reconnaissance is undertaken with a view to exposing the enemy's
position and strength. Without intending a real attack, you demonstrate,
feign a forward movement, push on in one place or another, or threaten
to turn his flanks; so obliging him to move his men here and there,
expose his strength and the limits of the position, and, perhaps, the
whereabouts and number of his guns, if they should be tempted to open
fire at our scouts. This is the theory of the thing. In practice it
doesn't quite work, owing to the utter ignorance of the Boers of all
military tactics. On all occasions when we have carried out these
manoeuvres, notably round the Magersfontein hills before the battle,
they have not only failed to make the proper responses to our moves, but
have neglected to take notice of them in any way whatever. Not a gun
speaks, not a man is to be seen. We demonstrate before empty hills.
Creepily, you may conjecture the fierce eyes along the rock edge, but
nothing shows. In vain we circle about the plain, advance, retire,
curtsey, and set to him; our enemy, like the tortoise, "will not join
the dance." Nothing is more discouraging. It is like playing to an empty
house. However, as young B---- said to me, we did our part anyway, and
if they are so ignorant as not to know the counter-moves, well, they
must take the consequences. Manoeuvres of this kind, I must tell you,
are a high test of military skill, and are often not fully intelligible
to the lay mind. As an instance of this, I heard a man of ours, a shrewd
fellow but no soldier, say, in his coarse Colonial way, as we were
riding home, that he "was glad we had finished making a b----y
exhibition of ourselves." It is to be hoped that after a little we shall
get to appreciate these manoeuvres better. Just at first there is a
slight suggestion of Gilbert and Sullivan about them.
LETTER VIII
SCOUTING ON THE MODDER
THORNHILL FARM, _January 30_, 1900.
On the eastern or Jacobsdal side the country is all a plain, dull and
monotonous like a huge prairie, with no shade from the heat or shelter
from the thunderstorms. On the western side it is very different. Great
hills run roughly parallel to the river course, but leave a wide plain
between themselves and it. They are clothed with a few scant bushes, out
of which their tops rise bare and rocky; but in the shady hollows and
gorges the low thorn-trees (mimosas) grow thickly, and over the plain
that stretches to the river their grey foliage gathers into thick covers
or is sometimes dotted here and there. The smell of the mimosa flowers
(little yellow balls of pollen-covered blossom) is the most delicious I
know, and the air as we ride through these lonely covers, where a few
buck seem the only tenants, is fragrant with it. Far apart there are
farms, prettily situated, generally close to the hills, the rocky sides
of the kopjes rising behind, the wide plain spread in front. Each has
its dam, sometimes more than one, built round with mud embankments, with
huge weeping willows overhanging, and rows of tall poplars and blue gums
(with shreds of bark rattling), and plenty of other trees. The
farmhouses themselves are uninteresting, but the gardens, with their
great thicket hedges of prickly pear and quince and brilliant blossoming
pomegranate, are delightful, especially at this time, when the fruit is
just getting ripe.
It was out on this western side, where we were feeling for the enemy's
right flank, some twenty miles from camp, in a niche half way up the
mountain, that we spent our last Christmas. We rather expected an
attack, as a Kaffir of ours had been taken by them, and might be
expected to reveal our movements. After dark we climbed the hill,
dragging our ponies over the boulders and scratching our way through the
thorns.
The Boer hill was four or five miles distant, north across the plain.
All along its purple sides we ranged with our glasses, seeing nothing;
but after dark several little points of light showed where their laager
was. We sat all night among the rocks (I thought of you and the
roast-turkey and holly), occasional heavy drops of rain falling, and a
flicker of lightning now and then. Heavy clouds rolled up, and the night
set in as dark as pitch. The level plain below us lay flat as a pancake
from their hill to ours. So passed our '99 Christmas, picturesque
possibly, but not very comfortable. Dark hillside; rain in large warm
drops; night dark, with a star or two and struggling moon. In front, a
distant hillside, with points of camp-fire twinkling, where the Boers,
indifferent to our little party, were carousing and drinking their
_dop._ Now and then a yawn or groan as a man stretches his cramped
limbs. Down below under us an expanse of dark plain, like a murky sea,
reaching to our feet, which we peer across, but can make out nothing.
