BACK TO THE BRITISH LINES
Frere: December 24, 1899.
The voyage of the "Induna" from Delagoa Bay to Durban was speedy and
prosperous, and on the afternoon of the 23rd we approached our port, and
saw the bold headland that shields it rising above the horizon to the
southward. An hour's steaming brought us to the roads. More than twenty
great transports and supply vessels lay at anchor, while three others,
crowded from end to end with soldiery, circled impatiently as they
waited for pilots to take them into the harbour. Our small vessel was
not long in reaching the jetty, and I perceived that a very considerable
crowd had gathered to receive us. But it was not until I stepped on
shore that I realised that I was myself the object of this honourable
welcome. I will not chronicle the details of what followed. It is
sufficient to say that many hundreds of the people of Durban took
occasion to express their joy at my tiny pinch of triumph over the
Boers, and that their enthusiasm was another sincere demonstration of
their devotion to the Imperial cause, and their resolve to carry the war
to an indisputable conclusion. After an hour of turmoil, which I frankly
admit I enjoyed extremely, I escaped to the train, and the journey to
Pietermaritzburg passed very quickly in the absorbing occupation of
devouring a month's newpapers and clearing my palate from the evil taste
of the exaggerations of Pretoria by a liberal antidote of our own
versions. I rested a day at Government House, and enjoyed long
conversations with Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson--the Governor under whose
wise administration Natal has become the most patriotic province of the
Empire. Moreover, I was fortunate in meeting Colonel Hime, the Prime
Minister of the Colony, a tall, grey, keen-eyed man, who talked only of
the importance of fighting this quarrel out to the end, and of the
obstinate determination of the people he represented to stand by the
Queen's Government through all the changing moods of fortune. I received
then and have since been receiving a great number of telegrams and
messages from all kinds of people and from all countries of the earth.
One gentleman invited me to shoot with him in Central Asia. Another
favoured me with a poem which he had written in my honour, and desired
me to have it set to music and published. A third--an American--wanted
me to plan a raid into Transvaal territory along the Delagoa Bay line to
arm the prisoners and seize the President. Five Liberal Electors of the
borough of Oldham wrote to say that they would give me their votes on a
future occasion 'irrespective of politics.' Young ladies sent me woollen
comforters. Old ladies forwarded their photographs; and hundreds of
people wrote kind letters, many of which in the stir of events I have
not yet been able to answer.
[Illustration: Map of THE THEATRE OF THE OPERATIONS IN NATAL]
The correspondence varied vastly in tone as well as in character, and I
cannot help quoting a couple of telegrams as specimens. The first was
from a worthy gentleman who, besides being a substantial farmer, is also
a member of the Natal Parliament. He wrote: 'My heartiest
congratulations on your wonderful and glorious deeds, which will send
such a thrill of pride and enthusiasm through Great Britain and the
United States of America, that the Anglo-Saxon race will be
irresistible.'
The intention of the other, although his message was shorter, was
equally plain.
'_London, December 30th_.--Best friends here hope you won't go making
further ass of yourself.--M'NEILL.'
This shows, I think, how widely human judgment may differ even in regard
to ascertained facts.
I found time to visit the hospitals--long barracks which before the war
were full of healthy men, and are now crammed with sick and wounded.
Everything seemed beautifully arranged, and what money could buy and
care provide was at the service of those who had sustained hurt in the
public contention. But for all that I left with a feeling of relief.
