shot them, and in various ways annexed a good deal of the land they now
live on, how are we to replace them? What strikes one is that time and
the country, acting on the naturally phlegmatic Dutch character, has
produced a type exactly suited to this life and these surroundings. And
it does seem in many ways a pity to destroy this type unless you have
something to take its place. Except in one or two very limited areas,
accessible to markets, and where there is a water supply, no English
colonist would care to settle in this country. The Canadians and
Australians, many of whom volunteered, and came here with the view of
having a look at the land and perhaps settling, are, I hear, unanimous
in condemning it. Indeed, it does not require any great knowledge of
agriculture to see that a country like this, a lofty table-land, dry and
barren, with no market handy, or chance of irrigation, is a wretched
poor farming country. Hence the pity it seems of wiping out the
burghers. They may not be a very lofty type of humanity, but they had
the advantage in nature's scheme of filling a niche which no one else,
when they are turned out, will care to fill in their place. The old
dead-alive farm, the sunny stoep, the few flocks and herds and wandering
horses sparsely scattered over the barren plain, the huge ox-waggon,
most characteristic and intimate of their possessions, part tent and
part conveyance, formed for the slow but sure navigation of these
solitudes, and reminding one a great deal of the rough but seaworthy
smacks and luggers of our coasts, that somehow seem in their rudeness
and efficiency to stand for the very character of a whole life, all
these things are no doubt infinitely dear to the Boer farmer, and make
up for him the only life possible, but I don't think it would be a
possible life for any one else. It seems inevitable that large numbers
of farms, owing to death of owners, war indemnity claims, bankruptcy,
and utter ruin of present holders, &c., will fall into the hands of our
Government when the war is over, and these will be especially the poorer
farms. But yet probably as years pass they will tend to lapse once more
into Dutch hands, for it is difficult to believe that men of our race
will ever submit to such a life of absolute stagnation. In dealing with
the future of the country, it will always be a point that will have to
be borne in mind, that the natural conditions of life outside the towns
are such as favour the Dutch character very much more than they do the
English.
LETTER XXIII
WRITTEN FROM HOSPITAL
HOSPITAL, KRONSTADT, _September 6_, 1900.
It is only a bad attack of influenza. I lie here in a dim, brown holland
coloured twilight. A large marquee of double folded canvas keeps out the
sun; a few shafts of light twinkle through here and there. Through three
entrance gaps I catch glimpses, crossed by a web of tent ropes, of other
surrounding tents, each neatly enclosed by a border of whitened stones,
the purpose of which is to prevent people at night from tripping over
the ropes. Everything is scrupulously neat and clean. Orderlies run from
tent to tent minding their patients. Every now and then a pretty little
nursing sister, with white cuffs and scarlet pelisse, trips across the
open spaces between the straight lines of marquees, or stops to have a
moment's chat and a little quiet bit of a flirt (they can always find
time for that, I notice) with one of the officers or doctors. I watch
with faint interest and a feeling of vague recollection. She looks up
sideways and shades the sun off her eyes with her fingers. They keep it
up still then!
Some way off, among the Tommies' quarters, I can see groups of patients
in clean, dark-blue clothes walking about, or sitting on seats, taking
the air; some hobbling on crutches, some with arms in slings, heads
bandaged, or patched and mended in some way or other. You feel like some
damaged implement tossed aside a moment for repair. "Mend me this
lieutenant!" The doctors get to work, deft and quick; a little
strengthening, repairing, polishing, and out you are shot again.
It has been the only glimpse of absolute peace and rest I have had this
eleven months. Every one is kind and sympathetic; a cool breeze blows
through the looped-up tents; it is all very luxurious and pleasant for
wearied-out soldiers. I like to lie and watch the little pictures
through the tent openings of low blue veldt hills in the distance (which
somehow remind one of the background glimpses in old Italian pictures),
and dream over things one has seen and done, many of which seem already
such ages ago, and listen to the bugle calls that sound at intervals in
the camp. I have managed to buy some pyjamas. Probably you would see
something very ludicrous in the way in which, after an elaborate
hot-bath and hair-cutting, dressed out in one's clean pyjamas and lying
between clean sheets, one rolls one's eyes with unutterable complacency
on one's surroundings. All our comforts are attended to. We have a
shell-proof shelter in a ravine close by, handy in case of visits from
De Wet; and the two great cow-guns, like guardian angels, doze on the
top of the hill behind the hospital. Under the shadow of their wing I
always feel perfectly safe.
