vests, and with putties bound round their feet to replace their boots,
staggered into camp. They were the four troopers of the Mount Nelson
Light Horse which had furnished the Intelligence officer's flanking
party. As the Tiger had surmised, they had fallen an easy prey to the
Boers on the top of the hill. These had stripped them of all their
clothes, and, after herding them in a donga for a couple of hours, had
sent them back into camp with Commandant Vermaas's best compliments.
They were to tell their general that De Wet would be in Britstown that
night, and that he had passed within four miles of our camp with his
whole force that afternoon.
"That settles it," said the brigadier. "They would not have pitched
that yarn if De Wet had been really going to Britstown. You can mark
my word, he has gone north."
The words were still on the brigadier's lips when a native came in
with a message in cipher from the general. It read as follows:--
"Reliable information points to De Wet being at Strydenburg.
Concentrate there with me by midday to-morrow. I shall take the
Zwingelspan Road, which will bring me out into the hills north of
Strydenburg. You will take the Kalk Kraal-Grootpan Road, and install
yourself on Tafelkop, south of the town. Arrange to have your guns in
position by noon. Do not try to open up visual communication with me.
Such a course might give information of our movements to the enemy.
Send a receipt of this message to Zwingelspan, so as to arrive not
later than 10 A.M. to-morrow." Signed, "N----, Chief Staff-Officer.
_P.S._--Am afraid that De Wet will have taken your convoy."
_Brigadier._ "Was there ever a worse atrocity perpetrated than this?
If he had only been man enough to have done this twenty-four hours
earlier, when I implored him to do so, he might have been the greatest
hero of the war by this. But here, Uncle Baker (to the brigade-major),
just you send for that saucy fellow who commands the cyclists of the
Mount Nelson Light Horse, and tell him that he and his cyclists have
got to fight their way into Strydenburg by 10 A.M. to-morrow. Tell him
that if he gets a message off to Pretoria before 10 A.M. to-morrow,
it's as good as a D.S.O. for him. Tell him he must be prepared to
fight like h--l, only don't frighten him too much: just tell him
enough to keep him looking about him, otherwise his gang will get
captured in detail by the first Burgher they meet. He may start when
he likes. If I can get a message through to K. first, it won't matter
how much I mutiny afterwards!"
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Major (now Lieut.-Colonel) Bogle-Smith.
IX.
TO A NEW COVERT!
The cyclists of the Mount Nelson Light Horse trundled out of camp with
some show of bravery. They had left Cape Town 100 strong. The journey
from Hanover Road to Britstown had reduced their numbers by fifty per
cent. The bare fifty still with the brigade were the survival of the
fittest after a week of rain at Hanover and another week of struggling
with Karoo tracks ankle-deep in dust. But the men tried to show
something of a front as they pedalled out of camp. Their captain was
an enthusiast. He had, however, but poor material into which to infuse
his enthusiasm; and at any time South African roads are as
demoralising to wheel-men used to a macadamised surface as the
bouldered bed of a stream would be to a traction-engine. These same
cyclists were the men who had scorched up to the Picquetberg Passes
when ten men and a boy threatened Cape Town with invasion; and the
memory of the wave of military enthusiasm which convulsed the great
seaport from Greenpoint to Simon's Town was still worth something to
them as, over-weighted, they struggled with the Karoo.
"You may not think it," said the brigadier, as he wrestled with the
mutton, which is the staple food of the veldt breakfast-table, "but I
am anxious about those fellows,--d----d anxious. But it is no use
having cyclists if they are only to loaf about in camp. I use them
much in same spirit as an inexperienced pyramid player breaks up the
balls at the beginning of a game. I trust that out of the crowd just
one may get home. The captain is a hearty fellow, and will probably
make his way into Strydenburg; but he is about the only one that it
would be worth betting upon. I should be sorry to lose him, for I like
enthusiasts; but as for his gang, I would willingly present the lot to
'brother.' I had some cyclists down Calvinia way. I found that on a
down gradient they were terrors, but when any climbing came their way
they afforded 'brother' any amount of fun. The cyclist, to be any use
in war, must have roads and luck; otherwise, as Scout or messenger, he
is valueless. It is all very well for faddists to prophesy a future
for them. I like to see them working out their own salvation: pictures
of dismounted cyclists behind stacks of bicycles prepared to receive
cavalry fill me with delight. I like to anticipate the glee of the
cavalry which has forced them to dismount for action at some
disadvantageous spot, and then, while they are doubling up their
machines as a _chevaux de frise_, shoots them from the cover of a
hay-stack at a thousand yards."
