"Madam, may I be permitted to drink your health and to thank you for
your hospitality." Madam smiled blandly, in no wise inconvenienced by
the severity of the potion which she had absorbed!...
But the good-humoured revelling of the dinner-table was shortly to be
changed for the stern reality of war. The brigadier and his staff had
barely bid farewell to their happy hostess and returned to their
bivouac when the voice of a tired and excited man was heard calling to
be directed to headquarters. It was the captain of cyclists who had
started that morning before daybreak for Strydenburg. The man's face
was a study when, having flung himself clear of his machine, which was
clanging like a _teuf-teuf_, he presented himself in the solitary tent
which during halts served the headquarters of the little column as a
living and sleeping apartment. In the dim light of a flickering
candle, it seemed that he was swathed in a sheet, so thick and white
was the crust of dust which covered him from head to foot. He
staggered into the mess-tent, swayed a moment, tried to salute, and
then dropped in a heap on to the camp chair offered to him.
_Brigadier._ "Give him some brandy."
After a long drink from the brandy-bottle the little captain of
cyclists recovered sufficiently to smile at his own weakness.
_Brigadier._ "Well, have you been fighting--where's your crush?"
_Cyclist Captain._ "Fighting--there never has been such fighting in
this war, it has been simply bloody!"
_B._ "Sanguinary, my boy; well, are you the last survivor? You rather
remind me of the last man of the poet's imagination."
_C. C._ (_dejectedly_) "It has been a long, sad, and terrible day.
Harvey of Damant's is mortally wounded, and I have had a man wounded!"
_B._ "The devil you have. I thought at least that you must have been
annihilated. Where are the rest of you, then?"
_C. C._ "Lost or captured, I am afraid. Seventeen were captured in
succession at the top of one rise. I only got through by the skin of
my teeth and the luck of there only being three Boers at the top of
the hill."
_B._ (_unconcernedly_) "Horrid adventure! What luck there were not
four Boers! But give me a detailed story. Have you been into
Strydenburg? have you seen any of the staff of the other column?"
The following is a paraphrase of the story which was eventually
elicited from the cyclist captain:--The cyclists, who broke down on
the heavy roads at the rate of about four an hour, kept up a steady
pace until they were some five miles from Strydenburg. Here going up a
steep rise they tailed out somewhat, and seventeen were captured in
rotation by three burghers ensconced in the nek over which the up
gradient passed. The captain and five others all came up together, and
in the scuffle he and three of his men succeeded in getting through.
Later on they were fired at by Boers just outside Strydenburg, into
which town they rode simultaneously with an advance-guard of Damant's
Guides. The Boers, who, with the exception of the rear-guard under
Vermaas, had left and gone north on the preceding day, just as the
Brigadier had surmised, had destroyed the telegraph office, but the
local operator, who had hidden away an instrument, by attaching the
broken wire to a piece of garden fencing was able to get through to De
Aar, and in half an hour the brigadier's "Clear the line" message was
ticking off in Pretoria. This all happened three hours before the
co-operating general entered the town. In the meantime the
advance-guard of Damant's Guides, as soon as they heard that the New
Cavalry Brigade was not on the road, pushed out to occupy the
Tafelkop Hills outside the town. Harvey took the cyclists with him.
And a very gallant little fight they had, in which three of the
Guides, though sorely wounded, held up and captured the five men who
had wounded them. Owing to his lust for blood it was late in the day
before the cyclist captain was able to find the general. This officer
had a despatch ready for him to take back to his own brigadier. The
return journey had been effected without other mishap than that of
extreme fatigue, which difficulty the captain alone had been able to
surmount: the rest of his cyclists, if not prisoners, were
spread-eagled over the veldt at such spots where death had overtaken
their machines.
Now what was written in the despatch which the cyclist officer had
brought is not known to the chronicler of the adventures of this
brigade. But it was evidently couched in not over friendly language,
for the brigadier's face worked with annoyance as he read it. Having
read it he tore it up into very small pieces and sat for a moment or
two staring steadfastly at the candle.
