When, a few months ago, I stood upon the veldt almost within the shadow of
the frowning brow of Magersfontein's surly heights, and looked upon the
cold, stern faces of Scotland's dead, and listened to the weird wailing of
the bagpipes, whilst Cronje gazed triumphantly down from his inaccessible
mountain stronghold upon his handiwork, I knew in my soul that a day would
dawn when Scotland would demand an eye for an eye, blood for blood. I read
it written on the faces of the men who strode with martial tread around the
last sad resting-place Of him they loved--their chief, the dauntless
General Wauchope. Vengeance spoke in the sombre fire that blazed in every
Scotsman's eye. Retribution was carved large and deep on every hard-set
Scottish face; it spoke in silent eloquence in the grip of each hard,
browned hand on rifle barrels; it found a mute echo in each knitted brow,
and leapt to life in every deep-drawn breath; it sparkled in each tear that
rolled unheeded and unchecked down war-scarred cheeks, and thundered in the
echo of the men's tread across the veldt, right up to Cronje's lines, as
they marched campwards. The Highland Brigade had gazed upon its dead; and
neither time, nor change, nor thought of home, or wife, or lisping babe,
would wipe the memory of that sight away until the bayonet's ruthless
thrust gave Scotland quittance in the rich, red blood of those who did that
deed.
That hour has come. The men who sleep in soldiers' graves beside the
willow-clad banks of the Modder River have been avenged. Or, if the debt
has not been paid in full, the interest owing on that bond of blood has at
least now been handed in. It was not paid by our Colonial sons; not from
Australian or Canadian hands did the stubborn Boers receive the debt we
owed. They were not Irish hearts that cleared old Scotland's legacy of hate
on that May Day amidst the African hills; it was not England's yeoman sons
who did that deed. But men whose feet were native to the heather, men on
whose tongues the Scottish burr clung lovingly--the bare-legged kilted
"boys" whom the lasses in the Highlands love, the gallant Gordons.
Let the tale be told in Edinburgh Town; let it ring along the Border; let
the lass, as she braids the widow's hair, whisper the story with
love-kissed breath; let the lads, as they come from their daily toil, throw
out their chests for the sake of their breeding; let the pessimist turn up
the faded page of history, written when the world was young, and find, if
he can, a grander deed done by the sons of men since the morning stars sang
together.
So to my tale. It was the 1st of May. We had the Boers hard pressed in
Thaba Nchu in a run of kopjes that reached in almost unbroken sequence
farther than a man's eye might reach. The flying French was with us,
chafing like a leashed greyhound because he could not sweep all before him
with one impetuous rush. Rundle, too, was here, with his haughty, handsome
face, as keen as French, but with a better grip on his feelings. Six
thousand of the foe, under Louis Botha, cool, crafty, long-headed,
resourceful, have held the kopjes. Again and again we manoeuvred to trap
them, but no wolf in winter is more wary than Botha, no weasels more
watchful than the men he commanded. When we advanced they fell back, when
we fell back they advanced, until the merest tyro in the art of war could
see that a frontal attack, unless made in almost hopeless positions, was
impossible. So Hamilton swept round their right flank, ten miles north of
Thaba Nchu, and gave them a taste of his skill and daring, whilst Rundle
held their main body here at Thaba Nchu. Rundle made a feint on their
centre in strong force, and they closed in from both flanks to resist him.
Then he drew off, as if fearing the issue. This drew the Boers in, and they
pounded our camp with shells until one wondered whether the German-made
rubbish they used would last them much longer. Then we threatened their
left flank quickly and sharply, giving Hamilton time to strike on their
right; and he struck without erring, whipping the enemy at every point he
touched, driving them out of their positions, and holding them firmly
himself, so threatening their rear and the immense herds of sheep and oxen
they have with them, making a footing for the British to move on and cut
Botha off from his base at Kroonstad.
Whether he will now stand his ground and fight or make a break for the main
army of the Boers is hard to calculate, for the Boer generally does just
what no one expects he will attempt to do. It was during Hamilton's
flanking effort that the Gordons vindicated their character for courage.
Captain Towse, a brave, courteous soldier and gentleman, whom I had had the
pleasure of meeting at Graspan, and whose guest I had been on several
occasions, was the hero of the hour. He is a fine figure of a man, well set
up, good-looking, strong, active. He was, I think, about the only soldier I
have seen who could wear an eye-glass and not lose by it. In age he looked
about forty. I remember snapping a "photo" of him as he was "tidying up"
the grave of gallant young Huddart, an Australian "middy," who lay buried
on the veldt; but the Boers collected that portrait from me later on, worse
luck. On this fateful day Captain Towse, with about fifty of the Gordons,
got isolated from the main body of British troops, and the Boers, with that
marvellous dexterity for which they are fast becoming famous, sized up the
position, and determined upon a capture. They little dreamt of the nature
of the lion they had snared in their toils. With fully two hundred and
fifty men they closed in on the little band of kilted men, and in
triumphant tones called upon them to throw down their arms and surrender.
