I little fancied when I sat at my ease in my tent in the British camp that
my next epistle would be written from a hospital as a prisoner, but such is
the case, and, after all, I am far more inclined to be thankful than to
growl at my luck. Let me tell the story, for it is typical of this peculiar
country, and still more peculiar war. I had been writing far into the
night, and had left the letter ready for post next day. Then, with a clear
conscience, I threw myself on my blankets, satisfied that I was ready for
what might happen next. Things were going to happen, but though the night
was big with fate there was no warning to me in the whispering wind. Some
men would have heard all sorts of sounds on such a night, but I am not
built that way I suppose. Anyway, I heard nothing until, half an hour
before dawn, a voice jarred my ear with the news that "there was something
on, and I'd better fly round pretty sharp if I did not mean to miss it."
By the light of my lantern I saddled my horse, and snatched a hasty cup of
coffee and a mouthful of biscuit, and as the little band of Tasmanians
moved from Rensburg I rode with them. Where they were going, or what their
mission, I did not know, but I guessed it was to be no picnic. The quiet,
resolute manner of the officers, the hushed voices, the set, stern faces of
the young soldiers, none of whom had ever been under fire before, all told
me that there was blood in the air, so I asked no questions, and sat tight
in my saddle. As the daylight broke over the far-stretching veldt, I saw
that two other correspondents were with the party, viz., Reay, of the
Melbourne _Herald_, and Lambie, poor, ill-fated Lambie, of the
_Melbourne Age_. For a couple of hours we trotted along without
incident of any kind, then we halted at a farmhouse, the name of which I
have forgotten. There we found Captain Cameron encamped with the rest of
the Tasmanians, and after a short respite the troops moved outward again,
Captain Cameron in command; we had about eighty men, all of whom were
mounted.
As we rode off I heard the order given for every man to "sit tight and keep
his eyes open." Then our scouts put spurs to their horses and dashed away
on either wing, skirting the kopjes and screening the main body, and so for
another hour we moved without seeing or hearing anything to cause us
trouble. By this time we had got into a kind of huge basin, the kopjes were
all round us, but the veldt was some miles in extent. I knew at a glance
that if the Boers were in force our little band was in for a bad time, as
an enemy hidden in those hills could watch our every movement on the plain,
note just where we intended to try and pass through the chain of hills, and
attack us with unerring certainty and suddenness. All at once one of our
scouts, who had been riding far out on our left flank, came flying in with
the news that the enemy was in the kopjes in front of us, and he further
added that he thought they intended to surround our party if possible.
Captain Cameron ordered the men to split into two parties, one to move
towards the kopjes on our right; the other to fall back and protect our
retreat, if such a move became necessary. Mr. Lambie and I decided to move
on with the advance party, and at a hard gallop we moved away towards a
line of kopjes that seemed higher than any of the others in the belt. As we
neared those hills it seemed to us that there were no Boers in possession,
and that nothing would come of the ride after all, and we drew bridle and
started to discuss the situation. At that time we were not far from the
edge of some kopjes, which, though lying low, were covered with rocky
boulders and low scrub.
We had drifted a few hundred yards behind the advance party, but were a
good distance in front of the rearguard, when a number of horsemen made a
dash from the kopjes which we were skirting, and the rifles began to speak.
There was no time for poetry; it was a case of "sit tight and ride hard,"
or surrender and be made prisoners. Lambie shouted to me: "Let's make a
dash, Hales," and we made it. The Boers were very close to us before we
knew anything concerning their presence. Some of them were behind us, and
some extended along the edge of the kopjes by which we had to pass to get
to the British line in front, all of them were galloping in on us, shooting
as they rode, and shouting to us to surrender, and, had we been wise men,
we would have thrown up our hands, for it was almost hopeless to try and
ride through the rain of lead that whistled around us. It was no wonder we
were hit; the wonder to me is that we were not filled with lead, for some
of the bullets came so close to me that I think I should know them again if
I met them in a shop-window. We were racing by this time, Lambie's big
chestnut mare had gained a length on my little veldt pony, and we were not
more than a hundred yards away from the Mauser rifles that had closed in on
us from the kopjes. A voice called in good English: "Throw up your hands,
you d---- fools." But the galloping fever was on us both, and we only
crouched lower on our horses' backs, and rode all the harder, for even a
barn-yard fowl loves liberty.