"Anything serious, sir?"
_Brigadier._ "No; the old man is peevish,--says that my disobedience
of his orders has caused us to lose De Wet. That he has washed his
hands of me, and that it only remains to report me to a higher
authority. To be philosophical, he has some grounds for his
peevishness if he really believes that he has ever been nearer to De
Wet than the latter gentleman desired. But you get no return in an
argument with seniors--they have the whip hand of you every time; so
here, ole man Baker, bring out your stilus and tablets and write out
brigade orders. Two hours hence we march direct on Hopetown. Mr
Intelligence, mark out a route, and mind you have a good guide.
Everything on a night like this will depend on your guiding." Such is
the history of a transformation scene which is of common occurrence
when men make war. A camp sleeping heavily and peacefully at midnight,
in a couple of hours may have disappeared, to be found sorrowfully
toiling along in the dark on some venture bent....
The Intelligence officer had reason to congratulate himself that he
had already got his guide held by the ear by the Tiger, as it is a big
undertaking to conjure up guides on notice only given an hour before
midnight. The guide himself was not best pleased, and aped that air of
imbecility which on occasions similar to this is the Dutch form of
passive resistance. But the Tiger took him in hand, primed him with a
few simple truths and the history of some imaginary executions, so
that he waxed more communicative when he found himself in the centre
of the advance-guard of twelve dismounted dragoons with fixed
bayonets,[34] with which the brigadier when night marching was
accustomed to head his advance-guard.
There is a limit to the fascinations of a night march if you have to
make many of them, especially if it is undertaken without the definite
promise of a fight on the following day. Men and horses dog tired,
yearning for sleep; the hundred and one irregularities which would
find no place in daylight. The weary waiting that intervals may be
corrected, the hitch with the advance-guard, the difficulty of
loading the supply-waggons. The irritability of the chief, growing in
intensity as he strikes match after match against his watch dial.
Semi-mutinous resistance of orders on the part of Irregulars;
lamentations from the major of the battery, whose horses have been
standing hooked-in for the last half hour. How impossible it all
seems,--how heartbreaking; yet everything shakes down eventually, and
the great dark caterpillar, bristling with armed men like a
woolly-bear, creeps forward into the veiled uncertainty of night.
The advance-guard has moved off, the brigadier is just waiting to see
the baggage fairly started, when a sudden spark gleams out from a
knoll above the camp which the falling-in night picquet has just
evacuated. A bullet whirrs noisily overhead. "Martini," conjectures
the brigadier. "I wonder what that means!" Two minutes later another
spark flashes out from the same spot, and a leaden messenger buries
itself with a skirr and a thud, within ten yards of the little group
of officers.
"Not bad for a chance shot--we'll see if they are going to
persevere!" Swish, came a third shot singing away harmlessly overhead.
"Sniping!" said the brigadier. "I would hang that beast if I could
catch him. Look here, gallop down to the officer in command of the
rear-guard and tell him to send a couple of quick-witted fellows to
stalk that sniper. I will give five pounds if he is brought in alive."
The messenger galloped out into the darkness, and as the last of the
waggon transport turned into the right track, the staff cantered
northwards in the direction of the head of the column, reckless of the
solitary bullets which at intervals whistled through the still night
air.
Considerable tension attaches to the head of a night-marching column,
especially when moving through an unreconnoitred country. And in spite
of the little text-books with smart covers, it is more often in
unreconnoitred country that the soldier is called upon to operate than
otherwise. Consequently the Intelligence officer forgot all about the
sniping incident, and busied himself with being ready to answer the
many queries of an imaginative major in command of the advance-guard.
Five miles of the journey had perhaps been made--at least it was at
the third halt that word was passed up that the brigadier wanted to
see the Intelligence officer. The brigadier had dismounted at the head
of the battery.
"Hulloo, Mr Intelligence, we have got the sniper--and it would beat a
very Solomon to give judgment in a like case. Strike a match."
The little flame burned up and declared to the astonished view of the
Intelligence officer the face and figure of his guide's weeping bride.
