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THE RELIEF OF MAFEKING
How It Was Accomplished by Mahon's Flying Column; with
an Account of Some Earlier Episodes in the Boer War of
1899-1900
by
FILSON YOUNG
With Portraits and Plans
Methuen & Co.
36 Essex Street W.C.
London
1900
[Illustration: FIELD-MARSHALL LORD ROBERTS, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I.,
G.C.I.E., V.C.]
TO
M. C. D.
PREFACE
The proprietors of the _Manchester Guardian_ have kindly allowed me to
make use of their copyright in the letters written by me to that
newspaper during the first half of the year. The substance of the
letters has been reproduced in the hope that home-staying folk may find
in them something of the atmosphere that surrounds the collision of
armed forces. It is a strange and rude atmosphere; yet it pleases me at
this moment to remember not so much the strangeness and rudeness as the
kindness and good-fellowship that made a dreadful business tolerable and
the memory of it pleasant. Many friends of these brave days I may not
see again, but if their eyes should ever light on this page I would have
them know that it contains a greeting.
FILSON YOUNG
LONDON, _July 31st, 1900_
CONTENTS
PART I.
ENGLAND IN TIME OF WAR
PAGE
I. How the Reserves came up 3
II. How the Army left England 12
III. How the Wounded came Home 40
PART II.
IN THE WAKE OF THE ARMY
IV. The Long Sea Road 51
V. Scenes at Cape Town 61
VI. In the Eddies of a Great Whirl 72
VII. Magersfontein and Kimberley 85
VIII. Paardeberg 97
PART III.
LORD ROBERTS'S ADVANCE TO BLOEMFONTEIN
IX. The Boer Panic at Osfontein 105
X. The March on Dreifontein 115
XI. The Battle of Dreifontein and the March on Bloemfontein 123
XII. Retracing the Steps of the Army 132
PART IV.
AN EXPEDITION WITH LORD METHUEN
XIII. In the Field again 147
XIV. The Capture of Boers at Tweefontein 156
XV. An Elusive Enemy 164
XVI. A Surprise on the March 179
XVII. Under the Red Cross Flag 188
PART V.
WITH THE FLYING COLUMN TO MAFEKING
XVIII. A Strategic Secret 205
XIX. The Departure from Kimberley 209
XX. From Taungs to Vryburg 221
XXI. Nearing the Goal 230
XXII. We Repel an Attack and Join Forces with Plumer 238
XXIII. The Fighting on the Molopo 248
XXIV. Mafeking at Last 260
XXV. A Memorial of the Siege 271
XXVI. Good-bye to Mafeking 277
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIELD-MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR,
K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., V.C. _Frontispiece_
MR. G. LENTHAL CHEATLE, F.R.C.S., CONSULTING
SURGEON TO HER MAJESTY'S FORCES
IN SOUTH AFRICA _To face page_ 72
LIEUTENANT-GENERAL P.S. LORD METHUEN,
K.C.V.O., C.B., C.M.G. " 156
BRIGADIER-GENERAL BRYAN MAHON, D.S.O. " 210
MAP OF MAHON'S MARCH " 230
PLAN OF THE BATTLE ON THE MOLOPO ON
MAY 16TH " 248
FACSIMILE OF SIGNED MENU OF THE RELIEF
DINNER AT MAFEKING " 267
PART I
ENGLAND IN TIME OF WAR
I
HOW THE RESERVES CAME UP
From a seat in the paymaster's office of the depôt barracks at Bury one
afternoon in November, 1899, I could look either into the barrack yard
or out along the Bolton Road. A four-wheeler clove its way through the
crowd surrounding the gates, and the sentries presented arms to it. It
contained my friend, the paymaster, who presently came upstairs carrying
a bag in which were several hundred pounds sterling--the real sinews of
war. This was the man whose business it was to call up the Reservists,
and he had a very simple way of doing it. He had several books
containing large forms divided by perforation into four parts. The first
was a counterfoil on which was written the Reservist's name and the date
of posting the order; the second was a railway warrant requesting the
railway company to furnish him with a ticket available by the most
direct route from his place of residence to the depôt; the third was the
order requiring him to present himself at the barracks on or before a
certain date; and the fourth was a money-order for three shillings,
officially called an advance, but virtually a present from a considerate
Government. On the 11th of the month the paymaster at Bury had signed
about six hundred of these notices, and had seen them posted; on Sunday
and Monday they had begun to fall like bombs on the breakfast tables of
prosperous civilians all over the country; and soon the pieces of blue
paper had made a sad disturbance in several hundreds of cottage homes,
and added several hundred men to the strength of the 2nd Battalion of
the Lancashire Fusiliers. The business of the pay office, or at least my
friend's part of it--a few subalterns rushing up in a hurry to get money
for their various companies; eighty pounds for A, a hundred pounds for
D, and so on--was soon over, and then he told me something of how the
Reserve system works.
All the men in the Reserve have put in at least seven years' service.
They go into the Reserve first for a term of five years at sixpence a
day, and then (if they wish) for a term of four years at fourpence a
day. Of course when the Reserves are called out they receive the same
pay as regular soldiers, and their wives have separation allowances. As
everyone knows, this was the first time that any considerable number of
the Reserves had been called up, and the system has worked admirably.
About 98 per cent, in some districts presented themselves, the small
remainder being either ill or in gaol. A small proportion of those who
came up were rejected by the doctor, but on the whole the men were tough
and fit. In this district they were allowed eight days in which to
settle their affairs and present themselves at the depôt, but most of
them did not come until the last minute, and several not until after the
last minute of the time allowed by the order.