Peep-of-day time is the Boer's favourite hour for a call, and we were
all very much on the _qui vive_ when the white line showed along the
east. No doubt, however, they all had such heads after their Christmas
drink that they were in no humour for such a diversion. At any rate,
they let us alone. Very stiff and weary and wet, we crept down the hill
soon after daybreak and started on our twenty-mile homeward march. It
was 5 P.M. before we reached camp, and we had had nothing to eat all
day. I don't know if we were most tired or hungry. Take that three days
as a sample of work. We start at 6 A.M. on Sunday; do a full day's
riding and scouting, and get three hours' sleep that night at Enslin.
Then we saddle up and pass the rest of the night and all the next day
riding, except when we are climbing hills on foot to look out. The
second night we sit among the hills expecting an attack, and next day
till one o'clock are in the saddle again. _À la guerre comme à la
guerre_. Three days and two nights' hard work on three hours' sleep. And
all this time you are drinking champagne (well, most of it, anyway), and
sleeping in soft beds with delicious white sheets, and smoking Egyptian
cigarettes, and wearing clean clothes, with nice stiff collars and shirt
cuffs, and having a bath in the morning, warm, with sweet-smelling soap
(Oh, my God!), and sitting side by side at table, first a man and then a
woman; the same old arrangement, I suppose, knives to the right and
forks to the left as usual. Ho! ho! There are times I could laugh. No
doubt we shall all get _redigested_ as soon as we get back, but
meantime, as a set-off to the hardship, one knows what it is to feel
free. We eat what we can pick up, and we lie down to sleep on the bare
ground. We wash seldom, and our clothes wear to pieces on our bodies. We
find we can do without many things, and though we sometimes miss them,
there comes a keen sense of pleasure from being entire master of oneself
and all one's possessions. Your water-bottle hangs on your shoulder;
your haversack, with your blanket, is strapped to your saddle; rifle,
bandolier, and a pair of good glasses are your only other possessions.
As you stand at your pony's side ready to mount, you may be starting for
the day or you may be away a fortnight, but your preparations are the
same.
Above all others does this scouting life develop your faculties, sharpen
your senses of hearing and of seeing, and, in practical ways, of
thinking too; of noting signs and little portents and drawing
conclusions from them; of observing things. You feel more _alive_ than
you ever felt before. Every day you are more or less dependent on your
own faculties. Not only for food and drink for yourself and your pony,
but for your life itself. And your faculties respond to the call. Your
glance, as it scans the rocks and the plain, is more wary and more
vigilant; your ears, as you lie in the scrub, prick themselves at a
sound like a Red Indian's, and the least movement among cattle or game
or Kaffirs, or the least sign that occurs within range of your glasses,
is noticed and questioned in an instant.
This you get in return for all you give up--in return for the
sweet-smelling soap and the footman who calls you in the morning. Oh,
that pale-faced footman! It is dawn when, relieved on look-out, I
clamber down the rocks to our bivouac. A few small fires burn, and my
pal points to a tin coffee cup and baked biscuit by one of them. It is
the hour at home for the pale-faced footman. I see him now, entering the
room noiselessly with cautious tread as if it were a sick-room, softly
drawing a curtain to let a little light into the darkened apartment, and
approaching with a cup of tea that the poor invalid has barely to reach
out his hand to. Round our little camp I look, noting trifles with a
keen enjoyment. Shall I ever submit to that varlet again? No, never! I
will leap from my bed and wrestle with him on the floor. I will anoint
him with my shaving soap and duck him in the bath he meant for me. Do
you know the emancipated feeling yourself? Do you know the sensation
when your glance is like a sword-thrust and your health like a devil's;
when just to touch things with your fingers gives a thrill, and to look
at and see common objects, sticks and trees, is like drinking wine?
Don't you? Oh, be called by twenty footmen and be hanged to you!
This Christmas patrol of ours was of use in touching the southernmost
and westernmost limits of the Boer position. It has shown that the
enveloping movement of which so much has been said, and which has been
pressed now and then on the east side, has not made much progress on the
west.
The big mountain range, running east and west, comes to an end some
thirty miles west of Modder Camp, where it breaks up into a few detached
masses and peaks. The extreme one of these, a sugar-loaf cone, is called
the Pintberg, and on this lonely eerie a picket of ours is generally
placed; crouched among the few crags and long grass tufts that form its
point, the horses tethered in the hollow behind; listening by night and
watching by day. When we come out thus far, we sometimes stay out a week
or more at a time. The enemy's position is along the hills north of the
plain by the river--chiefly north of it, but in places south.
