1 files changed, 7334 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/20400-8.txt b/20400-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0549313
--- /dev/null
+++ b/20400-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,7334 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, On the Heels of De Wet, by The Intelligence
+Officer
+
+
+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: On the Heels of De Wet
+
+
+Author: The Intelligence Officer
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 19, 2007  [eBook #20400]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE HEELS OF DE WET***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Jeannie Howse, and the Project
+Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustration (a map).
+      See 20400-h.htm or 20400-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/4/0/20400/20400-h/20400-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/4/0/20400/20400-h.zip)
+
+
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+      | Transcriber's Note:                                       |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Inconsistent hyphenation and inconsistant spelling in     |
+      | the original document have been preserved.                |
+      |                                                           |
+      | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in this  |
+      | text. For a complete list, please see the end of this     |
+      | document.                                                 |
+      |                                                           |
+      +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+ON THE HEELS OF DE WET
+
+by
+
+THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICER
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+William Blackwood and Sons
+Edinburgh and London
+MCMII
+
+
+
+
+_ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN 'BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.'_
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD.
+
+
+This short history is an amplification of a diary kept by the author
+during the late war, which amplification, through the courtesy of the
+editor, was published as a series of papers in 'Blackwood's Magazine.'
+The author is well aware of the shortcomings of his work, which he
+presents to the public in all humility, after asking pardon from such
+of the performers on his stage as may see through the slight veil of
+anonymity in which it has been attempted to enshroud them. If any
+should think the few criticisms which have crept into the text unjust,
+will they bear in mind that the regimental officer has suffered, in
+silence, much for the sins of others. It is the author's conviction
+that cases were rare when the ship did not sail true enough: in the
+beginning she may have badly wanted cleaning below the water line, but
+she never failed to answer her helm. It was more often the man at the
+helm than the sailing quality of the vessel that was at fault, and the
+marvel is that she was of sufficiently tough construction to be able
+to stand the stress incurred by indifferent seamanship.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                        PAGE
+   I. THE BIRTH OF THE BRIGADE                             1
+
+  II. THE MEET!                                           15
+
+ III. BEE-LINE TO BRITSTOWN                               45
+
+  IV. THE FIRST CHECK                                     75
+
+   V. A NEW CAST                                         103
+
+  VI. A POOR SCENT                                       133
+
+ VII. "POTTERING"                                        155
+
+VIII. STILL POTTERING                                    184
+
+  IX. TO A NEW COVERT!                                   214
+
+   X. JOG-TROT                                           246
+
+  XI. FULL CRY                                           292
+
+      L'ENVOI                                            344
+
+
+
+
+ON THE HEELS OF DE WET.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+THE BIRTH OF THE BRIGADE.
+
+
+"De Aar," and the Africander guard flung himself out of his brake-van.
+
+De Aar! After forty-eight hours of semi-starvation in a brake-van, the
+name of the junction, in spite of the ill-natured tones which gave
+voice to it, sounded sweeter than the chimes of bells. It meant relief
+from confinement in a few square feet of board; relief from a
+semi-putrid atmosphere--oil, unwashed men, and stale tobacco-smoke;
+relief from the delicate attentions of a surly Africander guard, who
+resented the overcrowding of his van; relief from the pangs of
+hunger; relief from the indescribable punishments of thirst.
+
+Yet at its best De Aar is a miserable place. Not made--only thrown at
+the hillside, and allowed by negligence and indifference to slip into
+the nearest hollow. Too far from the truncated kopjes to reap any
+benefit from them. Close enough to feel the radiation of a
+sledge-hammer sun from their bevelled summits--close enough to be the
+channel, in summer, of every scorching blast diverted by them; in
+winter, every icy draught. Pestilential place, goal of whirlwinds and
+dust-devils, ankle-deep in desert drift--prototype of Berber in a
+sandstorm--as comfortless by night as day. But as in nature, so in the
+handiwork of men, even in the most repulsive shapes it is possible to
+find some saving feature. De Aar has one--one only. Its saving feature
+is where a slatternly Jew boy plays host behind the bar of a
+fly-ridden buffet. Here at prices which, except that it is a campaign,
+would be prohibitive, you can purchase food and drink.
+
+But at night it is not an easy place to find. The station is full of
+trains, and, arriving by a supply-train, you are discharged at some
+remote siding. A dozen wheeled barricades--open trucks, groaning
+bogies piled with war material--separate you from the platform. You
+dare not climb over the couplings between the waggons, for engines are
+attached, and the trains jolt backwards and forwards apparently
+without aim or warning. Up over an open truck! You roll on to the top
+of sleeping men, and bark your shins against a rifle. Curses follow
+you as you clamber out, and drop into the middle way. A clear line.
+No,--down pants an armoured train, a leviathan of steel plates and
+sheet-iron. You let it pass, and dash for the next barricade. Thank
+heaven! this is a passenger train. As it is lighted up like a grand
+hotel you will be able to hoist yourself over the footboards and
+through a saloon--"Halt! who goes there?" and you recoil from the
+point of a naked bayonet. "Can't help it, orficer or no orficer, this
+is Lord Kitchener's special, and you can't pass here!" It is no use.
+Another wide detour; more difficulties, other escapes from moving
+trains, and at last you find the platform.
+
+De Aar platform at night. If the management at Drury Lane ever wished
+to enact a play called "Chaos," the setting for their best scene could
+not better a night on De Aar platform. Each day this Clapham Junction
+of Lord Kitchener's army dumps down dozens of men, who are forced for
+an indefinite period to use the station as a home--tons and tons of
+army litter and a thousand nondescript details. The living lie about
+the station in magnificent confusion--white men, Kaffirs, soldiers,
+prisoners, civilians. A brigadier-general waiting for the night mail
+will be asleep upon one bench, a skrimshanking Tommy, who has
+purposely lost his unit, on the next. Even Kitchener's arrival can
+work no cleansing of De Aar. It only adds to the confusion by
+condensation of the chaos into a more restricted and less public area.
+
+But our first needs are animal. Stumbling over prostrate forms,
+cannoning against piles of heterogeneous gear, we make the buffet. A
+flood of light, the buzz of voices, and the hum of myriads of
+disturbed flies, and we live again. Filthy cloths, stained
+senna-colour with the spilt food and drink of months, an atmosphere
+reeking like a "fish-snack" shop, a dozen to twenty dishevelled and
+dirty men of all ranks clamouring for food, two slovenly half-caste
+wenches. That is all, yet this is life to the man off "trek." There is
+even a fascination in an earthenware plate, though its surface shows
+the marks of the greasy cloth and dirty fingers of the servitors.
+
+A lieutenant-general and his staff have a table to themselves; we find
+a corner at the main board, where the meaner sit. After food, news. De
+Wet has invaded the Colony with 3000 men. He was fighting with Plumer
+to-day at Philipstown. Then we begin to understand why we were
+summoned to De Aar. The little horse-gunner major, who vouchsafed the
+news, had just arrived with his battery from somewhere on the
+Middelburg-Komati line. Five days on the train and his horses only
+watered four times. That was nothing at this period of the war, when
+the average mounted man was not blamed if he killed three horses in a
+month. The major did not know his destination or what column he was to
+join. Delightful uncertainty! All he knew was that his battery was
+boxed up in a train outside the buffet, and that it would start for
+somewhere in half an hour. It might be destined for Mafeking, or it
+might be for Beaufort West; but he was ready to lay 2 to 1 that within
+six weeks his battery would be on the high seas India bound. Wise were
+the men who took up this bet, for the little major and his battery are
+in South Africa to this day.
+
+Food over, it was necessary once more to face the maze of De Aar
+platform. It may seem strange, but when you are on duty bound, it is
+easier, once the right platform is gained, to find the officials at
+midnight than in the day. Under martial law few travellers have
+lights; fewer are allowed, or have the desire, to burn them on the
+platform. Consequently a light after midnight generally means an
+official trying to overtake the work which has accumulated during the
+day.
+
+"Railway Staff Officer? Yes, sir, straight in here, sir."
+
+A very pale youth, in the cleanest of kit, whitest of collars, and
+with the pinkest of pink impertinences round his cap and neck. He
+never looked up from the paper on which he was writing as he opened
+the following conversation--
+
+_Pale Youth._ "What can I do for you?"
+
+_Applicant._ "I am here under telegraphic instructions."
+
+_P. Y. (taking telegram proffered)_ "Never heard of you."
+
+_A._ "You must have some record of that wire!"
+
+_P. Y._ "I never sent it. It must have been sent by the Railway Staff
+Officer. He's asleep now. Come back in the morning and see him!"
+
+_A. (furiously)_ "You d----d young cub!--is this the way you treat
+your seniors? What do you belong to?"
+
+_P. Y. (Jumping up nervously)_ "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I thought
+you were one of those helpless Yeomanry officers. They are the plague
+of our lives. I will go and wake the R.S.O." [_Disappears. Returns in
+five minutes._]
+
+_P. Y._ "The R.S.O. says that you must report to the office of the
+line of communications. They may have orders about you. You will find
+the brigade-major in a saloon carriage on the third siding outside the
+Rosmead line." [_Salutes._]
+
+We go out into the night again, wondering if perdition can equal De
+Aar for miserable discomfort, and De Aar officialdom for
+inconsequence. The third siding, indeed! It was an hour before the
+saloon was found in that labyrinth of cast-iron.
+
+The brigade-major was there, a wretched worn object of a man, plodding
+by the eccentric light of a tallow dip through the day's telegrams.
+Poor wretch! he earns his pittance as thoroughly as any of us do.
+Again we drew blank. "Never heard of you." All we could get out of him
+was, "You had better bed down in the station and await events." Poor
+devil! so worn with work and worry that he looked as if a simple
+little De Aar dust-devil would snap his backbone if it touched him. So
+we were turned adrift again in the old iron heap to swell the army of
+vagrants who live by their wits upon the communications.
+
+It was about two in the morning before we found our servants. The
+soldier servant is a jewel--but a jewel with some blemishes. If you
+tell him to do anything "by numbers," he will do it splendidly; but he
+does not consider it part of his duty to think for himself,
+consequently you have always to think both for yourself and your
+servant, and that is why on this occasion we found ours sitting on our
+rolls of bedding at the far end of the platform. It had never struck
+them that we should want to sleep in a place like De Aar. Disgusted,
+we tried the hotel. Here they loosed dogs on us and turned out the
+guard. Still more disgusted, we returned to our bedding, and sardined
+in with the ruck and rubbish on the platform.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sunrise in South Africa. The sun knows how to rise on the veldt. When
+first seen it is as good as a tonic. It makes one feel joyous at the
+mere fact of being alive. But this feeling wears off with a week's
+trekking, especially when the season gets colder, or a night-march has
+miscarried. Then you never wish to see the sun rise again. There was a
+time when a man who boasted that he had never seen the sun rise was
+branded as a lazy sloth, an indolent good-for-nothing, who willingly
+missed half the pleasures of life. After twenty months continuous
+trekking in South Africa one is not sure that one's opinions on this
+subject fall into line with those of the majority. For after a baker's
+dozen of sunrises one has generally reached that state when the
+greatest natural pleasure is found inside rather than outside of a
+sleeping-bag. But in spite of the general detestation in which De Aar
+is held, the neighbouring hills furnish, in the quickening light of
+dawn, studies in changing colour so voluptuous, varied, and fantastic
+that the wonder is that all the artists in the world have not
+fore-gathered at the place. But familiarity with all this beauty
+reduces it to a commonplace. It just becomes part of the monotony of
+your daily life, especially if you have, as we had that morning, to
+wait your turn before you could wash, at the waste-water drippings
+from a locomotive feed-pump. Here you fought for a place, jostled by
+men who at home would have stepped off the pavement and saluted. But
+after a few months of war, at a washing-pump there is little by which
+you can distinguish officers from men, unless the former have their
+tunics on. From the washtub to _chota haziri_. The buffet is not yet
+open, but a dilapidated Kaffir woman on the platform is doling out at
+sixpence a time a mess of treacle-like consistency which is called
+coffee. What would you think if you could catch a glimpse of us? What
+would the bright little maid who brings in the tea in the morning say,
+if she could see us now? Certainly if we came to the front-door she
+would slam it in our faces, and threaten us with the police!
+
+But we must be up and doing. It is an extraordinary day at De Aar.
+Every one is bustling about. Staff popinjays hurry up and down the
+platform. Stout elderly militia colonels, who would never be up and
+dressed at this hour in ordinary circumstances, are heckling the
+R.S.O., who has more starch in his tunic than has ever been seen in a
+tunic before. What does it all mean? Then we remember the naked
+bayonet of the previous night. Lord Kitchener is at De Aar. Oh, Hades!
+
+We feel his presence, but it is not long before we see him. How he
+must worry his tailor. Tall and well-proportioned above, he falls away
+from his waist downwards. It is this lower weediness which evidently
+troubles the man who fashions his clothes. But it is his face we look
+at. That cold blue eye which is the basilisk of the British Army. The
+firm jaw and the cruel mouth, of which we read in 1898. But presumably
+this is only the stereotyped "military hero" that the papers always
+keep "set up" for the advent of successful generals. None of it was
+visible here. A round, red, and somewhat puffy face. Square head with
+staff cap set carelessly upon it. Heavy moustaches covering a somewhat
+mobile mouth, at the moment inclined to smile. Eyes just anyhow;
+heavy, but not overpowering eyebrows. In fact, a very ordinary face of
+a man scarcely past his prime. Hardly a figure that you would have
+remarked if it had not been for the gilt upon his hat--in fact it was
+all a disappointing discovery. He was pacing up and down with his
+hands on his hips, and elbows pointing backwards, talking
+good-naturedly to a colonel man, who was evidently just off "trek,"
+and with his overgrown gait and ponderous step the great Kitchener
+did not look half as imposing as his travel-stained companion.
+
+The chief was explaining something to the colonel. They paced up and
+down together for a few minutes, then stopped just in front of us, and
+the conversation was as follows:--
+
+_Chief._ "All right; I will soon find you a staff. Let me see; you
+have a brigade-major?"
+
+_Colonel._ "Yes; but he is at Hanover Road!"
+
+_Chief._ "That's all right; you will collect him in good time. You
+want a chief for your staff. Here, you (_and he beckoned a colonel in
+palpably just-out-from-England kit, who was standing by_); what are
+you doing here? You will be chief of the staff to the New Cavalry
+Brigade!"
+
+_New Colonel._ "But, sir--"
+
+_Chief._ "That's all right. (_Reverting to his original attitude._)
+Now you want transport and supply officers. See that depot over there?
+(_nodding his head towards the De Aar supply depot._) Go and collect
+them there--quote me as your authority. There you are fitted up; you
+can round up part of your brigade to-night and be off at daybreak
+to-morrow. Wait; you will want an intelligence officer. (_Here he
+swung round and ran his eye over the miscellaneous gathering of all
+ranks assembled on the platform. He singled out a bedraggled officer
+from amongst the group who had arrived the preceding night in the van
+of the ill-natured Africander guard._) What are you doing here?"
+
+_Officer._ "Trying to rejoin, sir."
+
+_Chief._ "Where have you come from?"
+
+_Officer._ "Deelfontein--convalescent, sir."
+
+_Chief._ "You'll do. You are intelligence officer to the New Cavalry
+Brigade. Here's your brigadier; you will take orders from him.
+(_Turning again to the colonel and holding out his hand._) There you
+are; you are fitted out. Mind you move out of Richmond Road to-morrow
+morning without fail. Good-bye!"
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+THE MEET!
+
+
+The driver leaned out of the cab of his engine and gave the brigadier
+a little of his mind.
+
+"Look here, I am a civilian; I know my duties. I had my eight bogies
+on, and by the rights of things I had no business to take on your
+beastly truck--and now I tell you that the line is not safe, and here
+I stay for the night. Bear in mind that you are now dealing with
+civilian driver John Brown, and he knows his duties."
+
+"My hearty fellow!" answered the brigadier, who had commanded a
+Colonial corps too long to be put out by "back-chat" from a
+representative of the most independent class in the world, "that is
+not the point. If we were all to do our duty rigidly to the letter, we
+should get no forwarder. It is not a matter of saving this train, it
+is a matter of a gentleman keeping his word. I have given my word that
+I will march out of Richmond Road to-morrow at daybreak. You wouldn't
+like it on your conscience that not only had you made a pal break his
+word, but you had also been the means of leaving a gap in the line for
+De Wet. Duty be hanged in the Imperial cause! What did Nelson do at
+the battle of Copenhagen? Now this is just a parallel: I know that you
+are loyal and sportsman to the backbone; I want you to be the Nelson
+of this 'crush.' I know I can't order you--but I know that you are a
+sportsman, and as a sportsman you will not give me away. Look here, I
+am just going into the telegraph-office for ten minutes. Think it over
+while I'm there!"
+
+The driver's face was a study, and as for Fireman Jack, he just smiled
+all over his dirty countenance. There is only one way to a Colonial's
+heart, and you must be shod with velvet to get there. We then
+adjourned to the little shanty that served Deelfontein for a
+stationmaster's office. We--that is such of the staff of the New
+Cavalry Brigade as the brigadier had been able to collect in De Aar.
+
+"Where's a map?" asked the brigadier. The chief of the staff looked at
+the intelligence officer. The intelligence officer looked at the
+supply officer. A map! No one had ever seen a map. But a "Briton and
+Boer" chart had been part of the chief of the staff's home outfit, and
+after considerable fumbling it was produced from his bulging
+haversack.
+
+"Well, you are a fine lot of 'was-birds' with which to run a brigade:
+but this will do. Now, Mr Intelligence, jot down this wire:--
+
+  "_From O.C. New Cavalry Brigade to O.C. first squadron 20th
+      Dragoon Guards to arrive at Richmond Road._
+
+
+    "On receipt move with all military precautions at once to Klip
+    Kraal, twenty-six miles on the Britstown Road. I will follow
+    to-morrow morning. Look out for helio. communication on your
+    left, as another column is moving parallel to you to the south."
+
+"There," said the brigadier, "we have got over that difficulty, and
+anticipated Kitchener's orders by twelve hours. May Providence protect
+those raw dragoons if old Hedgehog[1] is in the vicinity. Three days
+off a ship and to meet Hedgehog is a big thing!"
+
+The dirty and smiling face of Fireman Jack was poked in at the
+doorway.
+
+"Please, sir, the driver says as how he is ready to move, and would
+like to start as soon as possible."
+
+"Hearty fellow!" said the brigadier; and then as we climbed into our
+saloon again he added: "There is only one way of treating these
+fellows. Treat them as men and they are of the very best on earth;
+combat them, and they won't move a yard. Some one at De Aar ordered an
+extra truck on to this man's train, and he has been sulking ever
+since. Now that he's on his mettle and emulating Nelson, you will see
+that he will bustle us along. Nothing but a dynamite cartridge will
+stop him. My fellows in Natal were just the same."
+
+Two hours later, just before it was dark, we ran into Richmond Road.
+The driver jumped off his engine and strode across the platform.
+"General," he said, with the frank familiarity of the Colonial, "I
+should just like to say that I had shaken hands with you. I wish that
+there were more like you; we should all be better men. Good-bye and
+good luck to you, sir!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is not intended in these papers to compile a historical record of
+the operations in South Africa to which they relate. But in order that
+the part which the New Cavalry Brigade played in the campaign which
+arrested De Wet's invasion in February 1901 may be intelligible, and
+in order that the readers may better understand the peregrinations of
+our own particular unit, it may be expedient here to give a brief
+outline of the initial scheme which, sound as it may have appeared,
+within twenty-four hours of its birth became enshrouded in the usual
+fog of war. After outlining the scheme all we can hope is that these
+papers may furnish occasional and momentary gleams of light in that
+fog, since their object is not to build up contemporary history, but
+to furnish a faithful record of the life and working of one of the
+pieces on the chess-board of the campaign--a piece which, in this De
+Wet hunt, had perhaps the relative importance of a "castle."
+
+   [Illustration: ROUGH SKETCH MAP SHOWING DE WET'S INVASION
+   (_from the Note-book of a Staff Officer_)]
+
+De Wet's long-promised invasion--of which Kritzinger's and Hertzog's
+descent into Cape Colony had been the weather-signal--was now an
+accomplished fact. He had invaded with 2500 to 3000 men and some
+artillery. Plumer had located him at Philipstown, had effectually
+"bolted" him, and, in spite of heavy weather, had pressed him with the
+perseverance of a sleuth-hound in the direction of the De Aar-Orange
+River Railway into the arms of two columns in the vicinity of
+Hautkraal. A week previous to this, as soon as it was known that De
+Wet had evaded the force intended to head him back when moving south
+down the Orange River Colony, the railway had been taxed to its utmost
+to concentrate troops on the Naauwpoort-De Aar-Beaufort West line. Day
+and night troop-trains, bulging with khaki and bristling with rifles,
+had vomited columns, detachments, and units at various points upon
+this line--Colesberg, Hanover Road, De Aar, Richmond Road, Victoria
+West, and Beaufort. Lord Kitchener himself, at a pace which had
+wellnigh bleached the driver's hair, had hied down to De Aar in his
+armoured train. Plumer had diverted the invasion west, Crabbe and
+Henniker and the armoured trains had kicked it over the railway-line.
+Kitchener was content. If De Wet followed his jackal Hertzog into the
+south-western areas, the columns on the line from De Aar downwards
+were to move west as parallel forces and tackle the invader in turn.
+Each would run him till exhausted, with a fresh parallel to take up
+the running from them as soon as they were done; while at the end,
+when the last parallel was played out, De Lisle as a stop stood at
+Carnarvon, ready to catch the ripe plum after the tree had been well
+shaken. Admirable plan--on paper. Admirable plan if De Wet had only
+done what he ought to have done--if he had only allowed himself to be
+kicked by each parallel in turn, churned by relays of pom-poms, until
+ready to be presented to De Lisle. But De Wet did not do the right
+thing. He was no cub to trust to winning an earth by a direct and
+obvious line, where pace alone would have killed him. He was an old
+grey fox, suspicious even of his own shadow, and he doubled and
+twisted: in the meanwhile Plumer ran himself "stone-cold" on his
+heels, and the majority of the parallel columns, played by his screen
+of "red herrings," countermarched themselves to a standstill. The old,
+old story, which needs no expansion here. Admirable plan, if only the
+British columns had been as complete at their rendezvous as they
+appeared on paper. We were the New Cavalry Brigade--the 21st King's
+Dragoon Guards and the 20th Dragoon Guards, just out from home; the
+Mount Nelson Light Horse, newly raised in Cape Town; a battery of
+R.H.A., and a pom-pom. But where were we. We were due to march out of
+Richmond Road at daybreak on the morrow. Two squadrons of the 21st
+King's Dragoons and one of the Mount Nelson's were with
+Plumer--Providence only knows where--learning the law of the veldt.
+The rest of the Mount Nelson's and one squadron of the 21st King's
+Dragoons were at Hanover Road. One squadron of the 20th Dragoon Guards
+was at Richmond Road; two squadrons were in the train on the way up
+from Cape Town. The guns at least had arrived. Yet we were about the
+value of a "castle" on the chess-board designed to mate De Wet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now we shall have to take our coats off."
+
+The brigadier was right. It was no mean affair to arrive at sundown at
+a miserable siding in the Karoo, called by courtesy a station, to find
+its two parallels of rails blocked with the trucks containing the
+nucleus of a cavalry brigade, and to get that nucleus on the road by
+daybreak. The supply column was all out, the battery half out--these
+were old soldiers; but the two squadrons of 20th Dragoon Guards had
+not yet awakened to the situation. The brigadier looked up and down
+the platform, gazed a moment at the long tiers of laden trucks, and
+then made the above remark.
+
+And we had to take our coats off. The 20th were new but they were
+willing; and it is difficult to say which hampers you most, an
+over-willing novice or an unwilling expert. You who sit at home and
+rail at the conduct of the campaign, rail at the wretched officer,
+regimental or staff, little know what is expected of him. You have
+your type in your mind's eye--an eyeglass, spotless habiliments, and a
+waving sword; you pay him and expect him to succeed. Your one argument
+is unanswerable. You place the greatest man that you can select to
+guide and cherish him, therefore if he does not succeed it must be
+through his own shortcomings. In your impatience you opine that he has
+not succeeded. Therefore he must be ignorant, indifferent, and
+incompetent. Little do you realise the injustice of your opinion. You
+sweat, during a war, an intelligent class--the same class, be it said,
+from which the best that your universities can produce is drawn,--you
+sweat it as no other educated class would allow itself to be sweated
+in the whole civilised world, and yet, though men drop in harness for
+you by dozens every month, you turn upon them and revile them. Can you
+not appreciate the fact that it is not always the medium, through
+which the Great Head you have selected works, that is in error,--that
+the pilot's hand may be at fault, and not the steering-gear? Take us
+that night at Richmond Road. New troops, new staff, little or no
+information, and an order to be in position at a point 50 miles
+distant in 36 hours. If bricks have to be made, has not the workman a
+right to expect to be supplied with the ingredients? Is the blame
+altogether his if, when exposed to the heat of a tropical sun, his
+hurriedly constructed clay crumbles to pieces for want of the straw
+with which his taskmaster failed to supply him? We think not. But that
+night at Richmond Road we had no time to ruminate upon our
+difficulties. We had to surmount them, and with our brigadier we took
+our coats off and buckled to the job.
+
+Telegrams:--
+
+  1. _To Intelligence, New Cavalry Brigade, Richmond Road, from
+      Intelligence, De Aar._
+
+    "You must organise your intelligence locally, impossible to
+    supply so many columns with men from here. Will see what can be
+    done later. Authorise such expenditure as you think fit."
+
+  2. _To Int. N.C.B. from Int. De Aar._
+
+    "De Wet Expert[2] reports De Wet moving towards Vosberg. Plumer
+    still in touch. Hertzog, Brand, Pretorius, all between Prieska
+    and Vosberg with large quantities remounts for De Wet. Theron
+    has been detached by De Wet, moving south rapidly to join Brand,
+    intention attacking Britstown. Local farmers Hanover and
+    Victoria West districts collecting to assist invaders. Inform
+    New Cavalry Brigade. This wire is repeated to Intelligences
+    Victoria West, Carnarvon, Fraserberg, 'Chowder'[3] Cape Town,
+    Orange River, Beaufort, and Chief Pretoria."
+
+  3. _From Brigade-Major New Cavalry Brigade, Hanover Road, to O.C.
+      N.C.B. Richmond Road._
+
+    "Hope to move out from here to-morrow. No trains available. As
+    ordered by you, proceed by road to Britstown. Saddles for Mount
+    Nelson's not yet arrived."
+
+  4. _From Ass. Director Transport De Aar to O.C. N.C.B. Richmond
+      Road._
+
+    "Impossible to equip you with more mule transport than has been
+    forwarded to you; will make up your deficiencies with ox
+    transport, which will be waiting for you at Britstown when you
+    arrive."
+
+  5. _From O.C. De Aar to O.C. N.C.B. Richmond Road_ (60871).
+
+    "Proceed with extreme caution, as local rebel commando under Van
+    der Merwe said to be collected at Nieuwjaarsfontein between you
+    and Britstown. As extra precaution you may take the company of
+    Wessex Mounted Infantry, stationed at Richmond Road, with you as
+    far as Britstown."
+
+  6. (Six hours later) "_Vide_ my 60871. Wessex M.I.
+      countermanded."
+
+    These only represent a portion of the communications which were
+    waiting for us in the telegraph-office at Richmond Road. But
+    they are a fair enough sample to illustrate the difficulties
+    with which the brigadier had to contend. The communication about
+    the rebel gathering at Nieuwjaarsfontein moved him to moralise.
+    "Alas for my advance squadron! If I believed that it were true,
+    I would move out at once with what we have got and nab those
+    rebels. But as it is I will leave it to the advance squadron,
+    and we will supply the burial-party in the morning! Look here,
+    Mr Intelligence, you have got to form an Intelligence Department
+    to-night. You had better set about it at once."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Intelligence officer walked out into the clearing in front of the
+station and surveyed the scene. It was now too dark to see his face;
+but there was that something in his attitude that betrayed the feeling
+of utter hopelessness which possessed him. It is in just such an
+attitude that the schoolmaster detects Smith Major's failure to
+prepare his Horace translation before that youth has hazarded a single
+word. The Intelligence officer had been ordered to raise an
+Intelligence Department for the brigade. Trained in the stern school
+of army discipline, he had no choice but to obey. And with this end in
+view he left the precincts of the station. Then the absolute
+impossibility of the situation dawned upon him. Not a soul was in
+sight, and even if there had been, though the powers of the press-gang
+officer were vested in him, he did not know a word of the Dutch or
+Kaffir tongues. He stood upon the fringe of the gaunt Karoo. On either
+hand stretched a waste of lone prairie--a solitude of gathering night.
+Out of its deepest shades rose masses of jet-black hill: the ragged
+outline of their crests bathed purple and grey in the last effort of
+the expiring twilight. Already the great dome of heaven had given
+birth to a few weary stars, and but for the shrinking wake of day
+still lingering in the west the great desolate pall of night had
+fallen upon the veldt--the vast, mysterious, indescribable veldt!
+
+But as treasure-trove is found when the tide is at its lowest ebb, so
+often when the wall of impossibility seems an insuperable mass of
+concrete, it is found to be the merest paper. As the Intelligence
+officer, awed by the great solitude of the sleeping veldt, stood
+musing on its fringe, a voice hailed out of the darkness--
+
+"What ho! Whose column is that?"
+
+A moment more and a mounted man cantered up, and a young Africander
+threw himself out of the saddle.
+
+"Whose column?" asked the new-comer.
+
+"The New Cavalry Brigade!"
+
+"Not Henniker's?"
+
+"No; who are you?"
+
+"I'm one of Rimington's Tigers.[4] I'm attached to Henniker's column,
+and I've been sent down here to round up a man who lives about these
+parts!"
+
+"Have you got him?"
+
+"No. Who may you be? Have you got a match?"
+
+The Intelligence officer felt in his pocket, and an inspiration came
+to him as he fumbled for the matches.
+
+"How did you see me? I never saw you, and you were against the
+sky-line."
+
+"A cigar is a big beacon, old chap!" Then the Tiger struck a light,
+and for the first time realised that he was talking to an officer.
+"Oh, I beg your pardon, I thought that you were a civilian."
+
+In the short life of the match each had taken stock of the other,--the
+one, a pleasant-faced Imperial officer, the other a hard-bitten
+Colonial. The Intelligence officer was the first to speak.
+
+"Do you speak Dutch and Kaffir?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Are you in a giant hurry to get back to Henniker's?"
+
+"I'm not wearing myself out with anxiety."
+
+"Well, look here, we shall probably meet Henniker in the course of the
+next few days. Come along with us till we strike your column. I am
+Intelligence officer of this brigade, and I want to get together some
+sort of an Intelligence gang to-night. We start at 4.30 to-morrow
+morning."
+
+"In what capacity do you want me?"
+
+"As my chief guide. Do you know this country?"
+
+"I have often been through it; but I'll soon find some one who does.
+Have you got any boys?"[5]
+
+"Not a soul. I've only just this moment arrived!"
+
+"Well, we must have boys. Where are we to go?"
+
+"To Britstown."
+
+"Then we want a white guide and at least four boys. Yes, I'll come,
+sir. What's the force?"
+
+"It's an embryo brigade; but when we get it together it will be quite
+a handsome force--three regiments and six guns!"
+
+"Any Colonials?"
+
+"Yes, the Mount Nelson Light Horse."
+
+"Never heard of them, but you now want to raise these boys. What kind
+of a man are you? Do you go straight in up to the elbows, or do you
+play about in kid gloves?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Well, will you come down to a farm over there, and back me up in
+everything that I do? We can get all we want there!"
+
+"I'll back you up in everything that is in accordance with the
+exigencies of the service."
+
+"Which means----?"
+
+"That I don't wear kid gloves----?"
+
+"Come along, then; we'll soon round up a gang!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A quarter of a mile brought the two men to the enclosure of a little
+Karoo homestead, nestling in a hollow in the veldt. The Tiger was
+leading his pony, and after he had tied it to the rail outside, they
+walked boldly up to the verandah. They were greeted by an excited dog,
+and a minute later the door was opened by a tall cadaverous-looking
+youth.
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+The Tiger answered in Dutch. The farmer had evidently seen him before,
+as he bridled angrily.
+
+"Oh, it's you, is it?" came the answer. "You have come back again.
+Well, I am sorry we have no forage for you!"
+
+"It is not forage I want. Where is your father? Here is an officer who
+must see the 'boss.'"
+
+"I tell you the 'boss' is not here. But will not the officer come in.
+Good evening, mister, come in here. I will bring a light!"
+
+The two men were shown into a sitting-room, and the youth disappeared.
+A moment later a slender girl of about seventeen whisked into the room
+with a lamp, put it on the table, and disappeared. But the light had
+shone upon her just long enough to show that she was very comely. The
+true Dutch type. Flaxen hair, straight forehead and nose, beautiful
+complexion, and faded blue eyes. The farm evidently belonged to people
+of some substance. The room, after the manner of the Dutch, was well
+furnished. Ponderously decorated with the same lack of proportion
+which is to be found in an English middle-class lodging-house.
+Harmonium and piano in opposite corners,--crude chromos and distorted
+prints upon the walls; artificial flowers, an�mic in colouring and
+glass-protected, on the shelves; unwieldy albums on the table; coarse
+crotchet drapings on the chairs; the Royal Family in startling
+pigments as an over-mantel. For the moment one might have fancied that
+it was Mrs Scroggins's best parlour in Woburn Square.
+
+After considerable whispering in the passage, the mother of the
+family, supported by two grown daughters and three children with
+wide-opened eyes, marched into the room.
+
+"Good evening," and there was a limp handshake all round.
+
+The attitude and expression of the good dame was combative. She was
+stout, slovenly, and forty. And the first impression was that she had
+once been what her pretty daughter was now at seventeen. There is
+nothing of the beauty of dignified age in the Dutch woman past her
+prime.
+
+"Where is your man?"[6] asked the Tiger.
+
+"He has gone to Richmond to sell the _scaapen_."[7]
+
+"And your sons?"
+
+"I have no sons."
+
+The Tiger threw open the photograph album on the table, and put his
+finger on a recent photo of two hairless youths in bandoliers. The
+likeness to the good lady in front of us was unmistakable.
+
+"Who are these?"
+
+"My sister's children," came the glib answer.
+
+"Good," said the Tiger, as he slipped the photograph out. "I shall
+keep this. Who is the young man who opened the door."
+
+"Bywoner."[8]
+
+"Good; then he can come along with us. How many boys have you on this
+farm?"
+
+"They have all gone with my man."
+
+"All right, I am going round to see--bring a candle. All right, don't
+make a fuss, my good lady. Don't take that lamp; the officer will stay
+here while I go out."
+
+The stout _frau_ produced a piece of paper, and laid it on the table
+with all the confidence of a poker-player displaying a Royal Flush.
+The Tiger picked it up and read:--
+
+    "This is to certify that Hans Pretorius can be implicitly
+    trusted to give all assistance to the military authorities. He
+    has furnished the required assurances.
+
+            "(Signed) L----,
+             _Resident Magistrate_."
+
+The Tiger held the slip of paper and photograph side by side for a
+moment, and then slowly lit the former in the flame of the lamp. The
+women and children stood solemnly and watched the blaze. Only the
+pretty girl showed any emotion. The faded blue of her eyes seemed to
+darken. She said something. It sounded like "hands opper."[9] How the
+Dutch hate the English Africander!
+
+The Tiger only laughed as he said, "You wait here, sir, while I go
+round the premises. Come along, Mrs Pretorius."
+
+The Intelligence officer had not been alone five minutes before the
+door opened and the pretty daughter appeared with a glass of milk on a
+tray. The look of indignation had disappeared--a smile lurked on the
+pretty features. Now the Intelligence officer was tired and thirsty--a
+glass of milk was most refreshing. Moreover, he was an Englishman--a
+pretty face was not without its charms for him.
+
+_The Daughter._ "Please, sir, the Kharki[10] is taking Stephanus with
+him. You will not let him do that. There will be no one left to look
+after the farm and to protect us from the boys."
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Who is Stephanus?"
+
+_D._ "He does not stay here; he is" (_then the blue eyes filled with
+tears_)--"he is--my sweetheart!"
+
+_I. O._ (_softening_) "But we will not hurt him; you will have him
+back in a few days."
+
+_D._ "Who can say? You are going to make him fight, and then I shall
+never see him again. Oh, please, sir, don't take him" (_and a hand--a
+fair dimpled hand--rested on the Intelligence officer's sleeve_).
+
+_I. O._ (_moving uncomfortably_) "I am afraid that I must; but no harm
+shall come to him, that I promise!"
+
+_D._ "But he doesn't know the way, and you will shoot him if he shows
+you a wrong road."
+
+_I. O._ "He will know all that we want him to know."
+
+_D._ "Where will you want him to take you? I know he doesn't know the
+way."
+
+_I. O._ "Why, he has only to go to Britstown!"
+
+_D._ (_the tears drying_) "And you promise me that you will not harm
+him?"
+
+_I. O._ "Of course I won't."
+
+_D._ "Oh, thank you." She was gone, and the Intelligence officer was
+left to his own thoughts. It had slipped out unawares. He had been
+caught: he realised that much as soon as the word had left his lips.
+He had yet much to learn.
+
+There was a noise in the verandah. The Tiger had arrived with
+Stephanus, four ponies, and three native boys.
+
+"This will do for a start, sir; we will amplify on the march!"
+
+But as the Intelligence officer handed over his department to the
+quarter-guard of the 20th Dragoon Guards for safe keeping until the
+morrow, Miss Pretorius was saddling a pony in the kraal. She had to
+find her father before daybreak. Her father with his two sons was at
+Nieuwjaarsfontein!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Richmond Road is not a township. It is only a railway-station, but it
+boasts of one _winkel_[11] adjoining the railway buildings. Here the
+O.C. of the New Cavalry Brigade had taken up his quarters for the
+night, and here the Jew proprietor had arranged food and lodging for
+the staff. Part barn, part shop, and part dwelling, this dilapidated
+hostelry is typical of its kind. You meet with them all over the South
+African veldt. You bless them when they shelter you from the wind and
+rain; curse them when, housed in a six-storeyed mansion, which boasts
+the same legend over the door--hotel--you remember to what you were at
+one time reduced by the chances of a soldier's life.
+
+The brigadier was just sitting down to the only meal that the
+slatternly wife of the Jew could produce--a steaming mess of lean
+boiled mutton--when the Intelligence officer returned from his
+adventure.
+
+"Come and sit down, Mr Intelligence; have you raised a band of robbers
+yet?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I've collected a trooper of Rimington's Guides and some
+boys."
+
+"You seem a brighter fellow than I took you for. Well, here you are;
+here is another telegram for you. We ought to come right on the top of
+the swine to-morrow."
+
+    _To Intelligence N.C.B. from Int. De Aar._
+
+    "Gathering of rebels at Nieuwjaarsfontein confirmed from two
+    sources. Repeated, &c."
+
+The Intelligence officer kept his own counsel. He felt certain that
+there would be no gathering at Nieuwjaarsfontein when the force
+arrived. But he had bought his experience, and determined to profit by
+the same in the future.
+
+"I think that we have a chance of a show this jaunt," said the
+brigadier, after somebody had produced a bottle of port. "This is
+about the best plan that K.[12] has thrown off his chest. But I am
+afraid that Plumer will spoil it. He is a holy terror when he gets on
+a trail. That is his great fault: you will never catch these fellows
+by holding on to a trail after you have been on it three days. I don't
+care how red-hot it may be. You run yourself stone-cold, only to find
+that your quarry has outlasted you. Now, after De Wet crossed the
+railway at Hautkraal, Plumer's obvious move was to Strydenburg. They
+could have pushed stuff out there to him from Hopetown. K. wants De
+Wet to go south-west into the loop of the J which our five columns
+make. Now, if Plumer, Crabbe, & Co. stick to him, he'll break back to
+the Orange River as sure as fate. But if Plumer lets him alone, and we
+are not messed about by too many general-men, we'll have him. Once De
+Wet gets south as far as Britstown he's a dead bird. But we shall be
+messed about by too many generals. See, how many have we?--Five.