The crowd outside the barrack gates was composed chiefly of women and
loafers, but every now and then it opened to admit a handful of
reluctant-looking men, who had probably stayed outside until their money
was exhausted. And many of them were hanging about outside the gates
having nothing to do and no money to spend, but deferring to the last
moment the final step of self-submission to the iron hand of discipline.
For once the Reservist was inside the barrack yard he could have no more
liberty, probably, for many a long month--unless, indeed, he gained an
endless liberty on the battlefield. The scene through the opposite
window looking on to the barrack yard was very different from the
rather sombre picture without. The yard was gay with the wonderful red
that has done so much to make the army popular. For movement there were
a few squads of Militia recruits being drilled by the trumpet-voiced
sergeants; and for music there was the ring of a hundred rifle-butts
striking the ground together, the tramp and click of many feet, and the
clatter of the colonel's horse as he rode across the yard.
But the most interesting people were the Reservists and their friends,
who dotted the yard in many-coloured groups. Here was a party of girls
and women taking a farewell of some engaging blade whose course of
gallantry had been suddenly interrupted. There was a father standing
with his wife and small family grouped round him, no one saying very
much, but everyone feeling a good deal. And another group would be
laughing and singing, not quite recovered from the means they had taken
to drown regrets.
Sitting in the window, one could trace the Reservist's progress from his
entrance at the gate to his disappearance into quarters. The square was
filled with little processions containing six or eight men each; first
from the orderly-room to the hospital, in all kinds of civilian raiment:
black, grey, brown, green, blue, drab--anything but red; hatless,
capless, black-hatted, cloth-capped, shabby, spruce, dirty, soiled,
clean, pretty clean, white-faced, red-faced, unkempt, well-groomed,
hungry, well-fed, thin, fat--every class between clerks and tramps;
every condition between prosperity and destitution. A procession was
also constantly flowing from the hospital to the quartermaster's
stores--the same procession, with one military touch; for this time the
men did not straggle, but were marched single file in charge of a
sergeant. The next procession was from the stores to the men's quarters;
but now each man had a great bundle under his arms containing his entire
kit wrapped up in an overcoat.
The quartermaster, not without pardonable pride, took me over the stores
in which the men's kits are prepared. There were hundreds of racks
containing bundles so cunningly rolled that you could see at a glance
what was in each. And beside each bundle was a valise already packed
with everything that a campaigner could need; indeed, when I read the
printed list showing what was in each my heart warmed with the same joy
that I felt when I first read _Robinson Crusoe_. Government, who is
rigorous and unyielding as a disciplinarian to her soldiers, is a mother
to them in her provision for their wants. Each bag contained a knife,
fork, spoon, tin canteen, shaving brush, soap, razor, boot brushes,
clothes brush, hair brush, pipeclay, button polisher, cleaning paste,
and a dozen other things just as interesting and as useful. Out of
curiosity I opened a housewife, and my heart was touched with the almost
feminine consideration that it indicated; for there, cunningly folded
up, were skeins of wool and cotton in many different shades, as well as
half a dozen sizes of needles. Surely the War Office is human, and not
the strange machine that some of us esteem it, for how else could it
provide that Tommy shall not have to darn his socks with scarlet, nor
his tunic with grey, nor his trousers with white wool? As the men came
into the stores each one received his share of these excellent things,
and the quartermaster's sergeants displayed quite a genius in estimating
and fitting the various proportions of the men. And the men's eyes
brightened at the sight of the glorious new red cloth; I believe that,
although they wore it for a few days only, it did much to reconcile
them with the inconvenience and hardship that some of them endured in
rejoining. Khaki uniforms were served out later.
All round the barrack square the men stood in groups as I have
described, and in one corner were clusters of men arrayed in their new
garments. One could read pretty easily in their faces the story of the
last few days. One saw several men who had evidently risen in the world
since they had left the army. They had an air of sleekness and delicacy
that made them seem out of place. Others had evidently been going down
in the social scale, and wore their new clothes like fine feathers. Some
were evidently glad at the prospect of action and excitement, and fell
back into the regimental routine as a man sits down in a comfortable
chair. To others, not a few, all this hustle was an act in a domestic
tragedy. Sometimes it was a comedy, as in the case of one man who had
built up a "nice little butchering business," snatching his profits from
the niggard hand of competition; and now he must go forth to kill men,
leaving his rival master in the field of domestic butchery. But the
comedies were few, or else I did not come across them, for it was the
serious side of this business that impressed me the most. Men caught
away from new-found family joys, not for personal advancement or glory,
but to take their places as units in the huge war-machine that is fed
with human bodies. It is so easy to speak and think of "losses" when we
count them by the hundred; it is so hard and bitter to think of one
death and all that it means when one stands and speaks to a soldier. I
found one man standing apart by himself--a young man, with a good,
clean, hardy face--and there were tears in his eyes. As I was passing he
asked me what time it was, and in a few minutes he told me his story. He
had been married two years; he had one little child; he had left his
wife dying of pneumonia. That was all; but I think one can hardly
realise how much it meant. I should like some civilians who do their
soldiering in an armchair, and who really seem to like a war for the
spice with which it flavours their newspaper, to have seen that man and
heard his short tale of misery.[1] He is, of course, one of the few on
whom an admirable system inflicts a fearful wound; but he is an example
(if one were needed) of the matchless discipline that can teach a man
to obey without question or complaint a command that has two edges for
death. I am glad to say that I met no other man in half so dreadful a
plight as his, but there were dozens of men to whom the order came as an
ending of happiness, and of course one knew, although the thought was
not dwelt upon, that many of the little homes of which these men had
been the centre and support would have that support no more. Yet of one
thing I am very sure. Not one of the men to whom I spoke but was willing
and anxious to serve his country; not one but looked proud to be wearing
the old uniform again. The sadness and trouble was all in the
retrospect, not in the outlook. Tommy Atkins, with his great, simple,
conspicuous vices and his obscure, surprising, and enduring virtues was
unconsciously putting into practice the precept of a certain Old
Buccaneer: _No regrets; they unman the heart we want for to-morrow._
[Footnote 1: This man's wife died a week after he had sailed.]