I am turning over my diary with the idea of giving you a notion of the
sort of life we lead, but find nothing remarkable.
"Last night, Vice, Dunkley, and I were on lookout on the kopje. There
had been a heavy storm in the afternoon and another broke as we reached
the hill. We crouched in our cloaks waiting for it to pass before
climbing up, as the ironstone boulders are supposed to attract the
lightning (I have heard it strike them; it makes a crack like a
pistol-shot, and Colonials don't like staying on the hill tops during a
storm). We passed all night on our airy perch among the rocks, half wet
and the wind blowing strong. It was a darkish and cloudy night, rather
cold. Watched the light die out of the stormy sky; the lightning
flickering away to leeward; wet gleams from the plain where the water
shone here and there; moaning and sighing of wind through rock and
branch. We were relieved by Lancers in the morning and jogged back to
Thornhill, where our little camp is, and I am writing this in the shade
of a big mimosa close to the garden wall.
"I have seen prints in shop windows of farms and soldiers, bits of
country life and war mixed, a party of Lancers or Uhlans calling at some
old homestead, watering their horses or bivouacking in the garden. Often
what I see now makes me think of these subjects. A large camp is hideous
and depressing; dirty and worn, the ground trampled deep in dust; filth
and refuse lying about; the entrails and skins of animals, flies,
beastly smells, and no excitement or animation. But these outlying
scenes, scouts, pickets, &c., have a peculiar interest. This garden, for
instance, is itself pretty and wild, with its tangle of figs, its avenue
of quinces (great golden fruit hanging), its aloes all down the side,
with heavy, blue spikes and dead stems sticking thirty feet in air,
branching and blackened like fire-scorched fir-trees, and its dark green
oranges and other fruit and flower-trees all mixed in a kind of
wilderness; and behind this the steep kopjes, with black boulders heaped
to the sky, and soft grey mimosas in between. It is a pretty spot in
itself, but what a different, strange interest is brought in by the two
or three carbines leaning against the wall, the ponies, ready saddled,
tethered at the corner, the hint of camp-fire smoke climbing up through
a clump of trees, and now and then a khaki-clad figure or two passing
between the trunks or lying under them asleep."
Here is another little extract, a bit of a night-spy by three of us on
the west side, where we had heard that the Douglas commando was
establishing a laager near a drift some thirteen miles below camp; a
move forward of their right arm, if true.
"The night was dark as pitch, and very windy, just what we wanted. After
missing our way several times, whispering, consulting, and feeling about
in the dark, we came on the wattle fence and beehive huts of a Kaffir
kraal. Up to this we crept, and Vice dived into the hole of an entrance,
and after some underground rumblings emerged with an old nigger as you
draw a badger from his earth. The old man was soon persuaded by a
moderate bribe to be our guide to the spot we wished to reconnoitre. He
told us that parties of Boers were pretty often round that way, and that
one had passed the previous night at the kraal. Dunkley agreed to stay
with the horses, and Vice and I went on with the Kaffir. The country was
grassy, with plentiful belts and clumps of silvery bush. After a while
the moon shone out and the clouds dispersed, which made us feel
disagreeably conspicuous in the white patches between the bush."
Exmoor, as far as the contour of the ground is concerned, is a little
like the more up-and-down parts of the veldt, and scouting there would
be very much like scouting here. For instance, suppose your camp was at
Minehead, the Boers being in strength at Winsford, and a report comes in
that they have pushed on a strong picket to Simonsbath. This rumour it
is your business to test. With two friends on a dark, windy night you
set out. You leave the road and take to the moor. You ride slowly,
listening, watching intently, keeping off the high ground, and as much
as possible avoiding sky-lines. At some cottage or moorland farm you
leave the horses and creep forward on foot, working along the hollows
and studying every outline. If they are at Simonsbath, they will have a
lookout on the hill this side. A British picket would show its helmets
at a mile, but the Boers don't affect sky-lines. They will be on this
side, with the hill for a background, and very likely right down on the
flat; for though by day the higher you are the better for seeing, yet at
night, when your only chance is to see people against the sky, the lower
you are the better. These points and others you discuss in whispers,
crouched in the dark hollows, and then creep forward again.
