alleged defects of our artillery arises from a misunderstanding of the
real value of guns in attacking a fortified position. The most sanguine
officer never expects his shells actually to kill or disable any very
large number of the enemy if they are protected by deep and
well-constructed earthworks. Of course, if a shell falls plump into a
trench it is pretty certain to play havoc with the defenders, but, when
one considers that the mouth of a trench is some five or six feet wide,
it is easy to realise the difficulty of dropping a shell into the narrow
opening at a range, say, of 4,000 yards. Moreover, some of the more
elaborate Boer trenches are so cleverly constructed in a waving line
like a succession of S's, that even if a shell does succeed in pitching
into one bit of the curve it makes things uncomfortable only for the two
or three men who occupy that portion of the earthwork. No, the real
value of artillery in attack is to shake the enemy and keep down his
rifle fire. If shells are accurately fired the tops of trenches may be
swept by a constant rain of shrapnel bullets, under which the enemy's
riflemen will of necessity suffer when they expose their heads and
shoulders to take aim over the parapet. But even in this case the shell
fire must be extremely accurate if it is to be of any great use. If
shrapnel shells burst well, some thirty yards in front of the enemy, the
force of the bullets released by the explosion is terrific; if, on the
other hand, the shells burst high up in the air, 150 yards in front, you
might almost keep off the bullets with an umbrella; and one sometimes
hears of these missiles being actually found in the pockets of
combatants. At Omdurman our shells played tremendous havoc with the
dense masses of the enemy; but here the Dervishes advanced to the attack
in broad daylight and over a flat plain absolutely devoid of cover, and
with its "ranges" well known and marked out beforehand.
In one of our southward journeys with a load of wounded men we passed, a
little below Graspan, through the midst of a swarm of locusts. We pulled
up the windows and so kept the wards free from these clumsy insects. At
one period they seemed to almost shut out the daylight, and it was easy
to realise how unpleasant it would be to meet a flight of locusts when
walking or even riding on horseback. Some odd stories are told about
these creatures. I have heard it gravely stated that occasionally a
train is stopped by the accumulated masses which fall on the metals. My
informant evidently believed that the engine in these cases was
absolutely unable to force its way through the piled up insects, in the
same way as trains are sometimes blocked by gigantic snowdrifts! This,
of course, is ridiculous; what really happens is that the rails become
so greasy from the crushed bodies of the locusts that the wheels can
secure no grip on the metals and spin round to no purpose.
The attitude of the Boers towards the locust is very quaint. If a swarm
of these insects settles on a Dutchman's land, the owner will not
attempt to destroy them because he regards them as a visitation of
Providence. But I have heard that he does not scruple to modify slightly
the schemes of Providence by shovelling the unwelcome locusts upon any
of his neighbours' fields which may adjoin his own estate!
On this same journey we pulled up, as usual, for a brief interval at De
Aar, and just opposite our train was a carriage containing seventeen
Boer prisoners, returning to the front. At the battle of Graspan a
number of Boer artillerymen were found with the Geneva Red Cross on
their arms, and it seems pretty clear that these men had deliberately
slipped the badge on the sleeves in order to avoid capture. They were,
of course, at once secured and treated as ordinary prisoners of war. But
in the hurry of the moment, and very naturally under the circumstances,
some seventeen of the Boers who were _bonâ-fide_ ambulance men were
arrested on suspicion and despatched with the crafty gunners to
Capetown. Here they were examined, and when the authorities realised
that they were genuinely entitled to the protection of the Red Cross,
and were not combatants fraudulently equipped with this protective
badge, the seventeen were forthwith sent back to General Cronje. As they
were returning we met them and had a chat with them. Five at least of
the number were Scotchmen or Irishmen; two more of them did not speak,
and I rather think from their appearance that they too were of English
race, and preferred to remain silent. Several of them complained of
ill-treatment at our hands, but I must say their complaints appeared to
resolve themselves into the fact that on their journeys to and from
Capetown their meals had not been quite regular. Three of us gave them
some bread, jam and cigarettes, for which they were extremely grateful.
They wore ordinary clothes much the worse for wear, and told me that
they left their "Sunday" suits at home. On the whole I was most
favourably impressed by these fellows, with one exception. The exception
was a Free-Stater who spoke English volubly. He loudly declared that he
was sick of the war and intended the moment he secured an opportunity to
desert and go home to his farm. I felt rather indignant at this person's
remarks, and with an air of moral superiority I said: "We don't think
any the better of you for saying that; although you are an enemy you
ought to stick to your General, and not sneak away from the front". But
the Free-Stater was not a bit impressed by my rhetoric, and simply said,
"Oh, skittles!"
Some of the prisoners were from the Transvaal and they seemed to me much
more keen and enthusiastic than their Free State companions, and evinced
no signs whatever of despondency or depression. There was a very
pathetic note in the conversation of one of the Transvaalers, a mere
boy of seventeen. He said to me in broken English, "It is such a
causeless war. What are we fighting for, sir?" and I referred him for
his answer to three Johannesburg Uitlanders who were standing by.
Accursed as war always is, it is thrice accursed when young boys and old
men are called upon to fight. At present every man in the Republic from
sixteen to sixty years of age is at the front. The authorities intend as
their losses increase to call out children from twelve to sixteen, and
every old man from sixty onwards who can still see to sight a rifle.
Last and most terrible thought of all, it is an undoubted fact that
wives and daughters are everywhere throughout the Republic engaged in
rifle practice! May God preserve us from having to fight against women!
At present entire families are fighting together. I know one Dutch lady
who has no less than six brothers amongst the burghers who have been
fighting round Ladysmith, and another who has already lost four sons in
the war. In one of our engagements a Boer boy of seventeen was struck
down by a bullet; the father, a man of sixty, left his cover and went
to the succour of his son, when he himself was shot, and the two lay
dead, one beside the other.
A little to the north of the kopjes which formed the scene of the
Graspan engagement lies the station of Enslin. Here one of the pluckiest
fights of the campaign took place. Two companies of the Northamptons
occupied a small house and orchard beside the line. They had thrown up a
hurried earthwork and placed rails along the top of the parapet. In this
position they were suddenly attacked by a force of apparently 500
Boers--so it was supposed--with one or two field guns. The small
garrison lined their diminutive trenches and succeeded in keeping the
enemy off for several hours; but had not some artillery reinforcements
come up the line most opportunely to their assistance it might have
fared badly with the plucky Northamptons. As it was, the Boers finally
withdrew with some loss. On December 10th we were delayed for some time
at Enslin by an accident and I had a careful look at the position held
by our men in this minor engagement. There was scarcely a twig or leaf
in the orchard which was not torn by shrapnel and Mauser bullets. The
walls of the house were chipped and pierced in every direction, and one
corner of the earthwork had been carried off by a shell. Yet in the two
companies there were only eight casualties! An almost parallel case was
furnished by Rostall's orchard at Modder River, which was held by the
Boers, and swept for hours by so fearful a fire of shrapnel that the
peach-trees were cut down in every direction and scarcely a square foot
behind the trenches unmarked by the leaden hail. Nevertheless, when the
guns had perforce to cease fire on the advance of our infantry, the
Boers who held the orchard leapt up from behind the earthwork and poured
such a murderous fire upon our men that they were forced to withdraw. It
was the old story over again--that shell fire, unless it enfilades, does
not kill men in trenches.
