_NEARING THE GOAL—DISEMBARKATION AT CAPE TOWN AND
EAST LONDON_
Though something went wrong with the ‘Ujina’s’ engines, which had to be
stopped twice for repairs in the Bay of Bengal, she covered the
remaining fifteen hundred leagues or so in very good time, and, passing
Madagascar during the misty night of March 18, was within sight of the
South African coast by daybreak of the 24th, and at midday she anchored
off Durban, being unable to get nearer that port than the troubled
roadstead two miles from shore. Thus her time from the Hugli to Port
Natal was just three weeks, and those on board had the satisfaction of
hearing that the ‘Lindula,’ with A Company, must be still at sea, having
left Durban for Cape Town only three days before the ‘Ujina’s’ arrival.
The man who brought that good news had evidently acquired a Kaffir or
Oriental habit of saying the things that are pleasant whether true or
not. In sober fact, the ‘Lindula’ had gone a week earlier, and was by
that time landing her troops at Cape Town. As nobody was allowed to
land, Lumsden’s Horse did not get the exciting experience of being
lowered in a cage from the troopship’s gangway to a tug plunging and
tossing and wriggling among the ‘rollers’ twenty feet below. But they
had an opportunity of seeing how the thing was done when a Transport
officer came on board that way with an order for the troops under Major
Showers’s command to disembark at East London. This officer was
accompanied by three of the Natal Carbineers, who had been with Sir
Redvers Buller’s force to the relief of Ladysmith, and whose thrilling
tales of adventure were as welcome as a newly-discovered series of
Arabian Nights’ stories might have been to men who had heard no news for
twenty-one days. The general situation was not quite as those Carbineers
described it, but their account of Boer resistance in Natal did not by
any means convey the idea that war was nearly at an end, although rumour
magnified Lord Roberts’s successes to the extent of placing him within a
march or so of Kroonstadt at a time when his troops were still hung up
at Bloemfontein waiting for food and transport. As B Company had heard
of Cronjé’s surrender and the relief of Ladysmith before leaving
Calcutta, it would hardly have surprised them to learn that the Union
Jack was floating over Pretoria. To them the mere occupation of
Bloemfontein seemed a comparatively small matter, so they at once turned
and began to rend with keen sarcasm the croakers who had predicted that
B Company at least would be too late for anything. Too late! Why, their
orders were to disembark at East London, and did not that mean an
immediate start for the front? One sanguine trooper in the gladness of
his heart wrote, ‘We go on shore at 11.30 to-day, leaving for
Bloemfontein by train about the same hour to-night, and expect to arrive
in forty-eight hours. We shall probably train to Bethulie and march from
there to Bloemfontein, about 120 miles.’ His faith in the marching
powers of Lumsden’s Horse must have been great indeed if he thought they
could trek 120 miles across unknown veldt after travelling from East
London to Bethulie by rail, and all in the space of forty-eight hours.
There is something very fascinating about that picture of troopers so
eager to be at the taking of Kroonstadt (‘which, it would seem, will be
a big affair’) that they would perform superhuman feats to be there in
time. No admirer of Lumsden’s Horse would venture to suggest that a
march of forty leagues in less than two days was beyond the compass of
their powers, but the man must be brimful of hope who could believe that
there would be any time left for marching, or any inclination to march
left in the men, after a South African railway, working under war
pressure, had done with them. But in fact there was no such need for
haste. B Company was quite in time for the ‘big affair’ at Kroonstadt,
though it took more than twenty times forty-eight hours in the getting
there. Colonel Lumsden, going ahead with A Company to land in Cape Town,
had still more reason for entertaining sanguine views, though in his
case they were modified by a fuller knowledge of events. When in sight
of Table Mountain he added a postscript to his letter: ‘Off Cape. Just
got orders. May be in for Pretoria. Hope so.’ The two companies,
however, were not fortunate enough to come together under one command
until nearly a month later. Their fortunes as separated units must
therefore be dealt with in somewhat disjointed form still. How A Company
fared after casting anchor off Durban may be told in the words of a
special correspondent pf the ‘Englishman’ who had joined the corps for
active service:
As we came in sight of Durban everybody was expecting that some
official would dash on board directly he knew it was Lumsden’s Horse,
to order us off down the coast, and that in a minute we should be
steaming hard for our destination. But it happened otherwise. When
fairly close in we signalled to the Coastguard station what ship we
were and what she contained. Then a deep silence settled over things.