From patients who come in daily from various parts of the country and
various columns we get a general impression of how things are going.
The army seems to be adopting very severe measures to try and end the
campaign out of hand, and the papers at home are loudly calling for such
measures, I see, and justifying them. Nevertheless, it is childish to
pretend that it is a crime in the Boers to continue fighting, or that
they have done anything to disentitle them to the usages of civilised
warfare. The various columns that are now marching about the country are
carrying on the work of destruction pretty indiscriminately, and we have
burnt and destroyed by now many scores of farms. Ruin, with great
hardship and want, which may ultimately border on starvation, must be
the result to many families. These measures are not likely, I am afraid,
to conduce much to the united South Africa we talk so much of and
thought we were fighting for.
I had to go myself the other day, at the General's bidding, to burn a
farm near the line of march. We got to the place, and I gave the
inmates, three women and some children, ten minutes to clear their
clothes and things out of the house, and my men then fetched bundles of
straw and we proceeded to burn it down. The old grandmother was very
angry. She told me that, though I was making a fine blaze now, it was
nothing compared to the flames that I myself should be consumed in
hereafter. Most of them, however, were too miserable to curse. The women
cried and the children stood by holding on to them and looking with
large frightened eyes at the burning house. They won't forget that
sight, I'll bet a sovereign, not even when they grow up. We rode away
and left them, a forlorn little group, standing among their household
goods--beds, furniture, and gimcracks strewn about the veldt; the
crackling of the fire in their ears, and smoke and flame streaming
overhead. The worst moment is when you first come to the house. The
people thought we had called for refreshments, and one of the women went
to get milk. Then we had to tell them that we had come to burn the place
down. I simply didn't know which way to look. One of the women's
husbands had been killed at Magersfontein. There were others, men and
boys, away fighting; whether dead or alive they did not know.
I give you this as a sample of what is going on pretty generally. Our
troops are everywhere at work burning and laying waste, and enormous
reserves of famine and misery are being laid up for these countries in
the future.
How far do you mean to go in this? Are you going to burn down every
house, and turn the whole country into a desert? I don't think it can be
done. You can't carry out the Cromwellian method in the nineteenth
century. Too many people know what is going on, and consciences are too
tender. On the other hand, nothing is so disastrous as that method half
carried out. We can't exterminate the Dutch or seriously reduce their
numbers. We can do enough to make hatred of England and thirst for
revenge the first duty of every Dutchman, and we can't effectively
reduce the numbers of the men who will carry that duty out. Of course it
is not a question of the war only. It is a question of governing the
country afterwards.
So far we only really hold the ground on which our armies stand. If I
were to walk out from this tent a mile or two over the hills yonder, I
should probably be shot. Kronstadt has been ours for four months. It is
on the main railway. The country all round is being repeatedly crossed
by our troops. Yet an Englishman would not be safe for a minute out of
range of those guns on the hill.
There is a delightful feeling of spring in the air. We have had some
warm, heavy rains lately. The veldt grass, till now dry and dusty and
almost white, is beginning to push up tiny green blades, and the green
colour is beginning to spread almost imperceptibly over the distant
hills. I begin to feel a sort of kindred impulse in myself. The old
lethargy, bred of the dull, monotonous marches over the dreary plains,
is passing, and I begin to cock an attentive eye at the signs of
awakening, and feel that I am waking up myself. If you could see the
view from here, the barren expanse of veldt stretching miles away, the
cluster of tin roofs and the few leafless thorn-trees beyond, I have no
doubt you would laugh at this fancy of a spring day. And yet I am sure I
can feel it; there is a change in the air. It has grown elastic and
feels alive, and there is a smell in it to my mind of earth and
vegetables. Yesterday, when I toddled in as far as the village, I saw a
little fruit tree in a garden that carried white starry blossoms at the
ends of its black twigs. It gave me quite a thrill. Oh, to be in England
now that April--Dear me! I was forgetting 'tis autumn, and partridges
and stubble fields with you.
