were sent forward to reconnoitre a kopje where the Boers the day before
had had a gun. We found the gun gone. Some marks of blood, a half-dug
grave, and two dead horses, showed that the fire of our long naval gun
had been more or less effective. We then rode on, the column we were
guiding getting gradually into formation, and we were just mounting the
next ridge, when down in the valley beneath we saw a long line of
waggons, stretching away eastward for miles, dragged by huge bullock
teams. They were making the best of their way forward, each with a party
of mounted men riding at the side, and at the first glance, so close to
our army and camp were they, I almost fancied it must be a convoy of our
own. However, we realised what was up pretty quickly. The Boers, hearing
of French's flank march, and fearing they would be cut off if they
remained, were abandoning their position in the hills about
Magersfontein, which they had intrenched so strongly, and were quietly
and promptly moving off towards Bloemfontein. The rearguard of their
line was at that moment just opposite to us.
Chester Master immediately sent back an orderly as hard as he could go
to tell our fellows what was in front and hurry them up, every moment
being now of the utmost importance if we wanted to intercept the enemy.
The Boers themselves took their measures instantly and with their usual
coolness. A long line of kopjes ran eastward across the plain, flanking
the line of their march, and directly they saw they were discovered,
their horsemen dashed forward and began to occupy these, thus guarding
the right flank of their retreat from our attack. Seeing this, Chester
Master galloped back himself to urge on our Mounted Infantry, who were
now mustering rapidly to the attack.
From the kopje on the extreme left front, where we were, we could now
see extended at our feet the whole plan of the approaching battle, while
as yet the two sides were invisible to each other. In the valley on the
north side of the kopjes the Boers were urging on their convoy and
rapidly despatching their sharpshooters to hold the hills along their
right. On the south side were the masses of our columns, with the
squadrons of Mounted Infantry now detaching themselves from the main
body, and beginning to stream across the level plain towards the same
hills; all with heads bent one way, horses prancing and pulling, and
with all the signs of eager excitement, as though they divined, though
as yet they could not see, the presence of the enemy. Over the dusty
plain they canter, but they are too late by a few minutes. The Boers are
there already, and as the Mounted Infantry come along, passing close
beneath us, an outbreak of rifle-fire occurs, and the dry plain, which
is of perfectly bare earth, is dotted with little white puffs of dust as
the bullets strike along it. The fire is a bit short, but schooled by
this time in "kopje tactics," and realising what is coming, our
squadrons very prudently pull up and wait for the guns. They haven't
long to wait. I always love to see the guns come up. Over stones and
rocks and bushes, six strong horses at the gallop, the drivers lashing
the off horses, the guns jumping and rumbling and swinging; then the
yell, "Action front," and round come the teams with a splendid sweep;
next instant they are cast off and jingle to the rear, and the little
venomous guns are left crouching like toads, looking towards the enemy;
the gunners are upon them before they are at a standstill (everything
happens simultaneously); there is an instant's pause while the barrel
rises, and then comes the naked spurt of fire, no smoke, and the officer
steps clear of the dust and glues his glasses to his eyes as the shell
screams on its way. Within ten minutes of our first viewing the enemy,
half a battery had got into action near our kopje, and was bombarding
the first hill along the enemy's flank.
Two or three of the Boer waggons, the last of the line, had been
abandoned when their retreat was first discovered. These we took
possession of, and with them two Dutchmen and some coloured boys, one of
whom had been driver to a field-cornet of Cronjé's. From him we learnt
that Cronjé had definitely abandoned the whole Magersfontein position,
that this was the tail of his force going through, and that consequently
there was nothing to be feared from a rear attack. Chester Master wrote
a hasty despatch to this effect to Kitchener and gave it to me, after
which I had a most amusing ride through our lines from the extreme left
to the extreme right, where Kitchener was. First by our batteries,
thundering and smoking (the enemy only had one gun in action that I saw,
but I must say it did very well, feeling for the range with two short
shots, and after that getting well into our guns every time), and then
on through the Mounted Infantry, who kept on charging and retiring,
until finally after three miles' ride I came to the far right, where
Kitchener and the big naval gun sat together in state on the top of a
small kopje strewn with black shining rocks. Here I gave in my despatch,
"From Captain Chester Master, left front, sir," and the best military
salute I have yet mastered (inclined to go into fits of laughter at the
absurdity of the whole thing all the time), and the great man, with his
sullen eye, sitting among his black rocks all alone, reads it and asks
me a question or two, and vouchsafes to tell me that the information is
"very important," which I suppose meant that he had not been certain
whether he was in contact with the middle or extreme tail of the enemy's
force. Various officers of the staff come up and I tell them all I know.