As everybody called the river crossed by the railway the Modder, Modder
let it be. Its real name, however, is the Riet, of which the Modder is a
tributary flowing from the north-west and joining the main stream well
to the east of the line. As a stream the river does not impress the
visitor favourably: its waters were yellow and muddy, and the vegetation
on its banks was thin and scrappy. There are no respectable fish in
either the Modder or the Orange River; even if the fish could see a fly
on the top of the liquid mud, they haven't the spirit to rise at it.
Some of our officers, it was said, had managed to land a few specimens
of a coarse fish like a barbel which haunts these streams, but I should
not think any one, even amid the monotony of camp rations, was very keen
about eating his catch, for a good many dead Boers had been dragged out
of the river. It was, in fact, a rather grisly joke in camp to remark,
_à propos_ of our water supply, on the character of "Château Modder, an
excellent vintage with a good deal of body in it"! There was a tap at
the station, which by the way is some distance north of the river, but
on attempting to fill a bucket I found the tap guarded by a sentry,
because, apparently, the water came from the river and was thought to be
dangerous.
The water question is always a difficult one in exploring or
campaigning. One can do a certain amount with alum towards rendering the
water less foul. Rub the inside of a bucket with a lump of alum, and in
ten minutes most of the mud sinks to the bottom, and the water is
comparatively clear. But besides producing a nasty flavour in the water,
if used in any quantity, the astringent alum tends to produce
disagreeable effects internally. Of course the only absolute guarantee
against the bacilli of enteric fever or other diseases which may be
admitted into one's system by drinking, is to boil the waters for five
minutes; but it is very provoking, when the thermometer stands at 90° in
the shade, to wait until the boiled water cools, and as it is impossible
to boil a whole river a few thousand bacilli may quite well get into our
food through "washing up".
The Boers have almost raised trench digging to the level of a fine art,
and on every occasion when their commandants have found it necessary to
withdraw they have had an entrenched position ready for them at some
distance in the rear. At Modder River the trenches on either side of
the stream were, as far as I saw them, a series of short ditches holding
about six riflemen. These small trenches were separated from each other
in order possibly to avoid that appearance of continuity which would
have rendered their detection more easy to our scouts. In the Modder
River fight a new factor is noticeable. For the first time in the
campaign the Boers fought on level ground. Hitherto their bullets had
come from the summits of the hills, and for this reason had not proved
nearly so effective as a sustained fire from rifles raised, say, about
four and a half feet from the ground. It is of course very much harder
to hit a moving enemy when you aim from above at a considerable angle
than when you merely hold your rifle steadily at the level of his chest
and fire off Mauser cartridges at the rate of twenty a minute. The
enemy's fire was very deadly at the Modder. As Lord Methuen said in his
despatch, it was quite unsafe to remain on horseback at 2,000 yards'
range. The result was that our infantry were compelled to lie prone on
the ground, and, without being able to do much by way of retaliation,
were exposed for hours to a scathing fusilade from the trenches beside
the river. One poor fellow, of whom I saw a good deal, had been through
the battle despite the fact that he was suffering great pain from
dysentery. He, together with two friends, lay on the veldt for no less
than fourteen hours. They had fortunately descried a slight hollow in
the ground some 500 yards from the Boer trenches, and between them they
"loosed off" quite 1,000 rounds of ammunition. "Well," I asked him, "did
you hit anything?" "I don't think we did," was his reply, "because we
never saw a Boer the whole day." When the enemy are firing smokeless
powder behind their splendidly constructed earthworks they are
practically invisible, a fact born witness to by Captain Congreve, V.C.,
in his account of the first reverse at the Tugela. Now of course when
you can't see your enemy you can't very well hit him, so when we clear
our minds of fairy-stories about Lyddite and the universal destruction
wrought by concussion, it seems highly probable that there is much more
truth in the Boers' returns of their casualties than has been believed
at home. Take, _e.g._, the lurid account sent by one of our
correspondents about the awful effects of our shell fire upon General
Cronje's laager. We were told in graphic language of every space in the
laager being torn and rent by the deadly fire of more than fifty field
guns, of the trenches being enfiladed and the green fumes of Lyddite
rising up from the doomed camp. Cronje emerges with a casualty roll of
170 men, and the only inconvenience from our bombardment experienced by
the ladies was the slight abrasion of a young woman's forefinger!
The fact that so many of our Generals have been struck by bullets during
the campaign would seem to corroborate what I have heard on good
authority, _viz._, that some of the best shots in the Transvaal forces
have been told off for long range shooting, and the picking off of our
leaders. One of these fancy shots--a German--was captured in Natal and
told an officer that he was glad to be a prisoner, as he heartily
disliked the task imposed upon him. Some little distance north of the
Modder bridge is a small white house. Within this was found a Boer lying
on a table stone-dead, with a shrapnel bullet in his skull. His Mauser,
still clutched in his stiffened hands, lay on a tripod rest in front of
him and the muzzle pointed through a vertical slit made in the masonry
of the cottage. Every house in the neighbourhood was more or less
injured by shrapnel, and one of them was the scene of a sanguinary
conflict which was utterly misrepresented by one of the Cape papers. The
misrepresentation was to the effect that at the battle of Modder River
the house in question was occupied by a number of Boer wounded from
Belmont and Graspan in charge of several attendants. It was alleged that
two of the attendants deliberately fired upon our troops, who forthwith
entered the house and bayoneted every occupant, wounded and unwounded
alike, the bodies being afterwards weighted, with stones and thrown into
the river. This terrible story spread like wildfire through the Colony,
and Lord Methuen despatched an official denial of the alleged
circumstances to Capetown. The Boer General never, as far as I am
aware, brought any such charge against our troops, but as it undoubtedly
gained considerable credence in the Colony it is perhaps worth while to
mention the real facts of the case. The house in question was occupied
as an outpost by thirty-six Boers, who fired upon some companies of
British troops. About a dozen of our men, chiefly Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders with a lieutenant of the Fifth Fusiliers--for an
extraordinary intermingling of various units took place in this
engagement--rushed the house. Two of the Highlanders were shot down but
the rest took a speedy revenge. The thirty-six Boers clubbed their
rifles and fought pluckily, but they were crowded together and could do
little against our bayonets. Every man of the thirty-six perished. "I
didn't like to see it, sir," said one of the Highlanders to me. This is,
of course, a very different story from the disgraceful tale alluded to
above. None of the Boers in the house were wounded before our men
appeared on the scene, and it is clear that the Boer corpses in the
river, with stones tied to their ankles, were put there by their own
comrades.
