TO THE VALSCH RIVER AND THE VAAL
After resting for two days at Smaldeel, the Guards set out for
Kroonstad on the Valsch or False River, so called because in some
parts it so frequently changes its channel that after a heavy freshet
one can seldom be quite sure where to find it. This march of
sixty-five miles was covered in three days and a half; Smaldeel seeing
the last of us on Wednesday and Kroonstad seeing the first of us about
noon on Saturday. In the course of this notable march we saw, or
rather heard, two artillery duels; the Boers half-heartedly opposing
our passage, first at the Vet River just before we reached Smaldeel,
and then at the Sand River, long since made famous by the Convention
bearing that name.
[Sidenote: _The Sand River Convention._]
Though Great Britain is supposed to suffer from insatiable land hunger
it is a notable truth that she has voluntarily surrendered more
oversea territory than some important kingdoms ever possessed; but not
one of these many surrenders proved half so disastrous to all
concerned as that on which the Sand River Convention set its seal in
1852. At that time our colonial possessions were accounted by many
overtaxed statesmen to be all plague and no profit, involving the
motherland in incessant native wars out of which she won for herself
neither credit nor cash. That had proved specially true in South
Africa. When, therefore, the Crimean war hove in sight with its
manifold risks and its drain on our national resources, it was
resolved to lessen our liabilities in that then unattractive quarter
of the globe. The Transvaal was at that time a barren land, given over
to wild beasts, and to Boers who seemed equally uncontrollable. An
Ishmael life was theirs, their hand against every man's and every
man's hand against them. Every little township was a law unto itself
and almost every homestead; so the British Government threw up the
thankless task of governing the ungovernable, as soon as a life and
death struggle with Russia appeared inevitable. The Sand River
Convention gave to the Transvaal absolute independence save only in
what related to the treatment of the natives. There was to be no
slavery in the Transvaal; but no Convention ever yet framed could
apparently bind a Boer when his financial interests bade him break it.
So set he his face to evade the conditions both of the Pretoria and
the London Conventions of later date; and the one requirement of this
first Convention he set at nought. During several following years he
still hunted for slaves whom he took captive in native wars; sjamboked
them into serving him without pay; bought them, sold them, but never
called them slaves. They were "apprentices," which was a fine word for
a foul thing. So was the Convention kept in the letter of it and
broken in the spirit of it. For five-and-twenty years of widening and
deepening anarchy that Convention remained in force, the Transvaal
fighting with the Orange Free State, and Boer bidding defiance to Boer
with bullets for his arguments. When little Lydenberg claimed the
right to set up as an independent republic, Kruger himself reasoned
with it at the muzzle of his rifle, as we have since been compelled to
reason with him. So at last Shepstone appeared upon the scene to
evolve order out of chaos; and though he knew it not, he was the true
herald of the Guards' Brigade, and sundry others, that after many days
crossed the Sand River to make an end for ever of all that the Sand
River Convention involved.
The year following that in which the Convention was signed, another
step was taken in the same direction and independence was forced on
the Orange Free State. The people protested, and pleaded for
permission to still live under the protection of the British flag; but
their prayers were as unavailing as "the groans of the Britons,"
which, as recorded in the early pages of our own island story,
followed the retiring swords of Rome. Now, after nearly forty years of
uttermost neighbourliness, the Orange Free State, with machine gun and
mauser hurls back the gift once so reluctantly accepted, and forces us
to recall what now they still more reluctantly surrender. How
bewildering are the ways of Fate!
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Mr Westerman_
Broken Bridge at Modder River.]