There was no sign of tears now. The girl stood with her hands clasped
behind her back, her mouth firmly closed, and looked her captors full
in the face. It was a fine figure, seen for a moment in the uncertain
light of the lucifer shaded from the wind. _Cappie_ blown back behind
her head, ill-concealing the wealth of glistening hair, pale
determined face, full of defiance, and thrown-out chest across which
the leather bandolier still hung in damnatory evidence. How different
to the limp and weeping woman of the afternoon. A second and the
little slip of pinewood had burnt out.
_Brigadier._ "What do you make of it?"
_Intelligence Officer._ "Magnificent woman--damnable undertaking."
_Bystander._ "Magnificent she-cat!"
_Prisoner._ "You steal my husband, and because I would do my best to
stop you, when the men were afraid to attack and offered you food
instead, you call me names. Give me back my husband and let me go, or
if you would shoot me, shoot and be finished with it."
_Brigadier._ "My dear young lady, no one will hurt you or call you
names. You shall have your husband back as soon as we have finished
with him. Until that time, I am afraid that you must stay with us, but
you shall be properly looked after. I cannot afford to let you again
be as naughty as you have been to-night. Hand her over to the supply
officer,--he's acting provost-marshal, is he not? (_Then turning to
his staff_) What a little vixen! That gives you a very considerable
insight into the temper of these loyal Cape colonists: to think that
while we were supping with this young lady's mamma she was planning a
little sniping party, as a revenge against us for breaking in upon her
honeymoon!"...
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Dutch method of describing a woman's husband.
[33] Maize.
[34] British cavalry at this period of the campaign were armed with
rifle and bayonet.
X.
JOG-TROT.
True to that instinct which finds the Boer the most insanitary race
laying claim to a civilisation of any standard, the squatters who
settled upon Hopetown as a site suitable for a village chose a
situation as insalubrious as any to be found on the fringe of the
Karoo. In a cup-valley of mean dimensions, the little collection of
shanties which group round the church and town-hall lay tucked away in
the folds of the bare dusty hills, so that if tracks did not converge
upon the village with consistent regularity there would be no evidence
outside a narrow radius of its existence. It was not until the
advance-guard covering the New Cavalry Brigade topped the actual bluff
above the hamlet that the temporary importance of Hopetown was
realised. The dip in which the village lay was black with the
transport of many columns, and the dust and smoke raised by the
thousands of animals and hundreds of cooking fires formed a heavy haze
which, covering the township as with a pall, hung half-way between the
level of the valley and the overhanging brae where the advance-guard
stood halted. It was not an inviting picture. The dust and vapour
seemed unable to face the perpendicular violence of the midday sun;
the only perceptible movement in the middle distance was the shimmer
of the atmosphere, squirming as it were under the relentless heat;
while the great pall of dust and smoke, as if ashamed to raise its
head, mushroomed out against the hillsides with undecided edging.
As we stood gasping for some breath of air to relieve the burden of
oppressive heat, it seemed that the valley was some great stew-pot of
the _inferno_, and that Hopetown was simmering at its bottom.
The brigadier cantered up to the advance-guard, and throwing his reins
to his orderly, made a brief survey of the topographical approaches
to Hopetown.
_Brigadier._ "Well, there is not much of De Wet left in this corner of
the world. All the commandoes[35] of the Hunt seem to have forgathered
here and to be having a day off. What a hole of a place--ideal, no
doubt, from the Dutchman's point of view. Why, the smell of it reaches
up here. But here comes a robber in a pink 'beaver'; we shall soon
know all about it."
A diminutive boy in staff kit cantered up and demanded information
about the column.
_Staff Officer._ "What column is this?"
_B._ "The New Cavalry Brigade."
_S. O._ "Never heard of you. Who told you to come in here? Who
commands you?"
_B._ "Steady, my fledgling, one question at a time. You are given to
heaping matters, I see, which is a bad habit in one so young. I will
answer one of your questions, the last one. I command this column: and
now you will answer me. What columns are in Hopetown?"
