HOREN'S NEK,
(About 10 miles W. of Pretoria).
_Thursday, July 5th, 1900._
Here goes for another letter, so pull yourself together. I am here with
twenty others of the 7th I.Y. on outlying picket, and although the
affair began rather joylessly, we are getting on very well now. By way
of parenthesis, it is more than passing strange that whenever I try to
write a letter somebody always starts singing. At present, a man of the
Dorsets is lifting his voice in anguish and promising to "Take Kathleen
home again." He has just followed on with that mournful ballad, entitled
"The Gipsy's Warning:"
"Do not 'eed 'im, gentle strynger."
I cannot help heeding him, but I dare not remonstrate, as he is the cook
of our party, and in the Army, as elsewhere, _Monsieur le Chef_, be he
ever so humble, is a power. So I will desist for the present, and resume
this to-morrow on the top of a kopje.
(_Resumed._)
Every night we do guard on two of the near kopjes, and every other day I
have to go up with a guard, to another kopje, used as an observation
post, and look with a telescope and the nude optic, Sister Anne like,
for "staggerers of humanity." On Sunday, the 1st, we went to church
again. The preparations the young British Yeoman makes for church going
out here vary considerably, like most other things, from those he is
accustomed to make at home. Having shaved himself with the aid of the
only piece of looking-glass possessed by the company, and a razor, which
in days gone by would have been a valuable acquisition to the
Inquisitorial torture chambers, washed in a bucket and brushed his
clothes with an old horse brush, technically known as "a dandy," he
looks like a fairly respectable tramp, and is ready to fall in with his
comrades for the two or three miles tramp to Divine service. I had the
pleasure of entertaining a guest at breakfast before going to kirk. He
rode up to our cook-house fire (one always _says_ cook-house and
guard-room) to get a light for his pipe. The broad-brimmed hat with the
bronze badge of maple leaves and the word "_Canada_," proclaimed whence
he hailed. After a few minutes' conversation, I invited him to partake
of our breakfast, and, after no little persuasion--he at first refused
on the grounds that he would be depriving us of our full share--he
accepted, and came and joined us. He seemed very reluctant to take much
at first, and all through the meal, which consisted of mealie porridge
and sugar, _cafe sans lait_, bread and jam, expressed his appreciation
of our scant hospitality. He had joined the Military Police for three
months, and was on patrol.
"Where did he hail from?"
"The North-West Frontier."
"Had he ever been to England?"
"No; but would like to, I guess."
Here was a man who had never seen England, roughing it and fighting for
her out here, side by side with us, the home-born; and he only one of
many.
"Hang it, have some more jam, old chap?"
He told us all about the life (cow-boy) he led at home, and wished he
could have our company at a "rounding-up," it was rare fun.
* * * * *
"Now, then, turn out, and get everything packed on the waggons at once,
and fall in in marching order!" How would you like to be awakened out of
a comfortable sleep at 3 a.m. in the above manner? Still, we are pretty
well accustomed to that sort of thing by now. Having fulfilled the above
injunctions, we stood to arms for about three hours and were then
dismissed. Some of us, I being one, were told off for the outlying
picket we are now doing. _Just_ as dinner was served up, we had to fall
in and march off, so, despite a ravenous appetite, I had to throw the
contents of my pannikin, which I had just filled, away, and with
smothered curses on the usual "messing about" which the Imperial Yeoman
always has to suffer, fell in and marched away. When we reached this
place at about five o'clock, we found that, owing to the usual somebody
blundering, sufficient rations had not been put on the waggons for us.
The men we relieved seemed very unhappy and were delighted to hear they
were to go back. They had had one or two alarms, and had to retire on a
fort one night. Almost immediately we were sent off to our kopjes, where
we spend our nights. The kopjes round here are really horrible things:
to ascend and descend them one requires legs of flexible iron, and the
amiability and patience of Job. At night one has to pick and choose a
little, before getting a satisfactory "doss." To arrange your couch you
must, of course, remove all the movable stones, and as regards the
fixtures it is strange how in a short time one's body seems
instinctively to accommodate itself to the undulations of the chosen
sleeping ground. It is strange also how a rock with a few handfuls of
grass makes a fairly decent pillow.
Near here there are numerous orange groves lying in the shelter of the
kopjes. Yesterday I had charge of a Dutchman who wanted to go through
the Nek on business, and on the off chance I went provided with a
nosebag. I came across a magnificent orange grove, owned, as it proved,
by an Englishman who had been, he told me, out here for twenty-five
years. This Englishman sent one of his sons off to fill my bag with the
best oranges, and another to fill my red handkerchief with mealie meal
to make porridge with. The red-handkerchief-with-white-spots alluded to
above is the last "wipe" I have left me out of a large number, and has
been invaluable to me on numerous occasions for carrying various
articles, usually edible. On the whole, the time I have spent on this
outpost has been rather enjoyable. Having only one officer with us, and
being a reasonable distance from headquarters, we have been spared a
great deal of the "messing about" which seems to be the special fate of
the Imperial Yeomen. When you get your British Yeomen home again, many a
tale of incompetent officers and needless hardships will be retailed,
unless I am much in error. Here is apparently a small fact, which may
help to show _why_ the Yeoman has often fared worse than his regular
brother. The quartermaster-sergeant of a certain I.Y. company I know of,
is, like most others, a man absolutely unaccustomed to and unqualified
for the job. Added to this, the disposition of the man is of such a
nervous nature that he is afraid to try and work on his own initiative,
and consequently when requisitioning for his company's rations, he not
only fails to do what his regular brother non.-com. would do, viz.: get
as much as he can for his company, but fails often to requisition or
obtain their bare allowance. Once I met and asked this man if he had
drawn any jam for his company's tea, and his sleepily-drawled reply was,
"No-o, we were entitled to it, but I forgot to draw it." He forgot, and
a hundred hungry men were dependent on the energy of such a man. Compare
this amateur quartermaster-sergeant to the professional one, and you can
plainly see one way in which Thomas Atkins scores over his Yeoman
brother. Again, the two cooks of the same company were admittedly the
slackest and dirtiest men of the lot (the only qualification necessary
for a Yeomanry cook is the capability to boil water, and some seldom
achieve records even in doing that). Thanks to their dirtiness, the
thirsty troopers more often than not, had their tea or coffee spoilt
owing to the greasy state of the dixies (cooking pots), which had not
been cleaned after boiling the trek ox stew in them.
I am almost baking on the top of this kopje, as I sit with my back
against a rock and indite these little records. It seems hard to imagine
that early every morning muffled-up, shivering forms wait anxiously for
King Sol to stick his dear, red, blushing face above yonder range of
kopjes to warm us with his genial presence. Yesterday we had some of
Plumer's men in our little camp. They were rattling good fellows, and
had had a very hot time. They assured us that when they entered
Mafeking, so tired and gaunt were they, owing to their living on short
commons for so long, that any stranger might well have mistaken them for
the relieved garrison, and the garrison for the relieving force. They
also said the fellows there did not look half so bad as one would have
imagined, though they had eaten nearly every horse and mule in the
place. The idea which seemed general, that Plumer had a big force with
him, was very amusing to them, considering they actually only numbered a
few hundreds, and had, I think they said, two old muzzle-loading guns
only with them. Having been enlisted a month before the war, they are
the oldest Volunteer Force out here.