Lots of shipping lay at anchor there, and every ship except ours had a
steam launch calling upon it. But we, waiting with beating hearts, had
no one to pay us a visit until a great puffing, rolling,
important-looking tug bore alongside, churned up the blue water into
white foam, dropped a tiny boat, and in a jiffy a blue-suited,
gold-braided gentleman was on board and the tug had gone away over the
waters. So we thought that meant orders to bring us ashore. But, alas!
it was only a pilot come aboard to have a buck with the captain. Then,
while we waited and waited, our signalling class set to work, and an
energetic waving of arms and little flags elicited the reply from
neighbouring ships that Ladysmith had been relieved. They also
confirmed the news, which we had received at the Sandheads, of
Cronjé’s surrender. Close by lay H.M.S. ‘Terrible,’ from which a naval
contingent had been sent with her big guns to reinforce Sir Redvers
Buller on the Tugela, and our first sight of one of the consequences
of war was a launch full of wounded Bluejackets returning to their
ship after relieving Ladysmith. While we lay peacefully swinging at
anchor a great white ship flying the Stars and Stripes and Union Jack
steamed slowly out of the harbour, and swung off to the left. As she
passed a big transport the troops on board broke into ringing cheers,
and when she neared us those with glasses read her name. It was the
‘Maine’ full of wounded soldiers from Sir George White’s gallant
garrison. She went right round the harbour, visiting all the ships
with troops. Last of all she came to us, and as she passed by, and we
could see the white-aproned nurses and the bandaged figures with pale
faces we gave them three times three, and still cheered again for the
plucky ladies who had come all the way from America to care for our
wounded. The poor chaps aboard did their best to answer our cheers,
and then the ‘Maine’ steamed away down the coast on her way home to
England.
However, the long-delayed _hookum_[3] came at last, and a great shout
broke forth when it was announced that we were ordered to proceed to
Cape Town. We sat down to dinner at 7.30, and as we toasted Ould
Oireland because ’twas St. Patrick’s Day, the ‘Lindula’s’ anchor
heaved, and the screw that for twenty days had toiled without ceasing
began its unremitting task again. When morning broke we had steamed
well down the coast, passing the lights of East London in the night.
Ten miles away was the seashore, bare, and uninteresting, but still
the Africa that we had come some six thousand miles to argue about
with the redoubtable Boers. And now we had to reckon with a foe that
used no weapons nor fought with hands. This was Mother Ocean, who must
have been troubled in her mind, for her breast heaved and tossed, and
our good ship rolled until—well, better change the subject. The coast
slipped by, and on the forenoon of the 20th we sighted afar off the
flat top of Table Mountain. Steaming across the wide mouth of Simon’s
Bay we saw hundreds of sharks—brown brutes that scooted away, showing
a black fin, as the steamer ploughed her way through the waves. Then
rounding the Point we sailed into Table Bay, and dropped anchor with a
grand feeling of satisfaction that the voyage had ended. Journeying by
sea is pleasant enough when you do it first class by P. and O., but
when you go no class at all, and sleep on the deck, and get turned out
before 5, and spend a big part of the day clearing out horse stalls or
cooking your own food, and enduring lots of other discomforts, it’s no
catch at all; and it was with intense relief we took our place among
the lines of troopships in Cape Town harbour. And what a sight it was!