_Brigade-Major._ "But surely, sir, there must be some use in cycles
for military purposes. The French, for instance, use them almost
exclusively for carrying messages in their manoeuvres!"
_Brigadier._ "True for you. But then in France they have roads. Though
even with the best of roads there is a limit to their utility. Behind
an army they are excellent; in front of an army their value is still
problematical. Even down in Calvinia, where Burghers were scarce and
main roads fair, they rarely carried a message as safely and as
quickly as a mounted Kaffir. They are vulnerable all round from other
causes than the hazards of war. Machine vulnerable, man vulnerable,
and in a country like this, where the roads are not masked by
hedgerows, they furnish a kind of 'running-deer' to every Burgher
observation-post, and, as far as I can judge, an observation-post is
to be found on every kopje!"...
It will be seen from the above that the brigadier had no intention of
undertaking the wild-goose chase which had been proposed to him. The
missive which he had sent to Strydenburg had been cunningly
constructed. It ran: "Local information indicates that the invaders
have doubled back to the north, evidently with the object of
recrossing the Orange River. I am moving with all reasonable despatch
upon Hopetown. I was in touch with scattered parties of enemy last
night. Have just sufficient supplies to take me into Hopetown." The
message was addressed to Chief, Pretoria, and repeated to the
lieutenant-general commanding the operations to suppress the invasion.
Knowing that the cyclists might draw blank at Strydenburg, a second
copy of the message was sent by the hand of a Kaffir, to be delivered
at the telegraph office in Britstown. As events turned out it was the
cyclists' telegram which went, and, as intended, upset the apple-cart
which the general subsequently tried to drive over the brigadier's
prostrate form. In the strict letter of the military law which, in so
many cases, subordinates individual initiative and sound judgment, the
action taken by the brigadier was indefensible. But as a matter of
fact the mutiny was not so terrible as it at first appears. Setting
aside the common-sense issue which ought to guide officers in senior
commands when accepting orders from a superior, it should be
remembered that the brigadier had only been directed to co-operate
with the officer who had now taken unto himself the position of
supreme command. Lord Kitchener himself, at the meeting on the De Aar
platform, had given the brigadier a roving commission, to be
controlled only by orders from Pretoria and the lieutenant-general at
De Aar. Consequently he resented his free action being clogged by a
senior whose only object seemed to be a desire to hug him and his
force as closely as possible for self-protection against imaginary
dangers. The brigadier, who was in every way as capable a soldier as
any in South Africa, had not spent eighteen months in following, or
being followed by, Boers, without arriving at a very shrewd estimate
of their tactics. The lore of the chase in which he was engaged, as he
read it, pointed to a break back on the part of the main body of the
invaders in the direction of the Orange River; and having balanced his
conception of the situation with his conscience, he considered that
the most serviceable move he could make was to place himself and his
brigade upon the railway at Hopetown. And so having sent the cyclists
to smell out the land of Strydenburg, the New Cavalry Brigade, working
in three parallel columns, fringed round the east end of the Beer Vlei
and struck north-east, with the backs of its rear-guard turned on the
Karoo for ever.
"How about Zwingelspan?" queried the brigade-major, remembering the
written instructions in the general's missive.
"Let it rip," was the laconic reply from the brigadier. "With this
crowd of Vermaas's hanging about I am not going to risk patrols other
than cyclists, and I am certainly not going to push on in force!" This
was final, and the extended front of the brigade opened out across the
veldt, throwing out its feelers like the tentacles of some slowly
crawling monster. Through highland and lowland it wound, rummaging the
isolated farmsteads, ploughing through ravine and mealie patch. But
though wild-fowl rose chattering, and, scolding bitterly, circled
round the scouts, though springbok trotted leisurely away from the
front of each several column, though sullen girls and gaping Kaffirs
peered from beneath the eaves of farmsteads, no sign of hostility was
to be found in all this life. It was the same old monotonous drudgery
of the veldt again. The same merciless sun, the same sapless and
parched surroundings. As the day wore on men longed for the crack of a
rifle to ease the burden of the monotony. The country, too, grew more
hilly, and fearing that he might be attacked in detail, the brigadier
reduced his front, till by four in the afternoon the brigade to all
practical purposes had concentrated. Then it was that the
advance-guard struck a great white road, ankle-deep in dust. This
veldt track was so rigid in its alignment, that for the moment it
might have been taken for a turnpike road fallen upon decadent days.