I am very hungry and parched with thirst, but I know I shall get nothing
out of these fellows. However, my luck holds. Under some thorn-trees
below I spy the flat hats of the sailors, and under the lee of an
ammunition waggon hard by a group of officers. All is well. Five minutes
later I am pledging them in a whisky and sparklet, and sitting down to
such a breakfast as I have not tasted for weeks. God bless all sailors,
say I!
Orders meantime come thick and fast from the grim watcher on the rocks
above, and troop after troop of Mounted Infantry go scouring away to the
attack. It is a running fight. Kopje after kopje, as the Boers push on,
breaks into fire and is left extinct behind. But still they keep their
flank unbroken and their convoy intact. For the hundredth time I admire
their dogged courage under these, the most trying of all circumstances,
the protection of a slow retreat.
So it goes on through the day, and I have great fun galloping about on
my own account, looking into things here and there, and watching the
general progress of events. I meet Chester Master again about 5 P.M.,
and he asks me to ride forthwith to Kimberley with him if Flops can
stand it. All the Boer force has cleared from Magersfontein (our
information was all right) and is in retreat on Bloemfontein, and
Kitchener is sending word by Chester Master to French, bidding him right
turn and march to head off the Boer retreat, while he (Kitchener) hangs
on their tail.
An hour later we start; four of us. Chester Master, myself, May, and a
black boy. It is a twenty-three mile ride. A full moon is in the sky but
clouds obscure it, which is a good thing, as the country is being
traversed by stragglers of theirs, leaving the hills and in retreat
eastward. We hear of several such fugitive bodies from our pickets for
the first few miles. Then we are in absolute solitude. The plain lies
bare and blanched around us. A thorn bush or two sticks up on it, or,
now and then, the ghastly shape of a dead horse lying in puffed up
relief with legs sticking out stiff and straight and an awful stench
blowing from it. Kimberley's search-light at stated intervals still
swings its spoke over our head.
Six or seven miles out from Kimberley my pony gives out, and Chester
Master and May on fresh horses ride on, leaving me the boy. We plod on,
an interesting, delicious ride. I get off and walk. A little wind
rustles over the dry earth and bushes, but otherwise there is not a
whisper of sound. The landscape at one moment lies white before us as if
it had been washed in milk, and the next is blotted out with clouds. Now
and again we pause to listen, and the boy stands like a bronze image of
Attention with bent head and held breath, the whites only of his eyes
moving as he rolls them from one object to another. At last from a low
kopje top by the path comes the first loud and welcome "Halt! Who goes
there?" of an English picket. Another two or three miles brings me to an
outpost of the town, and there, dead tired and Flops the same, I fling
myself on the ground, after hearty greetings and a word or two of talk
with the guard, and do a three hours' sleep till the dawn of the 17th.
In a grey light I rouse myself to look out across the wet misty flat,
hearing some one say, "Who's that? What force is that?" followed
immediately by "Call out the guard; stand to your arms, men." But then,
as light increases, we see by the regular files and intervals that the
force is British, and I know that Chester Master has got in all right
and delivered his message, and French already, at a few hours' notice,
is casting back with that terrible cavalry of his after Cronjé and the
retreating Boers.
Kimberley does not in the least give one the idea of a beleaguered and
relieved town. There are a few marks of shells, but so few and far
between as not to attract attention, and you might walk all about the
town without being struck by anything out of the common. I have sampled
the roast-horse and roast-mule which the garrison seems to have been
chiefly living on for the past five or six weeks, and find both pretty
good, quite equal, if not superior, to the old trek-ox. Some people tell
us pathetic stories of the hardships to women and young children and
babies, owing to the difficulty of getting proper food, especially milk.