II
HOW THE ARMY LEFT ENGLAND
The few days that elapsed between rejoining and embarkation were spent
by the Reservist at the depôt barracks of his regiment, where he
received his kit and underwent the small amount of drill necessary to
remove the rust of civilian life. After that, the sound of reveille in
the depth of a winter night; the sudden awakening; the hasty breakfast,
eaten like a Passover feast; the long and noisy railway journey; the
faint, salt smell of the sea, and the first sight of it through the
rainy dawn. In the early days of the war I was present at many
embarkations at Liverpool and Southampton, and they left an impression
on my mind which will not easily be effaced. For, even to an onlooker,
the embarkation of troops, with its sights and sounds of tragedy, is an
affair that burns itself into the memory; one is dazzled and confounded
by the number and variety of the small dramas that are enacted before
one's eyes; and the whole is framed in a setting of military system and
circumstance that lends dignity, if that were needed, to the humble
tragedies of the moment.
Only a few of the thousands who came to watch the departure of the
_Canada_ from Liverpool one December morning were allowed inside the
dock shed; nearly all of those within the gate were sweethearts and
wives and children of soldiers who had contrived to procure passes for
them. Even in the shed the scene was one of extraordinary confusion. At
intervals of about half an hour detachments were marched in and formed
up at one end of the shed, where they left their bundles and heavy kit,
and whence they were marched in single file up the gangway of the ship.
With the exception of the Manchesters, all the troops were in khaki, and
were easily distinguishable from the dark-coloured mass of civilians.
Thus there was always a yellow pool of colour in the midst of the black
mass, and all the morning a thin yellow line flowed from the pool to the
ship's gangway. As often as one looked, during the whole morning, there
was a line of men in the act of ascending the gangway. One felt as
though one had fallen asleep for a moment and dreamed, and waked again
to find the same men in the same position, so little did the appearance
of things change. It was really a picture that one looked at, for the
colours and bold outlines remained constant; the eye at times grew used
to the minute movement, and refused to notice that the picture was
preserved only because the same things were being done over and over
again by hundreds of different people. The same greetings as friends
recognised the newly-arrived man, the same hurried words, the same
faltering voices, the same desperate embraces, the same endless tramp
from the formed ranks to the ship, the same tears. The absorption of so
many acute personal emotions into one revolving routine was the most
amazing part of it; the stream of discipline and system ran swift and
deep here, drawing into its flood even the most sacred and intimate of
human experiences, and turning into a pattern the parting of husband
from wife and father from child. When at length one became used to the
picture one began to notice the elements of its composition, and only in
watching them could one gain relief from the overburdening sense of
personality submerged in a system. The little dramas were very strange
and very affecting. I can only give a few examples out of dozens that I
watched.
As the troops came in at the door, marching four deep, the crowd formed
on each side, and those who had friends in the detachment tried to get a
prominent place in the front rank of the crowd, where they could attract
the attention of the soldiers as they passed. The men were not hurried,
and they were marching at ease, so there was generally time for a few
words and a kiss or a hand-clasp before they were moved on. One wife,
who was little more than a girl, had taken a good place on the edge of
the crowd when her husband's detachment began to file in. I heard her
telling a friend that she had not said good-bye to "her lad," as she
wanted to see the last of him; it had been arranged that she was to be
near when he passed so that he could give her a parting kiss. Oh, how
anxiously she scanned the faces of the men as they swung into sight,
throwing all her soul into her eyes!
Presently, "There he is!" she cried; "here, Jim, I'm here!"
The young man's fine honest face had a look no less intent than hers,
but it was turned away from her; he was searching as eagerly as she, but
on the wrong side of the lane of people; and by one of those impish
tricks that Fate plays upon us in acute moments, he never saw her, nor
heard her voice above the cheers of the people and the blare of the
band. It was a cruel thing; she was fast wedged in the crowd. Someone
ran after the man and told him where she was, but before the sympathiser
could reach him his company had been drawn up and he could not be
allowed to fall out. And long before she was clear of the tightly packed
throng he had passed on to the ship, where she could not follow him.
Another incident of another kind. The North Lancashires were marching
in, and an old man in the crowd was on the look-out for his son. He
explained to everybody near him what a fine boy his son was, and how
keen a soldier; how it had nearly broken the old man's heart that his
boy should leave him and go to the war, but how it would "do un good and
make a mon of un." Presently two soldiers appeared, half-carrying and
half-dragging between them a young man who was so drunk that he could
neither stand nor walk. His helmet was jammed over his eyes, but as he
was dragged past us it fell off and rolled to the old man's feet. I
heard him draw in his breath sharply and murmur something as his face
flushed; and then all the people round began to point and say, "That's
his son there, him that's being carried"; and some--God forgive
them!--laughed and joked at the old man. And he who had a moment ago
filled our ears with the praises of his boy gazed after him with a look
of bitter amazement and then went silently away. Another man who had
missed seeing his wife before he had embarked caught sight of her from
the ship's deck as she stood upon the quay with tears in her eyes. There
was no chance of his being allowed to pass down the gangway. But the
husband in him knew no obedience to the stern order, and he dived clean
off the stern of the steamer into the filthy water and swam, khaki and
all, to the steps at the side of the dock. And you may be sure his wife
was there to help him out, and she forgot her grief in her pride at his
daring. So he held her in his arm for a moment (and had three ringing
cheers from his mates into the bargain) before he was collared and
marched back to restraint, dirty but glorious.
