It was beginning to get rather exciting. The big gun, just below, had
roared forth its message, and the spectators on the kopje had their
field-glasses glued to their eyes, as they watched the progress of the
great projectile. Splash! there it was. A cloud of dust flew up from
the red-brown veldt, away in the distance, but harmlessly. Then, hard
by where it had fallen, a British gun barked, and, immediately, a huge
mass of the earth's surface, bitten into, leaped in mid-air on the
further side of the river, falling back in great chunks--clods and
stones--and gyrations of dust. Further along the line, another gun
spoke, then another and another, as though passing the word along the
vast length, until the farthest voices, miles away, sounded quite
faintly. Then ever and again would arise the crackling roll of
rifle-fire.
The sun was now well up over the eastern horizon, sweeping his joyous
morning rays in golden warmth over this warring drama of blood and of
wounds and of death. Cleaving the great expanse of red-brown veldt the
river bed, bush-fringed, with high muddy banks, yawned; and away further
down, the clustering buildings of the little township, and the straight
thread of the railway line tailing away on either side. Beyond the said
banks, lines of trenches, where lay the Boer riflemen, grim and earnest,
awaiting their turn, which would soon come.
Again the big gun below loosed off, with a tremendous reverberation.
Those on the kopje, watching the missile, descried a certain amount of
confusion where it struck, a scurrying or scattering behind its redoubt.
Heads went up eagerly from behind the Boer earthworks to watch the
result, but little or no remark escaped the lips of the stolid burghers.
Then the English battery barked in return, and the vast thud of the
lyddite shell striking one end of the earthwork, blowing up the same
great cloud of dust and fragments, reached the spectators with something
like the tremor of an earthquake. At the same time the latter could see
that, where it had fallen, several forms were lying, while others
bending over them were trying to draw them out of the dust and _debris_.
Colvin Kershaw's hand shook slightly as he lowered his glasses, and his
face wore the look of one who has gazed upon a peculiarly horrifying
sight. And well might it, for the projectile had done its work with
fell and awful completeness, and the powerful lens afforded him a view
of every detail, of writhings and agony and terrible mutilation.
"Guess you're not used to it, Kershaw," said a voice at his side. "Made
me look sick, too, first time I saw it. You ever see a fight before?"
The speaker was an American war-correspondent "doing" the battle from
within the Boer lines.
"Yes, I served in Matabeleland," answered Colvin. "But with niggers
it's different. Then, you see, we hated the brutes so because they'd
butchered a lot of women and children at the outbreak of the rebellion.
Even with them, though, you didn't see such a wholesale bust-up as that.
Faugh!"
"Well, there's worse to come yet. Here, you take a draw at this"--
tendering him a large field flask. Colvin accepted, and the nip of
excellent Boer brandy just steadied his nerves, which had been
momentarily shaken.
"You try a little, Commandant," went on the owner of the flask.
But Commandant Andries Botma declined. He seldom touched stimulants, he
said, and now, if he did so at the beginning of a fight, would it not be
said that he required a dose of what the English call "Dutch courage"--
with a whimsical look at Colvin, at whom he was poking sly fun?
The quondam emissary to the Colonial Boers, among whom we first made his
acquaintance, was no mere frothy stump orator. The name by which he was
deferentially known among these--"The Patriot"--he had subsequently done
everything to justify. He was not the man to preach others into peril
he dare not face himself, and when his crusade had culminated in an
appeal to arms, he had always been among the foremost where hard knocks
were given or received. Now he was in command of an important wing of
General Cronje's force.
A mighty engine of destruction or defence this--its lines extending for
miles and miles--waiting there grim, dogged, resolute, to give battle to
the richest, most resourceful, and determined Power in the world. A
terrible force to reckon with; its impelling factor, a calm fanaticism
born of an unswerving conviction of the justice of the cause and the
sure and certain alliance of Heaven.
In the simplicity of his veldt attire, with little or nothing to mark
him out from those whom he commanded, Andries Botma looked even more a
born leader of men than when last we saw him, swaying his countrymen
with all the force of his fiery oratory. His strong rugged face, eager,
yet impassive, was bent upon the scene of battle, as though not to lose
a detail, not to miss a chance. He was surrounded by a little knot of
middle-aged and elderly Boers, most of them holding subordinate commands
under himself.
"Whirr!" The screech of a shrapnel sailing over the foremost lines. It
falls into the river, throwing up the mud with a tremendous splash.
