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[Illustration: H.W. NEVINSON]
LADYSMITH
THE DIARY OF A SIEGE
BY
H.W. NEVINSON
AUTHOR OF "THE THIRTY DAYS' WAR"
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
1900
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ON THE EDGE 1
II. AT THE BRITISH FRONT 9
III. THE FIRST WEEK'S WAR 20
IV. BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE 30
V. BATTLE OF TINTA INYONI 41
VI. THE REVERSE AT NICHOLSON'S NEK 51
VII. HEMMED IN 61
VIII. TRAGEDY AND COMEDY 72
IX. INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, AND REALITIES 83
X. ENNUI ENLIVENED BY SUDDEN DEATH 100
XI. FLASHES FROM BULLER 129
XII. THE NIGHT SURPRISE ON GUN HILL 138
XIII. THE CAPTURE OF SURPRISE HILL 156
XIV. THE SEASON OF PEACE AND GOODWILL 176
XV. SICKNESS, DEATH, AND A NEW YEAR 194
XVI. THE GREAT ATTACK 211
XVII. A PAUSE AND A RENEWAL 231
XVIII. "WITHIN MEASURABLE DISTANCE" 250
XIX. HOPE DEFERRED 265
XX. SUN AND FEVER 279
XXI. RELIEVED AT LAST 291
APPENDIX 299
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
PORTRAIT OF THE AUTHOR _Frontispiece_
MAP OF LADYSMITH AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 12
GENERAL SIR GEORGE STEWART WHITE, V.C., G.C.I.E., G.C.B., G.C.S.I. 18
PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF ELANDS LAAGTE 32
LOMBARD'S KOP 56
IMPERIAL LIGHT HORSE SHELTERS 77
THE DRIFT AND WATERING-PLACE 80
BULWAN 105
HOSPITAL IN TOWN HALL AFTER A SHELL 127
BREECH BLOCK FROM GUN HILL 148
A PICTURESQUE RUIN 183
HEADQUARTERS AFTER A 96LB. SHELL 186
EFFECT OF 96LB. SHELL ON A PRIVATE HOUSE 201
SPECIMEN OF BOER SHELLS 252
INDIAN BAKERY 268
GENERAL RT. HON. SIR R.H. BULLER, V.C., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.B.
(_photograph by KNIGHT, Aldershot_) 291
SKETCH PLAN OF COUNTRY SOUTH AND WEST OF LADYSMITH 306
NOTE
This book has been reprinted, by kind permission of the Proprietors of
the _Daily Chronicle_, from the full text of the Letters sent to the
paper.
LADYSMITH
THE DIARY OF A SIEGE
CHAPTER I
ON THE EDGE
NEWCASTLE, NATAL, _Thursday, October 5, 1899_.
Late last Sunday night I found myself slowly crawling towards the front
from Pretoria in a commandeered train crammed full of armed Boers and
their horses. I had rushed from the Cape to quiet little Bloemfontein,
the centre of one of the best administered States in the world, where
the heads of the nation in the intervals of discussing war proudly
showed me their pianos, their little gardens, little libraries of
English books, little museums of African beasts and Greek coins, and all
their other evidences of advancing culture. Then on to Pretoria, the
same kind of a town on a larger and richer scale--trim bungalow houses,
for the most part, spread out among gardens full of roses, honeysuckle,
and syringa. But at the station all day and night the scene was not
idyllic. Every hour train after train moved away--stores and firewood in
front, horses next, and luggage vans for the men behind. The partings
from lovers and wives and children must be imagined. They are bad enough
to witness when our own soldiers go to the front. But these men are not
soldiers at all. Each of them came direct from his home in the town or
on some isolated farm. They rode up, dressed just in their ordinary
clothes, but for the slung Mauser and the full cartridge belt over the
shoulder or round the waist. Except for a few gunners, there is no
uniform in the Boer Army. Even the officers can hardly be distinguished
from ordinary farmers. The only thing that could be called uniform is
the broad-brimmed soft hat of grey or brown. But all Boers wear it. It
is generally very stained and dirty, and invariably a rusty crape band
is wound about the crown. For the Boer, like the English poorer classes,
has large quantities of relations, and one of them is always dying.
By the courtesy of the Pretorian Government I had secured room in the
guard's van for myself and a companion, who was equally anxious to
cross the Natal frontier before the firing began, and that was expected
at any moment. In the van with us were a score of farmers from
Middleburg way, their contingent occupying four trains with about 800
men and horses. For the most part they were fine tall men with shaggy
light beards, reminding one of Yorkshire farmers, but rougher and not so
well dressed. Most of them could speak some English, and many had Scotch
or English relatives. They lay on the floor or sat on the edge of the
van, talking quietly and smoking enormous pipes. All deeply regretted
the war, regretted the farm left behind just when spring and rain are
coming, and they were full of foreboding for the women and children left
at the mercy of Kaffirs. There was no excitement or shouting or bravado
of any kind. So we travelled into the night, the monotony only broken by
one violent collision which shook us all flat on the floor, while arms
and stores fell crashing upon us. In the silent pause which followed,
whilst we wondered if we were dead, I could hear the Kaffirs chattering
in their mud huts close by, and in the distance a cornet was playing
"Home, Sweet Home," with variations.
