QUICK MARCH TO THE TRANSVAAL
It was with feelings of unfeigned delight that the Guards learned May
Day was to witness the beginning of another great move towards
Pretoria. We had entered Bloemfontein without expending upon it a
single shot; we had been strangely welcomed with smiles and cheers and
waving flags and lavish hospitality; but none the less that charming
little capital had made us pay dearly for its conquest, and for our
six weeks of so-called rest on the sodden veldt around it. Its traders
had levied heavy toll on the soldiers' slender pay; and no fabled
monster of ancient times ever claimed so sore a tribute of human
lives. It was not on the veldt but under it that hundreds of our lads
found rest; and hundreds more were soon to share their fate. The
victors had become victims, and the vanquished were avenged. Seldom
have troops taken possession of any city with such unmixed
satisfaction, or departed from it with such unfeigned eagerness.
[Sidenote: _A Comedy._]
My quartermaster friend and myself, unable to start with the Brigade,
set out a few hours later, and tarried for the night at a Hollander
platelayer's hut. The man spoke little English, and we less Dutch;
but he welcomed us to the hospitality of his two-roomed home with a
warmth that was overwhelming. His wife, when the war began, was sent
away for safety's sake; and married men thus flung back upon their
bachelorhood make poor cooks and caterers unless they happen to be
soldiers on the trek; but this man, in his excitement at having such
guests to entertain, expectorated violently all over the floor on
which presently we expected to sleep; fire was soon kindled and coffee
made; the quartermaster produced some tinned meat; I produced some
tinned fruit; the ganger produced some tinned biscuits--in this
campaign we have been saved by tin--and so by this joint-stock
arrangement there was provided a feast that hungry royalty need not
have disdained. Next our entertainer undertook to amuse his guests,
and did it in a fashion never to be forgotten. He produced a box
fitted up as a theatre stage--all made out of his own head, he
said--and mostly wooden; there were two puppets on the stage, which
were made to dance most vigorously by means of cords attached secretly
to the ganger's foot, whilst his hands were no less vigorously
employed on the concertina which provided the accompanying dance
music. This delighted old man was the oddest figure of the three, as
the perspiration poured down his grimy face. To light on such a comedy
when on the war path would have been enough to make Momus laugh; and
when the laugh was spent we swept the floor, for reasons already
hinted at, sought refuge in our blankets; and long before breakfast
time next morning landed in Karee Camp.
[Sidenote: _A Tragedy._]
To reach Karee we passed through "The Glen" lying beside the Upper
Modder, where a deplorable tragedy had occurred not long before. A
remarkably fine-looking sergeant of the Guards went to bathe in what
he supposed were the deep waters of the Modder, and dived gleefully
into deeps that alas were not deep. Striking the bottom with his head,
instantly his neck was dislocated, and when I saw him a few hours
after, though he was perfectly conscious and anxiously hopeful, he was
paralysed from his shoulders downwards. A married man, his heart, too,
was broken over such an undreamed of disaster, and in three weeks he
died. The mauser is not the only reaping-machine the great harvester
employs in war time. There have been over five hundred "accidental"
deaths in the course of this campaign. At the Lower Modder we once
arranged to hold a Sunday morning service for the swarms of native
drivers in our camp, but in that case also were compelled to prove it
is the unexpected that happens. One of the "boys" went to bathe that
morning in the suddenly swollen river; he sank; and though search
parties were at once sent out, the body was never recovered. So
instead of a service we had this sad sensation.
About that same time, and in that same camp, one of my most intimate
companions, the quartermaster of the Scots Guards, was one moment
laughing and chatting with me in his tent; but the next moment,
without the slightest warning, he dropped back on his couch, and that
same evening was laid by his sorrowing battalion in a garden-grave.
The other quartermaster, who shared with me the ganger's hospitality
and laughter, when the campaign was near its close, was found lying on
the floor of his tent. He had fallen when no friendly hand was near to
help, and had been dead for hours when discovered. My first campaign,
and last, has stored my mind with tragic memories; it has filled my
heart with tendernesses unfelt before; and perchance has taught me to
interpret more truly that "life of lives" foreshadowed in Isaiah's
saying: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."
