Bruce-Hamilton, and whether or not they had been able to block the
eastern exits. On this everything depended. So it was with a feeling of
the most gleeful satisfaction that we heard next morning, having
followed the Boers up some two or three miles without seeing anything
of them, the deep, heavy baying of a big gun in the distance, which we
all recognised as the voice of one of the 5-inch cow-guns that had gone
with Bruce-Hamilton. It fired a few shots and then ceased. With infinite
toil, forty oxen to each gun, we then dragged our own two 5-inchers up
the hill we were on, and got them into position for shelling the defiles
ahead. They were not, however, needed. Messengers now began to arrive
from the Boer laagers carrying white flags. There was a lot of palaver.
These went, others came. Le Gallais, our chief of the staff, interviewed
them, while Hunter strolled a little way apart, dreamily admiring the
view. It was evident the Boer envoys were sticking out for terms which
they couldn't get. I could see Le Gallais indicate the surroundings with
summary gestures. The Boers looked very glum. They eyed the cow-guns
especially with profound disgust. These were looking particularly
ridiculous. The nose of one of them projected in the direction of those
secret Boer-tenanted defiles as if the great creature were sniffing for
its enemies in the distance; which gave it a very truculent and
threatening air, as who should say, "Come now, Le Gallais, old fellow,
suppose you let me put a word in," while the other, hanging its head
till its nose touched the very ground, seemed overcome, poor wretch,
with a sudden fit of bashfulness, most absurd in so huge and warlike a
monster. The Boers looked from them to Le Gallais and from Le Gallais to
them, but there was no more hope from one than the other, and at last
they realised that there was nothing for it but to surrender, and
surrender was agreed to. We could scarcely believe our good fortune. At
Paardeberg we caught 4000, but we used 50,000, more or less, to do it,
and we lost about 1500 doing it. Here we trapped as many or more,
composed of some of the best commandoes of the Free State, caught them,
too, in a wild mountainous country such as you would think was almost
impregnable. We used 15,000 to do it, and we lost, I suppose, not 200
altogether. Also, we have taken enormous quantities of horses, oxen, and
waggons, which will come in very useful.
It seems to me that Hunter deserves the utmost credit that can be given
to him. We have had plenty of generals who have done direct fighting and
done it well; but, with the doubtful exception of Paardeberg, we have
had no triumph of tactics. We have never scored off the Boers, never
made a big capture, or cut them up, or taken guns or transport, or
bested them in any decisive way by superior strategy till now. This has
always been our lament. We have always said, "Why, with all these armies
in the field, cannot we surround them, or catch them, or deal a decisive
blow of some sort?" But hitherto we have never succeeded in bringing off
such a coup. We have pushed them before us, losing as many or more than
they at every shift, but, whenever we have thought to get a hold of
them, they have always eluded us. You may think it is a strange thing
that they have been caught this time. The daring of Hunter's plan and
the rapidity it was carried out with made it succeed. The Boers--so they
tell me at least--never believed that we should venture with so small a
force to penetrate by four or five different routes into such a strong
country. The scheme seemed to lay us open to a disaster if the enemy had
rapidly concentrated and flung itself on one of the separated forces.
This danger, however, was more apparent than real, because the ground
manoeuvred over was not altogether of very large extent, so that relief
might be sent from one column to another, or the enemy, if concentrated
against one column, rapidly followed up by one or more of the others.
Besides which, if the country offered strong positions to take, it
offered strong ones to hold, and in a very short time any threatened
column could have placed itself in such a position as to make it
impossible for the Boers to shift it in the time at their disposal.
Still the plan, considering the Boers' skill in defending strong
positions, had an audacious look about it. Several of the Boer prisoners
have since told me--I don't know with what truth--that they thought we
should follow them in by the Relief Nek pass, and that it was their
intention to work round and threaten our communications, and either cut
us off or force us to fight our way out as best we could.
The quickness of our advance, too, was of the utmost importance. From
the moment we started, the enemy was given no opportunity to pull
himself together and look about him. Hunter, Paget, Clements, and Rundle
dashed into the Fouriesberg Valley exactly together. Directly we had got
through, Hunter detached the main part of his column, the Highland
Brigade, under Macdonald, and sent it with several guns as hard as it
could pelt to back up Bruce-Hamilton, knowing, now that we had carried
our end of the valley, that the pressure would come at the east end.
