Something peculiar began to be observed about the British camp at
Chieveley. The naval guns still flashed by day, the searchlight still
signalled to Ladysmith of nights, the tents still glistened in the sun,
but the soldiers, where were they?
Marching somewhere up the river. Buller meant to try his luck once more.
More than one of our present leaders had in former days fought by
Buller's side against the Zulus. They knew him tenacious, able; no mere
theorist. It was here in Natal, under their eyes, that he had gained his
Victoria Cross--the same priceless bit of bronze that young Roberts had
just died to win; and they felt that to ward off his second blow would
ask all our energy and cost many useful lives.
The commandoes on our side of the river were extended to keep pace with
the enemy's movements on the other. The distance between the different
laagers lengthened considerably, and a speedy and certain method of
communication soon became a necessity. To obtain this use was made of
the vibrator, an instrument so sensitive that the most faulty line will
carry sufficient electricity to work it. Having received orders to
accompany the construction party, I said good-bye to my comfortable
quarters, and found myself in the veld once again.
While the two waggons loaded with wire, etc., went on by road we struck
across country, myself on horseback, a vibrator strapped to the saddle,
the others on foot. Half a dozen Kafirs accompanied us, carrying rolls
of "cable," wire about the thickness of the lead in a pencil and covered
with gutta percha. A wooden "saddle" holding one roll of wire was
strapped on the back of one of the natives, one end of the wire joined
up to the instrument in the office; the native marched forward, the wire
unrolling as he went, and the other boys placing stones upon it here and
there in order to prevent its being dragged about by cattle. In this
manner we went forward, establishing an office at every laager on the
way, with the result that every commando was always fully informed as to
the situation of all the others, and the enemy's every movement
immediately known to the entire forces, enabling reinforcements to be
sent anywhere at any time.
This system was an easy one to learn, and it has been said that some of
our generals became so fond of it that the slightest movement of the
enemy was the signal for a request for reinforcements. This is, no
doubt, a frivolous exaggeration.
The first day of laying the cable we had gone about fifteen miles, when
communication with the office suddenly ceased. Telling the others to go
on, I turned back and carefully tested the line, eventually finding the
fault at sundown. Reporting my whereabouts to the office, I was ordered
to follow the working party as rapidly as possible, the chief adding
that it was especially desired to have communication the same night with
the Standerton laager, where the others would have arrived by this time.
I therefore pushed on, following the wire. It was pretty dark when I
reached the foot of a mountain. Right across the cable led me--rather a
difficult matter tracing it in the dark--but at last an open plain on
the other side was reached; a few miles further I found one of our men
stretched out in the grass by the side of the cable.
"Where's the Standerton laager?"
"This is where it was. Shifted yesterday; don't know where to. Others
gone to find out. Got a blanket?"
I had not. We had no idea where the waggons were. We lay down to
shiver, not to sleep, for the intense cold made the latter impossible
and the former obligatory. In the middle of the night we moved round to
the other side of the antheap, thinking it _must_ be warmer there. But
it wasn't.
At sunrise the others returned, saying that the Standerton laager had
moved much higher up, and that the Johannesburg laager was the next on
the list. They accordingly marched in that direction, laying the cable
as they went, past precipices and over mountain gorges. I followed on,
testing and repairing, very tedious work in the burning sun. Fortunately
I was able to buy a little fresh milk from a native, which refreshed me
immensely. The waggons were still missing, so we had very little food.
At midnight the cable led me up a high hill, so steep that the pony
almost fell over backwards as I led him up the face of it. Right on the
top lived an old native, who, hearing the barking of his dogs, rushed
out armed with an assegai, ready to defend his eyrie against all comers.
I persuaded him to take me straight to the Johannesburg laager, where a
good night's rest made all right again.
The next morning communication was established with headquarters, and I
had the pleasure of eating a decent breakfast with Ben Viljoen, then
commandant, now general, whose acquaintance I had made during the
Swaziland expedition.
A fiery politician and a reckless writer, his pet aversions were
Hollanders and Englishmen, and it was hard to say which he detested the
most. Brave and straightforward, he was most popular amongst his men,
but the official, non-fighting, salary-pocketing element bore him no
love. General in charge of these positions was kind-hearted, energetic
Tobias Smuts, of Ermelo.
During the night Louis Botha arrived here, accompanied only by his aide
and his secretary. He, Smuts, their staffs, all slept in one small tent
on the hard ground, and with hardly room enough to turn round in. Truly
our chiefs were anything but carpet knights!
For a couple of days my office was under a waggon, then my tent arrived,
and soon everything was in full swing. One afternoon I was honoured by a
visit from a Hollander Jew and Transvaal journalist, whose articles had
more power to sting the Uitlanders than almost anything one could
mention on the spur of the moment.