[Sidenote: _A wide front and a resistless force._]
When, on the 3rd of May, we started from Karee Camp the Guards'
Brigade consisted, as from the outset, of the 1st and 2nd Coldstream
battalions, the 3rd Grenadier Guards, and the 1st Scots Guards, all
under the command of General Inigo Jones, from whom I received
unfailing courtesy. With them was linked General Stephenson's Brigade,
consisting of the Welsh, the Warwicks, the Essex, and the Yorks, these
two Brigades forming the Eleventh Division under General Pole Carew.
On our left was General Hutton with a strange medley of mounted
infantry to which almost every part of the empire had contributed some
of its noblest sons. On our right was General Tucker's Division, the
Seventh; and beyond that again other Divisions, covering a front of
about forty miles, which gradually narrowed down to twenty as we
neared Kroonstad. Reserves were left at Bloemfontein under General
Kelly Kenny; and Lord Methuen was on our remote left flank not far
from Mafeking; while on our remote right was Rundle's Division, the
Eighth. There thus set out for the conquest of the Transvaal a central
force nearly 50,000 strong--the finest army by far that England had
ever yet put into the field, and led by the ablest general she has
produced since Wellington. Yet it perhaps would be more correct to
speak of it as the first army _Greater_ Britain had ever fashioned;
and in my presence Lord Roberts openly gloried in being the first
general the empire had entrusted with the command of a really Imperial
host. In this epoch-making conflict neither the commander nor the
commanded had any cause to be ashamed one of the other.
Yet from this point onward there was astonishingly little fighting.
Before the campaign was over some of the guardsmen wore out several
pairs of boots, but scarcely fired another bullet. The Boers were so
out-manoeuvred that their mausers and machine-guns availed them
little. They fought scarcely any but rear-guard actions, and their
retreat was so rapid as to be almost a rout. Within about a month of
leaving Bloemfontein the Guards' Brigade was in Pretoria; which,
considering all they had to carry, and the constant repairing of the
railway line required from day to day, would be considered good
marching even if there had been no pom-poms planted to oppose
progress.
[Sidenote: _Brandfort._]
When we left Karee it was confidently predicted that the Boers would
make a stiff stand amid the kopjes which guard the prettily placed and
prettily planted little town of Brandfort. So the next day and the
day after we walked warily, while cannon to right of us and cannon to
left of us volleyed and thundered. Little harm was however done; and
as the second afternoon hastened to its sunset hour, we were gleefully
informed that "the brother" had once more "staggered humanity" by a
precipitate retreat from positions of apparently impregnable strength.
So Brandfort passed into our hands for all that it was worth, which
did not seem to be much; but what little there was, no man looted. All
was bought and paid for as in Piccadilly; but at more than Piccadilly
prices. Whatever else however could be purchased, no liquor was on
sale; no intemperance was seen; no molestation of woman or child took
place. So was it with rare exceptions from the very first; so was it
with very rare exceptions to the very last.
[Sidenote: _"Stop the War" slanders._]
In this respect my assistant-chaplain, the Rev. W. Burgess, assures me
that his experience tallies with mine, and he told me this tale as
illustrative of it. At Hoekfontein he called at a farmhouse close to
our camp, and in it he found an old woman of seventy and her husband,
of whom she spoke as nearly ninety. "Do you believe in God?" she asked
the chaplain, and added, "so do I, but I believe in hell as well; and
would fling De Wet into it if I could." Then she proceeded to explain
that her first husband was killed in the last war; that of her three
sons commandeered in this war one was already slain, and that when the
other two returned from the fighting line De Wet at once sent to fetch
them back.
"But look at the broken panel of that door," said the old lady. "Your
men did that when I would not answer to their knocks, and they stole
my fowls." "Very well," replied Burgess, "where yonder red flag is
flying you will find General Ian Hamilton; go and tell him your
story." As the result, a staff officer sent to inspect the premises
asked the Dutch dame whether food or money should be given her by way
of compensation, and whether L15 would fully cover all her loss? She
seemed overwhelmingly pleased at such an offer in payment for a broken
panel and a few fowls. "Very good," added the staff officer.