Here and there one saw men much the worse for liquor; and I have no
words to describe the folly of those friends who thrust bottles of
spirits into the soldiers' hands as they passed through the streets.
They did them a double cruelty, for the poor fellows, all unstrung by
their partings, gulped the raw spirit thinking they drank courage; and
so once or twice I saw poor women saying good-bye to staggering
maniacs--grim mockeries of the husbands they might never see again, the
poor fools themselves at present oblivious indeed, but doomed to I know
not what horrors of remorse on awaking. Happily, however, there were not
many in this sad condition. Most of the men behaved with a fortitude and
gentleness that was most touching. Indeed I find it hard to express my
admiration of their bearing. There was none of the bluster of the
armchair Jingo, none of the loud hectoring and swaggering and bravado
that distinguish the carpet warrior. On the contrary, when they were
talking of the war amongst themselves they had an air of quiet
determination, of good-humoured banter, and of easy, serious confidence
far more ominous for an enemy than any amount of fluent rant. After the
world of politics, with its hair-splitting and word-mincing, it was good
to be with soldiers--the men who do the work. They knew no fine
political shades, they bandied no epithets; England was at war and they
were going to fight--that was enough. And the spirit in which they
fought all the world knows: every day during the war one read tales of
devotion and heroism that became almost commonplace; it is even a
commonplace to praise them. Yet one could not see the soldiers in this
most trying duty of all, the laying down of home ties and interests (for
I think the heroism of mere fighting is nothing to it), without feeling
a pride in the moral discipline that makes it all possible, and under
the authority of which Tommy is content to be as a child. And this
childlike submission to discipline has its pathetic side, as when one
saw the little family of mother and children grouped to see the last of
its head. The children stood in wide-eyed amazement to see daddy the
Reservist, who in the little household had been the emblem of all
authority, now in the place of obedience, and taking directions from
another man (not so big and strong as he) as to how he should stand and
into what hole he should put the buckle of his strap. Thus even the
father and the husband are absorbed in the soldier. It is a great price;
and the way in which it was paid by so many was perhaps our firmest
assurance of the stuff that is in our soldiers.
Early on the morning of departure a few hundred people--mostly
women--stood on the pierhead of Canada Dock, watching the transport as
she lay a short distance off in the stream with the Blue Peter at her
fore and the St. George's ensign hanging astern. The rain beat steadily
down, loading the raw wind that blew out of the morning twilight, and
the brown water broke sullenly to the send of a setting flood tide. The
faces of nearly all the women were worn with weeping; now they wept no
longer, but looked dully out to sea, while the rain ran down their
soaking garments and splashed on the ground. A drunken soldier who had
somehow got ashore the night before reeled helplessly on his wife's arm,
his head bruised and cut and his new uniform torn and filthy. But in the
woman's face there was a kind of fearful joy; she had rescued him from
his pot-house satellites, and she thought she could keep him. Presently
a tug came off from the transport with a picket to collect deserters--he
had to go. She sobbed and wailed, imploring the sergeant in vain; and
she clung to her poor senseless husband as though she would never leave
him. He hardly knew her; he laughed vacantly in her face when with
streaming eyes she begged him to speak her name; then they took him away
from her. As the tug steamed out I heard him singing.
A little while afterwards the _Canada's_ siren began to wail and squeal
with a horrible mockery of painful cries. The tugs backed clear of her,
and lent their shrill voices to the discordant concert. Presently the
water astern of the transport turned from brown to foaming white, and
her masts began to move past the farther shore. There was a faint sound
of cheering from her, but she was soon out of sound and sight, and still
the women stared into the mist that had enfolded her, as though their
wishes might draw her back again. But in a little while they turned
towards home and a world that had changed its face.
* * * * *
On another day I went down to Liverpool to see the _Majestic_ depart
with troops for the front. The weather was consistently unkind. The
_Canada_ had sailed in a whirl of rainy fog, and the departing
passengers of the _Majestic_ looked across a little inky strip of water
to a land that was cloaked with snow. It was bitterly cold on the
landing-stage, and all the interest of the scene could not keep the
bitter wind from whipping one's face and numbing the feet. The wooden
planks resounded not more with the tramp of marching feet than with the
hard stampings of people who were trying to restore circulation. There
were no very poor people on the stage. The space opposite to the ship
was occupied chiefly by the friends of officers and by the troops
themselves, and certainly it seemed kinder to the men to prevent the
dreadful scrambling for farewells that took place when the _Canada_
sailed. But a sea of anxious faces pressed against the barriers at
either end of the reserved space, and no doubt there was much bitter
envy of us in the enclosure, who had so much better an opportunity, and
perhaps so much less reasonable a claim to the front places.
Outwardly this departure seemed very different from that of the
_Canada_. It was not so sordid, if one may use the term; the vessel did
not slip away furtively from a dock in the small hours of the morning,
but departed in open day from the more accessible landing-stage; and
although the weather was chill and bitter, it had not that infinitely
dreary effect upon the spirits that one associates with a soaking
downpour. Here were all the pomps and circumstances of farewell--the
blowing of bands and wavings of caps and great shouts of a multitude
that must give vent to acute emotions. Yet, different though the
outward circumstances were, they only accentuated the likeness that lay
beneath. Good-bye is good-bye, whether we say it at a carriage window or
shout it across a strip of harbour water; whether a crowd sings "Auld
Lang Syne" or a mother whispers "Don't forget me." And at the sailing of
the _Majestic_, with all its dignity, one saw the same tragedies
repeated over and over again, until one's heart sickened of it all, and
one would gladly have come away. Of course it was not among the officers
and their wives that one saw these things; people used to self-control
keep their griefs to themselves, and perhaps a very inexperienced person
would have been deceived by the smiles on women's faces and the cheery
chaff of men. Even here there were things to be seen at the last moment,
but I confess that I turned my back when the saloon gangway was about to
be removed; some things are sacred even from the man whose business it
is to describe what he sees.