On the other hand, many seem to have actually enjoyed the siege, and two
or three young ladies have assured me that they found it infinitely
diverting and enjoyed an excellent time, making up afternoon tea-parties
among their friends. The relief was not the occasion of any excitement
or rejoicing whatever. People walked about the streets and went about
their business and served in their shops without showing in their
appearance or manner any trace of having passed through a bad time or
having been just delivered from it. They seemed, on the whole, glad to
see us, but there was no enthusiasm. This was partly due, I think, to
the absence of drink. The Colonial's idea of gratitude and
good-fellowship is always expressed in drink, and cannot be separated
from it, or even exist without it. Many felt this. Several said to me,
"We are awfully glad to see you, old chap, but the fact is there's no
whisky." On the whole, except the last week, during which the Boers had
a hundred-pounder gun turned on, one doesn't gather that the siege of
Kimberley was noteworthy, as sieges go, either for the fighting done or
the hardships endured. But that is not to reflect on the defenders, who
showed a most plucky spirit all through, and would have resisted a much
severer strain if it had been brought to bear upon them.
LETTER XI
PAARDEBERG--THE BOMBARDMENT
_February 24_, 1900.
We are once more upon the Modder. I should think the amount of blood,
Dutch and English, this river has drunk in the last few months will give
it a bad name for ever. There is something deadly about that word
Modder. Say it over to yourself. Pah! It leaves a taste of blood in the
mouth.
We have been fighting in a desultory kind of way for the last week here.
Coming from Kimberley, where we had gone to holloa back French (you
could follow him by scent all the way from the dead horses), we made a
forced march and rejoined him here by the river, where he is busily
engaged, with Kitchener at the other end, in bombarding old Cronjé in
the middle. They have fairly got the old man. Kitchener had stuck to him
pretty tight, it seems, after we left them that evening at Klip Drift.
French has nicked in ahead. Macdonald has arrived, I believe, or is
arriving, and there are various other brigades and divisions casting up
from different quarters, all concentrating on unhappy Cronjé. Lord
Roberts, I suppose, will get the credit, but part of it, one would
think, belongs to Kitchener, who planned the movement and put it in
train before Lord Roberts arrived.
Cronjé, by all accounts, has about 4000 men with him. He has dug
himself into the river banks, which are steep and afford good cover. You
would never guess, sweeping the scene with your glasses, that an army
could be hiding there. The river curves and winds, its course marked by
the tops of the willows that grow along its banks. The land on both
sides stretches bare and almost level, but there are a few rises and
knolls from which our artillery smashes down its fire on the Boer
laager. At one point you can make out a ragged congregation of waggons,
broken and shattered, some of them burning or smouldering. That is where
the laager is, but not a soul can one see move. The place looks an utter
solitude, bare and lifeless in the glare of the sun. There is no reply
to our busy guns. The little shrapnel clouds, stabbed with fire, burst
now here now there, sometimes three or four together, over the spot, and
the blue haze floats away, mingling with the darker, thicker vapour from
the less frequent lyddite. "What are they shooting at?" a stranger would
say; "there is nobody there." Isn't there? Only 4000 crafty, vigilant
Boers, crowding in their holes and cuddling their Mausers. Ask the
Highlanders.
You will have heard all about that by this time. The desperate attempt
last Sunday to take the position by storm. It was another of those
fiendish "frontal attacks." Have we been through Belmont and Graspan and
Modder River and Magersfontein for nothing? Or must we teach every
general in turn who comes to take charge of us what the army has learnt
long ago, that a frontal attack against Mausers is leading up to your
enemy's strong suit. For Methuen there were reasons. Methuen could not
outflank, could not go round, was not strong enough to leave his lines
of communication, and had practically no cavalry. He had to go straight
on. Belmont, Graspan, and Modder were turnpike gates. The toll was
heavy, but there was no choice but to pay. But what was the reason of
this latest? We had them here safely bottled up. We have them still. It
is only a question of days. The attack could have gained nothing by
success; has lost little by its failure. The casualties were 1500. I
know all about eggs and omelettes, but these were simply thrown in the
gutter.