"To-morrow I will send you L20, but," quoth he to Burgess, "we'll make
the scouts that broke the panel pay the twenty!"
In spite of all the real and the imaginary horrors recorded in "War
against War," this has been the most humanely conducted struggle the
world has ever seen; but would to God it were well over.
[Sidenote: _A prisoner who tried to be a poet._]
In the yard of the little town jail I saw nine prisoners of war, only
two of whom were genuine Boers. Some were Scotch, some were English,
some were Hollanders; and one a fiery Irishman, who expressed so
fervent a wish to be free, to revel in further fightings against us,
that it was deemed desirable to adorn his wrists with a pair of
handcuffs. In one of the cells, it was clear some of our British
soldiers had at an earlier date been incarcerated, and were fairly
well satisfied with the treatment meted out to them. Written on the
wall I found this interesting legend: No. 28696, I. M'Donald, 4th Reg.
M. Inf., Warwick's Camp; taken prisoner 7-3-1900; arrived here
11-3-1900. Also this, by a would-be poet called Wynn, a scout
belonging to Roberts' Horse:--
"To all who may read:
I have been well treated
By all who have had me in charge
Since I've been a prisoner here."
The poetry is not much; but the peace of mind which could pencil such
lines in prison is a great deal!
[Sidenote: _Militant Dutch reformed predikants._]
The two best buildings in Brandfort appeared to be the church and
manse belonging to the Dutch Reformed Community. The church seats 600,
though the town contains only 300 whites. But then the worshippers
come from near and far. Hence I found here, as at Bloemfontein that
the farmers have their "church houses"--whole rows of them in the
latter town--where with their families they reside from Saturday to
Monday, especially on festival occasions, that they may be present at
all the services of the Sabbath and the sanctuary. A typical Dutchman
is nothing if he is not devout; though unfortunately his devoutness
does not prevent his being exceeding "slim," which seems to some the
crown of all excellencies.
The young and intelligent pastor of this important country
congregation on whom I called, was evidently an ardent patriot, like
almost all his cloth. He had unfortunately firmly persuaded himself
that the British fist had been thrust menacingly near the Orange Free
State nose; and that therefore the owner of that aforesaid nose was
perfectly justified in being the first to strike a deadly blow. He
told me he had been for a month at Magersfontein, and that he was out
on the Brandfort hills the day before I called watching our troops
fighting their way towards the town. I understood him to say he had
been shooting buck. What kind of buck is quite another question.
Whether as a pastor his patriotism had confined itself to the use of
Bunyan's favourite weapon, "all-prayer," on our approach; or whether
as a burgher he had deemed it a part of his duty to employ smokeless
powder to emphasise his patriotism, I was too polite to ask. But he
pointed out to me on his verandah two old and useless sporting guns,
which the day before he had handed to some of our officers, by whom
they had been snapped in two and left lying on the floor. There they
were pointed out to me by their late owner as part of the ravages of
war. They were the only weapons he had in the house, he said, when he
surrendered them.
It was a very common trick on the part of surrendered burghers who
took the oath of neutrality and gave up their arms, to hand in weapons
that were thus worthless and to hide for future use what were of any
value. We did not even attempt to take possession of any such a
burgher's horse. We found him a soldier, and when he surrendered we
left him a soldier, well horsed, well armed, and often deadlier as a
pretended friend than as a professed foe. Because of that exquisite
folly, which we misnamed "clemency," we have had to traverse the whole
ground twice over, and found a guerilla war treading close on the
heels of the great war.
This young predikant with more of prudence, and perchance more of
honour, recollected next morning that though, as he had truly said, he
had no more weapons in the house, he had a beautiful mauser carbine
hidden in his garden. There it got on his nerves and perhaps on his
conscience; so calling in a passing officer of the Grenadier Guards he
requested him to take possession of it, together with a hundred rounds
of ammunition belonging to it. When with a sad smile he pointed out to
me "the ravages of war" on his verandah floor my politeness again came
to the rescue, and I said nothing about that lovely little mauser of
his, which an hour before I had been curiously examining at our mess
breakfast table. Too much frankness on that point would perhaps have
spoiled our pleasant chat.