The Hospital Commission of Inquiry has just turned up here, very
dignified and grand in a train of half-a-dozen saloon carriages, which
must be a great nuisance on the overworked lines. I have had several
talks with the R.A.M.C. officers and men here about the alleged neglect
and deficiencies, especially with the second in command, a very candid,
liberal-minded man. He quite admits the shortcomings. The service is
under-manned. There are not enough medical officers and not enough
orderlies. This hospital, for instance, is entitled to a full colonel
and two lieutenant-colonels, instead of which it has only one
lieutenant-colonel, and the same proportion is preserved in the lower
grades. Men in all departments are stinted, and the hospitals are all
seriously short-handed. They have done their best to make up the
deficiency with volunteers and civilian doctors and surgeons, but it is
only partly made up. Their numbers compare very unfavourably with the
numbers allotted to other nations' hospitals in the field. This has all
been represented to the War Office many times of late years without
result.
At the same time, with the men and accommodation they had, the hospitals
have done their utmost. In the base hospitals there was nothing to
complain of. At Bloemfontein there was great suffering owing to lack of
medical staff, surgeons, nurses, orderlies, &c., and also owing to the
lack of necessary supplies and medical comforts. For the shortness of
the staff the War Office is of course responsible, and as blaming the
War Office hurts nobody, I dare say the Commission will come down on it
severely. For the shortness of supplies, this was due to the working of
our line of communication, which considered the efficiency of the army a
great deal, and the lives of the sick very little. But here you come to
individuals, and the matter craves careful handling.
It is no fun fighting for you people at home, because you don't know
when to clap. The English papers' account of Prinsloo's surrender have
just come in. By Jupiter, for all the notice you take of it, it might be
the capture of a Boer picket and a dozen men. Here have we been marching
and fighting and freezing and sweating and climbing up great Alpine
mountains in the snow for weeks, and captured 4000 great ugly live Boers
and all their guns and baggage, and by the god of war, you hardly take
the trouble to say thank you. This sort of thing will just suit Hunter,
because his idea of bliss is to do the work and run the risk, and then
somehow to evade the praise. But he ought not to be allowed to evade it.
It is true we had no war correspondents with us, but I should have
thought the bare facts would have spoken for themselves. It was the
first thing of the war and our one really big score off the Boers.
However, I shall not discuss it any more. I am disgusted with you.
Mafeking day is about your form.
LETTER XXIV
FIGHTING AND FARM-BURNING
Frankfort, _November 23_, 1900.
Frankfort is one of our small garrison towns. It exists in a perpetual
state of siege, like Heilbron, Lindley, Ladybrand, Winberg, Bethlehem,
and a dozen others in this neighbourhood; in fact, like all the towns
held by us not on the railway. At intervals of a month or two a column
comes along bringing supplies and news from the outside world; mails,
papers, parcels, clothes and kit, great quantities of regular rations,
ammunition, &c., &c. You can imagine how eagerly the little garrison,
stranded for months in this aching desolation, looks for the column's
coming. Then arise other questions. Sometimes a part of the garrison is
relieved and receives orders to join the column, while some of the
troops forming the column are left behind in their place. Of course
every one in the town is longing to get away, and every one in the
column is dreading having to stay, and there is an interval of ghastly
expectation while contradictory rumours go hurtling from village to camp
and back again; and men look at each other like cannibals, every one
hoping the doom will fall on some one else. We in our corps are spared
all this anxiety, and can lie on our backs and look on and condole with
the unlucky ones. We never get left anywhere.
