march. They were up last night on picket, and have had nothing to eat
all day as yet but a biscuit or two and a cup of milkless coffee. This
sort of thing has been going on for months. They are tired and hungry
and footsore. More than one falls back where he sits and drops into a
sleep of utter exhaustion. But of any serious grumbling or discontent
there is no sign. A few curse at the heat perhaps, but their hardships
are mostly a subject for rough chaff and Cockney jokes. You thought you
were roughing it a good deal, but look at the state these men are in.
You gave yourself credit for some endurance, but look at their
unaffected cheeriness. The whole army is the same. In their thousands,
as you see them pass, the prevailing expression down all the swarthy
faces is one of unfailing good-humour. They make no more of their
hardships than Sandow of throwing about bars and bells that would crush
an ordinary man flat. It dawns on one, the depth of manhood that is
implied in endurance like this. "We sometimes get licked at first, but
we mostly come out all right in the end." Tommy's good-natured face as
he sweats it across the veldt gives some meaning to that boast.
In the crowds of his mates in the East End, in crowds of the unemployed
and the like, you see the same temper--a sort of rough, good spirits, an
indomitable, incorrigible cheerfulness that nothing, no outward misery,
seems able to damp. In West End crowds (Hyde Park, for instance) you
don't get this. There are smiles and laughs, as you look about at the
faces, but they seem merely individual--one here, another there. In the
crowd of roughs--though goodness knows there is little cause for
merriment, so far as one can see--there is a quite different, deeper,
and more universal feeling of bluff cheeriness, not put on, but
unconscious, as though, in spite of present misery, things were going
right for them somehow. I should say an East End crowd gave one a far
deeper impression of animal spirits, of hope and cheeriness, than a West
End one. And it is the same with soldiers. The officers are fine
fellows, but in this point they yield to the soldiers.
And it means a lot. Of what use is even courage itself if it goes with
impatience and a flash in the pan endurance? This quality of
cheerfulness is really the quality that outlasts all others. It means
not only that you have an army in good fighting trim to-day, but that
this time next year, or the year after, you will still have an army in
good fighting trim. In the long-run it wears down all opposition, but it
is not a characteristic you notice at first. Gradually it makes itself
felt, and gradually it governs your estimate of the whole army. And then
the peculiar wickedness of Tommy (a child's naughtiness for
superficiality) ceases to offend you so much. Rather your own regulation
code seems a trifle less important than it did. Let's all lie and steal;
what does it signify? I would lie and steal till the crack of doom to
gain the serene endurance of the British soldier.[1]
Of his courage one need scarcely speak. It is a subject on which a great
deal of rubbish has been talked. It is not true that all soldiers are
brave, nor is it true that even brave soldiers will go anywhere and do
anything. On the other hand, it certainly is true that our soldiers'
courage--that is, their apparent unconsciousness of danger--strikes one
as very remarkable. You need not believe more about the _light of
battle_ and the _warrior's lust_, and all that sort of thing, than you
want to. There is very little excitement in a modern battle, and the
English soldier is not an excitable man, but this only makes the display
of courage more striking. Nothing can be more terrible than one of our
_slow_ charges, a charge in which all the peril which used to be
compressed into a hundred yards' rush in hot blood is spread out over an
afternoon's walk. I am sure any man who has ever taken part in one of
those ghastly processions, and, at thirty yards interval, watched the
dust-spots, at first promiscuous, gradually concentrating round him, and
listened to the constant soft whine or nearer hiss of passing bullets,
and seen men fall and plodded on still, solitary, waiting his turn,
would look upon the maddest and bloodiest rush of old days as a positive
luxury by comparison.