All at once I saw my comrade throw his hands up with a spasmodic gesture.
He rose in his stirrups, and fairly bounded high out of his saddle, and as
he spun round in the air I saw the red blood on the white face, and I knew
that death had come to him sudden and sharp. Again the rifles spoke, and
the lead was closer to me than ever a friend sticks in time of trouble, and
I knew in my heart that the next few strides would settle things. The black
pony was galloping gamely under my weight. Would he carry me safely out of
that line of fire, or would he fail me? Suddenly something touched me on
the right temple; it was not like a blow; it was not a shock; for half a
second I was conscious. I knew I was hit; knew that the reins had fallen
from my nerveless hands, knew that I was lying down upon my horse's back,
with my head hanging below his throat. Then all the world went out in one
mad whirl. Earth and heaven seemed to meet as if by magic. My horse seemed
to rise with me, not to fall, and then--chaos.
When next I knew I was still on this planet I found myself in the saddle
again, riding between two Boers, who were supporting me in the saddle as I
swayed from side to side. There was a halt; a man with a kindly face took
my head in the hollow of his arm, whilst another poured water down my
throat. Then they carried me to a shady spot beneath some shrubbery, and
laid me gently down. One man bent over me and washed the blood that had
dried on my face, and then carefully bound up my wounded temple. I began to
see things more plainly--a blue sky above me; a group of rough, hardy men,
all armed with rifles, around me. I saw that I was a prisoner, and when I
tried to move I soon knew I was damaged.
The same good-looking young fellow with the curly beard bent over me again.
"Feel any better now, old fellow?" I stared hard at the speaker, for he
spoke like an Englishman, and a well-educated one, too. "Yes, I'm better.
I'm a prisoner, ain't I?" "Yes." "Are you an Englishman?" I asked. He
laughed. "Not I," he said, "I'm a Boer born and bred, and I am the man who
bowled you over. What on earth made you do such a fool's trick as to try
and ride from our rifles at that distance?" "Didn't think I was welcome in
these parts." "Don't make a jest of it, man," the Boer said gravely;
"rather thank God you are a living man this moment. It was His hand that
saved you; nothing else could have done so." He spoke reverently; there was
no cant in the sentiment he uttered--his face was too open, too manly, too
fearless for hypocrisy. "How long is it since I was knocked over?" "About
three hours." "Is my comrade dead?" "Quite dead," the Boer replied; "death
came instantly to him. He was shot through the brain." "Poor beggar!" I
muttered, "and he'll have to rot on the open veldt, I suppose?"
The Boer leader's face flushed angrily. "Do you take us for savages?" he
said. "Rest easy. Your friend will get decent burial. What was his rank?"
"War correspondent." "And your own?" "War correspondent also. My papers are
in my pocket somewhere." "Sir," said the Boer leader, "you dress exactly
like two British officers; you ride out with a fighting party, you try to
ride off at a gallop under the very muzzles of our rifles when we tell you
to surrender. You can blame no one but yourselves for this day's work." "I
blame no man; I played the game, and am paying the penalty." Then they told
me how poor Lambie's horse had swerved between myself and them after Lambie
had fallen, then they saw me fall forward in the saddle, and they knew I
was hit. A few strides later one of them had sent a bullet through my
horse's head, and he had rolled on top of me. Yet, with it all, I had
escaped with a graze over the right temple and a badly knocked-up shoulder.
Truly, as the Boer said, the hand of God must have shielded me.
For a day and a half I lay at that laager whilst our wounded men were
brought in, and here I should like to say a word to the people of England.