_S. O._ "Sorry, sir, but----"
_B._ "Don't apologise. I know I don't look like a general, but it
doesn't help you out of your difficulties to say so. You only slip
into it worse every time; now, then, to the columns?"
_S. O._ "Knox's, Pilcher's, Plumer's, and Paris's."
_B._ "Good; and what is the latest news about De Wet?"
_S. O._ "He has broken out east across the railway; half his force
went up north and half crossed by Paauwpan or Potfontein."
_B._ "Who are on him?"
_S. O._ "I am not quite sure; but I hear that Haig, Thorneycroft,
Crabbe and Henniker are either following him or trying to cut him
off."
_B._ "And what are four columns doing halted here in this _dorp_?"[36]
_S. O._ "They are all stone cold."
_B._ "The price of losing De Wet. Now, young feller, just you hie back
to _your_ general, Charles Knox, I suppose, and tell him that the New
Cavalry Brigade is coming right in here, but will not worry him long,
as it has orders to be off to-night. (_The youth salutes and goes to
the right-about, while the brigadier continues to his staff_) Just as
well to let Knox know that I am on my own. I must invent a special
mission from Pretoria, otherwise he may seize me like the last fellow,
and the future state of this column might then be worse than the
first."
In the meantime the brigade led down into the noisome basin which
holds Hopetown, and took up temporary quarters on the first patch
against the water into which it could squeeze its long line of
transport. It wedged in between two columns, and the bad condition of
both gave evidence of the severity of the work in which they had
recently been engaged. As columns, when they had first entered upon
the chase after De Wet, they had each been five or six hundred strong;
now, perhaps, between them they could count five hundred mounted men,
while of this number not more than a third were fit to do a
twenty-mile trek at a better pace than a walk. Yet each, three weeks
earlier, had started from the railway newly equipped with remounts.
If any are sufficiently interested to cast about for a reason for the
hopeless state of the columns in the Colony at this period, they may
possibly find in the experiences of the brigade a solution of the
remount question which has so puzzled the more intelligent students of
the war. The column newly equipped at the railway was generally worse
off for horse-flesh and less mobile than the force which had not been
within reach of the Remount Department for months. The procedure was
in this wise. The column commander struggled gasping into the haven of
relief afforded by the railway. He had barely issued to his men and
horses a full ration when the telegraph began to talk. Down came the
brief little order from Pretoria, "You will entrain for Cypher Ghat
without delay. Trains will reach you by three this afternoon." In vain
would the column commander plead for rest for man and beast. The fiat
had gone forth. All protest was met with a single reiteration of the
original order, with perhaps the adjunct, "Remounts will be awaiting
you to replace casualties." What chance had the horses which had been
overridden and under-fed for the last twelve days? Those which could
hobble were thrust into close, dung-blocked trucks, and whirled away
any distance from fifty miles to a thousand. Water they got when the
railway officials saw fit to arrange the necessary halt in the
necessary place, rest for them there was none. But the column
commander who was new at the job could plume himself that he would be
restocked and start with a new lease of life at his destination. Vain
thought! He found awaiting him at the end of his journey either the
sweepings of the country-side--such animals as had been rejected as
unfitted for military service by marauding Boer and pushing column
leader in turn, and finally collected by the zealous "crawler" and
duly reported in the "weekly bag" as captured from the enemy. Or if
sweepings were not available, he would find waiting for him absolutely
soft and raw importations, which had cost the taxpayers £40 apiece a
few weeks previously,--the one as useless for the purpose required as
the other. Rejection by a not over-fastidious enemy disposes of the
one; of the other it was as mad a proceeding as taking a horse
straight off grass and backing him to win you a stake at even weights
with trained horses. The millions of the public money which lie
wantonly strewed over the South African veldt would appal even the
most phlegmatic of financiers. The waste in horse-flesh is
inconceivable; and the man with the stiff upper lip who refused to
realise that it takes gentle breaking to bring the troop-horses to the
perfection which enables them to cover for six consecutive days thirty
miles a-day with 20 stone on their backs, has added pence to the
present burden of the income-tax. The taxpayer is naturally upset. He
has cause. He seeks mental relief in philippics against the cavalry
officer,--the man to whom he owes so much. He damns his intelligence
and damns his breeding, and then, having railed sufficiently, pays
cheerfully, with heavy self-satisfaction that some one has at least
been put in his proper place, and that a lesson so necessary has not
really been so dearly purchased at the price. Poor innocent fools! the
British taxpayer brings to mind that dear fat smiling millionaire,
denizen of a West End club, to whom every day impecunious
fellow-members would propose a game of _picquet_ or _écarté_, well
knowing that it was the quickest way in London to earn a certain £200.