Grim sights and grimmer suggestions were at every corner. Beneath a
verandah a dozen wounded officers, profusely swathed in bandages,
clustered in a silent brooding group. Nurses waited quietly by shut
doors that none might disturb more serious cases. Doctors hurried with
solemn faces from one building to another. Here and there men pushed
stretchers on rubber-tyred wheels about the paths, stretchers on which
motionless forms lay shrouded in blankets. One, concerning whom I asked,
had just had part of his skull trepanned: another had suffered
amputation. And all this pruning and patching up of broken men to win
them a few more years of crippled life caught one's throat like the
penetrating smell of the iodoform. Nor was I sorry to hasten away by the
night mail northwards to the camps. It was still dark as we passed
Estcourt, but morning had broken when the train reached Frere, and I
got out and walked along the line inquiring for my tent, and found it
pitched by the side of the very same cutting down which I had fled for
my life from the Boer marksmen, and only fifty yards from the spot on
which I had surrendered myself prisoner. So after much trouble and
adventure I came safely home again to the wars. Six weeks had passed
since the armoured train had been destroyed. Many changes had taken
place. The hills which I had last seen black with the figures of the
Boer riflemen were crowned with British pickets. The valley in which we
had lain exposed to their artillery fire was crowded with the white
tents of a numerous army. In the hollows and on the middle slopes canvas
villages gleamed like patches of snowdrops. The iron bridge across the
Blue Krantz River lay in a tangle of crimson-painted wreckage across the
bottom of the ravine, and the railway ran over an unpretentious but
substantial wooden structure. All along the line near the station fresh
sidings had been built, and many trains concerned in the business of
supply occupied them. When I had last looked on the landscape it meant
fierce and overpowering danger, with the enemy on all sides. Now I was
in the midst of a friendly host. But though much was altered some things
remained the same. The Boers still held Colenso. Their forces still
occupied the free soil of Natal. It was true that thousands of troops
had arrived to make all efforts to change the situation. It was true
that the British Army had even advanced ten miles. But Ladysmith was
still locked in the strong grip of the invader, and as I listened I
heard the distant booming of the same bombardment which I had heard two
months before, and which all the time I was wandering had been
remorselessly maintained and patiently borne.
Looking backward over the events of the last two months, it is
impossible not to admire the Boer strategy. From the beginning they have
aimed at two main objects: to exclude the war from their own
territories, and to confine it to rocky and broken regions suited to
their tactics. Up to the present time they have been entirely
successful. Though the line of advance northwards through the Free
State lay through flat open country, and they could spare few men to
guard it, no British force has assailed this weak point. The 'farmers'
have selected their own ground and compelled the generals to fight them
on it. No part of the earth's surface is better adapted to Boer tactics
than Northern Natal, yet observe how we have been gradually but steadily
drawn into it, until the mountains have swallowed up the greater part of
the whole Army Corps. By degrees we have learned the power of our
adversary. Before the war began men said: 'Let them come into Natal and
attack us if they dare. They would go back quicker than they would
come.' So the Boers came and fierce fighting took place, but it was the
British who retired. Then it was said: 'Never mind. The forces were not
concentrated. Now that all the Natal Field Force is massed at Ladysmith,
there will be no mistake.' But still, in spite of Elandslaagte,
concerning which the President remarked: 'The foolhardy shall be
punished,' the Dutch advance continued. The concentrated Ladysmith
force, twenty squadrons, six batteries, and eleven battalions, sallied
out to meet them. The Staff said: 'By to-morrow night there will not be
a Boer within twenty miles of Ladysmith.' But by the evening of October
30 the whole of Sir George White's command had been flung back into the
town with three hundred men killed and wounded, and nearly a thousand
prisoners. Then every one said: 'But now we have touched bottom. The
Ladysmith position is the _ne plus ultra_. So far they have gone; but no
further!' Then it appeared that the Boers were reaching out round the
flanks. What was their design? To blockade Ladysmith? Ridiculous and
impossible! However, send a battalion to Colenso to keep the
communications open, and make assurance doubly sure. So the Dublin
Fusiliers were railed southwards, and entrenched themselves at Colenso.
Two days later the Boers cut the railway south of Ladysmith at Pieters,
shelled the small garrison out of Colenso, shut and locked the gate on
the Ladysmith force, and established themselves in the almost
impregnable positions north of the Tugela. Still there was no
realisation of the meaning of the investment. It would last a week, they
said, and all the clever correspondents laughed at the veteran Bennet
Burleigh for his hurry to get south before the door was shut. Only a
week of isolation! Two months have passed. But all the time we have
said: 'Never mind; wait till our army comes. We will soon put a stop to
the siege--for it soon became more than a blockade--of Ladysmith.'
