THE SEASON OF PEACE AND GOODWILL
_Sunday, December 17, 1899._
We are sick of the siege. Enteric and dysentery are steadily increasing.
Food for men and horses is short and nasty. Ammunition must be used with
care. The longing for the English mail has almost become a disease. Only
two days more, we thought, or perhaps we could just stick it out for
another week. Now we are thrown back into vague uncertainty, and seem no
nearer to the end.
All the correspondents were summoned at noon to the Intelligence Office.
That the Intelligence should tell us anything at all was so
unprecedented that we felt the occasion was solemn. Major Altham then
read out the General Order, briefly stating that General Buller had
failed in "his first attack at Colenso," and we could not be relieved
as soon as was expected. All details were refused. We naturally presume
the situation is worse than represented. Each of us was allowed to send
a brief heliogram, balloting for turn. Then we came away. We were told
it was our duty to keep the town cheerful.
The suffering among the poor who had no stores of their own to fall back
upon is getting serious. Bread and meat are supplied in rations at a
fair and steady price. Colonel Ward and Colonel Stoneman have seen to
that, and as far as possible they check the rapacity of the Colonial
contractor. But hundreds have no money left at all. They receive
Government rations on a mere promise to pay. Outside rations, prices are
running up to absurdity. Chickens and most nice things are not to be
obtained. But in the market last week eggs were half a guinea a dozen,
potatoes 1s. 6d. a pound, carrots 5s., candles 1s. each, a tin of milk
6s., cigarettes 5s. a dozen. Nothing can be bought to drink, except
lemonade and soda-water, made with enteric germs. The Irishman drinks
the rinsings of his old whisky bottles. One man gave £5 yesterday for a
bottle of whisky, but then he was a contractor, and our necessity is his
opportunity. Of our necessity the Colonial storekeepers and dealers of
all kinds are making their utmost. Having spent their lives hitherto in
"besting" every one on a small scale, they are now besting the British
nation on the large. Happily their profit is not so easily made now as
in the old days of the Zulu war, when a waggon-load of food would be
sold three times over on the way to the front and never reached the
troops at all in the end. A few days ago one contractor thought the Army
would have to raise its price for mealies (maize) to 30s. a sack. He at
once bought up all the mealies in the town at 28s., only to discover
that the army price was 25s. So, under the beneficent influence of
martial law he was compelled to sell at that price, and made a fine
loss. The troops received this morning's heavy news with cheerful
stoicism; not a single complaint, only tender regrets about the whisky
and Christmas pudding we shall have to do without.
_December 18, 1899._
How is one to treat an indeterminate situation? The siege is already too
long for modern literature. It was all very well when we thought it must
end by Christmas at the furthest. But since last Sunday we are thrown
back into the infinite, and can fix no limit on which hope can build
even a rainbow. So now the only way to make this account of our queer
position readable will be to dwell entirely in the glaring events of
adventure or bloodshed, and let the flat days slide, though the sadness
and absurdity of any one of them would fill a paper.
We have had such luck in escaping shells that we grow careless. The
Bulwan gun began his random fire, as usual, before breakfast. He threw
about fifteen shells, but most of us are quite indifferent to the 96lb.
explosive thunder-bolts dropping around us. Indeed, fourteen of them did
little harm. But just one happened to drop in the Natal Carbineer lines
while the horses were being groomed. Two men were killed outright and
three mortally wounded. A sapper was killed 200 yards away. Three others
were wounded. Eleven horses were either killed or hopelessly disabled.
All from one chance shell, while fourteen hit nobody! One man had both
legs cut clean off, and for a time continued conscious and happy. Five
separate human legs lay on the ground, not to speak of horses' legs. The
shell burst on striking a horse, they say (it was shrapnel), and threw
forwards. While the Carbineers were carrying away one of their dead
another shell burst close by. They rightly dropped the body and lay
flat. The only fragment which struck at all almost cut the dead man in
half. Another shell later in the day killed a Kaffir woman and her
husband in a back garden off the main street. Several women have died
from premature childbirth owing to shock.
Most of my day was again spent in trying to get a Kaffir runner for a
telegram, but none would go. My last two had failed. All are getting
frightened. In the evening I rode out to Waggon Hill and found "Lady
Anne" and the 12lb. naval gun had gone back to their old homes. They are
not wanted to keep open the approach for Buller now, and perhaps Captain
Lambton was afraid the position might be rushed.