[Sidenote: _Railway wrecking and repairing._]
The crossing of the drifts at the two rivers was almost as difficult a
task as the overtaking of our ever retreating foes. The railway
bridges over both these streams had been blown up by dynamite: some
of the stone piers were shattered, and some of the iron girders hurled
all atwist into the watery depths beneath; here and there culverts had
similarly been destroyed, and at many a point the very rails had been
torn by explosives till they looked like a pair of upturned arms
imploring help from heaven. We noticed, however, when we got into the
Transvaal that the Transvaalers took pity on their own portion of the
line, and studiously refrained from shattering it. Some of them were
probably shareholders. The less serious damages the Railway Pioneers
and the Royal Engineers repaired with a speed that amazed us; and our
supply trains never seemed to linger long in the rear of us, except
when a massive river bridge was broken. Then a deviation line and a
low level trestle bridge had to be constructed. At that fatigue work I
have seen whole companies of once smart-looking Guardsmen toiling with
spade and pick like Kaffirs, whilst some of their aristocratic
officers, bearing lordly titles, played the part of gangers over these
soldier-navvies. It was a new version and a more useful one of Ruskin
and his collegiate road-makers.
[Sidenote: _The tale, and tails, of a singed overcoat._]
Bridge or no bridge, many a mile of transport waggons, of ammunition
carts, of provision carts, with sundry naval guns, each drawn by a
team of thirty-two oxen, had somehow to be got down the dangerous
slope on one side of the drift, then across the stream, and up the
still more difficult slope on the other side. It was a herculean
task at which men and mules and horses toiled on far into the night.
Meanwhile, when the troops reached their camping ground some miles
beyond the river, they found they would have to wait for hours before
they could get a scrap of beef or biscuit, and that it would probably
be still longer before their overcoats or blankets arrived. For the
hungry and shivering men this seemed an almost interminable interval,
and for their officers it was scarcely less trying. A devoted
Methodist non-commissioned officer perceiving my sorry plight most
seasonably procured for me the loan of a capital military greatcoat. I
also fortunately found a warm anthill, which the Boers earlier in the
day had hollowed out and turned into an excellent stove or
cooking-place. I stirred up the hot ashes inside with my
walking-stick, but could find no trace of actual fire, so lay down
beside the mound for the sake of its gentle warmth and instantly fell
fast asleep. In my sleep I must have leaned hard against the anthill,
for presently a burning sensation at my back awoke me, to discover
that already a big hole had been charred in the coat I wore; and
"alas! master, it was borrowed." Boer rifle fire never harmed a hair
of my head, but this Boer fire did mischief nobody bargained for.
Clearly our pursuit was much too hot for my personal comfort!
[Illustration: _From a photograph by Mr Westerman_
The Deviation Bridge at Modder River.]
A little earlier in the evening another glowing anthill had been found
by one of our officers, and the thought of possible soup at once
suggested itself. A three-legged crock was borrowed from a native and
a fire of green mimosa shrub was laboriously coaxed into vigour by a
young aspirant to a seat in the House of Lords. Into the crockful
of water one of us cast a few meat lozenges reserved for just such a
day of dire need; another found in his haversack a further slender
store, which instantly shared the same fate. Somebody else cast into
the pot the contents of a tiny tin of condensed beef tea; and with
sundry other contributions of the same kind there was presently
produced a delightful cup of soup for all concerned. To mend matters
still further and to improve the no longer shining hours, an officer
caught sight of a stray pig upon the veldt and shot it, just as though
it had been a sniping "brother." A short time after a portion of that
porker took its place among the lozenges and condensed beef tea in
that simmering crock. So in an hour or two there followed another cup
of glorious broth, with a dainty morsel of boiled pork for those who
desired it:--
"Oh ye gods, what a glorious feast!"
Soon after, our Cape cart with its load of iron mugs and tinned
provisions reached that same crock side; while waggon loads of
blankets, beef and biscuits, made possible a satisfactory night's
rest, even on the frosty veldt, for all our well-wearied men.
Kroonstad, the but recently proclaimed second capital of the Orange
Free State, is a very inferior edition of Bloemfontein. There is not a
single stately building, public or private, in the whole place--the
Dutch Reformed Church, afterwards taken for hospital purposes, being
the best, as it is meet and right God's House should always be.
[Sidenote: _Lord Roberts as Hospital Visitor._]
It was while I was visiting the sick and suffering laid, of course
without beds, on the bare floor of this extemporised House of Healing
that our ever busy commander-in-chief called on a similar errand of
pitying kindliness. Fortunately for all concerned the master-mind of
the whole campaign is of a devout as well as kindly type. _Lord
Roberts_ not only encouraged to the uttermost all army temperance
work, being himself the founder of the A.T.A., but like Lord Methuen
took a lively interest in the spiritual welfare of the troops. Yet
never was a general more loved by his men, or more implicitly trusted.
