LORD ROBERTS'S ADVANCE TO BLOEMFONTEIN
IX
THE BOER PANIC AT OSFONTEIN
The carefully prepared attack of Lord Roberts on the Boer position at
Osfontein was delivered on Wednesday, March 7th, with the result that
the enemy fled without attempting to defend his extremely strong
position. To understand the gravity of the attack you must have been
there during the last few days of preparation, when hills and ridges,
subsequently abandoned in a moment, were being strengthened and armed
with trenches and guns. On Sunday and Monday, the 4th and 5th of March,
I rode round the whole position, and, like everyone else, was led to
expect a very severe struggle. The position was roughly this. The great
plain through which the river winds is broken five miles east of
Osfontein by a long range of kopjes extending about fourteen miles north
and south. All these kopjes were until the day of our attack occupied by
a force of 7,000 Boers, but to the west of them were a few lower hills
and ridges which we held. We did not know exactly how far to the east
the Boer kopjes extended; that is to say, we did not know how broad
might be the line of their defences; all we knew was that there were
other kopjes to the eastward, and that the enemy probably held them. Our
force, 30,000 strong, was disposed over a square of perhaps eight miles;
yet if you had ridden all day in circles round the farm of Osfontein,
which was Lord Roberts's headquarters, you might have wondered whether
there were even 5,000 men, so scattered were our camps. The whole air of
the place was that of almost pastoral quietness, and the only sound to
be heard was the lowing of oxen.
Out in the advanced pickets the silence was deeper, but it was not
pastoral. I rode out on the Monday to a little kopje, our most advanced
post--a place within rifle range of the opposite Boer position, about
2,000 yards away. Over the plain, here green and sweet with the smell of
tiny flowers newly burst out by the heavy rains, I rode out from under
the shelter of a big kopje held by Kitchener's Horse. Between it and the
little hill held by the picket the ground was exposed, but a man and a
horse make a poor target at extreme range, and the danger was small.
We cantered along in the midst of the great harmonious silence of
populous fields; the locusts waltzed in the sun, the little mere-cats
stood and watched us for a moment and then scampered into their holes;
the ants were toiling busily beneath a thousand heaps. The plain
stretched to the horizon, with the stone-covered kopjes standing out
like larger ant-heaps.
Something sang in the sunny air above my head, and I flicked with my
whip to drive the locust away. Immediately afterwards I heard the sharp
double report of a Mauser, like a postman's knock, and after that again
the shrill moan, infinitely melancholy, of a flying bullet; and away to
my left, about two hundred yards, the sand rose in a fountain. It was my
first experience under fire, and I confess that for ten seconds I gave
myself up. During those ten seconds I was altogether absorbed in
watching a mere-cat trying to roll something into his house; then I
began to see that I was not in any particular danger at so extreme a
range, and I lost my interest in the mere-cat. But for all that my pony
had to do his best over the space that separated us from the picket.
There were a few more shots, and always the shrill moan, but in two
minutes we were behind the shelter of the little hill.
I climbed up its steep side and found the handful of men, with an
officer, lying among the stones on the windy height. There is no
comfort in picket work. This officer and his men had to lie for
twenty-four hours at a time without shelter from sun or rain, and with
nothing to eat but bully beef and hard-tack biscuits. Always their
glasses were sweeping the enemy's position, as the officer on a ship's
bridge examines the horizon; every little movement of men or cattle was
carefully noted.
Presently I had an illustration of the spirit in which lives are taken
in war, a demonstration of what had been happening to myself a few
minutes before. Out of the shoulder of a hill three Boers came on
ponies, and began to walk leisurely across to the next kopje. Now
immediately in front of our hill was another and smaller one, too
inconsiderable to be occupied permanently, but useful for commanding the
Boer front at rifle range. As we lay watching the three specks crossing
the field, "Sergeant," said the officer, "take a few men down to that
kopje, and see if you can't get a shot at the fellows." And off went the
sergeant and a dozen men, as pleased as Punch.
Some time elapsed before they reached the hillock, and still the three
Boers moved slowly and unsuspectingly across our view. After an anxious
pause the rifles cracked out, one after another, like a rip-rap, and at
the same time the Boers seemed to fly instead of to crawl. I then saw
through my glasses that one of the men pitched backwards from his horse,
which still fled, riderless now, beside the others, who were soon out of
range. The men beside me cheered, but ten minutes ago I had been in a
position exactly similar to that of the Boers; we are all egoists in
such a case; it was myself that I saw out in the plain, my own pony
rushing away scared; and I did not join in the acclamations. But all is
changed in war-time; men are no more than game; the excitement is the
old savage one--the lust of blood and the chase.
