THOMAS ATKINS ON THE VELDT
It will be a relief to turn from this sad record and give a sketch of
Thomas Atkins upon the veldt as he appears to Christian workers. Nowhere
else have we been able to see him apart from the fierce temptations
which particularly assail him. Untrained, except in so far as military
discipline is concerned, he is a child of nature, and nature not always
of the best.
But the South African veldt has witnessed the remarkable spectacle of a
sober army. No intoxicating drink was to be got, and the cup that cheers
but not inebriates has been Tommy's only stimulant.
A further fact must be borne in mind. War has a sobering effect even
among the most reckless. A man is face to face with eternal things, and
though after a little while the influence of this to some extent passes
off, and either an unhealthy excitement or an equally unhealthy
callousness takes its place, it never wholly goes, and any serious
battle suffices to bring the man to his senses again.
=The Soldier's Temptations.=
The consequence of these things has been that we have seen the soldier
at his best in South Africa--and that best has often been of a very high
order. It is no kindness to him to make light of his vices, and they
have been sufficiently pronounced even there.
We are afraid, to begin with, that we must confess to an army of
swearers. It seems natural to the soldier to swear. He intersperses his
conversation with words and phrases altogether unmeaning and anything
but elegant. It is his habit so to do, and even the Christian soldier
who has belonged to this swearing set often finds it a great difficulty
to break away from his old habits.
='Old Praise the Lord.'=
An amusing and pathetic instance of this comes to our mind. A soldier
who worked at the forge was soundly converted to God, and as usual had
to go through the ordinary course of persecution. It was astonishing how
many pieces of iron fell upon his feet, and how often a rod was thrust
into his back! At such occurrences prior to his conversion he would have
sworn dreadfully, and he had to guard himself with the greatest care
lest some ungodly word should escape his lips. And so when any extra
cruelty in the shape of a red-hot piece of iron came too near, or a
heavy weight was dropped upon his toes, he used to cry, 'Praise the
Lord.' 'Old Praise the Lord' they called him, and truly he often had
sufficient reason for some such exclamation. He came to the Soldiers'
Fellowship Meeting one night, and told how he had been tested to the
limit. He had taken his money out of the Savings Bank, and locked it in
his box; but the box had been broken open, and the money taken away. He
stood and looked at it, hands clenched, teeth set. For a moment the fire
of anger flashed in his eyes, and words that belonged only to the long
ago sprang to his lips. A year's savings had gone. The promised trip to
the old home could not be taken. And a vision of the old mother waiting
for her boy, and waiting in vain, brought a big lump in his throat which
it was difficult to choke down. The lads stood and looked at him. What
would he do? And then that strange fire died out of his eyes, and his
hands relaxed their grasp, and with the light of love shining out from
his face he said, 'Praise the Lord,' and came into the meeting to tell
how God was flooding his soul with His love.
But the number of such as he in comparison with those who still pollute
the air with their oaths is small indeed, and we have sorrowfully to
admit that ours has been a swearing army upon the veldt.
Gambling, too, has been very rife, and if there was a penny to spin
Tommy would spin it. This, of course, is not by any means true of all
regiments, and as one of French's cavalry naïvely put it, 'You see, sir,
we had not even time to gamble!'
There are some brutes even among our British soldiers, and sad stories
reach us of men who have robbed the sick in hospital, and stripped the
dead upon the battlefield. But swearing and gambling apart, and these
horrible exceptions left out of the reckoning, what noble fellows our
soldiers have proved themselves!
=The Patience of our Soldiers.=
Their patience has been wonderful. We have all heard of the _patient_
ox, and away there on the veldt he has patiently toiled at his yoke
until he has laid down and died. But the patience of the private soldier
has exceeded the patience of the ox. He has undergone some of the
severest marches in history. He has endured privations such as we can
hardly imagine. He has lain wounded upon the veldt sometimes for three
or, at any rate in one case, for four days. He has in his wounded state
borne the terrible jolting of the ox-waggon day after day. If you talk
to him about it, he will not complain of any one, but will make light of
all his dreadful sufferings and merely remark that you cannot expect to
be comfortable in time of war!
And how much he has endured! The difficulties of transport have made it
impossible for him to receive more than half rations, and sometimes not
more than a quarter rations for days together. On the march to
Kimberley, for instance, General French's troops for four days had
nothing to eat but what they could pick upon the hungry veldt. Stealing
has been abolished in South Africa--it is all commandeering now!
'Where did you get that chicken, my lad?' asks the officer in angry
tones.
'Commandeered it, sir,' says Tommy, and the officer is appeased.
And there was plenty of commandeering done during that dreadful march,
or the men would have died of starvation. A strange spectacle he must
have presented as he rode along. His kettle slung across his saddle, a
bundle of sticks somewhere else, a packet of Quaker oats fastened to his
belt, and a tin of golden syrup dangling from it. These he had provided
for himself from the last dry canteen he had visited, and often even
these could not be obtained.