"Vice and I crawled to the top of our ridge at last just as morning was
breaking. There were bushes and rocks to hide among, and the clouds had
all gone, and day broke clear. The deep river ravine lay right below us,
and as the light penetrated, the first thing we saw was a small shelter
tent with a cart or waggon by the side of it. We grinned and nudged each
other and wagged our heads at the discovery, but kept them carefully
hidden. Farther west was a detached kopje, the site of a permanent Boer
picket, according to the Kaffir; but there was no regular laager. There
were no horses grazing about, no cattle, no smoke, none of the usual and
inevitable signs. A picket! Yes. Pushed out from Koodoosberg, the big
hill which rises abruptly from the plain three or four miles off, but no
real occupation. After studying the country yard by yard with our
glasses, and making a few notes about the lie of the land and the names
and positions of farms, we creep off and get back to camp by mid-day."
The results of these exciting little prowls, when worth while, are sent
in to the General, and from the mass of evidence thus placed before him
he is supposed to be able to define the enemy's position and movements.
Chester Master and our little body were paid a pretty compliment by the
General the other day; for the Major having written to ask if we might
join him, Methuen replied that he was sorry to have to refuse, but that
we were doing invaluable work, and he really couldn't spare us.
Well, fare you well. We hear of heavy reinforcements arriving. They will
be very welcome. Magersfontein, Colenso, Stormberg; we could do with a
change. But what a revelation, is it not? Are these the prisoners that
we played at dice for? One thing in it all pleases me, and that is the
temper and attitude of England. I like the gravity, the quiet, dogged
rolling up of the shirt-sleeves much better than the blustering,
wipe-something-off-a-slate style which the papers made so familiar to us
at the beginning.
LETTER IX
THE ADVANCE
MODDER RIVER CAMP,
_February 13_, 1900.
We are back in the old camp, but only for a few hours. This afternoon we
march. Yesterday, crossing the line, we had a glimpse of Rimington and
the rest of the corps. They have come up with French, and are off
eastward on the flank march. We shall be after them hotfoot before dark.
Things begin to shape themselves. We are going to bring our right arm
round, leaving Magersfontein untouched, and relieve Kimberley by a flank
march in force. Methuen stays here. Poor fellow! I wish him joy of it.
Bobs and Kitchener direct the advance; French heads it. They say we
shall march 50,000 strong. The line is choked with troop trains,
batteries, siege guns, naval guns, and endless truckloads of stores and
provisions. _At last!_ is every one's feelings. The long waited for
moment has come. You know a hawk's hover? Body steady, wings beating,
and then the rushing swoop. So with the army. We have hovered steady
here these two months with our wings stretched. Now we swoop.
Far out on the left flank our little body of fifteen has been in a great
state of suspense for several weeks. We knew the great tide of advance
was setting up from Orange River to the Modder, and as no orders came
for us, we began to think we should be out of it. Then one evening, as I
was sitting on some boulders above camp looking out over the country, I
saw Chester Master riding in from headquarters with a smile on his face,
and the sort of look that a man has who brings good news. Down I
clambered. Yes, it had come. We were to move that night. The advance had
begun, and we were off on an all-night march to catch up French. What a
change came over the men! Instead of bored, sulky faces, and growlings
and grumblings, all were now keen and alert. When the moon rose we
started. Our very ponies seemed to know they were "in the movement," and
stepped out cheerily. The night was clear as silver, and each man's
shadow moved by his side, clean cut on the ground like the shadows
thrown by the electric light outside the Criterion. Song and joke passed
once more, and soon up went the favourite cavalry march, the most
stirring tune of any, "Coming thro' the Rye." It was very jolly. Not
often has one ridden on such a quest, on such a night, to such a tune as
that.
So, old Modder, fare you well! Farewell the huge plain that one grew so
fond of, with its blue and yellow bars of light, morning and evening;
the shaggy kopjes heaped with black rocks, the secluded, lonely farms
nestling beneath, old Cook's, where the figs were ripe in the garden,
and Mrs. Dugmore, who gave us fresh bread and butter and stewed peaches.
Not soon shall I forget those morning patrols. The sea of veldt, the
pure air, the carelessness, the comradeship, and the freedom. Old
Gordon has a good verse that I find sometimes running in my head--
"It was merry in the morning
Among the gleaming grass,
To wander as we've wandered many a mile,
And blow the cool tobacco cloud
And watch the white wreaths pass,
Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while."
And then the secret bivouacs and lurking-places along the river or in
among the deserted hills. The lookout from the tall pyramid, where I
have kept watch so many hours day and night, in heat of sun or with
stars glittering overhead.