Late on the Tuesday night we heard that the attack was to be made early
on the morrow. So we rose at three and rode out in the starlight through
the busy camp, where the flashlights were talking and the fires blazing.
I rode round to the south about eight miles, and presently the whole
Boer position stood out black before the fires of dawn, and when the sun
came up it showed one division of our troops--the Sixth--creeping round
to the south where the enemy's position terminated in seven small
kopjes. It was beautiful to see the division advance down the slope with
the screen of mounted infantry opening out in front like a fan, with
another and more slender screen, like another fan, in front of them
again.
The sun was well up, but I had not yet heard a gun go off. Presently
there was a report, and the sand rose in a column before the kopjes.
This was a 4.7 naval gun finding its range with common shell. Again the
invisible gun behind me boomed, again the weird, prolonged whirtling
overhead; the long wait--perhaps for fifteen seconds; then a cloud of
hideous vapour right on the kopje; then the report of the exploding
shell. This happened perhaps half a dozen times; the well-aimed shells
dropped now behind, now on the hills; there was no reply; and in half an
hour the mounted infantry were riding over the kopjes. The enemy had
simply broken and fled towards their central position.
From the north side, where the Ninth and Seventh Divisions were, one
could hear the same sounds, but no rifle fire. After our guns had
cleared the seven kopjes a kind of Sabbath stillness fell upon the land.
Lying in the grass, listening to the droning flies, I tried to tell
myself that I was watching a momentous battle; that matters of life and
death were on hand: but the wind laughed through the grasses at the very
notion, and the timid steinbuck leaped up quite close to me, as if to
say, "Who's afraid?"
Behind me a brigade was winding to the south with a movement almost
lyrical; but no man seemed to be doing anything that could be called
fighting. I decided that nothing more was to be seen on the south, and
started to cross northward between the positions. My path was in what
ought to have been the hottest zone of fire; but the hares leapt in the
sun and the grasshoppers hummed with delight. While crossing northward I
met the advance scouts of a regiment of mounted infantry advancing
where, according to all ordinary laws, no mounted infantry could or
ought to have been--advancing directly on the central Boer position.
"Come along," said the Colonel; "I believe the whole position is empty;
we're going to scale those ridges."
Now these very ridges were the ones to which I had seen the Boers
retreat, about a thousand of them, half an hour ago, and I told the
Colonel so. "But they must have gone," he said, "or else they would be
firing at us now."
It was perfectly true. The whole company was halted, while we chatted,
within easy fire of the enemy's position; a few pom-poms would have made
a shocking mess amongst the men and horses. But the hills were clothed
with silence as with a garment.
"Anyhow, I'm going to see," said the Colonel. "Come along."
So we cantered on up to the foot of the hill, up the slope, over the
hill, and not a shot was fired at us. The excitement was tremendous; we
were riding slap into what looked like a hornets' nest. There were
kopjes flanking us now on both sides; I wished that I hadn't come. I
expected every moment to hear the rattle of Mausers. Someone's horse
kicked a tin can, and we ducked our heads like one man. But we rode up
to and into and through and over the central position of the enemy that
he had been strengthening for days; and he never fired a shot to prevent
us. It was glorious luck, thus to be in the very front of an advancing
force, to be on the very horns of the advance, and to be absolutely out
of danger, for what little opposition there was was encountered later by
the main body.
When I thought that I had advanced far enough into what ought to have
been the jaws of death, I drew on one side and let the brigade go past,
and then I saw what little firing there was. Behind the mounted infantry
came the field-guns, galloping alone over the smooth ground; and
presently we heard the report of a gun from the other side of the next
eastward ridge over which the enemy had retired. It is very
uncomfortable waiting for a shell to arrive. One has only the sound to
guide one as to where it has come from, and one has no notion at all as
to where it is going to strike. This one burst right amongst the
galloping artillery, which at once opened out on both sides of a smoking
patch. Not a man or horse was down. And here the Boers lost their big
chance of the day. All the brigade had to advance through this one
narrow pass between the kopjes; the Boers had got the range of it
absolutely; if they had fired a dozen shells in quick succession they
would have done a dismal amount of mischief. But they only fired two
other shells, and, marvellously, no one was hit. The reason I believe to
have been that the dust of their own retreat, which hung like a haze
over the ridge, hid our advancing troops from the Boers, and they did
not know whether or not anyone was under their fire.