It was a picture to warm an artist's heart. On all sides rose the bleak,
black kopjes, ridge on ridge, as inhospitable as a watch-dog's growl. On
one hand the little band of Highlanders, the picturesque colours of their
clan showing in kilt and stocking, perfect in all their appointments, but
nowhere so absolutely flawless as in their leadership. Under such leaders
as he who held them there so calm and steady their forbears had hurled back
the chivalry of France, and had tamed the Muscovite pride, and they were
soon to prove themselves men worthy of their captain.
On the other side rose the superior numbers of the Boers. A wild and motley
crew they looked compared with the gem of Britain's army. Boys stood side
by side with old men, lads braced themselves shoulder to shoulder with men
in their manhood's prime, ragged beards fell on still more ragged shirt
fronts. But there were manly hearts behind those ragged garments, hearts
that beat high with love of home and country, hearts that seldom quailed in
the hour of peril. Their rifles lay in hands steady and strong. The Boer
was face to face with the Briton; the numbers lay on the side of the Boer,
but the bayonet was with the Briton.
"Throw up your hands and surrender." The language was English, but the
accent was Dutch; a moment, an awful second of time, the rifle barrels
gleamed coldly towards that little group of men, who stood their ground as
pine trees stand on their mountain sides in bonny Scotland. Then out on the
African air there rang a voice, proud, clear, and high as clarion note:
"Fix bayonets, Gordons!" Like lightning the strong hands gripped the ready
steel; the bayonets went home to the barrel as the lips of lover to lover.
Rifles spoke from the Boer lines, and men reeled a pace from the British
and fell, and lay where they fell. Again that voice with the Scottish burr
on every note: "Charge, Gordons! Charge!" and the dauntless Scotchman
rushed on at the head of his fiery few. The Boer's heart is a brave heart,
and he who calls them cowards lies; but never before had they faced so grim
a charge, never before had they seen a torrent of steel advancing on their
lines in front of a tornado of flesh and blood. On rushed the Scots, on
over fallen comrades, on over rocks and clefts, on to the ranks of the foe,
and onward through them, sweeping them down as I have seen wild horses
sweep through a field of ripening corn. The bayonets hissed as they crashed
through breastbone and backbone. Vainly the Boer clubbed his rifle and
smote back. As well might the wild goat strike with puny hoofs when the
tiger springs. Nothing could stay the fury of that desperate rush. Do you
sneer at the Boers? Then sneer at half the armies of Europe, for never yet
have Scotland's sons been driven back when once they reached a foe to
smite.
How do they charge, these bare-legged sons of Scotia? Go ask the hills of
Afghanistan, and if there be tongues within them they will tell you that
they sweep like hosts from hell. Ask in sneering Paris, and the red records
of Waterloo will give you answer. Ask in St. Petersburg, and from
Sebastopol your answer will come. They thought of the dreary morning hours
of Magersfontein, and they smote the steel downwards through the neck into
the liver. They thought of the row of comrades in the graves beside the
Modder, and they gave the Boers the "haymaker's lift," and tossed the dead
body behind them. They thought of gallant Wauchope riddled with lead, and
they sent the cold steel, with a horrible crash, through skull and brain,
leaving the face a thing to make fiends shudder. They thought of Scotland,
and they sent the wild slogan of their clan ringing along the line until
the British troops, far off along the veldt, hearing it, turned to one
another, saying: "God help the Boers this hour; our Jocks are into 'em with
the bay'nit!"
But when they turned to gather up those who had fallen, then they found
that he whose lion soul had pointed them the crimson path to duty was to
lead them no more. The noble heart that beat so true to honour's highest
notes was not stilled, but a bullet missing the brain had closed his eyes
for ever to God's sunlight, leaving him to go through life in darkness; and
they mourned for him as they had mourned for noble, white-souled Wauchope,
whose prototype he was. They knew that many a long, long year would roll
away before their eyes would rest upon his like again in camp or bloody
field. But it gladdened their stern warrior hearts to know that the last
sight he ever gazed upon was Scotland sweeping on her foes.
And when our noble Queen shall place upon his breast the cross which is the
soldier's diadem, their hearts will throb in unison with his, for their
strong hands on that May Day helped him to win what he is so fat to wear;
and when our Sovereign honours him she honours them, and well they know it.
And when the years have rolled away, and they are old and grey, and spent
with wounds and toil, fit for nothing but to dandle little grand-babes on
their knees, young men and maids will flock around, and pointing out the
veteran to the curious stranger say, with honest pride, "He was with Towse
the day he won the cross."