Meantime, while Macdonald marched, we waited. We even retreated two or
three miles, and for twenty-four hours lay on the pass and slept. Then
we got up and began sauntering up the big irregular valley along the
Basutoland border towards Naawpoort Nek.
It was a moment of infinite expectation. Bets were laid on the amount of
our bag. The general impression was that we should get some of them, but
that the main body would, somehow or other, escape. We had so often
toiled and taken nothing, that this sudden miraculous draught quite
flabbergasted us. And what must have been the feelings of the poor
Boers? They tried Naawpoort Nek: no exit. They knocked at the Golden
Gate: it was locked. Then back they turned and met Hunter sauntering up
the valley, and we gave them the time of day with our cow-guns, and told
them how glad we were to see them. "Fancy meeting you, of all people in
the world!" And so they chucked it. It was a complete checkmate.
The surrender occupied the next three days; our total bag 4100, I am
told. I wish you could have been there. It was a memorable sight among
those uninhabited and lonely mountains. The heights of Basutoland, ridge
behind ridge, to right of us; the tops snow streaked; groups of excited
Basutos riding about in the plains, watching our movements; to left the
great mountain chain we had fought our way through; and in the midst
spread over the wide saddle-backed hill, that slopes away
north-eastward, and breaks up in a throng of sharp peaks and a jumble
of inaccessible-looking hills in the direction of the Golden Gate, is
drawn up the dirty, ragged, healthy, sun-scorched British army with
greasy rifles in its blackened hands, watching imperturbably and without
much interest, the parties of Boers, and waggons, and droves of cattle
as they come meandering in. Each Boer, as he rides up, hands over his
rifle, or more often flings it angrily on the ground, and the armourers
set to work, smashing them all across an anvil. Rather a waste of good
weapons it seemed, I must say. Many of the Boers were quite boys, about
fourteen or fifteen. They are much better looking than you would think
from the men. The men are big and well built, but they look, for the
most part, stupid and loutish, and when this is not so, their expression
is more often cunning than intelligent. The amount of hair about their
face, too, and their indifference to washing, does not improve their
appearance. However, in the boy stage, and before the dulness of their
surrounding has had time to tell, they are quite different, frank-faced
and manly, with clear skin, tall and well grown, like young larches. It
does seem strange that such mere children should be in the field against
us. What would you think of giving Puckie a rifle and sending him out to
fight? Boer prisoners have told me that the courage of these boys could
be relied on; they were often braver, and would stick to a position they
had been placed in longer than the men. They showed traces of the
experience they had been through, though. Not only in being deeply
tanned and more or less ragged and thin, but by an unmistakable
expression (in many instances) in their faces and in their eyes; a
dilated look, as of one who sees something appalling before him, and
braces himself to face it out. Considering what it is to be exposed to
lyddite and shrapnel fire (the absolute hell of din and concussion
besides rain of bullets), one doesn't wonder that it leaves marks on
young faces.
R. and I rode eastward through the hills in the Golden Gate direction,
meeting parties of Boers, waggons, Cape-carts, &c., coming straggling
in. It reminded me of the road to Epsom on a Derby morning. There is
some pleasure in meeting Boers on these terms. "Good morning. How are
you? A pleasant morning for a ride, is it not?" "Good morning, sir; it
is fine now, but I think we shall have rain later." That's what I like.
There's nothing like a little urbanity.
Towards the end of a long valley we come to some signs of defensive work
that interest us. The Boers evidently expected to be able to await our
advance here before they found their retreat was cut off. They have
thrown up some shelters. We noticed from afar off several very
conspicuous stone sangars, but coming close, we were surprised to find
that they were made of stones loosely put together with big chinks, very
flimsy and frail, and much too high for their purpose, too. They
evidently were not intended for shelters at all. What were they there
for? We looked carefully round, and at last the meaning of the device
struck us. A hundred yards to the right the ground dropped sharp,
leaving an edge; here was the real position and the natural cover. We
walked over, and found the usual little hollows and inconspicuous
stones arranged. Here was where their riflemen had lain, with a view
right up the valley. And the meaning of those conspicuous edifices was
now plain. Stuck up on the bare brow, plain to be seen at 2000 yards,
they were simply meant to draw our fire. The smokeless Mausers would
have told no tales, and I have no doubt that, if the attack had come
off, the device would have more or less succeeded, for the stone
shelters, though obviously dummies on close inspection, looked all right
at a distance. Besides, a definite mark always attracts fire. It was
characteristic of Boer cuteness.
