I
It was a score or more years ago, and at the Old Vagabond Club (now
merged into the Playgoers) that I first met Lord Roberts. When he
became the President of the Club, we celebrated the event by a dinner
at which he was the guest of honour and Jerome K. Jerome was the
Chairman. As one of the original members of the Club and as a member
of the Executive Committee, I was introduced to the great soldier.
All I expected was a bow, a handshake, and a “How-do-you-do,” but
Lord Roberts was as good as to be more gracious and cordial than any
great soldier, even if an Irishman, ever was before--so at least it
seemed to me--to a scribbler of sorts, whom he was meeting for the
first time. He was, in fact, so very kind that I was emboldened to
ask a favour. Among the guests was a young officer in what was then
the Artillery Volunteers. I knew it would immensely gratify him to
meet the Field-Marshal, so towards the close of the conversation I
ventured to say:
“It has been a very great honour and pleasure Lord Roberts, to me
to meet you and to have this talk. I wonder whether you’ll think me
trespassing on your kindness if I ask to be allowed to present an
acquaintance of mine? He is a Volunteer Officer, a junior subaltern
in the Artillery, and to meet you would, I am sure, be a red-letter
day in his life. Would you allow me to present him?”
“Why of course. I shall be delighted. Bring him along by all means,”
was the reply.
The young man was accordingly presented. The reader will hardly
believe me when I say that this Volunteer Subaltern of Artillery
thought well to instruct the Master Gunner in the science of gunnery,
and in fact to tell the Field-Marshal what in his, the Volunteer
Subaltern’s, opinion was wrong with the British Army.
Had Lord Roberts replied civilly but curtly, as some in his place
would have done: “You think so, do you? Oh indeed! Very interesting,
I’m sure. Good evening,” and walked away, one could hardly have
wondered. But no, he heard the other out with perfect courtesy, if
with resignation, and in his own mind, no doubt, with amusement.
I reminded Lord Roberts of the incident when I came to know him
better, and he replied with a laugh:
“I recall the matter perfectly, for I like to think I have a
retentive memory. Of course I was, as you say, amused at the young
man’s assurance and confidence in his own military knowledge. Many
very young men are prone either to too great diffidence or to too
great assurance. I think, on the whole, I incline to envy the young
man with plenty of assurance, especially as I was disposed to be
diffident myself at his age, as many of us Irishmen, for all our
seeming confidence, are. But in any case I owed it to you, who had
introduced him, as well as to myself, to treat him outwardly at least
with courtesy and consideration.”
That was Lord Roberts’ charming and kind way of putting it; but to
me, a young man myself when the incident happened, it was a lesson in
fine breeding and in fine manners on the part of a great soldier and
great gentleman.
I heard afterwards that the Volunteer Subaltern of Artillery, in
speaking at a Distribution of Prizes to members of his corps, the
very evening following upon his one and only meeting with the
Field-Marshal, made frequent use of such phrases as “When I was
talking to Lord Roberts about the matter,” “What I told Lord Roberts
ought to be done,” and so on, no doubt to his own satisfaction and
possibly with the result that the members of the audience were for
the first time made to realise what a very important figure he
was in the military world. Later on, however, some one who knew
the facts wrote to him suggesting that the book for which the
world was literally panting was a work from his pen entitled _My
Recollections of Lord Roberts_, and when the Boer War broke out, a
telegram, purporting to come from Lord Roberts, urging the Volunteer
Artilleryman to take supreme command in South Africa, was dispatched
to him by a playful friend. I have no doubt the young man, who will
now be getting elderly, would be the first to laugh at his own
youthful self-confidence, and that if this paper should by any chance
meet his eye, he will pardon me for thus, and for the first time,
telling the tale in print.
Here is an instance of Lord Roberts’ kindness to and interest in
younger men. A Territorial Captain--his brother, an officer in the
Regular Army, told me the story--was taking part in a Field Day
with his battalion in Berkshire. His instructions were that he was
to hold a certain line of country at all costs. It so happened that
the attack developed in a direction which made it necessary for him
hurriedly to advance his men to a flank and away from his reserves,
whom he had posted where they were under cover and out of sight of
the enemy. The young officer (he was a junior subaltern recently
joined) in command of the reserves evidently had very mistaken ideas
in regard to discipline. His idea appeared to be that discipline
consists in staying where you were originally told to stay, like
the “boy on the burning deck” in the poem of _Casabianca_, until
receiving orders to another effect. Needless to say, the very reverse
is true. Soldiers to-day are taught clearly to observe events and to
act on their own initiative should unexpected developments arise.
Seeing that the tide of war was drifting the Firing Line and its
supports away from the reserves, the duty of the officer commanding
the reserves was, not to remain stodgily where he had originally
been placed (to do that would be less obedience to discipline than
a breach of discipline), but while keeping the reserves directly in
signalling communication with the Firing Line, as well as under
cover and out of sight of the enemy, so to alter his own dispositions
as to be ready to reinforce and to reinforce quickly when called upon
to do so.
This, however, he failed to do, and when his superior officer,
finding himself hard pressed, signalled for the reserves, there was
no reply.
Unfortunately there was neither a galloper nor a cyclist at hand to
carry a message. “If I don’t get my reserves here in half an hour,”
he said, “I shall lose the position, and the loss of this position
may mean, probably will mean, victory for the enemy all along the
line. It shan’t be so if I can help it. Now what can I do?”
Hurriedly but keenly he scanned the rolling Berkshire down around
him. Towards the north, on the whity-brown high road that curved
outward in a huge half-circle from the point where he was standing,
he saw a cloud of dust. “A motor! and coming this way!” he exclaimed.
“Follow me, Brown.” (This to a non-commissioned officer.) Stooping
low, so as not to offer a target to the enemy, he sprinted northwards
in a line which intersected the high road, at the nearest point which
the oncoming car must pass.
The motor was almost on him as he reached the road, and leaping into
the centre held up his hand. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to the
occupant, “but I’m in command of troops holding this position. We’re
attacked in force, and my reserves are some distance away along the
road in the direction you have come, near a copse. I’ve signalled
for reinforcements, but they have not kept up their communications.
I have neither a galloper nor a cyclist. If I get my reinforcements
here in half an hour, I can hold the position. If I don’t, I lose it,
and losing it means everything to the enemy. I wonder whether you’d
be so very good as to lend me your car for a few minutes to carry a
message!” “With the greatest pleasure,” said the occupant. Turning to
the chauffeur he said, “You are entirely at this officer’s disposal.
I shall walk on, and you can pick me up when he has done with you.”
As he spoke he got out of the car, and as he lifted his cap, in
response to the young officer’s salute and hasty word of thanks, the
latter recognised Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.
A day or two later, the great soldier was celebrating his eightieth
birthday, and received a letter from the officer in question. It was
to remind Lord Roberts of the incident, to apologise for the liberty
the young officer had taken in stopping the car, to thank him warmly
for his kindness, and to mention that the reserves had been brought
up at the double and in time to save the position. The officer
concluded by asking to be allowed to congratulate the Field-Marshal
on attaining his eightieth year and to express the hope that the
great soldier might be spared to celebrate many similar anniversaries.
A reply came almost by return of post.