_December 19, 1899._
Another black day. Details of Buller's defeat at Colenso began to leak
out and discouraged us all. It would be much better if the truth about
any disaster, no matter how serious, were officially published. Now
every one is uncertain and apprehensive. We waste hours in questions and
speculations. To-day there was something like despair throughout the
camp. The Boers are putting up new guns on Gun Hill in place of those we
destroyed. Through a telescope at the Heliograph Station I watched the
men working hard at the sangar. Two on the face of the hill were
evidently making a wire entanglement. On Pepworth Hill the sappers think
they are putting up one of the 8.7 in. guns, four of which the Boers are
known to have ordered, though it is not certain whether they received
them. They throw a 287lb. shell. We are all beginning to feel the pinch
of hunger. Bit by bit every little luxury we had stored up has
disappeared. Nothing to eat or drink is now left in any of the shops;
only a little twist tobacco.
What is even worse, the naval guns have too little ammunition to answer
the enemy's fire; so that the Boers can shell us at ease and draw in
nearer when they like. The sickness increases terribly. Major Donegan
sent out thirty-six cases of enteric to Intombi Camp from the divisional
troops' hospital alone. Probably over fifty went in all. Everything now
depends on Buller's winning a great victory. It seems incredible that
two British armies should be within twenty miles of each other and
powerless to move.
I cannot induce a Kaffir runner to start now. Even the Intelligence
Officer cannot do it. The heliograph has failed me, too. Sunday's
message has not gone, and this afternoon was clouded with storms and
rain. The temperature fell 30°. Yesterday it was 102°; the day before
106° in the shade.
_December 20, 1899._
From dawn till about seven the mutter of distant guns was heard near
Colenso. But no news came through, for the sky was clouded nearly all
day long. The new 4.7 in. howitzer which the Boers have put up on
Surprise Hill opened fire in the morning, and will be as dangerous as
its predecessor which we blew up. From every point of the compass it
shelled hard nearly all day. I connect this feverish activity with the
apparition of a chaise and four seen driving round the Boer outposts,
and to-day quite visible on the Bulwan. Four outriders accompany it, and
queer little flags are set up where it halts. Can the black-coated old
gentleman inside be Oom Paul himself? It is significant that the big gun
of Bulwan did some extraordinary shooting during the day. It threw one
shell right into the old camp; another sheer over the Irish at Range
Post; both were aimed at nothing but simply displayed the gun's full
range; another pointed out the position of the Naval battery, and whilst
I was at lunch in the town, another whizzed past and carried away one
side of the Town Hall turret. I envy the gunner's feelings, though for
the moment I thought he had killed my horse at the door. The Town Hall
is now really picturesque, just the sort of ruin visitors will expect to
see after a bombardment. With a little tittifying it will be worth
thousands to the Colonials.
[Illustration: A PICTURESQUE RUIN.]
The day was cool and cloudy; fair shelling weather, but bad for
heliographs. So my Christmas message is still delayed. A certain
lieutenant (whom I know, but may not name) went out under flag of truce
with a letter to the Boer General, and was admitted even into Schalk
Burger's tent. The Boer gave him some details of Buller's disaster last
Friday, and of the loss of the ten guns, which they said came up within
heavy rifle fire and were disabled. They especially praised one officer
who refused to surrender, fired all his revolver' cartridges, drew his
sword, and would have fallen had not the Boers attacked him only with
the butt, determined to spare the life of so brave a man. I give the
story: its truth will be known by this time.
Sickness continues. There are 900 cases of enteric in Intombi. A sister
from the camp came and besought Colonel Stoneman with tears to stop the
shameful robbery of the sick which goes on in the camp. The blame, of
course, does not lie with him or the authorities here. The supplies are
sent out regularly day by day. It is in the careless or corrupt
distribution that the sick are robbed and murdered by a mob of cowardly
Colonials of the rougher class, who had not enough courage to stay in
the town, and now turn their native talent for swindling to the plunder
of brave men who are suffering on their behalf.