+That's enough in the way of cooks to spoil any pottage. But personally
+I don't think De Wet will be the good little fly and walk into our
+pretty parlour. They don't ask me for opinions; but if I was running
+this show, I would have halted Plumer on the railway, left the J as it
+is, and collected an infernal 'push' of men north of the Orange River.
+I should have held a line from Mark's Drift to Springfontein. When I
+had got that, I would have turned our sleuth-hound Plumer loose again.
+Then all we fine fellows could have played with De Wet until he was
+sick of the Colony. We could then escort him to the Orange River, and
+the 'pushes' on the far side would have picked up the pieces. But here
+we are; may Providence guide him to us! I'm for bed. Good night!"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Commandant Judge Hertzog.
+
+[2] A special Intelligence officer was told off to watch De Wet's
+movements.
+
+[3] "Chowder" was telegraphic address of general commanding line of
+communications in Cape Colony.
+
+[4] Rimington's Guides wear a piece of leopard-skin in their hats, and
+are known as Rimington's Tigers.
+
+[5] Native boys.
+
+[6] Husband.
+
+[7] Sheep.
+
+[8] Farm working hand.
+
+[9] Traitor. Lit., Hands upper--_i.e._, surrendered man.
+
+[10] The Boers speak of all British soldiers as Kharkis.
+
+[11] Store.
+
+[12] Lord Kitchener is commonly spoken of as "K." in South Africa.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+BEE-LINE TO BRITSTOWN.
+
+
+"Not bad for a green crush."
+
+The brigadier sat down on the edge of a great slab of rock to watch
+the baggage over the nek. It was a typical South African nek. An
+execrable path winding over the saddle of a low range of tumbled
+ironstone. Just one of those ranges which force themselves with sheer
+effrontery out from the level of the plain. Loose sugar-loaf
+excrescences which stud the sea of prairie with a thousand flat-topped
+islets, and weave the monotony of landscape peculiar to this great
+continent. The rough post-cart track led down into a vast
+amphitheatre, so vast that Western Europe can furnish no parallel to
+it. Yet its counterparts are met and traversed every day by the
+countless British columns now slowly darning the gaping rent in
+Africa's robe of peace. Who, if they had not known, would have said
+that the beautiful panorama, which the morning sun now unveiled before
+us, was a theatre of war? Away at our feet stretched mile upon mile of
+rolling Karoo and blue-grey prairie. True it was punctuated and ribbed
+with stunted kopjes. But still the everlasting plain predominated,
+until it was lost in an autumn haze which no sun could master.
+Immense,--a land without a horizon, a land every characteristic of
+which inspires a sense of independence and freedom. A sensation--an
+intoxication, to be felt, not to be described. Why should men fight in
+a land such as this? Surely there is room for all! The very animals of
+the field, ignorant of the selfishness bred of a limited pasturage and
+restricted space, are docile and free of vice. But with man it is
+different.
+
+The dweller on the open plain learns freedom. The lesson of cramped
+cities is avarice--that the fittest may survive. Who shall blend the
+two? There, as we stood with our loins girt for war, did that great
+peaceful prairie unfold before us. As the morning sun grew stronger,
+the everlasting grey of the Karoo became jewelled with brighter tints.
+The middle distance of the plain was spangled with a streak of winding
+silver. A river tracing its erratic course between the kopje islets.
+At intervals along its banks the eye rested upon the patches of darker
+green. The home plantation of some farm, glimpses of whose whitewashed
+walls even now caught a glint from the strengthening sun-rays. Here
+was a stretch of yellow furrow--the finger of civilisation on a virgin
+waste. Here spots of shimmering white, where the surface of a dam
+reflected the flooding light of day. Here and there a flock of sheep
+relieved the monotony of the everlasting grey. While across our front
+a bunch of brood-mares were galloping in the ecstasy of day and
+freedom, and a bevy of quaintly pirouetting ostriches gave life to the
+wonderful picture. And presently a little fan of brown dots opened out
+on the grey below--opened out and diverged in pairs. Dots so small and
+insignificant that they looked like ants upon a carriage-drive. Out
+and out they spread, till they seemed lost and merged with the
+brood-mares and ostriches, now ceasing their wild movements and
+grouping in mild amazement at the strange invasion. And still the dots
+diverge. It is the advance-guard of our column--heralds of selfish man
+bringing horrid war into this peaceful vale. As the dots mingle with
+the ant-heaps on the plain, or are lost in the folds of the grey
+prairie, a pillar of dust rises from the centre of the fan. A larger
+mass of brown--the battery and its escort--a great kharki caterpillar
+creeping across the grey,--it is time to be moving, the last
+mule-waggon has topped the nek, and the last of the rear-guard are
+leading their horses up the post-cart road.
+
+"Not bad for a green crush!" said the brigadier as he prepared to
+follow down the hillside. "Hullo! what is that?"
+
+A spark had shown out of the misty distance. A little glitter. It
+came, trembled a second, and disappeared. Again it came, a
+many-pointed star, winking and shivering.
+
+"Some one is calling up. Here, signaller!--where is the brigade
+signaller?"
+
+A great dragoon tumbles out of his saddle and begins to arrange his
+tripod. In a few seconds his mirror has caught the sun in answer to
+the twinkling star in front.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+A silence broken only by rhythmic clicks, as the signaller catches the
+distant conversation, and his monotonous reading of the code. A stolid
+assistant takes it down. "'T' group, 'W' group, 'I' group, 'Enna,' 'E'
+group--Major Twine, sir."
+
+"Oh, the advance squadron. Well, that's satisfactory; we shall not
+have to bury them after all. What have they got to say?" and the
+brigadier sat down on his rock again as the signaller spelt out the
+message.
+
+"Am moving now on Nieuwjaarsfontein. Parties of mounted Boers on both
+flanks. Have not been molested." Here the signaller broke down.
+
+"Something has gone wrong, sir. They have gone out!"
+
+For a moment the light again twinkled in frenzied haste. "Breaking
+station--shooting!" then all was dark.
+
+"I think, sir," ventured the signaller, "that they have broken up the
+station because some one was shooting at them."
+
+"Very likely. Here, Mr Intelligence, just you get on your horse and
+gallop up to the main body. Tell Colonel Washington that I want to
+send an officer on to the advance squadron, now twenty-five miles in
+front of us: would he be so kind as to send one back to me. Don't
+waste time!"
+
+Down the steep hillside, threading through the rumbling mule-trollies,
+with their teams zigzagging in the throes of a heavy drift, and their
+groups of chattering drivers, whose black polished faces are aglow
+with negroid bonhomie. "_Aihu, Aihu. Bom-Bom. Scellum_[13] Oom Paul.
+_Scellum_ President Steyn." Then a crack from the great 12-foot
+whip-thong, sounding like a well-timed volley. At the bottom of the
+incline a small spruit. There on the bank stands Willem the Zulu. A
+dilapidated coaching-beaver on his head. A square foot of bronzed
+chest showing between the white facings of an open infantry tunic. His
+nether limbs encased in a pair of dragoon overalls, with vivid green
+patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good
+nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo
+haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team
+straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass.
+"Kruger, you _scellum_," to a refractory lead, while the great thong
+cracked like a pistol as the leather hissed between the culprit's ears
+without touching a hair on its hide.
+
+Splash through the drift. "D--n it, sir, can't you let a horse water
+in peace." And as you feel the springy Karoo beneath your animal's
+stride, you catch the lament of some officer whom you have hustled in
+the drift.
+
+That first gallop in the morning! Although we who have been out here
+for months may hate the very mention of the veldt, yet if we live to
+go home we shall live to regret that we ever left it. We may curse its
+boundless wastes--curse that endless rise which so often has lain
+between our tired bodies and the evening bivouac; but the curses will
+die over the rail of an ocean steamer and with the fading lights of
+Cape Town, while the memory of the exhilarating air, the freedom, the
+stirring adventure lurking in every dip and donga of that wind-swept,
+sun-dried, war-racked expanse of steppe, will live with us for ever.
+Who can forget those autumn mornings, when the horse, influenced by
+the same exhilaration as his rider, races across the spongy soil;
+playfully shies at a half-hidden ant-heap; with cat-like agility
+avoids the dangerous bear-earth; when all seems strong, and young, and
+full of life; when war is forgotten, until the rocket-bird falls
+slanting across your path, and its plaintive note calls back to your
+memory the whine of the Mauser bullet! Yes, it is good to be a
+soldier. The chances are heavy; but, all told, it is worth it.
+
+"Where the devil are you galloping to? Don't you know that you
+shouldn't approach mounted troops at that pace?"
+
+You feel inclined to tell the cavalry colonel, fresh from the Curragh,
+that we had left all that behind eighteen months ago. But discipline
+rules experience, and automatically the respectful hand is up to the
+helmet-peak.
+
+"The general's compliments, sir. He wishes to send an officer on at
+once with a message to Major Twine. Will you kindly detail one of
+your officers. He is to come back with me to the general at once."
+
+"Oh, you are from the general, are you? Here, Sturt," turning to his
+adjutant, "send Mr Meadows back with this officer to the general. And
+you, sir, don't you in future come galloping up like that into my
+regiment."
+
+"Very good, sir."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Now, Mr Intelligence, I don't want you here any more. You have got to
+find out something about this road. I shall expect you to know all
+about those farms by this evening. So get along with your robbers. You
+can call yourself an egg-and-milk patrol, if you like. I should like
+some eggs for breakfast. Unless we strike Burghers, I halt at the
+first convenient water after eleven--from eleven until two. Go and
+find that water, and don't get shot."
+
+Back again to the front. By throwing a circle the main body is
+avoided, and ten minutes' canter brings you to the advance-guard. To
+the brain of the advance-guard would have been perhaps a more truthful
+statement, for the subaltern commanding the leading troop is riding
+alone along the post-cart road. His men are but dots strung out on
+either flank like buoys in the Hoogly. The subaltern himself is full
+of importance, grievances, and map-study.
+
+_Subaltern._ "Why haven't you given me a guide?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "There is only one road, and that is as clear
+as a pikestaff."
+
+_Sub._ "It is the principle that I go on."
+
+_I. O._ "Well, continue to go on it. You are doing all right."
+
+_Sub._ "That is not the point. I ought to have a guide and an
+interpreter. This is not the only road in the whole bally country, I
+presume?"
+
+_I. O._ "Well, here we are. There are five of us. You only have to
+command us. That's what we are here for."
+
+The subaltern with evident disapproval took stock of the Intelligence
+officer and his following--the Tiger and three nondescript black boys.
+
+_Sub._ "Have you been here before?"
+
+_I. O._ "Never."
+
+_Sub._ "Have your boys?"
+
+_I. O._ "I cannot say. They speak no known language!"
+
+_Sub._ "Great Heavens! I call it murder to send us out like this."
+
+A dragoon sergeant galloped in from the right flank.
+
+_Sergeant_ (_in great state of excitement_). "Please, sir, mounted men
+have just crossed our front."
+
+_Sub._ "Which way?--how many were there?"
+
+_Sergeant._ "About five thousand, sir!"
+
+_Sub._ "Great C�sar's ghost! Five thousand!--did you count them,
+sergeant?"
+
+_Sergeant._ "No, sir; nobody saw them, sir: it was only their tracks.
+There are so many they are all over the place, so I think that there
+must be about four or five thousand!"
+
+_I. O._ "I'll send my men to look at them!"
+
+_Sub._ "Yes, do. I'll go too; but I will first send a note back to the
+column."
+
+_I. O._ "I wouldn't do that yet. It may only be a herd of springbok!"
+
+The subaltern did not disguise his look of scorn at this reflection.
+But John the Kaffir, with the aid of the Tiger, announced that the
+tracks in question had been made on the previous day by Major Twine's
+squadron--perhaps eighty strong. So much for circumstantial evidence.
+But this is nothing. It is not fair to judge new troops on their first
+day on the veldt. If that sergeant is alive to-day, you might stake
+such credit at the bank as you possess that he would not only give you
+the correct number to within five of the group which made the spoor,
+but would also give a fair description of the nature of the party and
+the pace at which they had travelled. Such is experience.
+
+At eleven o'clock, except that the ridge of hill had been left behind,
+it seemed that no impression had been made upon the great waste of
+Karoo in front of us. But the road led down into a pretty little glen,
+formed by the shelving banks of a tiny river. In the early days some
+wandering Voortrekker had chanced upon the fascinating spot, had
+marked down the crystal stream and fertile grazing. Here he had
+out-spanned his team, drawn fine with days of trekking, and his
+bivouac had grown into a permanent abode. Here he had lived and died,
+and no doubt his great-grandchild now owned the pretty little
+homestead where the column was to make its midday halt. All Dutch
+homesteads are the same, yet there are not two alike, which is a
+paradox in which every one who has trekked across the veldt will
+agree. There are the same kraals and cattle-runs. The home plantation
+surrounded with stone walls. The same outhouses and forage-lofts. The
+artesian well, with its fluttering windmill. The dam with dirty water,
+the little low-roofed dumpy dwelling, washed white, half-swing doors,
+low stoep, and trellis front. It is in their topographical
+surroundings only that they differ. The one will stand bleak and
+exposed upon a dreary plain, the other will nestle coyly behind a
+grove of pointed gum-trees in some kloof or gully. Chance and nature
+alone decide if in structure and setting they please the eye. Man is
+indifferent. A house is to shield him from the elements, not to
+improve the landscape or impress the passer-by.
+
+Although the Intelligence officer knew little about the science of his
+new office, yet he had common-sense, which is a soldier's most
+valuable attribute, and he knew better after eighteen months of war
+than to ride haphazard into a farm-house, even though the farm-house
+was in Cape Colony. He borrowed two men from the advance-guard, and,
+with the aid of the Tiger and his boys, reconnoitred the environs
+before he sent back to the general to tell him that he had found an
+ideal spot for the midday halt. Then as the advance-guard occupied the
+nearest eminences, he handed his horse over to one of the boys and
+walked up to the stoep of the farm-house. The farmer and his _frau_
+stood on the verandah to welcome him, and, as is their wont, their
+family of girls of all ages crowded in the open door behind their
+parents to gain a view of the Kharkis. Just as the inevitable
+hand-shake had taken place, up cantered the Tiger.
+
+"Here we are, sir. These are the kind of people we have to deal with,"
+and he produced two gaudily framed pictures--President Kruger and
+President Steyn. "Our worthy host made a miscalculation this morning,
+for I found a Kaffir girl hiding these in the bushes."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Don't you see, sir, yesterday morning a commando was here. Then our
+loyal friend had these two pictures hanging up in his parlour. Last
+evening the squadron of 20th Dragoons passed through. Uncle here saw
+them coming, so he hid away Oom Paul and Steyn and put the Queen and
+the Prince of Wales on the wall. After the squadron had gone he
+expected his commando back again, so up go the Presidents. We came
+along first, so there had to be another transformation-scene, which I
+have partially disturbed. I'll bet my bottom dollar that their Royal
+Highnesses are now adorning the parlour." (Sinking his voice.) "It's a
+very fair weather-cock, sir; we are not a hundred miles from a pretty
+strong commando. It must be under some influential leader, or we
+shouldn't have this little burlesque."
+
+The farmer smiled benignly and pressed his hospitality upon the
+troops. Nor had the Tiger been mistaken. There, sure enough, upon the
+walls of the sitting-room reposed coloured portraits of the late Queen
+and King Edward, while, as the Intelligence officer stepped into the
+room, a strapping daughter sat down to the piano and played the first
+bars of the National Anthem. Poor subterfuge, since the damsel had
+overlooked the Free State favour pinned upon her breast!
+
+"Eggs--butter? Yes, they had both; they would only be too glad--would
+not the general take food with them?"
+
+_Click-clock! Click-clock!_[14]
+
+The main body had just come in, the gunners were watering their
+horses, the Dragoons taking out their bits. The gunners knew what it
+meant, and the little major, who for some reason had undone his
+gaiter, shouted, without changing his attitude, the only necessary
+order, "Hook in!" To the Dragoons the muffled reports meant nothing.
+For all they knew or cared at the moment that hollow echoing rhythm
+might have been a housewife beating carpets. But the General, the
+Intelligence officer, and the Tiger knew.
+
+_Click-clock, click-clock!_
+
+Here came the news. A heavy dragoon, sweating from every pore, his
+face portraying the satisfaction of a man first shot over, came
+galloping in. He handed to the general a slip of paper from the
+subaltern in command of the advance-guard:--
+
+"11.55. Enemy firing on my left flanking patrol--about fifty mounted
+men advancing towards me. I am on a rise 500 yards to the south-west
+of the farmhouse."
+
+"That is a good boy," said the brigadier musingly, as he swung round
+on his heel and took in the topography of our position at a glance. "A
+very clear report. Here! you tell the officer commanding the pom-pom
+to take his gun up on to that rise. And you" (turning to another of
+his staff), "tell Colonel Washington to send a squadron with the
+pom-pom! Wait, don't be in a hurry; hear me out, please. Tell him that
+the squadron is to extend, take the rise at a gallop--dismount just
+before it reaches the top. Now you may go."
+
+Then turning to the chief of the staff, "Have you got a match? Thanks.
+Now, tell Freddy[15] to send two of his guns on to that rise south of
+the dam. Send a troop with him. I will be here with the rest to await
+developments!"
+
+"Order given, sir!" and the Intelligence officer touched his cap.
+
+"Good. Now you go with the pom-pom. I shall be here; let me know
+developments. Get along. Don't argue!"
+
+Already the pom-pom is trotting out of the farmhouse enclosure and the
+squadron of Dragoons extending on the plain beyond. The faces of the
+gunners are as impassive as if they were about to gallop past at a
+review. They have been doing this sort of thing for months; it has no
+novelty for them. But with the Dragoons it is different. This is their
+first engagement; you can see it in the countenances of the men
+nearest you. The excitement which whitens men's cheeks and makes every
+action angular and awkward.
+
+"Second Squadron 20th Dragoon Guards--Gallop!"
+
+"Pom-pom--Gallop!" comes the echo.
+
+The Boers must be close up, for the advance-guard is falling back.
+They are coming back for all they are worth. It will be a race between
+us and the enemy for the possession of the ridge; please Providence
+that we may be there first, for of a truth he who loses will pay the
+stake. The officers realise this, and sitting down to their work they
+make the pace. The wild line careering behind them suits itself to
+their lead; instinctively in its excitement and inexperience it closes
+inwards. Only 200 yards more. The sky-line is clear and defined. No
+heads have appeared as yet. One hundred yards! Now we are under the
+rise, the horses feel the hill--a few seconds and we shall know who
+has won the race. "Steady, men, steady!" Up goes the squadron leader's
+arm. "Halt! Dismount!" A chaotic second as the frenzied line reins in.
+"'Number Threes.' Where are the 'Number Threes'?"--"Way for the
+pom-pom." The straining team crashes through the line. The dismounted
+troopers follow their officers up the slope. A moment of suspense--and
+a long-drawn breath. We are first. There are the Boers dismounting a
+hundred yards away. "Action front, the pom-pom." "Down men,
+down!"--come the hoarse orders, and a ripple of fire crackles along
+the summit of the rise. "Let them have the whole belt."
+_Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom!_ The little gun reels and quivers as it
+belches forth its stream of spiteful bombs. For a moment the Boers
+return the fire. Then they rush for their horses, and in as many
+seconds as it takes to light a cigarette are galloping _ventre �
+terre_ across the plain in an ever-extending fan. The merciless lead
+pursues them. The Dragoons spring to their feet to facilitate rapidity
+of fire, while the pom-pom churns the dry dust of the veldt into
+little whirlwinds among the flying horsemen. Five hundred yards away
+stands a kopje. In three minutes the last of the Boers have placed it
+between them and the British fire--except for the three or four that
+lie motionless upon the plain.
+
+"Now we shall have it!" and the pom-pom captain turns to the squadron
+commander. "I advise you to make your men lie down again. I'm going to
+man-handle my gun down the slope."
+
+"_Click-clock, click-clock, click-clock!_" go the Mausers. The Boers
+are on the top of the kopje. It is to be their turn now. No; there is
+a roar behind the farm, then another, and another. Then three little
+white cloud-balls open out on the lip of the kopje.
+
+"Good little Freddy!" soliloquises the pom-pom captain as he snaps his
+glasses into their case. "He was watching them. I must get my beauty
+to the end of this rise, to catch them as they leave."--"Pom-pom,
+limber up!"
+
+_Boom-boom-boom._ Three more little puffs of white over the kopje.
+_Click-clock_ once, and the brush was over. What was it worth? Four
+mangled rebels on the veldt, and one stalwart dragoon, with white
+drawn face and sightless eyes turned to the beautiful blue of heaven!
+
+The brigadier cantered up to the rise. A section of Horse Artillery
+rumbled up after him. "Look here," he said to the squadron leader,
+"you must get your men on to that kopje: they are not worth
+pursuing--there are not more than twenty of them. If I were you I
+should open out, divide and gallop round both flanks of the kopje;
+it's open veldt beyond, and we'll look after you from this ridge. You
+won't see any more of them than their tails. Don't pursue beyond 3000
+yards. My orders are to go to Britstown, not to wear my horses out
+over scallywag snipers!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We must push on and get touch with our loose squadron to-night," said
+the brigadier, as he and his staff made a hasty midday meal off tinned
+sausages and eggs cooked by the terrified women of the farmhouse. "I
+wonder what has happened to that poor little subaltern boy that I sent
+on this morning. Ah! here's Mr Intelligence direct from the
+bloodstained field; now we shall know the damage!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "Any Boer wounded?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Yes, sir; two, and two killed."
+
+_B._ "Are the wounded talkative?"
+
+_I. O._ "One is too far gone, sir; the other is quite communicative."
+
+_B._ "Well, what has he got to say?"
+
+_I. O._ "He lies about himself. Swears that he is a Free Stater; but
+as a matter of fact his name is Pretorius, and he is a son of the
+farmer from whose wife we got our guides last night. By the merest
+chance we took a photograph of the farmer's two sons out of an album
+we found at the farm. And here is one of them wounded to-day. From
+his account it appears that a man called Lotter is here with a
+commando, and that he and his have just brought off rather a bad
+thing. Lotter's commando only joined the rebels returning from
+Nieuwjaarsfontein about an hour ago. The rebels knew that our advance
+squadron was at this farm last night, and when they saw us here, they
+mistook us for Major Twine, and knowing his strength attacked in good
+heart."
+
+_B._ "I thought it was something of that kind. Well, we need not eat
+our hearts out about Twine. Those swine won't be taking any more
+to-day, especially now that they have reason to believe that we are
+about. But we won't waste time; we'll go on in half an hour. Send word
+round, and then come and have some food!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the shadows began to grow long across the level of stunted Karoo we
+had placed another ten miles behind us on the road to Britstown. Never
+a further sign did we see that day of our enemy. But this is typical
+of this free fighting on the open veldt. Your enemy comes upon you
+like a dust-devil--he appears, strikes, wins or loses, and then
+disappears again as suddenly as he came. You fight your little battle,
+bury your dead, shake yourselves, and forget all about the incident.
+This, it may be assumed, for the last year has been the nature of the
+life which all mounted men have led out here.
+
+Just before the sun set, enshrouded in a curtain of rising mist, we
+reached a great ridge of table-land. A particularly wild and forsaken
+tract of country.
+
+"We shall have to halt at the first water," said the brigadier. "What
+an unholy place to camp in! Well, if there are no Boers it doesn't
+matter. It's lucky that we had a turn-up against those fellows to-day.
+They will hardly stomach a night-attack with the echo of a pom-pom
+chorus still ringing in their ears. Is that a flag?"
+
+The advance-guard were beginning to show like stunted tree-trunks upon
+the sky-line on our front. Yes; it was a flag. There was work for the
+lumbering dragoon signaller again. Slowly he spelt out the message:
+"No enemy have been seen. Ridge is clear. Right flanking patrol had
+touch with rear troop of Major Twine's squadron, now moving on
+Nieuwjaarsfontein. Lieutenant Meadows, rejoined, reports Major Twine's
+squadron seen several bodies of enemy; his squadron has been sniped,
+but not seriously engaged. Country very open on far side of ridge.
+Good camping-ground and water at foot of ridge."
+
+"Good business!" said the brigadier, turning to his chief of staff.
+"Will you canter up and mark out a camp? It's a great relief to find
+that that advance squadron hasn't been scuppered."
+
+A more dismal camping-ground could not have been found. The fair veldt
+seemed to have vanished. Instead of a sprinkling of farms, there was
+only one human habitation within sight--a miserable edifice of mud and
+unbaked bricks belonging to a Boer shepherd of the lowest type. The
+dam was a natural depression formed by what appeared to have been the
+crater of some long-extinct volcano. The country surrounding it was of
+the roughest, and to make the situation more depressing, with sundown
+great banks of cloud had gathered in the west. The brigadier might
+well be anxious for his small force of raw troops in such a fastness,
+and it is easy to appreciate the feeling which prompted him to
+personally post the night pickets. But raw troops, raw transport, all
+will settle down in time, and an hour after sundown the men were
+having their food.
+
+Before the main body moved into camp the Tiger had made a discovery.
+He had found a wounded Boer in the shepherd's shanty. A stalwart young
+Dutchman, with his right hand horribly shattered by a pom-pom shell.
+The youth was in great pain, and, as the Boer so often has proved, was
+very communicative under his hurt. He was a Free Stater from
+Philippolis, and belonged to Judge Hertzog's commando. He was one of
+fifteen scouts sent by Hertzog, under a commandant called Lotter, to
+pick up the Richmond rebels and take them down to Graaf Reinet, where
+De Wet's invaders had orders to concentrate, before undertaking the
+more desperate venture of the invasion. He indorsed the other wounded
+man's version of the attack they had made upon us in the morning, and
+he also volunteered the information that Brand, Hertzog, and
+Pretorius were due to attack Britstown--our destination--this very
+evening. This information so far interested the brigadier that he
+ordered an officer's patrol from the 20th Dragoon Guards to leave camp
+at 3 A.M. and ride right through to Britstown without a halt, so as to
+arrive there by nine or ten in the morning. It was important to know
+if Britstown had been attacked, since until the concentration took
+place on the morrow the garrison there was weak: it was also important
+that the general officer commanding the combined movement should know
+of the deflection from Hertzog's commando which we had encountered.
+Lieutenant Meadows, having proved so successful in avoiding the enemy
+in the morning, was again entrusted with the mission, and he was given
+Stephanus as his guide.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The gathering clouds did not prove simply a seasonable warning. A
+great icy blast swept up the valley, driving a broad belt of stinging
+dust before it, and the bivouac was smitten through and through by a
+South African dust-storm. Five minutes of fierce gale, with lightning
+that momentarily dispelled the night, then a pause--the herald of
+coming rain. A few great ice-cold drops smote like hail on the
+tarpaulin shelter that served headquarters for a mess-tent. Then
+followed five minutes of a deluge such as you in England cannot
+conceive. A deluge against which the stoutest oil-skin is as
+blotting-paper. A rain which seems also to entice fountains from the
+earth beneath you. In ten minutes all is over. The stars are again
+demurely winking above you, and all that you know of the storm is that
+you see the vast diminishing cloud, revealed in the west by the fading
+lightning-flashes, and that you have not a dry possession either in
+your kit or on your person.
+
+"Not much fear of sleeping sentries to-night," said the chief of the
+staff as we cowered round a fire under the waggon-sail.
+
+"No; and it is just as well: it is on these sleepless nights that
+'brother'[16] is fond of showing himself," answered the brigadier. "I
+don't like all these Free Staters about. They may be able to stir up
+the new crop of rebels into doing something desperate. Raw guerillas,
+with a leaven of hard-bitten cases, are always a source of danger. But
+I think that we worked our own salvation in the skirmish this morning.
+They would hardly believe that we should have such a small force with
+so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us
+instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th.
+They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day in
+splendid style. The Boer cannot stand galloping. I may be a
+crank--they believe that I am one at Pretoria--but I am convinced that
+I have discovered the true Mounted Infantry formation for the sort of
+fighting that we are now experiencing out here. If you find your enemy
+in any position that you can gallop over, without riding your horse to
+a standstill, go for him in extended order. You will get more results
+from an enterprise of this kind than from a week of artillery and
+dismounted attack. I hear that D. claims to have originated this
+formation. Why, I was practising it with my fellows in Natal before
+D. was born, or rather when he was an infant in the knowledge of war.
+I am as convinced that I am right as I am that the rifle is the
+cavalry-man's arm. It is not for shock tactics that you require to
+mount men nowadays: the use of a horse is to get into the best
+fire-position in the shortest possible time. The battles of the future
+will be decided by rifles and machine-guns, not by lance and sabre.
+There's heresy for you; but it's my honest conviction!"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[13] Scoundrel.
+
+[14] The double report made by a small-bore rifle.
+
+[15] The major commanding the battery R.H.A.
+
+[16] _I.e._, Brother Boer.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+THE FIRST CHECK.
+
+
+The first lesson brought home to the Englishman in South Africa is,
+that he must not judge the country by any European standard, for as
+long as he continues so to do he will find himself at sea. To show
+surprise is to declare ignorance--and the British and Dutch South
+Africans, after the manner of all superlatively ignorant races, have
+the profoundest contempt for those in whom they themselves can discern
+ignorance. Thus when the kindly eminence of a hill gives you a
+ten-mile view of some tiny townlet--a view conveying no inkling of the
+importance of the centre which you are about to approach--it is well
+to be silent. For the Colonial is surely more imaginative than the
+phlegmatic Englishman--and the sorry collection of tin shanties and
+flimsy villas, which at so great a distance appear to you of little
+more significance than a farm with straggling outhouses--represent to
+his mind a town, and he will resent a less appreciative rating of
+them. This may appear unreasonable: it is, but it is none the less
+true; and in a great measure the variance of focus between the English
+and the Colonial mind has been responsible for the girth-galling which
+at the beginning of the war marked our efforts in harness with our
+colonial _confr�res_. We have heard all the defects of the British
+officer, because the Colonial thinks quickly and lightly, and wastes
+no time in giving expression to his thoughts; we have not heard so
+much of the defects of the Colonial, because the British officer,
+while focussing his opinions less rapidly, though more seriously than
+the majority of Colonials, reserves his criticisms. But they are an
+easy people to manage if you can preserve your silence without
+offending their vanity. They admire in the Englishman the qualities
+which they themselves have not yet fully developed; but it cuts them
+to the quick if the evidence of superiority is thrust upon them. Thus,
+when the officer commanding the advance-guard, looking down the great
+straight road leading into Britstown,--a track which would have done
+credit to the Roman Road at Baynards,--commented unkindly upon the
+township, the Tiger was hurt, and thought unpleasant things about
+British cavalry subalterns in general, and the officer in command of
+the advance-guard in particular. But then Britstown had been a town to
+the Tiger ever since he could remember. Until he had arrived at man's
+estate and visited Kimberley and Cape Town, Britstown had been the
+town of his imagination and Beaufort West his metropolis. To the
+officer commanding the advance-guard, Britstown and Beaufort West, if
+rolled into one, would hardly have earned the dignified classification
+of a village. The mental focus of the two men was at variance, and the
+Tiger felt that the subaltern possessed the stronger lens. Yet man for
+man, on horse or foot, clothed or naked, to the outward eye he was not
+a better man. It is here that the feeling lies.
+
+The brigadier halted the advance-guard upon the rise. He wanted to
+know something about Britstown. The ugly rumour of Brand's intention
+to storm and sack it was still with us. As yet there had been no news
+of Lieutenant Meadows and his patrol. Three hundred yards to the right
+front was a tiny farm. A solitary upstart on the bare veldt. An
+architectural nightmare in red brick. Already a patrol from the
+advance screen of dragoons was edging towards it, lured by that
+magnetism irresistible to every British soldier. A magnetism prompted
+from beneath the belt, and which no military precaution, or
+experience, or solicitude for personal safety will eradicate from the
+canteen-bred soldier. If our scouts had been as farm-shy as so many of
+them have proved gun-shy, it would have made an appreciable difference
+in the casualty lists of the campaign. The brigadier looked upon the
+farm. It cannot be said that he found it fair, within the artistic
+meaning of the phrase. But there was a pan,[17] which meant water for
+the horses, and doubtless there was a hen-house and a buttery.
+
+"Mr Intelligence, we will have breakfast at that farm. Let the
+advance-guard move on another half-mile, then Freddy will be able to
+water his horses in comfort. Here, who is commanding the
+advance-guard? Have you told your men to rally on that farm?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Then you had better look after them."
+
+Away the youth went at a gallop, and it was about time, as the right
+flank had evidently divined success in the attitude of the first
+patrol, which had stopped at the farm, and the ungainly red edifice
+was exercising its magnetic effect upon the whole advance-guard. When
+the officer commanding the advance-guard arrived, dragoon No. 1
+already had his head buried in a bucketful of milk, while dragoon No.
+2 was indiscriminately stuffing as many eggs and pats of butter into a
+square of red handkerchief as the said square would contain.
+
+The brigadier moved up to the homestead, and threw his reins to his
+orderly. The family paraded on the stoep, as all Dutch families do on
+similar occasions. And, as is the custom of the country, the brigadier
+shook hands with them all with great dignity. But he had no eyes for
+Oom Jan of the massive head and bushy beard, no eyes for the stout
+madam his _frau_, nor for his six solid and lumpy daughters, for he
+was busy breaking the tenth commandment. In front of the house, on the
+beaten clay clearing, stood a truly magnificent carriage--a
+four-wheeled family spring-cart, rich in upholstered cover,
+electroplated bits, and cut-glass finishings. The brigadier examined
+it carefully, and then sent his orderly to fetch the commandeering
+officer. In this case it was the supply officer, a quick-witted boy,
+who at the moment believed that he was a subaltern, but who really was
+the youngest brevet-major in the British army.[18]
+
+_Brigadier._ "Look here, Mr Supply; I want you to value this
+_sham-a-dan_."[19]
+
+_Supply Officer._ "Very good, sir; it looks a good cart."
+
+_B._ "Do you know your Shakespeare?"
+
+_S. O._ "No, sir. I was a militiaman; but I'm becoming educated in the
+matter of South African carts, and I have found that even with fair
+usage and good drifts paint will sometimes come off."
+
+_B._ "Quite so; you have made my point, in spite of your modesty with
+regard to your upbringing. What is the full limit at which you may
+requisition a spring cart?"
+
+_S. O._ "Forty pounds, sir."
+
+_B._ "What would you think is the value of this one?"
+
+_S. O._ "Thirty-nine pounds ten shillings, sir!"
+
+_B._ "I think that you are right to within a few pence. Make out a
+receipt for it, and then come and have breakfast. Here, Mr
+Intelligence, tell my servant to put the ponies into this cart. Now I
+call that a suitable conveyance for a general officer. I have never
+had a decent cart since I've commanded a column. In fact, I have
+almost been ashamed to sign myself as O.C. of a brigade, when my sole
+possession has been a broken-down Cape cart with only one spring.
+Self-respect is half the battle in the success of life. With a cart
+like that I shall be able to insult with a light heart every column
+commander with whom I am told to co-operate. Look here, Mr
+Intelligence; I am going to be a real live brigadier in future. Just
+you get me the regalia in Britstown--a pink flag and red lantern. I
+don't see why--but what do you want----?"
+
+A howl had set up in chorus from the family on the verandah of the
+farm, and old Oom Jan came sidling up to the brigadier hat in hand.
+
+_Oom Jan._ "But the commandant won't take my cart?"
+
+_Brigadier._ "Dear me! no--no commandant will take your cart."
+
+_O. J._ "But see, they are putting the horses in!"
+
+_B._ "You will get a receipt."
+
+_O. J._ "For how much?"
+
+_B._ "Forty pounds."
+
+_O. J._ "No, no. Only last year I gave �120 for it."
+
+_B._ "I would gladly give �120; but I am not allowed. Besides, you are
+getting full value, and I will leave you my old cart."
+
+How much longer the altercation might have lasted would have depended
+on the duration of the general's good-humour, had not another issue of
+more moment prejudiced Oom Jan's case. A dragoon had cantered up from
+the rear-guard, with the two little square inches of paper torn from a
+notebook which mean so much in war.
+
+"A party of about six mounted men are hanging on my rear. If they
+approach any closer I shall fire upon them. They seem very persistent,
+and do not mind exposing themselves."
+
+As the brigadier handed the note to the chief of the staff, the
+threatened firing broke out in the rear. Breakfast was declared ready
+at the same moment. The brigadier listened. Two more shots were fired,
+and then silence.
+
+"That," said the brigadier, "is a very one-sided battle. It can wait
+until we have had our food. I am not going to allow six men to play
+'Old Harry' with my digestion."
+
+As the meal progressed, in came another fleet orderly.
+
+"Regret to say that party reported on my rear was Lieutenant Meadows,
+who should have been in Britstown this morning. He lost his way in the
+night. I am sending him in to you to explain. I regret that we have
+shot one of his horses."
+
+_Brigadier._ "I thought it was a one-sided battle. I don't know which
+is the bigger fool, the officer commanding the rear-guard or the youth
+who has lost his way in the dark. Did you give him a guide, Mr
+Intelligence?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Yes, sir; I gave him the tame burgher
+Stephanus whom we roped in at Richmond Road."
+
+_B._ "Those crimped men are no good. He slipped them in the dark, I
+bet. Hullo! here is the boy. His peace of mind, I fancy, wouldn't be
+worth much at a public auction."
+
+A smart-looking, though travel-stained, little dragoon subaltern
+cantered up, dismounted, and saluted. The brigadier was right; he did
+not look particularly happy. There was a moment of silence while the
+brigadier took a spoonful of marmalade, then he turned to the boy.
+
+"Well, my pocket Ulysses, what is the extent of your adventure?"
+
+_Meadows._ "Got lost, sir!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "And your guide?"
+
+_M._ "Had to leave him behind, sir!"
+
+_B._ "Which means he left you!"
+
+_M._ "He tried to, sir; but he didn't get far!"
+
+_B._ "What happened?"
+
+_M._ "First he took us wrong--took us back along the road we had come
+by. Then when I talked to him he tried to bolt, and I had to shoot
+him!"
+
+_B._ (_suddenly becoming interested_) "The devil you did! Have you had
+anything to eat? Sit down and have some food. Did you kill him?"
+
+_M._ "No, sir; I left him with that other wounded Boer in the mud hut
+near the last camp. But he is very sick. We did what we could for
+him."
+
+_B._ "Evidently! Are you sure that he was leading you wrongly?"
+
+_M._ "Yes, sir. He was taking us back along the road by which we had
+come from Richmond Road. We stumbled upon one of my own men's
+water-bottles which he had dropped earlier in the day. As soon as the
+guide saw what it was, he tried to do a bolt."
+
+_B._ "Circumstantial evidence, I think; verdict and sentence in one.
+Well, you at least have the satisfaction of knowing that you have
+brought your man down. But next time don't hit a refractory guide so
+hard. I have an idea that if you shot less straight you might have
+been able to carry out your orders even with a refractory guide. Where
+are the telegrams? Hand them over to your colonel, and tell him to
+send another officer on with them at once. No; give them to me. Here,
+Mr Intelligence, off you go. Just get into Britstown as quickly as you
+can. As we haven't seen any smoke curling up over the landscape, I
+take it that Brand and Co. have postponed their good offices. But if
+anything is wrong, mind you manage to get one of your party back to me
+with the information."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Intelligence officer and the Tiger had not left the column a mile
+behind them when they met a Cape cart coming along the dusty road from
+Britstown. It was driven by a youth of some eighteen summers, who
+stopped his pair of mules with the greatest unconcern to the signal
+from the Tiger.
+
+_Tiger._ "Good morning. What is your name?"
+
+_Driver._ "Good morning. Naude."
+
+_T._ "Where have you come from?"
+
+_D._ "Britstown!"
+
+_T._ (_who was now close up to the cart and busy in examination of
+it_) "What have you been doing in Britstown, and how long have you
+been there?"
+
+_D._ "I have been there about ten days: my wife has been confined
+there!"
+
+_T._ "So you have taken her out for a drive to-day?"
+
+_D._ "No. How could I?"
+
+_T._ "Then you have been driving another lady?"
+
+_D._ "No."
+
+_T._ "What have you got those two cushions on the seat for? What's the
+good of lying? Where are you going now?"
+
+_D._ "Back to my home!"
+
+_T._ "Where is that?"