Ships! ships! ships! And everywhere more ships! And most of them
transports. From great 10,000-ton White Star Atlantic liners down to
little coasters like our own ‘Lindula.’ All around us were vessels
full of troops. Every hour or two a new one came in, or one weighed
her anchor and steamed slowly by into the dock to disembark her living
freight. Other ships were crammed from stem to stern with cattle,
sheep, horses, leaving barely enough room on deck to turn the wheel.
Vessels were packed like herrings in the harbour: so thick did they
lie in places you could hardly see the water for ships. There we
waited, and next morning the Health Officer came on board and gave us
_pratique_, which meant a clean bill of health and freedom to land.
Another day of waiting for the pilot. Then after a great rush and
scurry collecting kit we slowly slid into harbour. And, lo and behold!
it was Cape Town—Africa at last.
Disembarking is not a pleasant pastime, especially when 150 men have
had three weeks in a ship during which to lose and mix up their
belongings. But the order to clear out and make room for another ship
was given, and had to be obeyed in a hurry. So we said good-bye to the
‘Lindula.’ Poor thing, she had done her best for us, though in her we
lost four of our chargers and two transport ponies, a big proportion
of our total of 180 animals, but nothing like the number that died on
some other ships. A transport lying near us with Imperial Yeomanry
lost 39 out of 450 in a three weeks’ voyage—nearly all from pneumonia.
Our orders were to proceed to Maitland Camp, some four miles to the
north of Cape Town, and thither we marched, leading the horses, which
of course were hardly in a fit state to ride. However, the walk seemed
to do them good, and after a week in camp, with good feeding and
gentle exercise, they picked up condition rapidly.
The men have little that is good to say of Maitland Camp. It is a
place stale, flat, unprofitable, and altogether accursed. When we
arrived the wind blew a hurricane, and setting up the tents was a task
to try a Stoic. Once they were up the sand crept in at every crevice
and lay thickly on everything, especially butter and food of every
sort. Men went to sleep, or tried to, with the feeling that the bit of
the earth on which they lay must surely be swept into the next world
ere morning broke. But day dawned and we were still in Maitland Camp,
with the rain pouring in torrents and turning the sand and earth into
mud puddings, which clogged and wetted and dirtied every scrap that
belonged to us. However, the third day recompensed us, for the sun
shone hot and bright, and a gentle breeze wafted delicious scents from
the woods of eucalyptus and fir trees all around. Boys came to us with
delicious grapes, great bunches weighing one to two pounds apiece,
each grape being as large as a pigeon’s egg and as full of juice and
flavour as fruit can be.
Of Cape Town we saw very little, but liked that little much; only the
price of things is terrible, and it seems much more serious parting
with shillings than with rupees. Lumsden’s Horse had many eyes for the
beautiful, and while declining to play the part of Paris in deciding
on rival charms, they wax eloquent when their theme is the sex which,
as one gallant trooper says, has done much to make this world the
habitable place it is. In Cape Town the ladies are charming to look
at. They dress just as they do at home in summer, and their cheeks are
rosy, and they are altogether delightful to look upon. But still it
matters little whether the cheeks be pale or rosy, we are all ready to
back our ladies of India against any in the wide world for kindness
and every other feminine attribute.
Having inspected our transport, the Army Service Corps officers at
Cape Town approved of our carts, and reported favourably on them to
Lord Roberts; but at the same time stated that they considered a team
of two ponies inadequate to draw the load we had designed through
sandy tracts, and suggested two leaders to each cart, an increase of
200 lb. in the load, and a decrease in the number of carts. The Chief
of the Staff having approved of this suggestion, we handed over to the
military authorities twenty ponies (not our best) and ten carts, and
harness complete, receiving in exchange seventy-six mules, with
harness, and twelve Cape boys to assist as drivers, so that when B
Company arrives our united transport establishment will consist of
thirty-six carts and two water-carts, with two mules as wheelers and
two ponies as leaders to each cart, and there is little doubt that we
are as well provided with transport as any troops in the field—indeed,
much better than most. The Remount Department in Cape Town were very
good to us, and replaced not only our losses on the voyage, but a
number of horses which on landing appeared unfit for service, giving
us in all twenty-four chargers. The animals cast in Cape Town were old
and unlikely to get into condition for a long time, if ever they did
so. Our Calcutta purchases and horses brought by troopers themselves
are nearly all doing well. In place of those we had lost on the
voyage—six or seven altogether—Government gave us thirteen fine
Australian cobs, which were told off as remounts for the Ceylon
Contingent. But, the latter having been mounted in the meantime by the
military authorities and sent to the front, their horses were very
properly handed over to us. In Cape Town we found it necessary to make
several purchases to supplement equipment and replace losses. These
consisted of grass nets and picketing pegs for the horses, and
_vel-schoen_ and canvas water-bags for the men; besides stores
amounting in all to about 150_l._ worth.
