THE START FOR SOUTH AFRICA
The Black Week--Volunteering--The Langman Hospital--The Voyage--
Bloemfontein--Sir Claude de Crespigny--The Epidemic--Advance to the
Water Works.
From December 10 to 17, 1899, was the black week for England. In that
week General Gatacre lost a battle at Stormberg, Lord Methuen lost
one at Magersfontein and General Buller lost one at Colenso. The
three together would not have made more than a minor action in the
great war to come, but at the time it seemed portentous. There were
ominous stirrings on the Continent also and rumours of a coalition. It
was lucky for us that the German fleet was not yet in being and that
our own was able to keep the ring, or we should soon have had some
Lafayette in South Africa with perhaps a Yorktown to follow. However,
it was bad enough as it was, but the nation as usual rose splendidly to
the occasion, and every one hastened to do what they could. Hence it
was that I found myself early one morning at Hounslow--if I remember
right--standing in a long queue of men who were waiting to enlist in
the Middlesex Yeomanry. I had one or two friends in the regiment and
hence my choice.
The Colonel, a grizzled soldier, sat behind a deal table in an orderly
room and dealt swiftly with the applicants. He had no idea who I was,
but seeing a man of forty before him he intimated that I surely did
not intend to go into the ranks. I said that I was prepared to take a
commission. He asked if I could ride and shoot. I said that I could
do both in moderation. He asked if I had had military experience. I
said that I had led an adventurous life and seen a little of military
operations in the Soudan, which was stretching it about as far as it
would go. Two white lies are permitted to a gentleman, to screen a
woman, or to get into a fight when the fight is a rightful one. So I
trust I may be forgiven.
However the Colonel would only put me on his waiting list, took my
name, still without recognizing me, and passed on to the next case. I
departed somewhat crestfallen and unsettled, not knowing whether I had
heard the last of the matter or not. Almost immediately afterwards,
however, I received an offer which took me out in a capacity which was
less sporting but probably in my case and at my age a good deal more
useful. This came from my friend John Langman, whose son Archie I had
known well in Davos days. Langman was sending out a hospital of fifty
beds at his own expense to Africa, and had already chosen his staff
of surgeons but not his personnel. Archie Langman was to go with the
Hospital as general manager. Langman’s idea was that I should help
him to choose the personnel, that I should be a supplementary medico,
and that I should exercise a general supervision over the whole in an
unofficial capacity. To all this I agreed and spent a week at his house
at Stanhope Terrace choosing from many candidates those who seemed the
most likely. On the whole they proved to be a worthy choice. There were
many things to be done, and in the middle of them I received a note
reopening the question of the Yeomanry, but by this time I was entirely
committed to the Langman Hospital.
When we were complete we were quite a good little unit, but our
weakness was unfortunately at the head. Dr. O’Callaghan had been a
personal friend of Langman’s and had thus got the senior billet, but
he was in truth an excellent gynæcologist, which is a branch of the
profession for which there seemed to be no immediate demand. He was a
man too who had led a sedentary life and was not adapted, with all the
will in the world, for the trying experience which lay before us. He
realized this himself and returned to England after a short experience
of South African conditions. We were compelled to have one military
chief, as a bond with the War Office, and this proved to be one Major
Drury, a most amusing Irishman who might have come right out of Lever.
To leave the service and to “marry a rich widow with a cough” was, he
said, the height of his ambition. He was a very pleasant companion in
civil life, but when it came to duties which needed tact and routine
he was rather too Celtic in his methods, and this led to friction and
occasional rows in which I had to sustain the point of view of Mr.
Langman. I have no doubt he thought me an insubordinate dog, and I
thought him--well, he has passed away now, and I remember him best as a
very amusing companion.
Under O’Callaghan and Drury were two really splendid younger surgeons,
Charles Gibbs and Scharlieb, the latter the son of the well-known
lady doctor. They were as good as they could be. Then we had our
ward-masters, cooks, stewards, storekeepers, and finally some fifteen
to twenty orderlies. Altogether we numbered just fifty men, and were
splendidly fitted out by the generosity of Mr. Langman.