+
+_D._ "Drieputs, two hours[20] on."
+
+_T._ (_decidedly_) "Now, look here; it is no use lying any more. I
+will tell you what you have been doing and who you are. You are the
+son of old Pretorius of Richmond Road. Yesterday you were on commando
+with Lotter; your brother was shot and taken by us. I don't know where
+you slept last night; but this I do know, that yesterday you drove a
+wounded man into Britstown, and probably a lady as well. The lady came
+from Nieuwjaarsfontein. For you see those cushions you have on your
+front seat came out of the Nieuwjaarsfontein _sitkomer_.[21] I have
+got a similar one, which I took myself from the farm. So don't lie any
+more. Tell me who is in Britstown?"
+
+_D._ (_who had lost his air of stolid indifference, and was beginning
+to move uncomfortably_) "Britstown is full of Kharkis; they are coming
+in now fast."
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Is this road clear into the _dorp_?"[22]
+
+_D._ (_with polite sarcasm_) "You may ride along this road in perfect
+safety."
+
+_T._ (_cheerily_) "That is more than you can, my friend. (_Turning to
+Intelligence Officer._) This man has evidently, sir, carried
+information to Brand's people and a wounded man into Britstown; see
+the blood on the back of the seat. I should keep him a prisoner,
+sir--send him back to the column with a man. Besides, if I am to stay
+with you, sir, I should like his cart and mules. They are good mules,
+you see. They have been into the town and back, and have scarcely
+turned a hair!"...
+
+There was no doubt as to the occupation of Britstown when the
+Intelligence officer and his escort crossed the vlei, which is the
+principal outlying feature of that typical little South African
+township. The De Aar road was one block of moving transport, and the
+usually quiet main street of the village was alive with troops. Of a
+truth a concentration was taking place, and the Dutch were not amiss
+in their simile when they likened a British concentration to a flight
+of locusts.
+
+Very few of you will have ever heard of Britstown. Yet, like so many
+other obscure South African townships, this war has brought it a
+history. Nor is the historical record which has been built up for it
+of extraordinary merit. There will be many in the ranks of a certain
+favoured corps who will scarcely treasure the memory of that little
+wayside asylum. We remember when the papers were full of the exploits
+and valour of this returning corps--then Britstown found no mention.
+Yet its associations, pleasant though they may not be, are closely
+interwoven with its short-lived history. The story is told to-day over
+the hotel-bars of the little township by gleeful Colonials. Told how
+in open fight, a handful of rebel farmers--perhaps our friends the
+brothers Pretorius and Stephanus were amongst them--drove two
+companies of England's _�lite_ every mile of the twenty-two which lie
+between Houwater and Britstown. The Colonial, clinking his
+glass,--shallow in his taste and appreciation,--glories in the story,
+which is writ large in rebel little Britstown to this day, and will be
+for all time.
+
+A militia picket is astride the road. None--at least by the main
+highway--may pass into the confines of the town without permission.
+The stolid country lout of a sentry views all new-comers with
+suspicion. But the deadlock is saved by the arrival of a dapper,
+chubby-faced youth, clean of person, well groomed in habiliments and
+gear.
+
+"I am the staff officer of the town commandant. What can I do for
+you?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "What I want is the telegraph-office."
+
+_Staff Officer._ "Certainly, sir; but what do you belong to? Are you
+with the main column?"
+
+_I. O._ "Dear me, no. I have just come in from the New Cavalry
+Brigade!"
+
+_S. O._ "Yes; we are expecting you. You are to camp on the south side
+of the town. Just under the parapet of those defences. Those are our
+southern defences. What do you think? Brand had the impertinence to
+send in last night and demand our immediate surrender. That we,
+Britstown, should surrender----!"
+
+_I. O._ (_brutally_) "And did you? Look here; you will have to wait
+until the general comes in for your camping arrangements. All I want
+is the telegraph-office."
+
+_S. O._ "Of course we did not surrender. Why, we have made this place
+impregnable. There are three companies of my regiment here, to say
+nothing of the local town-guard."
+
+_I. O._ "Oh, hang the town-guard! You trot along and find the chief of
+our staff. I have other things to think about. By the way, has the
+rest of the New Cavalry Brigade come in here? The Mount Nelson Light
+Horse--they are marching from Hanover Road?"
+
+_S. O._ "No; but there is some ox-transport for you with the Supply
+column. How far back is your general?"
+
+_I. O._ "About three miles. Thanks." (_Intelligence Officer and the
+Tiger canter on._)
+
+_Tiger._ "Please, sir, did he say that the De Aar column was in?"
+
+_I. O._ "Yes. Why?"
+
+_T._ "Only the bulk of Rimington's--that is, Damant's--Guides are with
+it, and I should like to go and see them as soon as I have shown you
+the telegraph-office. I will also try and find out what young
+Pretorius was doing in here last night."
+
+In five minutes a "clear-the-line" message was on its way to "Chief,
+Pretoria," to tell him that the concentration ordered two days ago had
+taken place. To us, following the fortunes of one small unit in the
+great move, it will appear that in our forty-eight hours' association
+with the New Cavalry Brigade everything has proceeded as could have
+been desired by the master-mind. But it was not so. Almost before the
+last of the horses had been detrained at Richmond Road, the whole
+nature of, and necessity for, the movement had changed. In short,
+everything had turned out as the brigadier had anticipated. Plumer,
+with the tenacity for which he is famous, had clung to the rear-guard
+of De Wet's column, snatching a waggon here and a tumbril there, until
+he himself could move no farther. De Wet had outlasted him, and had,
+moreover, seen that it would be useless to carry out his original
+programme. So he doubled and doubled again, with the result that the
+cleverly devised scheme of relays of driving columns was out of joint,
+and a dozen units were uselessly spread out over the veldt a hundred
+miles from the place in which the invader was catching his breath,
+within jeering distance of the column which had ran itself stone-cold
+in his pursuit. So within forty-eight hours of the start the whole
+plan had to be reconstructed. This reconstruction was explained to
+the New Cavalry Brigade through the medium of one hundred and four
+telegrams which were awaiting its arrival at Britstown. As the
+majority conveyed contradictory instructions, the piecing together of
+the real meaning partook of the nature of one of those drawing-room
+after-dinner games with which yawning guests at winter house-parties
+are beguiled. The first cover that was opened deprived the brigadier
+of his chief of the staff. That officer was ordered to proceed without
+delay to take up the command of a mobile column to be formed at
+Volksrust, the other end of the world--that is, the world with which
+we are at present concerned.
+
+"Don't open any more till we have fed," said the brigadier. "A man
+with an empty stomach has no mind. We will have a fat high tea at the
+local Carlton, and then devise strategy."
+
+A general in the field is a great man. But a general in a town at
+which half-a-dozen Colonial Corps have concentrated is of no account.
+In the street men pass him by without recognition, and in hotels
+private swashbucklers in smasher hats literally hustle him.
+
+"This table is reserved for the commandant," said the ample hostess of
+the Britstown Carlton.
+
+"Who is the commandant?" queried the brigadier.
+
+"Major Jones," came the answer.
+
+"Well, I'm----! this beats cock-fighting. This is the result of
+martial law and the control of the liquor licence!--a well-fed major
+reserves seats, while a hungry general stands!" and the general and
+staff of the New Cavalry Brigade occupied the reserved table, and
+became guests of the hotel in common with thirty dishevelled troopers,
+who had passed into the hotel, representing themselves to the dazed
+militia sentry at the door as officers. The food may not have been of
+the best, but it was in abundance; and in a quarter of an hour the
+brigadier was prepared to study his instructions.
+
+_B._ "Now, Mr Intelligence, since they see fit to remove my chief of
+the staff, you have got to be maid-of-all-work. You and I have got to
+run this brigade until the brigade-major turns up. He must be a bit
+of a 'slow-bird,' I think, or he would have been here with the rest of
+my hoplites by this. Do you know anything about staff work?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Nothing, sir!"
+
+_B._ "So much the better; you will then have a mind ripe for tuition.
+Now I will give you a lesson. You have two pockets in your tunic. The
+right pocket will be the receptacle for 'business' telegrams, the left
+for 'bunkum.' Now for the telegrams!"
+
+It would be beyond the scope of this sketch to give the contents of
+the one hundred and four telegrams which had accumulated in
+forty-eight hours. It will suffice to state that ninety-seven were
+relegated to the "bunkum" pocket, and seven retained as conveying
+intelligent orders worthy of consideration. It is superfluous to
+mention that the whole of the messages sent by the local intelligence
+departments and by the De Wet expert were dismissed as "bunkum," often
+without perusal. As the brigadier pertinently remarked: "I suppose
+that the poor fellows have to justify their existence as members of
+the great brain-system of the army. The only means by which they come
+into prominence is by squandering the public money, and they only hurt
+those who take their information seriously. They do you no harm if you
+consistently ignore their existence, and don't worry to read their
+messages."
+
+The sum-total of the messages of instruction which the brigadier had
+so quaintly filed as "business-material" was information from the
+Chief, Pretoria, that the plan of the operations was changed. That our
+general was to co-operate--a word of very elastic meaning, and
+responsible for much velvet-covered mutiny during the present
+campaign--with the columns in his neighbourhood which, over and above
+the skeleton of the New Cavalry Brigade, had concentrated that day at
+Britstown. A message in cipher gave an inkling of the plan which had
+risen phoenix-like out of the ashes of the original dispositions. De
+Wet, instead of being enticed south, was to be driven north into the
+loop of the Orange River between Prieska and Hopetown, where Charles
+Knox's column and a column of Kimberley swashbucklers would be ready
+for him. The Britstown columns, and the brigadier of the New Cavalry
+Brigade co-operating, would push north--wheel into line with the
+panting Plumer, now north of Strydenburg, and then "Forward away!"
+Now, just as the original scheme had, when on paper, presented a very
+reasonable and common-sense stratagem, so with the new incubation. But
+there were three main factors over which the gilt cap at Pretoria had
+no control, and which dished this, as they have dished ninety-nine out
+of every hundred of schemes which were undertaken during the guerilla
+war. The first of these three lay in the fact that the strategy was a
+conformation to the enemy's movements. This naturally gave him time to
+think and to develop his counter-move, with all advantages in the
+balance. No. 2 is to be found in the timidity of certain of the column
+commanders. Men who proverbially take every opportunity of sacrificing
+the main issue to pursue some subsidiary policy. Men whom De Wet
+loves, and whom he plays with, decoys, and bluffs until he achieves
+his object. Men whose heart will not take them, like Plumer,
+"slap-bang" along the course which must lead to heavy conclusions, if
+the enemy will fight; but who prefer to fritter away the _morale_ and
+efficiency of their columns in pursuing a phantom enemy. Choosing a
+country in which an enemy as sagacious as the Boer would never
+operate, these men are careful not to leave the security it affords,
+though their telegrams to headquarters build up the statistics which
+have misled our calculations throughout the war. The third reason is
+just as deplorable. It is the passive resistance evinced between
+column commanders, who are called upon to co-operate. These leaders,
+instead of sinking all differences in one common objective, work
+rather as if they were employed in a business competition. And why is
+this? Ask of the man in Pretoria with his hand on the tiller. Is not
+centralisation the cause of it all? Does not the centralisation of the
+guiding authority mean that all success is judged by personal
+results,--that the "brave" is selected for preferment who can claim to
+have the most scalps dangling from his waist-belt. This is the nature
+of the war for which the British nation is content to pay many
+millions a-month!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Please, sir, can I speak to you a moment?" The Tiger stood in the
+doorway of the hotel dining-room.
+
+"Anything serious?" asked the Intelligence officer.
+
+"I have made a discovery."
+
+"Can you spare me, sir?" (_to the Brigadier._)
+
+"For half an hour. I am going down to the commandant's office to see
+the general. Meet me there in half an hour."
+
+"What is it, Tiger?"
+
+"I will now show you something which will open your eyes. Something
+which will show you how this game is worked. It is only about two
+minutes' walk from here."
+
+As the Intelligence officer and the Tiger made their way down the main
+street, it would have required no great strain upon the imagination to
+have fancied that the town had recently been carried by assault, and
+the victorious troops allowed the licence consequent upon street
+fighting. Even in the few short hours of occupation debauchery had had
+its way. Drunkenness is the worst attribute of irregular soldiering
+upon five shillings a-day. If the Colonial has money he will drink.
+Where the average white man greets a friend and acquaintance with a
+hand-shake, the South African Colonial calls him to the nearest bar,
+and they drink their salutation. When half-a-dozen Colonial Corps "off
+the trek" meet in a wayside township, they turn it into an Inferno.
+Here they were crowding in and out of the houses in drunken hilarity.
+The townsfolk, delighted at their opportune arrival when Brand was at
+their gates, ply them with the spurious spirit which passes for whisky
+in South Africa. If the spirit is there, no amount of military
+precaution will prevent the Colonial trooper from securing it. You
+cannot place whole regiments--officers and men alike--under arrest.
+And when a Colonial regiment is "going large," in the majority of
+cases it would baffle any but an expert to distinguish officer from
+man. And while young men in smasher hats fall over each other in the
+streets, the sober British troops look solidly on and wonder. Some, it
+is true, fall away with the rioters. But they are few. Discipline and
+want of means buoy them at least upon a surface of virtue. Yet, be it
+said to the credit of these roysterers in town, the man who drinks
+the hardest in the afternoon will follow you the straightest in the
+morning!
+
+The Intelligence officer and the Tiger had arrived at a little cottage
+on the outskirts of the town. A primitive yet pretty dwelling--a toy
+villa of tin.
+
+"Go in," said the Tiger.
+
+The Intelligence officer knocked and entered. He was met with a smile
+by the pretty Dutch girl with the great blue eyes, who had so played
+upon his feelings at Richmond Road.
+
+"Miss Pretorius!"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[17] Water dam or pool.
+
+[18] When out with a column men were often weeks before they knew what
+the Gazette had given them.
+
+[19] Colloquial Hindustani--bullock hackney carriage.
+
+[20] Boer method of assessing distances.
+
+[21] Sitting-room.
+
+[22] Village.
+
+
+
+
+V.
+
+A NEW CAST.
+
+
+For the moment the Intelligence officer could ill disguise his
+astonishment. Here, standing in front of him, was the girl who had
+taught him his first lesson in staff jurisprudence. The memory of the
+incidents at the farmhouse, her petulance with the Tiger, her tears
+for her lover, had been almost effaced by the vicissitudes of the last
+forty-eight hours. If he had ever thought of the girl at all, it had
+been in the same spirit as a mariner recalls a passing ship, whose
+shapely lines were barely distinguishable in the night. His surprise
+was such that he could only marvel that while, travel-stained and
+dishevelled, he had arrived at Britstown with an effort, she had
+already reached that goal, and, to judge from the studied neatness of
+her attire, had reached it with consummate ease. Her smile and
+attitude as she held out her hand to her visitor expressed
+satisfaction at the meeting--a satisfaction tempered with a
+determination to show a front which should declare a full measure of
+resistance. Taking advantage of his officer's surprise, the Tiger
+discreetly withdrew.
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Miss Pretorius,--how did you get here?"
+
+_Miss Pretorius._ "Quite simply. Partly on horseback, partly in a Cape
+cart."
+
+_I. O._ (_recovering somewhat_) "Naturally; I did not anticipate that
+you had walked. But with what object?"
+
+_Miss P._ (_the corners of her pretty mouth sinking in defiance_) "I
+might easily have walked, and arrived before a British column. As to
+my object in coming here, surely your Africander spy has informed
+you?"
+
+_I. O._ "If you mean the Tiger, he has told me nothing!"
+
+_Miss P._ "And may I also ask something,--What authority have you to
+put me such a question? At the institution which prided itself in
+teaching me--an Africander girl--the manners and customs of the
+English, they were emphatic upon the impertinence of asking personal
+questions."
+
+_I. O._ "I must apologise, Miss Pretorius. But the circumstances are
+hardly normal. We cannot get away from the fact that we are influenced
+against our better natures by an unfortunate state of war."
+
+_Miss P._ (_petulantly_) "Oh, the war! That is just like you
+Englishmen--you paragons of manly virtue--you make the war a cloak for
+all your sins. It is such an upright war, therefore in its furtherance
+you can do no wrong--cannot even be unmannerly. It is this that has
+made you so beloved in the Republics; but how does your attitude hold
+good with me? I am a loyal British subject, living at peace with all
+men in a British colony. What right, therefore, have you to catechise
+me as to my goings and comings? I do not even live within the
+legitimate area of your so-called just war. I am only exposed to its
+rigours--that is, as far as the insolence of those who should be our
+defenders affects us women--because you English, in spite of your
+vaunted power and military magnitude, cannot defend us, your
+Africander dependants, from a few simple farmers. Where is your
+manhood, where the courtly bearing of the Englishman, of which I have
+heard so much--and seen so little?"
+
+_I. O._ "Really, Miss Pretorius, if I may say so, I think that you
+exaggerate the case. Unfortunately we are at war. You claim
+consideration on the score of loyalty. Are you astonished that I
+should have mistaken your attitude towards us? Your two brothers only
+yesterday were in arms against us. One is wounded, the other a
+prisoner in our hands. Is it surprising that I regarded you as their
+accomplice in rebellion?"
+
+_Miss P._ "I am surprised at nothing that an Englishman may do. But
+why should I be compromised because my brothers have taken up arms
+against you. Am I not of an age to formulate opinions of my own? or is
+it that you consider that we poor Africander girls have no
+intelligence, that our opinions must of necessity be bound up in those
+of our men-folk, that we have no mind above the duties of the drudging
+_hausfrau_? No, sir; I am an Africander loyalist--more loyal by far
+than the renegade white who brought you here. And if you wish to know
+the reason of my presence at Britstown, I am not averse to telling
+you, provided you will not claim to have the information as a right."
+
+_I. O._ (_with a touch of penitence in his voice, which for a moment
+caused a smile to flicker round the corners of the girl's mouth_) "Of
+course, Miss Pretorius, I have no right. You will persist in
+misunderstanding me."
+
+_Miss P._ "It is a simple problem. I am loyal, as I have said; but I
+am a daughter and sister first, patriot later. In a fit of meaningless
+bravado, tempered perhaps by some compulsion from over the border, my
+old father and brothers had joined a rebel commando. You, with a
+na�vet� which I had hardly expected in you, and for which I liked you,
+told me the objective of your column--information which meant
+everything to me, and perhaps to you, for you looked as if you would
+have liked to have bitten your tongue out after you had parted with
+it. I, with the honest intention of saving my father and brothers from
+you, rode out to them that night. I then knew nothing of Lotter's and
+Hertzog's men. If it had not been for the fighting, I should be now
+back again at Richmond Road. As it is, my poor wounded father in the
+next room is sufficient reason for my presence here."
+
+_I. O._ (_who, English-like, was all sympathy at once_) "Oh, it was
+your father then that you brought with you in the Cape cart. I hope
+that he is not badly wounded. May I see him?"
+
+_Miss P._ "There would be no object in your seeing him, as he is at
+present asleep. No; he is, not severely wounded. He is shot through
+the shoulder,--luckily it has missed his lung."
+
+_I. O._ (_with unaffected solicitude_) "I am indeed sorry for you,
+Miss Pretorius; those last forty-eight hours have been full of trouble
+for you. But I doubt if you know the worst!"
+
+_Miss P._ (_suddenly paling, and losing for the moment her
+self-control_) "The worst!--surely you have not burned our farm? You
+are not burning farms in the Colony!"
+
+_I. O._ "No, not your farm; but I am afraid your sweetheart has been
+badly hit!"
+
+_Miss P._ (_with evident relief and surprise_) "My sweetheart!"
+
+_I. O._ "Yes; the guide whom we took from your farm. He tried to
+escape, and was unfortunately shot."
+
+_Miss P._ (_laughing outright_) "Oh, Stephanus! He is no sweetheart of
+mine. How could he be? He is only a bywoner!"
+
+_I. O._ "But you told me that he was when I first suggested taking him
+with me!"
+
+_Miss P._ "Did I? It was not the truth, then; it was only an addition
+to the part I was then playing."
+
+_I. O._ "How do I know that you are not still playing a part?"
+
+_Miss P._ "If I am, then it is a very sad one. No; you may trust me
+now. I have played my part, and if anything that I could do for you
+would stop this dreadful war, I would gladly help you!"
+
+_I. O._ "You can help me, if you will; but after what you have said
+about my want of manners, I am afraid to ask you a question."
+
+_Miss P._ "I have forgiven you that; and now that you do not claim the
+right to question me, I do not mind answering you if I can!"
+
+_I. O._ "How, if your object was to save your father, did it happen
+that Lotter was informed of our presence at Richmond Road?"
+
+_Miss P._ "I expected that you would ask that. I did not tell him
+personally, nor would I in any circumstances have done so. But the
+fact that I arrived in great haste in the small hours of the morning
+had a peculiar meaning to the commando, and it was not necessary for
+me to open my mouth. I daresay to-night there will be one hundred
+Africander girls in the saddle in different parts of the Colony. When
+the urgency is great, a girl is more reliable than a Kaffir. It is one
+of our means of communication. There; is not that an admission worthy
+of a loyal Africander?"
+
+_I. O._ (_holding out his hand_) "Good-bye, Miss Pretorius."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would have been difficult to analyse the Intelligence officer's
+feelings as he strode back along the Britstown main street to keep his
+appointment with his brigadier. He was at a loss to understand two
+things,--the anomalism of his second meeting with the Pretorius girl,
+and the latter's attitude towards the Tiger. He could not divest
+himself of a feeling of suspicion that all was not quite as it
+appeared. There is no walk in life which breeds distrust in one's
+fellows so rapidly as that of military Intelligence. And although the
+Intelligence officer had only formed an atom in this great structure
+of British incompetency in South Africa for two days, yet sufficient
+had been borne in upon him during this period to cause him uneasiness
+as to the sincerity of motive in those that moved round him. It is
+said that the only person that a race-horse trainer will trust is his
+wife, and that as long as he trusts her he remains an unsuccessful
+man. We cannot say what truth there may be in this ancient turf adage;
+but we do know that administrative work successfully performed in the
+Intelligence Department of an army in the field leads a man to place
+the lowest estimate upon the integrity of his fellows. The first
+lesson is of an inverse nature, and compels a man, however he may
+dislike the procedure, to believe those who move about him to be
+knaves, until he has had opportunity to test their honesty. Young in
+his knowledge of the people against whom he had been warring for
+eighteen months, the Intelligence officer was exceedingly puzzled at
+the strange anomaly presented by the Africander girl he had just left.
+He could not help feeling that this daughter of a nation which he had
+led himself, if not to despise, at least to depreciate, had fathomed
+him in two short interviews, while he had penetrated little beyond the
+surface of her feminine attractions and lively wit. He was puzzled at
+the outcome of his interview, even perhaps a little alarmed at the
+manner in which he had been treated--shocked at the erroneous estimate
+which he had formed of Dutch women after eighteen months in their
+midst. But this rebuff had served its purpose: it had sown in him the
+seeds of that appreciation of our enemy which will have to generally
+exist if we are ultimately to live in peace and concord, united as
+fellow-subjects, with the people of South Africa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was now already dark, and the Intelligence officer had some little
+difficulty in finding the house in which the general had taken up his
+headquarters. The main street was still full of revellers, bursting
+with Colonial _bonhomie_, but strangely lacking in topographical
+information. In fact it seemed doubtful if the general's house would
+ever be found, and the weary Intelligence officer was rapidly losing
+his temper, when chance again came to his aid. A horseman came
+galloping down the street. A little man in civilian attire--all
+slouch-hat and gaiter. He seemed to be in a desperate hurry, as he was
+flogging his tired and mud-bespattered animal unmercifully with his
+_sjambok_. It was a beaten horse; and just as it came level with the
+Intelligence officer, it stumbled, half recovered itself, and then
+fell heavily in a woeful heap. The Intelligence officer pulled the
+little civilian on to his feet, with a soft admonition about the
+riding of beaten horses. The civilian shook himself, and turned to his
+prostrate horse with a curse. But the poor beast had no intention of
+rising again. It had lain down to die.
+
+"It can't be helped; the news I bring will be worth a horse or two
+anyhow. I must leave it, saddle and all, until I have seen the
+general."
+
+"Do you know where to find him?" hazarded the Intelligence officer. "I
+am looking for his house now."
+
+_Civilian._ "Well, I ought to; I've not run a store in this town for
+five years not to know my way about. But who may you be?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "I'm staff officer to one of the columns which
+came in to-day. I've been trying to find headquarters this last ten
+minutes."
+
+_Civ._ "Come along with me. I must get there at once. I've just come
+in from Houwater. I was sent out by the commandant to follow up Brand,
+and I have located him and Hertzog. I tell you I have come in
+fast--never went faster in my life. Devilish nearly got cut off. My
+word, I bore a charmed life to-day. Well, here we are. I shall go
+straight in. The new general doesn't know me, but he soon will. The
+commandant knows me: he knows that when I come with news there is
+something worth hearing."
+
+The little civilian bounced up the steps and dived into the lighted
+hall of the headquarter's villa, before orderly or sentry could stop
+him. A tall Yeoman stepped up to the Intelligence officer, and
+saluting with more dignity than alacrity said, "Beg your pardon, sir;
+but I am the general's orderly, and he told me to tell you that he
+would only be a few minutes here, and that if you wouldn't mind
+waiting he would join you immediately."
+
+Waiting for a general is a serious undertaking, and the Intelligence
+officer was tired. Moreover, he did not know where the camp was, or
+when he would be expected to take over from the chief staff officer of
+the column. But on active service all these things work out in their
+own time, so he just sat down on the whitewashed steps of the verandah
+and lit a cigarette. The tall Yeoman orderly did likewise on the far
+side of the entrance. The Intelligence officer smoked in silence for
+some time, engaged in the occupation most welcomed by tired men on
+service--thinking of better times--until the nightmare of the column,
+the orders for the morrow, the supplies and the camp, broke in upon
+his reverie.
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Do you know where the camp is?"
+
+_Orderly._ "Yes, sir; it is about half a mile from here."
+
+_I. O._ "You can find your way there in the dark?"
+
+_Ord._ "Yes, sir; it is straight down the main street, and then the
+first to the left. It would be impossible to miss it."
+
+_I. O._ "What do you belong to?"
+
+_Ord._ "I don't quite know what I belong to now. I came out originally
+with the 218th Company Imperial Yeomanry; but they have gone back
+home."
+
+_I. O._ "Then what are you doing out here now?"
+
+_Ord._ "Well, you see, sir, I came to the general as orderly about
+four months ago, and I liked being with him so much that I did not
+rejoin the company. As a matter of fact, we were away down in Calvinia
+District; I don't quite see how I could have got back to them, even if
+the general would have let me go. I haven't seen the company since I
+was wounded at Wittebergen seven months ago. I joined the general from
+Deelfontein Hospital!"
+
+_I. O._ "I hope that your billet has been kept open for you in
+England."
+
+_Ord._ "I sincerely trust it has, sir; but I have missed a season's
+hunting. I don't intend to miss another if I can help it."
+
+_I. O._ "The devil you don't. What do you do at home?"
+
+_Ord._ "I hunt four days a-week in the winter, and in the----"
+
+_I. O._ "I mean, what is your job?"
+
+_Ord._ "I haven't much of a job, sir; I'm the junior partner in an
+engineering firm, and as we do some very big things in contracts,
+there isn't much left for me to do except amuse myself!"
+
+_I. O._ "Then whatever made you come out in the ranks?"
+
+_Ord._ "It suits me, sir. I am not fond of responsibility: besides, if
+every one who could afford it had taken a commission in our company,
+we should have been all officers, with no one to command!"
+
+_I. O._ "I call it most sporting of you."
+
+_Ord._ "No; not exactly sporting. It was no idea of sport that brought
+me out here. It was a sense of duty. Were you out here, sir, during
+the Black Week--the Colenso-Magersfontein period? You were. Then you
+have not realised, and you never can realise, what we in England went
+through during that period. I went down to my stables one morning, and
+my groom came up to me and asked if he might leave at once. In answer
+to my look of surprise, he said, 'It's this way, sir: I feel that the
+time has come when we shall want every man who can ride and shoot to
+defend the country. I can do both, and the country is not going to be
+defeated because I can ride and shoot, and won't. I want to join the
+Yeomanry!' I let him go, and thought over his estimate of the
+situation all day. If the country's honour lay in my groom's hands,
+how much more must it lie in mine--the employer of labour? I made up
+my mind before dinner, told my wife before going to bed, and here I
+am, sir."
+
+Nor was this an extraordinary case. There must have been in South
+Africa during the second phase of the war many hundreds of men--one
+might almost say thousands--actuated by the same spirit, impelled by
+the same feeling, as this rich contractor and his groom. Men who felt
+that the nation had desperate need of their services; men who
+voluntarily undertook the risks and perils of a soldier's life, not
+from any hope of preferment, not from love of adventure or mercenary
+advancement, but from true patriotism--a sacrifice to meet the
+nation's call in the hour of her need. But that day soon passed. The
+tide turned, and clash of arms ceased upon our own frontiers and
+within our own dependencies, and the din of war sounded faintly from
+the heart of the enemy's country. Then true patriotism failed; the men
+who had gone forth with their country's acclamations returned as their
+obligations expired. There were no patriots of the same class found to
+take their places. Yet the exigencies of the struggle required even
+more men than had been in the field when Lord Roberts made his extreme
+effort to retrieve the earlier misfortunes. Then it was that we
+committed another of those many errors in judgment which have marked
+the conduct of the campaign. We believed that in December 1900 the
+edifice of the Boer resistance was crumbling to its foundations,--that
+it was like a mighty smoke-stack, already mined at its base, and but
+requiring fuel at the dummy supports to bring the whole structure in
+ruins to the ground. We called for the fuel. The cry went forth for
+men--men--men. Any men; only let there be a sufficient quantity. The
+war was over. Had not the highest officials said that it was over. The
+recruiting-sergeant went out into the highways and hedges to collect
+the fuel for Lord Kitchener's final operation. It mattered not the
+quality--it was only quantity. The war was over. The gates of the Gold
+Reef City would again be open. Then the mass of degraded manhood which
+had fled from Johannesburg at the first muttering of thunder in the
+war-cloud flocked from their hiding-places on the Cape Colony seaboard
+and fell upon the recruiting-sergeant's neck. Mean whites that they
+were, they came out of their burrows at the first gleam of sunshine.
+Greek, Armenian, Russian, Scandinavian, Levantine, Pole, and Jew.
+Jail-bird, pickpocket, thief, drunkard, and loafer, they presented
+themselves to the recruiting-sergeant, and in due course polluted the
+uniform which they were not fit to salute from a distance. The war
+was over; there would be no more fighting, only a quick march to
+Johannesburg, and disbandment within reach of the filthy lucre which
+they coveted. And so new corps were raised, with spirit-stirring
+titles, while old, honoured, and existing regiments were sullied
+beyond recognition by association with the refuse and sweepings from
+the least manly community in the universe. Such fuel could not even
+clear the dummy supports at the base of the Boer resistance. It
+refused to burn. It could never have burned in any circumstances.
+These men had no intention of fighting. Their appearance in the field
+gave new life to the enemy. New confidence, and free gifts of rifles,
+ammunition, clothes, and horses. Men could not be found to command
+them, for to place confidence in their powers meant professional
+disgrace. These men had not come to fight. They had enlisted only to
+reach Johannesburg, and they refused to fight. Surrender to them
+brought no qualm or disgrace. They possessed no faculty sensible to
+shame. Then the enemy hardened his heart. And who can blame him? He
+had ever been told that the supply of British fighting material was
+limited. He found these creatures in the field against him. He stepped
+up to them, and disarmed them without an effort. Then he said, we have
+exhausted their supply of real fighting men. They are now forced to
+place this spurious article in the field. We will persevere just a
+little longer. If we persevere till disease shall further destroy
+their good men, we must win in the long-run. The error in judgment
+which allowed of the enlistment of these men has perhaps done more
+than anything else to prolong the war. If any doubts remain, let the
+curious call upon the Government for a return of arms and ammunition
+surrendered to and captured by the enemy between November 1900 and
+November 1901, and then, if the answer be justly given, judge of the
+necessity of arsenals for our enemy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The brigadier had finished his interview with his superior, and the
+clink of glasses had shown that the general had not sent him off
+without a stirrup-cup. He came out upon the verandah, and called for
+his orderly.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Hullo, Mr Intelligence; I thought you were lost. Come
+along here out into the road. I want to speak to you, but we must be
+careful not to be overheard; this place simply teems with rebels.
+(_They advanced into the broadway, the orderly following at a
+respectful distance._) Now, look here, we are to have a big fight
+to-morrow. You saw that funny little beggar in the hat. Well, he
+wasn't playing at robbers, though you would never have known it. He
+was really bringing the good news to Ghent--killing horses all the
+way. He's a local Burnham, and passing good, according to the
+commandant. Well, he's located Brand, Pretorius, and our old friend
+Hedgehog[23] at Houwater, and we are going out to give battle. More,
+they believe that De Wet has doubled back towards Strydenburg, and is
+trying to link up with these Houwater gentry, as the latter have
+collected horses for him. Now, our bushranging robber reports that
+Brand has an outpost of thirty men at a farm on the Ongers River,
+twelve miles from here, covering the Houwater-Britstown Road. We are
+to take a surprise party out to-night and round them up. If we
+succeed, we will run a very good chance of bringing off quite 'a show'
+to-morrow. So we must get along now, and get out the invitations for
+the tea-party. The 'Robber' is to meet us here in two hours, and the
+old man has lent me fifteen of Rimington's Tigers, who are 'fizzers'
+for this sort of _shikar_."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It would be an artist, indeed, who could analyse and adequately
+describe the feelings of a man parading for his first night-attack.
+The magnitude or insignificance of the enterprise is immaterial. The
+feelings of the young soldiers from the New Cavalry Brigade as they
+paraded with the hard-bitten swashbucklers, Rimington's Tigers, were
+identical with those of the army advancing across the desert to the
+assault at Tel-el-Kebir; of Wauchope's Highland Brigade blundering to
+disaster in the slush and bushes before Magersfontein; and Hunter
+Weston's handful of mounted sappers, who so boldly penetrated into the
+heart of the enemy's line to destroy the railway north of
+Bloemfontein. A night-attack must of necessity always be a delicate
+operation. Shrouded in the mystery of darkness, men know that their
+safety and the success of the enterprise is dependent upon the
+sagacity and coolness of one or, at the most, two men. They must be
+momentarily prepared to meet the unexpected. The smallest failure or
+miscarriage--the merest chance--may lead to irretrievable disaster.
+Men who can face death without flinching in the light of day often
+quail at the thought of it in the darkness. The mental tension is such
+that once men have been overwhelmed during a night attack, like the
+beaten ram of the arena, it must be weeks, even months, before they
+can be trusted to face a similar situation. No man who has ever taken
+part in night operations will forget his first sensations. The
+recurring misgivings bred of intense excitement. The misty
+hallucinations, outcome of abnormal tension. The awful stillness of
+the night. The muffled sounds of moving men, exaggerated by the
+painful silence of the surroundings. You long--with a yearning which
+can only be felt, not described--that something may happen to break
+the overpowering monotony of this prelude to success or disaster. Some
+outlet to your pent-up feelings. If only some one would shout, or the
+enemy surprise you, or--thank God! relief has come,--it has begun to
+rain!
+
+As the little column of adventurers from the New Cavalry Brigade
+trudged on in ghostly silence, great drops of icy rain began to
+fall--harbingers of a coming storm. A shudder of satisfaction passed
+through the ranks, from the "Robber" leading the forlorn-hope, with
+the Intelligence officer and the leader of the Tigers beside him, to
+little Meadows and his troop of the 20th Dragoons in rear. Then,
+preceded by a brief ten minutes of inky darkness, the storm broke. It
+does not rain in South Africa--water is voided from above in solid
+sheets. A wall of beating rain pours down, obliterating the landscape
+by day, intensifying the darkness by night. The column came to a halt;
+the horses, unable to face the downpour, in spite of bridle, bit, and
+spur, swing round their tails to meet it. And before a collar can be
+turned or a coat adjusted every man in the column is drenched to the
+skin. For ten minutes perhaps the deluge lasts, then fades away as
+rapidly as it came. And as one by one the misty features of veldt
+reappear, you can hear the passing rainstorm receding from you, still
+churning the veldt surface into sticky pulp. The officers re-form the
+column, and the journey is continued. But though the respite has been
+short, it has been valuable; local inconvenience acts as a sedative to
+the nerves. Besides, there is less silence. The track that was parched
+and spongy has now become soft and slippery. Horses flounder and
+slide. Wet mackintoshes swish against the animals' flanks, and hoofs
+are raised with a rinsing, sucking sound. But there is man's work
+afoot. As the rain-mists sufficiently clear, the "Robber" is able to
+take his bearings. The head of the column has now reached the foot of
+a long low-lying ridge. The end cannot be seen; but the "Robber"
+explains that the farm where the Boers should be lies in a small cup
+at the foot of the farther end of this ridge. The column has already
+reached the place where it will be advisable to leave the horses. If
+they are taken farther along, the Boer picket, which is probably
+stationed on the ridge, may be disturbed. Now, even if a horse should
+neigh, it would be mistaken for one of the many brood-mares belonging
+to the farm. The march has been admirably timed; it still wants two
+hours to daybreak. It will take fully half this time to work along the
+ridge, overpower the picket if there is one, and surround the farm.
+
+"Dismount--Number threes take over the horses." The word is passed
+from man to man in whispers. There is some little noise. Exaggerated
+by the situation, it sounds a babel. Can any enemy within a mile have
+failed to hear it? A rifle-butt hits against a stone. A horse, either
+pulled by the bit or terrified at some night-horror, backs and
+plunges, and disturbs the whole section. A smothered curse, as in the
+_mel�e_ some man's foot is trampled. Surely such a noise would wake
+the dead! No; the men fall in at the foot of the hill. They are told
+to lie down and wait. The horror of that waiting! There is a sound on
+the side of the hill. A boulder has been shifted. The men clutch
+their rifles, the click of a pistol cocking is clearly audible. Then a
+form looms up. The "Robber" signals silence. The figure is
+approaching. It is only the Kaffir scout, who had been sent on in
+advance to locate, if possible, the picket. He comes up and hangs his
+head upon his hand. He has found the picket, and this is his way of
+demonstrating that the two Boers comprising it are asleep.
+
+Harvey of Rimington's takes command. He issues his orders, first to
+his own men, then to the whole. They are simple: "Fix bayonets. I will
+take the Kaffir with me. When I hold up both my hands, the left
+section of fours will follow me. You know what to do; mind, not a shot
+is to be fired. The force will advance up the hill extended to two
+paces, and halt as soon as it reaches the summit. If we are discovered
+by more than the picket, Rimington's will rally on me, the 20th on
+their own officer. Remember, your line of retreat must be to the
+horses."
+
+Then the advance began. Slowly the men toiled up. It seemed impossible
+to make the ascent in silence. Men must trip in darkness over rough
+ground--tripping men with rifles in their hands make what appears to
+be a fearful clatter. By hypothesis it would seem impossible to
+surprise even a sleeping picket. But you have only to be on picket
+duty once to realise how full the night is of deceptive noises. In
+reality the advance was made with praiseworthy silence. Just as the
+top was reached, the Kaffir plucked Harvey's arm. His veldt-bred eyes
+could see that which was still obscured from the white man. "Near,
+near!" he whispered in the captain's ear. Harvey raised both his hands
+above his head. Silently, but with the agility of cats, the four lean
+Colonials followed him. Six paces on, and under the shelter of a rock
+appear the forms of two men, asleep, and rolled in their blankets. It
+is not necessary to describe what followed. A leap forward by four
+lithe figures with shortened arms, a sinuous flash of steel, a
+sickening thud and gurgle, one choking wail, and all was over, and two
+farmer-soldiers had paid the extreme penalty for the betrayal of the
+trust their comrades had placed in them!
+
+Five minutes for breathing-space. Then the little line was reformed
+diagonally along the table-top of the ridge. Half the game had been
+won. It now remained to complete the _coup_. If the unexpected did not
+happen, there was no reason why the farmhouse should not be surrounded
+by daybreak. But in war it is the unexpected which does happen. Slowly
+the thirty men worked along the plateau towards the point of the
+ridge. Two-thirds had been traversed, when suddenly two figures
+appeared against the eastern sky.