What I think about our soldiers' courage is that it is of such a sort
that it takes very little out of them. One of the foreign officers on
Lord Roberts' staff, in a criticism in one of his own papers, has
written that the English infantry, more than any he knows, has the knack
of fighting and marching and keeping on at it, day after day, without
getting stale or suffering from any reaction. The fact is, our Tommies
go into a fight with much the same indifferent good-humour that they do
everything else with. Towards the end of each day's march the soldiers
all begin to look out for firewood, and if at that time you knock up
against the enemy, you may see our infantry advancing to the attack with
big logs tied to their backs and sticking up over their heads. Though it
encumbers and bothers them and makes them much more conspicuous, not a
Tommy will abandon his wood. Supper is a reality. The thought of being
shot does not bother him. Men who fight like this can fight every day.
Taking him altogether, then, your general impression of the Tommy is one
of solid good temper and strength. Of his faults and failings, when you
get to know him, you cannot help making light; for his faults are faults
of conduct only, while his strength is strength of character. As an
individual, I daresay you could criticise him, but in the mass, for the
strength of breed he shows and the confidence he gives you in your race,
you will have nothing but admiration.
I have told you what I could about him, because he is a man you have
never seen, and will probably never have a chance of seeing. For no one
who has not seen Tommy in the field has seen him at all. If you love
England, you must love the army. If you are a patriot, not merely a
Jingo, the sight of these ragged battalions passing will give you such a
thrill as only very fine and splendid things do give; and very proud you
will feel if ever you have had a hand in sharing their work and been
admitted to some sort of fellowship with them.
These are the lads who in their packed thousands tramped yesterday
through Pretoria. Past old Kruger's house, a cottage you might almost
call it, with its lions in front and several old burghers in black
crying in the verandah, we went at a foot's pace, choking in the cloud
of red dust, with the strains of "God Save the Queen" in our ears. We
emerge into the square. The Volksraad is on our right; then the Grand
Hotel, with all its windows full of English people, or sympathisers with
England, many of them women, all waving handkerchiefs and raising a
cracked cheer as we pass. I was staring at all this, whilst a big band
on the right broke merrily out with the "Washington Post," and did not
see till I almost brushed his horse's nose, our Commander-in-Chief
standing like an amiable little statue at the head of all his generals
and their staffs, with finger raised to helmet. It is quite a moment to
remember, and I do really feel for an instant, what all the morning I
have been trying to feel, that we are what literary people call "making
history."
As for Pretoria itself, it is a pretty and well-wooded little place,
with pink and white oleander trees in blossom, fir-trees, gums, and
weeping-willows along the streams and round the little bungalow houses.
The shady gardens and cool verandahs give these houses a very inviting
air in this land of blazing sun. They have a comfortable, and at the
same time sociable, look, the houses being near by each other, but each
with a pretty garden and trees overhanging. Like all the works of these
very practical people, the place is designed for convenience and comfort
and not a bit for beauty. But the first two give it the last to some
extent, give it a sort of simple and homely beauty of its own which is
pleasing as far as it goes.
"Take heed to thyself, for the devil is unchained." We are told that
Christian De Wet is loose again, and is trifling with our lines of
communication. If this is so, our supplies will be cut off, the army
will be starved, and you will never get this letter. There has been a
pretty general hope that the taking of the capital would mean the end of
the war. "We have fired our last shot," said some. At least we counted
on a good rest. Alas! orders have just come in. Good-bye flowers and
shady gardens and dreams of bottled beer and a dinner at the club. We
march immediately.
Talking of soldiers, here is a soldier's story for you--
Officer (to distracted Tommy, fleeing for his life under shower of
bullets): "Dash you! what the dash are you running for?"
Tommy, tearing on: "'Cause I ain't got no b----y wings."
Here's another--
First Tommy: "And the bullets was comin' that thick----"
Second Tommy: "Well, but 'adn't you got no ant'ills?"
First Tommy: "Ant'ills! Why, there wasn't ant'ills 'nough for the
orficers."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: This account is true of a type, but I should not let it
stand if I thought it would make the reader forget that, besides these,
there are any number of men in the army who lead lives in every way
straight and honourable.]
LETTER XIX
THE MARCH SOUTH
BETHLEHEM, _July 14_, 1900.