But the local colour of its surroundings did not support the
comparison, and the reason of its being loomed up gauntly in the
middle distance. A great square of whitewashed building, which,
strange to relate, was overshadowed by quite a number of trees, giving
it an appearance not unlike the first attempt which a Bengali merchant
makes at a country residence, when success in commerce renders it
imperative that he should improve the circumstances of his dwelling.
But though in the first instance the general appearance of the farm
was forbidding, yet, on examination, it presented several qualities
which are valuable to the soldier. An infant _barrage_ closing the
drainage slope in a depression formed an artificial water-pan of no
mean dimensions. A pair of zinc-fanned windmills worked two artesian
wells with such success that the purest drinking-water abounded; and
the result of all this moisture was the nearest attempt at a lawn that
any single man in the brigade has seen in the length and breadth of
South Africa outside Cape Town and its suburbs. A great stack of
forage added to the military assets of the locality, and the brigadier
just looked at the water and the lawn, and said, "A land flowing with
milk and honey,--this is where I shall camp. I could not resist
camping in such a spot even if I had old man De Wet dead beat a
furlong from home!" And it was indeed an entrancing spot to the
Karoo-worn warrior. Just one of those delightful oases which do exist,
but which do not abound in Cape Colony. Upon them stand the best and
oldest farms, for when the forebears of the present owners first
struck them, they had no need to good farther afield in search for a
desirable anchorage. If more of these enviable spots had abounded,
even the barbarity of British rule would not have driven the
_voortrekkers_ into wholesale emigration across the soapy waters of
the Orange River.
After the usual worries of settling into camp--mule-drivers leading
animals to water in the drinking reservation, and commanding officers
making themselves disagreeable--there was time to turn one's attention
to the inmates of the roadside mansion. The great whitewashed bungalow
seemed to be alive with inhabitants. The Intelligence officer went
about his business with the air of an expert, and in two minutes the
head of the house, a fine old specimen of the patriarchal Boer, and
his son, a poor slip of a man, were standing before him, hat in hand,
while women-folk of all ages and fulness of costume peeped from every
convenient crevice in the background. The general attitude of the
household was that of humility, in contrast to the usual reception
which the column had experienced in the majority of Karoo farms. And
presently the cause for the deference became apparent. The gaping
children in the main entrance were thrust aside, and a woman of
magnificent proportions pushed in between the two humble men. The old
man mumbled something about his daughter-in-law, while his callow son
looked, if possible, more sheepish than at first. The Intelligence
officer for his part could hardly keep his countenance. The lady had
donned her best. Her ample form was swathed in the rustling folds of a
magnificent silk gown which had evidently been cut in the days of the
crinoline attachment. Her hair, showing signs of the rapidity with
which its present gloss had been applied, was knotted somewhere
adjacent to the neck; and not satisfied with nature's adornment, this
prehistoric beauty had fixed a great white ostrich feather in her
well-greased tresses, which drooped down upon her neck and shoulder.
The Intelligence officer bowed deeply in order to keep his feelings in
due subordination. The lady was not slow to introduce herself.
Dropping one armful of a skirt that was so voluminous that it had to
be held in both hands, she limply took the officer's hand.
_Frau._ "Good morning. I am Mrs Van Herden; this is my man[32]
(_indicating the meek son of the house_). We are glad to see you. Will
you have some coffee?" (And as she spoke a microscopic Kaffir maid
appeared with the inevitable coffee on a tray.)
_Intelligence Officer._ "Thank you, madam, but I must first search the
house and outhouses."
_F._ "You are welcome to do that. We are perfectly loyal. Have you not
heard what the Van Herdens did in the Kaffir wars, and my grandfather
was Scotch."
