On the 7th fighting began early towards the east. We could hear it,
though we could see nothing. From noon to three o'clock the cannonade
was very lively towards Olifantsfontein. This was the engagement at
Witklip, I believe. The English lost some fifty men, among them ten
killed.
On the morning of July 8 twenty mounted men went out with picks and
spades to bury the dead. They were preceded by a large white flag. At
10.30 cannon-shots were heard east-south-east, then suddenly, at 11.5,
three detachments of the Mounted Rifles went off.
Officers and despatch-riders were galloping up and down everywhere. I
think the English had been completely surprised by a return of the
Boers.
There was rapid harnessing and saddling. All round the bivouac horsemen
were bringing in oxen, mules, and horses from grazing.
The Mounted Rifles galloped off to take up a position on the crest a
mile away about which there had been fighting the day before.
At 11.15 another large detachment of Mounted Rifles passed, returning
the salute of the sentry on duty at headquarters.
In all they may have been from three to four squadrons. It was
difficult to form any idea of actual numbers, for they were not marching
in strict order, and taking into account the reduction in the strength
of certain corps, a column of two or three hundred men may well have
represented a whole regiment.
A captain of the Irish Brigade told me that his company consisted of
seventy-eight men, completed by yeomanry, and he called his adjutant to
verify the figures he had given me.
At 11.20 a battery of the Royal Field Artillery went off in the same
direction at a trot. A fraction of about fifty returned at a walk.
About 100 metres from my point of observation--an old waggon--the Irish
Brigade and the Borderers stood at ease. At 11.30 a battalion was moved
forward. Five minutes later a second battery, a great naval
10-centimetre gun, drawn by twenty oxen, joined the fighting line with
the rest of the Irish.
Everything had been done very rapidly. One could see that the men had
been trained to sudden alarms by six months of warfare. Thirty-five
minutes before the men were busy in camp, and the beasts were grazing.
Now more than half the men were engaged, and all were ready awaiting
orders to advance.
The skirmishers came back at a gallop, and a man arrived to hasten the
advance of the naval gun, the oxen of which were almost trotting
already.
At 11.55 two other naval guns, also drawn by twenty oxen each, went
forward to join the others. A large ambulance-waggon followed.
In the camp a dog was howling dismally. The cannonade slackened a
little.
At noon an ammunition-waggon, drawn by ten mules, went off to supply the
line of combatants.
It is lamentable that the Burghers, clinging obstinately to their
defensive tactics, know nothing of rear or flank movements.
There are no sentries either right or left. All the troops have gone off
in the direction of the cannon--that is to say, towards the east--and in
that immense camp, containing some hundreds of waggons, there are only a
platoon of Mounted Rifles and a half-battalion of infantry. A handful
of men could carry the camp and sack it.
In addition to the material result, what a moral effect would be
produced on the troops engaged a mile and a half off, if they knew that
an enemy, however feeble, was in possession of the road of retreat, and
engaged in plundering the stores and ammunition!
It is true that the Boers did not know the state of the camp, but if
they had they would have done nothing. This circumstance, confirming
many other instances, would have convinced me more firmly than ever, if
that were possible, that the great secret of warfare is to _dare_!
This, I think, was the sole science of Murat, Lassalle and many another
famous _sabreur_. And the Emperor himself, was not he, too, a type of
audacity in the conception of his most brilliant campaigns, in the
conduct of his most glorious victories?
About 12.30 the firing ceased. It recommenced again about 3 and 4.30.
At three o'clock another great ammunition waggon was despatched. No
losses were announced that evening.
The staff was at work till one o'clock in the morning, and a long
telegram in cipher was sent off to Pretoria. In the evening rather late
I heard the movements of troops, which recommenced the next morning at
dawn.
July 9.--From 7 a.m. to 7.30 a battery and several detachments of the
Mounted Rifles, ten or fifteen, moved off to the east-south-east,
strongly flanked on the right (south) by other Mounted Rifles and by a
battery.
In the early morning there were two centimetres of ice on the artillery
buckets, and towards noon we were glad to be in our shirtsleeves. This
great variation, more than 37 degrees in twenty hours, is very trying.
We were now in mid-winter, and the sun set at five o'clock. At eight the
firing, which was very brisk, seemed nearer than the day before. The
Boer shells, carrying too far, burst between the camp and the line of
the English artillery, which we could see perfectly. The infantry was
posted towards the east-south-east.