Whenever in this campaign we have dealt the enemy what looked like a
crushing blow, he has always hit back instantly at us. When Methuen
reached the limit of his advance at the Modder River victory, the Boers
were round immediately threatening us from behind. When we took
Bloemfontein they at once swarmed round to the east and south, and dealt
us two nasty blows at Sanna's Post and Reddersberg; and no sooner had we
taken Pretoria than the same activity was displayed again.
They threatened us now from two points. Louis Botha had collected a
large force, and was watching us from the hills east of the town, while
the everlasting De Wet, far south, was breaking up the railway and
burning our letters. The first thing we did, and we did it the very day
after entering the capital, was to march against Botha. Ian Hamilton has
paid our little corps the compliment of taking it on as his bodyguard.
He is a general that inspires every one under him with great confidence.
It is curious, by the way, how very soon troops get to know the worth of
a leader; just as a pack of hounds knows by instinct when it is properly
handled. Outsiders may argue about this or that general, and analyse
his tactics, and never very likely get much nearer the truth (for there
is a monstrous lot of luck one way or the other in all manoeuvres, and
the ones often succeed that didn't ought to, and _vice versa_); but once
you are under a man, you don't need to argue; you know. We all know that
Ian Hamilton, with his pleasant well-bred manner, and the mutilated hand
dangling as he rides, is the best man we have had over us yet, and we
would all do great things to show our devotion.
The Diamond Hill action was one of those great big affairs which it
would be impossible to explain without a plan of the country and a lot
of little flags. Our attack from extreme left to right was spread over a
frontage of, I daresay, twenty miles. The idea was for the mounted
troops to turn the enemy's flanks and let in the infantry in front. Ian
Hamilton had to deal with the Boer left flank, French with the right. Of
course we saw and heard nothing of French, who might as well have been
fighting in another planet, so far as we knew. Our difficulty here, as
on some former occasions, was to find the limit of their flanks. The
more we stretch out, the more they stretch out. They have the advantage
of being all mounted, while the bulk of our force is infantry, massed
inertly in the middle; and also from the lofty position they occupy they
can command a bird's-eye view of the wide valley across which we are
advancing, and perceive the disposition of our forces, and in what
strength we are threatening the various points of defence, while their
forces are quite concealed from us. This is so much in their favour
that, on our flank at least, it is we, and not they, who are threatened
with being outflanked.
Their position could scarcely have been stronger if nature had designed
it for the purpose. A low range of hills gives admittance on the west
side to a long wide valley, and on the east side of this a steep rocky
range rises boldly up, showing in the sky a level outline like a rampart
fringed with wall-like slabs of rock or detached masses, giving
excellent cover from shrapnel. But besides this higher and last line of
defence, there are some lower hills and slopes which project from the
main rampart and command the valley, while they are in turn commanded by
the heights. It is a two-step position, in fact. You carry the lower
step first, and immediately come under the fire of the upper. The
General told me next day that he thought it as strong as anything he had
seen on the Natal side, and Winston Churchill set the matter at rest by
pronouncing it stronger in point of formation than Spion Kop.
In the first day's fighting we drove them from the western hills and
across the valley, which was more fertile than usual and full of cover,
until we had forced them into the two-step eastern range. My own work
lay right out on the flank end, at the very finger-tips, where the
farthest limit of each force was trying to feel a way round the other.
Here, with some of the Camerons, we felt about the hills, shelling them
with a couple of guns for Boer sharpshooters, and occasionally flushing
one or two. We were rather detached and out of the main action, feeling
rather like a gun that has been sent to stop birds from "going back"
while the main battue is at work in front. We stayed out all day, and as
we rode in that night to headquarters the whole valley under the
starlight was echoing like a great gallery and bustling with the
multitude of our army arranging itself and settling down for the night.