It was after the two thousand troops had all been embarked that the
friends of the men were admitted to the stage, and the dismal, though
enthusiastic, part of the affair began. Before that everything was
business and order. As the men arrived they were provided with hot
coffee and meat pies, which they drank and ate with every sign of
pleasure. Some of us who were very cold envied them for that moment. The
forward gangway was for about an hour occupied by men who did nothing
but pass rifles from the quay to the ship; it was a formidable sight,
this stream of deadly weapons that flowed on board. Up another gangway
enough cordite to blow up the whole of Liverpool was being gingerly
carried in small cases. But this hour or two of embarkation, in which so
much really happened, left little impression on my mind. It simply was
one more illustration of the admirable efficiency of discipline for
which our army is famous. It was when the gangways were removed and the
crowd began to pour on to the stage that the affair became human; and
the half-hour that elapsed between that time and the moment when the
mist finally hid the ship wrote itself much more deeply on my memory.
One gangway was left open, and stragglers and men who at the last moment
had stayed away for an hour with their wives and children were hunted
out and hurried up it. At the shore end there were many painful scenes,
which people with a little imagination may picture for themselves.
Fortunately a farewell is a brief thing, and leaves only aching hearts;
people could not stand a sustained agony like that of the last moment.
It is the price we pay for our powers of memory and forethought; the
charger, going perhaps to a bloody and cruel death, steps willingly
enough up plank; the drunken man sings his good-bye; only the sober and
alert taste the fearful sting of parting. Even the people who had kept
up a great show of callousness had the mask suddenly and for the moment
plucked from their faces; young subalterns with rather watery eyes and
very loud voices ran swiftly up the plank, and brave women who had a
smile even to the last for their husbands turned a different face
shorewards. One could not help contrasting the weight of the burden for
those who went away and those who stayed behind; for the men and for the
women; for those who were going to fight, to die perhaps, but still to
_do_ something, and for those who had nothing but their thoughts to be
busy with. Pessimistic as this view may seem, it is the true one; the
event described as an "enthusiastic send-off" is essentially a
melancholy function, and the relief afforded by the antics of a few
intoxicated men does not make it less so. It is strange, indeed, how
important a part is played by the whisky-bottle in the farewells of the
poor. I have seen it passed round family circles at the last moment like
some grotesque sacrament; have even overheard husband and wife almost
quarrelling in their desire to press the comforter each upon the other.
"Here, take it with you, Sam." "No, Missus, you 'ave it; I can get some
off Tom." "No, lad, take it--I'll throw it after you if you don't."
Chance generally stepped in to kill the ghost in the bottle, throwing it
to the ground and spilling the contents. I saw one little boy, aged
about four, run up to his daddy at the last moment with a gorgeous
present in the shape of a glass pistol (a delicate reference to his
profession) full of spirits; it had a cork in the barrel, and I suppose
you fired it down your throat. Amid all these scenes the officers
displayed an unvarying tact, coaxing the men on board and not unduly
hastening their farewells; but for all that there were many violent and
tragic scenes.
Just before the last gangway was run ashore a little woman came up,
crying and almost breathless, and begging to be allowed to say good-bye
to her husband, who was at the other end of the gangway, not allowed to
come down. The orders were absolute--no one must go up to the ship. Then
the woman broke out into a great wailing and sobbing, praying the
quartermaster on her knees that he would let her go half-way up the
gangway; but he was as firm as a rock. Then she came to the edge of the
landing-stage and cried quietly, all alone in that vast crowd, now and
then calling broken words of endearment to the man who stood a dozen
yards away from her across the strip of black water. Discipline is
heavy, and crushes; it is also sharp, and sometimes cuts cruelly and
deeply. But in the midst of her amazing grief she found time to call
some cheering words across to her husband: "Keep your heart up, lad, and
think of me and the children as loves you." He, poor soul, looked
thunder at his sergeant, and raged and swore; but he was a unit in a
mass--he kicked against the pricks, and he knew it.
At last the gangway was removed, and a kind of quietness fell upon the
crowd, waiting for the next harrowing sensation. It came in a
succession of those minute incidents that burn themselves into the
memory of people whose nerves are on the rack. The splash of a hawser
into the dock; the deep notes of the engine-room telegraph, and the
clicking reply upon the bridge; the spinning of the wheel as a
quartermaster tests the steering engine; the clack and spit of winches,
and finally the thrilling shout of the foghorn, whose echo leaves you
trembling--all these things have a painful significance, and they bite
and grip into the heart. As the ship began to move a band on the
shade-deck struck up "Auld Lang Syne," and immediately the floodgates
were unlocked. Tears started again into bitterly dry eyes, handkerchiefs
were waved, people shouted, sang snatches of song--everyone made a sound
of some kind, and contributed to the great unrestrained noise of human
beings in distress and excitement. Above it all rose the hooting of
foghorns and sirens, while the band made its noise too--thump and throb
of drums, scream of pipes, and red-hot flare of brass instruments.
Sea-birds, seeing the ship about to depart, flapped and hovered about it
by the score, adding their shrill cries to the tumult; and high on his
flying-bridge stood the captain, shifting his telegraph from "stand by"
to "ahead," holding up or moving his hand, but not uttering his voice.
It was a striking picture, in which he stood as an image of a Fate by
which all men were for the moment helplessly crushed down.
It was at this moment that something happened which I, for one, had been
expecting. One of the many men who were perched in the rigging or
outside the rails lost his hold, and in the same second was wriggling in
the water. It conveys some idea of the pitch to which the crowd was
strung up to say that the noise did not increase and hardly changed its
character. I suppose people turned from cheering to shouting, but the
big sound was still the same, and since the bands-men were high up and
in the middle of the deck they saw and knew nothing and went on playing.
