A FRESH EFFORT AND AN ARMY CHAPLAIN
Spearman's Hill: February 4, 1900
The first gleams of daylight crept underneath the waggon, and the
sleepers, closely packed for shelter from the rain showers, awoke. Those
who live under the conditions of a civilised city, who lie abed till
nine and ten of the clock in artificially darkened rooms, gain luxury at
the expense of joy. But the soldier, who fares simply, sleeps soundly,
and rises with the morning star, wakes in an elation of body and spirit
without an effort and with scarcely a yawn. There is no more delicious
moment in the day than this, when we light the fire and, while the
kettle boils, watch the dark shadows of the hills take form,
perspective, and finally colour, knowing that there is another whole day
begun, bright with chance and interest, and free from all cares. All
cares--for who can be worried about the little matters of humdrum life
when he may be dead before the night? Such a one was with us
yesterday--see, there is a spare mug for coffee in the mess--but now
gone for ever. And so it may be with us to-morrow. What does it matter
that this or that is misunderstood or perverted; that So-and-so is
envious and spiteful; that heavy difficulties obstruct the larger
schemes of life, clogging nimble aspiration with the mud of matters of
fact? Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the
caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else
may stand over, perhaps for ever. Existence is never so sweet as when it
is at hazard. The bright butterfly flutters in the sunshine, the
expression of the philosophy of Omar Khayyám, without the potations.
But we awoke on the morning of the 25th in most gloomy spirits. I had
seen the evacuation of Spion Kop during the night, and I did not doubt
that it would be followed by the abandonment of all efforts to turn the
Boer left from the passages of the Tugela at and near Trichardt's
Drift. Nor were these forebodings wrong. Before the sun was fairly risen
orders arrived, 'All baggage to move east of Venter's Spruit
immediately. Troops to be ready to turn out at thirty minutes' notice.'
General retreat, that was their meaning. Buller was withdrawing his
train as a preliminary to disengaging, if he could, the fighting
brigades, and retiring across the river. Buller! So it was no longer
Warren! The Commander-in-Chief had arrived, in the hour of misfortune,
to take all responsibility for what had befallen the army, to extricate
it, if possible, from its position of peril, to encourage the soldiers,
now a second time defeated without being beaten, to bear the
disappointment. Everyone knows how all this, that looked so difficult,
was successfully accomplished.
The army was irritated by the feeling that it had made sacrifices for
nothing. It was puzzled and disappointed by failure which it did not
admit nor understand. The enemy were flushed with success. The opposing
lines in many places were scarcely a thousand yards apart. As the
infantry retired the enemy would have commanding ground from which to
assail them at every point. Behind flowed the Tugela, a deep, rapid,
only occasionally fordable river, eighty-five yards broad, with
precipitous banks. We all prepared ourselves for a bloody and even
disastrous rearguard action. But now, I repeat, when things had come to
this pass, Buller took personal command. He arrived on the field calm,
cheerful, inscrutable as ever, rode hither and thither with a weary
staff and a huge notebook, gripped the whole business in his strong
hands, and so shook it into shape that we crossed the river in safety,
comfort, and good order, with most remarkable mechanical precision, and
without the loss of a single man or a pound of stores.
The fighting troops stood fast for two days, while the train of waggons
streamed back over the bridges and parked in huge black squares on the
southern bank. Then, on the night of the 26th, the retreat began. It was
pitch dark, and a driving rain veiled all lights. The ground was
broken. The enemy near. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more
difficult operation. But it was performed with amazing ease.
Buller himself--not Buller by proxy or Buller at the end of a
heliograph--Buller himself managed it. He was the man who gave orders,
the man whom the soldiers looked to. He had already transported his
train. At dusk he passed the Royals over the ford. By ten o'clock all
his cavalry and guns were across the pontoon bridges. At ten he began
disengaging his infantry, and by daylight the army stood in order on the
southern bank. While the sappers began to take the pontoon bridges to
pieces the Boers, who must have been astonished by the unusual rapidity
of the movement, fired their first shell at the crossing. We were over
the river none too soon.
A successful retreat is a poor thing for a relieving army to boast of
when their gallant friends are hard pressed and worn out. But this
withdrawal showed that this force possesses both a leader and machinery
of organisation, and it is this, and this alone, that has preserved our
confidence. We believe that Buller gauged the capacity of one
subordinate at Colenso, of another at Spion Kop, and that now he will do
things himself, as he was meant to do. I know not why he has waited so
long. Probably some pedantic principle of military etiquette:
'Commander-in-Chief should occupy a central position; turning movements
should be directed by subordinates.' But the army believes that this is
all over now, and that for the future Buller will trust no one but
himself in great matters; and it is because they believe this that the
soldiers are looking forward with confidence and eagerness to the third
and last attempt--for the sands at Ladysmith have run down very low--to
shatter the Boer lines.
We have waited a week in the camp behind Spearman's Hill. The General
has addressed the troops himself. He has promised that we shall be in
Ladysmith soon. To replace the sixteen hundred killed and wounded in the
late actions, drafts of twenty-four hundred men have arrived. A
mountain battery, A Battery R.H.A., and two great fortress guns have
strengthened the artillery. Two squadrons of the 14th Hussars have been
added to the cavalry, so that we are actually to-day numerically
stronger by more than a thousand men than when we fought at Spion Kop,
while the Boers are at least five hundred weaker--attrition _versus_
recuperation. Everyone has been well fed, reinforced and inspirited, and
all are prepared for a supreme effort, in which we shall either reach
Ladysmith or be flung back truly beaten with a loss of six or seven
thousand men.
I will not try to foreshadow the line of attack, though certain
movements appear to indicate where it will be directed. But it is
generally believed that we fight to-morrow at dawn, and as I write this
letter seventy guns are drawing up in line on the hills to open the
preparatory bombardment.
It is a solemn Sunday, and the camp, with its white tents looking snug
and peaceful in the sunlight, holds its breath that the beating of its
heart may not be heard. On such a day as this the services of religion
would appeal with passionate force to thousands. I attended a church
parade this morning. What a chance this was for a man of great soul who
feared God! On every side were drawn up deep masses of soldiery, rank
behind rank--perhaps, in all, five thousand. In the hollow square stood
the General, the man on whom everything depended. All around were men
who within the week had been face to face with Death, and were going to
face him again in a few hours. Life seemed very precarious, in spite of
the sunlit landscape. What was it all for? What was the good of human
effort? How should it befall a man who died in a quarrel he did not
understand? All the anxious questionings of weak spirits. It was one of
those occasions when a fine preacher might have given comfort and
strength where both were sorely needed, and have printed on many minds a
permanent impression. The bridegroom Opportunity had come. But the
Church had her lamp untrimmed. A chaplain with a raucous voice
discoursed on the details of 'The siege and surrender of Jericho.' The
soldiers froze into apathy, and after a while the formal perfunctory
service reached its welcome conclusion.
As I marched home an officer said to me: 'Why is it, when the Church
spends so much on missionary work among heathens, she does not take the
trouble to send good men to preach in time of war? The medical
profession is represented by some of its greatest exponents. Why are
men's wounded souls left to the care of a village practitioner?' Nor
could I answer; but I remembered the venerable figure and noble
character of Father Brindle in the River War, and wondered whether Rome
was again seizing the opportunity which Canterbury disdained--the
opportunity of telling the glad tidings to soldiers about to die.