Fair-minded and thoughtful men who have followed the events of the
present campaign must long ago have come to the conclusion that
non-official news must frequently be received with great caution. Before
the war began misrepresentation was rife on both sides, and it has
continued ever since. Mr. Winston Churchill may well call South Africa a
"land of lies". Various slanders against ourselves have emanated to some
extent from the Dutch papers in Cape Colony and the Transvaal, but in a
much fuller and more substantial form from the Continental papers,
notably the Parisian Press. On the other hand, our own journalists have
not been altogether free from this taint. Let us take one or two
concrete instances, _e.g._, violation of the white flag, firing on
ambulances, the use of "explosive" bullets, looting. Just after the
first reverse at the Tugela, a correspondent wired home that the Boers
were "shooting horses and violating all the usages of civilised
warfare". A man who would write such tomfoolery about horses ought to be
kept in Fleet Street, and not sent out as a war correspondent; and as
to his sweeping accusations in general, it is worth noticing that he was
publicly and severely rebuked by Sir Redvers Buller, who denied his
statements, and said that it was dishonourable to malign our brave
opponents in this fashion.
As to the _vexata quaestio_ of the white flag, it seems clear that in
some instances the Boers have used this symbol of surrender in an
absolutely unjustifiable way. Such a misusage of the flag occurred, for
example, at Belmont.[A] But, as a Boer prisoner said to me, there are
blackguards in every army, and it is utterly unfair to represent the
whole Boer army as composed of these treacherous scoundrels--who, by the
way, in almost every instance have paid the penalty of their treachery
with their lives. Moreover, a white flag--which is sometimes merely a
handkerchief tied to a rifle--may, in a comparatively undisciplined
force like that of our opponents, be easily raised by a combatant on
one side of a kopje, without being ordered or being noticed by his
officer or the bulk of his comrades. How easily this may happen can be
seen from what occurred amongst our own men at Nicholson's Nek. Here the
white flag was raised, according to the published letter of an officer
present, by a subaltern, without the knowledge and against the wishes of
the officer in command. The officer who raised the flag may quite
well--we do not know the circumstances accurately--have wished to save
the lives of the men immediately round him, or may have been unable to
see what was happening elsewhere on the kopje, and so have imagined that
he and his men alone were left.
Something very similar to this appears to have happened at Dundee. A
body of Boers standing together raised a white flag when our men
approached and were duly taken prisoners, but the rest of their commando
were, according to Boer accounts, already engaged in retreating with
their guns, and, being either unaware of this unauthorised surrender or
completely ignoring it, continued their flight.
I have already spoken of the risks incurred by stretcher-bearers and
ambulance waggons which approach close to the firing line. Wounded men
have told me again and again that the Boers at Magersfontein did not
fire wilfully on our ambulance waggons, except when our troops got
behind them in their retreat. Moreover, excitable people in England, who
greedily swallow any story about such alleged occurrences, have probably
the vaguest idea of what a modern battle-field looks like, and of the
enormous area now covered by military operations. It may be extremely
difficult to see a small white or Red Cross flag a long way off. At
Ladysmith, _e.g._, one of our guns put a shell clean through a Boer
ambulance, and Sir George White, of course, at once sent an apology for
the mistake. If mistakes occur on one side they may occur on the other.
Reuter's agent at Frere Camp reports on 4th December:--
"After the evacuation of Dundee the Boers shelled the hospital and the
ambulance until the white flag was hoisted, when their firing ceased.
Captain Milner rode with one orderly into the Boer camp with a flag of
truce, and was told that the Boers could not see the Red Cross flag.
This statement he verified by personal observation."
As to the use of "explosive" bullets, which makes the "man in the
street" so indignant, it is worth mentioning that, as far as I am aware,
not a single instance of the employment of such a missile came under the
notice of our medical staff with Lord Methuen's column. I do not for one
instant deny that occasionally such bullets may have been fired at our
troops, but it is clear that the utmost confusion prevails about the
nature of these projectiles. The Geneva Convention prohibits the use of
explosive bullets, _i.e._, hollow bullets charged with an explosive
which is fired by a detonating cap on coming in contact with a resisting
surface. Now it is almost impossible to render a Mauser bullet
"explosive," owing to its extreme slenderness, so that any explosive
bullets which may have been used by the enemy must have come from
sporting rifles, which are--as all evidence goes to show--extremely rare
in their commandos. Expansive bullets are made by cutting off the
rounded tip of the bullet, scooping out its point, constructing its
"nose" of some softer metal, or simply making transverse cuts across the
end. These missiles are not prohibited by the Geneva Convention:
nevertheless their employment against white men is altogether
unnecessary and reprehensible.
As to looting, we must not forget that all commandeering of goods on the
part of the enemy has been so described. But, of course, it is perfectly
legitimate according to the usage of modern warfare to seize any
property necessary for an army provided receipts are duly handed over to
the persons from whom the goods are obtained. The Germans invariably
acted in this way during the Franco-Prussian war, and no historian has
ever described them as "savages" for this reason. Of course the wanton
destruction of property which appears to have been perpetrated by the
Boers in Natal is absolutely indefensible.
If any one on reading the above thinks the writer "unpatriotic" he can
only say that many British soldiers serving their Queen and country are
"unpatriotic" in the same way. I hold no brief for the Boers, and I
feel sure that here and there one may find an unmitigated scoundrel in
their ranks who would fire on white flags, loot houses and use explosive
bullets. On the other hand wounded and captured soldiers have repeatedly
testified to the great kindness shown them by the enemy. In short, I
have invariably found soldiers more generous and fair towards the enemy,
and less disposed to blackguard them recklessly and unjustly, than
newspaper writers and readers. Men who have faced the Boers have learnt
to respect their courage and devotion, and I feel sure that British
officers and soldiers deprecate much of the atrocity talk anent foemen
so worthy of their steel, and however little they may sympathise with
some portions of Dean Kitchin's sermon, they would at any rate desire to
support his wish that the "quarrel should be raised to the level of a
gentlemen's quarrel".[B] Quite recently Lord Methuen spoke like an
honourable and chivalrous British soldier when he declared that he
"never wished to meet a braver general than Cronje and had never served
in a war where less vindictive feelings existed between the two opposing
armies than in this."
One more word on a kindred topic and we will leave criticism alone! The
tone adopted by some sections of the Colonial and even British Press
with respect to the religious feeling of the Boers is very painful. Some
correspondents have described with evident glee how Boer prayer-meetings
have been broken up by Lyddite shells. I feel sure that no British
General would think for a moment of deliberately shelling any body of
the enemy assembled for prayer, and the vulgarity and wickedness of such
paragraphs would certainly not commend itself to the best sentiment of
the British army. Again and again the Boers are described in the Press
as "canting hypocrites" or their thanksgivings to God as
"sanctimonious". What right have we as Christians to bring such
wholesale charges against our Christian enemies? Several thousand
burghers advanced from Jacobsdal to reinforce Cronje, and as it marched
the entire force sang the Old Hundredth in unison. There is something
splendid and majestic in such a spectacle as this. Let us as Englishmen
fight our best against these men and defeat them thoroughly, but do not
let us sneer at their religious enthusiasm!
On December 10th, as we were standing on a siding at De Aar, a telegram,
arrived ordering us to leave for Modder River in the morning. We were
delighted at the prospect of getting rid of our enforced inaction at De
Aar. The air was full of rumours about an impending attack on Cronje's
position, and we fully expected to be in time for the fight and probably
to be employed as stretcher-bearers during the battle. Alas! our hopes
were all in vain. Next day, some miles below Modder River, our engine
with its tender suddenly left the metals. The stoker jumped off, but the
engine fortunately kept on the top of the embankment and nobody was
hurt. We none of us knew how or why the accident had occurred, but one
of the officials suspected very strongly that the rails had been
tampered with.