LETTER XXII
FIGHTING AND TREKKING
HEILBRON, _August 17_.
We stayed several days among the mountains on the scene of the
surrender, collecting our prisoners and the waggons, guns, horses, &c.,
and sending them off to the railway. The valley, viewed from the hill
where we were camped, looked much like one of our West Country horse
fairs on a very large scale. The separate commandoes were herded
together in big groups of several hundred men, sitting and lying about
and talking. The ox-waggons and battered Cape-carts were drawn up
together in a great array; but the busiest part of it all was the
division of the horses into mobs fit or unfit for remounts, and the
distribution of them to the various regiments. Rimington superintended
this job. Of course, after all our marching, we were sadly in want of
remounts. The Boers had any number of horses, many of them bringing in
two or three apiece, and the majority were in good condition and fit for
work, probably owing to the fact that the grazing all about this side of
the Free State, especially among these mountains, is excellent. The
South African ponies, I may tell you, are the only satisfactory mounts
for South Africa. We have tried horses from all parts of the world now,
and they can none of them stand the climate, work, and food like the
native breeds. The South African pony, wretched little brute as he
looks, will tripple and amble on, week after week and month after month,
with a heavy man on his back, and nothing to eat but the pickings of
sour, dried-up veldt grass and an occasional handful of Indian corn; and
though you will eye him with an eye of scorn, no doubt (if he should
happen to be allotted to your use), and envy some other man his fat
Burmese or Argentine, yet by-and-by you will find out your mistake; for
the fat Burmese and the Argentine, and all the other imported breeds,
will gradually languish and fade away, and droop and die, worn down by
the unremitting work and the bad, insufficient food; but your ragged
little South African will still amble on, still hump himself for his
saddle in the morning, and still, whenever you dismount, poke about for
roots and fibres of withered grass as tough as himself, or make an
occasional hearty meal off the straw coverings of a case of whisky
bottles. With an action that gives the least possible exertion; with the
digestion of an ostrich, and the eye of a pariah dog for any stray
morsel of food; with an extraordinary capacity for taking rest in
snatches, and recouping himself by a roll whenever you take his saddle
off; and of course, from the natural toughness of his constitution, too,
he is able to stand the long and gradual strain of being many hours
under the saddle every day (and perhaps part of the night, too) in a way
that unaccustomed horses cannot do. By this time we all know his
merits, and there is immense demand from every mounted corps for the
Boer ponies. The Major is up to his eyes in work, as officers and
orderlies come galloping up with requisitions from the various
regiments. He has the born horse lover's dislike for parting with a
really good horse except to a man he knows something about. Loud and
uproarious is the chaff and protestations (now dropping to confidential
mutterings) as the herds of horses are broken up and the various lots
assigned. As I say, it looks from the hilltop exactly like a west
country fair on an enlarged scale, and the great lonely Basuto
mountains, too, might seem a larger edition of the Exmoor hills around
Winsford. The Boer prisoners, poor fellows, have no eye for the
picturesque. They congregate together and grumble and watch the
distribution of their horses with a very sour expression.
From this point we sent our prisoners in, _viá_ Winberg, to the railway,
the Major and most of the corps going with them as part of the escort;
while I with twenty men, consisting partly of Guides and partly of
Lovat's Scouts, was detached to continue as bodyguard to Hunter. He,
with the main column (we reunited at Bethlehem), marched to Lindley and
then here to Heilbron.
It was ten miles south of this that we came in contact with Olivier.
Olivier and De Wet had both broken through our cordon at different times
and escaped from the hills. Sent one morning with a message to the
Sussex outside Slabbert's Nek I saw shells bursting, and all the
appearance of a heavy fight going on over the hills to the north-west.