In the meantime the Ninth Brigade had been doing just the same kind of
thing on the north river bank; and when the attack (such as it was--a
gentle shelling) was being pressed there, General French came up from
the south-east and drove the enemy northward across the river. If French
had been a little earlier we should have cut off the Boers at the river,
for that was their only line of retreat. As it was, he came in time to
chase them; and when we heard of him again he was in full cry on the
road to Bloemfontein.
It was a strange engagement; an almost bloodless battle; a great
spectacle like an Aldershot Field Day; a demonstration of forces far
stronger than the mere force of arms--confidence on the one hand, and on
the other demoralisation and a broken spirit.
X
THE MARCH ON DREIFONTEIN
Early on the morning after the Osfontein engagement the army was again
upon the march, and towards afternoon reached a farm called Poplar
Grove, the point on which our left flank had rested on the day before.
That was only a ten-mile journey, but men and beasts were tired, and a
longer distance would have tried them severely. We rested a whole day at
Poplar Grove, and many of us bathed in the river. It is strange indeed
to find how comparative are all our standards of luxury; on that day you
could have seen what Mr. Dooley might call the "flowers of the British
aristocracy" splashing and rejoicing in filthy, muddy water beside
Kaffirs and drinking mules; and no one who bathed on that day, after
many days of wearing the same clothes and being impregnated with sand
and sun, is likely to forget the luxury of the bath.
The discomforts of a hurried march are many, and the feeling of
uncleanness is not the least of them; yet one recalls with pleasure the
long days spent dozing along on one's horse at the head of a marching
column that stretched seven miles over the plain and hills behind. Let
me try to describe some of the circumstances of the march from Poplar
Grove to Dreifontein. It must be remembered that these are but the names
of farms, and that a farm means often nothing more than a mud house, a
few trees, and a well of water.
Long before it was light we were awakened by the cries of Kaffirs
collecting their ox teams and by the almost human complaints of many
mules; and while we breakfasted by lamplight in the dim grove where our
camp was pitched a stream of transport was already flowing out of the
mass surrounding us on all sides. We started later, when the line along
the east, crimson at first, had changed from saffron to bright gold, and
the head of the column was already out of sight, melting towards the
sunrise in a cloud of dust. The mounted infantry brigade, which
furnished the patrols and screens, was already away scouring the plain
in advance of the column, but the thin line of waggons was broken now by
the broad shape of infantry brigades, marching fifty deep across the
grass.
Our own small convoy was not got under weigh without many pains. The two
newspapers which it represented were the proprietors of many and
various beasts. Six riding ponies for the three correspondents, two
horses for the despatch-rider, six horses to draw an American waggon and
two Cape carts, and six oxen to draw an ox cart laden with forage. No
tongue can tell the anxiety caused by those fourteen horses. No more
could be bought, and if anything happened to them our usefulness would
be at an end. I have often arisen during the night and walked down what
we called our "lines," counting the beasts, and feeling like Abraham. To
be sure, one of the horses cost but thirty shillings; we bought him from
a Kaffir whose honesty I should be sorry to vouch for, but he could
pull, and he lived more than a fortnight. For another one I paid a
sovereign at Osfontein, but observing that he did not eat his supper one
night I gently pushed him away a good hundred yards so that he should
not die close to us.
By the time breakfast had been eaten, the oxen caught, the horses
counted, the differences of six jealous servants adjusted, and the carts
packed, we were ready to move off. Then the sun came up and the day
began, and one could canter up to the front of the column, clear of the
dust. On some days one rode up and down, visiting different regiments
or finding out friends who were trudging beside their companies; but on
the day of this march my pony was tired, and I let him amble along in
front of the Guards for the whole eighteen miles.