They reposed so much the calmer confidence in his generalship because
of their instinctive belief in his goodness, and as an illustration of
that belief the following testimony sent by a certain bombardier
appeared in a recent report of Miss Hanson's Aldershot Soldiers'
Home:--
"Lord Roberts! Well, he's just _a father_. Often goes round
hospital in Bloemfontein, and it's 'Well, my lad, how are you
to-day? Anything I can do for you? Anything you want?' and never
forgets to _see_ the man has what he asks for. Goes to the
hospital train--'Are you comfortable? Are you _sure_ you're
comfortable?' Then it's 'Buck up! Buck up!' to those who need it.
But when he sees a man dying, it's 'Can I pray with you, my lad?'
I've seen him many a time praying, with not a dry eye
near,--tears in his eyes and ours. It don't matter if there is a
clergyman or anyone else present, if he sees a man very ill he
will pray with him. He _is_ a lord!"
Whether in this story there is any slight touch of soldierly
imaginativeness, I cannot tell, but happy is the general about whom
his men write in such a fashion; and happy is the army controlled by
such a head!
[Sidenote: _President Steyn's Sjambok._]
On the Friday evening, a few hours before our arrival, President Steyn
stood in the drift of the Kroonstad stream, sjambok in hand, seeking
to drive back the fleeing Boers to their new-made and now deserted
trenches; but the President's sjambok proved as unavailing as Mrs
Partington's heroic broom. The Boer retreat had grown into a rout; and
the President's own retirement that night was characterised by more of
despatch than dignity. He is reported to have said, "Better a Free
State ruined than no Free State at all." For its loss of freedom, and
for its further ruin, no living man is so responsible as he. But for
his sympathy and support the Boers would have made less haste in the
penning of their Ultimatum, and war might still have slept. =Steyn's
ambition awoke it!=
Whilst its President-protector fled, Kroonstad that night found itself
face to face with pandemonium let loose. The great railway bridge over
the Valsch was blown up with a terrific crash. The new goods station
belonging to the railway, recently built at a cost of L5000, and
filled with valuable stores, including food stuffs, was drenched with
paraffin by the =Boer Irish Brigade=, and given to the flames; while
five hundred sacks of Indian corn piled outside shared the same fate.
No wonder that, as at Bloemfontein, the arrival of the Guards' Brigade
was welcomed with ringing cheers, and the frantic waving by many a
hand of tiny Union Jacks. Our coming was to them the end of anarchy.
It is however worthy of note that the Boers who thus gave foodstuffs
to the flames, and strove continually to tear up the rails along
which food supplies arrived, yet left their wives and children for us
to feed. About that they had no compunctions and no fear, in spite of
the fabled horrors ascribed to British troops. They knew full well
that even if those troops were half starved, these non-combatants
would not be suffered to lack any good thing. Even President Kruger,
though careful to carry all his wealth away, commended his wife to our
tender keeping. Some of us would rather he had taken the wife and left
the wealth; but concerning the scrupulous courtesy shown to her, no
voice of complaining has ever been heard. When we ourselves were
famished we fed freely the families of the very men who set fire to
our food supplies; and their children especially were as thoughtfully
cared for as though they were our own. War is always an accursed
thing, but even in this dread sphere the Christ-influence is not
unfelt.
[Sidenote: _A Sunday at last that was also a Sabbath._]
To my intense delight after so many Sabbathless Sundays, I found
myself privileged to conduct a well-attended parade service for the
Nonconformists in the Guards' Brigade at 9 A.M., and for the men of
General Stephenson's Brigade at a later hour. In the afternoon I paid
a visit to the native Wesleyan church which has connected with it
about twelve hundred members in and around Kroonstad. The building,
which is day school, Sunday school and chapel all in one, is already
of a goodly size, but it was about to be enlarged when the war began.