It was from this kopje that we got notice to quit, by the way. Our
notice taking the shape of several little brown-backed Boers galloping
about and spying at us from a hill one and a half miles to the north.
That night we drew out in the plain after dark and camped (no fires)
among the bushes, and at grey dawn stole back to have another look. Back
dashes one of our advance scouts to tell us that a big force of Boers
was just rounding the point. Next minute we were swinging out into the
plain, through the low scrub and thorn bush, and as we did so the Boers
came through the Nek. They must have known exactly where our usual camp
was, and crept up overnight to cut us off. It wasn't by much that they
missed. Three or four loiterers, as it was, had a warm minute or two.
The first single shots grew to a sudden fierce crackle, like the crackle
of a dry thorn branch on the fire, as they came through the bush. But
they came on nevertheless, one horse hit only, and joined us, and we
formed up and started at a steady gallop for the hills beyond the plain,
six miles off; where there was a quite strong camp, established a few
days before, for which we have lately been scouting. The Boers chased us
some way, but we had got a long start, as they came through the rough
ground, and they were never on terms with us. Still it was near enough.
Five minutes earlier and what a slating we should have got!
We were told afterwards that the plan on this side was to draw the Boers
south of the hills, so as to give the cavalry, which was to move
westward just north of the range, a chance of cutting them off. The
cavalry, however, didn't turn up. No one seemed to know what had become
of them, and I daresay they were saying the same of us. The advice not
to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing is sometimes
rather too literally followed in these manoeuvres, I think. Meantime the
Boers have driven off all old Cook's cattle and all Mrs. Dugmore's too;
and as we were sent out with the express object of "reassuring the
farmers," the result is not entirely satisfactory.
No matter; this was all a side issue; now for a larger stage and more
important operations. Blow trumpets and sound drums. Enter Lord Roberts
and the main army.
LETTER X
RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY
KIMBERLEY CLUB, _February 18_.
It is with feelings of the deepest satisfaction that I look at the
address at the head of this notepaper. Indeed for the last five minutes
I have been staring at it dreamily without putting pen to paper,
repeating "Kimberley Club, Kimberley," to myself, vaguely thinking of
all it portends; the varied fortunes of the last three months; the
cheery setting out; the first battles, that already seem so long ago;
the repulse, and long, dreary wait by Modder; the gradual reconstruction
of the whole plan of attack, and now the final achievement. Christian
and I have been sharing a pint of champagne in the club bar. It was not
till I heard the bottle pop that I realised, as by a sudden inspiration,
that the British army had really attained its object at last. Very
gravely we gave each other luck, and gravely drank our wine. Both of us,
I am glad to be able to tell you, rose to the occasion, and as we looked
across the bubbles, no foolish chaff or laughter marred the moment.
I wrote you my last letter from old Modder just as we were leaving to
catch French. Marching light and fast, we got up with him on the night
of the 15th at the Klip Drift on the Modder, northeast of Jacobsdal.
From there we were sent back to guide on Kitchener, which we did,
bringing him to French's camp on the river by 6 A.M. next morning
(16th). We met on the way our little ambulance cart bobbing home with
the adjutant languidly reclining. He had had one of those escapes that
now and then come off. There was a high hill to the north, and up this
the previous morning, R., an active walker, had climbed to have a view
of the country. He reached the top, which is like a gable, slanting both
sides to a thin edge, and precisely as he did so, ten or a dozen great
hairy Boers reached it from the other side, and, at ten yards' distance
across the rock edge, their eyes met. Can you conceive a more disgusting
termination to a morning stroll? Without a word said, R. took to his
heels and the Boers to their Mausers. Down the hill went R., bounding
like a buck, and all round him whipped and whined the bullets among the
rocks. Twice he went headlong, twisting his ankle badly once as the
stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the
shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed
out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away
without a scratch, him and his pony. Was ever such luck?
French started on his final relief march about an hour later, and we
were not able to accompany him as our horses were absolutely done up. It
was very disappointing at the time to see him ride off on this last
stage with a large party of our comrades, led by Rimington himself (he
was first into Kimberley, we heard afterwards) at the head. However, as
things turned out, it did not much matter, for the next day we had an
interesting time, and saw a big job put in train, which is not finished
yet, and which we shall probably see more of if we start, as they say,
to-morrow.