+
+"Reliefs for the picket,--d----n!" muttered the Rimington captain, and
+as the truth flashed upon him came the challenge in Dutch--
+
+"_Wie dar?_"
+
+"Follow me, Rimington's!" and the nearest men joined their captain in
+a dash to reach the men. But it was too late. Up came the Mausers. Two
+wild shots, and the relief had turned and was rushing down the hill
+towards the farm. If it had been day, all might have yet been saved by
+pace. But in night operations you cannot take these risks, especially
+when only one man in the force knows the exact position of the
+objective. Harvey rallied his men on the ridge, and even before he
+could place them in position, Mausers were popping from below,
+disclosing the kraals and outhouses of the farm.
+
+"We must stop up here till daybreak. They will be gone before that.
+Well, there will be no surprise of Hertzog at Houwater to-day, all
+through a turn of rank bad luck!" and the Rimington captain commenced
+to fill his pipe, for his long abstinence from tobacco-smoke by reason
+of the night-march had been his particular grievance since the column
+had left Britstown.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[23] Hertzog.
+
+
+
+
+VI.
+
+A POOR SCENT.
+
+
+"There will be no surprise of Hertzog at Houwater to-day."
+
+The Rimington captain had summed up the results consequent upon the
+night-attack with considerable accuracy, and as his party, in
+obedience to orders, worked down the banks of the Ongers River
+covering the right of the combined advance upon Houwater, there was
+abundance of evidence to show that Hertzog and Company had little
+intention of becoming enmeshed by the ponderous strategy set in motion
+against them. Nor was the weather favourable. The storm which had
+preceded the night-attack was one of those lowly pitched
+thunder-clouds which, caught in a craterlike valley enclosed by
+kopjes, revolved in a circle until it had spent itself. It took some
+hours of morning sun before it was finally dissolved. Consequently
+when the advance-guard of the force which was formed by the New
+Cavalry Brigade topped the great sloping glacis, inclining for all the
+world like an under-feature of the Sussex Downs, into the stagnant
+morass which is Houwater's most prominent feature, the last Boers were
+disappearing into the labyrinth of Minie Kloof beyond. But there was
+just sufficient excitement to take the cold and stiffness, bred of a
+miserable march, out of the bones of the men. The pom-pom unlimbered
+above the drift, and spent, at an impossible range, a belt of its tiny
+bombs. A spare dozen of Rimingtons, who had pushed farther forward
+than the rest, lightened their bandoliers by a few cartridges, and
+then, unmolested, the miniature British army marched into possession
+of its _point d'appui_.
+
+You who have only seen the British soldier at his worst, that is, when
+he is buttoned into a tunic little removed in design from a
+strait-waistcoat, or when the freedom of the man has been subordinated
+to the lick-and-spittle polish of the dummy,--you who glory in
+tin-casing for your Horse Guards, and would hoot the Guardsman bold
+enough to affect a woollen muffler,--would have opened your eyes with
+amazement if you could have sat on the slopes of the Houwater drift
+with the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade and watched the arrival of
+the co-operating columns to their common camping-ground. First came
+two squadrons of Scarlet Lancers, forming the nucleus of somebody's
+mobile column. No one would have accused them of being Lancers if they
+had met them suddenly on the veldt. Helmets they had none. How much
+time and money and thought has been spent over the service headgear
+for our men! We have seen it adapted for this climate; altered to suit
+that; a peak here, a bandage there. But Thomas is the best judge of
+the helmet in which he prefers to campaign, and you may rest assured
+that he will choose the most comfortable, if not the most suitable.
+The Scarlet Lancers had been separated from their helmets for many
+months. In fact, the manner in which the gay cavalry man rids himself
+of his legitimate headgear and provides himself with a substitute
+rather smacks of the supernatural: for instance, our own 20th Dragoon
+Guards had not been in the country more than ten days, yet there was
+barely a helmet to be seen amongst them. Substitutes had been found
+somewhere. The more worn and disreputable the substitute the happier
+the owner, despite the fact that all his past glories centred round a
+shining helmet or jaunty lancer cap, irresistible in plume and polish.
+But it was a great spectacle to see the survival of the fittest
+squadrons of the Scarlet Lancers filing past. There are half a dozen
+Cavalry Regiments against whom no one could throw a stone--the 9th and
+16th Lancers are of these. But it would be invidious to particularise
+too much.
+
+"Who the h--ll are these fellows?--are they tame Boers?" chirped a
+subaltern from the 20th, who for the day was galloper to the
+brigadier.
+
+A bearded ruffian, whose only costume was a flannel shirt and a pair
+of seedy check trousers, but whose eye was as keen as a hawk's, and
+whose shining "matchlock" had seventeen notches[24] along its stock,
+caught the subaltern's query.
+
+"Yuss," came the answer, "we are tame Boers, the very tamest. My pal
+'ere is President Kroojer, this 'ere's Botter, and hi am De--e--Wet!"
+
+Cheery fellows; after fifteen months of war there was little about
+self-preservation that you could have taught them. Lean, sinewy, and
+bearded kind--they represented the English fighting man at his best.
+And well might the inexperienced have asked if they were Boers. Lance
+and pennon were gone. Barely a tunic or regimental button remained to
+the two squadrons. Their collective headgear would have disgraced a
+Kaffir location, and their boots were mostly the raw-hide imitations
+of the country. But they were men. Rags and dirt could not conceal
+that fact. Theirs was not the dirt of sloth and sluggard. The
+essentials were bright and clean. There was not a man of the 150
+attempting to represent two service squadrons who had not at some
+period balanced his life against his proficiency with the rifle, and
+who had not realised that on service his firelock was the soldier's
+best and staunchest friend. Nor were the officers easy to distinguish
+from the men. A shade cleaner, perhaps; but they, too, were
+rough-bearded, hard bitten by long exposure and responsibility. How
+different from the exquisites of popular fancy! Gone the beauties of
+effeminate adornment. Gone the studied insolence of puppyhood--that
+arrogance of bearing traditional with the British officer in times of
+peace. These were the men who had been eyes and ears to French's
+magnificent cavalry, who had ridden unflinchingly to the relief of
+Kimberley, who had more than held their own against fearsome odds at
+Diamond Hill. Did you hear that boy give an order? It was a man who
+spoke, and a man of resolution and understanding, yet judged by a
+standard in years he should still be a Sandhurst cadet.
+
+The regulars are followed by a squadron of Yeomanry,--the old original
+yeomanry, and, 'pon one's honour! it is hard to distinguish them from
+the Lancers. They, too, have been a year in the country. It takes all
+that to make any mounted regiment, however educated your material. You
+may make the men in less, but not the officers, and, all told, the
+officers are the essential in every corps. This is illustrative of
+another of our mistakes: we have sent back our Volunteers just when
+they really became efficient. These very men were under orders for
+home. Knowing what we know of the capabilities of young and green
+troops in mounted war, we may say with confidence that the authorities
+were ill advised when they failed to enforce the clause "until the end
+of the war," which was part of these men's undertaking. It has been
+the same all through, the exigencies of the service have been
+sacrificed to satisfy garrulous impatience on the part of home-abiding
+politicians.
+
+The New Cavalry Brigade had been freshly provided with transport. Half
+was very excellent mule-transport; the balance was composed of heavy
+trek-waggons, with lumbering ox-teams. Futile expedient. The
+disadvantages of the one outweighed the advantages of the other. It is
+only a matter of weeks since a public outcry was raised--by ignorant
+critics it is true--because Paris's convoy was overwhelmed in detail,
+that officer having done what every other successful column commander
+has done, allowed his ox-waggons to march on ahead of his more mobile
+transport, in order not to delay the progress of the column. What
+chance of success lies with the officer content to passively hug
+ox-waggons instead of pressing on against his mobile foe? None: yet
+half the column commanders have been content to parade the country as
+escort to drays packed with merchandise. When a man has been found
+enterprising enough to leave his ox-transport under escort, and to
+form a striking arm with such part of his force as is mobile, you turn
+and rend him if the dead-weight which has cramped and curtailed his
+action falls into disaster. Thus, in your ignorance, you call for the
+professional martyrdom of the only men who have served you honestly
+and well. Why don't you strike at the system, which, when it equips
+these columns, sends the commanders forth with the millstone of
+ox-transport round their necks? Do you imagine that an officer,
+possessed of the same dash which in the past has built up the
+traditions of our mounted arm, selects to move with heavy transport
+from choice? With him it can only be a Hobson's choice. He must take
+what he can get or nothing. And having secured what chance will give
+him, he must make the most of it or fail. If he takes risks and
+succeeds, his luck will have been abnormal. If, taking the risks, he
+fails once, he will, in all probability, be sacrificed to the yapping
+of the curs who voice the taxpayer, or to the vanity of some less
+competent senior. These sweaters give no second chances. If he steers
+the middle way, and is sufficiently plausible in the tale he tells, he
+may carry on to the end of the war, or the leave season; perhaps even,
+if he is sufficiently cautious, he may worm his way into an honours
+list. For it is the good, not the bad, that the modern system breaks.
+
+It is one thing for the mounted men of a column to come into camp,
+another for the transport. Houwater presented an ideal place for the
+bivouac, with its running water, its solitary building--half farm,
+half store--at the drift, and its complement of oat-straw. But the
+_vlei_[25] from which the place takes its name was the very deuce for
+wheeled transport. All is fair in "love and war." This being a creed
+very staunchly adhered to by the private soldier when campaigning, the
+mess-servants of the staff of the Cavalry Brigade saw fit in the
+early morning to steal a span[26] of mules which had strayed from the
+protection of their rightful owners. Now the Brigade state _fourgon_
+with a span of four mules was a big enterprise, and if treated gently
+might have ministered to the comfort of the staff for many months. But
+no; the brigadier's servant and the mess-waiter, who was a
+high-spirited and intelligent dragoon, sought to vary the _ennui_ of
+the march, and to assert their superiority over the Kaffirs in the
+matter of stage-driving, by taking the _fourgon_ and its half broken
+team full gallop down the incline terminating in Houwater _vlei_. A
+playful and exhilarating expedient, which ruined the brigadier's
+spring vehicle for ever and a day, and denied the staff many home
+comforts for that and some consecutive nights....
+
+The soldier, officer or man, who finds himself without a bivouac in
+the middle of a camp, experiences for the moment much the same
+sensations as a "broke" man in the streets of London. Of the two, the
+officer has the worse time. A private soldier will be able to
+approach some one or other of the company cooks with the certainty of
+a rough welcome. If he is wise he will arrive armed with some stray
+piece of driftwood to add to the stock of fuel. Thus will success be
+assured, for Thomas of all men is the most unselfish. In the first
+instance, if he be a staff officer, he has probably too much to get
+done in a short space of time to think about his creature comforts.
+Then, if the ordinary channels have failed, he has probably too much
+diffidence to propose himself upon the hospitality of his
+fellow-comrades. In this manner is the simile of the "broke" man in
+midst of London's wealth maintained. Brigadiers, of course, do not
+starve; they would not, even if they possessed no _bandobust_[27] of
+their own. Some squadron mess claimed the chief of the Cavalry Brigade
+for the evening, and, probably, fed him well. But the juniors of his
+staff were without home, and it was long past dark before the
+Intelligence officer could think of food. His first duties were orders
+for the morrow. The officer in supreme command had been weak enough to
+have been accompanied by a cable-cart. Lord Wolseley may cavil at
+correspondents and call them the curse of modern armies; but we are
+constrained to think that if a tired staff-officer were consulted he
+would save the cream of condemnatory epithets for the cable-cart,
+which makes his night horrible with useless telegrams. The nightmare
+of that midnight message, with its probable four pages of closely
+written ciphers! Those fine popinjays in starched kerseys and pink
+frills, who live in luxury at railway centres, think that it adds to
+their dignity if they convert their most trivial messages into cipher.
+Little do they consider the poor tired being whom they rob of
+hard-earned rest to open out that cipher. It pleases them. They have
+nothing to do in the evenings. The codeing of a message to them is of
+the nature of an after-dinner game of backgammon. But to the aching
+head that has to decode it in the small hours of the morning by the
+fitful light of a grease-wallowing dip it is no game, no pastime. The
+cable-cart may have its uses; but many a score of worn-out
+staff-officers must have blessed the grass fire which has destroyed
+the ground-wire in their rear, and thus given them a few hours of
+unbroken rest.
+
+After orders and the minuti� of brigade duties came intelligence. The
+only building at Houwater Drift is a ramshackle half-way house--a
+familiar landmark of the veldt. This _winkel_ was managed by a
+half-bred German; the farm inadequately protected from the elements
+half-a-dozen greasy Dutch _fraus_ of various ages and a single
+decrepit black boy. Here indeed was a fund of information,--such being
+the channels through which the British Intelligence usually is worked.
+The Divisional Intelligence first took them in hand. Then "A" column,
+then "B" column, and lastly our own ranged them before the
+witness-table. It would have taken a veritable K.C. to have sorted the
+truth from the aggregate of falsehood which had been arrived at by the
+time it was our turn. The Intelligence officer had taken possession of
+the showrooms of the _winkel_ to serve him as an office. This
+Shoolbred of the veldt was but a sordid shelter--walls and counter of
+mud; floor, sun-dried cow-dung and sand. Ranged upon the shelves was
+a strange medley of merchandise. All edibles had been removed by the
+Boers; there only remained what we believe the trade terms hard and
+soft goods. A pile of stinking sheep-skins, a few rolls of
+questionable longcloth, two packets of candles, some sheep-shears,
+gin-traps, and a keg of tar. As the Intelligence officer wearily set
+about his business of cross-examination, he was interrupted by the
+entrance of the Supply officer. This youth, as has previously been
+shown, was possessed of ready resource,--so much so that he annexed
+the two sole remaining packets of candles before unburdening his mind.
+
+_Supply Officer_ (_dropping the candles into the deep recess of the
+pockets of his "coat-warm-British"_).[28] "Are you aware, old boy,
+that we don't get any grub to-night?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer_ (_wearily_). "And why?"
+
+_S. O._ "The reason is quite simple. Those mess-servants have driven
+the mess-cart into the _vlei_, and in the _vlei_ it will remain all
+night."
+
+_I. O._ "I can't help that. I always said that the general's man was
+a fool. He is not only a fool but a d----d fool!"
+
+_S. O._ "Now, look here. You may think that you're a useful feller and
+doing a lot of good. But let me tell you that you are going over the
+same ground that better men than you have already passed (_pointing to
+the winkel-monger_). I have seen, at least, a round dozen of
+Intelligence officers examining that man. Well, what the deuce is he
+worth to you after that, either as a framer of fact or flinger of
+fiction? Try and be useful. We have got to feed to-night. Now, we
+can't go round to the messes and cadge for food. Nor shall we see our
+mess-cart. (_The Intelligence officer nodded assent._) Then why do you
+detain our only chance? Here, Mr Squarehead (_taking the winkel-monger
+by the ear_), come and provide food. I have got two fowls and some
+potatoes, and you and the _fraus_ between you have got to make a mess
+of pottage, and be right quick about it, or you will never see another
+sun rise."
+
+There were protestations of inability on the part of the forced
+labourers. But the Supply officer soon overcame all these, and in an
+hour the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade were able after a full meal
+to curl up for the night on the high-scented floor of the _winkel_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An orderly from the general almost cannoned into the brigadier as he
+stood shaving by the light of a candle. There was a brusque rejoinder,
+and the man handed in a note. The brigadier read the slip of paper
+handed to him while he stropped his razor. The orderly who had brought
+the message stood stiffly to attention until the brigadier finished
+his apology for a toilet. Having washed and struggled into his tunic,
+the officer commanding the Cavalry Brigade was in a position to give
+his undivided attention to his correspondence. He strode over to the
+four packing-cases, which in their disguise as tables represented the
+brigade mess, and called for his Intelligence and acting staff
+officer. That officer's toilet took even less time than that of his
+chief, for he just rolled out from between two blankets, and appeared
+ready made, as it were, for the day's wear and tear.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Here, you lazy scoundrel, read that" (_and he passed the
+slip of paper over to his subordinate._)
+
+_I. O._ "These are orders, sir."
+
+_B._ "It was not necessary to send for you to discover that. But how
+does it affect the orders you issued last night?"
+
+_I. O._ "It cancels them. Instead of taking us north-east, it will
+take us due west toward the Prieska Road as soon as we strike Beer
+Vlei."
+
+_B._ "It looks as if Mr Brass Hat over there is going to dry-nurse me.
+My orders are to co-operate with him--not to follow him about like a
+dog at heel. I'm not sent here to be at the beck and call of every
+column commander a day senior to myself. I am here to catch
+Bojers[29]--not to tramp about roads in the rear of other people. This
+is not co-operation; it is aiding and abetting 'refusal' tactics. Now
+look here, Mr Intelligence; just let us examine our information, and
+if we are right and Brass Hat is wrong, I'll just send him back a note
+which will keep him halted all day wiring to Pretoria for permission
+to cast me into irons. Now, what is his information?"
+
+_I. O._ (_reads_) "Information arrived late last night that Pretorius
+and Brand have taken the road to Prieska. This is confirmed by the
+scouts who went out last night. The enemy retired over Minie Kloof and
+halted at a farm on the far side of the pass."
+
+_B._ "Therefore the officer commanding the New Cavalry Brigade, having
+covered the whole force over Minie Kloof, will halt and allow the
+brave general to pass through his brigade, and then follow him along a
+Karoo road into Prieska. So these are this sportsman's ideas on the
+co-operation of columns. They are about equal with his conception of
+the military methods most adapted for catching the present edition of
+'Brother.' What is our private information?"
+
+_I. O._ "That Brand, Hertzog, and Pretorius with four hundred men left
+this yesterday afternoon,--the former with the intention of making for
+Prieska; the two latter, with the bulk of the force, to fulfil an
+order from De Wet to concentrate with him upon Strydenburg."
+
+_B._ "I forget how you came by this information?"
+
+_I. O._ "From the German storekeeper here, sir. He's a good sort of
+fellow, and the Supply officer has taken him on as a conductor. The
+man was present in the store when the messenger arrived with the
+communication from De Wet."
+
+_B._ "'M, yes. But may not he have been told to tip us this yarn on
+purpose? Have you any other information confirming this theory?"
+
+_I. O._ "Yes, sir, in two places. One of the old dames in the farm
+here dropped a remark which the Tiger pounced upon at once. Her
+spring-cart had been sent by Hertzog into Strydenburg to get
+ammunition, as the orders were then for Brand to attack Britstown, and
+they expected to use up the available supply in so doing. The
+ammunition would have arrived with De Wet. That is circumstantial
+evidence; but last night about 2 P.M. I got the following from the
+cable-cart. It is from our friend the De Wet expert, dated last night
+from Orange River Station (_takes out paper and reads_): 'Despatches
+captured ordering concentration of all available commandoes at
+Strydenburg to meet De Wet on the evening of the 26th'--that is
+to-night, sir."
+
+_B._ "Will old Stick-in-the-mud have got that, too?"
+
+_I. O._ "I presume so, sir!"
+
+_B._ "Then this is a clear case of 'bilk' on his part. I will go over
+and see him. I will be at Strydenburg, as I intended, by midday
+to-morrow, if I have to mutiny in doing so. My orders of last night
+stand until I come back."
+
+The brigadier was returned in ten minutes, by which time the crude
+mutton chops, fried in bacon fat, which formed the daily staple of the
+staff breakfast, were laid upon the packing-case. The Brigadier sat
+down on his biscuit-tin and took a deep draught of tea. He then seemed
+sufficiently fortified to give expression to his feelings.
+
+_B._ "Well, of all the electroplated figure-heads with which I have
+come in contact in a long and varied military career, that man is the
+most unmentionable. He is eloquent in his estimation of you, Mr
+Intelligence. I told him that I could not agree with him upon any one
+point he put forward, and that it would be childish in the extreme to
+waste 2500 men in chivvying a mythical 200. He then grew angry, and
+told me he had got his orders and had given me mine. Well, if this is
+what is meant by co-operation, I'll never get within speaking distance
+of a column with which I am told to co-operate again. Issued fresh
+orders! Instead of being within striking distance of Strydenburg
+to-night, we shall be messing about in the Beer Vlei. Old
+Stick-in-the-mud does not mean 'going,' that I full well see. What a
+sin it is!"
+
+And we can readily indorse this comment upon the evils of seniority,
+which, while giving a cover to impotence at the head, dwarf, handicap,
+and crush individual energy in the junior. How much separated these
+two men in age? It may have been a couple of years. Even if in the
+Army List it had been a single day, the result would have been the
+same. The so-called experience of seniority--which too often in this
+war has spelled incompetence or unsoldierly timidity--has been able to
+subjugate the wiser counsels of the junior, and crush out of his
+action that fire and energy of purpose which alone could have brought
+success. As in the present case, the senior deliberately ignored the
+advice of the man with whom he had been ordered to co-operate, and
+taking advantage of the few lines which gave him preference in the
+Army List, ordered him to deviate from a scheme which in his heart of
+hearts he must have known was the only one which could promise
+adequate results,--it might also be said any results at all. Perhaps a
+study of developments such as these will furnish some clue to an
+explanation of one of the gigantic puzzles of this South African
+campaign.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[24] A gruesome record of successful shooting.
+
+[25] Dutch, swamp.
+
+[26] Team.
+
+[27] Hindustani, arrangement.
+
+[28] Official designation of the field-service regulation overcoat.
+
+[29] Jocular rendering of "Burghers."
+
+
+
+
+VII.
+
+"POTTERING."
+
+
+"Well, if that place is held, it would take Lord Bobs and the 'Grand
+Army' three days to turn it," and the brigadier dropped his glasses to
+the full length of their lanyard.
+
+The brigade, doing advance-guard to the whole concentration, had
+crossed the great prairie which lies north of Houwater, and the
+covering cloud of mounted _�claireurs_ was already disappearing into
+the shade of the mountain fastness in front of us. The giant outcrop
+of volcanic rock which is known as Minie Kloof rises, with that
+directness peculiar to the vast South African table-land, sheer from a
+prairie as level as a billiard-table. A succession of rocky
+flat-topped parallelograms, featureless save for the one sealed
+pattern of nature's architecture of the veldt. To the nomadic
+traveller and man of peace, landmarks as barren and bare as the great
+ironstone belts of Northern Africa, which constrain the power of the
+unwilling Nile until she surges in angry cataract through such niggard
+opening as they will allow her. To the man of war, a veritable
+Gibraltar; a maze of possibilities in defence; a stupendous
+undertaking in attack, an undertaking which will brook neither error
+nor miscalculation, and from which nature has eliminated much of the
+element of chance on the one side to place it to the credit of the
+other. Of such a kind were our Colenso, Magersfontein, Stormberg, and
+Spion Kop heights. You at home at your ease, taking in from the map in
+a second a perfunctory impression of the topography, which it would
+take a cavalry brigade half a day to verify, talk glibly of turning
+this position and out-flanking that. Know ye that the lateral problem,
+which in the pink and green of the atlas would appear so simple, may
+be for miles a gridiron of parallel and supporting positions. That the
+well-considered turning movement put in motion at the first streak of
+dawn may be, and probably will have become, a plain and simple
+frontal attack by sunrise, through circumstances that no man, not even
+Napoleon himself, could foresee or control. Then this being given, why
+not deal leniently with such men as have served you well, and who may
+be trusted to profit by experience dearly purchased? but the other
+class, the man who has prostituted the fighting excellence of the
+British soldier in the shock of war by appealing to the chances of
+war, without due care and forethought--why, it is your duty to destroy
+him: your bitterest strictures even will not meet the punishment such
+a one deserves.
+
+"If a life insurance agent were to turn up now, I should take him on!"
+And the brigadier had every cause for anxiety, for the under-features
+of Minie Kloof could swallow a thousand men, and still leave a mocking
+enemy in possession of the salients. Troop after troop of Dragoons
+broke into extended order, and spread away to either flank. The front
+became wider and wider, and yet no rifle-shot. The main body and the
+guns halted and waited, momentarily expecting to hear that intonation
+of the double echo, which in a second would change the whole history
+of the day. But it never came. The little brown specks, which had
+vanished into the shadow of the mountain, commenced to reappear
+amongst the stunted vegetation on the crests. At first it needed
+strong glasses to distinguish the moving bodies from the clumps of
+blurred bush-shadow. Then out twinkled that little star of light which
+means so much to the general in the field. Gaily it caught the rising
+efforts of the sun, and threw to brigadier and staff the welcome news
+that the summit of Minie Kloof was clear.
+
+"Thank Providence for that! we will be in Strydenburg to-night," and
+the brigadier cantered on into the pass while the main body of his
+command moved leisurely after him towards the natural fastness. It
+must have been from places on the great South African tableland such
+as this that Rider Haggard drew his inspirations to invent the hidden
+kingdoms of Central Africa--charming rock-bound empires familiar to us
+all. How many will there be who have trekked through and through the
+new British colonies, and not been struck with the many
+mountain-locked valleys which abound! Valleys as fertile and pleasant
+as any in the legends of fairy tale; or, to be less fanciful in
+simile, as bright in being and as difficult of approach as Afridi
+Tirah in early autumn. Such a valley we found within the outer barrier
+of Minie Kloof. A valley small in its proportions, it is true, but
+none the less fertile. A dainty brook of crystal clearness gave life
+to the barren hillsides. The silt of a thousand years of summer
+torrents had furnished each niche and recess with a mould Goshen-like
+in its richness. Here, amongst luxuriant groves of almost tropical
+splendour, nestled the inevitable farmstead,--a white residence which
+had once possessed some architectural beauty, and an outcrop of barns
+and subsidiary mansions unpretentious in design, squalid in
+arrangement. The staff of the New Cavalry Brigade dismounted before
+the farmer's door and called for refreshment. For the moment one
+possessed the mental vision of a pink-cheeked milk-maiden--the
+panel-picture of civilised imagination--short of skirt, dainty in
+neck and arm, symmetrical and sweet in person and carriage. It is of
+such that the thirsty soldier dreams. The vision came. A slovenly hack
+from the kitchen obeyed the summons. With dirty hands she thrust a
+still dirtier beaker of milk upon us, and spat ostentatiously to
+emphasise the spirit of her hospitality. It takes much to stifle the
+honest thirst of war, but this was more than human nature could
+support, and the uninviting bowl passed round the staff untouched
+until it reached the less fastidious signallers. Five minutes at the
+crystal brook was worth all the ministrations of Dutch milkmaids.
+
+It then became necessary to seek for information. It was a barren
+field of search. The surly men-folk of the sordid dwelling lounged out
+and met all inquiry with studied insolence. Even the Tiger could make
+no headway. He was met with recriminations. The Dutchmen recognised
+him as a neighbour, and ill disguised their disapprobation of his
+present circumstances. Information was at a deadlock, though in
+reality there was little to be learned. The brigadier halted just
+long enough to water the horses, and then it was forward again for the
+last climb over Minie Kloof.
+
+It was slow work. The scouting of an outcrop of mountain by cavalry is
+always slow work, especially if that cavalry is under an officer who
+will have the work done well. But like all things, good or bad, it
+came to an end, and as the autumn sun grew vertical, the head of the
+column passed down into another great plain which sinks northwards
+into the Beer Vlei.
+
+"Thank Providence the 'push' was not stuck up in that place," said the
+brigadier as he halted to watch the waggons down the last incline. "If
+old man De Wet is to be at Strydenburg to-night, with Britstown as his
+objective, we should have had him here to-morrow morning. I have only
+seen a worse country in the colony down Calvinia way. That was the
+most deceptive playground that I was ever inveigled into. But it was
+as deceptive to 'brother' as it was to us. Both sides lost themselves
+about twice every half-hour. Hostile pickets and outposts constantly
+rode into one another. I remember one night we had just settled down
+in camp when in rode three Boers. They came up to the lines of one of
+my scallywag corps with utmost unconcern--halted in all good faith
+right up against the horse-lines. 'What commando is this?--is it Judge
+Hertzog's?' A Natal corporal was the man nearest to them, and he was a
+quick-witted fellow. He slipped back the 'cut off' of his rifle as he
+answered, 'I guess not--but there is our commandant over there. You
+had best go and ask him whose commando it is; but you must just hold
+your hands above your head before you speak to him. He is a peculiar
+man, our commandant!' The men surrendered to him without a murmur, and
+seemed to think it was a good joke. But I daresay three months of a
+Bellary sun in the Shiny has caused them to change their opinions."
+
+The column swung out into the great dry Karoo prairie. It was a
+comfortless trek. Earth and sky seemed to have forgotten the rain of
+preceding days; or it may have been that the storms which had
+distressed us had been purely local, for we had struck a great
+waterless plain which showed not the slightest sign of moisture. The
+shuffling mules and lumbering waggons churned up a pungent dust; a
+great spiral pillar of brown cloud mushroomed out above the column; no
+breath of air gave relief from the vertical rigour of the sun; the
+great snake-like column sweated and panted across the open, reporting
+its presence to every keen-sighted Dutchman within a radius of fifteen
+miles.
+
+We have seen the beauties of the Karoo; but we cannot blind ourselves
+to its defects, for they are the more numerous. At its best it is a
+great stagnant desert, studded here and there with some redeeming
+oases. Its verdure smacks of the wilderness. Stunted brown and grey,
+the heather from which these rolling steppes take their name is
+stranger to the more clement tinge of green, which is the sign of a
+soil less sapless. Yet a peculiar fascination militates against a
+general condemnation of the pitiless Karoo. One cannot altogether
+banish from one's mind the memories of a summer night upon those
+wastes. Those of you who have laboured in the desert of the Egyptian
+Soudan will realise what is meant--can feel as we feel towards the
+veldt of the Karoo. There is in that mysterious, almost uncanny,
+fascination of those cool nights which succeed a grilling day a
+something which you always look back upon with delight. What this
+influence is, you can never precisely say; but it is impossible to
+forget it....
+
+At midday the New Cavalry Brigade came to a halt at some mud holes,
+which furnished sufficient clayey water to allow the sobbing gun-teams
+and transport animals to moisten their mouths. Water for the men there
+was little, except the pittance which they were allowed to draw from
+the regimental water-carts. Neither was there shade from the merciless
+sun. The six inches of spare Karoo bush, though it served as a nibble
+for the less fastidious of animals, was useless either as bed or
+shade; other vegetable growth there was none within sight. Men crawled
+under waggons and water-carts if they were fortunate enough to find
+themselves near them, or, unrolling their blankets, extended them as
+an awning, and burrowed underneath. The oppression of that still heat!
+Fifty yards away the atmosphere became a simmering mirage; the
+outposts lost all semblance of nature's form, and stood out
+exaggerated in the middle distance as great blurs of brown and black.
+But it is only a passing inconvenience. In an hour or two the strength
+of that great, fiery, pitiless sun will be on the wane: if it were
+otherwise, then, indeed, would the Karoo be a desert. So you doze--it
+is too hot to sleep--and thank Fortune that you have not to march
+during the furnace hours of the day. And as you doze, parched and
+sweating, a little blue-grey lizard pops out from beneath the cart
+beside you, and, climbing gingerly up the stem of a solitary
+karoo-bush, surveys you with great, thoughtful, unblinking eyes. He is
+a complacent little beast, of wonderful skin and marking; and if it
+were not for the palpitation of his white waistcoat, it had been
+difficult to say he lived. You wonder if he too feels the heat. You
+think he does; for he opens his pink maw and sways his sprig of
+heather, to make for himself that breeze in the still air for which
+you are panting. You close your eyes, and smile to think that such a
+little thing as a karoo-blended lizard can interest you. A sound
+catches your ear: it is the upbraiding note of the bustard. Again and
+again you hear it. A covey of these birds must have been raised. As
+the clatter of their cry dies away, you distinguish the muffled
+strokes of a galloping horse. This is significant. No man in his
+senses would gallop in this heat unless his mission was serious.
+Nearer and nearer comes the horseman. You hate to move, though you
+hear the rapid breathing of the horse and the complaints of chafing
+leather.
+
+"Where is headquarters?" demands a voice in authority.
+
+Your dream and rest is over; for are you not the general's flunkey?
+You jump to your feet.
+
+"Where have you come from?"
+
+_Orderly_ (_as he hands in a written message_). "From the officer
+commanding the advance-guard." The message runs: "Patrol on left front
+reports large force of Boers, estimated 500 strong, to be behind the
+rise three miles to the right of the solitary flat-topped kopje on our
+left front. Patrol has fallen back upon me."
+
+This information is laid before the brigadier, who is half asleep
+under the mess-cart.
+
+_Brigadier._ "How far is the flat kopje from us?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "About four miles, sir."
+
+_B._ "Intervening country?"
+
+_I. O._ "Flat as a polo-ground, sir."
+
+_B._ "Oh, send out a troop to get touch with them. I'll bet it's only
+a flock of ostriches or a mirage. Tell the troop not to get
+compromised if they should find Boers in greater strength than
+themselves. Hold another troop and the pom-pom in readiness to
+support, if there should be anything. But it's not reasonable that
+there should be 500 Boers so near us at this hour. It is too late for
+our Houwater friends, and too early for ole man Christian.[30]"
+
+_I. O._ "Very good, sir."...
+
+Almost immediately upon the despatch of the troop, the main body of
+the co-operating command marched up to the clay pools. The two
+generals met to discuss the situation. The meeting of generals in the
+field nearly always lends itself to the picturesque. We know that it
+is a favourite theme for the artist's brush. And even in this
+utilitarian age, when the genius of man has shorn war of much of the
+panoply with which the calling of arms is associated in peace, there
+is something attractive in the sight of the communion of great
+soldiers in the field. The glory of war is not all cock-feathers and
+steel scabbards. In fact, the brilliant colours which blend so well
+with the pasture-green and brick-red of Europe would offend the eye if
+grouped upon the russet veldt--would seem as incongruous as a flamingo
+perching upon a hay-rick. It is an interesting picture. The two
+generals standing together a little apart from their staffs, which
+mingle in friendly intercourse. The lines of dismounted orderlies
+holding the horses from which the officers have just dismounted. The
+senior general is a tall spare man, just overlapping the prime of
+life. It is more than the powdered dust that makes his moustaches
+appear so fair. He is a man careful of his personal appearance. From
+head to foot his uniform of modest brown fits him as would a glove--to
+borrow from the sayings of a fair cousin across the Atlantic,--the fit
+of everything is so perfect that it looks as if he had been melted and
+poured molten into a khaki casing. The sombre dirt colour is relieved
+by the scarlet and gold upon his peaked cap and collar, and the long
+string of kaleidoscopic ribbons on his breast which tells of many
+tented fields--and maybe as many "fields of cloth-of-gold," for it
+does not take war alone now to decorate the breast, or to bind
+spur-straps across the instep of a knight. The brigadier stands in
+contrast to his senior. He is as tall a man, more commanding in
+carriage, but of very different temperament and gait. It is no studied
+negligence which has arranged the careless inconsistency of his dress.
+It is but the mind speaking through the person. He wears nothing that
+has cost a tailor a minute's thought to shape. His staff cap is set
+askew; his badges of staff distinction have obviously been sewn into
+position by some unskilled craftsman--probably his soldier servant.
+His tunic tells its own story of two years' campaigning in the rough;
+while the Mauser pistol strapped to the nut-brown belt which Wilkinson
+designed to carry a sword, speaks eloquently of the wearer's
+appreciation of the latter weapon as part of a general officer's
+service equipment. But as you look at the two--the one dandy and
+smart, the other rough and workmanlike--you can feel the personality
+of the junior, while the senior means no more to you than a clothier's
+model. This may not convey much to the average layman. But
+men--illiterate, uncultured, fighting men--see and appreciate all
+this, and it means much to them. Know, therefore, that there is no
+keener judge of human character and human mind than the cherub of the
+gutter. It is from these gutter-snipe, grown into men, that the
+fighting ranks of the great British army are filled.
+
+The generals were discussing the situation, as far as their respective
+staffs could discern from their speech and attitude, amicably enough,
+though the brigadier was pressing some point. In reality he had
+renewed his protest against his senior's decision of the morning, and
+was endeavouring to influence him into a change of policy and plan.
+But the stern usage of the service decrees that the public convenience
+should be ordered by the man whose name ranges first upon the Army
+List schedule, and that the junior should press his arguments in
+deferential rather than aggressive language. But by dint of argument,
+and some short reference to the senior members of the staff, a
+compromise was arrived at in order to meet the wishes of the
+brigadier.
+
+_General._ "I tell you that I don't like it; neither do I see any
+object in the move. After the handling which he has had from Plumer,
+Prieska can be the only line open to De Wet."
+
+_Brigadier._ "But all my information is in an opposite direction, sir.
+It distinctly----"
+
+_G._ "I don't think that your information is worth much. What can that
+boy know about it? He has been gulled by all the old wives' fables on
+the line of march."
+
+_B._ "Well, sir, leaving De Wet out of the question--I have been
+promised a convoy at Strydenburg, and I have yet to pick up my
+brigade. A squadron of the 21st Dragoon Guards and the whole of the
+Mount Nelson Light Horse, which Plumer has not assimilated, is now
+straining every nerve to catch me up."
+
+_G._ "When do you meet your convoy, and how far behind you are your
+details?"
+
+(Now the brigadier had invented the convoy on the spur of the moment.
+It was true that he had been promised a convoy, but that promise had
+not indicated Strydenburg as the rendezvous. But seeing that he had
+scored a point he turned at once to the Intelligence officer.)
+
+_B._ "When is our convoy due at Strydenburg?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Possibly to-morrow evening, sir. The day
+after to-morrow at the latest." (Luckily the Intelligence officer had
+been following the conversation, and the answer came glibly enough.)
+
+_G._ "H'm, that places another complexion upon it. But it is suicidal,
+reckless, to allow convoys to meander about the veldt in this
+inconsequent manner. What about your details?"
+
+(The brigadier having struck a "lead," had wasted no time in figuring
+out his estimates.)
+
+_B._ "Well, sir, I would suggest that you let me halt here for to-day.
+My details are just one day behind me now. They will catch me up
+to-morrow. In the meantime I will send a strong patrol--a
+reconnaissance rather--into Strydenburg, starting this afternoon, pick
+up the convoy, after which I will join you at any point you may
+select. I shall then be a useful fighting body; now I am only a gun
+escort!"
+
+_G._ "Yes, yes; it would be dangerous for either you or your details
+to be wandering about in this disturbed country alone. _I_ agree with
+you, Colonel; but you must allow that in view of the present
+circumstances it would be inadvisable for us to be caught in detail."
+
+One cannot blind oneself to the fact that all this is very childish.
+But then the man who undertakes life in the army must be prepared to
+be a schoolboy to the end of his service. It ill becomes a brigadier
+or any officer wearing his Majesty's uniform--as the expression
+goes--to practise small deceits even to bring about a situation
+calculated to be for the public convenience. Yet what other course was
+open to the brigadier! For reasons which are evident from his
+conversation, his senior had determined not to recognise him as an
+independent force, but to hug him until all danger real or imaginary
+was past. It is the trammels of discipline such as this that breaks
+the hearts of the stalwarts in our service, and racks the national
+war-chest to the bottom. Can you blame the brigadier, alive to the
+pressing exigency of the situation, when, having exhausted the
+man-to-man arguments of common reason, he descended to the practice of
+a subterfuge to defeat the purpose of a man whose only object appeared
+to be to satisfy his own personal peace of mind? Yet we doubt if the
+senior was conscious of the futility of his direction. He had one
+object in view. He was possessed with the single desire to avoid
+disaster. In its limited sense his action was laudable enough; but
+what would the owner of a racehorse say to the jockey who, after
+having ridden a sound horse in a race, volunteered the information
+that he had never extended his mount out of consideration for its
+sinews? The care of the jockey is parallel to that of fifty per cent
+of the men who have led columns in this war--except that there has
+been no judge in the box to balance the merits of each case. The judge
+has been far away in Pretoria, and the jockey has furnished his own
+estimate of the running....
+
+So the New Cavalry Brigade remained out-spanned by the mud-holes,
+while the other column passed through it and bore away in search of
+the Prieska Road. The rearguard of the moving force was brought up by
+a Colonial corps, which had originally been raised in Natal by the
+brigadier of the New Cavalry Brigade. Of course the _personnel_ in the
+ranks had long since changed. Changed, be it said with regret, for the
+worse. But there was still remaining a small percentage of the
+original stock--stock that had been second to none. As the rearguard
+passed through, a great burly corporal cantered to the packing-case
+table at which the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade had just settled
+down to lunch, shouting, "Say, where is the ole man?"