A month or two passed before we could get away, and I remember one
amusing incident which occurred during that time. I had spent a good
deal of thought over the problem how best to attack men who lay
concealed behind cover. My conclusions were that it was useless to fire
at them direct, since, if they knew their business, very little of them
would be vulnerable. On the other hand, if one could turn a rifle into
a portable howitzer and drop a bullet with any sort of rough general
accuracy within a given area, then it seemed to me that life would
hardly be possible within that area. If, for example, the position was
20,000 square yards in size, and 20,000 rifles were dropping bullets
upon it, each square yard would sooner or later be searched and your
mark would be a whole prostrate or crouching body. What I was really
evolving, though I could not know it, was the machine gun barrage of
dropping or vertical fire as practised in the Great War. My principles
were absolutely right and have not even yet received their full
application. I wrote an article to “The Times” explaining my views, but
so far as I know it had no results.
Meanwhile I was practising how to turn a rifle into a howitzer. I
fastened a large needle at the end of a thread to the back sight. When
the gun pointed straight up in the air the needle swung down across the
stock and I marked the spot. Then the idea was to tilt the gun slowly
forward, marking advances of 200, 400 and so on in the range, so that
you had a dial marked on the stock and could always by letting the
needle fall across the correct mark on the dial drop the bullet within
a certain distance.
But the crux was to discover the exact ranges. To do this I went down
to Frensham Pond and, standing among the reeds and tilting the gun
very slightly forward, I pulled the trigger. The bullet very nearly
fell upon my own head. I could not locate it, but I heard quite a loud
thud. But what amazed me, and still amazes me, was the time it took. I
counted fifty seconds on my watch between the discharge and the fall. I
don’t wonder if the reader is incredulous. I feel incredulous also, but
such is the fact as I recorded it.
My idea was to mark the bullet splashes on the calm water of the lake,
but though I fired and fired at various angles not a splash could I
see. Finally a little man who may have been an artist broke in upon my
solitude.
“Do you want to know where those bullets are going?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Then I can tell you, sir, for they have been dropping all round _me_.”
I felt that unless my howitzer was to claim its first victim on the
spot I had better stop. It was clear that the light bullet with so
heavy a charge went so high into the atmosphere that one lost all
command over it. Twice the weight and half the charge would have served
my purpose better. Then came other calls and I could never work it out,
but I am very sure that with a little care in detail I could have got a
converging fire which would have cleared any kopje in South Africa.
As I was convinced that the idea was both practical and much needed I
communicated full particulars to the War Office. Here is the letter I
had in reply.
WAR OFFICE,
_Feb. 16, 1900_.
SIR,--
With reference to your letter concerning an appliance for adapting
rifles to high angle fire I am directed by the Secretary of State for
War to inform you that he will not trouble you in the matter.
I am, Sir, Your Obedient Servant,
(Signature illegible),
Director General of Ordnance.
Thus, whether my invention was nonsense or whether it was, as I
believe, radical and epoch-making, I was given no chance to explain or
to illustrate it. As I remarked in “The Times:” “No wonder that we find
the latest inventions in the hands of our enemies rather than ourselves
if those who try to improve our weapons meet with such encouragement
as I have done.” Our traditions were carried on in the Great War, for
Pomeroy, the inventor of the inflammable bullet which brought down the
Zeppelins, was about to return to New Zealand in despair, and it was,
as I am assured, private and not official bullets which first showed
how valuable was his discovery and forced a belated acceptance by the
War Office.
At last our time drew near. My wife had gone to Naples, where it was
hoped that the warmer climate would complete her cure. My affairs were
all settled up. I was to go as an unpaid man, and I contributed my
butler Cleeve, a good intelligent man for the general use, paying him
myself. In this way I retained my independence and could return when I
felt that the time had come--which, as events turned out, proved to be
very valuable to me.
We were reviewed by the old Duke of Cambridge in some drill-hall in
London. There befell me on this occasion one of those quaint happenings
which seem to me to have been more common in my life than in that of
most other men. We were drawn up in our new khaki uniforms, and wearing
our tropical helmets, for the Royal Duke’s inspection. If we had been
asked to form fours we should have broken down completely, but luckily
we were placed in double line and so we remained. I was standing in
front on the right flank. With my eyes fixed rigidly before me I was
still able out of the corner of them to be aware that the old Duke,
with his suite, was coming across to begin at my end. Presently he
halted in front of me, and stood motionless. I remained quite rigid,
looking past him. He continued to stand, so near me that I could hear
and almost feel his puffy breath. “What on earth!” I wondered, but I
gave no sign. At last he spoke. “What is this?” he asked. Then louder,
“What is this?” and finally, in a sort of ecstasy, “What _is_ it?” I
never moved an eyelash, but one of a group of journalists upon my
right went into hysterical but subdued laughter. There was whispering
among the suite, something was explained, and the funny old man passed
on. But did ever Lever in his maddest moment represent that his hero on
the first day of wearing uniform should have such an experience with
the ex-Commander-in-Chief of the British army and the uncle of the
Queen?
