At daybreak on the morning of December 15th the Field Hospital was
already astir. While it was yet dark the silence of the camp was broken
in upon by the rousing of the orderlies, by much slapping upon the sides
of silent tents, by much stumbling over darkened tent ropes, and by
sudden calls of "Get up, you chaps," "Tumble out," "Chuck yourselves
about." "Why don't you wake a man up?" cries out one peevish voice
among the recently roused. "Why don't you make a noise?" says another
in sleepy tones. "Is the whole camp afire and is the Boers on us, or is
this your idea of calling a gentleman?" mutters a sarcastic man, as he
puts his head out of the fly of his tent.
In a few minutes everyone in the camp is on the move, for there is
little needed to complete a toilet beyond the tightening of a belt and
the pulling on of a pair of boots. All are in the best of spirits, and
the collecting together of goods and chattels and the preparing of a
hurried breakfast proceed amidst infinite chatter and many camp
pleasantries. We are at last on the move. We are the last to go. This
is the day of the long expected battle, and we are to push on to the
front. The real fighting is to begin, and there is not a man who is not
possessed by the conviction that the Boers will to-day be swept from the
Tugela--if they have not already fled--and that General Buller will have
a "walk over."
One cannot but be reminded, many times since, that the advance to
Ladysmith was always spoken of as a "walk over."
Moreover, everyone is glad to leave Frere--dreary, sweltering Frere.
Since the column left it has become a waste of desolation; the very
grass has been already worn away, and there is nothing but an expanse of
bald earth, scarred with the landmarks of a camp that was, glistening
with empty meat and biscuit tins which flash in the sun, and dotted over
with a rabble of debris. The picturesque cavalry camp, with its rows of
restless horses, is now only indicated by more or less formal lines of
dirtier dirt. The avenues and squares of white tents are gone, and in
their place is a khaki waste covered with the most melancholy of refuse.
At the outskirts of great towns there is usually, in a place or two, a
desert plot of land marked off by disreputable relics of a fence and
trodden into barren earth by innumerable untidy feet. If such a plot be
diversified with occasional ash heaps, with derelict straw, and with
empty tins and bottomless pots and pans, it will represent in miniature
the great camp of Frere after the column had moved to the river.
Frere was indeed no longer Frere. It had become suddenly quiet, and the
depressed garrison left behind were almost too listless to watch, with
suitable jealousy, our preparations for departure.
On this particular morning the sun rose gloriously. Out of the gloom
there emerged rapidly the grey heights of the far-off Drachenbergs, and
as the light of the dawn fell full upon them, their ashen precipices and
pinnacles became rose-coloured and luminous; and the terraces of green
which marked the foot of each line of barren cliff seemed so near and so
strangely lit that many a man, busy in the work of striking camp,
stopped to gaze on these enchanted mountains. The whole range, however,
looks chilled and barren--as barren, as solitary, as unearthly as the
mountains of the moon.
Before the peaks of the Drachenbergs were well alight the boom of our
great guns sounded with startling clearness, and it was evident that the
prelude for the battle had begun.
In due course a train of goods wagons backed down to the side of the
hospital. The tents and countless panniers, boxes, sacks, and
miscellaneous chattels of the hospital were packed upon the trucks. Our
instructions were to proceed by train to Colenso, and to there unload
and camp. There was apparently no doubt but that the village by the
Tugela would immediately be in our hands. Early rumours reached us,
indeed, that the Boers had fled, and that no living thing was to be seen
on the heights beyond the river. These rumours were soon to be
discredited by the incessant roar of cannon, and later by the barking of
the "pom-pom" and the minor patter of rifle firing.
Four nurses were to go with the train: the two who had accompanied me
from London, Miss McCaul and Miss Tarr, and two army sisters from
Netley, Sister Sammut and Sister Martin.
While the train was being loaded the nurses waited at the hotel or
store. The hotel, a little unpretending bungalow, represented one of
the three or four dwellings which made up the settlement of Frere. It
was kept by Mr. and Mrs. Wilson, to whose hospitality we were, on this
and other occasions, much indebted. Mr. Wilson and his family were
excellent representatives of the many sturdy and loyal colonists who are
to be found throughout Natal. When the Boers approached Frere they were
compelled to fly to the south, and when they returned to what had once
been a home, they found such a wreck of a house as only Boers can
effect. Everything had been looted that could be looted, and what could
not be removed had been ruthlessly broken up. Even the books in the
ample book-case had been torn to pieces. The empty rooms were filled
with filth and wreckage, and nothing had escaped the obscene hands of
these malicious marauders. Every cupboard had been torn open and, if
possible, torn down; every drawer had been rifled of its contents; and
on the floor, among fragments of broken chairs and crockery and
discarded articles of clothing, would be found a photograph of a child,
trampled out of recognition, or some small keepsake which had little
value but its associations. The Boers, indeed, do not stop at mere
looting, but mark their visits by fiendish malice and by a savage
mischievousness which would not be unworthy of an escaped baboon.
The train carrying the hospital and its possessions moved on to Frere
Station, where it took up the equipment of officers and men. There was
a passenger carriage with one compartment in which were accommodated the
nurses and three others. The officers, sergeants, and orderlies rode on
the piles of baggage which filled the open trucks.
The day was blazing hot, and thirst proportionate. The heat oppressed
one with the sense of something that had weight. Any breeze that moved
was heavy with heat.
At last we started for the actual front, full of expectancy and in the
best of spirits. The distance to Chieveley is about seven miles across
the veldt, across the trestle bridge, and past the wreck of the armoured
train. The train moved up the incline to Chieveley very slowly, and as
we approached the higher ground it struck us all that the incessant
artillery and rifle firing, and the constantly repeated crack of the
"pom-pom," were hardly consistent with the much-emphasised "walk-over."
Outside Chieveley Station, the station of which we were to see so much
later on, the crawling train stopped, and a galloper came up with a
message requesting me to go down to the battlefield at once. At the same
time, Major Brazier-Creagh, who was in charge of the hospital train, and
who was always as near the front as he could get, came up and told us
that things were going badly at Colenso, that we had lost several guns,
and that the wounded were coming in in scores.
V