+
+The brigadier rose with a smile.
+
+_Corporal._ "I heard that you were here, sir, and I couldn't go by
+without speaking. Lord, what a sight for sore eyes it is to see you
+again!--if there were only more like you. (_Then extending his hand._)
+Come, sir, put your hand right here--it is a good day's work to have
+again shaken hands with a man." And then the corporal was off in a
+cloud of dust. But it had been an interesting and instructive
+incident. Without a doubt the man was Yankee; but he had served all
+through the Natal campaign, from Willow Grange to Bergendal, and his
+honest appreciation of his old chief almost brought tears to our eyes,
+and was of more value than all the ribbon and tinsel that a crowned
+head can bestow.
+
+"That," said the brigadier, "is one of the finest men, amongst many
+fine men, whom I have enlisted. I was recruiting for my 'push' down in
+Durban. I used to go and get the fellows off the ships as they came
+in. That fellow came over with a man who was running a cargo of mules.
+I well remember when I broached the subject to him. His answer was
+characteristic: 'Say, colonel, what do you want us for? Is it for a
+straight scrapping with Boers, or is it to meander about as a town
+garrison?' 'If you join me you shall be "scrapping" in a week from
+to-day.' 'Will you give me your hand on that, colonel?' I acquiesced,
+and straightway was able to enlist practically the whole ship's
+company--and I never want to command a better lot. Did I ever tell you
+about the Boer spies? Well, in the early days of recruiting in Natal
+several Dutch agents were enlisted. They were paid by the Transvaal to
+enlist in British corps. When we got to Mooi River one of these men
+was discovered--recognised as an ex-Pretorian detective. That corporal
+came to me and volunteered some advice. 'You prove him a spy, colonel,
+and then turn him over to us: you won't have any more spies after
+that.' I had the suspect up. There was not a shadow of doubt about his
+identity, so I just said to the sergeant-major, 'This man is your
+property--the fair name of the corps is in your keeping; there's a
+convenient donga over there!' I never saw the man again, nor did I ask
+what happened to him; but this I do know, that on the self-same
+evening five men came to me and asked to be allowed to resign. They
+came with faces as white as the coat of that mare over there. 'Yes,' I
+said as I looked at them, 'you may go. You leave for the good of all
+concerned, yourselves included.' And since that day I was never
+troubled by the enlisting of Dutch agents."...
+
+    "The best laid schemes o' mice and men
+          Gang aft a-gley,"
+
+and the dust of the column moving towards the Prieska Road was still
+hanging over the horizon when a staff-officer came galloping back to
+the New Cavalry Brigade. He brought written instructions to the
+brigadier which nullified for ever the Strydenburg scheme. "The G.O.C.
+directs the O.C. the New Cavalry Brigade to remain halted until he is
+joined by such details as are following him along the Britstown Road.
+As it is essential that the pass over Minie Kloof should be kept clear
+pending the arrival of the aforementioned details, the G.O.C. directs
+that the proposed reconnaissance to Strydenburg be abandoned, and the
+troops which would have been used for the reconnaissance be sent to
+hold Minie Kloof. As soon as the New Cavalry Brigade is complete, it
+will follow with all speed upon the direct road to Prieska. Under no
+circumstances are other arrangements to be made."
+
+The occasion was not opportune for an expression of the brigadier's
+feelings, but his silence was eloquent. There was no hope for it: it
+was a written order from a senior, and we had no choice but to obey.
+
+It is said by some that Christian de Wet is the best general that the
+war produced from the ranks of our enemy. It is not our present
+intention to debate upon this subject; but this much can be said with
+confidence, that he has been the most fortunate of leaders. On every
+occasion in which he has been hard pressed, when to all intents and
+purposes he has found himself at the end of his tether, the pendulum
+of fortune has favoured him in its swing. Often enough he has saved
+his skin through the culpable stupidity of his pursuers. But even when
+he has almost been cornered by the very best of leaders and men that
+the British Empire can produce, the law of chances has stood by him. A
+meddling contradictory telegram from headquarters, a thunderstorm or a
+swollen river, has times without number saved the slippery commandant
+at the eleventh hour. Take the present instance. It subsequently
+proved that if the brigadier had, as he intended, moved upon
+Strydenburg, and arrived there on the same day that he was directed by
+his superior officer to stand fast and hold the Minie Kloof, he would
+have arrived at his goal practically simultaneously with the guerilla
+chieftain. The New Cavalry Brigade would have borne down upon the
+little Karoo hamlet, fresh and in the full spirit of men new to war
+and "spoiling for the fight"; men just sufficiently blooded in their
+preliminary skirmish to have confidence both in themselves and in
+their general, and--and this is the exasperating nature of the
+story--while the British troopers would have ridden robustly into
+battle, De Wet and his following were in no condition to receive them.
+Unprepared for the arrival of fresh troops, spoiled of guns, train,
+and ammunition, kicked and harried by the gallant Plumer's tenacity,
+riddled and torn by Nanton's armoured trains, harassed by Heneker and
+Crabbe, panting for rest, they would have been no match for
+blood-seeking dragoons and a Horse Artillery battery that had been
+studying range-finding in South Africa ever since the battle of
+Magersfontein. All we can do is to shrug our shoulders and say, "The
+pity of it!" while we pay the extra twopence in the income-tax which
+our confidence in effete leaders, and disinclination to recognise, and
+make soldiers recognise, that our army is a national institution, has
+cost us.
+
+It so happens that in war the rank and file know little of what is
+taking place, and, one is inclined to add, care less. Consequently
+those in the brigade who had no knowledge of the state of affairs
+existing with regard to Strydenburg were delighted at the prospect of
+a halt. At this period of the campaign halts were rare, and men looked
+to them in much the same spirit as the average house-holder in England
+looks to a spring cleaning, since, provided there is water, an "off
+afternoon" will allow of a little of the cleanliness which hard
+trekking renders impossible. The Dragoon Guards had not been long
+enough in the country to feel the necessity of a thorough overhaul of
+their linen. But the Horse gunners were old soldiers, and as soon as
+the intended halt became common knowledge the men stripped the shirts
+off their backs and indulged in the luxury of sand-baths where water
+was not available. This may appear a simple operation, but those who
+have campaigned long upon the veldt will know that a change of clothes
+exposes not the least of "the horrors of war."
+
+But, halted or moving, there is no cessation of trouble and anxiety
+for the staff of any unit engaged in active service, and when the
+brigadier issued his orders to meet the instructions of his superior
+officer, his acting staff-officer discovered that the column was two
+troops short. One troop had been missing ever since the first day out
+from Richmond Road, the other had lost itself that morning in Minie
+Kloof. This may sound absurd, but it is not an isolated incident; and
+if we are to believe the evidence of those who marched with the "Grand
+Army" into Bloemfontein, it was not a matter then of troops that were
+missing, but fifty per cent of the whole army, and so badly missing
+that it took the quartermaster-general's department a fortnight of
+solid labour to definitely find them. The inexperienced youth could
+get no help from his brigadier. Since the arrival of the message from
+the main column that officer had not been approachable. But with the
+aid of the good-natured gunner major and the opportune return of the
+troop which had been detached in the morning, as the brigadier had
+surmised, on a wild-goose chase after a mirage, it was possible to
+apportion some sort of a force capable of holding a salient in Minie
+Kloof without totally denuding the camp of adequate fighting strength.
+But it is on occasions such as these, when isolated detachments are
+scattered broadcast, that disaster is courted. Luckily it is only once
+in a hundred times that the enemy has been in a position to accept the
+free gifts offered to them.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[30] Christian de Wet
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+STILL POTTERING.
+
+
+To the delight of the men and disgust of the brigadier, day broke
+without bringing any further orders to the New Cavalry Brigade. So it
+remained halted in the great open prairie which fringes the Beer Vlei.
+It may also be conjectured that De Wet and his following, as they were
+stripping the adjacent little township of Strydenburg, learned with
+satisfaction that the British columns, which lay round him like the
+spokes of a wheel to the axle, were as immobile as usual--Plumer from
+the force of circumstances, the others for the reasons set down in the
+preceding chapter. But the cunning guerilla had no intention of
+dallying at Strydenburg. It was not part of his strategy to spend two
+consecutive days in any one spot unless bent upon the reduction of a
+garrison. Even British column commanders at times have been known to
+shake off their lethargy. He just remained in the town long enough to
+replenish his quartermaster's stores department and to take over the
+fresh ponies which Hertzog had collected for him, and then moved north
+in three columns, trusting to pass between the spokes of the imaginary
+wheel before Plumer had collected himself. Brand, with a thin hedge of
+Free Staters and rebels, was left as a decoy to cover Strydenburg,
+while the three columns made for Marks Drift in the loop of the Orange
+River, south-west of Kimberley. And as De Wet put the first day's plan
+of these movements into progress, the New Cavalry Brigade, by order,
+remained halted, covering the entrance to the pass at Minie Kloof.
+
+The men, however, were delighted. For the first time for many weeks
+they were able to turn round and attend to their own personal comfort,
+to change their under-clothes and to sort their kits. The soldier man
+on service loves to sort his kit. The very fact that he is able to
+shake out his modest bag to the bottom spells "holiday," and in
+latter-day trekking holidays for the men were rare. But even holidays
+can bring their heart-burnings, and about the breakfast-hour a howl of
+despair went up from the Horse Artillery lines. A casual stroll
+through the ankle-deep heather to Freddy's quarters repaid those
+sightseers who had energy enough to be interested in camp excitements.
+The horse-gunner major had long felt annoyance at the turnout of his
+Kaffir boys and teamsters. The predominant attribute of the Kaffir is
+vanity, an attribute which he possesses in common with all savages and
+most white men. The reason for this vanity we will not pursue, as we
+have nothing to do with the ethics of masculine conceit: it is
+sufficient for this history that it exists. Vanity has caused the
+Kaffirs of South Africa to acquire about fifty per cent of the British
+army tunics which have landed in that continent. Thomas Atkins, as a
+rule, is not over-blessed with money, consequently he cannot resist
+the temptation of the five golden sovereigns which the Kaffir is
+prepared to give for any scarlet tunic which is not in the last stage
+of decay. The transfer of uniform came to such a pitch that an army
+order was issued on the subject. Not that an army order was sufficient
+to stay the general traffic in British uniforms, but it furnished such
+right-minded soldiers as the horse-gunner major with the "cue" which
+they required. Freddy's Kaffirs had struck a new and green regiment,
+and being themselves near the end of a six months' contract, they were
+"full of money." Consequently at Britstown, where money had possessed
+extra fascinations for the British soldier, the "boys" attached to the
+battery had been able to lay in a very complete outfit in Line
+regimentals. The halt gave Freddy his opportunity, and he had every
+kit laid bare. The revelation was wonderful. There was not a driver or
+_voor looper_ who had not his scarlet jerkin. Many, indeed, had two,
+to say nothing of forage-caps, field-service caps, dragoon overalls,
+and gunner slacks. The Kaffirs had at first looked upon the kit
+inspection as a joke. But they lapsed into a puzzled silence when they
+saw their belongings cast upon a common heap. Their great white eyes
+grew bigger and bigger, and their repulsive lips wider and wider
+apart, until, when the last bag had been ransacked, the torch was
+applied to the pile of clothing. Then they realised the blasting of
+all their hopes, and with one accord they gave vent to the despairing
+yell which had attracted the attention of the camp. They became like
+men possessed. Smiting themselves heavily upon the head with their
+fists, they went through the paroxysms of negroid lamentation. One
+could almost feel for them, great bronzed children that they are. They
+had worked hard for months, shared the privations and dangers of war
+with the white men, in order that they might return to their kraals
+bedecked as they thought in all the glory of the white man's clothes.
+To them the Utopia of life would have been their homecoming. The
+admiration of chattering women, the acclamation of piccaninies, and
+the hideous smile of their paramount chief as they humbly presented
+him with a battered helmet in a semi-decayed state of pipe-clay
+finish. But Freddy was no philanthropist when the honour of the
+uniform which his family had worn for two centuries was at stake. And
+he was right. The dignity of the King's uniform is precious before all
+philanthropy: "These brutes in Gunner Uniform--never! They may keep
+their kharki; but I will not have our uniform outraged in my battery,
+whatever other people may think!"
+
+The native question throughout the war has furnished an interesting
+study. It cannot be claimed that, under the circumstances existing in
+South Africa, good will result from this tremendous struggle for
+existence and paramountcy between two white races. It must always be
+remembered that South Africa will, similarly with India, be held by
+the dominant white race with the sword. It is not for us to trace here
+what troubles may be in store for the white races in the far future.
+The situation in the present and near future appears unsatisfactory
+enough. The untutored mind of the Ethiopian does not appreciate the
+finer ethics of social intercourse and the equality of mankind.
+Freedom to his reasoning means independence; to possess independence,
+to the semi-savage, is a proof of power. The inherent vanity of the
+aboriginal then finds scope, and the nation which cringed and quailed
+under the sjambok of the Boer will be the first to rebel against the
+equity of the Briton. And what have we done during these long months
+of military occupation to counteract the evil effects of war. Nothing:
+Briton-like we have selected to work upon exterior lines. We have
+lived in the present, secure for the future. Who has attempted to
+follow the train of thought which has been uppermost in the native
+mind? Yet it would have been simple enough to have analysed their
+minds. Will it not have been somewhat of this kind?--"The Boers were
+few and the British were many. Yet it has taken the British months to
+stamp out the Boers who were few. Moreover, we have done all the
+scouting for the British--without us they themselves could have done
+nothing. Also of what value are the British soldiers? They are paid
+30s. a-month. We--and we are black men--are paid by the British �3 and
+�4 a-month. Therefore we must be twice or three times as good as the
+British soldiers! And look how the British treat us. How different to
+the treatment we received at the hands of the Boers. The British must
+be afraid of us!" And in the abstract this reasoning is sound. We do
+treat the native as if we were afraid of him. We do treat him so that
+he might justly compare himself favourably with the British soldier.
+We take it for granted that this illiterate black son of the south
+will know, as we do, all the troubles and standards of the labour
+market: will discern the reason, which to us is obvious, of his
+princely pay. But this is where our crass stupidity overtakes us. The
+native does not arrive at his conclusions through the same channel of
+thought as we do ourselves. How could he? And as we only use him to
+suit our own convenience, and remain reckless of the interpretation
+which he places upon our actions, we shall only have ourselves to
+blame, when, having pandered to the inherent vanity of the black, we
+suddenly find him at our throats. Not that we believe that the natives
+are sufficiently advanced to render our hold in the country insecure.
+But they have been pampered by us enough to make them imagine vain
+things, and vain imaginings may result at no distant period in a
+repetition of that rapine, pillage, and massacre of isolated white
+settlements, which has ever furnished the saddest stones in the cairn
+of our great Empire.
+
+As the sun rose it brought news from the Prieska Road. The helio
+twinkled out another message from the general: "Good water at
+Rietvlei, four miles on. Move on to Rietvlei, form your brigade there,
+and await orders from me." Almost at the same moment the helio from
+the summit of Minie Kloof called us up. "Have brought along two
+squadrons of the Mount Nelson Light Horse and a troop of the 21st
+King's Dragoon Guards. Pushing on as fast as possible"--signed,
+"Brigade-Major New Cavalry Brigade."
+
+The brigadier appeared completely uninterested. He received the
+information of his coming reinforcement and the general's latest
+orders without comment, and having eaten his breakfast, returned to
+his tent. For the time being the brigade had become a cipher. The only
+really satisfied person in the camp seemed to be the Intelligence
+officer, who saw in the arrival of the real brigade-major an end to
+the multiform duties which had been thrust upon him. The brigade stood
+fast, and presently, riding out of an almost opaque pillar of dust,
+the brigade-major and his detached command came meandering into camp.
+The arrival of the reinforcement moved the camp to interest. Much had
+been heard of the Mount Nelson Light Horse, which had been specially
+raised against Lord Kitchener's demand for more mounted men. The Mount
+Nelson Light Horse rode into camp. The gunners, who had turned out _en
+masse_ to welcome their comrades, just put their hands in their
+breeches pockets and turned away with the single interjection, "Good
+heavens!" The dragoons, who were younger soldiers and less versed in
+veldt lore than the gunners, essayed a cheer. A fitful answer came
+back from the dusty arrivals--it might have been compared with the
+foreign cackle by which the clients of a Soho boarding-house give
+voice to their admiration of the tune of the dinner-gong. The
+brigadier came out of his tent and stood in the open, bareheaded and
+in his shirt-sleeves. Soldier without ribbons--frank, open, and
+gallant English gentleman. His expert eye ran down the ragged ranks
+of his newly acquired legion. He had commanded Colonials during the
+hardest fighting in Natal. The Dragoons might not be judges, but
+nothing escaped his time-tested eye. He caught each detail, the
+Semitic outline of half the profiles, the nervous saddlepoise of the
+twice-attested Peruvian, the hang-dog look of the few true men among
+the ranks, who shrank that a soldier should find them in their present
+associations. The brigadier's moustache ill hid the working of his
+mouth. Then the ludicrous setting of the scene appealed to his
+light-hearted nature, and, laughing heartily, he turned to his staff
+with the single comment, "Gadzooks! they conspire against the fame of
+my fair name. There is only one place in the wide world that I can
+lead that 'push' to, and its name is Stellenbosch!"
+
+But if the Mount Nelson Light Horse couldn't fight, they could talk.
+They were full of second-hand blood. Had not a troop of theirs been
+captured by De Wet, had not their men and officer witnessed De Wet's
+cold-blooded outrage upon a British officer! All this was news to the
+New Cavalry Brigade, and in view of a popular desire to lionise De
+Wet, it will not be ill-advised to put the history of his action upon
+record. We will not refer to the cruel murder of Morgenthal,
+precedented in modern history by the murder of Macnaghten by Ackbar
+Khan, or the pitiless treatment of the prisoners taken at Dewetsdorp
+in December 1900. To us this one incident is sufficient. When De Wet
+crossed to the south of the Orange River in the vicinity of Norval's
+Pont the troops which Lyttelton set in operation against him from
+Colesberg were too late to head him, and in the course of his
+doubling--and De Wet broke back with considerable skill--he captured a
+small proportion of his pursuers. These men having been pilfered of
+much of their wearing apparel, including boots, could only with the
+greatest difficulty keep pace with the rapid movements of their
+captors. It must be remembered that the sleuth-hound, Plumer, was on
+De Wet's trail, and the Boers had no time to waste if they were to
+evade him. There came a time when the half-starved, almost naked, and
+footsore prisoners could move no more. All the food that they had been
+given was in live kind,--sheep that they had to kill, quarter, and
+dress themselves. Cooking was out of the question, as the elements
+were against them, even if they had possessed the necessary
+appliances. Half-way through an exhausting march--flight would perhaps
+better describe the nature of the movement--these wretched prisoners
+lay down, and refused to move another foot. The threats and chiding of
+their escort were in vain. Then some one rode forward and informed De
+Wet. The guerilla captain galloped back to the tail of the column,
+and, worked up into a paroxysm of rage, demanded the senior officer
+amongst the British prisoners. A tall English gentleman stepped
+forward.[31] In a moment the guerilla's arm was raised, and the cruel
+sjambok of rhinoceros-hide fell across the Englishman's face, leaving
+a great blue weal. The arm was raised for a second blow; but the
+Englishman, prisoner though he was, and though his life hung in the
+balance, closed with his brutal captor. Other Boers, doubtless feeling
+the sting of the blow as keenly as the recipient, separated the pair
+before the unarmed Englishman found the ruffian's throat. But the
+blow had been struck,--an unarmed prisoner of officer rank had been
+chastised, an act of savagery fit to rank with the cold-blooded murder
+of an envoy. Yet the day will doubtless come when ignorant English
+people will vie with each other to do honour to the man who struck the
+miscreant blow. They will be persons ignorant of the feeling which
+permeated the army in South Africa. As the news spread round the camp,
+by common consent it was agreed that De Wet should never be handed up
+alive if it fell to the lot of the New Cavalry Brigade to bring him to
+his knees.
+
+In obedience to the superior command, the whole brigade in the
+afternoon sauntered on the four miles set down in the general's
+message. The day had been a repetition of the one which had preceded
+it--one of those burning karoo afternoons, which seem to sap the very
+soul out of all things living. The feeling of dejection which pervaded
+the staff seemed to have communicated itself to the whole column, and
+the New Cavalry Brigade slunk rather than marched into camp. It was
+not a cheerful camping-ground--a solitary farm-house of the poorest
+construction, and two shallow, slimy pools of water were the only
+attractions which it could claim. The men soberly fixed their
+horse-lines, and rolled over to sweat out the trials of the heat until
+sundown. The brigadier, who was still in his Achilles mood, retired to
+his waggon. The new brigade-major, who was the only man with any
+spirits left at all, busied himself with arranging for the
+night-pickets and nursing the Mount Nelson Light Horse. But over a
+bowl of tea, which the mess-servants arranged by four o'clock, the
+brigadier seemed to revive; and he had just become approachable when
+the colonel of the newly arrived contingent sauntered up to the
+mess-waggon,--a big, rather ungainly man, who arrived with all the
+self-assurance of one in authority.
+
+_Colonel_ (_looking round the group of officers at tea and singling
+out the Brigade-Major, whom he knew_). "Which is the brigadier?"
+
+_Brigadier_ (_who had totalled the new-comer's checks in one brief
+glance_). "I am that unfortunate. What can I do for you?"
+
+_C._ (_saluting casually_) "Glad to meet you, sir; I thought that I
+would come round to introduce myself--especially as I have some bad
+news!"
+
+_B._ "A truly noble action, and one which is likely to ingratiate you
+here. What is it?"
+
+_C._ "Nothing more or less than my men and horses are dead-beat. They
+will have to halt here at least two days before they will be fit to
+move. I have----"
+
+_B._ "My dear colonel, have some tea; or perhaps you would prefer some
+whisky-and-sparklet? You bring me the best news that I have heard
+to-day!"
+
+_C._ "Thank you, sir; but I am serious about----"
+
+_B._ "Of course, of course you are serious, and I should have been
+delighted to have left you and your regiment here as long as you
+pleased--the longer the better. Only I shall probably have orders to
+move with my whole force before daybreak, and that being the case, I
+am afraid that your 'robbers' will have to move too, 'dead-beat' or
+not."
+
+_C._ "But I assure you, sir----"
+
+_B._ "There is no need to assure me of anything, colonel. I have
+absolute confidence in your knowledge of the state of inefficiency
+existing in your regiment. Only I will beg you to remember in future
+that I am the judge as to the capabilities of movement of the units
+composing this column. But let us discuss the prospects of peace, or
+some other less abstruse subject than the Mount Nelson Light Horse. In
+the meantime, colonel, just to emphasise what I have said, my
+Intelligence officer has orders to go out to those farms over there to
+see if he can get suitable guides. I have ordered him to take a troop
+of your men. He will start in fifteen minutes. Won't you stay for your
+drink?" (The lion of the slouch-hat persuasion was reduced to the
+lamb; he saluted, and sidled away while the brigadier replenished his
+tea-cup.)
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "That is about his size, sir. He has been more
+trouble to me in my march from Hanover Road than the whole of the
+truck, ox-waggons included."
+
+_B._ "I know them. I knew that man's character from the tilt of his
+hat and the cut of his breeches. He will probably prove a good
+swashbuckler if kept in his place. But he came up here to divide
+authority with me, and only one man can command this crush, and only
+one man is going to. These fellows, if you let them, always become
+saucy as soon as they pin ostrich feathers into their hats. They are
+welcome to the feathers, but they must drop the sauce. So cut along,
+Mr Intelligence, and see that you get that troop up to time. I don't
+mind if you lose it; but you must be back yourself sometime to-night.
+I want a reliable guide to take me anywhere within a radius of twenty
+miles, and all the information that you can incidentally pick up. If
+we hang about here much longer, we shall find ourselves let in for a
+night-attack, and a night-attack with a Town Guard crowd like my new
+addition is to be avoided."
+
+The Intelligence officer went off to find the Tiger and get his horse
+saddled up. He had reverted to his legitimate duties at once, and was
+not sorry that the brigadier had detailed him for this particular
+duty, though he felt that his mission had been designed rather as a
+lesson to the colonel of the Mount Nelson Light Horse than as a
+necessary precaution for the safety of the camp. But it took the
+troop a powerful long time to turn out, and when at last twenty men
+were mounted, they looked for all the world as if they were a party of
+criminals about to be driven to the scaffold. The Tiger whispered to
+the Intelligence officer--"We shall have to go easy with these
+fellows. If we were not here, they would march out of camp with both
+hands above their heads. They are the class of men who will become
+panic-stricken at a dust-devil, and surrender to the first
+cock-ostrich they meet!"
+
+This may have been an exaggeration. There were some good men in the
+corps, men who had fought well in the earlier days of the campaign.
+But they were few and far between, and as events were to show, there
+were not sufficient of the proper stamina to leaven the whole.
+
+The farms which the brigadier had indicated were situated at the foot
+of a spur of rocky excrescence which ploughed into the veldt from the
+north of Minie Kloof. They were only five miles from the camp. But
+that five miles proved too much for the escort. Whether it was
+physical weakness or incipient mutiny it matters little. The men just
+crawled along. So slow was the progress that the Intelligence officer,
+afraid of being benighted, selected four of the better mounted from
+the troop and pressed on to his objective, leaving the escort to
+follow at such pace as they found convenient. The first farm lay in a
+small kloof right against the hillside, and the approach was so masked
+that the little party of scouts rode to within two hundred yards of
+its whitewashed front without as they thought declaring themselves. A
+rise in the ground and a hillock gave all the cover that the Tiger
+deemed necessary, and he suggested that the four troopers should be
+sent up a donga, which would enable them to climb the reverse of a
+second hill which overlooked the farm, while he himself went forward,
+covered by the rifle of the Intelligence officer from their present
+position. To the first part of the scheme the Intelligence officer
+agreed, but he reversed the order of the latter arrangement. Having
+seen the troopers well on their way, he left the Tiger to cover the
+advance, and rode leisurely himself towards the farm. It was a very
+ordinary farm--not flush with the ground, but standing on a plinth of
+brick like an Indian bungalow. A great solemn quietness reigned over
+the whole kloof, not a living soul was visible, and the footfalls of
+the horse sounded strangely exaggerated as the solitary rider
+approached the verandah. Presently a dog stirred, trotted out into the
+sunlight, and barked furiously. It disturbed the inmates of the house;
+a girl hurriedly opened the upper swing-back of the door, looked out,
+and then closed the door with a bang. This was suspicious, and the
+Intelligence officer let his hand drop to the wooden case of the
+Mauser pistol strapped to his holster; his thumb pressed the catch,
+and he threw the pistol loose, keeping his hand upon its stock. Then
+to his shout of "_Wie dar!_" the upper portion of the door was again
+gingerly opened. The same face appeared, that of a round blue-eyed
+Dutch girl. She turned her impassive gaze upon the visitor, who, by
+way of opening the conversation, taxed his limited knowledge of the
+vernacular so far as to ask for a little milk.
+
+"Milk!" the girl answered in passable English. "Yes; I will get you
+milk. Just wait!"
+
+She seemed a long time finding the milk, and the Intelligence officer
+began to feel the situation oppressive. He would have liked to have
+turned his head to see if there were any sign of his troopers being in
+position on the hill above him. But he had that indescribable feeling
+which often inspires a man with the belief that his every movement is
+being watched by unseen eyes. Those of you who have been
+tiger-shooting on foot will readily appreciate the nature of this
+sense. Yet, though he peered through the open door, his eyes could
+discern no movement or his ears any incriminating sound. Presently the
+girl returned with a glass of milk upon a tray. She opened the lower
+half of the door, and came demurely to the edge of the verandah. The
+Intelligence officer put out his hand to receive the glass, when in a
+moment the girl lowered her elbow and soused the contents of the glass
+full into his face.
+
+"Hands up!" in stentorian tones from the doorway; and through a white
+mist of milk, the Englishman had a vision of the business end of two
+rifles pointed at him at short range, held by rough bearded customers,
+and of a white-faced girl convulsed in laughter. The sobering effect
+of the metal throat of a rifle a few inches removed from your breast
+is considerable, and the Intelligence officer was a captured man. But
+for a moment only. Something swished past his ear, and a great star
+appeared in the white-washed plaster, just a foot above the Dutchmen's
+heads. The Tiger had risen to the situation. The girl's laughter died
+out, the two men ducked, and made instinctively for the cover of the
+door. The Intelligence officer had an eighth of a second in which to
+make up his mind. To have been truly sensational he should have
+covered the Burghers with his Mauser; but he was more practical, and
+by the time the men recovered their equanimity he was galloping as
+fast as his pony could lay legs to the ground back to the hillock
+where the Tiger was lying ensconced. Then he realised the extent of
+the hornet's nest into which he had blundered. Rifles cracked to right
+and left of him, like stock-whips in a cattle-run. But it is hard to
+hit a moving body. Many who took part in the battle of Omdurman will
+remember how a single Emir on a scarecrow of a horse galloped
+unscathed along the whole length of the British division advancing
+round the base of Jebel Surgham, though every man in the firing-line
+did his best to bring him down. Similarly the Intelligence officer
+braved the gauntlet, and reached temporary security round the base of
+the Tiger's hillock without harm. There was no time to waste. The
+Tiger was down to his horse and mounted almost before his officer
+realised he was safe.
+
+_Tiger._ "Come along, sir; it's been a near thing, but we have just
+time if we gallop for it!"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "But the flanking party; we must not desert
+them!"
+
+_T._ "We can do them no good. They must take their chance--for God's
+sake, gallop, sir!"
+
+The Tiger indeed spoke the truth; it was a near thing. They had not
+placed a hundred yards between them and the hillock when dismounted
+enemy were at the top, and the ground round the fugitives throwing up
+little puffs of dust as the bullets struck.
+
+Their luck was in, and after a perilous three minutes, they were clear
+of immediate danger, as the popping of rifles from the rise in front
+of them gave evidence that the officer in charge of the supporting
+troop had risen to the occasion. If he had been a better soldier, he
+might have lain low, and let the fugitives entice their pursuers after
+them to their own destruction. But this had not occurred to the youth
+who had recently changed the pestle and mortar of a chemist's
+dispensary for the sword of a mounted infantry leader, and he did his
+best, in a suitably excited manner.
+
+The Tiger's story was interesting. "Just as you halted at the farm,
+sir, I caught sight of the glint of a rifle on the top of the hill
+which we had sent the troopers to occupy. As I knew that it could not
+be our own men, I at once realised that we were in for it. They had
+seen us coming. I knew that the troopers were lost men--the Boers
+would let them blunder up the kopje, and when they arrived at the top,
+utterly blown and useless, would disarm them without firing a shot.
+Everything now depended upon the chance of my having escaped notice.
+It was impossible to warn you without firing my rifle, so I looked
+round to see if I was being stalked. I could see no one on my track,
+so I just lay still and waited developments at the farmhouse. I saw
+the girl throw the milk, and I then calculated that a shot placed
+between you and the men would so disconcert them for the moment that
+you could be able to get away.
+
+"As soon as you turned, the fat was into the fire, and I found that
+they were lying up for us all round. It was a mercy that they never
+spotted me before I fired. I suppose they concluded that five went
+with the flank scouts instead of four only. Anyhow, there must have
+been quite thirty of them, and we now know that they are there."...
+
+"Well, young feller!" said the brigadier when the Intelligence officer
+reported himself, "what has all the shooting been about?"
+
+He listened to the story, and remained thoughtful for a moment. Then
+he handed the Intelligence officer a message, which ran as follows:--
+
+"From De Wet Expert, Hopetown, to O.C. New Cavalry Brigade, Prieska or
+vicinity.
+
+"De Wet was at Strydenburg last night. Repeat to," &c.
+
+_Brigadier._ "What do you think of that?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "We have lost a big thing. But may we not be
+in the right position to-night? It seems to me that I must have run my
+head right into them."
+
+_B._ "I am afraid not. We have just touched up the 'red herring'; but,
+great Scot! what a chance has been taken from me. Argue it out.
+Balance the probabilities. This is what I make it. Hertzog joined De
+Wet at Strydenburg last night. Hertzog joined him with the information
+that three columns had moved out of Britstown, by way of Minie Kloof.
+Three columns would be too much for De Wet in his dilapidated state;
+so he has just thrown out a patrol to observe us, while he has struck
+elsewhere. If he is still intent on going south, he will pass between
+Britstown and De Aar. But I doubt if he tries the seaboard trick. If
+I know him, he will double back along his original line. He is a sly
+old fox. You may bet all you are worth that you blundered into his
+observation patrol, and that we have lost the best chance of the whole
+war simply through the idiosyncrasies of a stupid old man. I shall not
+trouble about your friends any more to-night!"
+
+An hour after dark four sorry objects, stark-naked save for their
+vests, and with putties bound round their feet to replace their boots,
+staggered into camp. They were the four troopers of the Mount Nelson
+Light Horse which had furnished the Intelligence officer's flanking
+party. As the Tiger had surmised, they had fallen an easy prey to the
+Boers on the top of the hill. These had stripped them of all their
+clothes, and, after herding them in a donga for a couple of hours, had
+sent them back into camp with Commandant Vermaas's best compliments.
+They were to tell their general that De Wet would be in Britstown that
+night, and that he had passed within four miles of our camp with his
+whole force that afternoon.
+
+"That settles it," said the brigadier. "They would not have pitched
+that yarn if De Wet had been really going to Britstown. You can mark
+my word, he has gone north."
+
+The words were still on the brigadier's lips when a native came in
+with a message in cipher from the general. It read as follows:--
+
+"Reliable information points to De Wet being at Strydenburg.
+Concentrate there with me by midday to-morrow. I shall take the
+Zwingelspan Road, which will bring me out into the hills north of
+Strydenburg. You will take the Kalk Kraal-Grootpan Road, and install
+yourself on Tafelkop, south of the town. Arrange to have your guns in
+position by noon. Do not try to open up visual communication with me.
+Such a course might give information of our movements to the enemy.
+Send a receipt of this message to Zwingelspan, so as to arrive not
+later than 10 A.M. to-morrow." Signed, "N----, Chief Staff-Officer.
+_P.S._--Am afraid that De Wet will have taken your convoy."
+
+_Brigadier._ "Was there ever a worse atrocity perpetrated than this?
+If he had only been man enough to have done this twenty-four hours
+earlier, when I implored him to do so, he might have been the greatest
+hero of the war by this. But here, Uncle Baker (to the brigade-major),
+just you send for that saucy fellow who commands the cyclists of the
+Mount Nelson Light Horse, and tell him that he and his cyclists have
+got to fight their way into Strydenburg by 10 A.M. to-morrow. Tell him
+that if he gets a message off to Pretoria before 10 A.M. to-morrow,
+it's as good as a D.S.O. for him. Tell him he must be prepared to
+fight like h--l, only don't frighten him too much: just tell him
+enough to keep him looking about him, otherwise his gang will get
+captured in detail by the first Burgher they meet. He may start when
+he likes. If I can get a message through to K. first, it won't matter
+how much I mutiny afterwards!"
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[31] Major (now Lieut.-Colonel) Bogle-Smith.
+
+
+
+
+IX.
+
+TO A NEW COVERT!
+
+
+The cyclists of the Mount Nelson Light Horse trundled out of camp with
+some show of bravery. They had left Cape Town 100 strong. The journey
+from Hanover Road to Britstown had reduced their numbers by fifty per
+cent. The bare fifty still with the brigade were the survival of the
+fittest after a week of rain at Hanover and another week of struggling
+with Karoo tracks ankle-deep in dust. But the men tried to show
+something of a front as they pedalled out of camp. Their captain was
+an enthusiast. He had, however, but poor material into which to infuse
+his enthusiasm; and at any time South African roads are as
+demoralising to wheel-men used to a macadamised surface as the
+bouldered bed of a stream would be to a traction-engine. These same
+cyclists were the men who had scorched up to the Picquetberg Passes
+when ten men and a boy threatened Cape Town with invasion; and the
+memory of the wave of military enthusiasm which convulsed the great
+seaport from Greenpoint to Simon's Town was still worth something to
+them as, over-weighted, they struggled with the Karoo.
+
+"You may not think it," said the brigadier, as he wrestled with the
+mutton, which is the staple food of the veldt breakfast-table, "but I
+am anxious about those fellows,--d----d anxious. But it is no use
+having cyclists if they are only to loaf about in camp. I use them
+much in same spirit as an inexperienced pyramid player breaks up the
+balls at the beginning of a game. I trust that out of the crowd just
+one may get home. The captain is a hearty fellow, and will probably
+make his way into Strydenburg; but he is about the only one that it
+would be worth betting upon. I should be sorry to lose him, for I like
+enthusiasts; but as for his gang, I would willingly present the lot to
+'brother.' I had some cyclists down Calvinia way. I found that on a
+down gradient they were terrors, but when any climbing came their way
+they afforded 'brother' any amount of fun. The cyclist, to be any use
+in war, must have roads and luck; otherwise, as Scout or messenger, he
+is valueless. It is all very well for faddists to prophesy a future
+for them. I like to see them working out their own salvation: pictures
+of dismounted cyclists behind stacks of bicycles prepared to receive
+cavalry fill me with delight. I like to anticipate the glee of the
+cavalry which has forced them to dismount for action at some
+disadvantageous spot, and then, while they are doubling up their
+machines as a _chevaux de frise_, shoots them from the cover of a
+hay-stack at a thousand yards."
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "But surely, sir, there must be some use in cycles
+for military purposes. The French, for instance, use them almost
+exclusively for carrying messages in their manoeuvres!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "True for you. But then in France they have roads. Though
+even with the best of roads there is a limit to their utility. Behind
+an army they are excellent; in front of an army their value is still
+problematical. Even down in Calvinia, where Burghers were scarce and
+main roads fair, they rarely carried a message as safely and as
+quickly as a mounted Kaffir. They are vulnerable all round from other
+causes than the hazards of war. Machine vulnerable, man vulnerable,
+and in a country like this, where the roads are not masked by
+hedgerows, they furnish a kind of 'running-deer' to every Burgher
+observation-post, and, as far as I can judge, an observation-post is
+to be found on every kopje!"...
+
+It will be seen from the above that the brigadier had no intention of
+undertaking the wild-goose chase which had been proposed to him. The
+missive which he had sent to Strydenburg had been cunningly
+constructed. It ran: "Local information indicates that the invaders
+have doubled back to the north, evidently with the object of
+recrossing the Orange River. I am moving with all reasonable despatch
+upon Hopetown. I was in touch with scattered parties of enemy last
+night. Have just sufficient supplies to take me into Hopetown." The
+message was addressed to Chief, Pretoria, and repeated to the
+lieutenant-general commanding the operations to suppress the invasion.
+Knowing that the cyclists might draw blank at Strydenburg, a second
+copy of the message was sent by the hand of a Kaffir, to be delivered
+at the telegraph office in Britstown. As events turned out it was the
+cyclists' telegram which went, and, as intended, upset the apple-cart
+which the general subsequently tried to drive over the brigadier's
+prostrate form. In the strict letter of the military law which, in so
+many cases, subordinates individual initiative and sound judgment, the
+action taken by the brigadier was indefensible. But as a matter of
+fact the mutiny was not so terrible as it at first appears. Setting
+aside the common-sense issue which ought to guide officers in senior
+commands when accepting orders from a superior, it should be
+remembered that the brigadier had only been directed to co-operate
+with the officer who had now taken unto himself the position of
+supreme command. Lord Kitchener himself, at the meeting on the De Aar
+platform, had given the brigadier a roving commission, to be
+controlled only by orders from Pretoria and the lieutenant-general at
+De Aar. Consequently he resented his free action being clogged by a
+senior whose only object seemed to be a desire to hug him and his
+force as closely as possible for self-protection against imaginary
+dangers. The brigadier, who was in every way as capable a soldier as
+any in South Africa, had not spent eighteen months in following, or
+being followed by, Boers, without arriving at a very shrewd estimate
+of their tactics. The lore of the chase in which he was engaged, as he
+read it, pointed to a break back on the part of the main body of the
+invaders in the direction of the Orange River; and having balanced his
+conception of the situation with his conscience, he considered that
+the most serviceable move he could make was to place himself and his
+brigade upon the railway at Hopetown. And so having sent the cyclists
+to smell out the land of Strydenburg, the New Cavalry Brigade, working
+in three parallel columns, fringed round the east end of the Beer Vlei
+and struck north-east, with the backs of its rear-guard turned on the
+Karoo for ever.