Another and another. This last, better aimed, strikes among the rear
lines--result as before: agony, wounds, death. At the same time another
hits the kopje not many yards below, exploding in all directions with
appalling effect.
The splinters fly from an ironstone boulder not two yards distant, but
Andries Botma does not move a muscle. One Boer in the group utters a
mild ejaculation, and then is seen to be winding a bit of oiled rag,
kept for gun-sponging purposes, around his middle finger. Through this
rude bandage the blood slowly oozes, but nobody seems to think the
circumstance worthy of remark. Colvin is conscious of a creeping
sensation in the region of the spine, as the jagged iron explodes around
him with vicious metallic hiss. And the voices of the long-range duel
undergo no diminution, the deep-mouthed boom of the heavy guns, and the
sharp, snapping bark of the smaller ones.
Things, however, are not destined to continue that way. As the hours
wear on the advance of the attacking force is made out. From this part
of the field the latter can be seen in skirmishing order, drawing nearer
and nearer; those khaki-clad dots on the great brown expanse affording
but an insignificant mark. And then there begins the sound of
rifle-shooting, literally as "the crackling of thorns under a pot."
Down and along the lines it sweeps, in waves of sharp staccato sounds,
and the spludges of dust, before and behind those khaki lines of
advancing skirmishers, but mostly before, are like the dropping of water
on red-hot iron. Now, too, it is near enough to mark the effect of
those deadly volleys. That inexorable advance continues, but as it does
it leaves behind lines of dead and dying and grievously wounded. Not
all on one side, though, is the red slaughter. Here among the patriot
trenches men are falling, and falling fast. Shell after shell, too,
drops into the little township, and the crash of shattered brickwork,
and the shrill clangour of battered-in corrugated iron, mingles with the
gradating roar of projectiles, as they leave each grim nozzle
sentinelling miles and miles of that sullen river front.
Those on the kopje are now well within the line of fire. More than
frequently a shrill vicious "whigge" as the Lee-Metford bullets clip the
air, or shatter to a flattened lead mushroom against a stone, causes an
involuntary duck. The American is taking plentiful notes in shorthand.
Colvin, who is without this resource, also devoid of the natural
excitement of the combatant of firing at the enemy as well as being
fired at by him, takes longer to get used to the hum of bullets and the
bursting of shrapnel than would otherwise have been the case, for he is
totally unarmed, a precaution taken against the eventuality of capture
by his own countrymen. And the effect of this precaution is strange.
He feels out of it. Needless to say he has no desire to draw trigger on
his said countrymen, yet the consciousness that he is being shot at--no
matter whom by--without the power of replying, is strange and novel.
But his nerves at last become attuned to the hum of missiles, and he
watches the whole arena of the battle with a vivid and increasing
interest.
Higher and higher mounts the sun, more blistering and scorching his
rays, giving forth from the ironstone of the kopje as though reflected
from an oven. A strange mirage, watery, crystallised, hangs over the
brown expanse of veldt, going off into limpid blue on the far horizon,
where the distant flat-topped hills seem to be suspended in mid-air.
Whether it is that this lake-like liquid tranquillity emphasises the
torrid heat or not, those on the kopje feel what the burning of thirst
means. They have water-bottles from which they refresh, but sparingly.
Those in the trenches feel it too, but their attention is on the dire,
stern business of the day. No time have they to dwell upon mere
corporeal cravings.
Whigge! Crash! Shell after shell is breaking within their lines. Men
writhe, shattered, screaming, where the hideous dismemberment of the
human frame is beyond all human endurance, however willing the spirit,
the dogged, stern, manly, patriotic spirit--proof against mere ordinary
pain--agony even. One of the group round Andries Botma sinks to the
earth as a Nordenfelt missile, crashing and splintering among the stones
which form his cover, buries a great fragment of jagged iron deep in his
thigh. All run to him, foremost among them the Commandant, reckless of
the perfect hailstorm of bullets which already, although at long-range,
is beginning to spray the kopje, while some signal wildly to the
ambulance waggons away and below in the rear. But Field-cornet Theunis
Van Wyk has got his death-blow, and his wife and children--he has three
sons fighting below in the trenches--and grandchildren will see him at
home smoking the pipe of peace no more. The flow of blood is already
rendering him faint, and with a hasty jerked-out message delivered to
his old friend and Commandant to carry to them, and a quavering attempt
at singing a Dutch hymn upon his lips, he passes out like a brave man,
without complaint or rancour, as many and many a one has done and will
do before this day of striving and of carnage is over.