I wish I could describe for people who have never seen it the grand and
majestic march of 30,000 men with their guns and baggage across a large
country; the slow dignity of a vast seven-mile column winding over the
face of a plain, all the units diverging to pass the same ant-heap or to
avoid the same rough place. After the first few miles it is silent, and
one hears behind one only the sweep of many feet upon the grass. It is
like Fate, or, say, Time with his scythe held steady; the thing comes
and passes and is gone; but ride backward and you shall see the traces
of its passage. Grass downtrodden that shall rise again, little flowers
bruised that shall renew their blossoms; and still the birds singing
peacefully, the hares leaping, the manifold petty life of the veldt
resuming its routine and circumstance. One passes on through the quaking
air as in a dream, and as though impelled by the great force behind; and
to eyes gazing long on the ground the affairs of tiny creatures become
conspicuous and important. The mere-cats sit listening, and wonder what
the new sound in the grass means, not like wind or rain. Little lizards
basking on the sand suddenly wake up and wriggle away to avoid the thing
against which the shelter of a leaf will not avail them. And always in
front hares and buck by the hundred stream away like the shadows of
clouds over grass. Then someone looks at his watch and shouts "Halt!"
and the welcome word is shouted and repeated down the line until the
sound is lost in the distance, while the tired men throw themselves down
between the burning sun and the sand.
It is like sailing on a wide sea after a storm, when the short and high
waves have died away beneath the tread of smooth rollers. The veldt
undulates from sky to sky, a plain rising and falling about the base of
rocks and island kopjes. One reaches the crest, hoping for a new view,
searching for the clump of trees that means a farm and fresh water; and
one sinks down again into the furrow, while the wave of disappointment
runs backward along the seven miles of column as each man rises to the
barren view. Now an ox, now a mule or a horse falls out and lies down to
die; now a man stumbles and falls, and lies down to wait for the cool
hours.
To men who find this kind of monotony irksome the march is a dreary
business, while to others its bare outline is filled with the interest
of a thousand little happenings. The tired, dusty, shabby "Tommy" is a
man much more agreeable to talk with than his ancestor of the
barrack-room at home; the youngest subaltern has forgotten all about his
swagger mess-kit and the "style" of his regiment, and shows himself as
the good fellow he is; even the Brigadier forgets the scarlet on his
khaki collar, and remembers that he too is a frail mortal. And always,
when other interest failed, one could fall back on that of one's own
sometimes troublesome affairs. On the afternoon of the Dreifontein march
our advance cart with the luncheon had not outspanned fifteen minutes
before it was discovered that one of the horses was gone. There was no
doubt as to why, of course--a soldier had "snaffled" it. I am sorry to
say that in the matter of horse property the average Tommy holds vague
moral views. That cart had to be brought into camp by night, and there
was only one way in which it could be done. I rode about for ten
minutes, and found an old framework so thin and so dejected that I
blushed when I put the halter on it; it had been abandoned on account
of lameness, from which it had recovered, and had since been starving.
They harnessed it up and it brought in the cart; and that night, being
given a good feed of oats, it died from shock. Another skeleton was
found in the morning to take its place; but this skeleton grew fat. We
used to laugh at these misfortunes, but the poor horses had a cruel
time, especially the English ones; no one would have recognised the
Horse Artillery, although the tragic skeletons that drew the guns still
affected some imitation of their old dash. All the way from Modder to
Bloemfontein was strewn with the bodies of horses; if all other marks
had been gone, these melancholy quarter-mile posts would have guided you
unerringly.
It was night as a rule before the column reached its camp, and there
were some gorgeous pictures in the great outspanning commotion seen
through dust clouds and the red sunset, and by light of many camp fires.
But on this bit of the march we found our quarters sooner than we
expected; and it was early in the afternoon when, climbing the ridge of
undulating plain, I saw the smoke of a shell bursting on the hillside
five miles away, and knew that our day's march, though not our day's
work, was at an end.
XI
THE BATTLE OF DREIFONTEIN AND THE MARCH ON BLOEMFONTEIN
A great chain of kopjes barred the horizon ahead of us, and we came to
the usual conclusion that the Boers were opposing our advance. It is
well to remember that Lord Roberts's army was not marching in a single
column, but in three separate columns, of which the Cavalry Division was
marching on a road about six miles to the north, and the Seventh
Division by a road about four miles to the south of the main body.
General French was a day's march ahead of the main army, and on this
morning he reached Abraham's Kraal (the most northerly hill of the chain
held by the Boers) at ten o'clock, while the Ninth Division did not
arrive until four o'clock. It will thus be seen that one end of the
position was a couple of hours' ride distant from the other and far out
of sight of it.