This was Christian De Wet, who with several guns and about 1500
well-mounted men, had made a dash for freedom when he found the place
was getting too hot, and had been promptly tackled by Broadwood when he
got outside. Pursuer and pursued vanished into the blue distance of the
veldt, battering each other as they went, like birds that fight and fly
at the same time. Broadwood, however, had got hold of his enemy by the
wrong end. What happened exactly we don't know, but De Wet got clear
somehow, and immediately turned his attention to his beloved railway
line, which he never can tear himself away from for more than a few days
at a time. He is now, I should imagine, in the very seventh heaven of
delight, having torn up miles of it, besides capturing several trains.
De Wet is getting an immense reputation. The rapidity of his movements
is extraordinary. He always has two or three of our columns after him;
sometimes half-a-dozen. Among these he wings his way like a fowl of some
different breed, a hawk among owls. Some amusement was caused by the
report in orders the other day that De Wet had marched north pursued "by
various generals;" as if two or three, more or less, didn't matter, as
indeed it didn't. Of course, mere fast marching would not always
extricate him, but he shows such marvellous coolness and common sense in
the way in which he doubles. Several times he has been reported
surrounded; but each time when we came to look he had disappeared. It is
like a conjuring trick. He seems to have an intuitive knowledge of the
plans of our generals, and to divine how any movements of his will
modify theirs. He makes a swift march. This he knows will set in motion
a certain column. Night comes and back he steals, and dashes out through
the gap left without any one being the wiser. He never loses his
sangfroid, but acts always, in the most hopeless positions, with equal
craft and rapidity. In short, like the prophet Isaiah, he is "_capable
de tout_." For he can hit hard, too. I think since the arrival of the
main army he is the only man who has scored off us at all freely.
Sanna's Post and Reddersberg came first; then, last May, came the
capture of the 500 Yeomanry at Lindley; that was followed immediately by
the surprise of the Heilbron convoy and all its escort; then came the
capture of the Derbyshire Militia, and a few days later the taking of
Roodeval with a train of mails and various details. Even when he had
bolted out the other day between our legs, and was flying north with two
or three cavalry brigades after him, he found time to snap up a hundred
Welsh Fusiliers and break the line as he passed. He is, they say,
extremely amusing, and keeps his men always in a good temper with his
jests; the other day, after one of his many train captures, he sent a
message to the base to say that "he was sufficiently supplied with
stores now, and would they kindly send up some remounts." He is now the
only prize left worth taking, and every one is desperately keen in his
pursuit. I notice, however, that people never seem to meet him when they
want to, though when they don't want to, they very often do.
Olivier, with a force about equal to De Wet, also broke out from the
hills, and having reached the open country, hung about to watch our
movements. There are some kopjes ten miles south of Heilbron, very
nicely arranged, with a back hill commanding a front one, so that the
first position gained would only bring us under the fire of the second;
a very favourite Boer trick. Here Olivier awaited our coming, and,
knowing the range to an inch, landed his first shell plump in the middle
of our convoy. Hunter, and we with him (it is certainly great fun being
with the Staff for the time being), were at the head of the column, and
heard the shell go over. Never have I seen a better shot. It exploded on
the track, right underneath a great waggon, to the amazement and
consternation of the Kaffir drivers and the wretched oxen; though they
were all, I believe, a good deal more frightened than hurt. Three or
four more quickly followed. "Roll that up," said Le Gallais to the Guide
carrying the General's flag. A few minutes passed, during which we were
shot at without being able to reply. Then two Field Batteries came
galloping to the front. Guns! Guns! Way for the guns! like the
fire-engines down Piccadilly they came tearing along. As the iron wheels
strike upon rocks the guns leap and swing. Stones and splinters fly
right and left, and the dust flung up by wheel and hoof boils along
their course. Nothing is more stirring than to see guns coming full
speed into action. In another minute they have lined up on the ridge and
their shells are bursting on the enemy's hill.
Hector Macdonald is a man who always amuses me. Ordinarily he is a
somewhat grim-looking individual; but when there is any fighting going
on his whole manner changes, and he beams and mantles with a sort of
suppressed mirth. He comes swaggering up now as the guns are opening,
looking like a man who has just been told the best story he ever heard
in his life, and is still chuckling over it. "They're on to us again,"
he bubbles out, knocking his boot with his whip in irrepressible glee.