Unfortunately, we have to leave four men in hospital. Sergeant Lee
Stewart, whose illness was mentioned in the last letter, is much
better, but greatly debilitated from the trying time he has had. He
has hopes of joining us later. Another bad case is that of K. Boileau,
from Behar, who was attacked with pneumonia and was very ill indeed at
one time. However, we have good reports of him, and hope to hear in a
few days that he is all right again. Shaw, of the Assam Contingent,
and Doyle, of the Transport, are also in hospital from trifling
ailments, and they ought soon to be able to join us. Many of the men
are suffering from cuts and sores on hands and feet, which do not seem
to heal up as fast as they ought. Hickley, who was pretty bad when the
last letter went, is now all right again, but Daubney has still to be
careful of his broken collar-bone. When we arrived at Cape Town we at
once heard we were to proceed to Bloemfontein, to join Lord Roberts,
as speedily as possible. But the movement of large bodies of troops
with supplies caused a block on the railway, and we were delayed eight
days. The wait, however, did the horses good, and they picked up hand
over fist at Maitland Camp.
All these details, when looked at in the long perspective where more
recent events show up sharply and perhaps a little out of focus, may
seem insignificant as objects seen through the wrong end of a telescope.
At the time of occurrence, however, they had an importance that
impressed itself on the minds of men to whom nearly every incident of
active service was then a novelty. And the historian’s duty in such a
case is rather to reproduce impressions than to preserve an exact
proportion. Moreover, some incidents that may appear trivial by
comparison with great episodes, or with decisive actions on which the
fate of an army hung, were potent in shaping the fortunes of Lumsden’s
Horse as one small unit of a mighty whole, and in this respect, if for
no other reason, they are worthy to be chronicled. It is the story of
Voltaire’s miller and the King of Prussia. What a division is to the
general in chief of an army corps a company is to the regimental
commander, and, for Lumsden’s Horse, the smallest adventures of their
own comrades had an interest which the civilian reader may perhaps begin
to share when he comes to know more of them.
At Cape Town Colonel Lumsden got the first news of B Company since
leaving Calcutta. They had been ordered to East London to disembark
there, and entrain at once for Bethulie, ‘right in the Orange Free
State,’ as Colonel Lumsden remarked, adding, ‘So they bade fair to get
there before us, despite our week’s start. But our latest news of them
is that they have stopped at Queen’s Town, and we know no more of them
except that they had a most successful voyage.’
A corporal of the Surma Valley Light Horse, however, supplies the
necessary information. He tells how he went with an ambulance fatigue
party, to which, among others, Dr. Woollright had been told off as an
orderly, in charge of Trooper Seymour Sladden, who was very bad and had
to be taken on shore at East London before the company knew its probable
destination. From a little jetty that juts out from the wooded banks of
the Buffalo River they drove in an ambulance with the sick man up those
steep winding roads past the luxuriant Queen’s Park, with its odorous
gum-tree groves, to the hill top. There they carried Sladden ‘into a
nice clean hospital and left him in charge of kindly nurses, where
everything looked very comfortable.’ Then, somehow, they managed to miss
their officer and made inquiries for him in vain at Deel’s Hotel, with
the result that when the corporal and his comrades reached the
landing-stage they found to their ‘extreme joy the crew gone and no way
of getting off to the ship, so returned to the hotel and had dinner.