No one saw the whole of the battle of Dreifontein. General French, when
he arrived at ten in the morning, came into contact with the Boers at
Abraham's Kraal, and (the river preventing a turning movement on the
north) he sent the second cavalry brigade galloping southward down the
line of the kopjes in order to turn, if possible, the enemy's left
flank. But he soon found that the position extended too far southward to
be assailable by his limited forces. This turning movement, or rather
the preparation for it, was carried out under an extremely heavy fire
from pom-poms and other quick-firing guns. Finding that his resources
would be exhausted in drawing out the long containing thread necessary
to hold the enemy in front, and so leave nothing with which to make a
flank attack, General French contented himself with engaging the enemy
on the northernmost end of their position.
At half-past one the Sixth Division arrived at Dreifontein, a farmhouse
about seven miles south of Abraham's Kraal. I had ridden hard in order
to catch them up as I had been in the early morning with the Ninth
Division, which did not arrive until four o'clock, and when I came up I
was just in time to see the Buffs, leading the 13th Brigade, preparing
to clear some kopjes near the main ridge which were held by the Boers.
Things were very hot here, and as I had never been in a big fight before
I found it very difficult to realise what was going on, or where the
enemy was, or where the fire was coming from, or at what point it was
being directed. All I knew for some time was that there were shells
dropping rather closer than was pleasant, and that with a rashness born
of ignorance I had got into a place where everyone had to lie down for
cover.
When your face is in the sand you do not see much. What you hear is not
encouraging--the distant boom of a gun, a few seconds' silence, then a
long quavering whistle in the air, like the cry of a banshee, growing
every moment nearer and louder, and finally the deafening report
somewhere near you. You never know where a shell is going to burst,
although you hear it long before it arrives; you can only sit tight and
hope that it will go where the other fellows are, or better still where
no one is. To say truth, shells generally go where no one is; I saw only
one man killed by a shell. I had raised my head from the ground and was
listening for the burst of a coming shell, when I saw a man among the
advance ranks of the 13th Brigade on my right stop suddenly in the midst
of a blinding flash. An arm and hand flew through the air in a horrible
curve; the smoke belched, the air was rent by the explosion, the smoke
blew and drifted away, and there on the hillside lay what was left of
the man, folded in the deep quietness of death.
A little to the left the Welsh Regiment was advancing up the steep side
of Alexander's kopje, which was doubly enfiladed by the Boer guns; two
Elswicks firing from the east and a Vickers-Maxim from the south-west.
There was also a nasty rain of bullets. In the long semi-circular
skirmishing line, strung like a girdle round the hillside, a man
suddenly turned and ran backwards for half a dozen paces, and then
tumbled, rolling over and over like a shot rabbit. I saw him five
minutes later when his body was brought to the dressing-station; he had
been shot through the heart. Poor fellow! He ran not of his own
conscious volition; he was killed while bravely advancing; he died while
retreating. The Welsh Regiment was losing badly all this time, and the
ground was becoming dotted with writhing and motionless bodies; it was a
horrible sight and came near to turning me sick, so I resolved to go and
see what was happening on the south side.
I made a long detour round by the headquarter farmhouse towards which
the black mass of the Ninth Division was advancing across the plain--too
late, as it turned out, to join in the action. Seeing a kopje on our
extreme right from which our artillery seemed to be firing, I rode in
that direction. There was not a soul in sight; and when I was within a
thousand yards of the place the instinct which so often interferes to
keep our heads from betraying us made me pull up. There was not a sound
except the far-away bang of guns and rifles. Near to the kopje there was
a garden surrounded by low trees and a hedge of prickly pear. The sun
setting behind us slanted into it and made it appear as a charming,
peaceful shelter from the dust and noise of the battle. I was still
debating with myself as to whether I should go on a little farther when
I heard behind me the sound of a horse galloping. I turned round and
saw, perhaps two miles behind me, three mounted men. The one who now
rode up had evidently just left them. He was a trooper in Rimington's
Guides.
"Beg pardon, sir," he said, "but I wouldn't stay here if I was you."
"Why not?" said the Green One; "no one in front, is there?"
The man spat on the ground.
"Don't know that there is, sir," he said, "but then I don't know that
there isn't, and that's good enough for me. If there _is_ anyone in
that garden"--and he pointed to the patch of trees--"you bet they won't
send out a flag of truce asking you to get out of the way before they
shoot. We've been sent to round up cattle out of that there garden, but
I believe the cattle are all a blind. Anyway, I'm not going near it till
I'm sure of it. I believe it's a trap."