What stories are told us of sticks and Quaker oats! They say that when
the troops started with Sir Redvers Buller from Colenso each man had his
bundle of sticks and a packet of Quaker oats fastened somewhere upon
him. His canteen was as black as coal, but that did not matter. And if
he had his sticks and his Quaker oats, and could manage to get a little
'water' that was not more than usually khaki-coloured, he was a happy
man. So as he marched along he was always on the look-out for sticks and
water. The two together furnished him with all things necessary: the
sticks soon made the water boil, and the Quaker oats made--tea!
=The Men in Khaki.=
As regards dress he was a picture! He started khaki-clad, and no one
could tell one regiment from another, but he was only allowed to take
the suit he wore to the front, and before long, what with marching and
sandstorms and fighting, that suit became unrecognisable as a suit. Bit
by bit it went. Tailors of the most amateur description plied their
needles and thread upon it in vain. It went! and Tommy's distress
occasionally knew no bounds. We hear of one man who at last marched into
Ladysmith with two coat sleeves but no coat; of another with not a bit
of khaki about him, but garments of one sort and another 'commandeered'
as he went along. One of the facts that impressed them most as they
marched into Ladysmith was that the garrison were clean and neatly
dressed in khaki, but that _they_--bearded, dirty, ragged--looked rather
the rescued than the rescuers!
Mr. Lowry tells how when at last he determined to have his khaki suit
washed, and retired to his tent to wait the arrival of his clothes from
the amateur laundry on the banks of the Modder, it seemed as though they
would never come, and he was fearful lest the order to advance should
arrive before his one suit returned from the wash!
But through it all our men kept cheerful. One Christian man who had
earned among his comrades the nickname of 'Smiler,' and who was wounded,
signs himself, 'Still smiling, with a hole in my back.' And this was
typical of all. During that dreadful march to overtake Cronje, the
officers of the Guards had as their mess-table on one occasion a
rectangular ditch about eighteen inches wide and as many deep. It was
dug so as to enclose an oblong piece of ground about sixteen feet by
eight, which, flattened as much as possible, served as table. At this
earth table, with their feet in the muddy ditch, sat several
representatives of England's nobility, but as our soldier lad said,
'Still smiling.' When the rain came down and deluged both officers and
men, and sleep was impossible, tentless on the veldt and seated in the
mud, the men hour after hour sang defiance to the storm.
How kind they were to one another! How brave to save a fallen comrade or
officer! One of our chaplains relates that in the advance to Ladysmith
an officer was struck down and could not be moved. When the regiment
retired, and his men knew their officer would have to stay there during
the night, four of them elected to remain, and one of them lay at his
head, another at his feet, and one on each side to shield him from the
Boer bullets which were flying around.
But we must not be tempted into stories such as these. They abound, and
if the Victoria Cross could be given wherever it was deserved, the sight
of it upon the breast would be common indeed!
=Their Dread of the 'Pom-pom.'=
Of one thing, however, our men were afraid--the dreaded 'pom-pom' of the
Boers. Some two hundred one-pound shells a minute these Vickers-Maxim
guns are supposed to fire. But as a matter of fact we are told the
number rarely reached a score. Still the dull pom-pom-pom of the gun,
with the knowledge that shell after shell was coming, always made Tommy
shake; and when he got to the camp fire at night, one man would say to
another, 'I cannot get used to it. It frightens me nearly out of my
life.'
=The Christian under Fire.=
We have asked many of our Christian soldiers how they felt when they
went into fire. All sorts of answers have been given. Most have
confessed to a nervous tremor at first. Said a lance-corporal of the
12th Lancers: 'The worst time I ever had was when we were relieving
Kimberley. There were Boers in front of us and Boers on our flank. We
rode through a perfect hail of bullets. At first I wondered if I should
get through it, and then I became utterly oblivious of shells and
bullets. I rode steadily on, and the only thing that concerned me as we
rode right for the Boer position was to keep my horse out of the ruts.'
Perhaps this is the general experience. No thought of turning back, no
particular fear, no great exultation, simply a keeping straight on. No
wonder from before such a wall of determination the Boers fled for their
lives.
The soldier's great complaint is that he has been kept ill-informed of
the progress of events. He has simply been a pawn on the chess-board, or
a cog in the great wheel. And he laments that often at the end of a long
day's march or fighting he lies down to rest in his wet ragged clothes,
not knowing where he is or whether he has accomplished little or much.
This is inevitable, of course, and the officers themselves were, in
many cases, but little better informed. But one and all have implicit
faith in their generals, and those who added to that faith implicit
trust in God could after the most trying days lie down and rest in
perfect peace. Even at his worst the British soldier is capable of
better things, and out there upon the veldt he has many a time thought
of God, and wondered what possibilities for good there were within him.
Going to the front has made a _new_ man of Tommy. It remains to be seen
whether in the easier times of peace the _old_ man will come back.