I found a capital congregation awaiting my appearing, the women
sitting on one side, the men on the other. There were three
interpreters who translated what I said into Kaffir, Basuto and Dutch;
an arrangement which gives a preacher ample time to think before he
speaks; though once or twice I fear I forgot when number two had
finished that number three had still to follow. I noticed when the
collection was taken, there seemed almost as many coins as
worshippers, and all the coins were silver, excepting only two. Yet
this was a congregation of Kaffirs!
At night, assisted by the Canadian chaplain, I took the service in the
Wesleyan English church, where the singing and the collection were
both golden. So also was the text; and delightsomely appropriate
withal. "The Most High ruleth the kingdom of men and giveth it to
whomsoever He will." Of the sermon based upon it however it is not for
me to speak. So ended my first Sunday in Kroonstad, where I was the
favoured guest of Mr and Mrs Thorn, late of Bristol, and still
Britishers "to the backbone the thick way through."
[Sidenote: _Military Police on the march._]
This memorable march from the Valsch to the Vaal was, in consequence
of the transport difficulties already described, one of the hungriest
in all our record. To all the other miseries of the men there was
added an incessant pining for food which it was impossible for them to
procure in anything like satisfying quantities, and I have repeatedly
watched them gather up from the face of the veldt unwholesomenesses
that no man could eat; I have seen them many a time thus try with wry
face to devour wild melon bitter as gall, and then fling it away in
utter disgust, if not despair.
Yet at the head of the Brigade there marched a strong body of Military
Police whose one business it was to see that these famished men looted
nothing. When a deserted house was reached no pretence at protecting
it was made. Such a house of course never contained food, and our men
sought in it only what would serve for firewood, in some cases almost
demolishing the place in their eagerness to secure a few small sticks,
or massive beams. Nothing in that way came amiss.
But if man, woman or child were in the house a cordon of police was
instantly put round the building. The longing eyes and tingling
fingers passed on, and absolutely nothing was touched except on
payment. Tom Hood in one of his merry poems tells of a place:--
"Straight down the crooked lane
And right round the square,"
where the most toothsome little porkers cried "Come eat me if you
please." That, to the famine-haunted imagination of the troops, was
precisely what many a well-fed porker on the veldt seemed to say, but
as a rule say in vain. After thousands of troops had gone by, I have
with my own eyes seen that lucky porker still there, with ducks of
unruffled plumage still floating on the farmhouse pond, and fat
poultry quite unconscious how perilous an hour they had just passed.
Yet the owner of the aforesaid pig and poultry was out on commando,
his mauser charged with a messenger of death, which any moment might
wing its way to any one of us. No wonder if the famished soldiers
could not quite see the equity of the arrangement which left him at
liberty to hunt for their lives but would not allow them to lay a
finger on one of his barndoor fowls. It would be absurd to suppose
that, in the face of such pressure, the vigilance of the police was
never eluded; and our mounted scouts were always well away from police
control. As the result their saddles became sometimes like an inverted
hen-roost; heads down instead of up; but they were seldom asked in
what market they had made their purchases or what price they had paid
for their poultry.
It would require a clever cook to provide a man with three savoury and
substantial meals out of a mugful of flour, about a pound of tough
trek ox, and a pinch of tea. Yet occasionally that was all it proved
possible to serve out to the men, and their ingenuity in dealing with
that miserable mugful of flour often made me marvel. They reminded me
not unfrequently of the sons of the prophets, who, in a day of dearth
went out into the fields to gather herbs and found a wild vine, and
gathered thereof wild gourds and shred them into the pot and they
could not eat thereof. Violent attacks of dysentery and kindred
complaints only too plainly proved that occasionally in this case
also, as in that ancient instance, there was apparently ample
justification for the cry, "Oh thou man of God, there is death in the
pot." Nevertheless, and notwithstanding the lynx-eyed vigilance of the
police, the smell from the pot was sometimes astonishingly like unto
the smell of chicken-broth; which clearly shows what good cooking can
accomplish even on the barren veldt.