+
+"How about Zwingelspan?" queried the brigade-major, remembering the
+written instructions in the general's missive.
+
+"Let it rip," was the laconic reply from the brigadier. "With this
+crowd of Vermaas's hanging about I am not going to risk patrols other
+than cyclists, and I am certainly not going to push on in force!" This
+was final, and the extended front of the brigade opened out across the
+veldt, throwing out its feelers like the tentacles of some slowly
+crawling monster. Through highland and lowland it wound, rummaging the
+isolated farmsteads, ploughing through ravine and mealie patch. But
+though wild-fowl rose chattering, and, scolding bitterly, circled
+round the scouts, though springbok trotted leisurely away from the
+front of each several column, though sullen girls and gaping Kaffirs
+peered from beneath the eaves of farmsteads, no sign of hostility was
+to be found in all this life. It was the same old monotonous drudgery
+of the veldt again. The same merciless sun, the same sapless and
+parched surroundings. As the day wore on men longed for the crack of a
+rifle to ease the burden of the monotony. The country, too, grew more
+hilly, and fearing that he might be attacked in detail, the brigadier
+reduced his front, till by four in the afternoon the brigade to all
+practical purposes had concentrated. Then it was that the
+advance-guard struck a great white road, ankle-deep in dust. This
+veldt track was so rigid in its alignment, that for the moment it
+might have been taken for a turnpike road fallen upon decadent days.
+But the local colour of its surroundings did not support the
+comparison, and the reason of its being loomed up gauntly in the
+middle distance. A great square of whitewashed building, which,
+strange to relate, was overshadowed by quite a number of trees, giving
+it an appearance not unlike the first attempt which a Bengali merchant
+makes at a country residence, when success in commerce renders it
+imperative that he should improve the circumstances of his dwelling.
+But though in the first instance the general appearance of the farm
+was forbidding, yet, on examination, it presented several qualities
+which are valuable to the soldier. An infant _barrage_ closing the
+drainage slope in a depression formed an artificial water-pan of no
+mean dimensions. A pair of zinc-fanned windmills worked two artesian
+wells with such success that the purest drinking-water abounded; and
+the result of all this moisture was the nearest attempt at a lawn that
+any single man in the brigade has seen in the length and breadth of
+South Africa outside Cape Town and its suburbs. A great stack of
+forage added to the military assets of the locality, and the brigadier
+just looked at the water and the lawn, and said, "A land flowing with
+milk and honey,--this is where I shall camp. I could not resist
+camping in such a spot even if I had old man De Wet dead beat a
+furlong from home!" And it was indeed an entrancing spot to the
+Karoo-worn warrior. Just one of those delightful oases which do exist,
+but which do not abound in Cape Colony. Upon them stand the best and
+oldest farms, for when the forebears of the present owners first
+struck them, they had no need to good farther afield in search for a
+desirable anchorage. If more of these enviable spots had abounded,
+even the barbarity of British rule would not have driven the
+_voortrekkers_ into wholesale emigration across the soapy waters of
+the Orange River.
+
+After the usual worries of settling into camp--mule-drivers leading
+animals to water in the drinking reservation, and commanding officers
+making themselves disagreeable--there was time to turn one's attention
+to the inmates of the roadside mansion. The great whitewashed bungalow
+seemed to be alive with inhabitants. The Intelligence officer went
+about his business with the air of an expert, and in two minutes the
+head of the house, a fine old specimen of the patriarchal Boer, and
+his son, a poor slip of a man, were standing before him, hat in hand,
+while women-folk of all ages and fulness of costume peeped from every
+convenient crevice in the background. The general attitude of the
+household was that of humility, in contrast to the usual reception
+which the column had experienced in the majority of Karoo farms. And
+presently the cause for the deference became apparent. The gaping
+children in the main entrance were thrust aside, and a woman of
+magnificent proportions pushed in between the two humble men. The old
+man mumbled something about his daughter-in-law, while his callow son
+looked, if possible, more sheepish than at first. The Intelligence
+officer for his part could hardly keep his countenance. The lady had
+donned her best. Her ample form was swathed in the rustling folds of a
+magnificent silk gown which had evidently been cut in the days of the
+crinoline attachment. Her hair, showing signs of the rapidity with
+which its present gloss had been applied, was knotted somewhere
+adjacent to the neck; and not satisfied with nature's adornment, this
+prehistoric beauty had fixed a great white ostrich feather in her
+well-greased tresses, which drooped down upon her neck and shoulder.
+The Intelligence officer bowed deeply in order to keep his feelings in
+due subordination. The lady was not slow to introduce herself.
+Dropping one armful of a skirt that was so voluminous that it had to
+be held in both hands, she limply took the officer's hand.
+
+_Frau._ "Good morning. I am Mrs Van Herden; this is my man[32]
+(_indicating the meek son of the house_). We are glad to see you. Will
+you have some coffee?" (And as she spoke a microscopic Kaffir maid
+appeared with the inevitable coffee on a tray.)
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Thank you, madam, but I must first search the
+house and outhouses."
+
+_F._ "You are welcome to do that. We are perfectly loyal. Have you not
+heard what the Van Herdens did in the Kaffir wars, and my grandfather
+was Scotch."
+
+_I. O._ "It is only a matter of form, madam. Any one could see that
+you were loyal!"
+
+_F._ "Are you a general, mister?"
+
+_I. O._ "No; I ought to be if I had my deserts; but I am the next best
+thing. I'm the general's secretary." (Thereupon the old man grunted
+approval, while the chorus of gaping maids nodded an endorsement
+behind him.)
+
+_F._ "Can I see the general, Mister Secretary?"
+
+_I. O._ "That depends upon the information which you give me now. Why
+do you wish to see him?"
+
+_F._ "My children have never seen an English general; besides, this is
+the first time that the English have ever been to the house; we
+should like to cook a dinner for the English general!"
+
+_I. O._ "But your children have seen Burgher generals?"
+
+_F._ "Oh, yes; they are nothing. We had Commandant Brand here
+yesterday!"
+
+_I. O._ "When did he leave?"
+
+_F._ "Early this morning!"
+
+_I. O._ "Which way did he go?"
+
+_F._ "He went out on the veldt; they took the Strydenburg road. But
+they were Free Staters; you cannot say where they were going. They
+would tell us Strydenburg, and then go somewhere else. You see, they
+knew that you were close!"
+
+_I. O._ "How many men had he with him?"
+
+_F._ "Only a few. It was a small horse commando, perhaps twenty. All
+Free Staters!"
+
+The old patriarch, who had been fumbling in his pocket, now produced a
+slip of paper which he presented to the Intelligence officer. The
+writing on the paper ran as follows:--
+
+    "_O.V.S. Receipt for Property Commandeered._
+
+    "Taken from Jan Van Herden, of Melk Kraal, Cape Colony, two
+    sacks of mealies, 500 bundles of oat forage, two mules, four
+    sheep, for the use of O.V.S. commando.
+
+    "This receipt to be presented for repayment at the end of the
+    war to the O.V.S. Government.
+
+          (Signed)   "ADRIAN FISCHER,
+                      _Corporal, O.V.S. Forces._
+
+Dated "_February_ ----."
+
+_I. O._ "Who is Fischer?"
+
+_F._ "He is Brand's adjutant!"
+
+_I. O._ "I thought that you said there were only about twenty in the
+commando. They and their horses must have been hungry to eat four
+sheep and 500 bundles of oat hay. I should say that there must have
+been more like fifty of them!"
+
+_F._ "That may be, we did not count them. But can we ask the general
+to dinner?"
+
+_I. O._ "That depends. First, I must go through your rooms."
+
+Followed by the whole family, the Intelligence officer passed through
+to the various rooms, furnished and upholstered in the stereotyped
+Dutch fashion, till they came to the end of the long house. Here a
+closed door barred their way.
+
+_I. O._ "What is in there?"
+
+_F._ "Nothing--it is only my daughter and her 'man'; they have only
+been married a few days, so we let them live apart. (_Throwing the
+door open._) You may go in, of course. We are jingoes, we have nothing
+to conceal."
+
+The Intelligence officer entered the room to find an overbearded young
+man and a very touzled, plump young lady sitting sheepishly
+hand-in-hand. They rose as he entered and stared vacantly at him. The
+man was a mean specimen of the Dutchman, tall and thin, narrow chest,
+and sloping shoulders. An aggressive red beard for one so young,
+growing backwards after the fashion prevailing with the Sikhs. A
+cadaverous wretched creature, yet doubtless with strength enough in
+his forefinger to make the seven-pound pull of a rifle.
+
+The Intelligence officer's eyes ranged the room, which was bare
+enough to have satisfied the most ascetic of honeymooning couples.
+Half a glance was sufficient to prove to him that the frau had been
+speaking the truth, so he turned upon the pair and shot at the man a
+question so sharply that he started, "Do you know the road to
+Zwingelspan?" The man recovered himself slowly, and then affected that
+look of imbecility which is invariably the Dutchman's effort at
+self-protection when he is cornered by a question which he does not
+wish to answer. But his new-found mother-in-law was evidently anxious
+that nothing should occur to irritate the visitor, for she blandly
+answered his question herself. "Of course he knows the way to
+Zwingelspan. Why, he lives there himself!"
+
+_I. O._ "Then he is the very man I want. (_To the man_) You must come
+along with me over to my cart and wait there in case the general wants
+a guide to Zwingelspan between this and midnight."
+
+A complete silence overtook the whole group after the Intelligence
+officer had delivered himself of this speech. It seemed as if he had
+inadvertently upset some plan. But the only thing he noticed at the
+moment was that the pale face of the bride, as she stood limply in
+front of him, grew a shade paler, and that her great blue eyes filled
+with tears, which poised a moment on her eyelashes and then trickled
+down her cheeks. If, as the Intelligence officer was only too ready to
+surmise, he had upset an elaborate ruse to shield one of Brand's
+special envoys, then the girl was an accomplished actress; but if, as
+possibly was the case, she was moved to weeping in anticipation of
+peril to her husband or lover, then she had adopted a course most
+likely to serve her purpose with the man about to place himself
+between her and the man she loved. There are few British officers who
+can persevere in a distasteful task in face of the reproach furnished
+by a silent weeping woman.
+
+_I. O._ (_softening the authoritative tone in his speech_) "You need
+not be distressed. I promise you we will not take him farther than
+Zwingelspan, even if we take him there at all."
+
+_Weeping Bride._ "If you take him, how shall I ever know what you will
+do with him? You say here that you are going to Zwingelspan; but we
+know that you are not going there. You would not tell us if you were.
+Besides, the British were at Zwingelspan this morning, and you are
+following the Boers."
+
+_F._ "Oh leave her, Mr Secretary, she is only a child, and she loves
+her 'man.' She is afraid that you will take him, and that the Boers
+will catch him with you and treat him as a traitor!"
+
+The Intelligence officer led the man out to hand him over to the
+Tiger, when the latter returned from "noseing" round the outhouses.
+Though perplexed in his mind as to the real attitude of the inmates of
+the farm, yet he had elicited something, namely, that information
+would be sent to the nearest armed Burghers that the column was not
+bound for Zwingelspan, and that a British force had been at
+Zwingelspan that morning. The latter was important, since the only
+force which could have been at the pan was the main force, which meant
+that the general had been up to time in his advance on Strydenburg,
+while the New Cavalry Brigade had failed in the tryst.
+
+The brigadier's comments on the intelligence surmises were short and
+quaint. "Quite so. But I am not here to sweep up De Wet's
+red-herrings. The old man will probably strike half-a-dozen of Brand's
+or Vermaas's men when he reaches Strydenburg, if my cyclists haven't
+turned them out. We, crossing the trail to-night in our journey north,
+may strike something big. Anyway, we will have the satisfaction of
+knowing that we are playing the game every time. And that being the
+case we will let the old fat frau cook us a dinner to-night!" The
+brigadier, who had estimated De Wet's movements with consummate
+foresight, did not of course know that the replenished Plumer had
+picked up the guerilla's back trail from Strydenburg, and was, at the
+moment that the New Cavalry Brigade was bivouacking, practically
+running him in view....
+
+It was, all considered, a very creditable repast which the good lady
+of Melk Kraal prepared for the brigadier and his staff. But on
+occasions such as this it is the custom of the hosts to sits round the
+walls of the dining-hall while the honoured guests feed alone at a
+table in the centre. In this case the ladies and children of the
+household lined the walls, taking an active interest in the serving,
+which was at the hands of a couple of Kaffir girls. There were no
+courses. The whole of the dinner was put upon the table at once, and
+it consisted of boiled mutton hacked into hunks and swimming in a
+greasy slop; fowls so boiled that the flesh had lost its resistance
+and become a mere pulp; a mess of ochre-coloured boiled pumpkin,
+boiled mealie[33] cobs, and boiled coffee of the consistency of
+treacle. In fact, everything boiled and boiled to death. A repast
+truly characteristic of the Dutch, who are most carnivorous in their
+choice of food, and far too feckless and lazy to spend time and
+trouble over such a common function as eating. It was the meal of a
+people devoid of imagination and artistic taste. None the less it was
+the best that the house could produce; and as the guests had taken the
+precaution to bring their own liquor, it was a change from the tinned
+delicacies of the modern active service meal. The banquet closed with
+a quaint incident. The Intelligence officer had brought in his pocket
+a bottle of _cr�me-de-menthe_. The hosts were invited to drink from
+the brandy-bottle, which they did with the relish of experts in the
+art of neat spirit drinking. To the hostesses was shown the
+consideration due to their sex, and they were offered the green
+concoction of peppermint. There is little of that coyness in the Dutch
+composition which is met with in the civilisation of the West: each
+lady of the household received her glass demurely and tossed off the
+contents, pouring it, after the manner of Dutch spirit-drinkers,
+ungracefully far into the mouth. The old Frau smacked her lips. "But
+it is good," she said na�vely, and then taking the bottle from the
+table she poured out the whole contents into a tumbler and emptied it
+with one gulp down her capacious throat.
+
+The brigadier was equal to the occasion. Raising his glass, he said,
+"Madam, may I be permitted to drink your health and to thank you for
+your hospitality." Madam smiled blandly, in no wise inconvenienced by
+the severity of the potion which she had absorbed!...
+
+But the good-humoured revelling of the dinner-table was shortly to be
+changed for the stern reality of war. The brigadier and his staff had
+barely bid farewell to their happy hostess and returned to their
+bivouac when the voice of a tired and excited man was heard calling to
+be directed to headquarters. It was the captain of cyclists who had
+started that morning before daybreak for Strydenburg. The man's face
+was a study when, having flung himself clear of his machine, which was
+clanging like a _teuf-teuf_, he presented himself in the solitary tent
+which during halts served the headquarters of the little column as a
+living and sleeping apartment. In the dim light of a flickering
+candle, it seemed that he was swathed in a sheet, so thick and white
+was the crust of dust which covered him from head to foot. He
+staggered into the mess-tent, swayed a moment, tried to salute, and
+then dropped in a heap on to the camp chair offered to him.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Give him some brandy."
+
+After a long drink from the brandy-bottle the little captain of
+cyclists recovered sufficiently to smile at his own weakness.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Well, have you been fighting--where's your crush?"
+
+_Cyclist Captain._ "Fighting--there never has been such fighting in
+this war, it has been simply bloody!"
+
+_B._ "Sanguinary, my boy; well, are you the last survivor? You rather
+remind me of the last man of the poet's imagination."
+
+_C. C._ (_dejectedly_) "It has been a long, sad, and terrible day.
+Harvey of Damant's is mortally wounded, and I have had a man wounded!"
+
+_B._ "The devil you have. I thought at least that you must have been
+annihilated. Where are the rest of you, then?"
+
+_C. C._ "Lost or captured, I am afraid. Seventeen were captured in
+succession at the top of one rise. I only got through by the skin of
+my teeth and the luck of there only being three Boers at the top of
+the hill."
+
+_B._ (_unconcernedly_) "Horrid adventure! What luck there were not
+four Boers! But give me a detailed story. Have you been into
+Strydenburg? have you seen any of the staff of the other column?"
+
+The following is a paraphrase of the story which was eventually
+elicited from the cyclist captain:--The cyclists, who broke down on
+the heavy roads at the rate of about four an hour, kept up a steady
+pace until they were some five miles from Strydenburg. Here going up a
+steep rise they tailed out somewhat, and seventeen were captured in
+rotation by three burghers ensconced in the nek over which the up
+gradient passed. The captain and five others all came up together, and
+in the scuffle he and three of his men succeeded in getting through.
+Later on they were fired at by Boers just outside Strydenburg, into
+which town they rode simultaneously with an advance-guard of Damant's
+Guides. The Boers, who, with the exception of the rear-guard under
+Vermaas, had left and gone north on the preceding day, just as the
+Brigadier had surmised, had destroyed the telegraph office, but the
+local operator, who had hidden away an instrument, by attaching the
+broken wire to a piece of garden fencing was able to get through to De
+Aar, and in half an hour the brigadier's "Clear the line" message was
+ticking off in Pretoria. This all happened three hours before the
+co-operating general entered the town. In the meantime the
+advance-guard of Damant's Guides, as soon as they heard that the New
+Cavalry Brigade was not on the road, pushed out to occupy the
+Tafelkop Hills outside the town. Harvey took the cyclists with him.
+And a very gallant little fight they had, in which three of the
+Guides, though sorely wounded, held up and captured the five men who
+had wounded them. Owing to his lust for blood it was late in the day
+before the cyclist captain was able to find the general. This officer
+had a despatch ready for him to take back to his own brigadier. The
+return journey had been effected without other mishap than that of
+extreme fatigue, which difficulty the captain alone had been able to
+surmount: the rest of his cyclists, if not prisoners, were
+spread-eagled over the veldt at such spots where death had overtaken
+their machines.
+
+Now what was written in the despatch which the cyclist officer had
+brought is not known to the chronicler of the adventures of this
+brigade. But it was evidently couched in not over friendly language,
+for the brigadier's face worked with annoyance as he read it. Having
+read it he tore it up into very small pieces and sat for a moment or
+two staring steadfastly at the candle.
+
+"Anything serious, sir?"
+
+_Brigadier._ "No; the old man is peevish,--says that my disobedience
+of his orders has caused us to lose De Wet. That he has washed his
+hands of me, and that it only remains to report me to a higher
+authority. To be philosophical, he has some grounds for his
+peevishness if he really believes that he has ever been nearer to De
+Wet than the latter gentleman desired. But you get no return in an
+argument with seniors--they have the whip hand of you every time; so
+here, ole man Baker, bring out your stilus and tablets and write out
+brigade orders. Two hours hence we march direct on Hopetown. Mr
+Intelligence, mark out a route, and mind you have a good guide.
+Everything on a night like this will depend on your guiding." Such is
+the history of a transformation scene which is of common occurrence
+when men make war. A camp sleeping heavily and peacefully at midnight,
+in a couple of hours may have disappeared, to be found sorrowfully
+toiling along in the dark on some venture bent....
+
+The Intelligence officer had reason to congratulate himself that he
+had already got his guide held by the ear by the Tiger, as it is a big
+undertaking to conjure up guides on notice only given an hour before
+midnight. The guide himself was not best pleased, and aped that air of
+imbecility which on occasions similar to this is the Dutch form of
+passive resistance. But the Tiger took him in hand, primed him with a
+few simple truths and the history of some imaginary executions, so
+that he waxed more communicative when he found himself in the centre
+of the advance-guard of twelve dismounted dragoons with fixed
+bayonets,[34] with which the brigadier when night marching was
+accustomed to head his advance-guard.
+
+There is a limit to the fascinations of a night march if you have to
+make many of them, especially if it is undertaken without the definite
+promise of a fight on the following day. Men and horses dog tired,
+yearning for sleep; the hundred and one irregularities which would
+find no place in daylight. The weary waiting that intervals may be
+corrected, the hitch with the advance-guard, the difficulty of
+loading the supply-waggons. The irritability of the chief, growing in
+intensity as he strikes match after match against his watch dial.
+Semi-mutinous resistance of orders on the part of Irregulars;
+lamentations from the major of the battery, whose horses have been
+standing hooked-in for the last half hour. How impossible it all
+seems,--how heartbreaking; yet everything shakes down eventually, and
+the great dark caterpillar, bristling with armed men like a
+woolly-bear, creeps forward into the veiled uncertainty of night.
+
+The advance-guard has moved off, the brigadier is just waiting to see
+the baggage fairly started, when a sudden spark gleams out from a
+knoll above the camp which the falling-in night picquet has just
+evacuated. A bullet whirrs noisily overhead. "Martini," conjectures
+the brigadier. "I wonder what that means!" Two minutes later another
+spark flashes out from the same spot, and a leaden messenger buries
+itself with a skirr and a thud, within ten yards of the little group
+of officers.
+
+"Not bad for a chance shot--we'll see if they are going to
+persevere!" Swish, came a third shot singing away harmlessly overhead.
+
+"Sniping!" said the brigadier. "I would hang that beast if I could
+catch him. Look here, gallop down to the officer in command of the
+rear-guard and tell him to send a couple of quick-witted fellows to
+stalk that sniper. I will give five pounds if he is brought in alive."
+
+The messenger galloped out into the darkness, and as the last of the
+waggon transport turned into the right track, the staff cantered
+northwards in the direction of the head of the column, reckless of the
+solitary bullets which at intervals whistled through the still night
+air.
+
+Considerable tension attaches to the head of a night-marching column,
+especially when moving through an unreconnoitred country. And in spite
+of the little text-books with smart covers, it is more often in
+unreconnoitred country that the soldier is called upon to operate than
+otherwise. Consequently the Intelligence officer forgot all about the
+sniping incident, and busied himself with being ready to answer the
+many queries of an imaginative major in command of the advance-guard.
+Five miles of the journey had perhaps been made--at least it was at
+the third halt that word was passed up that the brigadier wanted to
+see the Intelligence officer. The brigadier had dismounted at the head
+of the battery.
+
+"Hulloo, Mr Intelligence, we have got the sniper--and it would beat a
+very Solomon to give judgment in a like case. Strike a match."
+
+The little flame burned up and declared to the astonished view of the
+Intelligence officer the face and figure of his guide's weeping bride.
+There was no sign of tears now. The girl stood with her hands clasped
+behind her back, her mouth firmly closed, and looked her captors full
+in the face. It was a fine figure, seen for a moment in the uncertain
+light of the lucifer shaded from the wind. _Cappie_ blown back behind
+her head, ill-concealing the wealth of glistening hair, pale
+determined face, full of defiance, and thrown-out chest across which
+the leather bandolier still hung in damnatory evidence. How different
+to the limp and weeping woman of the afternoon. A second and the
+little slip of pinewood had burnt out.
+
+_Brigadier._ "What do you make of it?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Magnificent woman--damnable undertaking."
+
+_Bystander._ "Magnificent she-cat!"
+
+_Prisoner._ "You steal my husband, and because I would do my best to
+stop you, when the men were afraid to attack and offered you food
+instead, you call me names. Give me back my husband and let me go, or
+if you would shoot me, shoot and be finished with it."
+
+_Brigadier._ "My dear young lady, no one will hurt you or call you
+names. You shall have your husband back as soon as we have finished
+with him. Until that time, I am afraid that you must stay with us, but
+you shall be properly looked after. I cannot afford to let you again
+be as naughty as you have been to-night. Hand her over to the supply
+officer,--he's acting provost-marshal, is he not? (_Then turning to
+his staff_) What a little vixen! That gives you a very considerable
+insight into the temper of these loyal Cape colonists: to think that
+while we were supping with this young lady's mamma she was planning a
+little sniping party, as a revenge against us for breaking in upon her
+honeymoon!"...
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] Dutch method of describing a woman's husband.
+
+[33] Maize.
+
+[34] British cavalry at this period of the campaign were armed with
+rifle and bayonet.
+
+
+
+
+X.
+
+JOG-TROT.
+
+
+True to that instinct which finds the Boer the most insanitary race
+laying claim to a civilisation of any standard, the squatters who
+settled upon Hopetown as a site suitable for a village chose a
+situation as insalubrious as any to be found on the fringe of the
+Karoo. In a cup-valley of mean dimensions, the little collection of
+shanties which group round the church and town-hall lay tucked away in
+the folds of the bare dusty hills, so that if tracks did not converge
+upon the village with consistent regularity there would be no evidence
+outside a narrow radius of its existence. It was not until the
+advance-guard covering the New Cavalry Brigade topped the actual bluff
+above the hamlet that the temporary importance of Hopetown was
+realised. The dip in which the village lay was black with the
+transport of many columns, and the dust and smoke raised by the
+thousands of animals and hundreds of cooking fires formed a heavy haze
+which, covering the township as with a pall, hung half-way between the
+level of the valley and the overhanging brae where the advance-guard
+stood halted. It was not an inviting picture. The dust and vapour
+seemed unable to face the perpendicular violence of the midday sun;
+the only perceptible movement in the middle distance was the shimmer
+of the atmosphere, squirming as it were under the relentless heat;
+while the great pall of dust and smoke, as if ashamed to raise its
+head, mushroomed out against the hillsides with undecided edging.
+
+As we stood gasping for some breath of air to relieve the burden of
+oppressive heat, it seemed that the valley was some great stew-pot of
+the _inferno_, and that Hopetown was simmering at its bottom.
+
+The brigadier cantered up to the advance-guard, and throwing his reins
+to his orderly, made a brief survey of the topographical approaches
+to Hopetown.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Well, there is not much of De Wet left in this corner of
+the world. All the commandoes[35] of the Hunt seem to have forgathered
+here and to be having a day off. What a hole of a place--ideal, no
+doubt, from the Dutchman's point of view. Why, the smell of it reaches
+up here. But here comes a robber in a pink 'beaver'; we shall soon
+know all about it."
+
+A diminutive boy in staff kit cantered up and demanded information
+about the column.
+
+_Staff Officer._ "What column is this?"
+
+_B._ "The New Cavalry Brigade."
+
+_S. O._ "Never heard of you. Who told you to come in here? Who
+commands you?"
+
+_B._ "Steady, my fledgling, one question at a time. You are given to
+heaping matters, I see, which is a bad habit in one so young. I will
+answer one of your questions, the last one. I command this column: and
+now you will answer me. What columns are in Hopetown?"
+
+_S. O._ "Sorry, sir, but----"
+
+_B._ "Don't apologise. I know I don't look like a general, but it
+doesn't help you out of your difficulties to say so. You only slip
+into it worse every time; now, then, to the columns?"
+
+_S. O._ "Knox's, Pilcher's, Plumer's, and Paris's."
+
+_B._ "Good; and what is the latest news about De Wet?"
+
+_S. O._ "He has broken out east across the railway; half his force
+went up north and half crossed by Paauwpan or Potfontein."
+
+_B._ "Who are on him?"
+
+_S. O._ "I am not quite sure; but I hear that Haig, Thorneycroft,
+Crabbe and Henniker are either following him or trying to cut him
+off."
+
+_B._ "And what are four columns doing halted here in this _dorp_?"[36]
+
+_S. O._ "They are all stone cold."
+
+_B._ "The price of losing De Wet. Now, young feller, just you hie back
+to _your_ general, Charles Knox, I suppose, and tell him that the New
+Cavalry Brigade is coming right in here, but will not worry him long,
+as it has orders to be off to-night. (_The youth salutes and goes to
+the right-about, while the brigadier continues to his staff_) Just as
+well to let Knox know that I am on my own. I must invent a special
+mission from Pretoria, otherwise he may seize me like the last fellow,
+and the future state of this column might then be worse than the
+first."
+
+In the meantime the brigade led down into the noisome basin which
+holds Hopetown, and took up temporary quarters on the first patch
+against the water into which it could squeeze its long line of
+transport. It wedged in between two columns, and the bad condition of
+both gave evidence of the severity of the work in which they had
+recently been engaged. As columns, when they had first entered upon
+the chase after De Wet, they had each been five or six hundred strong;
+now, perhaps, between them they could count five hundred mounted men,
+while of this number not more than a third were fit to do a
+twenty-mile trek at a better pace than a walk. Yet each, three weeks
+earlier, had started from the railway newly equipped with remounts.
+
+If any are sufficiently interested to cast about for a reason for the
+hopeless state of the columns in the Colony at this period, they may
+possibly find in the experiences of the brigade a solution of the
+remount question which has so puzzled the more intelligent students of
+the war. The column newly equipped at the railway was generally worse
+off for horse-flesh and less mobile than the force which had not been
+within reach of the Remount Department for months. The procedure was
+in this wise. The column commander struggled gasping into the haven of
+relief afforded by the railway. He had barely issued to his men and
+horses a full ration when the telegraph began to talk. Down came the
+brief little order from Pretoria, "You will entrain for Cypher Ghat
+without delay. Trains will reach you by three this afternoon." In vain
+would the column commander plead for rest for man and beast. The fiat
+had gone forth. All protest was met with a single reiteration of the
+original order, with perhaps the adjunct, "Remounts will be awaiting
+you to replace casualties." What chance had the horses which had been
+overridden and under-fed for the last twelve days? Those which could
+hobble were thrust into close, dung-blocked trucks, and whirled away
+any distance from fifty miles to a thousand. Water they got when the
+railway officials saw fit to arrange the necessary halt in the
+necessary place, rest for them there was none. But the column
+commander who was new at the job could plume himself that he would be
+restocked and start with a new lease of life at his destination. Vain
+thought! He found awaiting him at the end of his journey either the
+sweepings of the country-side--such animals as had been rejected as
+unfitted for military service by marauding Boer and pushing column
+leader in turn, and finally collected by the zealous "crawler" and
+duly reported in the "weekly bag" as captured from the enemy. Or if
+sweepings were not available, he would find waiting for him absolutely
+soft and raw importations, which had cost the taxpayers �40 apiece a
+few weeks previously,--the one as useless for the purpose required as
+the other. Rejection by a not over-fastidious enemy disposes of the
+one; of the other it was as mad a proceeding as taking a horse
+straight off grass and backing him to win you a stake at even weights
+with trained horses. The millions of the public money which lie
+wantonly strewed over the South African veldt would appal even the
+most phlegmatic of financiers. The waste in horse-flesh is
+inconceivable; and the man with the stiff upper lip who refused to
+realise that it takes gentle breaking to bring the troop-horses to the
+perfection which enables them to cover for six consecutive days thirty
+miles a-day with 20 stone on their backs, has added pence to the
+present burden of the income-tax. The taxpayer is naturally upset. He
+has cause. He seeks mental relief in philippics against the cavalry
+officer,--the man to whom he owes so much. He damns his intelligence
+and damns his breeding, and then, having railed sufficiently, pays
+cheerfully, with heavy self-satisfaction that some one has at least
+been put in his proper place, and that a lesson so necessary has not
+really been so dearly purchased at the price. Poor innocent fools! the
+British taxpayer brings to mind that dear fat smiling millionaire,
+denizen of a West End club, to whom every day impecunious
+fellow-members would propose a game of _picquet_ or _�cart�_, well
+knowing that it was the quickest way in London to earn a certain �200.
+Your Commissions may sit upon the educational standard of your
+officers, upon the sequel to your own folly in remount purchase: but
+will your inquiry ever reach the foundations of this edifice that you
+have condemned? I think not. One or two scapegoats will satisfy the
+British public upon those few occasions when it rises up in a thirst
+for blood. Willingness to pay rather than interfere will do the rest.
+And the spirit of apathy which is characteristic of the nation, in
+spite of the occasional outbursts of interested indignation, will
+prevent a true disclosure of the horrid facts as long as the war is
+unfinished. Once a peace is ratified the national interest in both the
+present, past, and future state of its army will be as abruptly and
+effectually severed as the magazine charge in the Lee-Enfield rifle
+when the cut-off is snapped home, forgetful of the fact that our next
+enemy may not be as merciful as the Boer; that he will not stand by
+and reap no benefit from our failures; that in a few brief hours a
+situation may arise in which no wealth of bullion can save us. It
+will take just one disaster such as this--a disaster which will carry
+annihilation with it--to cause the British nation too late to take
+just stock of its limitations. Then in grief it will remember that he
+whom it treated as a mad _fakir_ was indeed a true prophet.
+
+The state of the New Cavalry Brigade, as it wedged itself in between
+the two ghosts of mounted columns, was in itself an object-lesson.
+Those who have followed the interests of this little command through
+the foregoing chapters will have seen that it had not been called upon
+to make any exceptional effort to sap it of its reserve forces. In
+fact, it had simply been marched and countermarched along dusty tracks
+at the whim of a superior officer. Yet under this mild usage the
+column had arrived back at a base with 25 per cent of its animals
+useless and an equal proportion whose days of usefulness were
+numbered. The sole reason for this was the fact that the animals had
+never been trained to long distances in a trying climate with 20 stone
+on their backs. The care of the brigadier or the watchfulness of the
+squadron officers availed nothing when the green remount was put to
+the twenty-mile test. But you will say, How, if this is really the
+case, was it to be avoided? An intelligent anticipation of events
+should have told those who started their campaign with the advantage
+of the three months' failure of their predecessors what would be the
+approximate remount requirements. The British nation would have backed
+the demands of this intelligent anticipation, not in thousands, but in
+millions, and by so doing would have saved not thousands but millions.
+If the original remount depots had been other than "Siberias" for
+incompetent officers from the outpost line, or if the recommendations
+of the senior cavalry and remount officers had been listened to, we
+should have had less of the saddling of raw horses straight from the
+train and ship,--less of the stupidity which expected them to do the
+work which can only be done by a system of gradual and careful
+training and acclimatisation. It is as suicidal and expensive to put
+green horses into the field as it is to put untrained men. Yet at this
+period of the war we were practising both these expedients, and
+wondering why the Burgher was not subjugated, and why the income-tax
+steadily increased.
+
+The stories of sinful waste and incompetent groping for a means out of
+the tangle do not connect themselves intimately with this history. But
+no doubt remains that the system which was at this period in practice
+was vicious in the extreme. In a word, the whole of the British mobile
+strength in South Africa was directly based on the railway
+communication. This gave a column at the utmost a twelve days' lease
+of life, which meant that the troops must keep within a six days'
+march of the permanent way or starve. This limited the area of
+effective operation; and while we were wasting our energy and
+horse-flesh against the enemy's raiders, the bulk of their resistance
+was calmly ploughing beyond the reach of castigation. The convoy may
+be slow and may be vulnerable, the fortified post may be isolated and
+invite attack; but as military expedients in a large country both are
+superior to the base-bound column.[37]
+
+The brigadier left the brigade-major to settle the column into its
+quarters, and taking the Intelligence officer with him, made straight
+for the hub of Hopetown's universe. The hotel and the telegraph-office
+stood close together. Outside the former a little scarlet flaglet
+fluttered, its double point showing that the general officer who
+sported it claimed divisional rank,--a quaint claim at this period of
+the war, when lieutenant-generals were parading the theatre at the
+head of little _paarde kommandos_[38] three to four hundred strong.
+The brigadier spotted the flag, and then edged off to the
+telegraph-office. "We will first make things straight with K. Then we
+will consult this new horror with the oriflamme that we have stumbled
+into!" Three tired clerks, two soldiers and a civilian, were trying to
+cope with the telegraphic efforts of five columns. The brigadier
+dictated his message to the Intelligence officer. It was a bare
+announcement of arrival, duplicated to Pretoria and De Aar.
+
+_Telegraph Operator._ "There is no chance of any private wires going
+through for at least forty-eight hours; post would be quicker!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "Then you will just have to clear the line."
+
+_T. O._ "Can only do that for general officers."
+
+_B._ "That is all I ask you to do,--so here you are!"
+
+_T. O._ "Beg pardon, sir; but are you a general,--you are not like
+most generals. Yes, sir, it's nice and short. I can get this off in
+about five minutes. They clear the line, of course, at De Aar; we are
+only working to De Aar. I have quite a lot of messages for you, sir;
+they have been coming all last night." (The operator handed out the
+bundle of telegraphic jetsam.)
+
+The telegrams contained the usual proportion of hysterical nonsense
+from the De Wet expert and various intelligence and departmental
+centres; also a direct order from the general at De Aar to proceed
+without delay to Orange River Station and there entrain for
+Jagersfontein Road in the Orange River Colony. This at least was
+satisfactory, as it meant without fail good-bye to the hated Karoo.
+The news telegram was interesting reading, though a little indefinite
+in its wording. In the light of subsequent knowledge the information
+which it conveyed was much as the brigadier had anticipated. De Wet,
+after the sack of Strydenburg, had doubled north,--in fact, had almost
+retraced his original line. He had thrown a feint up in the direction
+of Mark's Drift, and thus drawn the pursuit temporarily off the true
+line, but had as suddenly swung to the east. Here he had again been
+struck by the indefatigable Plumer, temporarily renovated and with
+sufficient steam up to take him a short spurt. That spurt was
+sufficient to rob De Wet of his last impedimenta, to cause him to
+bifurcate in his flight. Part of the pursued rabble went north, half
+hurled itself across the Cape Government Railway in the vicinity of
+Paauwpan. Plumer's spurt was just too short to bring about the
+definite result required, and he crawled into Hopetown to further
+revive his energy. In the meantime it was learned from prisoners and
+other sources that the group of fugitives trying to cross the Orange
+River north of Hopetown was Judge Hertzog's and Pretorius's party.
+Brand had made the passage at Mark's Drift, while De Wet, with the
+ex-President, was still in the Colony heading for Philipstown. Then
+hope ran high. The Orange River was in flood, while stops were in
+front of and south of the harried guerilla. Thorneycroft and Henry in
+the vicinity of Colesburg; Crabbe and Henniker on his tail; Grenfell,
+Murray, and others strung out in an ever-decreasing circle! Swollen
+river in front, desperate Englishmen behind, what chance had the
+residue of the invaders now! But the brigadier shook his head as he
+pricked out the positions on the map. "There is no mention of troops
+moving down from the north. What does Napoleon say about rivers as
+barriers in war?--he classes them as negotiable obstacles, after
+deserts and mountains, right low down on the scale. Flood or no flood,
+ole man De Wet will cross that river just wherever and whenever he
+pleases; and if we have no one north of it either to pick him up or to
+head him while crossing, he will get clear away, and we shall have let
+slip another opportunity, by crass stupidity and failure to make use
+of the very signal advantages which circumstances have placed in our
+way. Plumer and my brigands get to Orange River Station to-night. Even
+if they have truckage waiting for us, we shall not march clear of
+Jagersfontein Road until the day after to-morrow. That will give ole
+man De Wet twenty-four hours' clear lead. I must say that I cannot see
+the hand of genius in the fitting of this plan to the map. This is the
+line that both Plumer and I should take--Orange River Station, Ramah,
+Luckhoff, Fauresmith. One of us halt at Luckhoff; Kimberley send a
+column to Koffyfontein; Bloemfontein another to Petrusburg and
+Abramskraal; while Fauresmith and Jagersfontein form bases for
+columns sent to them from Springfontein; and then with a consistent
+and strong line of outposts we might have stopped his main road north,
+although we should be too late to man the river. But, anyhow, I'll
+have a try at convincing them at headquarters that I am a better man
+outside than inside a cattle-truck. So here goes. Mr Intelligence,
+paper and ink and take it down, and mind it is to go in cipher!" The
+brigadier then roughly drew a comparison in the saving of time
+involved by a direct march upon Fauresmith from Orange River Station
+and transport by rail, closing the message with a promise to be in
+Fauresmith the second day after leaving the railway.
+
+It then became a question of a square meal at the caravanserai. The
+concentration of five columns had taxed the capabilities of the little
+hostel beyond endurance. All that they could furnish was milk and
+butter. But they were prepared to cook any food that was brought, so
+with an effort it was possible to arrive at a meal. There was no lack
+of entertainment, however. One of the columns had sent out 300 men and
+a pompom in pursuit of Hertzog's fugitives, and the force had just
+returned with quite a haul of prisoners. They had come across the
+rearmost of them as they were in the act of crossing the river in a
+rickety punt, which vessel had been scientifically rendered
+unseaworthy by a well-directed belt of pompom-shells. Examination of
+the bushes on the near bank of the river showed that dozens of Boers
+had literally gone to earth. The river approach was full of
+rain-fissures and water-cracks, and the men spent the whole morning
+actually bolting burghers from cover, much in the same manner as a
+pack of beagles is well used to aid sportsmen to shoot a
+rabbit-covert.