For the last few weeks we have been cruising about over the veldt from
one little British fort to another with our huge fleet of waggons,
doling out supplies. During this time we have been fighting more or
less, I think, every day. Perhaps you would hardly call it fighting;
long-range sniping the greater part of it. Out of our 250 mounted men we
have had some half-dozen casualties only, and we have accounted for a
dozen or so of the enemy and a few prisoners. They have the advantage of
their intimate knowledge of the country. We have the advantage of a
pompom and two 15-pounders. These are invaluable in keeping the Boers at
a respectful distance. It is rather satisfactory to plump some shrapnel
on to a group of waiting, watching Boers three miles off, who are just
concocting in their sinful hearts some scheme for getting a shot at you;
or to lay a necklace of exploding pompom shells among some rocks where
you guess they are hiding. "There, my boys, take that, and I hope you
enjoy it," I feel inclined to say. You will understand that the side
that has no guns at this game is apt to look rather silly. Rimington has
initiated an entirely new use for guns. They are used now _with the
Scouts_. Instead of remaining with the column, where they would never be
of the slightest use, he takes them right out to the limits of his
flankers or advance or rear guard, or wherever there is most need of
them. So that when these scattered skirmishers get engaged, as they are
constantly doing, instead of having to extricate themselves as they best
can from an awkward corner, and being followed up and hampered and
pressed as they keep up with the column, they know that in about two
minutes they will hear the voice of one of the 15-pounders or the
indignant pompom speaking on their behalf, and that the pressure will be
immediately relieved. I am sure that the use made of these guns has
saved us a number of casualties, besides inflicting loss on the enemy.
It isn't very orthodox, I fancy, and I have noticed officers of the
column rather stare sometimes at the sight of these volatile guns of
ours careering away in the distance, but with the Colonel this is only
another reason for using them so. At the same time the pertinacity of
these Dutchmen is really remarkable, and the instant the guns limber up,
on they come, darting round corners and creeping upon us with a zeal
that never seems to diminish.
The work falls chiefly on front and rear guards, but perhaps mainly on
the rear, as the difficulty of retiring is usually greater than
advancing; _i.e.,_ if the advance guard gets pressed, all they have to
do is to sit tight and the natural advance of the column will bring them
up supports. But when the rear guard gets engaged, the advance of the
main column tends to leave it stranded; it is bound to keep on retiring
to avoid this, and retiring under fire is a difficult and dangerous job.
The Boers, who have an instinctive knowledge how to make themselves most
disagreeable, of course know all about this susceptibility of a
rearguard, and there are always sure to be a number of them sniffing
about in that direction. "Where are you to-day?" "Rearguard." "Oh!
_Good-bye, then!_" was the farewell given to a rearguard officer this
morning.
On the other hand, the advance is of course the most exciting. You make
a dash for a kopje, probably uncertain if it is held or not. The
clucking of the old Mausers at long range warns you that it is, and a
few bullets kick the dust up. The squadron swing to the right to flank
the kopje, and the fire gets hotter and the whistle of bullets sharper
and closer. Suddenly the welcome report of a gun, followed by a second
one, sounds behind you, and next instant the rush of the quick-coming
shells is heard overhead. Then the squadron goes headlong for the kopje.
The ponies tear along, mad with excitement, their hoofs thundering on
the hard ground. The men grip their loaded carbines with their right
hands; not one that won't be first if he can. There go the shells! There
is a little shout of approval; one bursts right among the rocks on the
top of the kopje in a puff of white smoke; the other half-way down,
raising a great cloud of dust. The Mauser fire ceases as if by magic,
and the next instant the racing squadron has reached the rise. Down jump
the riders and clamber up over the stones. Yonder the enemy go, bundling
along a rough track not 500 yards away, half seen through whirling dust.
The men fling themselves down, some tearing a handful of cartridges from
their bandoliers to have handy, and settle their carbines on the rocks.
Crack! goes the first shot, and at the sound, as at a signal, the covey
of fleeing Boers shakes out and scatters over the veldt. The fire
quickens rapidly as the carbines come into action. Every Boer as he
rides off, you can see through the glasses, is pursued and attended by
little dust tufts that tell where the bullets strike. Surely they can't
be going to get off scot-free. "Take your time, men; _now do take your
time_," insists our captain. "A thousand yards, and aim well ahead!" And
now at last it is seen with glee that something is the matter with the
man on the white horse. Horse is it, or man? Both apparently. The man
seems to be lying on his horse's neck, and the horse has lapsed into a
walk. Instantly two of his comrades have turned to him. One begins
thrashing the horse with his rifle into a canter. The other seems to be
holding the rider in the saddle. Every carbine is on to them. Another
Boer jumps off and lies down, and the report of his rifle reaches us at
the same instant that a bullet whistles overhead. No one attends to him.