Our men, when wounded, are treated by the Boers with manly gentleness and
kind consideration. When we left the laager in an open trolly, we, some
half-dozen Australians, and about as many Boers, all wounded, were driven
for some hours to a small hospital, the name of which I do not know. It was
simply a farmhouse turned into a place for the wounded. On the road thither
we called at many farms, and at every one men, women, and children came out
to see us. Not one taunting word was uttered in our hearing, not one
braggart sentence passed their lips. Men brought us cooling drinks, or
moved us into more comfortable positions on the trolly. Women, with gentle
fingers, shifted bandages, or washed wounds, or gave us little dainties
that come so pleasant in such a time; whilst the little children crowded
round us with tears running down their cheeks as they looked upon the
bloodstained khaki clothing of the wounded British. Let no man or woman in
all the British Empire whose son or husband lies wounded in the hands of
the Boers fear for his welfare, for it is a foul slander to say that the
Boers do not treat their wounded well. England does not treat her own men
better than the Boers treat the wounded British, and I am writing of that
which I have seen and know beyond the shadow of a doubt.
From the little farmhouse hospital I was sent on in an ambulance train to
the hospital at Springfontein, where all the nurses and medical staff are
foreigners, all of them trained and skilful. Even the nurses had a
soldierly air about them. Here everything was as clean as human industry
could make it, and the hospital was worked like a piece of military
mechanism. I only had a day or two here, and then I was sent by train in an
ambulance carriage to the capital of the Orange Free State, and here I am
in Bloemfontein Hospital. There are a lot of our wounded here, both
officers and men, some of whom have been here for months.
I have made it my business to get about amongst the private soldiers, to
question them concerning the treatment they have received since the moment
the Mauser rifles tumbled them over, and I say emphatically that in every
solitary instance, without one single exception, our countrymen declare
that they have been grandly treated. Not by the hospital nurses only, not
by the officials alone, but by the very men whom they were fighting. Our
"Tommies" are not the men to waste praise on any men unless it is well
deserved, but this is just about how "Tommy" sums up the situation:
"The Boer is a rough-looking beggar in the field, 'e don't wear no uniform,
'nd 'e don't know enough about soldiers' drill to keep himself warm, but 'e
can fight in 'is own bloomin' style, which ain't our style. If 'e'd come
out on the veldt, 'nd fight us our way, we'd lick 'im every time, but when
it comes to fightin' in the kopjes, why, the Boer is a dandy, 'nd if the
rest of Europe don't think so, only let 'em have a try at 'im 'nd see. But
when 'e has shot you he acts like a blessed Christian, 'nd bears no malice.
'E's like a bloomin' South Sea cocoanut, not much to look at outside, but
white 'nd sweet inside when yer know 'im, 'nd it's when you're wounded 'nd
a prisoner that you get a chance to know 'im, see." And "Tommy" is about
correct in his judgment.
The Boers have made most excellent provision for the treatment of wounded
after battle. All that science can do is done. Their medical men fight as
hard to save a British life or a British limb as medical men in England
would battle to save life or limb of a private person. At the Bloemfontein
Hospital everything is as near perfection, from a medical and surgical
point, as any sane man can hope to see. It is an extensive institution. One
end is set apart for the Boer wounded, the other for the British. No
difference is made between the two in regard to accommodation--food,
medical attendance, nursing, or visiting. Ministers of religion come and go
daily--almost hourly--at both ends. Our men, when able to walk, are allowed
to roam around the grounds, but, of course, are not allowed to go beyond
the gates, being prisoners of war. Concerning our matron (Miss M.M. Young)
and nurses, all I can say is that they are gentlewomen of the highest type,
of whom any nation in the world might well be proud.
I have met one or two old friends since I came here, notably Lieutenant
Bowling, of the Australian Horse, who is now able to get about, and is
cheerful and jolly. Lieutenant Bowling has his right thumb shot off, and
had a terribly close call for his life, a Mauser bullet going into his head
alongside his right eye, and coming out just in front of the right ear. His
friends need not be anxious concerning him; he is quite out of danger, and
he and I have killed a few tedious hours blowing tobacco smoke skywards,
and chatting about life in far off Australia. Another familiar face was
that of an English private, named Charles Laxen, of the Northumberlands,
who was wounded at Stormberg. I am told that he displayed excellent pluck
before he was laid out, firstly by a piece of shell on the side of the
head, and, later, by a Mauser bullet through the left knee. He is getting
along O.K., but will never see service as a soldier again on account of the
wounded leg.