[Sidenote: _A General's glowing eulogy of the Guards._]
This amazing ability of the Guards to face long marches with short
rations was triumphantly maintained, not for a few months merely but
to the very end of the campaign. In the February of 1901 it fell to
the lot of the Scots Guards, for instance, to accompany General
French's cavalry to the Swaziland border. They took with them no tents
and the least possible amount of impedimenta of any kind. But for
three weeks they had to face almost incessant rain, and as they had no
shelter except a blanket full of holes, they were scarcely ever dry
for half a dozen hours at a time. The streams were so swollen that
they became impassable torrents, and the transport waggons were thus
left far behind, with all food supplies. For eight or ten days at a
stretch men and officers alike had no salt, no sugar, no tea, no
coffee, no jam, no flour, bread or biscuits; no vegetables of any
kind; but only one cupful of mealies or mealie meal per day, and as
much fresh killed meat as their rebellious stomachs could digest
without the aid of salt or mustard. Yet the only deaths were two by
drowning; and at the close of the operations the general addressed
them as follows:--
General French's farewell speech to the 1st Brigade, Scots Guards at
Vryheid, on April 1st, 1901:--
Major Cuthbert, officers, N.C.Os. and men of the Scots Guards.
The operations in the Eastern Transvaal are brought to a close,
and I have had the opportunity of addressing the Royal Horse and
Field Artillery and Cavalry; but, although you were with me in
the Western Transvaal, this is the first time I have had the
pleasure of addressing you on parade. The operations from Springs
to Ermelo, and from Ermelo to Piet Retief, were conducted under
the most trying circumstances and severe hardships. Lying on the
ground, which was under water, with no shelter, with very short
rations and for sometime none at all, you had to exist on the
meagre supplies of the district, which were very poor. At one
time it caused me the deepest anxiety, as in consequence of the
weather all communications were temporarily suspended; but the
cheery manner and disposition of this splendid battalion did a
great deal to disperse this anxiety. What struck me most forcibly
was your extraordinary power of marching. I have frequently
noticed that when the cavalry and mounted infantry were engaged
(happily very slightly) in these operations, I have been
surprised on looking round to see this splendid battalion close
behind and extended ready to take part in the fighting, and have
wondered how they got there. Another important item I wish to
remark upon is the magnificent manner in which this battalion
performed outpost duty and night work. On several occasions news
has come to me through my Intelligence Department of a meditated
attack on the camp of this column, but owing to the skilful way
in which the outposts were thrown out and the vigilance of the
sentries the attack was never developed.
Another thing I noticed was the highly disciplined state of the
battalion. It is not always in fighting that a soldier proves his
qualities. Though at the commencement of the campaign you had
hard fighting and heavy losses, the past few weeks stand
unsurpassed, I believe, for hardships in the history of the
campaign! I thank every officer and N.C.O. for the great
assistance given to me during these operations. Should your
services be required elsewhere, or further hardships have to be
endured, I know you will do as you have done before. I wish you
all good-bye.
[Sidenote: _Good news by the way._]
Among those who, like myself, on October 21st left England in the same
boat as General Baden-Powell's brother, the most frequent theme of
conversation was the then unknown fate of Mafeking. Its relief was the
news most eagerly enquired for at St Vincent's, and we were all hugely
disappointed when on reaching the Cape we learned that the interesting
event had not yet come off. Some toilsome and adventurous months
brought us to May 21st, our last day at Kroonstad; and it proved a
superbly satisfactory send-off on our next perilous march to learn
that day that the long-delayed but intensely welcome event had at last
actually taken place just four days before. It filled the whole camp
with pardonable pride and pleasure, though the sober-sided soldiers on
the veldt scarcely lost their mental balance over the business as the
multitudes at home, and as all the great cities of the empire seem to
have done. We know it was a tiny town defended by a tiny garrison of
for the most part untrained men; and therefore in itself of scant
importance; but we also know that for many a critical week it had held
back not a few strong commandoes in their headlong rush towards the
Cape; it had for weary months illustrated on the one hand the staying
power of British blood, and on the other the timidity and impotence of
the Boers as an attacking force. Not a single town or stronghold to
which they laid siege had they succeeded in capturing; the very last
of the series was safe at last, and after all that had been said about
British blunderings, this event surely called for something more than
commonplace congratulations. Hereward the Wake was wont to say, "We
are all gallant Englishmen; it is not courage we want: it is brains";
but at Mafeking for once brains triumphed over bullets. A new Wake had
arisen in our ranks, and so Mafeking has found a permanent place among
the many names of renown in the long annals of our island story.