A deputation of mayor and town councillors waited on Colonel Ward
to-day. The petitioners humbly prayed that the bathing parties of
soldiers below the town on Sundays might be stopped, because they
shocked the feelings of the women. For a mixture of hypocrisy and
heartlessness I take that deputation to be unequalled. The soldiers are
exposed all the week long, day and night, to sun and cold and dirt, on
rocks and hill-tops where it is impossible even to dip their hands in
water. On Sunday the Boers seldom fire. The men are marched down in
companies under the officers to bathe, and to any decent man or woman
the sight of their pleasure is one of the few joys of the campaign. But
those who think nothing of charging a soldier 6d. for a penny bottle of
soda-water, or 2s. for twopenn'orth of cake, tremble for the feelings of
their wives and daughters. Why do the women go to look? as Colonel Ward
asked, in his indignant refusal even to listen to the petition. Sunday
is the one day when they can stay at home with safety, and leave their
husbands to skulk in the river holes if they please.
_December 21, 1899._
"Puffing Billy," of Bulwan, distinguished himself this morning by
sending one shot into Colonel Ward's house and the next into the
general's just beyond. In Colonel Ward's was a live Christmas turkey,
over which a sentry is posted day and night. At first the rumour spread
that the bird was mortally wounded; its thigh fractured, its liver
penetrated. But about midday public alarm was allayed by the news that
the invaluable creature could be seen strutting about and stiffening its
feathers as usual. It had not even suffered from shock. The second shot
went through Sir Henry Rawlinson's office, which he had just left, and
shattered the Headquarters' larder, depriving the Staff of butter for
the rest of the siege. It has made a model ruin for future sightseers.
Unhappily the general was ill in bed with slight fever, and had to be
carried to another house up the hill in a dhoolie. This may have
encouraged the Boers to think they had killed him.
It was again a bad day for the heliograph, and the Boers have purposely
kindled a veldt fire across the line of light. But I think I got through
my thirty words of Christmas greeting to the _Chronicle_. I tried in
vain all day for a Kaffir runner, but in the late afternoon I rode away
over the plain, past the racecourse, and through the thorns at the foot
of Cæsar's Camp, till I almost came in touch with the enemy's piquets at
Intombi. I saw a flock of long-billed waders, like small whimbrel, a
great variety of beautiful little doves, and many of that queer bird the
natives call Sakonboota, whose tail grows so long in the breeding season
that his little wings can hardly lift it above the ground, and he
flutters about in the breeze like a badly made kite. Riding back at
sunset over the flat I felt like Montaigne when he desired to wear away
his life in the saddle. The difference is that in the end I may have
to eat my own horse. The shells from four guns kept singing their
evening hymn above my head as I cantered along.
[Illustration: HEADQUARTERS AFTER A 96LB. SHELL]
_December 22, 1899._
The morning opened with one of those horrible disasters which more than
balance our general good luck. The Bulwan gun began his morning shell
rather later than usual. His almost invariable programme is to fire five
or six shots at the bakery or soda-water shed beside my cottage; then to
give a few to the centre of the town, and to finish off with half a
dozen at the Light Horse and Gordons down by the Iron Bridge. Having
earned his breakfast, he usually stops then, and cools down a bit. The
performance is so regular that when he has finished with our end of the
town the men cease to take precautions even at the sound of the whistle
or bugle which gives notice of danger whenever the special sentry sees
the gun flash.
But this morning the routine was changed. Having waked me up as usual
with the crash of shells close by on my left, the gun was turned down
town, smashed into a camp or two without damage, and then suddenly
whipped round on his pivot and sent a shell straight into the
Gloucester lines, about 300 yards away to my right. It pitched just on
the top of a traverse at the foot of the low hill now held by the
Devons. The men were quite off their guard, busy with breakfast and
sharing out the kettles. In an instant five lay dead and twelve were
wounded. The shell burst so close that three of the dead were horribly
scorched. One got covered by a tarpaulin, and was not found at first.
His body was split open, one leg was off, his head was burnt and smashed
to pulp. The cries of the wounded told me at once what had happened.
Summoned by telephone, the dhoolies came quickly up and bore them away,
together with the remains of the dead. Three of the wounded died before
the night. Eight dead and nine wounded--it is worse than the disaster to
the King's (Liverpools) almost exactly on the same spot a few weeks ago.
In the middle of the morning much the same thing nearly happened to the
5th Lancers. The 6 in. gun on Telegraph Hill, usually more noisy than
harmful, was banging away at the Old Camp and the Naval battery on Cove
Hill, when one of the shells ricocheted off the hill-top, and plunged
into the Lancers' camp at the foot. Four officers were hit, including
the colonel, who had a bit of finger blown off, and a segment through
both legs. A sergeant lost an eye. One officer ducked his head and got a
fragment straight through his helmet. The shell was a chance shot, but
that made it no better. The men are sick of being shot at like rabbits,
and sicker still of running into rabbit holes for shelter. The worst of
all is that we can no longer reply for fear of wasting ammunition.