Your Commissions may sit upon the educational standard of your
officers, upon the sequel to your own folly in remount purchase: but
will your inquiry ever reach the foundations of this edifice that you
have condemned? I think not. One or two scapegoats will satisfy the
British public upon those few occasions when it rises up in a thirst
for blood. Willingness to pay rather than interfere will do the rest.
And the spirit of apathy which is characteristic of the nation, in
spite of the occasional outbursts of interested indignation, will
prevent a true disclosure of the horrid facts as long as the war is
unfinished. Once a peace is ratified the national interest in both the
present, past, and future state of its army will be as abruptly and
effectually severed as the magazine charge in the Lee-Enfield rifle
when the cut-off is snapped home, forgetful of the fact that our next
enemy may not be as merciful as the Boer; that he will not stand by
and reap no benefit from our failures; that in a few brief hours a
situation may arise in which no wealth of bullion can save us. It
will take just one disaster such as this--a disaster which will carry
annihilation with it--to cause the British nation too late to take
just stock of its limitations. Then in grief it will remember that he
whom it treated as a mad _fakir_ was indeed a true prophet.
The state of the New Cavalry Brigade, as it wedged itself in between
the two ghosts of mounted columns, was in itself an object-lesson.
Those who have followed the interests of this little command through
the foregoing chapters will have seen that it had not been called upon
to make any exceptional effort to sap it of its reserve forces. In
fact, it had simply been marched and countermarched along dusty tracks
at the whim of a superior officer. Yet under this mild usage the
column had arrived back at a base with 25 per cent of its animals
useless and an equal proportion whose days of usefulness were
numbered. The sole reason for this was the fact that the animals had
never been trained to long distances in a trying climate with 20 stone
on their backs. The care of the brigadier or the watchfulness of the
squadron officers availed nothing when the green remount was put to
the twenty-mile test. But you will say, How, if this is really the
case, was it to be avoided? An intelligent anticipation of events
should have told those who started their campaign with the advantage
of the three months' failure of their predecessors what would be the
approximate remount requirements. The British nation would have backed
the demands of this intelligent anticipation, not in thousands, but in
millions, and by so doing would have saved not thousands but millions.
If the original remount depots had been other than "Siberias" for
incompetent officers from the outpost line, or if the recommendations
of the senior cavalry and remount officers had been listened to, we
should have had less of the saddling of raw horses straight from the
train and ship,--less of the stupidity which expected them to do the
work which can only be done by a system of gradual and careful
training and acclimatisation. It is as suicidal and expensive to put
green horses into the field as it is to put untrained men. Yet at this
period of the war we were practising both these expedients, and
wondering why the Burgher was not subjugated, and why the income-tax
steadily increased.
The stories of sinful waste and incompetent groping for a means out of
the tangle do not connect themselves intimately with this history. But
no doubt remains that the system which was at this period in practice
was vicious in the extreme. In a word, the whole of the British mobile
strength in South Africa was directly based on the railway
communication. This gave a column at the utmost a twelve days' lease
of life, which meant that the troops must keep within a six days'
march of the permanent way or starve. This limited the area of
effective operation; and while we were wasting our energy and
horse-flesh against the enemy's raiders, the bulk of their resistance
was calmly ploughing beyond the reach of castigation. The convoy may
be slow and may be vulnerable, the fortified post may be isolated and
invite attack; but as military expedients in a large country both are
superior to the base-bound column.[37]