_I. O._ "It is only a matter of form, madam. Any one could see that
you were loyal!"
_F._ "Are you a general, mister?"
_I. O._ "No; I ought to be if I had my deserts; but I am the next best
thing. I'm the general's secretary." (Thereupon the old man grunted
approval, while the chorus of gaping maids nodded an endorsement
behind him.)
_F._ "Can I see the general, Mister Secretary?"
_I. O._ "That depends upon the information which you give me now. Why
do you wish to see him?"
_F._ "My children have never seen an English general; besides, this is
the first time that the English have ever been to the house; we
should like to cook a dinner for the English general!"
_I. O._ "But your children have seen Burgher generals?"
_F._ "Oh, yes; they are nothing. We had Commandant Brand here
yesterday!"
_I. O._ "When did he leave?"
_F._ "Early this morning!"
_I. O._ "Which way did he go?"
_F._ "He went out on the veldt; they took the Strydenburg road. But
they were Free Staters; you cannot say where they were going. They
would tell us Strydenburg, and then go somewhere else. You see, they
knew that you were close!"
_I. O._ "How many men had he with him?"
_F._ "Only a few. It was a small horse commando, perhaps twenty. All
Free Staters!"
The old patriarch, who had been fumbling in his pocket, now produced a
slip of paper which he presented to the Intelligence officer. The
writing on the paper ran as follows:--
"_O.V.S. Receipt for Property Commandeered._
"Taken from Jan Van Herden, of Melk Kraal, Cape Colony, two
sacks of mealies, 500 bundles of oat forage, two mules, four
sheep, for the use of O.V.S. commando.
"This receipt to be presented for repayment at the end of the
war to the O.V.S. Government.
(Signed) "ADRIAN FISCHER,
_Corporal, O.V.S. Forces._
Dated "_February_ ----."
_I. O._ "Who is Fischer?"
_F._ "He is Brand's adjutant!"
_I. O._ "I thought that you said there were only about twenty in the
commando. They and their horses must have been hungry to eat four
sheep and 500 bundles of oat hay. I should say that there must have
been more like fifty of them!"
_F._ "That may be, we did not count them. But can we ask the general
to dinner?"
_I. O._ "That depends. First, I must go through your rooms."
Followed by the whole family, the Intelligence officer passed through
to the various rooms, furnished and upholstered in the stereotyped
Dutch fashion, till they came to the end of the long house. Here a
closed door barred their way.
_I. O._ "What is in there?"
_F._ "Nothing--it is only my daughter and her 'man'; they have only
been married a few days, so we let them live apart. (_Throwing the
door open._) You may go in, of course. We are jingoes, we have nothing
to conceal."
The Intelligence officer entered the room to find an overbearded young
man and a very touzled, plump young lady sitting sheepishly
hand-in-hand. They rose as he entered and stared vacantly at him. The
man was a mean specimen of the Dutchman, tall and thin, narrow chest,
and sloping shoulders. An aggressive red beard for one so young,
growing backwards after the fashion prevailing with the Sikhs. A
cadaverous wretched creature, yet doubtless with strength enough in
his forefinger to make the seven-pound pull of a rifle.
The Intelligence officer's eyes ranged the room, which was bare
enough to have satisfied the most ascetic of honeymooning couples.
Half a glance was sufficient to prove to him that the frau had been
speaking the truth, so he turned upon the pair and shot at the man a
question so sharply that he started, "Do you know the road to
Zwingelspan?" The man recovered himself slowly, and then affected that
look of imbecility which is invariably the Dutchman's effort at
self-protection when he is cornered by a question which he does not
wish to answer. But his new-found mother-in-law was evidently anxious
that nothing should occur to irritate the visitor, for she blandly
answered his question herself. "Of course he knows the way to
Zwingelspan. Why, he lives there himself!"
_I. O._ "Then he is the very man I want. (_To the man_) You must come
along with me over to my cart and wait there in case the general wants
a guide to Zwingelspan between this and midnight."
