His + mission was not of that order. He set himself the more difficult + task of entertaining the many; and the same thoroughness which made + him captain of the school, Balliol scholar, and the best + note-writer on the 'Pall Mall Gazette' in its brightest days, + taught him, aided by natural gifts, to write 'With Kitchener to + Khartum' and his marvellous impressions of travel." + + * * * * * + +This record must close. Innumerable have been the tributes to this brave +youth's power for capturing the human heart and the human mind. The +statesman and the working man--one of these has written very curtly and +simply, "He served us best of all"--each has felt something of the +intimate spirit of his work. + +Lord Roberts cabled from Capetown in the following words:-- + + "Deeply regret death of your talented correspondent, Steevens. + ROBERTS." + +And a correspondent writes:-- + + "To-day I called on Lord Kitchener, in compliance with his request, + having yesterday received through his aide-de-camp, Major Watson, + the following letter:-- + + "'I am anxious to have an opportunity of expressing to you + personally my great regret at the loss we have all sustained + in the death of Mr Steevens.' + + "Lord Kitchener said to me:-- + + "'I was anxious to tell you how very sorry I was to hear of the + death of Mr Steevens. He was with me in the Sudan, and, of course, + I saw a great deal of him and knew him well. He was such a clever + and able man. He did his work as correspondent so brilliantly, and + he never gave the slightest trouble--I wish all correspondents were + like him. I suppose they will try to follow in his footsteps. I am + sure I hope they will. + + "'He was a model correspondent, the best I have ever known, and I + should like you to say how greatly grieved I am at his death.'" + +Some "In Memoriam" verses, very beautifully written, for the 'Morning +Post,' may however claim a passing attention:-- + + "The pages of the Book quickly he turned. + He saw the languid Isis in a dream + Flow through the flowery meadows, where the ghosts + Of them whose glorious names are Greece and Rome + Walked with him. Then the dream must have an end, + For London called, and he must go to her, + To learn her secrets--why men love her so, + Loathing her also. Yet again he learned + How God, who cursed us with the need of toil, + Relenting, made the very curse a boon. + There came a call to wander through the world + And watch the ways of men. He saw them die + In fiercest fight, the thought of victory + Making them drunk like wine; he saw them die + Wounded and sick, and struggling still to live, + To fight again for England, and again + Greet those who loved them. Well indeed he knew + How good it is to live, how good to love, + How good to watch the wondrous ways of men-- + How good to die, if ever there be need. + And everywhere our England in his sight + Poured out her blood and gold, to share with all + Her heritage of freedom won of old. + Thus quickly did he turn the pages o'er, + And learn the goodness of the gift of life; + And when the Book was ended, glad at heart-- + The lesson learned, and every labour done-- + Find at the end life's ultimate gift of rest." + +There I leave him. Great-hearted, strong-souled, brave without a +hesitation, tender as a child, intolerant of wrong because he was +incapable of it, tolerant of every human weakness, slashing +controversialist in speech, statesman-like in foresight, finely versed +in the wisdom of many literatures, a man of genius scarce aware of his +innumerable gifts, but playing them all with splendid skill, with full +enjoyment of the crowded hours of life,--here was George Steevens. In +the face of what might have been--think of it--a boy scarce thirty! And +yet he did much, if his days were so few. "Being made perfect in a +little while, he fulfilled long years." + + +PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. + +[Illustration: MAP OF THE SEAT OF WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA] + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's From Capetown to Ladysmith, by G. W. 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