It seems that what was worrying the dear old gentleman--he was about
eighty at the time--was that my tunic buttons had no mark upon them, a
thing which he had never seen in Her Majesty’s Army. Even a crown or a
star would do, but no mark at all completely upset him, for he was a
great stickler for correct military clothing. So, of course, was King
Edward. A friend of mine at a ball in India (royalty being present) was
swooped down upon by a very agitated aide-de-camp who began: “His Royal
Highness desires me to say ...” and went on to point out some defect
in his dress kit. My friend answered: “I will mention the matter to my
tailor,” which was, I think, an admirable way of quietly putting the
matter into its true perspective.
On this occasion we officers all filed up to be presented and the
old Duke made amends by blurting out some very kindly things, for it
seems that he greatly approved of my wooden soldier attitude, in spite
of my reprehensible buttons. He had a day of agitations, for on the
top of the buttons one of the curtains of the hotel took fire during
our luncheon at Claridge’s, and there was great excitement for a few
moments. He made, I remember, an extremely indiscreet speech in which
he said: “They turned me off because they said I was too old, but old
as I am I wouldn’t have been such a fool as to----” and then he strung
off a number of things which Lord Wolseley, his successor, was supposed
to have done. The press was merciful and did not report.
We sailed on February 28, 1900, from Tilbury, in the chartered
transport _Oriental_, carrying with us a mixed lot of drafts, and
picking up the Royal Scots Militia at Queenstown, where a noisy
Irishwoman threw a white towel on board, crying, “You may be afther
finding it useful.” The Scots were a rather rough crowd with a number
of territorial magnates, Lord Henry Scott, Lord Tewkesbury, Lord
Newport, Lord Brackley and others among their officers. Colonel Garstin
of the Middlesex was in general command of the whole of us. The
monotony of the three weeks’ voyage was broken only by a cricket match
at the Cape de Verdes, by a lecture on the war which I delivered on
deck under a tropical moon to all hands, and to an enteric inoculation,
which was voluntary but should have been compulsory, for even as it was
it saved many lives, and I am not sure that my own was not among them.
The Great War has shown for ever how effective this treatment is. We
lost more from enteric than from the bullet in South Africa, and it is
sad to think that nearly all could have been saved had Almroth Wright’s
discovery been properly appreciated. His brother was on board, I
remember--an officer of Sappers--and took the virus particularly badly,
though all of us were quite bad enough, for the right dose had not yet
been accurately determined.
On the evening of March 21 we reached Capetown and found the bay full
of shipping. There were fifty large steamers at anchor--mostly empty.
Some of us had a run ashore, but we had some trouble getting on board
again, for there was a big swell and the little tug dare not come quite
alongside. We had to jump therefore from the paddle-box as the roll
favoured us, landing on a hanging ladder, where a quartermaster seized
us. To some people such a feat is easy, while others evidently regarded
it with horror, and I wondered that we escaped from having some
tragedy. The only real mishap was a strange one. A row of soldier faces
was looking down on us over the bulwarks, when I saw the grin upon one
of them change to a look of horrible agony and he gave a wild scream.
He still remained standing, but several men ran towards him, and then
he disappeared. Only afterwards did I learn that a huge iron bar had in
some way fallen upon his foot, pinning him to the place. He fainted as
they disengaged him, and was carried below with his bones crushed.
I spent next day ashore, with the Mount Nelson Hotel as my
head-quarters. It was full of a strange medley of wounded officers,
adventuresses and cosmopolitans. Kitchener came down and cleared it out
shortly afterwards, for the syrens were interfering with his fighting
men. The general war news was very good. Paardeburg had been fought,
Lord Roberts had made his way to Bloemfontein and Kimberley had been
relieved by French, whose immediate return to head off Cronje was one
of the inspired incidents of the war. It was a consolation to find that
Boers really could be captured in large numbers, for their long run of
successes while the conditions were in their favour was getting badly
upon the public nerves and a legendary sort of atmosphere was beginning
to build up around them.