We picked our way through the various convoys hurrying forward in search
of their brigades, but often losing their way or getting off the track,
checked by muddy fords, where an engulfed team wallows piteously,
barring the passage. We pass detachments of infantry hurrying in tired
and silent, and meet other detachments with blankets and greatcoats
coming out on picket. Waifs and strays, by ones and twos, who have lost
their way, shout for guidance, hallooing dismally for the brigades or
regiments to which they belong, and which many have small hope of
rejoining that night. Meantime, right down the valley and far across it,
the various camp-fires twinkle out like glow-worms. The air is keen and
frosty, and stars, clear and sharp as icicles, glitter all over the sky.
Above everything is still and calm, very well arranged evidently, and
everything in its proper place. Below all is confusion, noise, and
darkness, disappointment, and difficulty, vague wandering to and fro,
lamentations, and general chaos. They manage these things better up
there! However, after a bit order begins to reign. The several units
draw together. The camp-fires are beacons. The waggons struggle up. The
bleating of the lost sheep is gradually hushed, as one by one they find
their way to their various folds, and slowly, in spite of darkness and
broken ground, the tangle is smoothed out.
By a small farm, where the General lodges, blazes a huge fire. Round it
gather some staff officers, and among them, recognised from afar, are
the welcome tiger-skins of the Guides' officers. The Major sits by the
blaze in that familiar attitude of his, like a witch in "Macbeth," with
a wolf-skin karross drawn over his shoulders, and the firelight on his
swarthy face as he turns it up with a grim laugh to chaff the others
standing round. But there is rather a gloom on the party to-night. News
has just come in that poor Airlie, charging at the head of his Lancers,
has been killed. Many here knew him, and every one who knew him seems to
have been fond of him.
Winston Churchill turns up and enlivens us. There are several colonels
and senior officers squatting about, and Churchill takes the opportunity
of giving them a bit of his mind. He is much annoyed with the day's
proceedings. He has been a good deal shot at; so has the Duke, and so
has the General. They have had to use their Mauser pistols. This sort of
thing should not happen. Then where was French? Checked, indeed! a
pretty fine thing! And the Guards? The Guards were somewhere where they
had no business to be, instead of being somewhere else. Would any one
kindly tell him why the Guards were not somewhere else? And Churchill
(he has a face like a good-natured child, and looks about fourteen) eyes
the old colonels, who fidget nervously round the fire like disturbed
hens. He talks and argues incessantly, but very cleverly. Before he goes
he dashes off a sketch of South Africa's future with a few words about
farming and gold-mining. He gives us a cup of hot cocoa all round, which
he produces from nowhere, like a conjuring trick, re-arranges our fire,
tells us when the war will be over, and strolls off (daring the old
colonels with his eye to so much as look at him) to the farm to give the
General his final instructions about to-morrow's action.
Next day our infantry established itself on the lower step of the Boer
position, but the final ridge still remained in their hands. It was a
ding-dong fight between the two, for the positions were within
half-rifle shot of each other. However, we could not turn them out,
though we got a field-battery right up in the firing line, which cracked
shrapnel over them as hard as ever it could load and fire. They had
determined to hold that ridge till night gave them the opportunity of
moving off their waggons and guns safely; and hold it they did. No doubt
we could have carried it by storm, but crossing that thousand yards of
open ground would have meant a terrible loss, and the General did not
attempt it. As it was, there was a great deal of banging and blazing,
almost like the old Modder days, for a time; guns hard at it, and
Mausers and Lee-Metfords jabbering away at a great rate, though, as both
sides were under cover, the loss was not heavy. The firing went on till
pitch dark, and we camped close under the ridge we had won. Next morning
we found the ridge vacant, with only heaps of empty cartridge cans and
an occasional blood-stain on the rocks to show where our enemy had lain.