Afterwards very sleepy and went straight to bed, and slept like a hog.
First time in bed for many weeks, and found it comfortable indeed.’
Other non-commissioned officers and troopers of B Company carry on the
narrative in notes that diverge frequently and wander off to alien
topics, so that for the sake of coherence they must be dovetailed
together here in proper order, each chronicler in turn taking up the
story. When those troopers who had not begun to realise the enormity of
breaking leave returned to their ship early in the morning of March 27,
they met with quite an ovation, which does not seem to have been
disinterested, seeing that they were supposed to have brought off with
them fruit, cigarettes, and other delicacies much in request. What they
had would not have gone far to satisfy the cravings of a whole company
for some change from bare rations. News that orders had come for
Lumsden’s Horse to disembark, however, put everybody in high spirits at
the prospect of being allowed to go on shore with freedom to forage for
himself. But they reckoned without their host—the military
commander—whose instructions brooked no delay. Kits had to be packed in
a hurry while the ‘Ujina’ was being towed on a flowing tide across the
troubled bar into port, where she moored alongside the railway wharf.
Horses were then got on shore, but only to exchange cramped stalls for
cattle-trucks, where they had still less room for movement. At this task
the troopers toiled and sweated all through the fiercest heat of a
summer noon, learning another lesson and not liking it much.
Unaccustomed to such work, many got their toes trodden on by horses
rushing down the steep gangway or narrowly escaped more serious injury
before every fretful animal could be coaxed or lifted into the crowded
trucks. Then there were saddles, kits, heavy baggage, and ammunition to
be landed, and so without leisure for a single meal the troopers worked
on far into the night. It was nearly 11 o’clock before the last section
took its place in the train. ‘Something attempted, something done, had
earned a night’s repose’; but there was little chance of getting that,
packed together as they were nine or ten in a carriage. Time must have
softened the impressions of these discomforts on the mind of one
trooper, who, some days later, wrote:
We left East London on March 28 by rail _en route_ for Bethulie, where
it was intended we should quit the railway, mount our horses, and trek
to Bloemfontein.
East London turned out in force to see us off. Little boys and girls
(some of the latter not so very little, after all) were very keen to
get hold of our shoulder badges as mementoes, and, needless to say,
the susceptible ones of our corps were unable to resist the entreaties
of the fair ones, and daylight showed a vacant place on many a
shoulder-strap. This badge-collecting seems to be a great hobby out
here just now; one boy showed me a belt simply covered with badges,
which he had secured from the men of the different regiments that had
passed through. We travelled in second- and third-class carriages, ten
men in each, but it being quite cool we were not uncomfortable.
Another correspondent, whose experiences were evidently not so pleasant,
takes a less roseate view. He says hard words about the South African
war method of standing men, some forty-five or so in a cattle-truck,
encumbered with heavy coats, rifles, and other baggage—a leaky roof, and
no sides.
This may be economical, as the Major said, but on a wet blustry night,
when buckets of rain, mixed with soot from the engine, are falling, it
is not a style of travelling that conduces to comfort. Then there is
still another African style—namely, ten men with rifles, &c., in a
third-class carriage meant to hold eight only. Both of these methods
we sampled on our way up to Bloemfontein. And right glad I was when we
had done with it, and took to the saddle. Some, however, confessed to
having slept very well that first night in such strange circumstances,
tired out as they were by hours of previous toil, though they woke
next morning very cold, with nothing to eat but one loaf, which ten
men divided between them.