We drank tea together and discussed the probability of our camp being
bombarded, standing, as it did, in full view of the hill whereon the
British cannon had been dragged a few days before. He had just raised
the cup to his lips when a well-known sound was heard--the shriek of an
approaching shell. Nearer and louder it came, till finally--bang!--the
shell burst not a hundred yards away. A young lineman, who had been
listening with all his soul and ever wider stretching eyes, now gave an
unearthly yell and almost sprang through the top of the tent, knocking
over the unhappy journalist and sending the hot tea streaming down his
neck. The youth's exit was somewhat unceremonious.
The office was hastily removed to the high bank of the adjacent stream.
Whilst this operation was going on the instrument buzzed out a message
ordering me to leave immediately for the Spion Kop office. I at once
said au revoir, handing over to my assistant the charge of the office,
river bank and all, as well as the task of dodging the shells, which
continued to fall around.
Riding along the steep bank for about two hundred yards, I found a
footpath leading down one side and up the other. No sooner had I started
down this than I heard a loud explosion. It did not sound quite so near,
but on gaining the opposite bank I saw floating over the spot just
quitted by me a small cloud of smoke, showing that a shell had been
fired at me with marvellous accuracy. Then a couple burst near the
general's tent, and the laager was immediately shifted behind the hill.
I reached Spion Kop, took charge of the office, and was kept so busy
that for a week there was no time to have a decent wash.
The hill next ours was daily bombarded with the utmost enthusiasm,
shells falling there at the rate of fully sixty a minute, while we
escaped with only an occasional bomb. Looking down upon the plain before
us, we could see the British regiments drilling on the bank of the
river, about two thousand yards away, probably to draw our fire, but in
vain was the net spread.
The ground of operations was somewhat extensive. For some days the
enemy's infantry had been harassing our right wing, attacking every day,
and drawing a little nearer every night. Louis Botha was almost
continually present at this point, only coming into camp now and then
for a few hours' sleep.
One evening his secretary said to me, with genuine emotion, "It has all
been in vain! Our men are worn out. They can do no more!"
He was a Hollander, and also a gentleman; that is to say, he was not one
of those Hollanders who lived on the fat of the land, and then turned
against us in our adversity; rather was he of the rarer stamp of Coster,
who glorified his mother country by nobly dying for that of his
adoption.
"Cheer up!" I replied. "There are other hills."
"To-morrow will tell," he said, as he bade me good-night.
And the morrow did. In the grey dawn two hatless and bootless young men
came stumbling down into the laager.
"The British have taken the hill!"
Startled, we gazed at Spion Kop's top--only five hundred yards away, but
invisible, covered by the thick mist as with a veil. The enemy were
there, we knew it; they could not see us as yet, but the mist would soon
clear away, and then....
Our guns were rapidly trained on the spot, our men placed in position,
and we waited.
I ran into the tent to telegraph the news to Colenso. No reply to my
hasty call. The wire is cut!
"Go at once," said the chief, "and repair the line."
As I rode off the mist cleared, and a few minutes later the fight had
begun. The cable ran about a thousand yards behind our firing line, and
as I went along, my eyes fixed on the wire, the noise of the battle
sounded in my ears like the roar of a prairie fire. Jagged pieces of
shell came whizzing past, shrieking like vampires in their hunt for
human flesh.
Searching carefully for the fault, my progress was slow, and it was
afternoon when the Johannesburg laager was reached. Here I found a
despatch-rider, who said that reinforcements had arrived at Spion Kop
early in the morning, that our men had immediately climbed the hill, and
that, the issue being very, uncertain, we might have to retreat during
the night.
The line was still interrupted, although I had repaired several faults.
I accordingly rode back to Spion Kop early the next morning. When I
entered the laager it was to find that all the waggons had already
retreated, and the tents standing deserted. Not quite deserted, for in
one of them half a dozen bodies were lying. The enemy had unexpectedly
retired during the night, and the entire commando was now on the hill,
gazing at the plentiful harvest reaped by our Nordenfeldts. Thither I
also went.
British ambulance men were busy collecting corpses. It was a mournful
sight; it seemed to me as if war really meant nothing else than
butchering men like sheep, quietly, methodically, and without any pomp
or circumstance.
"A sad sight!" I remarked to the British chaplain.
"They only did their duty," was his unfeeling reply. Duty! Is it any
man's duty to kill and be killed without knowing why? For what did these
poor Lancashire lads know or care about the merits of the war?
"What do you think the confounded English have had the cheek to do?"
asked a friend. "You know they always keep our wounded as prisoners when
they get the chance. Well, this morning their ambulance came here and
coolly carted away all their wounded! Louis Botha says they might have
asked permission first. I should have turned a Maxim on them!"
We went down to the laager, found the line in order, and wired the news
of the victory to Pretoria. I had not been able to get into
communication the day before because the chief had taken a hand in the
fighting instead of attending to the instrument.
Believing that Warren would make another attempt, this time more to our
right, we shifted the office a few miles in that direction and pitched
our tent next to a farmhouse, which was being utilised as a hospital.