Never tell me these Boers aren't brave. What manner of life, think you,
is in yonder ditch? Our artillery rains down its cross fire of shells
perpetually. The great ox-waggons are almost totally destroyed or burnt.
The ammunition in the carts keeps blowing up as the fire reaches it. The
beasts, horses and oxen, are strewn about, dead and putrid, and
deserters say that the stench from their rotting carcasses is
unbearable. Night and day they have to be prepared for infantry attacks,
and yet, to the amazement of all of us, they still hold out.
Old Cronjé's apparent object is to try and save Bloemfontein by delaying
us till reinforcements come up from the south and east. This is really
what we want, because the more of the enemy we get in front of this
great army of ours, the harder we shall be able to hit them. But
evidently Cronjé is ignorant of our strength.
Meantime we can make out in our break-of-day scoutings up the river that
bodies of men are approaching from the east. They have made a laager
about ten miles up, and evidently mean to dispute our passage to the
capital. The longer old Cronjé holds out, the more men from Colesberg
and Natal will come up, the more entrenchments will be cut, and the
harder will be our way to Bloemfontein. 'Tis the only way he sees to
save the town, for we should march straight in else. Perhaps, too, he
cherishes some hope of being relieved himself; of a determined attack
from without, which might enable him, by a sudden sally, to break
through; though, for dismounted men (and their horses are all dead by
this time), the chances of ultimate escape in a country like this must
be very small, one would think. Anyhow, he sticks to his work like a
glutton. The shells burst over them. The lyddite blows them up in smoke
and dust, the sun grills, the dead bodies reek, our infantry creep on
them day and night; foul food, putrid water, death above and around,
they grin and bear it day after day to gain the precious hours. And all
the time we on our side know perfectly well that no relief they could
possibly bring up would serve our army for rations for a day.
LETTER XII
PAARDEBERG--THE SURRENDER
_March 5_, 1900.
Well, that is over, and I hope you are satisfied. We have got Cronjé.
His victories are o'er. We have also got Mrs. Cronjé, which was a bit
more than we bargained for. They cut her an extra deep hole, I hear, to
be out of shell-fire, and she sat at the bottom all day long, receiving
occasional visits from Cronjé, and having her meals handed down to her.
One can fancy her blinking up at her "Man," whom she always, I am told,
accompanies on his campaigns, and shaking her head sorrowfully over the
situation. There is nothing very spirit-stirring about a mud hole and an
old woman sitting at the bottom of it, but the danger and the terrible
hardships were real enough. That is always the way with these Dutch.
They have all the harsh realities and none of the glamour and romance.
Athens, with their history and record, would have made the whole world
ring for ever. But they are dumb. It seems such a waste.
Albrecht too is among the prisoners, the famous German "expert," who
designs their works for them and manages their artillery; and we have
taken 4000 prisoners, and several guns and one detested "pompon." Come,
now, here is a little bit of all right at last.
I was one of a party that rode down with the Major on the morning of
the surrender to the laager and saw the prisoners marched in. They
seemed quite cheery and pleased with themselves. They were dressed in
all sorts of ragged, motley-looking clothes; trousers of cheap tweed,
such as you see hung up in an East End slop-shop; jackets once black,
now rusted, torn and stained, and battered hats. They reminded me more
of a mob of Kent hop-pickers than anything else, and it was a matter of
some surprise, not to say disgust, to some of us to think that such a
sorry crowd should be able to withstand disciplined troops in the way
they did.
I talked to several of them. They all agreed in saying that they had
been through the most ghastly time in the last ten days and were
heartily glad it was over. They exchanged nods and good-days with us and
the soldiers who were standing about, and altogether seemed in a very
friendly and conciliatory mood. All this, however, it struck me, was
rather put on, a bit of acting which was now and then a trifle overdone.