Then the army began to come. Its commander, knowing the disadvantageous
nature of the country, would have preferred to strike northwards through
the Free State and relieve Ladysmith at Bloemfontein. But the pressure
from home was strong. First two brigades, then four, the artillery of
two divisions, and a large mounted force were diverted from the Cape
Colony and drawn into Natal. Finally, Sir Redvers Buller had to follow
the bulk of his army. Then the action of Colenso was fought, and in
that unsatisfactory engagement the British leaders learned that the
blockade of Ladysmith was no unstable curtain that could be brushed
aside, but a solid wall. Another division is hurried to the mountains,
battery follows battery, until at the present moment the South Natal
Field Force numbers two cavalry and six infantry brigades, and nearly
sixty guns. It is with this force that we hope to break through the
lines of Boers who surround Ladysmith. The army is numerous, powerful,
and high-spirited. But the task before it is one which no man can regard
without serious misgivings.
Whoever selected Ladysmith as a military centre must sleep uneasily at
nights. I remember hearing the question of a possible war with the Boers
discussed by several officers of high rank. The general impression was
that Ladysmith was a tremendous strategic position, which dominated the
lines of approach both into the Transvaal and the Orange Free State,
whereas of course it does nothing of the sort. The fact that it stands
at the junction of the railways may have encouraged the belief, but
both lines of advance are barred by a broken and tangled country
abounding in positions of extraordinary strength. Tactically Ladysmith
may be strongly defensible, politically it has become invested with much
importance, but for strategic purposes it is absolutely worthless. It is
worse. It is a regular trap. The town and cantonment stand in a huge
circle of hills which enclasp it on all sides like the arms of a giant,
and though so great is the circle that only guns of the heavier class
can reach the town from the heights, once an enemy has established
himself on these heights it is beyond the power of the garrison to
dislodge him, or perhaps even to break out. Not only do the surrounding
hills keep the garrison in, but they also form a formidable barrier to
the advance of a relieving force. Thus it is that the ten thousand
troops in Ladysmith are at this moment actually an encumbrance. To
extricate them--I write advisedly, to endeavour to extricate
them--brigades and divisions must be diverted from all the other easy
lines of advance, and Sir Redvers Buller, who had always deprecated any
attempt to hold Natal north of the Tugela, is compelled to attack the
enemy on their own terms and their own ground.
What are those terms? The northern side of the Tugela River at nearly
every point commands the southern bank. Ranges of high hills strewn with
boulders and dotted with trees rise abruptly from the water, forming a
mighty rampart for the enemy. Before this the river, a broad torrent
with few and narrow fords and often precipitous banks, flows rapidly--a
great moat. And before the river again, on our side stretches a smooth,
undulating, grassy country--a regular glacis. To defend the rampart and
sweep the glacis are gathered, according to my information derived in
Pretoria, twelve thousand, according to the Intelligence Branch fifteen
thousand, of the best riflemen in the world armed with beautiful
magazine rifles, supplied with an inexhaustible store of ammunition, and
supported by fifteen or twenty excellent quick-firing guns, all
artfully entrenched and concealed. The drifts of the river across which
our columns must force their way are all surrounded with trenches and
rifle pits, from which a converging fire may be directed, and the actual
bottom of the river is doubtless obstructed by entanglements of barbed
wire and other devices. But when all these difficulties have been
overcome the task is by no means finished. Nearly twenty miles of broken
country, ridge rising beyond ridge, kopje above kopje, all probably
already prepared for defence, intervene between the relieving army and
the besieged garrison.
Such is the situation, and so serious are the dangers and difficulties
that I have heard it said in the camp that on strict military grounds
Ladysmith should be left to its fate; that a division should remain to
hold this fine open country south of the Tugela and protect Natal; and
that the rest should be hurried off to the true line of advance into the
Free State from the south. Though I recognise all this, and do not deny
its force, I rejoice that what is perhaps a strategically unwise
decision has been taken. It is not possible to abandon a brave garrison
without striking a blow to rescue them. The attempt will cost several
thousand lives; and may even fail; but it must be made on the grounds of
honour, if not on those of policy.