At any rate, there we were within a few miles of a big fight, off the
metals and quite helpless! We were all perfectly wild with vexation and
disappointment. But up flew a wire to Modder River for a gang of sappers
with screwjacks. Pending the arrival of their assistance I climbed up to
the top of a neighbouring kopje with a lot of Tasmanians. From this
point the flashes of the guns above Modder River were visible, and the
dull boom of Lyddite was borne to our ears. Methuen's artillery was
still doing its best to avenge or retrieve the disaster of the early
morning. The sappers at length arrived. We all helped--pushing and
digging and lifting--and at length after several hours' delay steamed
off to Modder River, too late for anything, except to wait for the
morning and the wounded. We knew by this time that at 3:30 that morning
the Highland Brigade had made a frontal attack on the Magersfontein
lines and had been repulsed with terrible loss. The accounts which were
vaguely given of the disaster were frightful, but accurate details were
still lacking. Yes, here we were within four miles of the nearest point
of Cronje's lines and we did not know half as much about the fight as
people in Pall Mall 7000 miles away!
On 12th of December I woke at four. The sun was just beginning to rise
and the raw chill of the night had not yet left the air. In the grey
light a long string of ambulance waggons was moving slowly towards the
camp from the battle-field. Parallel to the line of waggons a column of
infantry was marching northwards, perhaps to reinforce some of our
outlying trenches against a possible Boer attack. I shall long remember
the sight--the column of dead and wounded coming in, the living column
going out, and scarcely a sound to break the silence.
The wards of the train were all ready for the wounded, so I went off
with a couple of buckets to replenish our water supply. Wounded men are
generally troubled with thirst, and the washing of their hands and faces
always refreshes them greatly. I found the station tap, however,
guarded by a sentry; no water was to be drawn for the use of the
troops, as the pipes--so it was said--came from Modder River, which was
contaminated by the Boer corpses.
We were soon busy with the wounded Highlanders and well within an hour
we had safely placed some 120 men in our bunks, and some on the floor. I
am afraid the poor soldiers often suffered agony when they were lifted
in or rolled from the stretchers on to the bunks. It was sometimes
impossible to avoid hurting a man with, say, a shattered thigh-bone and
a broken arm in thus changing his position. We however did our best and
lifted them with the utmost care and gentleness, but they often, poor
fellows, groaned and cried out in their cruel pain.
At 6 P.M. we saw the funeral of sixty-three Highlanders--all buried in
one long trench close to the line. No shots were fired over the vast
grave, but tears rolled down many a bronzed cheek and the bagpipes
played a wild lament. Surely there is no music like this for the burial
of young and gallant men. The notes seem to express an almost frenzied
access of human sorrow!
Soon after this my old Sudan acquaintance, Frederick Villiers, passed
through the train. He did not recognise me in my uniform and I did not
make myself known to him as he was with an officer and I was only an
orderly. I wonder if he remembers that dreadful night, 31st August,
1898, when we lay side by side in the desert at Sururab, soaked to the
skin from a tropical downpour, and, to make his misery complete, he was
stung in the neck by a large scorpion.
We ran down to Orange River with our first load of wounded men, and just
as we were crossing the sappers' pontoon bridge over the Modder a trolly
or small waggon broke loose and rushing down the incline in front met
our engine and was broken into matchwood. Most of our cases on this
first run were "severe" or "dangerous". Some of the men had no less than
three bullet wounds, and several were still living whose heads had been
pierced by bullets. During a former journey, after Belmont, poor ---- of
the Guards lived for several days with a bullet through his brain; he
was apparently unconscious or semi-conscious and struggled so
desperately to remove the bandages from his head that it took three
orderlies to hold him down. When he died the wounded soldier next him
burst into tears.
Amongst some cases peculiarly interesting from a medical point of view
was that of a Highlander who had three of his fingers shot off with the
result that his arm and side were paralysed; in another case a bullet
tore its way through and across the crown of a soldier's head and caused
paralysis of the opposite side of the body. Another man had, so it was
said, been hit on the shoulder; the bullet passed right through his body
piercing his lungs and intestines and coming out at the thigh. Yet,
strange to say, the poor fellow was in excellent spirits and complained
only of slight pain in the abdomen.
There was one death at Magersfontein which seemed especially painful to
ourselves. It was that of a young officer in the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders who, after the fight on the Modder, came into our train and
had a kindly word for every one of his wounded men; he walked along the
wards shaking hands with them and giving them little money presents as
he passed. His voice was full of sympathy, and at length he broke down
utterly in his compassion for some of their terrible wounds. His tears
did him credit, and we heard with genuine sorrow that he had fallen at
Magersfontein. So good a man was indeed worthy of a longer life and a
kindlier fate.
Almost all the wounds inflicted by the Mauser bullets seemed to be quite
clean and healthy, with no signs of suppuration. It has been suggested
that the satisfactory condition of such wounds is partly due to a
species of cauterisation produced by the heat of the bullet. But I
hardly think this can be so, for it is extremely doubtful if a bullet
ever gets hot enough to cauterise flesh. I once picked up a spent
Martini bullet which dropped within a yard or two of where I was
standing; it was quite warm but not nearly hot enough to hurt my bare
hand. A Mauser bullet fired at a fairly close range, say, 500 yards,
travels at such a tremendous velocity that it generally splinters any
bone it meets; on the other hand at long ranges--1,000 yards and
upwards--the bullet frequently bores a clean little hole through the
opposing bone and thus saves the surgeon a great deal of trouble.
The wounds from shell fire were not numerous in our wards. It seems
likely that if a one-pounder shell from the Maxim-Nordenfeldt hits a man
it is pretty sure to kill him. Some of the wounded men told me how
terrible it was to hear the cries of a comrade ripped to pieces by this
devilish missile.
The condition of the Highlanders' legs was terrible. Many of the poor
fellows lay in the open for hours--some of them from 4 A.M. to 8
P.M.--and the back of their legs was, almost without exception, covered
with blisters and large burns from the scorching sun. Very many of those
who had escaped bullet wounds could not, I should think, have marched
ten miles to save their lives. The Highland Light Infantry wore trousers
and their legs were all right. How much longer are we going to clothe
our Highland regiments in kilts on active service? Every man I spoke to
was dead against their use in a subtropical campaign like the present
one. Besides, even as it is, our men have to put up with a compromise in
the matter of kilts which makes their retention almost ridiculous,
_i.e._, in order to screen his gay attire from the keen eyes behind the
Mauser barrels every Highlander wears over the tartan a dingy apron of
khaki. The war pictures we occasionally see in illustrated papers of
Scotch regiments charging with flying sporrans are probably drawn in
England. Even when the apron is used, the khaki jacket, the tartan kilt
and the white legs offer a good mark when the wearer is lying on the
ground. At Omdurman I stood with the Seaforths and Camerons in the
firing line and I noticed that they appeared to lose more than any other
battalion.