"What! what! they're on to us again." He looks round at us and grins,
and seems to lick his lips as a shell goes howling overhead and bursts
behind us. His merits as a general are very much discussed, but there is
one thing he does thoroughly enjoy, more than any man I know, and that
is being shot at. I suppose he would rather win a battle than lose one,
but I am sure he would rather lose one than not fight at all.
Next to him, in marked contrast to his excitement, stands out the cool
attentive face of "Archie" Hunter; the most popular officer, as I
believe one might call him, of all the British army. He is noted chiefly
as a fighter and for his dash and gallantry. He did all the fighting in
the Egyptian campaign. During the siege of Ladysmith it was he who
planned and led the night attack which blew up the big Boer gun. When I
was coming out on the steamer the one question asked among the war
correspondents, who wanted to be where the most fighting was going on,
was "Where will Hunter be?" But it is probably his kindness and the deep
interest he feels in all his men that makes him so universally popular.
Here is a tiny instance, perhaps not worth mentioning. We were halted on
the march for a moment, sitting about and smoking, when the General gave
the word to mount, and one of the orderlies, a trooper of the Lancers,
jumped up in a hurry and left his pipe behind him. Hunter saw the
filthy, precious object lying on the ground, and put it in his own
pocket. At the next halt he went up to the trooper, and with that manner
of his of deliberate kindness, returned it to him. A mere nothing, of
course, but very characteristic.
He has a way of looking at you, no matter who you are, Tommy or officer
or what not, with a wonderfully kind expression, as if he felt the most
friendly interest in you. And so he does; it is not a bit put on. He
does not seem to think about himself, but about the people and things
round him. Every morning he finds time to stop and ask after the horses
and men of our little body, and to exchange a word with one or two of
the men whom he has had occasion to notice. Not a grain of condescension
is there in him; not even a thought that he is giving them pleasure. It
is a natural impulse with him, the result of the real regard and
interest he feels in every soldier that marches under him. In action his
manner, always calm, is just as calm as at any other time. He says
little; observing the most important developments or listening to the
reports of orderlies from various parts of the field, more often than
not without any comment at all. Yet nothing escapes him.
Our action with Olivier is a rather stupid one, and I shall not attempt
to describe it. We take the first position, losing from forty to fifty
men, only to find that the enemy have retired to the second range, and
that it is too late to follow them up. Probably the only man at all
satisfied with the day's performance is old Mac.
Through a weary land we have come marching north these ten days. The
veldt is at its worst, parched and dry and dead. Our column trekking
raises a huge cloud of reddish dust that hangs still in the air, and
marks for miles back the way we have come. The whole expanse is quite
colourless--almost white, or a dirty grey. All day long the blue sky is
unvaried, and the sun glares down unobscured by a cloud; sky and earth
emphasising each other's dull monotony. Only at sunrise and late evening
some richer and purer lines of colour lie across the distant plain, and
the air is fresh and keen. Round about the town, which, like all these
Boer towns, stuck down in the middle of the veldt, reminds one of some
moonstruck flotilla becalmed on a distant sea, the grass is all worn and
eaten to the very dust. Whiffs of horrid smell from dead carcases of
horses and cattle taint the air. All the water consists of a feeble
stream, stagnant now and reduced to a line of muddy pools, some reserved
for horses, some for washing, and some for drinking, but all of the same
mud colour.
And yet even for this country, I think it with a kind of dull surprise
as I look out over the naked hideousness of the land, men can be found
to fight. What is it to be a child of the veldt, and never to have known
any other life except the life of these plains? It is to reproduce in
your own nature the main features of this extraordinary scenery. Here is
a life of absolute monotony, a landscape, huge, and on a grand scale,
but dull and unvaried, and quite destitute of any kind of interest, of
any noteworthy detail, of any feature that excites attention and remark.
And the people, its children, are like unto it. Their minds are as
blank, as totally devoid of culture and of ideas as the plains around
them. They have an infinite capacity for existing without doing anything
or thinking anything; in a state of physical and mental inertia that
would drive an Englishman mad. A Boer farmer, sitting on his stoep,
large and strong, but absolutely lethargic, is the very incarnation of
the spirit of the veldt. At the same time, when one remembers the
clatter and gabble of our civilisation, it is impossible to deny him a
certain dignity, though it may be only the dignity of cattle.