They must have been watching us from the garden with their eyes on the
sights of their rifles, for no sooner had we turned our horses' heads
than _bang, bang, bang, bang--phtt, phtt, phtt, phtt_! We doubled
ourselves on our saddles and our horses stretched along the road, while
for perhaps thirty seconds our ears twitched to a hail of bullets that
lasted until we were out of range. While we were still racing my pony,
which was last, suddenly jumped into the air and shot past the big
cavalry horse, laying herself flat on the ground like a hare; and it was
not until she had carried me far out of range that I found the warm
blood from a bullet wound running down her leg. I had no further
interest that day but to have her attended to. At any rate, I think the
shot which was fired at her was one of the last fired in the battle of
Dreifontein.
The battle was fought on Saturday, March 10th. On Sunday morning we
found that the Boers had melted away from before us, and the army
marched on twelve miles to Aasvögel's Kop. On Monday the main body was
at Venters Vlei; and at four o'clock that afternoon General French,
after an artillery engagement, occupied a few hills commanding
Bloemfontein, and sent in an ultimatum requiring the surrender of the
town within twenty-four hours.
Early on Tuesday morning Mr. Gwynne (Reuter's correspondent), Mr.
Oppenheim, of the _Daily News_, and another correspondent, rode into
Bloemfontein and found that President Steyn had departed during the
night, that the Boer forces had retired from the immediate neighbourhood
of the town, and that the people were willing to surrender. They rode
back to Lord Roberts (who was by this time well under weigh with his
column), escorting the Landdrost in his Cape cart. The Field Marshal
was, I believe, sitting on a low hill having breakfast with his staff
when the keys were delivered up to him. This formality was conducted
with the utmost courtesy and good-humour, and when it was over the march
was resumed. Lord Roberts rode on and joined the cavalry, and a
procession was formed about three miles out of the town, Lord Roberts at
the head of the cavalry brigade which preceded the army. I shall never
forget that ride down the sloping country into Bloemfontein; the little
white-haired man sitting his horse like a rock, leading; then the
personal staff; then the general staff; then the foreign attachés; then
the correspondents; then the cavalry staff; then the cavalry; then the
main body of the army--artillery, infantry, engineers, commissariat, and
baggage.
As we came into the first street of the town it was apparent that the
day was regarded as a festival. One could hardly imagine a stranger
reception of an invader. Flags flew at every window, and the people were
all decked out as though for a holiday. Half-way towards the Presidency
there was a little diversion. Some Kaffirs, thinking that this was a
good opportunity of paying off old scores, had begun to loot and pillage
a large building like a school-house, which belonged to the Free State
Government. As we swung round the corner of the street they were in the
act of bundling out mattresses, bedsteads, linen, chairs, desks, and
tables, and carrying them off. A few dozen Lancers were let loose
amongst them; they dropped their booty and fled, only to be driven back
at the point of a lance and made to replace the stolen property. Then
the march was resumed until the procession drew up in front of the
Presidency. The Federal flag had been struck some time before, and the
flagstaff now stood gaunt and undecorated. There was a pause of about
ten minutes while Lord Roberts went in and transacted some necessary
formalities; then the little silk Union Jack, made by Lady Roberts, was
run up to the truck amid a great sound of cheering. The singing of the
National Anthem ended the ceremony. The town seemed altogether
English--English shops, English manners, the English language, and
English faces. All that day enthusiasm bubbled in the town like water
boiling in a pot; all day the troops continued to march in; shabby and
dusty and dirty and tired, they were nevertheless all stamped with some
nameless quality which they had not when they left England. All day the
population of Bloemfontein eddied through the streets like a crowd at a
fair; all day the sounds of rejoicing continued, and far into the night
the streets resounded to the cries of people who made merry.
XII
RETRACING THE STEPS OF THE ARMY
With its independence, handed over amid the imposing circumstance of
arms, Bloemfontein lost something of its charm. The noise and dust and
commotion of the army did violence to its pastoral quietness, and the
pretty shops put up their shutters at midday as though in maidenly
horror at the eagerness of crowds of soldiers running amuck like
children with their Saturday pennies. I entered the town early enough to
see what its normal condition must be, and there was something rude and
unkind in the din of the multitude breaking on this quiet place where
the bees sang loud in the streets, and the midday idler slumbered upon
the doorstep.