I had written to the President of the Orange Free State, asking him to
grant me my liberty on the ground that I was a non-combatant. Yesterday Mr.
Steyn courteously sent his private secretary and carriage to the hospital
with an intimation that I should be granted an interview. I was accordingly
driven down to what I believe was the Stadt House. In Australia we should
term it the Town Hall. The President met me, and treated me very
courteously, and, after chatting over my capture and the death of my
friend, he informed me that I might have my liberty as soon as I considered
myself sufficiently recovered to travel. He offered me a pass _viâ_
Lourenço Marques, but I pointed out that if I were sent that way I should
be so far away from my work as to be practically useless to my paper. The
President explained to me that it was not his wish nor the desire of his
colleagues to hamper me in any way in regard to my work. "What we want more
than anything else," remarked the President, "is that the world shall know
the truth, and nothing but the truth, in reference to this most unhappy
war, and we will not needlessly place obstruction in your way in your
search for facts; if we can by any means place you in the British lines we
will do so. If we find it impossible to do that you must understand that
there is some potent reason for it." So I let that question drop, feeling
satisfied that everything that a sensible man has a right to ask would be
done on my behalf.
President Steyn is a man of a notable type. He is a big man physically,
tall and broad, a man of immense strength, but very gentle in his manner,
as so many exceptionally strong men are. He has a typical Dutch face, calm,
strong, and passionless. A man not easily swayed by outside agencies; one
of those persons who think long and earnestly before embarking upon a
venture, but, when once started, no human agency would turn him back from
the line of conduct he had mapped out for himself. He is no ignorant
back-block politician, but a refined, cultured gentleman, who knows the
full strength of the British Empire; and, knowing it, he has defied it in
all its might, and will follow his convictions to the bitter end, no matter
what that end may be. He introduced me to a couple of gentlemen whose names
are very dear to the Free Staters, viz., Messrs. Fraser and Fischer, and
whilst the interview lasted nothing was talked of but the war, and it
struck me very forcibly that not one of those men had any hatred in their
hearts towards the British people. "This," said the President, "is not a
war between us and the British people on any question of principle; it is a
war forced upon us by a band of capitalistic adventurers, who have
hoodwinked the British public and dragged them into an unholy, an unjust
struggle with a people whose only desire was to live at peace with all men.
We do not hate your nation; we do not hate your soldiers, though they fight
against us; but we do hate and despise the men who have brought a cruel war
upon us for their own evil ends, whilst they try to cloak their designs in
a mantle of righteousness and liberty." I may not have given the exact
words of the President, as I am writing from memory, but I think I have
given his exact sentiments; and, if I am any judge of human nature, the
love of his country is the love of his life.
"STOPPING A FEW."
I saw him first, years ago upon a station in New South Wales; a neat, smart
figure less than nine stone in weight, but it was nine stone of fencing
wire full of the electricity of life. He was in the stockyard when I first
saw him, working like any ordinary station hand, for it was the busy
portion of the year, and at such times the squatters' sons work like any
hired hand, only a lot harder, if they are worth their salt, and have not
been bitten by the mania for dudeism during their college course in the
cities. There was nothing of the dandy about this fellow. From head to heel
he was a man's son, full of the vim of living, strong with the lust of
life. The sweat ran down his face, dirty with the dust kicked up by the
cattle in the stockyard. His clothes were not guiltless of mire, for he had
been knocked over more than once that morning, and there was an edge upon
his voice as he rapped out his orders to the stockmen who were working with
him. He did not look in the least degree pretty, and there was not enough
poetry about him just then to make an obituary jingle on a tombstone. I
little thought that day that a time would come when he would prove the
glory of his Australian breeding in the teeth of an enemy's guns on African
soil.