The staff-officer told me that the English were engaged with General
Botha's 5,000 men. I offered no opinion, but I was sure he was wrong,
and information I received later justified this belief. I was rather
inclined to think that it was the worthy Derksen, who had collected some
500 or 600 men, and who, by rapid and unexpected movements, was trying
to make the enemy believe in the presence of a very considerable force.
My staff-officer further told me that General Hutton was in command of
6,000 men, three batteries, and four naval guns. This, to judge by what
I saw, may very probably have been correct. At any rate, a formidable
convoy was on the spot. The guns were still booming.
An old sergeant with four stripes was introduced to me. He was the
senior member of Battery 66, which had been kept in reserve. He had been
serving under Lieutenant Roberts, who was killed at Colenso.
During the day four ambulance-waggons were sent out to the lines. It
was at first intended that I should be taken to Pretoria, but as the
route of the convoy had been changed, I was conveyed to Springs. I was
one of fifteen prisoners, not counting the wounded.
At 4.30 the firing was much closer, but we had to start; the convoy was
ready. It consisted of fifty bullock-waggons, eight or ten of them
filled with wounded men. We, the prisoners, were at the head of the
convoy, strongly guarded by infantry and mounted men. A few mounted
irregulars preceded us as scouts. These men, recruited chiefly among the
Afrikanders, sometimes even among the Boers, know the country very well.
Our guide was a native of Boksburg, and knew all the men with Derksen,
the leader of the Boksburg commando. I made no attempt to conceal the
disgust I felt for this renegade. But nothing distracted him from his
duties, for he had a holy horror of falling into the hands of the Boers.
During the night fires in the bush reddened the horizon on every side.
They came to ask us several times if these were signals. I really had
no idea, but I was inclined to think not.
On account of the meagre fuel afforded by the short dry grass of the
veldt, the fires we saw in these regions had none of the grandeur of the
bush-fires in the Soudan, where the high grass is from 6 to 10 feet
high. In those whirlwinds of fire the flames seem to lick the sky, and
the tallest trees are twisted and calcined like straws. Numerous as the
fires were, they did not warm the atmosphere, and the cold was terrible.
At last we arrived, supperless, at Springs, at 1.30 in the morning, so
frozen that we were obliged to look and see if our feet and hands were
still in place. We slept huddled in the guard-room at the
railway-station.
Early on the morning of the 10th, Major Pelletier, of the Royal Canadian
Regiment, came to fetch me to breakfast at mess. But Captain Ogilvie,
the commandant of the station, would not let me leave his jurisdiction
till I had been to his quarters to make my toilet.
After this process I went off with the Major. He was a charming fellow,
a French Canadian, as his name indicates, and a native of a little
village in Normandy. I spent the day with him. He told me the most
interesting things about Canadian life, spoke enthusiastically of the
fine sport there, and invited me to come and pay him a visit later on.
At the same time he confided to me that both he and his men were
suffering terribly from the heat. I then, being almost frozen, make up
my mind never to accept his kind invitation.
I met a young doctor, too, whose name I forget, also a French Canadian.
All the French Canadians, who form the majority of the contingent, speak
excellent French, interlarded with old-fashioned expressions and marked
by a strong Norman accent. Many of them do not know a word of English.
At six o'clock I start for Johannesburg, in the carriage reserved for
officers. My pockets are full of French Canadian papers, which, though
some two months old, are full of news fresh to me.
On my arrival, I presented myself to Major Davies, the commandant of the
military police. He speaks French very correctly, was very agreeable,
and gave me leave to go about the town on parole. I had only to leave
my address with him, and to report myself at his office every morning at
eleven o'clock.
On the 13th a plot was discovered to seize the town. About 500 arrests
took place during the evening. As I had taken the oath of neutrality, I
was not among the conspirators, and while hostilities last I can say no
more on this subject.
On the 14th I received a permit to return to France, and I started by
the two o'clock train that very day.
All along the line the railway-stations had been converted into
entrenched camps. We continually passed trains loaded with horses,
guns, and men--some twenty in all, perhaps. We arrived at Kroonstad at
eleven in the morning on the 15th. Nothing remained of the sheds and
the goods-station which we had burnt on May 12, with all the stores.
Involuntarily I took out my pocket-book, and read the names of the men
who then composed the French corps. We were not forty altogether.
Three had been killed, five had disappeared, the others were dispersed.