And as the advancing host draws nearer, now in quick intrepid rushes
over open ground where the leaden hail sweeps in its remorseless shower,
now prone and in skirmishing formation, the roar of battle waxes louder
and louder. On both sides the crackling din of volleys is well-nigh
incessant--as the rifles speak from trench or temporary cover, with dire
effect. But there is very little smoke, although the plain on either
side is simply spurting puffs of dust where each bullet finds its mark--
save where such mark is not mother earth. In the background the
ambulances hover, their heroic attendants darting in now and again, and
rescuing the maimed victims under the leaden shower itself. And above
the ceaseless crackle of small arms, the heavier boom of artillery rolls
out more continuous, more unbroken than ever.
Colvin has got over his first shrinking of nerves. He hears the humming
of missiles overhead and around with something of equanimity, he sees
the splash of lead against rock--or the dust-cloud leaping out of the
ground as the bursting iron of shell tears up the surface. Two more of
those upon the kopje fall, one stone dead, the other dying. It may be
his turn next. And then, as even the excitement of the day-long battle
begins to wane and go flat, his thoughts refer to that last parting with
Aletta. What a parting that had been--as though he had been going to
his death, to his execution! He realises the burden of it now, as he
looks on the sad havoc of human life below and around him--the swift
sudden fate leaping out of nowhere--the mangled, the mutilated, moaning
for the boon of death--of being put out of their sufferings; the
lifeless--a moment ago rejoicing in their youth and strength with all
their years before them. Ah yes--and this is war--glorious war!--and at
this very moment there are tens of thousands in the vigour of their
youth and strength now panting and longing for the opportunity to become
such as these.
"Oh, Kershaw. Guess the British'll bust our centre right now. They're
coming right through the river."
It was the voice of the American. Chewing a cigar in the corner of his
mouth, he was calmly and unconcernedly taking his notes, while keenly
watching each new development of the day. Colvin, following his glance,
could make out a crowd of forms in the river bed some distance down.
Then the rattle of rifle-fire became one long deafening roll, as all the
energies of the Republican forces, anywhere within reasonable range,
became concentrated on this new attempt. But the result he could not
determine. The whole thing had more than begun to bewilder him. His
ears were deafened by the unintermittent roll and crackle, his eyes dim
and dizzy with watching, or trying to watch, the movements of both lines
of striving combatants. He heard Andries Botma give orders, and then
saw a great mass of mounted Boers, stealthily keeping cover as far as
possible, dash forth and pour volley after volley into the waggons and
trek-animals of the opposing force; hanging on the outskirts of the
latter, with the result of throwing it for the while into hideous
confusion. He saw frightful sights of dying men, mangled and
shell-ripped; but by then his susceptibilities were blunted, the whole
world seemed changed into a hell. The voice of his American friend
again aroused him.
"Mind me, Kershaw. Next time you come to view this sample of scrimmage,
you get something to do. You got nothing to report for, and of course
you can't shoot at other English, so it's bound to get on your nerves."
"There's something in what you say, Acton," replied Colvin. "There's a
sort of passive helpless feeling about it all to me. I seem to realise
what the ambulance people's work is like; but even they have work. Now
I have nothing but to sit and look on."
"Pity," said the other. "But we haven't got the best ground. Too much
near the end of the line. Well, it's no great matter. I'll make it all
read beautiful," glancing with pride down his columns of notes. "You
have a cigar?"
"Thanks," lighting up the weed. "But--what's on now?"
They were, as the American had said, near the end of the line. Now they
could see, confusedly, and in the distance, that the British were in and
through the river, forcing the centre of the opposing line. And the
wild cheers of the soldiers reached them through the incessant din and
roar of fire. At the same time those in the trenches on the further
side of the river had abandoned their position and retired across.
The sun was sinking now. It was hard to realise that a whole day had
been passed in the turmoil of this unending rattle and noise. Yet to
Colvin the effect was almost as though he had spent his whole life in
it. His mind represented but a confused notion of what he had
witnessed, of what he had been through; and when at nightfall the word
was silently passed to retire, to evacuate the position, and take up
another, some miles in the rear, where everything was more favourable to
meet and again withstand a sorely tried but valorous and persistent foe,
he seemed to regard it as no more of an out-of-the-way circumstance than
the order to inspan a waggon or two. Yet he had spent that day
witnessing one of the fiercest and most stubbornly contested battles in
which his country's arms had been engaged within the current century.