On arriving at Orange River we carried our load of wounded to the base
hospital. I wish some of those well-meaning enthusiasts in Trafalgar
Square who clamoured for war could have viewed the interior of these
hospital tents and seen the poor twisted forms lying on the ground in
every direction. What a stupid and brutal thing war is! Certainly the
alleged "bringing out of our nobler qualities" is dearly purchased! If a
superior national type is the outcome of all this death and pain and
misery, War, like Nature, seems at any rate utterly "careless of the
single life"!
The battle of Magersfontein has been frequently described in the Press
and the main outlines of the fight are already well known to the public.
The Highland Brigade, consisting of the Black Watch, Argyll and
Sutherland Highlanders, Seaforths and Highland Light Infantry, had
dinner on Sunday at 12. They then marched from 2 to 7.30 P.M., when they
bivouacked. They advanced again at 11 P.M. in quarter column through the
darkness, using ropes to keep the direction and formation intact. At
3.30 the order to extend had just been given when a murderous fire was
suddenly poured into the Brigade from the first line of Boer trenches at
the foot of a large kopje. Our men had already seen two red lanterns
burning at either extremity of this entrenched position. All at once the
lamp on the left of the line was extinguished, and this seemed to be
the signal for the Boer riflemen to commence fire. The light was so
bad--in fact there was scarcely any light at all--that it was impossible
to see the foresight of a rifle clearly. How were the Boers able to
discern our approaching columns? One very intelligent boy in the Black
Watch told me that he thought the "wild-fire"--the summer lightning
which plays over the veldt--showed up the approaching troops. Others who
were present stated that the Kimberley flash-light did the mischief, and
a sergeant who marched in the rear of the brigade told me that he could
see the whole line of helmets in front of him illumined by these
electric flashes. Apart from this, it is quite possible that some
treacherous signals from Dutchmen near Modder River camp may have
apprised the Boers of our approach.
Be this as it may, the first volleys from the opposing trenches swept
through the crowded ranks of the Black Watch with deadly effect. Great
confusion ensued, our men could do little by way of retaliation,
contradictory orders were given, and the Brigade, unable to hold its
ground under the murderous fire, fell back. The fusilade was fearfully
severe and what added to its severity was its unexpectedness. It is
especially the case in war that the unexpected is terrible. This has
been exemplified again and again. On one occasion during the siege of
Paris a body of Zouaves had fought splendidly all day in a sortie under
a hot fire from the Prussians. They were at length ordered to withdraw
some distance into a hollow which would shield them effectually from the
Prussian shells and bullets. The Zouaves ensconced themselves in this
excellent bit of cover and after their exertions prepared to get a
little rest. Suddenly, to their astonishment, a Prussian shell fell
plump into the hollow, and although it hurt nobody the entire company
leapt to their feet and never stopped until they found themselves within
the ramparts of Paris. Yet these men had faced a deadly fire all day
when they expected it.
No troops in the world could have done anything in face of the
Magersfontein fire: some of the Highlanders, however, lay down and
maintained their position actually within 200 yards of the Boer lines
throughout the day. They had scarcely any cover, and if they showed
themselves by any movement they were picked off by the enemy's
sharp-shooters. Several of our wounded told me that they had seen one
Boer, got up in the most sumptuous manner--polished jackboots, silk
neck-cloth and cigar--strolling leisurely about outside the trenches and
firing with extraordinary accuracy at the recumbent figures which dotted
the ground before him.
As the Brigade fell back various units were, in the darkness
inextricably mixed up, and our losses became more severe as the accuracy
of the enemy's fire increased. The booming of our artillery and the rush
of our shells upon the Boer trenches put fresh heart into our
temporarily disheartened troops, and rallying lines were formed in
various directions. Occasional rushes were made towards the almost
invisible enemy over the slope already thickly dotted with the bodies of
our dead and wounded, and at the close of the disastrous day several
gallant Highlanders were found lying dead across the wire entanglements
within 150 yards of the Boers, riddled with bullets. The 12th Lancers
dismounted, and at one moment, advanced as infantry right up to the Boer
trenches. Every one I spoke to expressed the warmest admiration for
their coolness and pluck.
A sergeant in the Black Watch, when all the officers had apparently been
struck down, cried out to the Highlanders near him: "Charge, men, and
prepare to meet your God!" He rushed forward at the head of a few
comrades and fell dead with a bullet through his brain within a yard or
two of the trenches. There is something truly sublime in this man's
devotion to his duty. Many and many an individual act of heroism was
displayed during those awful moments in the semi-darkness when the enemy
opened fire on our crowded battalions. British officers stood upright,
utterly regardless of self, doing their best to rally the shaken troops,
and then falling beneath the pitiless hail of bullets. Later on the
hillside was littered with field-glasses.
Almost 1,000 yards from the line of kopjes three lines of wire had been
placed, which were cut during our advance, and other entanglements were
stretched just in front of the trenches. Several men in each company
carried wire-cutters with them, but to stand up and snip through lines
of barbed wire when the Mauser bullets and the deadly shells of the
Pom-Pom gun are tearing up the soil around is perilous work. Some of
these entanglements had already been removed after the bombardment on
Sunday night, for E Company of the Black Watch and a company of the
Seaforths went forward about 7 P.M. in skirmishing order and pulled up
the iron stakes and knocked over three parallel lines of barbed wire.
Some of the Highland Brigade very sensibly withdrew towards the right of
the Boer position with the idea of outflanking and enfilading the enemy.
They succeeded for some time and actually captured some prisoners, but
were soon afterwards themselves enfiladed and compelled to retire. Eight
men of the Seaforths, however, when the frontal attack failed, retired
towards the left instead of the right and suddenly found themselves, to
their dismay, well inside the enemy's trenches! The Boers took away
their rifles but forgot their side-arms, whereupon one of the
Highlanders drew his bayonet, leapt to his feet and stabbed the sentry
who was guarding them in the neck. The whole eight then jumped over the
earthwork and decamped, escaping unhurt through the bullets which
followed them from the enraged burghers.
Many of our wounded lay on the ground from early morning till seven or
eight in the evening, exposed all day to the scorching rays of an almost
tropical sun. Some of the men brought away in the ambulances were, in
fact, suffering from sunstroke, in addition to their wounds, and, as was
said above, the bare legs of the three kilted battalions were terribly
burnt. The Boers were very kind to our wounded. They came out of the
trenches and gave them water. They did not in any case shoot at our
wounded men, but frequently shot at any one who came forward during the
fight to bandage the wounded. The slightest movement, however, of the
_bonâ-fide_ combatants in our ranks drew a hail of bullets from the
trenches. A Scotch sergeant, Gilham by name, a most kindly and
courageous man, noticed that a comrade near him had been shot through
the abdomen. He raised himself up from his recumbent position and began
to bandage the wounded man. "Lie down you ---- fool," said the friend;
"can't you see you are drawing the fire?" As he spoke a bullet passed
between Gilham's knees and struck the wounded man. Soon afterwards an
officer called out for a stretcher, so Gilham jumped up and put on his
best "hundred" pace in a slanting run towards the ambulance waggons.
Several other wounded men leapt up and joined him. One of them was
immediately shot through the shoulder, and the good sergeant again
stopped and bandaged him. The Boers had been watching him, and as he
recommenced his devious course they sent two bullets through a bush two
feet in front of him. These small bushes formed very inadequate cover,
and the enemy, taking for granted that men were lying concealed behind
them, fired repeatedly into the shrubs. In one case no less than eight
Highlanders were shot behind one bush.