I saw him again--under silk this time--as a gentleman rider. He was the
same quiet, cool little fellow, grey-eyed, steel-lipped, stout-hearted,
with "hands" that Archer might have envied. He rode at his fences that day
as the Australian amateurs can ride, with a rip and a rattle, with the
long, loose leg, the hands well down, and head up and back, and "Over or
Through" was his motto. I did not know him to speak to in those old days.
We were to shake hands under peculiar circumstances away in a foreign land,
in a foreign hospital, both of us prisoners of war, both of us wounded.
That was where and how I spoke to little Dowling, lieutenant in the First
Australian Horse, as game a sample of humanity as ever threw leg over
saddle or loosed a rifle at a foe. He came to my bedside the morning after
I entered the hospital, and standing over me with a green shade over one
eye, and one hand in a sling, said laconically:
"Australian ain't you?"
"Yes, by gad, and I know you." He reached out his left hand, and placed it
in mine.
"Been 'stopping one'?" he remarked.
"Only a graze, thank God," I replied.
Then the matron and the German doctor, as fine a gentleman as ever drew
breath, came along to have a look at me, and he was turned out; but we
chummed, as Australians have a knack of doing in time of trouble, and I
tried hard to get him to talk of his adventures, but he was a mummy on that
subject. He would not yarn about his own doings on the fateful day when he
was laid out, though he was eloquent enough concerning the doings of his
comrades. All I could get out of him in regard to his own part in the fray
was that his men and he had been ambushed, and that he had "stopped one"
with his head, and one with his hand, and another with his leg, his horse
had been killed, and he knew mighty little more about it until he found
himself in the hands of the Boers, who had treated him well and kindly. I
asked the matron about his wounds, and she told me that a bullet had
entered the corner of his right eye, coming out by the right ear, ruining
the sight for ever. Another had carried away his right thumb, and a couple
had passed through his right leg, one just below the groin, another 'just
above the knee. That was what he modestly termed "stopping a few."
After I had been in hospital a little while, the matron gave me leave to
prowl about to pick up "copy," and my feet soon led me into the ward where
the wounded Dutchmen were lying, and there I met a couple of burghers who
had been in the _mêlée_ when Dowling was gathered in. One of them was
a handsome Swede, with a long blonde moustache, that fell with a glorious
sweep on to his chest, as the Viking's did of old. He was an adventurer,
who knew how to take his gruel like a man. He had joined the Boers because
he thought they were the weaker side, and had done his best for them. He
saw Dowling talking to me one day, and asked me if I knew the "little
devil." "Yes," I replied, "we are countrymen." "Americans?" he asked. "No,
Australians." He raised himself on his elbow, whilst I propped his
shoulders up with pillows, and as he remained thus he gazed admiringly at
the slight, boyish figure which limped lazily through the ward. "What a
little tiger cat he is," muttered the recumbent giant. "I thought we'd have
to kill him before we got him, and that would have been a shame, for I hate
to kill brave men when they have no chance." "Tell me about it," I said.
"He won't give me any information himself, only tells me he 'stopped a
few.'" The big, handsome Swede laughed a mighty laugh under his great
blonde moustache.
"Stopped a few, did he? If all your fellows fought it out to the bitter end
as he did, we should run short of ammunition before the war was very old."
A Boer nurse came over and asked us "what nonsense we made one with the
other, that we did laugh to ourselves like two hens clucking over one egg."
The blonde giant turned his joyous blue eyes upon her, and paid her a
compliment which caused her to bridle, whilst the blood swept like a
race-horse in its stride over neck, and cheek, and brow, causing her
dainty, girlish face to look prettier than ever. "Ah, little Eckhardt," he
whispered, and then murmured something in Dutch. I did not understand the
words, but there was something in the sound of the adventurer's voice which
conjured up a moonlit garden, a rose-crowned gate swinging on one hinge, a
girl on one side and a fool on the other. The nurse tossed her pretty head
with its wealth of jet black hair, and as she smoothed his pillows with
infinite care she murmured: "Fighting and making love, making love and
fighting--it is all one to you, Karl. I know you, you big pirate; you are
as a hen that lays away from home." And with that round of shrapnel she
left us.