A complete silence overtook the whole group after the Intelligence
officer had delivered himself of this speech. It seemed as if he had
inadvertently upset some plan. But the only thing he noticed at the
moment was that the pale face of the bride, as she stood limply in
front of him, grew a shade paler, and that her great blue eyes filled
with tears, which poised a moment on her eyelashes and then trickled
down her cheeks. If, as the Intelligence officer was only too ready to
surmise, he had upset an elaborate ruse to shield one of Brand's
special envoys, then the girl was an accomplished actress; but if, as
possibly was the case, she was moved to weeping in anticipation of
peril to her husband or lover, then she had adopted a course most
likely to serve her purpose with the man about to place himself
between her and the man she loved. There are few British officers who
can persevere in a distasteful task in face of the reproach furnished
by a silent weeping woman.
_I. O._ (_softening the authoritative tone in his speech_) "You need
not be distressed. I promise you we will not take him farther than
Zwingelspan, even if we take him there at all."
_Weeping Bride._ "If you take him, how shall I ever know what you will
do with him? You say here that you are going to Zwingelspan; but we
know that you are not going there. You would not tell us if you were.
Besides, the British were at Zwingelspan this morning, and you are
following the Boers."
_F._ "Oh leave her, Mr Secretary, she is only a child, and she loves
her 'man.' She is afraid that you will take him, and that the Boers
will catch him with you and treat him as a traitor!"
The Intelligence officer led the man out to hand him over to the
Tiger, when the latter returned from "noseing" round the outhouses.
Though perplexed in his mind as to the real attitude of the inmates of
the farm, yet he had elicited something, namely, that information
would be sent to the nearest armed Burghers that the column was not
bound for Zwingelspan, and that a British force had been at
Zwingelspan that morning. The latter was important, since the only
force which could have been at the pan was the main force, which meant
that the general had been up to time in his advance on Strydenburg,
while the New Cavalry Brigade had failed in the tryst.
The brigadier's comments on the intelligence surmises were short and
quaint. "Quite so. But I am not here to sweep up De Wet's
red-herrings. The old man will probably strike half-a-dozen of Brand's
or Vermaas's men when he reaches Strydenburg, if my cyclists haven't
turned them out. We, crossing the trail to-night in our journey north,
may strike something big. Anyway, we will have the satisfaction of
knowing that we are playing the game every time. And that being the
case we will let the old fat frau cook us a dinner to-night!" The
brigadier, who had estimated De Wet's movements with consummate
foresight, did not of course know that the replenished Plumer had
picked up the guerilla's back trail from Strydenburg, and was, at the
moment that the New Cavalry Brigade was bivouacking, practically
running him in view....
It was, all considered, a very creditable repast which the good lady
of Melk Kraal prepared for the brigadier and his staff. But on
occasions such as this it is the custom of the hosts to sits round the
walls of the dining-hall while the honoured guests feed alone at a
table in the centre. In this case the ladies and children of the
household lined the walls, taking an active interest in the serving,
which was at the hands of a couple of Kaffir girls. There were no
courses. The whole of the dinner was put upon the table at once, and
it consisted of boiled mutton hacked into hunks and swimming in a
greasy slop; fowls so boiled that the flesh had lost its resistance
and become a mere pulp; a mess of ochre-coloured boiled pumpkin,
boiled mealie[33] cobs, and boiled coffee of the consistency of
treacle. In fact, everything boiled and boiled to death. A repast
truly characteristic of the Dutch, who are most carnivorous in their
choice of food, and far too feckless and lazy to spend time and
trouble over such a common function as eating. It was the meal of a
people devoid of imagination and artistic taste. None the less it was
the best that the house could produce; and as the guests had taken the
precaution to bring their own liquor, it was a change from the tinned
delicacies of the modern active service meal. The banquet closed with
a quaint incident. The Intelligence officer had brought in his pocket
a bottle of _crême-de-menthe_. The hosts were invited to drink from
the brandy-bottle, which they did with the relish of experts in the
art of neat spirit drinking. To the hostesses was shown the
consideration due to their sex, and they were offered the green
concoction of peppermint. There is little of that coyness in the Dutch
composition which is met with in the civilisation of the West: each
lady of the household received her glass demurely and tossed off the
contents, pouring it, after the manner of Dutch spirit-drinkers,
ungracefully far into the mouth. The old Frau smacked her lips. "But
it is good," she said naïvely, and then taking the bottle from the
table she poured out the whole contents into a tumbler and emptied it
with one gulp down her capacious throat.