Some money had been given me for charitable purposes when I was in
London, so I went down to the camp of the Boer prisoners to see if I
could spend some of it. It was a racecourse, pent in with barbed wire,
and they were certainly a shaggy, dirty, unkempt crowd but with the
bearing of free men. There were a few cruel or brutal faces, some of
them half caste, but most were good honest fellows and the general
effect was formidable. There were some who were maned like lions. I
afterwards went into the tents of the sick Boers. Several were sitting
sullenly round and one was raving in delirium, saying something in his
frenzy which set all the others laughing in a mirthless way. One man
sat in a corner with a proud dark face and brooding eagle eyes. He
bowed with grave courtesy when I put down some money for cigarettes. A
Huguenot, or I am mistaken.
We had been waiting for orders and now we suddenly left Capetown on
March 26, reaching East London on the 28th. There we disembarked,
and I was surprised to find Leo Trevor, of amateur theatrical fame,
acting as transport officer. In spite of his efforts (I hope it was
not through them) our hospital stuff was divided between two trains,
and when we reached Bloemfontein after days of travel we found that
the other half had wandered off and was engulfed in the general chaos.
There were nights of that journey which I shall never forget--the great
train roaring through the darkness, the fires beside the line, the dark
groups silhouetted against the flames, the shouts of “Who are you?” and
the crash of voices as our mates cried back, “The Camerons,” for this
famous regiment was our companion. Wonderful is the atmosphere of war.
When the millennium comes the world will gain much, but it will lose
its greatest thrill.
It is a strange wild place, the veldt, with its vast green plains and
peculiar flat-topped hills, relics of some extraordinary geological
episode. It is poor pasture--a sheep to two acres--so it must always
be sparsely inhabited. Little white farms, each with its eucalyptus
grove and its dam, were scattered over it. When we crossed the Free
State border by a makeshift bridge, beside the ruins of the old one, we
noticed that many of these little houses were flying the white flag.
Every one seemed very good-humoured, burghers and soldiers alike, but
the guerilla war afterwards altered all that.
It was April 2, and 5 a.m. when we at last reached the capital of the
Free State, and were dumped down outside the town in a great green
expanse covered with all sorts of encampments and animals. There was
said to be a large force of Boers close to the town, and they had cut
up one of our columns a few days before at Sanna’s Post. Some troops
were moving out, so I, with Gwynne whom I had known in Egypt, and that
great sportsman, Claude de Crespigny, set forth to see what we could,
an artilleryman lending me his led horse. There was nothing doing,
however, for it was Brother Boer’s way never to come when you wanted
him and always when you didn’t. Save for good company, I got nothing
out of a long hot day.
Good company is always one of the solaces of a campaign. I ran across
many old friends, some soldiers, some medicos, some journalists.
Knight of the “Falcon” had, alas, been hit in an early battle and was
in hospital. Julian Ralph, a veteran American correspondent, Bennett
Burleigh the rugged old war horse, queer little Melton Prior who looked
like the prim headmaster of a conventional school, dark-eyed Donohue
of the “Chronicle,” Paterson the Australian, of Snowy River fame, they
were a wonderful set of men. I had little time to enjoy their society,
however, for among the miles of loaded trucks which lay at the endless
sidings I had to my great joy discovered the missing half of our
equipment and guided a fatigue party down to it. All day we laboured
and before evening our beds were up and our hospital ready for duty.
Two days later wagons of sick and wounded began to disgorge at our
doors and the real work had begun.
[Illustration: STAFF OF THE LANGMAN HOSPITAL, SOUTH AFRICA, 1900.]
We had been given the cricket field as our camp and the fine pavilion
as our chief ward. Others were soon erected, for we had plenty of
tents--one each for our own use and a marquee for the mess. We were
ready for any moderate strain, but that which was put upon us was
altogether beyond our strength and for a month we had a rather awful
time. The first intimation of trouble came to me in a simple and
dramatic way. We had a bath in the pavilion and I had gone up to it
and turned the tap, but not a drop of water appeared, though it had
been running freely the night before. This small incident was the first
intimation that the Boers had cut the water supply of the town, which
caused us to fall back upon the old wells, which in turn gave rise to
an outbreak of enteric which cost us 5,000 lives. The one great blot
in Lord Roberts’ otherwise splendid handling of the campaign was, in
my opinion, that he did not buzz out at once with every man he could
raise, and relieve the water works, which were only 20 miles away.
Instead of this he waited for his army to recuperate, and so exposed
them to the epidemic. However, it is always easy to be wise after the
event.