It must have been the next evening, as we were waiting three or four
hours, as usual, for the line to clear, that General Joubert came up in
a special train. A few young men and boys in ordinary clothes formed his
"staff." The General himself wore the usual brown slouch hat with crape
band, and a blue frock coat, not luxuriously new. His beard was quite
white, but his long straight hair was still more black than grey. The
brown sallow face was deeply wrinkled and marked, but the dark brown
eyes were still bright, and looked out upon the world with a kind of
simplicity mingled with shrewdness, or perhaps some subtler quality. He
spoke English with a piquant lack of grammar and misuse of words. When I
travelled with him next day, almost the first thing he said to me was,
"The heart of my soul is bloody with sorrow." His moderating influence
on the Kruger Government is well known, and he described to me how he
had done his utmost for peace. But he also described how bit by bit
England had pushed the Boers out of their inheritance, and taken
advantage of them in every conference and native war. He was
particularly hurt that the Queen had taken no notice of the long letter
or pamphlet he wrote to her on the situation. And, by the way, I often
observed what regard most Boers appear to feel for the Queen personally.
They constantly couple her name with Gladstone's when they wish to say
anything nice about English politics. As to the General's views on the
crisis, there would be little new to say. Till the present war his hope
had been for a South African Confederacy under English protection--the
Cape, Natal, Free State, and Transvaal all having equal rights and local
self-government. He knows well enough the inner causes of the present
evils. "But now," he said, "we can only leave it to God. If it is His
will that the Transvaal perish, we can only do our best."
At Zandspruit, the scene of the old Sand River Convention, the whole
Boer camp crowded to the station to greet the national hero, and he was
at once surrounded by a herd of farmers, shaking his hands and patting
him warmly on the back. It was a respectful but democratic greeting. The
Boer Army--if for a moment we may give that name to an unorganised
collection of volunteers--is entirely democratic. The men are nominally
under field cornets, commanders, and the General. But they openly boast
that on the field the authority and direction of officers do not count
for much, and they go pretty much as they please. The camp, though not
in the least disorderly, was confused and irregular--stores, firewood,
horses, cattle, and tents strewn about the enormous veldt, almost
haphazard, though the districts were kept fairly well separate.
Provisions were plenty, but the cooking was bad. It took three days to
get bread made, and some detachments had to eat their meat raw. I think
there were not more than 10,000 or less than 7,000 men in the camp at
that time, but the commandeered trains crawled up every two or three
hours with their new loads.
By a piece of good fortune we succeeded in crossing the frontier in an
open coal-truck. The border-line runs about six miles north of Majuba
and Laing's Nek, the last Boer village being Volksrust, and Charlestown
the first English. The scenery changes rapidly; the high, bare veldt of
the Southern Transvaal is at once left behind, and we enter the broad
valley of Natal, sloping steadily down to the sea and becoming richer
and more tropical as it descends. All regular traffic had stopped three
days before, but now and then a refugee train came up to the frontier
and transhipped its miserable crowd. Fugitives of every nation have been
hurrying to the railway in hopes of escape. The stations far down into
Natal are constantly surrounded with patient groups, waiting, waiting
for an empty truck. Hindoos from Bombay and Madras with their golden
nose-rings and brilliant silks sit day and night waiting side by side
with coal-black Kaffirs in their blankets, or "blue-blooded" Zulus who
refuse to hide much of their deep chocolate skin, showing a kind of
purple bloom like a plum. The patient indifference with which these
savages will sit unmoved through any fortune and let time run over them,
is almost like the solemn calm of nature's own laws. The whites are
restless and probably suffer more. Many were in extreme misery. Three or
four young children died on the journey. One poor woman became a mother
in the train just after the frontier, and died, leaving the baby alive.
At the border I found many English and Scotch families, who had driven
across the veldt from Ermelo, surrendering all their possessions. All
spoke of the good treatment the Boers had shown them on the journey,
even when the waggon had outspanned for the night close to the Boer
camp. I came down to Newcastle with a Caithness stonemason and his
family. They had lost house, home, and livelihood. They had even
abandoned their horses and waggon on the veldt. The woman regretted her
piano, but what really touched her most was that she had to wash her
baby in cold water at the lavatory basin, and he had always been
accustomed to warm. So we stand on the perilous edge and suffer
variously.