But something else impressed me far more deeply; indeed, I think that I
can never forget it. Quite close to me was standing the man's wife
holding a baby, and as the man's face turned towards us in his
floundering she said calmly, "God, it's my George." And the little boy,
not understanding, repeated gleefully and senselessly, "It's dadda; it's
dadda."
I looked at the woman's face; her cup had been full before; she had
drunk her fill of grief; and this new horror, her husband struggling
like a mouse in the bitter cold water, could not add a pang to her
torture. All that I have described happened, of course, in a few
seconds; the man had barely gone under before one of the ship's
butchers, in his white clothes, was in after him. Let no one belittle
the race of butchers. The life-taker knew how to save life, and Master
Butcher had his man in a moment, turned him on his back, and began to
swim ashore; indeed, there was no fear of the man's drowning, for there
were half a dozen men in the water within half a minute of the accident.
The man was brought ashore, and his wife helped to rub him down; only to
go through her parting again on the deck of a tender a few minutes
afterwards. But there was a cheerier note in the cheering that broke out
when the ship again began to move, and when the band struck up "God Save
the Queen" everyone who had a croak in him or her joined with a will.
The shape of the ship grew dim in the mist, but still the sea-birds
cried and hovered like winged prayers and wishes between her and the
shore.
* * * * *
In the Thames and at Southampton similar scenes were enacted almost
daily. Here is an account of a "Specimen Day" at Southampton--one of the
busiest that had been known there since the beginning of the war, for
Lord Roberts's grand army was being hurried out to repair the fortunes
shattered at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and Colenso.
All day long crowded troop-trains had been steaming into the station,
where small pilot engines waited to receive them and drag them, groaning
and squealing, round the curves and across the points that lead to the
docks. The first train arrived at about nine, and the last at two.
Between those hours there was a constant succession of trains. Three
steamers were waiting to receive the troops; the Peninsular and Oriental
liner _Assaye_, the Union Steamship Company's _Goorkha_, and the Castle
liner _Braemar Castle_. The _Assaye_ was a new boat, and this was her
maiden voyage. She carried two regiments, the 2nd Norfolk and the 2nd
Hampshire, and the fact that the Hampshire is the territorial regiment
of the port, accounted for the unusually large crowd that assembled on
the wharf beside which the _Assaye_ lay. The business of despatching
transports had become so commonplace at Southampton that unless there
was some special interest attached to the embarkation there was no crowd
at all. Only the town loafers would assemble in any strength. But many
of the Southampton people had friends in the Hampshire Regiment, so
there were some thousands pressing round the barriers that surrounded
the dock shed into which the trains on arriving were drawn.
It was on board the _Assaye_ that I spent the greater part of the
morning and afternoon, piloted by a naval lieutenant who was in charge
of the embarkation. I perched myself high up on the flying-bridge and
watched the busy scene below. In the next dock was the _Goorkha_, into
whose commodious maw were pouring the 2nd Lincolnshire Regiment, the 9th
Field Company Royal Engineers, the 14th Brigade Staff, the Cavalry
Brigade Field Hospital, the Fifth Division Field Hospital, and No. 12
Company Army Medical Corps. Further away, alongside the dock extension
jetty, the _Braemar Castle_ was receiving the 1st King's Own Scottish
Borderers, No. 7 Bearer Company, and No. 19 Company Army Medical Corps.
In the _Assaye_, however, were men of only two colours, the Norfolks and
the Hampshires. The Norfolks arrived first, and were promptly embarked.
The 'tween-decks of the _Assaye_, having been constructed specially for
the purpose, were more commodious than those on most other transports,
and certainly they were better ventilated, for a great open shaft ran
right up from the bottom of the ship to the upper deck, and round this
were grouped the tables at which the men, in messes of sixteen, were to
be accommodated. The men seemed pleased with their quarters and with the
general arrangements made for their comfort, but they were almost
laughably critical. The fact was that the soldiers were in great danger
of being spoiled by the fuss that had been made of them before they
embarked. It is well that we should cheer the soldiers up by our
enthusiasm, but, as everyone knows, the British public did much more
than that. "Tommy Atkins" was the rage for the moment, and what may be
called "Absent-minded Beggarism" was rampant. Unfortunately, this
enthusiasm found a vent too often in silly and thoughtless squandering
of money on the soldiers. They were banqueted before they started; their
friends used to ply them with drink; mayors were waiting upon them at
every turn with pipes and tobacco, and total strangers showered money
on them quite recklessly. For example, while I was on the _Assaye's_
bridge I saw a civilian, standing quite apart from the crowd, with his
hat full of copper and small silver coins. No one seemed to be watching
him. He could have no thought of making an impression. But in an ecstasy
of enthusiasm he kept throwing showers of money to the troops on deck.
It is an excellent thing that the people at home should be touched with
such gratitude to the men who fight for them, but, like all great public
movements which have more heart than head in them, this kind of thing
was sometimes overdone, and failed in its object. One saw the men
sometimes arriving drunken, grumbling, and impudent; criticising the
quality or quantity of the refreshments which the steamship company had
thoughtfully provided for them, and generally behaving in a way most
unlike what one would expect. No one seemed to lack money, although so
much was spent in drink. Several times that day I heard men at the
canteen calling for whisky and soda or brandy and potash, and grumbling
heartily when they were not supplied.
