Our next week or two seemed to be passed in doing nothing but riding
from place to place for the purpose of cutting off parties of Boers.
Information was sent to the Colonel, generally from headquarters; but,
whether because we were too long in coming, or because the Boers were
too slippery, we always found they had not stopped to be cut off, but
were gone. There was no doubt they had been at the places we reached,
generally some farm, where the old occupier and his people received us
in surly silence, and invariably declared there was nothing left to eat,
for the Boers had stripped the place. This sullen reception was not
because we were going to plunder them, for the orders were that
everything requisitioned was to be paid for; it was solely from a
feeling of pitiful racial hatred.
We reached a big and prosperous-looking farm one afternoon after a long
hot ride, and I had been chatting with Denham more than once, and
remarking how rapidly he had recovered from his injury, which he
attributed to the healthy open-air life, and had also spoken with the
sergeant, whose injury troubled him very little; while of our men,
thirty who had received slight injuries had refused to go into hospital,
and were now ready to laugh at any allusion to wounds.
We had reached, as I said, a big and prosperous-looking farm on the open
veldt, hot, fagged, hungry, and thirsty; and the first thing we saw was
the disorder left after the encamping of a large body of men. There
were the traces of the fire they had made, the trampling and litter left
by horses, and the marks where wagon after wagon had been placed to form
a laager; while in front of the long, low house a big, old, grey-bearded
Boer stood smoking, with his hands in his pockets.
One of the officers rode forward to tell him that we were going to camp
there for the night, and that he must supply sheep, poultry, grain for
the horses, and fuel for the corps, at the regular market-prices, for
which an order for payment would be given to him.
The officer was received with a furious burst of abuse in Dutch. There
was nothing left on the farm. The Boers had been there and cleared the
place; and if we wanted provisions of any kind we must ride on, for we
should get nothing there.
The officer was getting used to this kind of reception, and he rode back
at once to the Colonel, who nodded and gave an order, riding forward
with the other officers to take possession of one of the rooms. In an
instant the men began to spread about and search, and the farmer dashed
down his pipe in a fury, to come running towards the officers, raging
and swearing in Dutch as to what he would do; while, as soon as he saw
half-a-dozen men approach the corrugated-iron poultry-house and proceed
to wrench off the padlock, the old man rushed back into his house, and
returned followed by his fat wife and two daughters, all well armed in
some fashion or another, the farmer himself bearing a long rifle and
thrusting his head and arm through a cartridge-belt. There seemed no
doubt about his meaning mischief, but before he could thrust a cartridge
into his piece it was wrested from his hands by one of the troopers; and
others coming to the trooper's aid, the fierce old fellow was bundled
back into his house, his people following, and a sentry placed at the
door.
Rude and cruel? Well, perhaps so; but we were in an enemy's country--
the country of a people who had forced a war upon us--and the Colonel
had a couple of hundred people waiting to be fed. So we were fed amply,
for the farm was amply stocked; and the order the officer left in the
old Boer's hands in return for his curses was ample to recompense him
for what had been forcibly taken.
Denham and I slept pretty close to one another in one of the barns that
night, revelling in the thick covering of mealie-leaves which formed our
bed. Sweet, fresh, and dry, it seemed glorious; but I did not sleep
soundly all the time for thinking of what might happen to us during the
darkness. Once it was whether the farmer would send on messengers to
bring back the Boer party who had preceded us, and give us an unpleasant
surprise. Another time, as I lay on my back peering up at the openings
in the corrugated-iron roof through which the stars glinted down, I
found myself thinking of how horrible it would be if an enemy's hand
thrust in a lighted brand; and in imagination I dwelt upon the way the
dry Indian-corn leaves would burst into a roaring furnace of fire, in
which some of us must perish before we could fight our way out. It was
not a pleasant series of thoughts to trouble one in the dead of the
night, and just then I heard a sigh.
"Awake, Denham?" I whispered.
"Yes--horribly," he replied. "I say, smell that?"
"What?" I replied, feeling startled.
"Some idiot's lit his pipe, and we shall all be burned in our--beds, I
was going to say: I mean in this mealie straw."
"I can't smell it," I said.
"What! Haven't you got any nose?"
"Yes: I smell it now," I said; "but it's some one outside--one of the
sentries, I think."
"Don't feel sure--do you?"
"Yes, I do now. Strict orders were given that no one was to smoke in
the barns."
"Did you hear the order given?"
"Yes; and Sergeant Briggs muttered about it, and said it would serve the
old Boer right if his hams were burned down."
"So it would," said my companion; "but I don't want us to be burned in
them. Oh dear!"
"What's the matter?" I said.
"I wish this old war was over, and the same wish comes every night when
I can't sleep; but in the daytime I feel as different as can be, and
begin desiring that we could overtake the Boers and all who caused the
trouble, and give them such a thrashing as should make them sue for
peace. I say--"
"Yes," I replied.
"That's all. Good-night. I can't smell the smoking now."
Neither could I.