I have made no attempt to give a detailed account of the day's
fighting. If I did I should naturally speak of the excellent work done
by the Guards on the right, where the Scandinavian contingent was almost
annihilated, and, later on in the day, by the Gordons, who left their
convoy work on the left and advanced gallantly towards the Boer
position. No praise can be too high for our artillery. It was their
excellent shooting that helped our men to rally after the first shock,
and which ultimately succeeded in driving the Boers from their first
line of trenches. These trenches were admirably constructed in long deep
parallel lines connected at the ends so that a force could advance or
withdraw from any point without being noticed by ourselves. Shell fire
could do little against troops so splendidly entrenched. The Boers, like
the Turks at Plevna, crept under their _épaulements_ while the shells
screamed overhead or swept the parapets with shrapnel bullets, and then,
when this tyranny was overpast, crept out and poured in one of the most
terrific fusilades of the century's warfare.
When we returned to Modder River with our carriages ready for a fresh
load we found all our troops and guns back again in camp. The trenches,
however, were manned, and every one on the alert. The armistice to bury
the dead expired on the 13th, and a Boer commando had been sighted to
the west. In a brief interval of leisure I took a short stroll, and I
noticed how much more plentiful tobacco was now than a month ago when a
Mauser rifle was offered for a sixpenny packet of cigarettes. One
soldier told me that he had actually paid three shillings for a single
cigarette.
We loaded up with 120 fresh cases and steamed off for Capetown. The
armoured train was moving fitfully about as we left, but the poor
thing's energies were rather cramped as the line disappeared about 300
yards north of the station.
Just before we crossed the river we saw the two war-balloons floating
above the camp, and our cook informed us with a great show of expert
knowledge that these balloons were absolutely proof against bullets or
even shells, "for," said he, "if anything hits them it rebounds from
them like my fist does from this 'ere pillow". A rather similar story
was told me by a wounded Highlander. He declared that a pal of his had
been struck in the stomach by a shell at the Modder River fight. "Oh,"
said I, "there wasn't much of your poor friend left, I suppose?" "He
wasn't much hurt," was the reply, "though he did spit blood for a few
hours." "Great Scot! what became of the shell?" "Oh," said my informant,
"I didn't notice, but it must have bounced off Bill's stomach." The
soldier quite believed that this marvellous incident had occurred. What
had happened was probably this: a shell had passed so close to the man
that the concussion of the air had "taken his wind" and ruptured some
small blood-vessels. I remember at the capture of Malaxa in Crete that
three insurgents were hurled to the ground by the air pressure of a
Turkish shell which passed within a yard or two of their heads.
Several of our cases on this downward journey were interesting. Corporal
Anderson of the Black Watch lay in our ward, struck deaf and dumb from
the bursting of a Boer shell, though he was otherwise uninjured by the
explosion. Wounds through the intestines were to be found here and
there. Such injuries in the larger intestines, if left to themselves and
not operated on, have--when inflicted by the humane Mauser bullet--a
fairly good chance, and that is all that can be said. One man had been
shot through the elbow as he lay at the "present". The bullet had
shattered the bone, but there was every prospect of the arm being saved.
How different would have been the probable effects, in such a case, of
the big Martini bullet!
One incident which seemed to amuse the men very much was this. During
the Modder River battle a bullet struck a corporal on the back; it
glanced superficially across his shoulder and then piercing his
canteen-tin remained inside. The corporal, imagining himself _in
extremis_, fell to the ground and called for the ambulance. Somebody ran
up to the prostrate man, and after a diligent but fruitless search for
the wound at length discovered the bullet in the canteen-tin. The
apparently moribund corporal, seeing this, instantly recovered, and
leaping briskly to his feet told them to countermand the
stretcher-bearers and pressed forward to the attack with renewed
vigour.
Just as we left De Aar a train full of Queensland Mounted Infantry was
entering the station _en route_ for the front. The occupants were in the
highest spirits and cheered loudly. "Ah!" said some of our poor fellows,
"we were like that when we went up!" The contrast between the two
trains--there, life and vigour: here, weakness and death--was very
striking.
So far from being "absent-minded" about their people at home, the
wounded soldiers were continually thinking about their sweethearts,
wives and families. Several soldiers in my ward, _e.g._, had lined their
helmets with ostrich feathers. "My eye," said they, "won't the missus
look fine in these!" One of the reservists asked me: "Do you think I
shall lose my thigh? You see, I want to do the best I can for my family,
and if I do lose my leg I shall be useless, as I work in the pits in
Fife." Another Scotchman, a shoemaker, was full of anxiety about the
future support of his wife and children. "If only my wound," he said
dejectedly, "had been below my knee instead of above it! Because
this"--pointing to the wounded spot--"is just the place I use for my
work."
Yes! to mix with the rank and file of an army as one of themselves is a
great privilege. One understands them in this way far better than
through the medium of books. Many little acts of unostentatious heroism
are casually spoken of--noble deeds done by humble soldiers who live
without a history and often perish without a memorial--as, for instance,
the devotion of a private at Modder River who applied digital pressure
to the severed artery of a comrade for hours under fire and so saved his
life. Again, the soldier's religion, where it exists, is often very
genuine indeed. Just after the Magersfontein reverse a wounded
Highlander entreated me to find his rosary for him which was hidden
under a pile of accoutrements. On another occasion we picked up on the
floor of the train a piece of paper which proved to be the will of a
poor private, a Roman Catholic, who left "all he possessed" to the
Church. I need not say that this will was forwarded to the proper
quarter. The wounded men too were frequently very grateful for any
little services one could render them, and made us odd little presents
by way of return. One H.L.I. man gave me the badges from his ruined
khaki jacket, and an Argyll and Sutherland Highlander bestowed upon me a
pair of goggles he had taken from the face of a dead Boer.
By the time we reached Richmond Road the usual influx of private
offerings for the wounded had, as usual, begun. We always left the front
with the ordinary comforts of an ambulance train; by the time we reached
Capetown we looked like a sort of cross between a green-grocer's stall
and a confectioner's shop. We simply didn't know what to do with the
masses of fruit and flowers, puddings and jellies, which the people
along the line forced upon us. These kindly folk--men, women and
children--thrust their various offerings through the windows; then they
peeped through themselves, and the women would say "poor dear" to some
six-foot guardsman, who smiled his thanks or told them how he got hit.
As I say, the train was, by the time we reached Wynberg, simply choked
with luxuries--some of them quite unsuitable for wounded men--a
veritable _embarras de richesses_. We used to begin the journey with
moderation and end it with a species of debauch! But it was most kind
and thoughtful of these colonists all the same.
By the time we reached Wynberg on 16th December it was quite dark. A row
of ambulance waggons stood ready beyond the platform, and in front of
them a line of St. John's Ambulance men, fresh from England, looking
very spruce and neat. The wounded were speedily conveyed to the waggons
and safely lodged in the hospital. On a former occasion one poor fellow
died at the moment he was being lifted out of the train. My comrades and
myself had had about six hours' sleep in three consecutive nights, and
after we had remade the beds and swept the train we slept soundly. Next
morning we were on duty till twelve, when we were allowed a few hours'
leave. A warm bath and a lunch at the Royal Hotel with a good bottle of
wine was very welcome, and we were all in excellent spirits when the
whistle sounded and we steamed away once more to the north with 600
miles before us.