Every man is blazing away at the little slow moving group of three, a
good mark even at this distance. But it is not to be; though the dust
spots are all round them, hit them we can't; and at last as they move
away in the distance, the last reluctant shot is fired, and we give it
up. On this particular occasion we capture one of the Boers a little
further on hidden in a farm garden, his horse having been shot, though
we did not notice it. This accounts for two anyway, which is about what
we expect, and we proceed good-naturedly to help the farm people out
with some of their furniture before burning the house down.
I am writing this lying on my back in our tiny tent. Outside the sun is
blazing. Across the river, on the edge of the hill, our picket, under
the lee of a kraal wall, is shooting at intervals. It sounds as if some
one in the distance were chopping wood. The Colonel and Driscoll are
standing just outside watching through their glasses. They can make out
Boer scouts on the horizon, but no one pays much attention.
Driscoll, of Driscoll's Scouts, is a thick-set, sinewy man, rather short
than tall. He is of an absolute sooty blackness. Hair and moustache
coal-black, and complexion so scorched and swarthy that at a little
distance you might almost take him for a nigger. There is about his face
a look of unmistakable determination amounting to ferocity in moments of
excitement. He looks and is a born fighter, but is apt to be over
headlong in action. His scouts are part of our 250 mounted men under
Rimington.
As for the Colonel I don't know if I have ever tried to describe him to
you. He is a man who invites description. Of all the men in the army he
is the one you would single out to sketch. An artist would be at him at
once. He is the living image of what one imagines Brian de Bois Guilbert
to have been. An inch or two over six feet high, his figure, spare but
lengthy and muscular, has been so knocked about (by hunting and polo
accidents) that it has rather a lopsided look, and he leans slightly to
one side as he walks, but this does not interfere with his strength and
activity nor detract from the distinguished and particularly graceful
look of the man. His face, like Driscoll's, is sun-blackened rather than
sun-browned; its general expression stern and grim, and when he is
thinking and talking about the Boers (he talks about them just as Bois
Guilbert did about the Saracens) this expression deepens into something
positively savage, and he looks, and can perhaps sometimes be, a
relentless enemy. But this is only half the man. In ordinary talk he is
quite different. He has the Celtic sensitiveness and humour. He is an
artist. His manner among friends is extraordinarily winning and
sympathetic, and his grave melancholy face has a way of breaking into a
most infectious laugh. Altogether, what with his tall person, dark
determined face, his fierceness and gentleness, and the general air of
the devil about him, you are not surprised to find that no soldier's
name is more common in men's mouths out here than Mike Rimington's. You
might fit Marmion's lines to him well enough--
"His square-turned joints and length of limb
Show him no carpet knight so trim,
But in close fight a warrior grim."
He ought to have lived five hundred years ago and dressed in chain-mail
and led out his lances to plunder and foray. As it is he does his best
even in the nineteenth century. Picturesque is the word that best
describes him. He makes every one else look hopelessly commonplace. His
men admire him immensely, like him a good deal, and fear him a little.
Generals in command sometimes find him, I fancy, a bit of a handful,
that is, if their policy is at all a backward one. But most people watch
him and talk of him with a certain interest, and whatever their opinions
or ideas of him may be, one feels sure that none who have once met will
easily forget him.
He is essentially a man who means business, who believes that the army
is here to fight, and it is especially in action that he makes his value
felt. Then, when he leads his squadron and the rifles begin to speak,
and the first few shots come one by one like the first drops of a
shower, and when he turns round in his saddle and thunders his, "Let
them go" down the ranks, then I tell you there is not a trooper at his
heels who does not realise that the man at their head is the right man
in the right place.