The outbreak was a terrible one. It was softened down for public
consumption and the press messages were heavily censored, but we lived
in the midst of death--and death in its vilest, filthiest form. Our
accommodation was for fifty patients, but 120 were precipitated upon
us, and the floor was littered between the beds with sick and often
dying men. Our linen and utensils were never calculated for such a
number, and as the nature of the disease causes constant pollution,
and this pollution of the most dangerous character and with the
vilest effluvia, one can imagine how dreadful was the situation. The
worst surgical ward after a battle would be a clean place compared to
that pavilion. At one end was a stage with the scene set for “H.M.S.
Pinafore.” This was turned into latrines for those who could stagger
so far. The rest did the best they could, and we did the best we could
in turn. But a Verestschagin would have found a subject in that awful
ward, with the rows of emaciated men, and the silly childish stage
looking down upon it all. In the very worst of it two nursing sisters
appeared among us, and never shall I forget what angels of light they
appeared, or how they nursed those poor boys, swaddling them like
babies and meeting every want with gentle courage. Thank God, they both
came through safe.
Four weeks may seem a short time in comfort, but it is a very long
one under conditions such as those, amid horrible sights and sounds
and smells, while a haze of flies spread over everything, covering
your food and trying to force themselves into your mouth--every one of
them a focus of disease. It was bad enough when we had a full staff,
but soon the men began to wilt under the strain. They were nearly all
from the Lancashire cotton mills, little, ill-nourished fellows but
with a great spirit. Of the fifteen twelve contracted the disease and
added to the labours of the survivors. Three died. Fortunately we of
the staff were able to keep going, and we were reinforced by a Dr.
Schwartz of Capetown. The pressure was great, but we were helped by the
thought that the greater the work the more we proved the necessity of
our presence in Africa. Above all, our labours were lightened by the
splendid stuff that we had for patients. It was really glorious to see
the steady patience with which they bore their sufferings. The British
soldier may grouse in days of peace, but I never heard a murmur when he
was faced with this loathsome death.
Our hospital was no worse off than the others, and as there were many
of them the general condition of the town was very bad. Coffins were
out of the question, and the men were lowered in their brown blankets
into shallow graves at the average rate of sixty a day. A sickening
smell came from the stricken town. Once when I had ridden out to get
an hour or two of change, and was at least six miles from the town
the wind changed and the smell was all around me. You could smell
Bloemfontein long before you could see it. Even now if I felt that low
deathly smell, compounded of disease and disinfectants, my heart would
sink within me.
At last there came the turn. The army had moved on. Hospitals up the
line absorbed some of the cases. Above all the water works had been
retaken, and with hardly any resistance. I went out with the force
which was to retake it, and slept for the night in a thin coat under
a wagon, an experience which left me colder than I can ever remember
being in my life--a cold which was not only on the surface, but like
some solid thing within you. Next morning there was every prospect of
a battle, for we had been shelled the night before and it looked as
if the position would be held, so Ian Hamilton, who commanded, made a
careful advance. However, there was no resistance, and save for some
figures watching us from distant hills there was no sign of the enemy.
He had slipped away in the night.
In the advance we passed over the Drift at Sanna’s Post where the
disaster had occurred some weeks before. The poor artillery horses were
still lying in heaps where they had been shot down, and the place was
covered with every kind of litter--putties, cholera belts, haversacks,
and broken helmets. There were great numbers of Boer cartridge papers
which were all marked “Split Bullets. Manufactured for the Use of the
British Government, London.” What the meaning of this was, or where
they came from, I cannot imagine, for certainly our fellows had always
the solid Lee-Metford bullet, as I can swear after inspecting many a
belt. It sounded like some ingenious trick to excuse atrocities, and
yet on the whole the Boer was a fair and good-humoured fighter until
near the close of the war.
The move of Hamilton’s was really the beginning of the great advance,
and having cleared the water works he turned north and became the right
wing of the army. On his left was Tucker’s 7th Division, then Kelly
Kenny’s 6th Division, Pole-Carew’s 1st Division, including the Guards,
and finally a great horde of mounted infantry, including the Yeomanry,
the Colonial and the Irregular Corps. This was the great line which set
forth early in May to sweep up from Bloemfontein to Pretoria. Things
had become more quiet at the hospital and presently Archie Langman and
I found a chance to get away and to join the army at the first stage
of its advance. I wrote our experience out while it was still fresh in
my mind, and the reader will forgive me if I reproduce some of this,
as it is likely to be more vivid and more detailed than the blurred
impression now left in my memory after more than twenty years.