[Sidenote: _Our Australian Chaplain's pastoral experiences._]
In the course of that chat he candidly confessed himself to be
thoroughly anti-British; and for his candour this young predikant is
to be honoured; but some few of his ministerial brethren proved near
akin to the ever-famous Vicar of Bray, whom an ancient song represents
as saying:
"That this is law I will maintain
Unto my dying day, Sir;
That whatsoever king may reign,
I'll be Vicar of Bray, Sir."
So were there Dutch predikants who were decidedly anti-British while
the British were over the hills and far away; but who fell in love
with the Union Jack the moment it arrived; even if they did not set it
fluttering from their own chimney-top. One such our chaplain with
the Australian Bushmen met at Zeerust. When the Bushmen arrived this
predikant was one of the first to welcome them, and helped to hoist
the British flag. Then "the Roineks," that is the "red neck" English,
retired for a while, and De La Rey arrived; whereupon the resident
Boers went wild with joy, and whistled and shouted one of their
favourite songs, "Vat jougoed entrek," which means "Pack your traps
and trek." That was a broad hint to all pro-Britishers. So this
interesting predikant hauled down the Union Jack, which his sons
instantly tore to tatters, ran up the Boer flag, and drove De La Rey
hither and thither in his own private carriage. Though to our
Australian chaplain he expressed, still later on, his deep regret that
"the Hollanders had forced the President into making war on England,"
when Lord Methuen, in the strange whirligig of war, next drove out De
La Rey from this same Zeerust, our versatile predikant's turn soon
came to "Pack his traps and trek." Even in South Africa "Ye cannot
serve two masters."
[Sidenote: _The Welsh Chaplain._]
After one day's rest at Brandfort the Guards resumed their march, and
aided by some fighting, in which the Australians took a conspicuous
part, we reached the Vet River, and encamped near its southern banks
for the night. Here the newly-appointed Wesleyan Welsh chaplain, Rev.
Frank Edwards, overtook me; and until it could be decided where he was
to go or what he was to do, he was invited to become my brother-guest
at the Grenadiers' mess.
The next day being Sunday Mr Edwards had a speedy opportunity of
learning how little the best intentioned chaplain can accomplish when
at the front in actual war time. It was the sixth Sunday in succession
I was doomed to spend, not in doing the work of a preacher but of a
pedestrian. All other chaplains were often in the same sad but
inevitable plight; and though Mr Edwards had come from far of set
purpose to preach Christ in the Welsh tongue to Welshmen, had all the
camp been Welsh he would that day have found himself absolutely
helpless. We were all on the march; and the only type of Christian
work then attemptable takes the form of a brief greeting in the name
of Christ to the men who tramp beside us, though they are often too
tired even to talk, and we are compelled to trudge on in stolid
silence.
The drift we had to cross that Sunday at the Vet was by far the worst
we had yet reached in South Africa, and till all the waggons were
safely over, the whole column was compelled to linger hard by. I
therefore took advantage of that long pause to hurry on to Smaldeel
Junction, where the headquarter staff was staying for the day. Here I
was privileged to introduce Mr Edwards to the Field-Marshal, and was
so fortunate as to secure his immediate appointment as Wesleyan
chaplain to the whole of General Tucker's Division, with special
attachment to the South Wales Borderers. This important and
appropriate task successfully accomplished, I retired to rest under
the broken fans of a shattered windmill.
Mr Edwards' association with the Guards' Brigade was thus of very
short duration; but some interesting glimpses of his after work are
given, from his own pen, in "From Aldershot to Pretoria." I must,
therefore, only add that he was early struck by a small fragment of a
shell, and was at the same time fever-stricken, so that for ten weeks
he remained on the sick list. Still more unluckily he had only just
resumed work, when there developed a further attack of dysentery,
fever and jaundice, which ended in his being invalided home. Thus,
like many another chaplain, he found his South African career became
one of suffering rather than of service.