+
+It was not until you found opportunity to see these prisoners that you
+realised what this war meant to these farmer guerillas, and the
+influence which the failure of De Wet's invasion must have made on the
+subsequent operations. Amongst the whole 200 prisoners that were
+brought in that day, there was only one man--a man who called himself
+Hertzog's secretary--who was completely dressed. The majority had
+neither coats nor boots; and their remaining costume was in the last
+stage of decay. Nor had the inner man been nurtured any better than
+the outer. They were emaciated and drawn with hunger and hardship.
+They rose out of their holes with their hands above their heads like
+great gaunt ghosts with saucer eyes. They were in such a state that
+surrender brought to them no pangs of remorse. They welcomed it as a
+means to live, and their ravenous supplication for food was not the
+least pathetic setting to the scene. They are a strange paradox these
+people. One could not help admiring the patriotism--or is it magnetic
+power of their leaders?--which kept in the field, in spite of all its
+dismal horrors of death and suffering, men who had but to surrender to
+return to their share of the comfort of living. If it is true
+patriotism, then you feel inclined to raise your hat. But if it is
+only fear of the knout, then hanging is the best end you could wish
+the leaders, who are able to control such suffering, and who, in the
+hope of personal advancement, refuse to alleviate it. But what is more
+humiliating than anything else, is the realisation that these
+miserable creatures are an enemy able to keep the flower of England's
+army in check, to levy a tax of six millions a-month upon this
+country, and render abortive a military reputation built upon
+unparalleled traditions. This is indeed a bitter reflection, a painful
+reminder that the advance of science has placed the athlete and the
+cripple almost upon an equality in armed encounter.
+
+It was an interesting gathering that partook of dinner in the quaintly
+boarded little dining-room of the Hopetown tavern. Four column
+commanders and their staffs filled the tables, which betimes were the
+mess-boards of the bank clerks and shop-walkers of the village. The
+soldiers, however, had some right to be in temporary possession, since
+the viands were their own. The two little serving-maids, daughters of
+a Dutch proprietress, were alive to the unusual importance of their
+duties, and had carefully prepared for the part. Print dresses were
+dispensed with, and they stood arrayed in their Sabbath frocks,
+covered with the becoming apron-pinafore which the country affects,
+and with carefully braided hair. Quaint little maids--why should we
+quiz them?--they were there dressed and determined to do their best.
+At the first table sat a middle-aged major-general, a man of kindly
+face and habit. As a soldier--a fierce, intrepid leader--can you not
+remember the day when he lay amongst the scrub of the Modder bank with
+his chest laid bare by a raking bullet, and refused to be carried to
+hospital,--even entreated the doctors to let him carry out the mad
+effort, worthy of a Marshal Ney, which had been intrusted to him, and
+which all but cost him his life. Yet, so strange is the complex nature
+of the Englishman, this man, whom the breath of war could rouse to a
+courage almost superhuman, spent his leisure in the toils of artistic
+photography, and evinced more demonstrative pleasure over a successful
+plate than in a battlement of arms made sweet in victory.
+
+At the next table sat a leader of another kind, or rather a different
+development of the same type of quiet unassuming English
+gentleman,--the gallant, thrusting, never-tiring Plumer. Small spare
+man of dainty gait and finish, yet moulded in a clay which hitherto
+has shown no flaw in the rougher elements of the soldier. It is no
+inconsiderable tribute to his sterling qualities as a leader that he
+gained both the confidence and devotion of the rough Bushboys from the
+Antipodes, with whom he was associated. But however dainty and
+unassuming the shell, it is the spirit which fashions the man, and he
+who would continue in the shade of Plumer's banner must ride with all
+the cunning he may possess to prove himself worthy of the lead he
+follows. At another table sits Pilcher, the man on wires. Hot-headed
+he may be, yet withal crafty in war: worthy representative of the race
+of young soldiers which the Nile has bred. Then there was our own
+brigadier, as buoyant in spirit and as light of heart as any of his
+ancestors who played the gallant in the Court of Versailles, yet
+possessing beneath the veneer of gaiety a steadfast tenacity of
+purpose, which favoured the quartering added from the north of the
+Tweed. The room was full of men--men who for eighteen solid months had
+been engaging in the stern realities of war. The leaders who had
+exercised the balance of life and death, the juniors who had looked a
+thousand dangers squarely in the face. If success in war was only made
+up in the excellence of fighting men, then England could stand out
+pre-eminent. Unfortunately, success lies in business-soldiers _plus_
+fighting men. It is in her business-soldiers that England's weakness
+lies.
+
+It is only when the intention is to do something desperate that one is
+able to appreciate the obstructive temperament of military
+officialdom. The whole system teems with "wait-a-bit" thorns; and in
+such rare cases when difficulties do not exist, some jack-in-office is
+certain to arrive with the sole object and intention of inventing
+them. Now, the brigadier had put forward a simple and rational
+plan,--so simple and rational that the lieutenant-general at De Aar
+had willingly acquiesced, for this general was at least a man to whom
+his juniors might look and be certain of support. But after the
+general there arose a pack of snarling juniors, whose only energy
+seemed to be expended in an endeavour to frustrate the plans of
+others. The brigade had orders to march by night the six miles which
+separate Hopetown from Orange River Station, but long before it took
+the road the departmental spirit of opposition had commenced to make
+itself felt.
+
+First came a "clear-the-line" message from the transport officer,
+ordering the brigadier to hand over his mule-transport to another
+column commander. It is true that he promised to re-equip him with
+mule-transport at the destination of his railway journey; but the
+brigadier had had experience of the director of transport's promises.
+This was an impediment which it was possible to ignore; but it was
+followed by another more serious. The supply people appeared to have
+been hurt on the score of the short notice which had been given to
+them, and raised a host of difficulties. But the climax was reached
+when the Intelligence Department volunteered the information that it
+would be useless for the brigade to apply for maps, as they had none
+in stock; but they added, "As a substitute we are sending the best
+local guide procurable."
+
+The brigadier had met the first of these hindrances with equanimity,
+but the last burden upset the camel's load. "Did you ever see such
+fellows? they are bent on thwarting me every time. I shall ignore them
+right through; the only attention the man who has the audacity to
+offer me a low horse-thieving local expert as the substitute for a
+gross of maps deserves is to be court-martialled and stamped out of
+existence on sight. You need not telegraph all that, Mr Intelligence;
+but you may send a message to the general in De Aar to inform him
+that, having received his orders, I shall leave no stone unturned to
+carry out the scheme he has sanctioned, in spite of local obstruction.
+That is to be the sense of the message, and it ought to cover any
+subsequent act of disobedience which we undertake. Don't make answers
+to any of these subordinate fry; we will just march at nine o'clock
+to-night to Orange River Station, raid the place of such rations as we
+can lay hands on, and then, maps or no maps, take off our caps to Cape
+Colony for ever."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was just as well that the brigadier had made his own arrangements,
+for both Plumer and Pilcher forgathered at Orange River that night,
+and the stationmaster, with the bonhomie bred of a long period spent
+in disappointing everybody with whom he came in contact, informed each
+column commander in rotation that the best he could promise them was
+truckage sufficient for one squadron on the following day, two
+squadrons perhaps on the second day, and the whole of the mounted
+troops ordered by rail certainly not before a week or ten days. We
+just ask you to make a short study of this situation. The episode
+which is here related was not a farce--far from it: it was a serious
+endeavour on the part of the British army in South Africa to capture
+or destroy a noted brigand called De Wet. A possibility of bringing
+about this desired result was certainly within view, and the British
+army was straining every nerve to avail itself of a unique
+opportunity. To the humble subaltern, who was but a microscopic atom
+of that huge British army, this herculean effort partook rather of the
+nature of burlesque than of serious war. But it was nothing to the
+burlesque which was shortly to be enacted on Orange River Station
+platform.
+
+As day broke other columns concentrated on the station buildings,
+until the inartistic surroundings of the little centre became black
+with men and animals. In appearance it might well be likened to a
+swarm of bees in temporary possession of a window-frame. Amongst the
+troops waiting for rolling stock was a wild company of over-sea
+Colonials--men of independent character and fine physique, who had
+already done their year in the country, and to whom the sight of a
+permanent way and the smell of a station-yard brought memories of
+homes in a distant land, and transports tossing on Table Bay, and a
+promise that had been made to them by some one, that they should
+return home the next time they touched the railway. Their dash after
+De Wet had been undertaken rather in the spirit of a favour. And now
+they were on the line again, rumour had it that their belated truckage
+had been ordered to convey them back to the Orange River Colony. They
+accepted this rumour as a breach of faith, and feeling ran high in the
+contingent--ran so high that it overlapped and swamped the tiny pillar
+of discipline which thirteen months of campaigning had built into the
+constitution of the corps. The climax was reached on the morning of
+the concentration at Orange River Station. The colonel commanding the
+over-sea Colonials stood chatting with our brigadier. We were waiting
+for the shoddy platform buffet to open its hospitable doors, when
+suddenly we were aware of the whole of the Colonial contingent
+marching in correct files on to the platform. A full private was in
+command. He issued his orders clearly. "Halt!"--"Pile arms!"--"Stand
+clear!"--"Fall out!" And then a deputation of three advanced towards
+us. They saluted their colonel with all military punctiliousness, and
+stood as stiffly to attention as is possible with the irregular.
+
+_Colonial Colonel._ "What does this mean, men?"
+
+_Spokesman._ "If you please, sir, we have mutinied" (_the supporting
+deputation gravely nodded their assent_).
+
+_C. C._ "The devil you have!--but do you realise what it means when
+you mutiny on active service?"
+
+_S._ "Well, you see, sir, it is putting it rather strongly, perhaps,
+to say that we _have_ mutinied. But you see, sir, our time is up, and
+we have determined not to go on the trek any more. Our last trek was a
+favour. We were promised that we should be sent home the next time we
+struck the railway, and we hold by this promise."
+
+_C. C._ "Men, don't be fools. Go back to your camp. You have no need
+to believe that faith will be broken with you. But think of the
+example you are setting to the rest of the troops here! Think of what
+the people at home will say! You don't realise what you are liable to
+for mutiny."
+
+_S._ "Well, sir, we don't exactly mean this as mutiny. This is just a
+protest against being kept out here against our will and agreement.
+You will accept it, sir, in the spirit that it is given--a protest,
+sir!"
+
+_C. C._ "Very good. Go back to your lines!"
+
+The deputation saluted, returned to the fallen-out contingent, which
+gravely unpiled its arms and marched back to its lines, amid a little
+desultory cheering from some few by-standers who realised what was
+taking place.
+
+The brigadier turned to the Colonial colonel and said, "Well, that is
+the quaintest attitude that I have ever seen taken up by a body of
+men. Do they often treat you to these protests?"
+
+_C. C._ "Sometimes. They are children in many respects. I can tell you
+they need gentle handling. They have made their protest, and for a
+week or so will be quite satisfied. I even fancy that I shall be able
+to get them to do yet another trek if the authorities insist; but it
+makes it devilish hard for us to deal with these fellows, when faith
+is so constantly broken with them. They are as quiet as mice when I
+get them away from the railway. But once they see metals they smell
+sea-water, and it upsets them. They are fine but quaint fellows!"
+
+The brigadier acquiesced. He would have been just the man to have
+commanded these men. And he would have improved a situation such as
+the one we had just witnessed. Yet it would be impossible to overrate
+the delicacy of that situation. A tactless man, full of the power
+which long generations of military discipline has built round the
+sanctity of a commission, in a few short sentences would have
+converted the scene of incipient mutiny into open intractable
+rebellion. As it was, the mutiny was taken in the spirit in which it
+had been made, and terminated to the satisfaction of all
+concerned.[39]
+
+The New Cavalry Brigade became almost complete at Hopetown, as the
+brigadier was able to collect his last missing squadron of the 21st
+King's Dragoon Guards, which hitherto had been taking part in the De
+Wet hunt with another column. A portion of the Mount Nelson Light
+Horse, however, was still missing; but the brigadier did not worry
+about them, and felt himself complete, as he took the precaution to
+issue orders that he was about to proceed by rail to Jagersfontein
+Road. But, as the narrative of the next forty-eight hours is to show,
+the military system prevailing in South Africa was such that it was
+only by a miracle that the most sagacious of leaders were able to
+accomplish any exceptional result by strategy. The brigadier had
+schemed to bring about a result which could only be arrived at by the
+most rigid concealment of plan and direction.
+
+It must be borne in mind that the Boers at this period of the campaign
+had the most perfect system of intelligence. There was not a district
+in the Transvaal or Orange River Colony which was not under the
+command of a local commandant, who with a following of fifty to a
+hundred men maintained a system of observation-posts throughout the
+length and breadth of his district, and who apparently had the means
+of conveying to some central organisation early intelligence of the
+movement of every British column. This may appear to the casual
+observer as an enormous undertaking, but in reality it was nothing of
+the kind. It was absolutely essential to the Boer cause that a
+considerable portion of their less valuable fighting material should
+thus be distributed over the length and breadth of the guerilla area.
+Owing to the great distances to be traversed in South Africa, every
+Dutchman had a local knowledge of his own district which could never
+be acquired in a country of rapid communication such as England. To
+local men were apportioned the network of observation-hills in which
+the country abounds. They lived upon the hill-tops all day, and
+returned either to farms or other places of security during the night.
+Their method of inter-communication was either by Kaffirs or mounted
+messengers, and in this way news could travel by relay as easily and
+rapidly as it is carried by a similar system amongst the natives of
+India. Any Kaffir will dog-trot ten miles in two hours; consequently
+without much effort Boer information would travel a hundred and twenty
+miles in twenty-four hours. Added to this, every woman remaining upon
+a farm was of the nature of an intelligence agent, and after the women
+had been removed, for the most part to the concentration camps, the
+majority of Kaffir kraals served the same purpose. It was this means
+of information which made the Boer resistance possible: it was to this
+system of espionage that De Wet owed the success of his meteor-like
+career.
+
+The Intelligence centre at De Aar being unable to furnish the
+requisite maps, took upon itself to supply "the best local guide
+procurable." It is mainly to the services rendered by this local guide
+that De Wet owes his escape on this particular occasion. The brigadier
+was fully alive to the existence of the Boer local espionage; but it
+must be said with truth that he had not realised to what extent De
+Wet's _client�le_ included the men who possessed the confidence of
+the De Wet expert and the intelligence faculty at De Aar. If he had
+realised this he would have been content to have made his dash,
+trusting to the almost supernatural instinct of the Tiger. As it was,
+to the general regret, the Tiger was allowed to sever his connection
+with the column, to be replaced by one of the many "sitters upon the
+fence" who have for months conduced to the prolongation of the war.
+
+The latest information with regard to the movements of De Wet had been
+signalled by Haig, who appeared to hold the view that he had the
+arch-guerilla hemmed in against the unfordable flood of the Orange
+River in the immediate neighbourhood of the Colesberg waggon-bridge.
+Now the brigadier, as has already been shown, did not believe in the
+unfordability of rivers. Moreover, the Orange River in front of us was
+falling, and further information, which had been arrived at through a
+rather peculiar channel, furnished us with the details of a letter of
+instruction which had been sent by De Wet when at Strydenburg to
+Field-cornet Botmann, then commanding the local commando in the
+Fauresmith district, instructing him to collect as many horses and
+Cape-carts as possible, and to keep them in readiness at Philippolis
+in order to expedite his (De Wet's) journey north. Basing his plans
+upon this information, the brigadier determined to place himself on
+the line Jagersfontein-Fauresmith just at the moment when De Wet
+halted to catch his breath at Philippolis. He would then detach half
+his force to cover his right, facing south, leaving it to Plumer or
+other troops despatched from the railway at Jagersfontein Road to
+cover and close his left flank. To frustrate the vigilance of
+Botmann's observation-posts it was the brigadier's intention to make
+Fauresmith by forced marches. It had to be considered that there was
+only a small margin in which it would be possible to arrive at
+Fauresmith with advantage. Too early an arrival would have warned and
+headed De Wet before the flank-detached column was in position to
+effectually co-operate; while dalliance on the line of march would
+have missed him altogether. It was a manoeuvre which could not have
+been successful without some element of luck, but which was destined
+to be rendered still more difficult by the co-operation of the local
+guide.
+
+As it was, the man was not taken into the brigadier's confidence until
+he issued his marching orders to his force, a bare two hours before
+the column was destined to take the road. The guide had joined the
+command with all the pomp and dignity attaching to a following of five
+mounted native retainers. He was an Africander of a most marked type,
+and opened his connection with the Intelligence officer with the
+information that he was not an ordinary guide, that he only took his
+instructions from the officer commanding the column, and that he
+reported alone to him. The brigadier smiled at his pedantry, remarking
+that if he did his job it did not matter much to whom and by whom he
+made his reports.
+
+In order to facilitate the early movement of the brigade, it had moved
+across the now historic railway-bridge at Orange River and camped in
+the Herbert district, with the report that Kimberley was its
+destination. For the sake of precaution the brigadier had thrown out
+a strong outpost into the hilly country covering the road to Ramah.
+Shortly after midnight, the Intelligence officer was sent out with the
+final instructions to this outpost. As he stumbled amongst the rocks
+he saw in the dim light which the young moon diffused a mounted native
+moving along a track below him. The native would have remained
+unrecognised, as the distance was considerable, if his horse had not
+been a piebald of peculiar marking. The mounted native "had the legs
+of" the Intelligence officer; but as he disappeared in the shadows of
+night the Intelligence officer's apprehensions were allayed by hearing
+the man challenged by a picket from the outpost. In five minutes the
+Intelligence officer reached the picket to find the native gone, and
+the corporal in charge stated that the man had shown a pass signed by
+the Intelligence officer, Orange River Station. This hardly appeared
+to be satisfactory; but the corporal, like so many young British
+non-commissioned officers, had had no directions concerning native
+scouts and passes, and not being trained to take upon himself
+precautionary responsibility, had been duly frightened and coerced by
+the scrawl of a hieroglyphic on a remnant of blue paper.
+
+The Intelligence officer considered the whole affair with great
+suspicion, and when he returned to the headquarters bivouac he walked
+down to the new guide's _entourage_ and took stock of his "boys" and
+animals. One of the five "boys" was missing, also a piebald pony which
+had caught his eye earlier in the day. The Intelligence officer held
+his peace, but, armed with this information, determined to watch
+future developments, and flung himself down on the roadside to snatch
+half an hour's sleep before the forward march should commence.
+
+It was the brigadier's intention to seize Luckhoff--a little hamlet
+situated half-way between Orange River and Fauresmith--that morning by
+a _coup de main_. To accomplish this he detached half his force
+without baggage, under the command of the colonel of the 21st, to move
+as rapidly as circumstances would permit, and to occupy and hold the
+town until he himself arrived with the main body later in the day.
+The newly acquired guide was detailed to accompany the advance column.
+By nine o'clock in the morning this advanced column was in position to
+bear down upon the little prairie township. The colonel of the 21st,
+well versed in the tactics best suited to surprise a village on the
+open plain, extended a squadron into a horn-like formation, and
+galloped, as he imagined, to the surprise of the inhabitants. The
+sequel was very different to what had been expected. Save for women,
+the village was deserted, while from the high ground and hills to the
+north-east, a fully prepared posse from Botmann's commando opened a
+heavy rifle-fire on those cavalrymen who had been detached to occupy
+the farther approaches. Our Intelligence guide, who by some means had
+disappeared during the later progress of the advance, was at once in
+evidence as soon as the town was entered. He rode straight as a die to
+a small store which ornamented the main street. Ultimately it proved
+that he was the owner of this store.
+
+The first comment of the intelligent reader will be that the action of
+the guide was clumsy, both in design and execution, and that a column
+thus duped deserves to meet with ill success. The guide's action was
+undoubtedly clumsy, but it must be remembered that he had had long
+experience of the British: he knew as well as every other man of
+similar calibre in South Africa how far he could afford to play with
+their forbearance. As far as the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade was
+concerned, once the guide was admitted to the confidence of the
+general the possibility of checking his further machinations was
+beyond their reach. The fault lay with those who had given him his
+credentials. Yet there was no proof against the man: he allowed that
+the store was his, he admitted that he had sent one of his natives on
+ahead of the column, claimed that he had permission thus to use the
+native, who, he assured us, was one of the most trusted and loyal
+scouts that the British had. For what reason had he sent him? The
+answer was simple enough. He had only sent him with a message to the
+man who was looking after his store, with instructions not to open it
+after daybreak lest it should be looted by friend and foe alike. It
+was a pity, as it subsequently proved, that we failed to make him
+produce this loyal boy.
+
+The only remark in the way of comment made by the brigadier was to the
+effect that "One only learns by experience." He refused, and doubtless
+rightly, to accede to the wishes of others on his staff that the man
+should be executed out of hand. He promised to send him back to Cape
+Colony, where, doubtless, he would give a satisfactory explanation,
+and return again to some position of trust and honour in the British
+service.
+
+People in England, and those who have had experience of this
+extraordinary campaign, will never realise the extent to which the
+British army in South Africa has reposed confidence in knaves and
+scoundrels. For one man that may have been shot or hanged, there will
+have been a hundred who have gained the confidence of the British to
+betray it either to their own use or that of the enemy. No one could
+ever know or assess the extent of the knavery which has arisen,
+flourished, and grown fat in this long-protracted war. And what a
+field for sharps and knaves! Was not the control of the whole country
+in the hands of straightforward and fair-thinking English
+officers,--men whose word was their bond, and who never thought to
+distrust their fellow-men, until their fellow-men thrust their
+barefaced iniquities upon them. Believe me, that under the Southern
+Cross it is not the Dutch who are vile.
+
+But although we could not hope now to fall upon the arch-guerilla with
+the full weight of first surprise, yet from the nature of the
+situation in which he had been engaged during the last three weeks his
+theatre and resources were of necessity circumscribed. The situation
+even yet presented possibilities, and the brigadier settled to remain
+longer in Luckhoff than he had originally intended, sending a patrol
+to reconnoitre the Orange River. This patrol met with some success. It
+was commanded by the same pessimistic subaltern who had commanded the
+advance-guard from Richmond Road. Again it was his fortune to chaperon
+the Intelligence officer in a quest for information. It was a
+fifteen-mile ride to the nearest portion of the river, consequently it
+was late in the afternoon when the patrol entered the hilly tracts of
+country which covered the immediate approaches to the yellow stream.
+As the advance-guard of the party topped a little nek, they rode into
+a group of five burghers. The British dragoons had the advantage, as
+the burghers had only that moment emerged from the river, which they
+had crossed with the aid of rafts manufactured from drift-wood and
+rushes. Not a shot was fired, and the men surrendered gladly the only
+two rifles remaining to them.
+
+One of the most curious traits in the burgher character has been
+displayed in the manner of his capitulation. He will always tell you
+that he is pleased to surrender, that it is an end he has been longing
+and praying for for months, and yet until the actual moment which
+necessitates surrender he will strain every nerve to avoid capture,
+will suffer every privation and hardship; endure hunger, thirst,
+disease, and sickness, rather than walk the few miles which separate
+him from the British outposts. Take the case of these men who were
+just captured: after a most harassing campaign, they had gone to the
+risk and pain of crossing a rapid river in full flood; having crossed
+at infinite peril, they welcomed the advent of the hostile patrol
+which deprived them of their liberty, and far from making expression
+of resentment, availed themselves of the opportunity to surrender, in
+an attitude which ill disguised their eagerness.
+
+Moreover, they were loquacious. They had crossed the railway at
+Paauwpan with the remnant of De Wet's fugitive commando. In the
+neighbourhood of Philipstown the guerilla had ordered a general
+break-up of the whole of his remaining commando. At certain points
+along the Orange River it was said that boats were hidden for the
+purpose of effecting a crossing. But this particular party, having
+been unable to find one of these boats, and having been shot at by
+various patrols from pursuing columns, had effected the passage of the
+river in their own original way but to fall into our hands. As far as
+De Wet and President Steyn were concerned, these men professed to be
+able to speak with authority. Reduced to a single Cape cart, they had
+determined to cross at Botha's Drift. Their crossing was to have been
+covered by a commando collected by Botmann at Philippolis, and they
+themselves, in common with all the dispersed burghers, had orders to
+concentrate within four days at Philippolis, where supplies, horses,
+and ammunition would be awaiting them. All this, as it coincided with
+previous knowledge, was valuable information, and the patrol hurried
+to make the return journey to Luckhoff.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Jocular term borrowed from the Dutch for small British columns.
+
+[36] Dutch village.
+
+[37] It is interesting to note that eventually this reasoning was
+brought home to the direction of operations in South Africa. After
+practically a year of the unsatisfactory groping referred to in the
+text, the conception of the blockhouse system enabled mounted troops to
+operate far into the vital interior of the country without returning to
+the railway. It must be understood that the main use of the
+blockhouse-line was not to stretch an impassable _chevaux-de-frise_
+from point to point, but to furnish a series of posts, which ensured
+the safety of the convoys that followed their trend. By this means it
+was possible to keep columns operating in the interior supplied with
+food and forage. So much so, that towards the end many columns had not
+been near a town or railway for weeks. The conception of the "drives,"
+which ultimately brought the peace movement to a head, was an
+afterthought, which is commonly attributed in South Africa to the
+sagacity of that intrepid and versatile young cavalry leader, Colonel
+Mike Rimington.
+
+[38] Dutch mounted columns.
+
+[39] This very contingent continued to serve with distinction for quite
+a considerable period after the little episode narrated above.
+
+
+
+
+XI.
+
+FULL CRY.
+
+
+Luckhoff, in normal circumstances, has little to distinguish it from
+the many rural villages scattered over the South African veldt. If
+anything, it is more squalid than the general run of fourth-rate
+hamlets. But when the New Cavalry Brigade went into billet there, it
+was more or less a deserted and plundered village. The inhabitants may
+have totalled a hundred souls, the large majority of whom were women
+and children; and we should not have found these in possession if our
+Intelligence guide had been able to give earlier notice of our coming.
+As is the case with all these hamlets, the inhabitants who had escaped
+the clutches of the "clearing-up" columns were in the possession of
+_caches_ in the neighbourhood, where they hid away as soon as the
+dust-clouds on the horizon forewarned them of the near approach of a
+British column. Many columns had already "been through" Luckhoff, from
+Clements in the early days, to Settle moving in stately magnificence
+with thousands of cattle and hundreds of women in the preceding
+spring. Each marauder in turn had left something of a mark, but none
+had left so bare a skeleton or had stamped so plainly the impress of
+horrid war as a column of somebody's bushmen. The brigadier had
+planted his little red pennant in front of the villa of the absconded
+Predikant. It was the only house in the place which had any pretension
+to decorative finish. But when the staff took possession it was a
+sorry pigsty. In its halcyon days a part of the house had evidently
+been in the possession of a young mother, for two of the apartments
+were knee-deep in a disordered heap of female apparel, intermingled
+with the tiny garments which mothers store away--small socks and
+bonnets tied with pink and blue. The ruthless hand of man had
+ransacked each drawer and crevice, and all that calls forth the
+sacred care of women lay tossed and tumbled in the dirt of floor and
+passage. To those who had time to think, a sad, heart-rending sight,
+pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first
+year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would
+have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her
+chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer
+instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is
+protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will become, until at last
+familiarity with the final arbitration of the beast deadens the better
+influences of human reasoning. As one saw upon every hand the ruin of
+these homes--many of which showed evidence of refinement bred of
+wealth and education--one felt the pity of it all, and cursed the
+leaders who in their spirit of tin-pot patriotism had pushed a
+struggle, already hopeless, to its most barbarous issue.
+
+Looting was not allowed. That is true, but how was it to be
+prevented?--where can you draw the line between legitimate requisition
+in war and brutal plunder? Can you punish the men who in the morning
+followed you without flinching in the face of death, because in the
+evening you find them searching in a deserted house for a 'kerchief,
+waist-band, or baby's sock to send as a memento to the mother or
+sweetheart waiting patiently at home? Is there not some extenuation
+for the man whose "pal" has been ambushed and butchered, when he
+gleefully places a match to the murderer's byre or dwelling? Place
+yourselves in the position of the fighting man before you consider
+actions which are inseparable from partisan warfare, and bear in mind
+that if the leaders of the enemy had capitulated when it was first
+evident that they were a beaten people, there would not have been a
+tithe of the brutality and suffering which marked the final phases of
+the struggle. The story of the Predikant was strange. Himself a
+firebrand of the most dangerous nature, he had preached an
+anti-British _jehad_ with all the force of his ecclesiastical
+rhetoric. Yet his three sons were of other clay. One, a staunch
+trooper of Thorneycroft's, had died a soldier's death on Spion Kop's
+shell-swept summit; another, an athlete of no mean order, had served
+in Lord Robert's bodyguard; while the third was still fighting against
+the people of his kind as an officer in some other British corps. The
+two daughters, both married to _veldt kornets_, were already widows it
+may be, for the irony of fate is infinite, by their brothers' rifles.
+
+We found one Britisher in Luckhoff, and he was a Scotsman. His story
+was plausible; but though it had satisfied other column commanders, it
+did not find the same credence with our brigadier. According to the
+man's statement he was neutral. Had been neutral since the outbreak of
+war. He was an engineer in the Koffyfontein mines, and since these had
+closed down he had come to Luckhoff and made a living by
+market-gardening. Two circumstances conspired against the continued
+freedom of this so-called Scotsman. The first was the fact that he
+quoted our Intelligence guide as a reference for his good conduct; the
+second, that we had found a steam flour-mill at work in the vicinity,
+and circumstantial evidence pointed to our market-gardener as the
+_mechanicien_ in charge. This being given as the real reason for his
+presence in the hamlet, there was no need for his sojourn to be
+continued, as we had closed down the safety-valve until the boiler
+burst, and wrecked the mechanism of the engine. Flour-mills, even when
+worked by market-gardeners of doubtful neutrality, can be of service
+to a starving enemy.
+
+The brigadier determined to halt a little in Luckhoff to procure if
+possible more definite information. About midday this information
+came, from both ordinary and extraordinary channels. As the
+headquarters sat at lunch a mounted messenger arrived from Orange
+River,--a small spare Hottentot or Griqua, who weighed about five
+stone, and who had been put upon a horse and told to cover fifteen
+miles an hour until he found us. The message he brought was in point
+of fact a confirmation of the information which we had gleaned already
+from our prisoners of the preceding evening. "De Wet, and with him the
+President," ran the message, "crossed the Orange River at Botha's
+Drift at three o'clock to-day (yesterday). By mistake gap in circle
+let him through. Crossed without transport and with smallest
+following. Presumedly will go north. Plumer cannot leave Springfontein
+until early day after to-morrow (to-morrow). Must leave you to act
+exactly as you think right. Co-operate if possible with Plumer!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "Presumedly will go north! Well, that is the most
+ingenuous expression of opinion that I have ever heard. A man crosses
+from the south bank of a river to the north, and by an extreme effort
+our friends of the Intelligence are able to conjecture that he will go
+north. He certainly has the northern field open to him. It is worthy
+of the information slips issued by our friend the D.A.A.G. for
+Intelligence at Bloemfontein for the guidance of the columns in his
+districts: 'Everything in this shop window sixpence halfpenny; take
+your choice every time.' As usual, we shall have to work out our own
+salvation. Mr Intelligence, the map!"
+
+The map was duly spread upon the Reverend Predikant's mahogany board,
+and with the aid of a slip of paper the distances measured off. The
+brigadier sat back in his chair, drawing meditatively at the bent
+stem of his Boer pipe. When the measuring was over he remained silent
+a moment and then gave his opinion of the situation.
+
+_Brigadier._ "They evidently have no one operating down from
+Bloemfontein, otherwise they would not quote Plumer. It is just as
+evident that De Wet slipped across the river at some spot where it is
+not precisely convenient for any of our Colony brigands to pursue him.
+That is, we are their only hope and the only mobile people within
+reach. De Wet crossed the Orange River yesterday afternoon, therefore,
+according to our information, he should have slept at Philippolis last
+night. As a rule De Wet never sleeps in the same place on two
+consecutive nights. But his arrival at Philippolis was in rather
+peculiar circumstances. He didn't arrive a successful swashbuckler
+cocking his hat with all his plans made, but a washed-out fugitive
+with all his plans to make. Therefore the chances are that he won't
+have got very far on his way from Philippolis to-night. Probably he
+won't make a start until to-morrow morning. He knows that his right
+is clear. He knew last night or early this morning that we had arrived
+at Luckhoff. He will have information by this that we have halted this
+morning, and that the Riet River is in flood. Therefore it is plain
+that he, taking us as an average British commando, can leave
+Philippolis at daybreak to-morrow, cross the Riet, and destroy the
+Kalabas bridge behind him without inconvenience from us. At least that
+is the map reading of this picnic. It is a short fifty miles from
+Philippolis to Fauresmith; we are thirty miles from Fauresmith. A
+British commando halted to-day would not reach Fauresmith until
+evening to-morrow; a Boer _paarde kommando_ will have done its fifty
+miles by the time one of our 'crawlers' outspans for breakfast. Now,
+old man Baker, get out orders. For public guidance, we march at four
+o'clock for Koffyfontein and Kimberley, going d----d slow; for private
+information, as soon as it is dark we will change direction and be in
+possession of Fauresmith as soon after daybreak as possible. Whoever
+is in possession of Fauresmith will be in possession of the bridge
+over Riet River. Mr Intelligence, it will be your business to make it
+sufficiently well known in this metropolis that our destination is
+Koffyfontein for Kimberley. Don't make them suspicious by being too
+emphatic about it."
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "Very good, sir; but we shall have to cover at least
+forty miles!"
+
+_B._ "True for you; what's the odds?"
+
+_B.-M._ "Only the ox-transport. It can't reach Fauresmith by daybreak,
+night-marching. There ain't anything of a moon--in fact it's going to
+be devilish dark with all these clouds about."
+
+_B._ "True again: but we will dodge all that. As soon as we have
+changed direction to our true line, we will leave the transport to
+come along as best it may: it can follow us to Fauresmith."
+
+_B.-M._ "What escort shall I give it?"
+
+_B._ "How many dismounted men are there? It can have just as many
+cripples as we possess. I am not going to worry about transport. If I
+am wrong in my calculations and De Wet attempts to cross behind me, I
+want that transport to deceive him. He would never dream of it being
+unprotected. He cannot be in any strength; besides, I shall want every
+mounted man I have got for my scheme. The transport, ox and mule, must
+take its chance. But see that it doesn't straggle. The mule can keep
+up with us as long as possible, but it must keep together. Likewise
+the ox-transport, taking its own time, must keep closed up. I assure
+you the only object of these people on this journey will be to get
+away. Two blocks of moving waggons will mystify them, not attract
+them. Right away,--not a word about the change of direction until
+after dark--not even to C.O.'s. Tell 'em any story you like."
+
+The Intelligence officer had barely got outside when a tall and even
+good-looking native attracted his attention by raising his battered
+hat and murmuring "kos." The man, a magnificent specimen of the Basuto
+savage, was quivering with emotion, and he pointed to a great
+grey-white weal which showed across his neck and open breast.
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Sjambok?"
+
+_Basuto._ "Yah, Boss!"
+
+_I. O._ "How did you come by this?"
+
+The native, who was of more than average intelligence, then told the
+following astounding story. He was one of the five native scouts
+employed by the new Intelligence guide. The morning that the New
+Cavalry Brigade had left Orange River Station, he had been sent
+forward by our friend with a letter to Commandant Botmann, and,
+finding that he was not at Luckhoff, the Basuto had warned the acting
+landrost[40] there of the approach of the British, and had then ridden
+on to Philippolis, and was there when De Wet and Steyn arrived; and in
+the truly expressive language of the native he told of their dejection
+and the dispiriting nature of the speech which the ex-President had
+made to the assembled burghers. He also furnished the valuable
+information that De Wet had issued instructions that all stray
+burghers and Brand's, Wessel's, Akermann's, and Kolbe's commandos
+should concentrate with him at Petrusberg, whither he was proceeding
+on the following day with his personal bodyguard under Theron. As the
+brigadier had anticipated, De Wet was halting a day to allow his
+stragglers to concentrate. In all he would have about 300 men and
+forty Cape carts. But at Petrusberg they would concentrate to about
+1200 or 1500. The Basuto had ridden through from Philippolis that
+night, and had arrived back at Luckhoff only half an hour ago. The
+blow which was responsible for this disclosure of his master's perfidy
+and the Boer plans was by reason of a favourite horse. In order to
+ensure the safe delivery of his message, and not dreaming that it
+would go all the way to Philippolis, the Intelligence guide had
+mounted the Basuto on his best horse. This best horse had caught the
+eye of a Winburg burgher in Philippolis, and he had relieved the
+Basuto of it, leaving him to make his way back upon some scarecrow.
+_Hinc ill� lacrym�_.
+
+The Intelligence officer smoothed over the Basuto's ill-will with
+fair-mouthed promises, and led him to understand that if he went back
+to his master and suffered in silence for a short period longer he
+would be handsomely rewarded. But, said the dignified savage, "he bad
+man--always bad man, telling d----d Dutchmens always. Boss give me
+gun, no more telling Dutchmens!" The Intelligence officer pacified the
+man by promises of an execution in the near future, and then went to
+the brigadier with the information and an earnest conspiracy against
+the guide's life. However, the evidence was not conclusive enough for
+the brigadier. "What proof have you that it is not all a plant on the
+part of your friend, Mr Intelligence? Besides, I would never hang a
+white man on the evidence of a black. I am bad at the 'black-cap'
+game, but I'll tell you what I will do. I don't want any more of this
+guide; tell him that we are going to Kimberley, and that he can go
+back to Orange River at once; write a letter to the De Aar
+Intelligence coves, and tell them we are bound for Kimberley, seal it
+heavily with sealing-wax, and then, if your 'pal' is the bandit you
+represent him to be, he will read it and send it to De Wet to-night.
+If he is not a knave he will deliver it some time to-morrow night,
+when we shall be out of the ken of the De Aar folk, and the lie won't
+matter." And so it was arranged....
+
+It has been pointed out earlier in this narrative how often De Wet has
+owed his freedom, and incidentally his life, to the leaning of the law
+of chances in his favour. Times without number a sequence of
+extraordinary circumstances has conspired to defeat the best-laid
+plans which have been made to enmesh him. It is not intended to deny
+that the man was possessed of a peculiar genius which constantly of
+itself freed him from the dangers to which he was exposed. But beyond
+this there were instances, not so rare as the world would believe,
+when his genius failed him, and it was upon these occasions that
+Providence stepped in and furnished a balance against which it was
+impossible for human endeavour to prevail. It will never be maintained
+that in the present case the brigadier had divined an infallible
+scheme. But, as will be seen, the operation of circumstances so
+dovetailed with the brigadier's appreciation of the situation, that
+though no certain opportunity was foreseen of seizing the arch
+guerilla in his bed, yet there was every promise that he would be
+forced to play a hand with the cards against him,--a circumstance
+which no Boer--not even De Wet--liked or understood. One such a chance
+had presented itself before, when a senior influence intervened and
+kept the New Cavalry Brigade from falling upon Strydenburg. In the
+present case the intervention was to be made by the elements, and even
+then the energy and wit of the capable soldier who was in command
+brought the brigade within an ace of a success which would have made
+all concerned famous in the history of this war.