A little way out from Pretoria there are some very smart-looking new
houses, what they call "villa residences" in England, built in the
style, a sort of mild and tepid Gothic (what I call grocer's Gothic, for
it always reminds me of brown sugar and arrowroot), common around
watering-places; small gables sticking out everywhere, till it looks
like a cluster of dog-kennels; walls faced with ornamental tiles and
lath and plaster; small shrubberies round, and a name on the gate. There
were two especially beautiful ones. The General had one and we had the
other. Ours was quite new. There was no furniture in it; but this, as we
had been so long without it, we did not miss. But everything we really
needed--gorgeous wall-papers, and dados, and polished floors, and
electric-bells, and stained-glass windows--was there. We had hot baths
at the Grand Hotel, and we dined at the club, and we forgot all about
the war, and the veldt, and the dust, and the long marches, and the Boer
lurking in ambush, and the whispering bullet from the hill. This went on
for two days, and then we marched again, and we have been marching ever
since.
We left Pretoria on June 19th, and, taking it easy, reached Bethlehem on
July 9th, doing a bit under 200 miles in the twenty days. The meaning of
the new scheme begins to dawn on us. Clements and Paget have come up
from the west; Rundle is down south-west, near Ficksburg; the Basuto
border runs up from there south and south-east, and within the ground
thus enclosed we have penned a very considerable force of the enemy,
among whom is that Jack-in-the-box, Christian De Wet. We know they are
there, and indeed we have little fights with their scouts every day. The
question is, how are we to collar them? The country is very broken and
hilly and very extensive.
Hunter is looking after us now. Poor Ian Hamilton, as you will know, had
an accident at Heidelberg. His horse put a foot in an antbear's hole,
just in front of me as it happened, and came down, flinging the general
forward over his head. I thought he was killed, he lay so still, but it
was only his collar-bone and a bad shaking. He is in the field again
now.
Hunter has a great reputation as a fighter, which is rather alarming,
especially when we are confronted with such a poisonous country as the
one before us now; a medley of big mountain ranges, fantastically
heaped, stretching thirty miles south to Basutoland, and forming part of
the great mountain formation that reaches to and culminates in the
Drakensberg range. These hills are garrisoned by about 7000 Boers with
several guns, and De Wet to lead them; altogether a formidable force.
There is a saying, that you should not bite off more than you can chew.
I hope we have not done that. Hunter looks as if he could chew a good
lot, I think. Still the job is likely to be a difficult one to handle,
and if he asks my advice I shall tell him to leave it to Rundle.
I should think a life of this sort would be likely to have some
permanent effect on one's mind and intellect. The last mail--that is to
say, the last news of any sort of the outside world--which we have
received was on April 27th before leaving Bloemfontein; three months
less a week since any whisper concerning events or people out of our
immediate sight has reached us. My ignorance of things in general weighs
on me. It is a taste of life in the dark ages before modern inventions
kept one in touch with the world.
During all this time we have been wandering like an army in a dream over
the unlimited surface of the veldt. The same programme is repeated day
by day. A little before dawn you hear through your blanket-folds the
first unwelcome "Saddle up," and the muttered curses in reply. You
unwind yourself with groans. A white-frost fog blots out everything at
fifty yards, and a white sugary frost encrusts the grass. These first
hours are piercingly cold, for it is now mid-winter with us. A cup of
water left overnight is frozen solid. You dress by simply drawing your
revolver-strap over your shoulder, and flinging your blanket round you,
make your way to where a couple of black boys are bending over the
beginnings of a fire, and to which several other blanketed and shivering
figures are converging with the same thought--_coffee_--in every mind.
Then the great army column that has curled itself up like a caterpillar
for the night begins slowly to uncurl. On the march our huge convoy
stretches out in line, waggon following waggon along the rude track, and
extending to a length of nearly ten miles. At night, of course, it
collects (parks is the proper word) at some selected spot where the
ground is favourable, and where in the shape of a sluit, river, or
farm-dam there is water. On the slopes and hills around infantry pickets
are set, while the convoy and main camp are massed in the hollow
beneath. You must not think of our _camp_ in the English sense of the
word. We have no tents. The men sleep tightly rolled in greatcoat and
blanket, stretched on the bare earth, with saddles for pillows. If
anything takes you about the camp at night, you might think you were
walking among thick strewn corpses after a fearful carnage, so stiff and
still the frosted bodies lie on the ground.