I tried to go out of the station to revisit all those places in the town
where we spent a fortnight, gay, full of hope, almost complete in
numbers. But the station was surrounded by sentries, and no one was
allowed to pass.
From a distance the prospect was dismal enough. The streets were
deserted, and, as if to emphasize the fact that everywhere there is
suffering, the Red Cross flag floated sadly over the town. In the
foreground, close to us, on the line, and in the sidings, were deserted
railway-carriages, half burnt, overturned, and broken.
All round the town were field hospitals and vast camps. There were
about 11,000 men in all, I was told. A feverish activity reigned at the
station, a continuous bustle and movement. Convoys of provisions and
arms followed each other in rapid succession. We counted sixteen during
the day on the 16th.
Horses and mules were entrained in some, others brought back the
worn-out horses. Many of these poor beasts had died on the road; most of
them could hardly stand. They were dragged along a few steps, and a
non-commissioned officer put a bullet through their heads inside the
station. Thirty or forty thus executed lay heaped one on another in a
pool of blood, which ran in a little stream towards the line.
On the platform stood cases of ammunition and arms. Several placed
together contained Lee-Enfield cavalry carbines, and were marked 'Very
Urgent.'
On the 16th we were still at Kroonstad, and a trainful of prisoners
passed going to East London. It became one of the daily exercises of
the garrison to walk to the station and see the travellers.
Two questions were to be heard perpetually:
'Do you think it is nearly over?' 'Have you any Kruger pennies?'
And Tommy is quite happy when they tell him that, as to being nearly
over, it's not quite that; but that as to going on much longer, it won't
go on much longer--at least, it depends on what you mean by much longer;
or when someone gives him one or two Kruger pennies.
At last we left Kroonstad at ten o'clock in the evening, passing through
Brandfort, that village to which, feted and acclaimed, we had come with
_Long Tom_ in January. All along the route the railway had been
destroyed, and we travelled on rails laid on unballasted sleepers by the
Royal Engineers.
Trenches had been dug to enable the train to pass over the shallow,
dried-up streams without any very artistic labour, and sometimes the
little half-destroyed bridges had been repaired with logs and made to do
duty again.
It seemed wonderful that it could all hold. But it appeared--I heard
this at the camp at Springs--that one of the chief engineers of the
railway service was a civilian, a French Canadian, who had already
distinguished himself in America by the construction of very daring
railways.
He must have been extraordinary indeed to have astonished the Americans!
It is certain that the English successfully re-established railway
communication with very restricted means in a very rapid manner--not
that this prevents it from being constantly re-cut, however.
On July 17, at 8.30 in the morning, we were at Bloemfontein. Poor old
capital of the Orange Free State! It is now the chief town of the
Orange River Colony. Here again there was an immense camp, a large
proportion of the Kelly-Kenny division.
We only stayed half an hour, and, after changing trains at
Springfontein, we passed Norval's Pont at 6.35 in the evening. We were
in Cape Colony! Here we were no longer on an improvised railway, and we
got on faster. On the 18th, about 7.30 a.m., we were in the environs of
Cape Town.
In accordance with English custom, many of the merchants have offices in
the town, and live in little houses which give a gay and smiling aspect
to the suburbs. We therefore took up a number of passengers who looked
like men of business. In a few minutes we were in the town. We left
the train at 8.30.
My permission to return to France was confirmed by the General
commanding the garrison. I was almost a free man!
* * * * *
Vague rumours reached us from the front, always carefully doctored by
the censor. Prinsloo was taken prisoner with several thousand men; but
on the line to Lourenco Marques Botha was still defending himself
vigorously. After the taking of Pretoria the Government, incarnating
itself, so to speak, in the person of President Kruger, installed itself
in a special train. There Oom Paul slept, received, ate, and lived.
There the official printing-press was also set up, and the money that
was circulated was minted there. As in the hurried departure from
Pretoria it had not been possible to carry off a complete set of
weights, the sovereigns issued were simple gold discs, quite plain,
without image or inscription.
It was on this line, too, that the last great battles were fought, at
Middelburg, Belfast, and Machadodorp, after which, renouncing all
attempts at defence, the Boers began that guerilla campaign which De Wet
had already successfully essayed.
In a few days our steamer sailed. It was not without a pang that we
quitted the land we had hoped to see free, for which we had fought for
seven months, and which had proved the grave of a venerated leader and
of beloved friends.