+
+At four o'clock the advance-guard opened out on the plain north of
+Luckhoff, and drew the fire of the observation post on the hills
+through which the trail to Koffyfontein passes. There would have been
+no necessity to caution the advance-guard to slowness; and the main
+body just sauntered on, while commanding officers were asking
+themselves whether the brigadier was mad or inebriate to plunge into a
+night march of this character when his object was only to get to
+Kimberley. The good ladies of Luckhoff watched the last of the
+transport disappear over the nek into the darkness of gathering night,
+and then sent their eight-year-old sons or Kaffirs to recall such of
+their men-folk as lay hid in the neighbouring _caches_, while the
+observation post sent a galloper to the next point, that the news
+might be patented that the column had taken the Kimberley road. By
+sundown the head of the column had made about six miles, and a halt
+was called to allow the baggage to close up. As soon as it was
+sufficiently dark the change in direction was made, and the head of
+the column left the road and plunged into the trackless veldt, it
+being estimated that a compass bearing due east would bring it by
+daybreak within easy reach of the parallelogram of hills in which
+Fauresmith and Jagersfontein lie. But the favour of Providence was
+withdrawn: the night, which had been born in suffocating heat,
+suddenly changed to piercing cold, and great zigzags of white
+lightning, clutching at the heavens like the claws of some gigantic
+dragon, heralded a tempest of unwonted fury. And presently it came
+preceded by a blinding sandstorm, which told how much the burnt
+surface of the prairie yearned for moisture. That night it drank its
+fill, for when the flood-gates burst asunder a very deluge was loosed
+upon the earth. The great storm voided its burden in such rivers of
+water that in a moment, in spite of waterproof and oil-skin, every man
+in the force was as drenched as if he had plunged into a stream. Nor
+was it a passing downfall of temporary duration. It deluged in
+unbroken stream for the best part of an hour. Automatically the whole
+force came to a standstill: checked, bedraggled, and miserable, it
+stood it out. To advance was impossible; each depression in the veldt
+was a sheet of water, in places inches deep. The whole crust of the
+earth had become a sticky sodden morass, and in this mire the column
+lay bogged and helpless. Guns and waggons sank axle-deep, their
+drunken alignment proving that for the time being they were immobile.
+Horses, mules, and oxen struggled and floundered for a foothold,
+sinking with terror-stricken sobs and distressful moans until their
+bellies were level with the slush. A hideous scene!
+
+There was nothing that man could do: until such time as the natural
+drainage of the plain and the parched substratum absorbed the
+superfluous moisture, the brigade was as helpless as a steamer with a
+broken screw-shaft. Mercifully for the staff, the catastrophe had
+overtaken the brigade within a mile of a fair-sized farm; and
+eventually, after much labour in the mire, the brigadier and his
+immediate following were able to claim its hospitality. Luckily it was
+occupied. A smiling good-natured _frau_, on the stout side of thirty,
+with a bevy of girls ranging from two to twelve, was endeavouring to
+cope with an inundation of sodden troopers from the advance-guard. It
+was a nice farm, and to our astonishment Madam Embonpoint proved to be
+an English Africander. Her husband was in St Helena, and since the
+outbreak of war she had worked her husband's property single-handed.
+Madam was anything but hostile; but she prayed that we would not break
+into her slender store of provisions, since she had ten mouths to
+feed, and the pinch of war was near at hand. Otherwise we were welcome
+to such hospitality as her roof would afford us, and she was prepared
+to cook and prepare for us any food we might have with us. It chanced
+that the officer of the advance-guard was a captain of the Mount
+Nelson Light Horse. He was one of the few in that corps who had
+impressed himself favourably upon the brigadier, consequently the
+chief did not burst into abusive satire when he discovered this
+officer in the act of boiling a turkey in the farm kitchen. Now, in
+spite of the wet and disappointment, the brigadier had lost none of
+his usual gaiety of nature. It is often the case with the best
+soldiers, the more adverse the circumstances the lighter their
+spirits.
+
+_Brigadier_ (_commencing to divest himself of his wet clothes in front
+of the fire and pointing to the turkey_), "Honestly come by?"
+
+_Captain_ (_closing the lid of the pot with a snap_), "Yes, sir; the
+last of our tinned food, sir!"
+
+_B._ "Seen the tin for the first time to-day, I should think. But what
+are you going to do with it? You have got to clear your robbers out
+of this. This is my booth for the night!"
+
+_C._ "I realised that, sir, and I said to my subaltern that as it was
+a cold night we would just open our last tin and offer it to the
+general as a sign of affection, arguing that if he accepted it in the
+spirit in which it was given, he would ask us both to dinner."
+
+_B._ (_now in his shirt_), "Hearty fellows both. No man born of woman
+would like a boiled turkey for dinner more than I should, in spite of
+the fact that it was only killed an hour ago by a captain who should
+have known better. You are both asked to dinner. Madam, had you not
+better withdraw?" (_This to the lady of the house who had just
+entered._)
+
+The scene was indeed a strange one. A rough Boer kitchen lit by a
+dingy dip. The light of the yellow flame impeded by "truck" suspended
+from the rafters--a side of mutton, some _biltong_, strings of onions
+and beetroots. In the corner a more or less modern fire-range, in
+front of which stood a group of officers, comprising the brigadier,
+his staff, and the two officers of the advance-guard, all in various
+stages of _d�shabille_, some trying to get warm, some to dry their
+wringing clothes, and others to stoke the fire and boil a pot. Add to
+these the plump hostess and her tribe of all-aged daughters, whom no
+exposure of masculine limbs and under-dress seemed to terrify. This
+did not look like catching De Wet--but then much may take place
+between midnight and daybreak.
+
+A chapter could be filled with the miseries which the troops suffered
+that night, and this being the case, it would be ungracious to dilate
+upon the sumptuous nature of the feast within the farmhouse. Let it
+suffice that during its discussion the brigadier cast over the
+situation and was ready, with the coffee which Madam Embonpoint
+contributed to the entertainment, with his plan to amend the chaos
+which the elements had made of his original undertaking.
+
+_Brigadier_ (_stirring his cup thoughtfully until the hostess was out
+of the room_). "Mr Intelligence, what do you make the distance between
+this and the pass this side of Fauresmith?"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Three- to five-and-twenty miles, sir."
+
+_B._ "Have you any one who knows the way?"
+
+_I. O._ "Yes, sir, there is a man in the Light Horse who has done some
+transport riding in the Southern Free State, who says he knows
+something about it."
+
+_B._ "Better and better (_turning to the captain of the
+advance-guard_). Now, I am going to put you in the way of a very big
+thing. You are senior captain in your corps, are you not?"
+
+_Captain._ "Yes, sir, senior captain, adjutant, and second in command;
+we have got no majors!"
+
+_B._ "That is all right then. Well, I want you to start on at once
+with two squadrons, and to push on to Fauresmith. I fancy that you
+will find it has dried up a bit now, and as these storms are usually
+local, it is quite possible that you may strike better going as you
+get along. When you get into the hilly country about Fauresmith, go
+cunning, try and get as close as you can without being seen, and find
+a position from which you can hold the road leading from Fauresmith
+to the Riet River. Come over here and look at the map. Now, if you get
+off by midnight, you ought to make two miles an hour until daybreak.
+That is twelve miles; the remaining ten you will do inside two hours.
+If you are sniped, push on; but if opposed in force, do your best,
+only let me know. Now, these are my plans (_pointing on the map_). You
+see the parallelogram? well, you go slap-bang into it. I shall come
+along as fast as I can with the ground in this condition. I shall, if
+you come into touch with the enemy in force, send two squadrons and
+two guns direct to the bridge over the Riet north of the
+parallelogram, and two squadrons and two guns south of the
+parallelogram, while I come on with the rest in your direction. Now,
+your business is, first, not to let yourself be seen; secondly, so to
+arrange yourself that if De Wet and his crowd get to Fauresmith before
+we are up, to manoeuvre and keep him there until we arrive. It is a
+difficult job, I allow; but I know that you are the man to make the
+best of it. Get your men to understand that now they have the
+opportunity of making a reputation. The brigade-major will give you
+all this in writing. You may pick your squadrons. Now, get along, and
+don't waste time!"
+
+While the two squadrons of Mount Nelson Light Horse were picking their
+way out of camp that night, and while the rest of the brigade was
+turning into its miserable bivouac, the staff "bedded down" in the
+drawing-room of the farmhouse. With so large a family of girls, good
+Madam Embonpoint could only arrange one spare bedroom, and that was
+reserved for the brigadier; but the rest dragged their sopping valises
+into the parlour and trusted to get five hours' sleep before a
+daylight start....
+
+To add to the chagrin of the brigade, and to further demonstrate the
+singular Providence which ever seemed to attend De Wet in his
+movements, even unto the eleventh hour, it was found that the force
+had bivouacked on the very fringe of the storm. As is so often the
+case with these South African storms, the rigour of the downfall was
+local, and while the brigade had been so badly caught that it was
+practically impossible for the teams to move the guns without the aid
+of drag-ropes, half a mile away the surface of the veldt was
+unaffected and the going good. This discovery caused the day to dawn
+with brighter prospects, and as soon as the sodden column, free of its
+transport, felt the sounder bottom, it shook itself as would a
+retriever after a swim, and settled down to a swinging drying-trot.
+The brigadier had theories on the methods to be employed in the kind
+of war-game with which he was confronted; and he determined, if
+possible, to be in front of the Boer pickets and observation-posts,
+realising that two circumstances were in his favour. The concentration
+ordered for Philippolis should have reduced the strength of the Boer
+watchmen, and the rain of the preceding night, while rendering
+sentinels less inclined for the bitter vigil of early morning, had
+laid the tell-tale dust, which, as a rule, is the greatest impediment
+to secret movement. He threw out a troop to go very wide on either
+flank, in order to serve the double purpose of capturing any shirking
+Boer pickets which might chance to be alarmed at the later arrival of
+the transport column, and of guarding against De Wet's commando
+slipping past across the back trail. As the daylight strengthened, and
+showed that the going improved, everything pointed to a successful
+ride on the part of the two squadrons which had been pushed forward in
+the night. By seven o'clock the men had begun to dry, and as the
+object of the hunt leaked out, a general improvement was apparent in
+the spirits of the force.
+
+The first information which came in to headquarters, as the whole
+force moved rapidly forward, came from the Basuto scout, whom the
+Intelligence officer had relieved of his obligations to the
+Intelligence guide as soon as the latter had been dismissed. His
+information was serious: he reported that a party of twenty-five Boers
+had crossed our trail just about eight o'clock, and, travelling fast,
+had gone in a north-easterly direction. The brigadier cross-examined
+the man closely, and seemed satisfied as to the truth of his story.
+
+_Brigadier_ (_turning to his staff_) "We shall be fairly in it, if we
+have any luck, I don't think that these fellows who have passed behind
+us are De Wet's actual advance-guard. They are probably a patrol that
+he has thrown out to look after his exposed flank. He knows that we
+were at Luckhoff, and he would not have moved without telling off some
+one to watch us. Now, these people have seen us and passed behind us;
+but as we have luckily struck and covered the trail of the advance
+squadrons, they don't know that we have a force six hours ahead of us.
+Probably they have sent back to De Wet, who will be from one to two
+hours'[41] distant from them, to inform him, if he puts a spurt on, he
+can be through the Fauresmith passes before us. If only the Mount
+Nelsons can hold him, we shall get even with him yet."
+
+By nine o'clock the Fauresmith hills began to loom up above the dead
+level of the veldt, and as the trail of the advance squadrons was
+still steady and we had no news of them, there was every reason to be
+satisfied that they had successfully made their goal. The situation at
+least was increasing in interest. A little after ten the column had
+reached the foot of the Fauresmith hills, and the brigadier wisely
+called a halt, determined not to commit his troops to the hilly tracts
+until he had heard something from his advance squadrons.
+
+But the next information regarding the enemy was not destined to come
+in from the advance-guard. The column had just off-saddled when a
+dishevelled trooper with a blanched face galloped up to the tiny group
+of trees beneath which the brigadier and his staff had dismounted.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Hullo, here's a man who has seen his own ghost. We shall
+have some news now. Who are you?"
+
+_Trooper._ "Please, sir, I belong to Mr Crauford's patrol--it has been
+annihilated!"
+
+_B._ (_soothingly_). "Now dismount, and tell us all about it. What do
+you belong to!"
+
+_T._ (_dismounting_). "Mount Nelson Light Horse, sir."
+
+_B._ "I thought so; now let us have the story."
+
+_T._ "Well, sir, there was Mr Crauford, and Sergeant Mullins, and----"
+
+_B._ "Never mind their names. How many men had Mr Crauford with him?"
+
+_T._ "About six, sir; and I am the only one left alive to tell the
+tale!"
+
+_B._ "How truly awful! and if you don't get on with it your tale will
+outlast all of us as well. (_Roughly_) Now, throw it out,--what
+happened?"
+
+_T._ "Well, sir, you see that farm over there (_pointing to low seam
+of grey hills about four miles distant on our left flank, at the
+bottom of which nestled a homestead_), we were riding up to it
+quiet-like, when suddenly, as we were passing a kraal, up jumps about
+fifty Boers and calls us to ''ands up.' We wouldn't ''ands up,' and
+they shot us down to a man, and----!"
+
+_B._ "Wait--how did you get away from the general battue?"
+
+_T._ "I don't exactly know, sir; I kind of found myself galloping for
+all I was worth, and the bullets just 'umming that thick and awful,
+that I kept on asking myself the whole way home 'ow it was I managed
+to escape!"
+
+_B._ "You may go. Stop! where's your rifle?"
+
+_T._ (_for the first time realising that he had not got a rifle_). "I
+must have dropped it, sir, in the scrimmage--it was awful 'ot, sir!"
+
+_B._ (_brutally_). "Off you go; you ought to be ashamed to talk to
+honest men. (_Then turning to the brigade-major._) Look here, Baker,
+though I don't believe the man's story _in toto_, or would believe any
+man who in panic had thrown his rifle away, yet something has
+happened, and either our men on the left have fallen in with the party
+of Boers who crossed our trail this morning, or we have let slip the
+whole 'bag of tricks,' and De Wet is through us. Just you take another
+squadron of the Mount Nelsons and see what has happened on the left.
+You can also take the pom-pom. Unless the enemy are in strength don't
+stay out there long, as I shall probably move on before you are back.
+Anyway I shall leave a signal-station on the hill above us!"
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "Very good, sir."
+
+_B._ "Wait a moment. As the rain-storm has dished my original plans, I
+shall probably, as soon as I hear from Fauresmith, send half my force
+direct to the Kalabas bridge, and take the rest to support the Mount
+Nelson squadrons. But I can make no definite statement until I have
+some idea of De Wet's force. Gad! I wish I knew where Plumer might be
+at this moment, or whether there is any one behind De Wet. Without
+information or maps, this is an uphill game!"...
+
+In half an hour the brigade-major's little command was within a
+thousand yards of Liebenbergspan farm. Here they met five woe-begone
+men tramping wearily towards them. They were Crauford's patrol,
+stripped of most of their clothing, and desired by the Boers to make
+their way back to their column with all compliments of the season. The
+subaltern was very dejected, for he was a boy of the right spirit; and
+it is a strain upon one's dignity as an officer to be turned loose on
+the veldt with only a flannel shirt as a dress, and a pair of putties
+tied round the feet in the place of boots. It was not his fault: he
+had sent on a man to reconnoitre the farm. This man was our friend who
+had come in in the morning. As he failed to search the kraal, the
+Boers had let him past, and had waited for the main body of the
+patrol, which they had "held up" at short range. The scout, who had
+passed through them, heard the shouts of "Hands up!" and galloping for
+dear life, had been able to get clear and pitch the brigadier his
+terror-bred fable. Apart from taking their clothes, the Boers had
+treated the prisoners well. They were a party of fifteen men, very
+poorly clad but well mounted, under a commandant of the name of
+Theron. Crauford, who was a young English Africander, had, while a
+prisoner, made good use of his time. His captors did not realise that
+he understood Dutch, and he had gleaned from their conversation that
+they were, as the brigadier had anticipated, part of De Wet's screen.
+They were very much upset at the size of the British column, and had
+not been prepared for its presence so close to De Wet's line of
+advance. But as they discussed it among themselves they considered
+that De Wet would be in front of the column, proving that they had no
+knowledge of the two squadrons detached during the night. All this was
+such valuable information that Baker dismounted a man and sent
+Crauford back to the brigadier as fast as he could gallop. He himself
+kept on, as Theron's party was still in occupation of the farm.
+
+The farm stood at the foot of a low brae. It was only a rise, and as
+the Boers appeared to take no notice of our approach, not even
+troubling to efface their presence, the brigade-major determined,
+under cover of his pom-pom, to gallop over it. Half a squadron on the
+right, half a squadron on the left. He called up the captain
+commanding the squadron and gave him his instructions. The man at once
+began to make difficulties, and suggested a different mode of attack.
+
+_Brigade-Major_ (_severely_). "I have told you what I want you to do.
+Kindly go and instruct your troop-leaders. As soon as you are
+extended, canter, and improve your pace when you get sufficiently
+near. That knoll on the right and the rise on the left both command
+the farm, and you will find that the enemy won't stand. Good Heavens!
+man (_as the captain again began to demur_), there are only about
+twenty of them; surely you are not afraid!"
+
+The man did not mean going, neither did his squadron. They dallied
+over extending, and it was quite a quarter of an hour before they
+began to move forward. The brigade-major dashed to the head of the
+right half-squadron and tried to infuse some little enthusiasm into
+them. But no; it was the very worst squadron of the Mount Nelsons, and
+when the brigade-major commenced to gallop he found that he was only
+followed by four men. But this even, added to half a belt from the
+pom-pom, was sufficient for the Boers: they ran to their horses, which
+were grazing by the kraal, mounted, and galloped over the rise,
+without firing a shot. As vultures swoop down upon carrion, so the
+Mount Nelsons, as soon as it was seen that the rise was clear of the
+enemy, swarmed down to the looting of the farm. The brigade-major's
+face was a study when he and the Mount Nelsons' captain met in the
+verandah. All that he said would not add to the artistic sense of this
+narrative; but he closed his remarks with the following: "If I catch a
+man of your regiment touching a single article in this farm I will
+shoot him myself. Get your men back to their positions, sir. They
+won't fight; I'll be d----d if they shall loot!"
+
+In war situations develop rapidly, and the brigade-major had barely
+dismissed his now sulking junior, when a silver glitter from above the
+halting-place of the brigade brought the laconic message, "Return at
+once without delay." Precisely at the same moment a messenger came
+dashing down from the rise above the farm, and excitedly reported that
+a long line of Cape carts was rapidly crossing the left front. The
+brigade-major started the squadron back at a trot, and stayed behind
+for a few moments to make an investigation of the new development. It
+was quite true, six Cape carts and about thirty men were crossing his
+front from right to left at a good pace. They were a long way off, and
+even if he had not had peremptory orders to return, it would have
+been hopeless to have attempted to pursue them with such material as
+he had in hand.
+
+_Brigade-Major_ (_snapping his glasses back into their case_). "You
+may put it down, Mr Intelligence, in that voluminous diary of yours,
+that our quarry has escaped. They have slipped us. Come along; we must
+canter on and see what the brigadier has in pickle for us!"
+
+But, as subsequent events were to prove, the brigade-major for once
+was in error....
+
+We found the brigadier impatiently awaiting us, with half the battery
+hooked in, and the 20th Dragoons standing to their horses. He did not
+wait for rest or explanation; but as soon as we cantered in with the
+pom-pom, gave the order for the column to advance. The mule-convoy had
+come in in our absence, and it had orders to follow us as best it
+could.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Look here, you fellows; I really am sanguine for the
+first time since I have been engaged in this kind of 'follow your
+leader.' Just about half an hour after you left, our friend the
+turkey-expert of last night sent in a red-hot man with a message that
+he had held up the main body of a Boer commando in a pass just west
+of Fauresmith. He wasn't in position to stop the advance-guard, which
+went through with about six Cape carts; but he had since captured the
+Boer picket on the pass and had turned the main body--consisting of
+about thirty Cape carts and 400 burghers--back, and when he wrote they
+were halted in Fauresmith."
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "We have seen that advance-guard. But is there no
+other way by which the enemy can get to the Riet: by swinging round
+between Fauresmith and Jagersfontein, for instance?"
+
+_B._ "We can't hope that he will stay and wait for us in Fauresmith.
+Of course there will be a way round; but he may delay, he may try and
+force his way past the turkey-expert, and then we may be there first.
+I sent Goven on with the 21st and two guns at once to strike a
+bee-line for Kalabas bridge--to reck for nothing, only to get there.
+But we have neither guides nor maps that can give one any idea of the
+true lie of the country. I could only furnish him with the direction
+and the ordinary inaccurate sheet-map."
+
+_B.-M._ "And what do you intend doing yourself, sir?"
+
+_B._ "We will just push on hell-for-leather for the position which the
+turkey-expert is holding; and then if he is being attacked, and wind
+and tide will allow it, we will just hurl ourselves into ole man De
+Wet, smother him, or perish in the attempt."
+
+The hills about Fauresmith differ little in formation from the general
+character obtaining in South Africa. They divide the veldt into a
+series of rough parallelograms. The brigadier had estimated that we
+were distant from Fauresmith only about four or five miles, while the
+inaccurate map showed that when the 21st Dragoon Guards had started,
+they only had about eight miles to cover before they would reach the
+Kalabas bridge over the Riet. Therefore the brigadier was satisfied
+that if he was able to stop the bridge with the 21st and get touch
+with De Wet's main body before dark, he could deal with it with the
+force he had kept in hand. But it would be absolutely essential to
+gain touch that night, and once having gained it, to push through to a
+conclusion at once. The interior of the first parallelogram allowed
+the force to advance with an extended front, and six miles of smart
+trotting brought it to Brandewijnskuil, where the Fauresmith road
+passes over a stream tributary to the Riet. To the east of this drift,
+between it and Fauresmith, rise the glacis-like slopes of Groen
+Kloof--well named, for the whole country here is green, and the
+immediate neighbourhood of the drift is not unlike many rural spots to
+be found in Surrey. Bushed as with a hedgerow, the road sinks into the
+drift, to appear again on the far side, cutting its way between a
+rough-edged turf upon which geese and goats are browsing. To the left
+stands a whitewashed cottage, with a corral of stunted shrub and a
+tree or two. Beside it, in a creeper-grown shed, are the appliances of
+a blacksmith's craft--yes, just for the moment it might well be
+Surrey. But we have no time to stay and admire or to soliloquise over
+scenery. There is men's work ahead. A mounted messenger is dashing
+down the track in front of us, as if hell and a thousand devils had
+been loosed behind him. He hands a scrap of paper to the
+brigade-major, and then throws himself from his horse, which stands
+motionless with heaving sides and dripping flanks.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Read it. Who is it from?"
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "From the officer in command of the two squadrons of
+Mount Nelsons. He says: 'Groen Kloof, 3.15 P.M.--Boers about 200
+strong demonstrated against me, while the convoy made a circle round
+out of range to north-east. I was unable to prevent this. Convoy is
+going as fast as it can due north. You could cut it off. Am holding
+this until you reinforce. No casualties; have six prisoners.'"
+
+_Brigadier_ (_taking out his watch_). "It is now 3.40. Goven started
+at 1.30; he ought to be at the bridge well in front of those coves. If
+he is, we've got 'em. Here, Baker; take the rest of this crush
+straight for the north-east corner of this sheet of the map. As soon
+as you reach the corner, make a right angle, steer north-west, and you
+ought to come out just on the tail of Brother and his Cape carts. Now,
+off you go; report to Colonel Washington, but I shall expect you to
+keep the show going. Gad! it's the chance of the campaign, if the
+Riet is still in flood!"
+
+_B.-M._ "Very good, sir. But where will you be?"
+
+_B._ "I shall be here. This is where the transport will outspan
+to-night. I shall keep the turkey-expert up on the top of Groen Kloof
+all to-night, in case Brother tries to break back that way! But
+wherever you find the enemy, go for him bald-headed: it is the only
+chance!"
+
+_B.-M._ "But if I find that he has crossed the river? If the other
+column should not be in position?"
+
+_B._ (_deliberately_) "If he has got across the Riet, come back at
+once with your tail between your legs. Pursuit in those circumstances
+would be useless. But use your own discretion if it comes to a near
+thing. Tell Freddy that you've my instructions to fight; you and
+Freddy ought to be able to convince Washington, and Twine, his second
+in command, is fighting stuff. Good-bye, and good luck to you; spare
+neither man nor beast. (_As the brigade-major rode off, the brigadier
+turned to the Intelligence officer._) Now, Mr Intelligence, I want
+you also to make yourself useful. I want you if possible to get to
+Goven and acquaint him of the situation. It is of vital importance
+that he should know how the force behind him is distributed. Even if
+they are attacking him at the bridge, do your utmost to get to him:
+the best of forces present flanks that are possible to single men.
+Just tell him that Washington with half the force is bearing down upon
+the bridge from the north-east; that Groen Kloof is held by our own
+coves; that I am here with the baggage, and its escort of sick, blind,
+halt, and lame; that if Washington gets into them, he is to leave just
+enough men to make the bridge secure, and hurl his hoplites in to the
+help of Washington. Now, ride cunning; you may have a difficult job. I
+should keep well to the left. Good-bye, and good luck to you. Ride
+cunning!"...
+
+The Intelligence officer rode out on his lonely mission. Luckily he
+had changed his horse after the affair at Liebenbergspan, and being
+well mounted, he felt fairly confident. He first steered north-west,
+hoping to strike off the _spoor_ of Goven's column. But when after
+four miles he failed to find it, he opined that he was making a detour
+which, if persevered in, would not bring him to his destination by
+nightfall. He therefore changed his direction to due north, and put
+spurs to his horse. He was working along the inner edge of a great
+veldt-basin, and getting a little uncomfortable as to his direction;
+and alarmed that he saw no traces of the column, he dismounted in a
+kloof, and climbed to the top of the edge of the basin. Beneath him
+lay a track, standing out white against the veldt. There was just a
+short breadth of veldt, and then the country became very broken and
+hilly. Within two hundred yards of the spot which he had chosen for
+his reconnaissance stood a small farmhouse. But it was not the
+farmhouse that attracted his attention; it was a pillar of dust which
+showed to the north along the track. He took out his glasses. There
+was no doubt about it,--it was a body of mounted men and some
+transport going away from him. They were not more than a mile away;
+and if it had not been for the dust, he could almost have counted the
+force. "It is De Wet," he inwardly reflected; "he is going right into
+Goven's arms; and for Boers to make all that dust, they must be
+travelling fast." He turned his glasses down to the south; there he
+could find no sign of living thing upon the track. He was just
+debating in his mind what would be the right course to pursue, when he
+heard a voice behind him, "Beg pardon, sir, but them is Boers; they
+have just all gone past here!" He turned round to find a British
+dragoon standing stiffly to attention behind him.
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "Who are you? and where the devil have you
+come from?"
+
+_Trooper._ "Please, sir, we belongs to a patrol that was sent out by
+Captain Charles, and we got lost."
+
+_I. O._ "Where are the others? where are your horses?"
+
+_T._ "I have got the three horses down in the nullah there. The
+corporal and the other man are down in that farm, sir; at least that
+is where they went before the Boers came."
+
+_I. O._ "In that farm? Why, the Boers will have got them; they must
+have passed quite close to the farm!"
+
+_T._ "They did that, sir; but I never seed them get them. I expect
+that they was under the beds when the Boers passed."
+
+_I. O._ "Did you see all the Boers pass?"
+
+_T._ "Yes, sir; there was about a thousand, two waggons, and a lot of
+carts. Some was riding horses, and others riding in the carts."
+
+_I. O._ "Were they going fast?"
+
+_T._ "Yes, sir; just as fast as they could, shouting and swearing and
+calling to each other. They seemed dreadful pressed for time!"
+
+_I. O._ "We had better see if those other fellows of yours are still
+in the farm. Have you got your rifle loaded?"
+
+The Intelligence officer and trooper walked down to the little
+homestead, and as they approached the door out stepped the two most
+scared and astonished dragoons that South Africa has ever seen. They
+were escorted by a bevy of smiling girls. When they saw their comrade
+safe and sound in the company of an officer, they became absolutely
+nonplussed. But the Intelligence officer got the following history out
+of the corporal:--
+
+_Corporal._ "Well, sir, we were sent off as a patrol on the right
+flank, and somehow among the kopjes we lost touch, and about an hour
+ago we reached this place. I left the horses under cover with Smith,
+and I took one man and went to reconnoitre the farm. We found this
+nice old lady inside, who speaks English; and she told us that she
+hadn't seen any English troops, but that a small party of Boers had
+passed in the morning, who had stopped and had some coffee, but who
+seemed to be in a hurry. The good lady asked us if we would have some
+coffee. Well, sir, we were very thirsty and hungry-like, so we sat
+down, and they gave us some coffee and cake and things; and just as we
+were eating, the old lady rushed in and said the Boers were coming,
+and hustled us into a small bedroom. Well, sir, we looked through the
+window, spy-like, and there, sure enough, were about ten Boers on
+horses galloping past the house. They were mostly quite young boys,
+but there were some greybeards amongst them. They seemed in a great
+hurry, for only one just stopped at the house, and he only stayed a
+moment. Then more and more passed, riding along in no formation, and
+all seeming in a hurry. Just one or two turned aside and had a word
+with the people of the house, but none of them got off their horses.
+Then an ambulance-waggon came by, and quite a string of Cape carts:
+the last cart had four horses in it, driven by a nigger, and it
+stopped quite five minutes at the farm. Two men, who kept on shouting
+orders to the passing Boers, were sitting in the back of it----"
+
+_Intelligence Officer._ "What were they like?"
+
+_C._ "One was a stout man with a long black beard; the other had a
+grey beard and puffy eyes. The people here now tell us that they were
+Steyn and De Wet."
+
+_I. O._ "Why the devil didn't you shoot them?"
+
+_Trooper_ (_coming to his comrades aid_). "How was we to know, sir, as
+how they were generals? they just looked two comfortable old civie
+blokes. Besides, we had left our rifles standing in the next room!"
+
+_I. O._ "How many Boers would you say went by?"
+
+_C._ "I should say four or five hundred, sir; they was going by in
+driblets for the best part of half an hour."
+
+_I. O._ "Who are the people in this house? I can't understand their
+attitude in screening you here. You have had the most remarkable
+experience. What an opportunity!"
+
+_C._ "The lady, sir, is an Irish lady, and she is a very good friend
+to her countrymen!"
+
+The Intelligence officer then cross-examined the owner of the farm,
+and she corroborated all that the corporal had said. Both De Wet and
+Steyn were in the four-horsed cart. They asked her if she had seen any
+kharkis recently; about the state of the Riet River, and the distance
+to Kalabas bridge; and before driving off impressed upon her the
+necessity of putting any of the English off the scent who might be
+following. As they drove away De Wet shouted back, "They are close
+behind." This information raised the Intelligence officer to a high
+standard of excitement, for he now felt sure that the brigade was
+well in upon the right scent. Already he found himself listening for
+the sound of Goven's guns. Collecting the three troopers who had been
+nearer to the person of De Wet than other armed Britishers had for
+some time, he turned back into the veldt basin and pushed forward
+northwards. The sun was now nearly down, but that was nothing: buoyed
+by a great excitement, the Intelligence officer was possessed of only
+one idea, which was to be in at the death. But a bitter disappointment
+was in store for him.
+
+_Corporal_ (_pointing to the left rear_). "Please, sir, there is the
+column."
+
+The Intelligence officer could scarcely believe his eyes--the thought
+was too appalling, too ghastly to be true. It was true, nevertheless.
+Instead of arriving at the bridge, the column had lost direction, and,
+without an adequate guide or map, had become entangled among the
+hills. Lost, without forage or food, beast and man weary beyond
+expression, while De Wet was crossing the Riet over Kalabas bridge,
+the stop which should have been there was endeavouring to retrace its
+steps back to camp. As the Intelligence officer realised the truth
+great tears welled up to his eyes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was midnight before the mess servants could turn out a meal at
+Brandewijnskuil for the staff. Two doleful candles but added to the
+depression bred of the hour and the disappointment which was uppermost
+in every mind. We had had our chance and failed. The brigadier alone
+was philosophic: his natural gaiety would not allow of depression: his
+manly spirit would not collapse against the ruling of the laws of
+chance.
+
+_Brigadier._ "Wake up, you coves, and come and have some dinner. We
+have lost ole man De Wet; but that is no reason for you all to behave
+as if we were in for a funeral. Thank Heaven that you are alive. You
+would probably have all been scuppered if we had got up with the ole
+man. He would have fought until he was blue in the face!"
+
+_Brigade-Major._ "I've got the orders out, sir. Start at 3 A.M.!"
+
+_Brigadier._ "That's all right, but we won't see any more of De Wet.
+We were too hot on him to-day. All we shall find when we cross the
+Riet at daybreak to-morrow will be _spoor_ leading in every direction.
+They will dissolve to a certainty. But though we have failed, we have
+had a run for our money, and finished a d----d good second. But no
+maps and no guide are big things as penalties go, and, all considered,
+I think that the 'crush' has run devilish well. What have your
+prisoners got to say, Mr Intelligence?"
+
+But Mr Intelligence, having drunk his soup, was sound asleep in his
+blankets....
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[40] Another curious episode in this strange campaign can be observed
+here. We had been in nominal possession of the Southern Free State for
+many months, during a considerable period of which the local
+administration had been administered by British agents. Yet throughout
+this period Boer landrosts were also appointed, and whenever a commando
+strong enough to assert the Orange Free State authority was in the
+vicinity, immediately took over their duties. Often, it is believed,
+the same men acted for both belligerents. When Judge Hertzog made his
+tour of the South-Western Free State immediately before entering upon
+his invasion of the Colony, he reinstated the Boer administration in
+all the southern townships.
+
+[41] De Wet never moved without an advance-, flank-, and rear-guard,
+removed from him to a distance of about six to eight miles. This screen
+always gave him ample notice of any British troops in the vicinity,
+thus enabling him to change his direction and suit his action with
+calmness and deliberation. These screens were always composed of picked
+men.
+
+
+
+
+L'ENVOI.
+
+
+With the crossing of the Riet the history of this De Wet hunt ceases,
+for everything came to pass precisely as the brigadier had foreseen.
+The brigade arrived at Kalabas bridge before daybreak, prepared, if a
+tangible enemy was still in front, to take up the running again and
+pursue the line to an end, no matter the cost.[42] But the soft ground
+on the far side of the river gave evidence of thirty trails. The
+commando had scattered to the winds, and as, with cunning foresight,
+De Wet and his following had removed every living soul, Boer or
+Kaffir, from the vicinity of the bridge, no evidence of his presence
+remained. To pursue a fugitive in a solitary Cape cart with a brigade
+would have been absurd, and so, when five miles on at Openbaar there
+was no sign of the solitary tracks again converging, the chase was
+abandoned, and the brigade halted to await the arrival of its mule and
+ox convoy. That evening Plumer, who had detrained at Jagersfontein
+road, crossed the Kalabas bridge and reported Haig to be in rear of
+him at the Spitz Kopjes. It will be seen therefore that Plumer was
+twenty-four hours too late,--through no fault of his, be it said, but
+simply because he made the journey from Orange River station by train.
+Plumer pushed on upon the conjectured De Wet trail, which he still
+considered hot enough to follow. He lost it, as the brigadier had
+foreseen, in the vicinity of Abraham's Kraal. The new cavalry brigade
+moved more slowly into Bloemfontein by way of Petrusburg and the
+historic field of Driefontein.
+
+At Bloemfontein some changes took place in the staff and composition
+of the brigade, and the writer of this narrative, to his infinite
+regret, severed his connection with the brigade. He had been promoted
+into a new battalion which was being raised at home, and after twenty
+months his turn had come to say good-bye to the veldt. As the
+brigadier bade him farewell in the Bloemfontein Club he clapped him
+good-naturedly on the back, saying, "I believe that it is all a hoax
+this story of yours about instructions to proceed home by the first
+transport. I don't believe that you will ever get farther South than
+that farm at Richmond Road!"
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[42] The orders issued this night to the brigade were very instructive,
+and showed what a real soldier the brigadier was. If he considered that
+the circumstances demanded an effort he was prepared to take any risk
+and to make every sacrifice. The orders stated that if it became
+necessary to pursue, the convoy would be sent back by the shortest
+route to the railway, that the mounted men would have to live on the
+country without supply, and such men whose horses gave in would have to
+walk east against the course of the sun, which line, after 20 to 25
+miles, would bring them to the railway, where they could stop the first
+passing train.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+        BY "LINESMAN."
+
+      WORDS BY AN EYEWITNESS:
+      THE STRUGGLE IN NATAL.
+
+      Eleventh Impression. With a new Preface.
+      Crown 8vo, 6s.
+
+    "Among the many books which have found their birth in the
+    campaign against the Boers, this one stands out, not merely on
+    account of the author's literary merits, keen power of
+    observation, and attractive phraseology, but in its unprejudiced
+    sentiments and clever handling of battle impressions hitherto
+    unattempted by contemporary writers. It is the work of an
+    artist."--_Times_.
+
+
+      THE MECHANISM OF WAR.
+
+      Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d.
+
+    "The new writer best worth talking about is 'Linesman.' He comes
+    with no tricks of style to entrance mercurial critics. A style
+    he has, but lit is inseparable from his matter, and that is his
+    own. It is a satisfaction to find a new writer who has something
+    to say and says it in a manner that cannot be imitated by the
+    rapt connoisseurs of cake-walk writing; but it is not a
+    surprise, for 'Linesman's' theme is War, and he is equal to
+    it."--_Academy_.
+
+    "Throughout the book we recognise a mind which seizes on the
+    essentials, and sees things in their true proportion,--a mind
+    which, while it never loses sight of the whole, knows which
+    details to enforce so that the reader may grasp that whole
+    too."--_Spectator_.
+
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+          NEW SIX-SHILLING NOVELS.
+
+    THE ADVENTURES OF M. D'HARICOT. By J. STORER CLOUSTON, Author
+        of 'The Lunatic at Large,' &c. Second Impression.
+
+    EPISODES OF RURAL LIFE. By W.E.W. COLLINS, Author of 'A
+        Scholar of his College,' 'The Don and the Undergraduate,'
+        &c.
+
+    A WOMAN AND A CREED. By H. GARTON SARGENT.
+
+    THE COLONEL SAHIB. A Novel. By GARRETT MILL. Second
+        Impression.
+
+    MONSIEUR MARTIN: A Romance of the Great Swedish War. By WYMOND
+        CAREY.
+
+    "Deserves to be called a great novel.... A book of sterling
+    merits, wholesome human interest, and adequate
+    learning."--_Guardian_.
+
+    THE PRINCE OF THE CAPTIVITY. By SYDNEY C. GRIER, Author of
+        'The Kings of the East,' 'Peace with Honour,' &c.
+
+    "This clever novel. It is well worth reading."--_Outlook_.
+
+    THE MOST FAMOUS LOBA. By NELLIE K. BLISSETT, Author of
+        'Wisdom of the Simple,' 'Brass,' &c. With a Frontispiece.
+
+    "Told with a grace and simplicity truly exquisite.... The
+    intricacies of the story cannot be traced here, still less is it
+    possible to suggest its incommunicable charm."--_Daily
+    Chronicle_.
+
+    JOE WILSON AND HIS MATES. By HENRY LAWSON, Author of 'The
+        Country I Come From,' 'While the Billy Boils,' &c.
+
+    "A volume of realistic stories of Bush-life.... Will be eagerly
+    read by men and women who have experienced the loneliness and
+    the roughness of the needy emigrant's part."--_Spectator_.
+
+    BUSH-WHACKING. By HUGH CLIFFORD, C.M.G. Second Impression.
+
+    "The stories reach a masterly level of vivid colouring, wide
+    sympathy, and genuine insight."--_Athen�um_.
+
+    DOOM CASTLE. By NEIL MUNRO. Second Impression.
+
+    "Since 'Catriona' and 'Kidnapped' there has been no Scottish
+    novel of more unmistakable genius."--_British Weekly_.
+
+    LORD JIM. A Tale. By JOSEPH CONRAD. Second Impression.
+
+    "A most original, remarkable, and engrossing
+    novel."--_Spectator_.
+
+
+WILLIAM BLACKWOOD & SONS, EDINBURGH AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+    | Typographical errors corrected in text:                   |
+    |                                                           |
+    | Page 195: Dewetsdrop replaced with Dewetsdorp             |
+    | Page 257: directy replaced with directly                  |
+    |                                                           |
+    | On page 321, the word battue is not a typographical error.|
+    | A battue is a hunt in which beaters force the game to     |
+    | flee in the direction of the hunter.                      |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ON THE HEELS OF DE WET***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 20400-8.txt or 20400-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/0/4/0/20400
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+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
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+https://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+