With regard to the way in which men got drink one or two things fall to
be said. Every effort was made by the authorities to prevent
drunkenness. One of the naval embarkation officers told me that drink
was not supplied to the men at the canteen, that they were forbidden to
bring any on board, and that they were forbidden to buy or receive any
from civilians; yet it had been found that certain tradesmen at
Southampton had deliberately smuggled whisky on board by heavily bribing
some of the crew. In the face of this kind of thing the officers could
do little. They spoke very bitterly of the cruelty to the men involved
in such practices, for the soldiers are necessarily packed pretty close
together when hammocks are slung, and when the effects of drunkenness
are added to the horrors of sea-sickness the result is awful, and almost
unendurable by a man who cherishes any self-respect. I mention this at
some length because, although it was not prominent on the day of which I
am writing, it had happened terribly often, and on the day before it had
made the scene at the embarkation of an Irish regiment a really horrible
one. The two regiments which embarked on the _Assaye_ happened to be the
soberest I had yet seen. Indeed, there was hardly one case of
drunkenness amongst them. I think this was partly because the outside
public was not allowed near the ship. The men passed from the train
directly on board, and did not come in contact with their friends. It
was kinder to the friends too. I saw none of those heartrending tragic
scenes of parting, none of the wild grief that grows so much wilder for
being indulged. From the officers' deck the picture of embarkation
appeared in outline rather than in detail. The constant movement of
people far below, the orderly disorder, the shouts and cries of officers
and stevedores, the waving arms of cranes and the general excitement
produced in a mere onlooker a strange sense of isolation. One felt like
Gulliver observing the Liliputians in some great effort of maritime
preparation, and the longer one looked the smaller and more like toy
soldiers seemed the men. Such an endless stream of them poured from the
dock shed to the ship. I heard their cries faintly. "Bring back old
Kroojer's whiskers" was the burden of them, and this was indeed the
chief trophy, the chief spoil of war which the average soldier pictured
for himself. It was strange to think that this army of Liliput which
tramped and cried down there conceived its mission so vaguely and
imperfectly that it could depart light-heartedly.
The deep note of the _Goorkha's_ foghorn sounded close at hand. The tops
of her masts glided past the roof of the dock shed; in five minutes she
was out of sight, and her departure seemed to have been almost
uncelebrated. She got away at about two, and an hour later the _Braemar
Castle_ also departed.
The only thing which now delayed the departure of the _Assaye_ was the
embarkation of the horses. There were eight chargers belonging to
officers of the two regiments, and they made the utmost objection to
being enclosed in narrow boxes and swung in mid-air. In particular a
magnificent grey belonging to the colonel of the Hampshire Regiment gave
any amount of trouble. It took her groom ten minutes to coax her into
the box, and as soon as it began to move upwards she snorted and
trembled with fear, and finally sat down on her haunches, with her neck
hanging over the door. The colonel, who was standing near, seemed rather
proud of this exhibition, but when the mare was almost beside herself
with terror, and while she was yet swinging in mid-air, he spoke
reassuring words--"Woa, Bunny! Steady, old girl!" The beast could not
see him, but she heard the voice in the air, and became suddenly quiet.
May she live to need the same assurance on her homeward journey, was
one's involuntary thought. The sight of these fine horses was very
pitiful, in the light of their possible destiny. One looked at the
glossy coats and saw them torn and bloody. One watched the nervous wild
eye and the twitching ears, and heard the whistling bullets and the
shells bursting round them, who know no reason for the commotion,
holding themselves bravely in check until the steadying voice behind
them ceases and the load suddenly lightens, or until a stray bullet ends
both fears and endeavours.
After many delays the last horse was on board. And now there remained
only the inspection by the naval embarkation officers, an interval for
the crowd of half an hour, which the band on the quay did its best to
pass agreeably. There were many false alarms of departure. Every
patriotic song and tune had been played and cheered, but after "Auld
Lang Syne" had been hammered out for the third time the ship began to
move. As she left the quay the younger men at one end of the ship made a
great commotion. One held up a flag which he proposed to plant on
"Kroojer's Hill." (Some authorities might read Majuba.) These men,
recruits for the most part, made in their ignorance of war a joyful
noise, but the Reservists and old hands looked grave and sad, and hardly
joined in the singing or cheering. They were thinking.
III
HOW THE WOUNDED CAME HOME
Going down Southampton Water on January 5th to meet the _Aurania_ with
her company of sick and wounded, one enjoyed a wonderful study of sober
tints in land and sea under a winter sky. The little steamer clove light
green waters that were hardly rippled by the breeze. This green sea she
divided in two long curling lines that seemed to reach the shore on
either hand, merging their light colour with a dark green of fields
waiting for spring. The fields in their turn faded into the bluish black
of leafless trees, and the trees bounded a sky of soft banks shading
from blue to grey. The waters seemed almost deserted, except for a ship
that now and then might meet us, stealing up on the tide and gently
heeling to the breeze. Sometimes a yacht would pass us, sometimes a
fishing-smack; but it was a lonely journey. The air was soft and
sweet--not like that of spring, but like that of a world which lives in
the promise of a coming spring and can wait. There were no sounds but
one sweet and familiar--the whisper, swelling and diminishing but never
dying, of foam at the cutwater.
Little Hythe seemed to have retired into itself for the winter. Its pier
was deserted by boats and men when we passed. Lower down on the other
side was Netley Hospital, with how many pains and agonies hidden behind
its long, imposing front. Opposite Netley the sea eats and bites like an
acid into a kind of mossy grass of rare and vivid green, making a
wonderful coast-line on a small scale, with bays and channels and
sounds.