We halted again at De Aar, where we remained till Christmas. The weather
grew hotter and hotter. The whirling dust, the stony plains, the glaring
heat, the evening coolness, the glowing sunsets, the bare rocky hills,
how it all recalled the Sudan! Train after train lumbered by with stores
and guns and ammunition for the front, the whole of this enormous
traffic being run on a single line of rails. Amongst the most
troublesome items to deal with were the mules. Sometimes a mule would
suddenly produce a violent uproar in a waggon by beginning to kick, his
hoof against every mule and every mule's hoof against him. Even if these
beasties were taken out of the waggon to be watered their behaviour was
unseemly. A soldier would with infinite patience marshal the mules in
line with himself, their halters all tied together. The march would then
begin, but within half a dozen yards the mules in the centre would press
forward till the whole thing looked like a Pyrrhic phalanx. The wearied
soldier would then smite the aggressive animals, and, after a few more
strides, the centre mules would hang back while the wings would close
in, and then, as confusion became worse confounded, some of the restless
brutes would commence to roll, and the group finally resembled a sort of
mulish "scrum" with the soldier on his back as football.
There were, of course, various camp services on Christmas Day: most of
my comrades on the train went to the little Episcopal Church in De Aar.
The Church of England community in this out-of-the-way village numbers
some fifty all told. Nevertheless these churchmen had contrived to build
a pretty little church and their services were very hearty. Officers,
men, and two Red Cross sisters formed the bulk of the congregation and
we listened to a delightful sermonette written and delivered in
excellent style by the good Vicar, an old Corpus man at Oxford. We sang
the old familiar hymns, "While shepherds watched" and "Hark, the Herald
Angels sing," which took our thoughts away to distant homes and
services in England, 7,000 miles away. At the close of the service came
that hymn of prayer, "O God of peace, give peace again;" and as we
walked back to the train a sergeant said to me: "If there is a God who
will listen to prayer, my prayer for peace went straight to Him". I
think he spoke for all of us. Most people who love war for war's sake
are not soldiers.
Our Christmas dinner was a most gorgeous affair. We were determined to
do everything in the best possible style, and everybody helped. We first
rigged up a trestle table beside the train and stretched a tarpaulin
above it to shelter us from the fierce heat. Three of our number were
then despatched to secure all the green stuff they could for decorative
purposes, and as the good people of De Aar were quite ready to give us
some of their scanty flowers and allow us to dismember their shrubs, our
envoys returned with armfuls of material. The outside of the train and
the surface of the table were gaily decorated, and two photographs of
her Majesty which we had cut out of magazines were framed in leaves and
flowers and bits of coloured paper, the very best we could do! We had
secured an order for some beer and a couple of bottles of whisky, and
when these adjuncts had been duly fetched from the canteen we sat down
to our Christmas dinner. Towards the end of it our kind and deservedly
popular C.O. Captain Fleming, R.A.M.C., paid us a visit, with a civilian
doctor and the two nurses. The Captain made us a little speech and
informed us that the Queen had sent her best Christmas wishes to the
troops. We then cheered her Majesty, and Captain Fleming and Dr. Waters
and the nurses, and our visitors left us to enjoy the rest of the
evening as we liked.
After various toasts--the Queen, our General, Absent Friends and so
on--several comrades from other corps dropped in and every one was
called upon for a song. It is curious to find the extraordinary
popularity amongst soldiers of lugubrious and doleful songs. The
majority of our songs at that Christmas dinner dealt with graves and the
flowers that grew upon them, on the death of soldiers and the grief of
parents. One song, I remember, was almost ludicrously sad. It told how
a young soldier on active service in the Sudan or some other distant
region hears, apparently by telepathic means, that his mother--the
conventional grey-haired mother--is in some distress. The soldier at
once, without any attempt to secure leave of absence, sets out for
"home" on foot. He is brought back, and, as the excuse about his mother
is very naturally discredited, the deserter is sentenced to be shot.
Just as his lifeless body falls back riddled with bullets the mother
arrives--how, it is not explained--so, as the refrain has it, "The
Pardon comes too late". There were also several pauses in the
conversation for "solos from the band," to wit, a flute and a fiddle.
After dismantling the marquee and dinnertable we started through the
darkness for Modder River. We had thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas fare,
and K----, a Scotchman, attempted with some success to perform a
sword-dance on two crossed sticks, and when we pulled up at some station
with a Dutch name his fervid patriotism broke loose in an attempt to
address the people on the platform, whom he apostrophised as "rebels"
and threatened with dire vengeance. Our cook was equal to the occasion.
He dragged K---- back and apologised to the aggrieved colonists,
explaining--by a pious fraud--that he was K----'s father and so
responsible for bringing him out that evening. Our gleemen now stepped
into the breach with "Ye Banks and Braes," and we left the station amid
cheers.
Another of my friends under the excitement of song and mirth frequently
clutched my arm and pointed to imaginary batches of Dutchmen standing
suspiciously near the line and presumably intent on wrecking the train.
These were usually prickly-pear bushes. When we approached Modder River
he exclaimed that we were now within range of the Boer guns, and
accordingly pulled up the windows as a sort of protection against shells
and bullets.
As we steamed into Modder River station the 4.7 gun called "Joe
Chamberlain" loosed off a Lyddite shell at the Magersfontein trenches.
Some desultory shelling continued on both sides at 7,000 yards, chiefly
in the early morning and evening--a kind of "good day" and "good night"
exchanged between "Joe Chamberlain" and "Long Tom,". During our stay on
this occasion some excellent practice was made on both sides. On the
26th a shell from our gun struck a Boer water-cask and smashed it to
bits; next day a Boer shell fell plump into a party of Lancers and
killed four horses. On another occasion more than fifty shells--so I
heard--fell round the 4.7 gun, and although the gunners were compelled
to seek cover the gun was absolutely uninjured.
Apart from this interchange of artillery fire the camp was undisturbed.
The trenches were of course manned day and night, but spare time was
filled up to some extent by various games. Goal posts were visible here
and there, and Lord Methuen had offered a challenge cup for "soccer"
football, the ties of which were being keenly contested.
We took on board a fresh load of sick and wounded men--chiefly the
former--bound for Wynberg hospital. Just before we left I walked a
hundred yards from the line and saw the graves of Colonel Downman,
Lieutenant Campbell, Lieutenant Fox, and a Swede called, I think, Olaf
Nilsen. The graves were marked by simple wooden crosses: those who were
enemies in life lay side by side in the gentle keeping of Death, the
Healer of Strife, for so the Greeks of old time loved to call him.
Soon after leaving the Modder the sky grew black with clouds, the birds
hid themselves from view and the veldt-cricket ceased from his
monotonous chirrup. Then all at once the storm burst upon us. The
lightning played incessantly and sheets of rain blotted out the kopjes
and the veldt from view. It was in weather like this that our poor
fellows advanced through the darkness upon the Magersfontein trenches!