Karl got rid of a fourteen-pound sigh, which sounded like the bursting of a
lyddite shell. Then he slipped his hand under his pillow and drew forth a
flask of "Dop." "Drink to her," he said. "To whom?" I asked, falling in
with the humour of the man. "To the girl I love," he muttered like a
schoolboy. "Which one, Karl?" I asked, and I laughed as I spoke. He
snatched the brandy from my hand, lifted the flask to his lips, and drank
deeply. Then again his mighty laugh ran through the hospital ward. "Which
one?" he said; "why, all of them, God bless them. But the maid that is
nearest is always the dearest." "Shut up, you Goth," I said, "and tell me
about Dowling, for some day I shall write the story, and I would like to
hear it from the lips of one of his enemies." The Swede lay back upon his
pillow, stroking the golden horns of hair that fell each side of his mouth,
and I noticed that the lips which a little time before had been smiling
into the face of the nurse were now hard set and stern. So I could have
imagined him standing by the side of his gun, or rushing headlong on to our
ranks. A man with a mouth like that could not flinch in the hour of peril
if he tried, for his jaw had the Kitchener grip, the antithesis of the
parrot pout of the dandy, or the flabby fulness of the fool.
"It was in the fore part of the day," he said at length. "We had been
posted snugly overnight on both sides of two ranges of kopjes, for we knew
that your fellows were going to attempt a reconnaissance next day. How did
we know? you ask. Well, comrade, ask no questions of that kind, and I'll
tell you no lies. The truth I won't tell you."
But we knew, and we were ready. We were disappointed when we saw the force,
for we had expected something much bigger, and had made arrangements for a
larger capture. It was only a troop of Australian Horse that came our way,
and 'the little devil' was riding at their head. We bided our time, hoping
that he might be followed by more men, and, above all, we expected and
wanted some guns; but they did not put in an appearance, so we loosed upon
the little troop. They were fairly ambushed; they did not know that a rifle
was within miles of them until the bullets were singing through their
ranks. Horses plunged suddenly forward, reared, lurched now to the near
side, now to the off, then blundered forward on their heads, for many of
our men fired at the chargers instead of at the riders. Dowling's horse
went down with a bullet between the flap of the saddle and the crease of
the shoulder, and the little chap went spinning over his head amongst the
rocks. But a good many saddles were empty. He was up in a moment, yelling
to his men to ride for their lives, and they rode. We charged from cover,
and rode down on the men who had fallen, and as we closed in on them your
countryman lifted his rifle and loosed on us.
"One of our fellows took a flying shot at him at close quarters, for his
rifle was talking the language of death, and that is a tongue no man likes
to listen to. The bit of lead took him in the eye and came out by his ear,
and down he went. But he climbed up in a moment, and his rifle was going to
his shoulder again, when I fired to break his arm, and carried his thumb
away--the thumb of the right hand, I think. The rifle clattered on to the
rocks, but as we drew round him he pulled his revolver with his one good
hand, and started to pot us. He looked a gamecock as he stood there in the
sunlight, his face all bathed in blood, and his shattered hand hanging
numbed beside him. So we gave him a couple in the legs to steady him, and
down by his dead horse he went; but even then he was as eager for fight as
a grass widow is for compliments, and it was not until Jan Viljoens jammed
the butt of his rifle on the crown of his head that he stretched himself
out and took no further part in that circus. We carried him into our lines,
and handed him over to our medical man, though even as we gathered him up
our scouts came galloping in to tell us that a big body of British troops
were advancing to cut us off from our main body. But we knew that if we
left him until your ambulance people found him, it was a million to one
that he would bleed to death amongst the rocks, and he was too good a
fighter and too brave a fellow to be left to a fate like that. Had he shown
the white feather we might have left him to the asvogels."
"And so," said I, "that is how little Dowling, son of Australia, came, as
he said, 'to stop a few' for the sake of his breeding. If I live, the men
out in the sunny Southland shall hear how he did it, and his name shall be
known round the gold-hunters' camp fires, and be mentioned with pride where
the cattle drovers foregather to talk of the African war and the men who
fought and fell there."