We made for West Cowes, where the sea brims up to the streets and the
spray sometimes sprinkles the shop windows. Here the telegraph was set
in motion, asking Hurst Castle for news of the _Aurania_. But there was
no news, so, as it would take her two hours to reach Southampton after
passing the Castle, we went on past green promontories that dip into the
sea, right up to where the trees clothe them, past the towers of
Osborne, to Ryde. Again the telegraph asked the question, and again
there was a negative answer. Then we cut across the Solent towards
Southsea, watching the weird evolutions of a 35-knot torpedo-boat. It
darted about, annihilating the small distances of the Solent and making
a strange, buzzing noise like some foul fly. Vomiting flames and sparks,
it trailed a cloud in the air and snow upon the water. While we were
crawling across the river it had made a dozen journeys. Now it would be
down near Cowes, and now half-way up Southampton Water, and when one
looked again a few minutes afterwards it would be close astern,
overtaking us with the speed of a nightmare. I escaped from it at
Southsea, for there the wires told me something that sent me doubling to
the railway station, and thanking my stars that I was in time for a fast
train to Southampton. It arrived at half-past three, and at four the
_Aurania_ showed her nose round the corner of a dock shed. Ten minutes
later she was alongside and berthed, and the disembarkation began.
The total absence of any kind of popular demonstration was most
impressive. There was no crowd at all, and the barriers that had been
provided were not needed. This neglect of a welcome seemed sadly to
discount the value of the great hysterical demonstrations made when the
troops departed. They were men who were perhaps going to suffer for
their country. These invalids had suffered for it, and no one came to
cheer them up. Of course some of the men's own friends were there, and
the few strangers who were present shook hands with the men as they came
limping and hopping and stumbling down the gangway. But it was all very
quiet, very sad, very tame from a spectator's point of view, but deeply
significant. One could hardly imagine a greater contrast than was
presented by the same shed on a day of departure and on a day of arrival
like this. In the one case great crowds hurrahing and shouting and
cheering, bands playing, and bottles going busily round. In the other a
great quietness, a few people standing in little knots and speaking
almost in undertones. And the men themselves were very different. No
excitement, of course; no drunkenness; no yelling for "Kroojer's
whiskers." Oh, no!--something very different from that. About a hundred
men with pain-worn faces, bandaged arms and legs, slings and splints
everywhere, and talking, when they talked at all, of the horrors of the
war, of the death of comrades, and of the seriousness of the news we
gave them, in the light of their own experiences at the front. The men
were speedily disembarked and taken into the dock shed where a train
with some ambulance coaches was waiting, but they preferred to stand and
talk for a little while before taking their seats. A really kind and
useful work was done by members of the Southampton branch of the
"Absent-minded Beggars" relief corps, who provided hot coffee and buns
for the men, and in addition provided each with a stamped telegraph
form, so that he might reassure his friends at home.
Of course there was another beside the serious aspect of this scene.
Nothing could exceed the interest in their ailments displayed by the men
who had partly recovered from them, and those whose wounds had healed
could not tire of giving demonstrations to their friends and relations,
or even to strangers. An illness or a wound is often the first view an
ignorant man gets of Nature's ingenuity displayed in the construction of
his own person, and when one of these invalids got hold of some medical
or surgical word he would cherish and roll it on his tongue like a man
tasting wine. One of them--a man who looked as strong as a horse--was
explaining to an admiring group how he came to be alive at all. A bullet
had passed through the rim of his helmet, entered his left temple,
passed behind his nose, through the roof of his mouth, and out through
the lower part of his right cheek. First he would show us the dent in
his temple; then describe, with many strange words, the inward passage
of the bullet; and then, emerging into the sphere of common things, wind
up with, "and came out of my blooming cheek." Then he would show the
dent in his cheek, and pass his helmet round for all to see, as a
conjurer does. I moved round with this man and heard him recite his tale
three times, and every time he used just the same form of words, which
he repeated pat like a lesson. His corruption of "cerebral" was amusing.
"Nearly scattered the cerveral nerve, so help me!" he said. One could
have understood it if he had been in the Spanish-American war. Another
soldier used a word which I cannot explain. He was showing a mate how a
bullet had entered his shoulder, "and," said he, "it penetrated me
agamemnon." What is an agamemnon? It has been puzzling me ever since.
Only a few of the more robust men were going on in this way, and there
was enough of the pathetic even in the man with the "cerveral" nerve and
him with the "agamemnon." The men looked tired and serious, and seemed
to lack interest in anything but their own afflictions. It is almost a
pity that the public will not witness such scenes as this, for I fear
that it is still sadly in need of having even the most elementary fruits
of war brought home to it. One might, of course, easily overdraw the
picture of the men's condition; it is difficult to describe it
faithfully. Many of them seemed happy and contented to be home again,
and forgot past pains in present joy. As I turned away from the carriage
window I heard a confused drone of conversation, in which such terms as
"ligature," "suppuration," "cavity of the hear'ole," "styptic," and
"prelatic" were prominent. The last thing I heard was--"He hadn't got no
fraxur at all, leastways only a simple un. Mine was a compound fraxur."
One can understand these things. But what is an "agamemnon"?
It was dark when the train went away, and there was nothing more for me
to see on that day, but I had another sensation and a memorable one.
After dinner a little group, composed mainly of naval and military
officers on embarkation duty, was established round the smoke-room fire
in the South Western Hotel. We were all talking about the war, and all
wishing that we were out in the thick of it. In the midst of this chorus
of aspiration a telegram was handed to me inviting me to go to South
Africa as a war correspondent for the _Manchester Guardian_. The chorus
continued while I read, but it sounded far away; I was trying to realise
what acquiescence in the request contained on the pink paper might mean.
When I had decided I handed the telegram to my neighbour, and in a
moment it had made the circuit of the group, trailing exclamations in
its wake and changing the melancholy chorus to one of whole-hearted
envy. I went to bed in some doubt as to whether I had received
congratulations or condolences. In a few hours I was on my way to
London; in a few days the flying wheels had carried me back to
Southampton; but I thought that the busy docks wore a different face.