At Orange River we halted for some time, and somebody suggested a snake
hunt in the scrub, but no one seemed very keen about this form of sport.
The "ringhals" in the veldt are very deadly. I remember speaking to a
Kaffir about them and asking him if he had known of any fatal bites. He
replied, pathetically enough: "Yes, sah, a brudder of me--two hours, he
was dead--mudder and sister and me was there".
Near Enslin a most unhappy accident had occurred. A sentry of the
Shropshire had seen two figures advancing in the evening towards his
post, had challenged, and, failing to get the prescribed reply, had
fired off seven bullets into the two supposed Boers, who turned out to
be a sergeant and private of his own regiment. By a miracle both these
wounded men ultimately recovered, but while we were at Enslin we heard
that the poor sentry was absolutely prostrated by grief and horror over
the unfortunate affair.
At a station lower down a lighter incident took place. A corporal from
our train, a Johannesburg man, in taking a short stroll came across
three Uitlander volunteer recruits. They did not for the moment
recognise their quondam acquaintance in his uniform, so he called
"Halt!" The recruits became rigid. "Medical inspection," cried the
corporal--"Tongues out!" Three tongues were instantly thrust out.
"Salute your general," was the next order. This was too much. In the
middle of a spasmodic attempt at a salute a dubious look began to
spread over the faces of the three victims, which broadened into
certainty as with a yell they leapt upon their oppressor and made him
stand them a drink.
At Richmond Road we came across a detachment of Cape Volunteers who were
practising the capture of kopjes in the neighbourhood of the line. In
condoling with one of them on the dreariness of the place, he remarked
that they occasionally shot a hare with a Lee-Metford bullet. This is
pretty good shooting if the hare is moving. I remember hearing a Boer
say with apparent _bona fides_ that he invariably shot birds on the wing
with Mauser bullets. Some of his birds must have looked ugly on the
table.
As we passed through the Karroo somebody remarked that a Cape newspaper
had suggested that our yeomen should ultimately settle in the country
and continue their pastoral life in the veldt-farms of South Africa.
Evidently the journalist who wrote this article imagines that our
gallant yeomen were all tillers of the soil. Even if they were, few
Englishmen will care to exchange the green fields and leafy copses of
England for the solitude of these dreary, sun-baked plains. Moreover,
where is the land to come from for any considerable number of such
settlers? Practically all the land which is worth cultivating in the
colonies of South Africa and the two Republics is already occupied. Even
if we confiscate the farms of those colonial rebels actually and legally
proved to be such, I doubt very much whether the land thus obtained
would provide for more than three or four hundred settlers. Enthusiasts
in England who write to the papers on this topic seem often to take for
granted that the farms of the burghers in the two Republics will at the
close of the war be presented to any reservist or yeoman who wishes to
settle in South Africa. But is there any precedent in modern times for
the confiscation of the private property of a conquered people? Are the
burghers who survive the struggle to be evicted from their farms and
left with their wives and children to starvation? This would be a bad
beginning towards that alleviation of race hatred after the war which
all good men of every political party earnestly desire. There is, it is
true, a certain amount of land owned by the State in the Transvaal, but
if we distribute this _gratis_ to a few hundred individuals we shall be
depriving ourselves of one of the few sources from which a war-indemnity
could accrue to the nation as a whole.
Nothing, of course, could be more desirable than the planting in South
Africa of a large body of honest, hard-working English settlers with
their wives and families. But there are many difficulties to be overcome
before the idyllic picture of the reservist surrounded by the orchards
and cornfields of his upland farm can be realised in actual fact. The
Dutch farmers of South Africa are as a rule very poor. They rise up
early and take late rest, and eat the bread of carefulness, but their
life is one of constant poverty. If we talk of "improvements" we must
remember that irrigation in such a country is sometimes difficult and
costly, and light railways demand considerable capital. Who is to
provide the money for these? I doubt very much if many Englishmen or
Australians or New Zealanders _who have seen South Africa_ will
exchange their present homes for the dreary and unproductive routine of
an African farm.
During the latter part of our run the kindly enthusiasm of the colonists
was as much in evidence as ever. Offerings of flowers and delicacies
were again showered upon the wounded. It was amusing to notice how
truculent some of the ladies were. One of them, as she put her welcome
basket through the window, remarked _à propos_ of Kruger, Steyn, etc.,
"Yes, bury them all, bury them all!"
After our sick men had been duly conveyed to the hospital we stayed in
Capetown till the close of the year. A plentiful supply of English
newspapers were lying about in the smoking-room of the hotel and it was
exceedingly painful to read of the violent criticisms passed upon our
Generals. If journalists in England wish to criticise the behaviour of
our Generals, let them do so over their own signature when the war is
over and these servants of the Government can defend themselves fairly.
During the progress of a campaign a General has practically no
opportunity of defending himself against newspaper attacks. Military
success amid the surroundings of a South African campaign is often so
difficult: criticism in Fleet Street is so easy! Very frequently the
same man who cheers wildly at Waterloo and labels the outgoing General's
luggage "To Pretoria" is the first to vituperate the same officer if
amid the vicissitudes of warfare some measure of defeat falls to his
lot. Military success does not depend entirely on the devotion or
capacity of a commander. How cruel were those of the paragraphs which we
read directed against our own General, Lord Methuen--the only British
commander who had, if we except Elandslaagte, won any successes up to
the present. Let the public wait before they so freely condemn a General
who drove back the enemy in three successive engagements. That
Magersfontein was a bad reverse is patent to everybody, but the causes
of that defeat are not nearly so apparent.[C] It is disgraceful that
English newspapers should, during the progress of a campaign, print
letters from soldiers at the front which asperse the character and
conduct of their commanding officers. Publicity of this sort strikes at
the root of military discipline and common fairness too, for the public
can scarcely expect a British General to reply in the public Press to
the letter of a private serving under him!
The bells of the Cathedral tolled mournfully as the old year died. Would
that its bitter memories could have perished with it! And then from
steeple and steamship, locomotive and factory, a babel of sound burst
forth as sirens and bells and whistles welcomed the birth of 1900. Yet,
as the shrill greetings died away, one heard the tramp of infantry
through the streets. The Capetown Highlanders--a volunteer
battalion--were under arms all that night, as a rising of the Dutch had
been anticipated on New Year's Day. May the new year see the end of this
cruel strife, and the sun of righteousness arise upon this unhappy land
with healing in his wings! As one sits in the dimly-lit wards while the
train tears through the darkness, and nothing breaks the silence save
the groan of a wounded man or the cries of some poor fellow racked with
rheumatic fever--at times like these one thinks of many things, past,
present and future. An ever-deepening gloom of military disaster seemed
to be spreading itself around us--Magersfontein, Stormberg and the
latest repulse on the Tugela, a veritable [Greek: trikumia kakôn]! Of
course, in the long run, we _shall_ and _must_ win. But what afterwards?
Will the vanquished Dutch submit and live in peace and amity with their
conquerors, or will they preserve the memory of their dead from
generation to generation, and cherish that unspeakable bitterness which
they at present feel for England and her people? Verily all these things
lie on the knees of the gods!