We are going to try almost immediately, for there is no time to be lost.
'The sands,' to quote Mr. Chamberlain on another subject, 'are running
down in the glass.' Ladysmith has stood two months' siege and
bombardment. Food and ammunition stores are dwindling. Disease is daily
increasing. The strain on the garrison has been, in spite of their pluck
and stamina, a severe one. How long can they hold out? It is difficult
to say precisely, because after the ordinary rations are exhausted
determined men will eat horses and rats and beetles, and such like odds
and ends, and so continue the defence. But another month must be the
limit of their endurance, and then if no help comes Sir George White
will have to fire off all his ammunition, blow up his heavy guns, burn
waggons and equipment, and sally out with his whole force in a fierce
endeavour to escape southwards. Perhaps half the garrison might succeed
in reaching our lines, but the rest, less the killed and wounded, would
be sent to occupy the new camp at Waterfall, which has been already laid
out--such is the intelligent anticipation of the enemy--for their
accommodation. So we are going to try to force the Tugela within the
week, and I dare say my next letter will give you some account of our
fortunes.
Meanwhile all is very quiet in the camps. From Chieveley, where there
are two brigades of infantry, a thousand horse of sorts, including the
13th Hussars, and a dozen naval guns, it is quite possible to see the
Boer positions, and the outposts live within range of each other's
rifles. Yesterday I rode out to watch the evening bombardment which we
make on their entrenchments with the naval 4.7-inch guns. From the low
hill on which the battery is established the whole scene is laid bare.
The Boer lines run in a great crescent along the hills. Tier above tier
of trenches have been scored along their sides, and the brown streaks
run across the grass of the open country south of the river. After tea
in the captain's cabin--I should say tent--Commander Limpus of the
'Terrible' kindly invited me to look through the telescope and mark the
fall of the shots.
The glass was one of great power, and I could plainly see the figures of
the Boers walking about in twos and threes, sitting on the embankments,
or shovelling away to heighten them. We selected one particular group
near a kraal, the range of which had been carefully noted, and the great
guns were slowly brought to bear on the unsuspecting target. I looked
through the spy-hole at the tiny picture--three dirty beehives for the
kraal, a long breastwork of newly thrown up earth, six or seven
miniature men gathered into a little bunch, two others skylarking on the
grass behind the trench, apparently engaged in a boxing match. Then I
turned to the guns. A naval officer craned along the seventeen-feet
barrel, peering through the telescopic sights. Another was pencilling
some calculations as to wind and light and other intricate details. The
crew, attentive, stood around. At last all was done. I looked back to
the enemy. The group was still intact. The boxers were still
playing--one had pushed the other down. A solitary horseman had also
come into the picture and was riding slowly across. The desire of murder
rose in my heart. Now for a bag! Bang! I jumped at least a foot,
disarranging the telescope, but there was plenty of time to reset it
while the shell was hissing and roaring its way through nearly five
miles of air. I found the kraal again and the group still there, but all
motionless and alert, like startled rabbits. Then they began to bob into
the earth, one after the other. Suddenly, in the middle of the kraal,
there appeared a huge flash, a billowy ball of smoke, and clouds of
dust. Bang! I jumped again; the second gun had fired. But before this
shell could reach the trenches a dozen little figures scampered away,
scattering in all directions. Evidently the first had not been without
effect. Yet when I turned the glass to another part of the defences the
Boers were working away stolidly, and only those near the explosion
showed any signs of disturbance.
The bombardment continued for half an hour, the shells being flung
sometimes into the trenches, sometimes among the houses of Colenso, and
always directed with marvellous accuracy. At last the guns were covered
up again in their tarpaulins, the crowd of military spectators broke up
and dispersed amid the tents, and soon it became night.