It was an admirably fitting prelude to another historic event of that
same week. On the last anniversary we shall ever keep of our venerable
Queen's birthday, on May 24th, the Orange River Colony was formally
annexed to the British Empire, and Victoria was proclaimed its
gracious sovereign. That empire has grown into the vastest
responsibility ever laid on the shoulders of any one people, and
constitutes a stupendously urgent call to the pursuit and practice of
righteousness on the part of the whole Anglo-Saxon race. It is a
superb stewardship entrusted to us of God; and "it is required in
stewards that they be found faithful."
[Sidenote: _Over the Vaal at last._]
All that week the Guards continued in hot pursuit of the Boers without
so much as once catching sight of them. Repeatedly, however, we
scrambled through huge patches of Indian or Kaffir corn, enough, so to
say, to feed an army, but all left to rot and perish uncut. It was one
of the few evidences which just then greeted us that war was really
abroad in the land, and that they were no mere autumn manoeuvres in
which we then were taking part. Some of the rightful owners of that
corn were probably among our prisoners of war at St Helena, spending
their mourning days in vainly wondering how long its hateful
unfamiliar waves would keep them captive. Others had, perchance,
themselves been garnered by the great Harvester, who ever gathers his
fattest sheaves hard by the paths of war.
Occasionally we came, in the course of our march, on a
recently-deserted Boer camp, with empty tins strewn all about the
place and the embers of camp fires still glowing, but never so much as
a penny worth of loot lying on the ground. Either they had little to
leave, or else they so utilised the railway in assisting to get their
belongings away that in that respect they had the laugh of us
continually. This final service rendered, the Boers made haste to
prevent the rail being used by us; and so far as time or timidity
would permit, they blew up every bridge, every culvert, as soon as
their last train had crossed it. Fortunately of the long and beautiful
bridge across the Vaal we found only one broad span broken.
About nine o'clock on Sunday morning the troops reached Val Joen's
Drift, the terminal station on the Orange Free State Railway. This
drift it was that President Kruger had once resolved to close against
all traffic in order the more effectually to strangle British trade in
the Transvaal. Another mile or two through prodigiously deep sand,
brought us to the Vaal River coal mines, with their great heaps of
burning cinders or other refuse, which brought vividly to many a north
countryman's remembrances kindred scenes in the neighbourhood of busy
Bradford and prosperous Sunderland.
Then came the great event to which the laborious travel of the last
seven months had steadily led up, the crossing of the Vaal, and the
planting of our victorious feet on Transvaal soil. Here we were
assured the Boers would make their most determined stand; and the
natural strength of the position, together with the urgent necessities
of the case, made such an expectation more than merely reasonable. Yet
to our delighted wonderment not a single trench, so far as we could
see, had been dug, nor a solitary piece of artillery placed in
position. From the top of a cinder heap a few farewell mauser bullets
were fired at our scouts, and then as usual our foemen fled. Once in a
Dutch deserted wayside house I picked up an "English Reader," which
strangely opened on Montgomery's familiar lines:--
"There is a land of every land the pride;
Belov'd by Heaven o'er all the world beside.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a Man, a Patriot? Look around!
Oh thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!"
Boer patriotism we had supposed to be not merely pronounced, but
fiercely passionate; and "a Dutchman," said Penn, "is never so
dangerous as when he is desperate"; yet when the Guards' Brigade
stepped out of the newly-conquered Free State into the about to be
conquered Transvaal, scarcely a solitary Dutchman appeared upon the
scene to dispute our passage, or to strike one desperate blow for
hearth and altar and independence. In successive batches we were
peacefully hauled across the river on a pontoon ferry bridge; and as I
leaped ashore it was with a glad hurrah upon my lips; a grateful
hallelujah in my heart!