Boers are past-masters at hiding their real feelings and affecting any
that they think will be acceptable. It is a trait which has become a
national characteristic, and the craft, dissimulation, the _slimness_,
as it is called, of the Boers is a by-word. I suppose it comes from the
political situation, the close neighbourhood of a rival race, stronger
and more energetic, which fosters in the stolid Dutchman, by way of
buckler, this instinctive reticence and cunning. His one idea is to make
what he can out of the situation without troubling his head for a
moment about his own candour and sincerity. It is Oriental, the trait
you expect to find in a John Chinaman, but which surprises you in a
burly old Dutchman. Still there it is. At any farm you go to, men,
women, and children will put on a semblance of friendship, and set to
work to lie with a calmness which is really almost dignified. No one in
this country ever believes a thing a bit the more because a Dutchman
says it.
We went on into the captured laager. It was an extraordinary,
interesting, and loathsome sight. Dead bodies of horses and men lay in
all directions in various stages of decomposition, and the reeking smell
was something quite indescribable. I fancied, even after leaving the
place, that I carried the smell about with me, and that it had got into
my clothes. The steep river banks were honeycombed with little holes and
tunnels, and deep, narrow pits, like graves; narrow at the top, and
hollowed out below to allow less entrance for shells. Evidently each man
had cut his own little den. Some were done carelessly, mere pits scooped
out. Others were deep, with blankets or old shawls spread at the bottom,
and poles with screens of branches laid across the top to keep off the
sun. I saw one or two which were quite works of art; very narrow tunnels
cut into the side of the river-cliff, and turning round after you
entered, making a quite secure retreat, unless perhaps an extra heavy
old lyditte might happen to burst the whole bank up. This actually
happened, they told us, with the very last shot fired the night before;
a bit of the bank having been blown up with eight men in it, of whom
five were killed and three wounded. The whole river channel looks as if
a big colony of otters or beavers had settled here, honeycombing the
bank with their burrows, and padding the earth bare and hard with their
feet. It was all worn like a highroad. On the other side, the waggons
were a sight; shattered, and torn, and wrecked with shot; many of them
burnt; several, huge as they are, flung upside down by the force of a
shell bursting beneath them. All their contents were littered and strewn
about in every direction; blankets, clothes, carpenters' and
blacksmiths' tools, cooking utensils, furniture. You would have thought
the Boers were settlers moving to a new country with all their effects,
instead of an army on the march. This is how they do things, however, in
the homely, ponderous fashion. They often take their women and children
with them. There were many in the crowd we captured.
I wandered about alone a long time, looking at the dismal, curious scene
where so much had been endured. White flags, tied to poles or stripped
branches, fluttered from waggon tops. Our ambulance carts came along,
and the Tommies, stripping to the waist, proceeded to carry, one by one,
the Dutch wounded through the ford on stretchers.
We are bivouacked ourselves far up the river, in a secluded nook among
mimosas and kopjes with the thick current of the lately unknown, but now
too celebrated, Modder rolling in front of us. The weather has changed
of late. It is now autumn. We have occasional heavy rains, and you wake
up at night sometimes to find yourself adrift in a pool of water. It
gets chilly too.
The enemy are all about the place, and we interview them every morning
at daybreak, sometimes exchanging shots, sometimes not. We lay little
traps for each other, and vary our manoeuvres with intent to deceive.
This advance guard business (we are dealing here with the relief parties
of Boers that have come up between us and Bloemfontein) always reminds
me of two boxers sparring for an opening. A feint, a tap, a leap back,
both sides desperately on the alert and wary.
We lost poor Christian yesterday in one of these little encounters. He
was mortally wounded in stopping at short range to pick up a friend
whose horse had been shot. I have mentioned him, I think, to you in my
letters. There was no one in the corps more popular. "Tell the old dad I
died game," was what he said when the Major, coming up with supports,
knelt down to speak to him.
Nothing very noteworthy has occurred since the surrender. The army has
been quietly resting, taking stock of the prisoners, and sending them to
the railway, and we are expecting every day now the order to advance.
The enemy, meanwhile, have been collecting in some force, and are
evidently prepared to dispute our march east. Yesterday we had a duel
with a gun which they have managed, goodness knows how, to drag up to
the top of a commanding hill some miles up the river. However, it was
too strongly placed. We lost several men. The enemy's fire was very
accurate, and they ended up by sending three shots deliberately one
after the other right into our ambulance waggons.