There was no sound of Buller's guns all day. I induced another Kaffir to
make the attempt of running the Boer lines. Mr. McCormick, a Colonial
correspondent, also started. I should go myself, but have no wish to be
shut up in Pretoria for the rest of the campaign, cut off from all
letters, and more useless even than I am here. So I spent the afternoon
with others, building a sand-bag fort round the tent where Mr. Steevens
is to be nursed, beside the river bank. The five o'clock shells came
pretty close, pitching into the Light Horse camp and the main watering
ford. But the tent itself is fairly safe. The feeding of the horses is
our greatest immediate difficulty. Every bit of edible green is being
seized and turned to account. I find vine-leaves a fair substitute for
grass, but my horses are terribly hungry all the same.
_December 23, 1899._
The bombardment was violent at intervals, and some hundreds of shells
must have been thrown at us. But there was no method or concentration in
the business.
Buller's guns were heard for about two hours in the morning, and wild
rumours filled the air. Roberts and Kitchener were coming out. Buller
was across the Tugela. Within the week our relief was certain. At night
the 18th Hussars gave another concert among the rocks by the riverside.
In the midst of a comic song on the inner meaning of Love came a sound
as of distant guns. The inner meaning of Love was instantly forgotten.
All held their breaths to listen. But it was only some horses coming
down to water, and we turned to Love again, while the waning moon rose
late beside Lombard's Kop, red and shapeless as a potsherd.
_December 24, 1899._
Nothing disturbed the peace of Christmas Eve except three small shells
thrown into the town about five o'clock tea-time, for no apparent
reason. The main subject of interest was the chance of getting any
Christmas dinner. Yesterday twenty-eight potatoes were sold in the
market for 30s. A goose fetched anything up to £3, a turkey anything up
to £5. But the real problem is water. The river is now a thick stream of
brown mud, so thick that it cannot be filtered unless the mud is first
precipitated. We used to do it with alum, but no alum is left now. Even
soda-water is almost solid.
_December 25, 1899._
The Boer guns gave us an early Christmas carol, and at intervals all day
they joined in the religious and social festivities. Our north end of
the town suffered most, and we beguiled the peaceful hours in digging
out the shells that had nearly killed us. They have a marketable value.
One perfect specimen of a 96lb. shell from Bulwan fell into a soft
flower bed and did not burst or receive a scratch. I suppose it cost the
Boers about £35, and it would still fetch £10 as a secondhand article. A
brother to it pitched into a boarding house close by us, and blew the
whole gable end sky high. Unhappily two of the inmates were wounded, and
a horse killed.
But such little contretemps as shells did not in the least interfere
with the Christmas revels. About 250 children are still left in the town
or river caves (where one or two have recently been born), and it was
determined they should not be deprived of their Christmas tree. The
scheme was started and organised by Colonel Rhodes and Major "Karri"
Davis, of the Imperial Light Horse. Four enormous trees were erected in
the auction rooms and decked with traditional magnificence and toys
ransacked from every shop. At half-past eight p.m. fairyland opened. A
gigantic Father Christmas stalked about with branches of pine and snowy
cap (the temperature at noon was 103deg. in the shade). Each child had a
ticket for its present, and joy was distributed with military precision.
When the children had gone to their dreams the room was cleared for a
dance, and round whirled the khaki youths with white-bloused maidens in
their arms. It was not exactly the Waterloo Ball with sound of revelry
by night, but I think it will have more effect on the future of the
race.
Other festivities, remote from the unaccustomed feminine charm, were a
series of mule races, near the old camp, for soldiers and laughing
Kaffir boys. The men's dinner itself was enough to mark the day. It is
true everything was rather skimped, but after the ordinary short rations
it was a treat to get any kind of pudding, any pinch of tobacco, and
sometimes just a drop of rum.
Almost the saddest part of the siege now is the condition of the
animals. The oxen are skeletons of hunger, the few cows hardly give a
pint of milk apiece, the horses are failing. Nothing is more pitiful
than to feel a willing horse like mine try to gallop as he used, and
have to give it up simply for want of food. During the siege I have
taught him to talk better than most human beings, and his little
apologies are really pathetic when he breaks into something like his old
speed and stops with a sigh. It is the same with all.