They had eyes for the picturesque as well as for the agricultural
possibilities of a country where Nature does much and man apparently
very little, except to stroll about watching the cattle graze and the
crops grow, unless he happens to be a Kaffir, which makes all the
difference. Chiefly, however, Lumsden’s Horse must have been struck by
the barren, rocky kopjes that seemed to spring suddenly in the midst of
fertility and rise range behind range, stretching away to the mountains,
which looked so near that it was impossible for imagination to measure
the breadth of intervening plains. As one of them wrote, acquaintance
with this country for the first time ‘made us realise the fearful odds
that Buller had to tackle’; and no doubt many other troopers went on
fighting fanciful battles against a wily enemy who, driven from one
position, would gallop off to occupy another kopje still more
formidable, and so prolong that imaginary fight, while the train, like a
British column, wound its slow way through tortuous defiles. Lumsden’s
Horse, however, had eyes for other things also, as a candid chronicler
admits in his simple narrative, which may now be allowed to run its
uninterrupted course:
At several stations on our way there was the usual crowd of ‘loyal’
ladies of mature age, and the still larger crowd of schoolgirls. The
people seemed very glad to see us. There was a lot of cheering and
waving of handkerchiefs and pleasant greetings at every station. They
gave us cigarettes and cheroots, and some men were seen to be sporting
bows of red, white, and blue when we left—little attentions from some
fair hands in return perhaps for Lumsden’s badges, of which many
shoulder-straps were by that time bereft.
Early next morning saw us at Cathcart, where we stopped about two
hours, and took the opportunity to water and feed our horses. There is
a nice little inn here, and we went down in a body and indulged in
delicious bread, butter, and milk. Oh, such a contrast to the same
articles of diet in India! The weather at this time of the year is
nearly perfect, the air being fine, dry, and invigorating; to the eye
wearied by the flatness of the plains of India the undulating country,
small hills and green valleys between, is very refreshing; but what
strikes one, more especially in the Free State, which we marched
through later, is the desolateness of the country, miles and miles of
veldt dotted here and there with small houses. Cattle-farming seems to
be the principal thing they go in for here, but the farmers say that,
what with rinderpest and drought, it is very disheartening work. The
cattle are very fine, and strike us especially coming from India,
where one sees such miserable specimens. About midday we arrived at
Queen’s Town, and were very much disgusted to hear that Lord Roberts
had wired down that we were to detrain and go into camp, as he needed
all the horse-waggons and cattle-trucks for carrying remounts (several
thousands of which were collected at Queen’s Town) to troops at the
front. The camp is situated about two miles from the railway station,
but they have run a siding into it, so that the carriages containing
ourselves and our horses were simply detached from the rest of the
train and we were run into the camp. We did not take long in
detraining and picketing our horses; the poor brutes were simply
delighted to get on firm ground again, and when let loose indulged in
all sorts of antics—rolling on the grass, kicking up their heels, and
larking like colts, to show appreciation of their freedom. As our
tents had not arrived yet, we were obliged to sleep out in the open;
but, knowing this would be a matter of course sooner or later, we made
no bones about it. Unfortunately it came on to rain at night, and this
made things generally uncomfortable. The mufflers so kindly knitted
for us by the ladies of Calcutta proved simply invaluable; with these,
Balaclava caps, and greatcoats on, we made ourselves perfectly
comfortable. There were about twelve men of the Army Service Corps
stationed here, and, with the proverbial hospitality of Tommy Atkins,
they very kindly supplied us with hot cocoa and coffee, and offered to
put up as many as possible of us in their tents. We found several of
the Queensland Mounted Volunteers encamped here, also a part of the
Militia Battalion of the Cheshires awaiting marching orders like
ourselves. Next day our tents arrived, and we were soon quite settled
down, ten men in a tent—a bit of a squash, but all right when one gets
accustomed to it.
There they may be left for a time chuckling over the good story of a
Militia regiment whose officers complained to Major Showers that they
could not stand the language of which Lumsden’s Horse made such free and
frequent use at ‘stables’ and other daily duties. Of course that
language was only the mildest of mild Hindustani put into terms of
endearment with certain genealogical references that sounded mysterious
to the uninitiated.
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Footnote 3:
Hindustani for ‘order.’
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