To be sure, one had opportunity for studying the soldier in a new
setting, but the study is one that requires time; the average Tommy is
an oyster to strangers. He varies to the tune and colour of his
surroundings; on the veldt, where hardness is to be endured, he is the
"good soldier," the patient, strong man; under fire he is a fierce
creature, still obedient to his habit of discipline, but hot for combat;
in the town, with money in his pocket, he is a little child. Indeed,
after weeks of absence from places where money is of value we all share
in this rejuvenation, and if you had been in Bloemfontein on any one of
these fine days you would have seen men of every age and rank, from
generals to trumpeters, wandering about the streets, agape at the shop
windows, chinking their money in their pockets, and buying things for
which they had no kind of use.
The British officer afield is a very different creature from the gilded
ornament of an English mess. His face is scorched and peeled, he is
generally (unless he be a staff officer) very ill-clad; he has a ragged
beard; he esteems golden syrup the greatest luxury on earth; he ceases
to be ashamed of originality in thought or expression; he altogether
fails to disguise what a good fellow he is. But in a very short time the
neighbourhood of a club, the possibility of a bath, the presence of
barbers and tailors, by a mysterious and marvellous working, reverse his
development, and the little graces which endear him to society at home
begin to reappear. So long as the sole of his boot was tied to the
uppers by a piece of string, he could not look you in the face with any
pretending; but when the cobbler has done his office, and the tailor has
sewn up the rent breeches, the spell is broken.
We "occupied" Bloemfontein so completely that, after the first few days,
I was glad to take the road again. We occupied the club, we occupied the
shops and hotels, we occupied even the homes of the simple townspeople;
and we occupied the streets, so that all day the town resounded to the
din of tramping feet. When one has slept for a month under the stars,
sheets and a roof are stifling; so as the railway was not yet open,
Major Pollock (of _The Times_) and I decided to go to Kimberley by road,
assured that the moral effect of the proclamation would keep us out of
danger from the Queen's enemies.
Our little caravan set forth by moonlight, taking the road travelled by
the left-hand column of the three parallel columns that had advanced on
Bloemfontein, and somewhat to the north of that taken by Lord Roberts
and the central column, with which we had gone in. The journey itself
was uneventful enough, full of the little interests and anxieties and
pleasures of the road, full of joy for the travellers, but without
serious interest to anyone else. There was just enough risk of
encountering a commando to give the necessary spice of adventure; two
despatch-riders--not mine, by the good fortune of half a mile--had been
captured the day before, and we kept a bright look-out. But by the time
we came across them the commandos were forlornly[2] dispersing. For the
rest, there was the unending charm of the climate and the place; the
gorgeous evenings, when sunset and moonrise encircled the horizon in a
flame of gold and silver; the spring-cold mornings, with the veldt
glowing from violet to purple and crimson; the noonday rest in some
deserted farm garden; the bed at nightfall, with the sound of horses
munching their corn for a lullaby--all the circumstances of simple
travel accomplished by the means that nature has provided. After having
been for so long in the company of 30,000 men we found the loneliness
and quietness refreshing, and we passed almost unnoticed through the
birds and beasts and flowers. We swam once more in the muddy Modder, now
quite an old friend. The track of the army was marked for us in two
ways--one ludicrous, the other tragic; both unmistakable. For all along
the way bright tin biscuit canisters of the Army Service Corps shone
like diamonds in the sun; and all along the way, at intervals, tired and
sick old cavalry horses stood by the roadside, each surrounded by a
crowd of foul aasvögels, the vultures of South Africa, waiting.
[Footnote 2: For the time being.]
The chief party of Boers which we encountered was at Abraham's Kraal.
While we were breakfasting about two dozen of them cantered up, of whom
about six were armed. If I had qualms, I hope I did not show them when I
said "Good-morning." I fell into conversation with one of the Boers, and
mentioned incidentally that, from their point of view, the game was up,
and that I supposed he knew that anyone who interfered with peaceful
Englishmen would be hanged. He was a sulky fellow, but he took my word
for it, and presently we began to talk. These Boers were in low spirits
about the war, and spoke of it without enthusiasm or hope. Most of them
were Transvaalers, and two spoke with an unmistakable Glasgow accent,
but on the whole they were gruff and uncommunicative, and, as they cast
envious eyes from their own sorry nags to our well-conditioned mounts,
I was glad to wish them good-day. They had come to bury the dead from
the Dreifontein fight, and from what they told me of the still unburied
Boers both there and at Paardeberg, I gathered that their casualties all
along the line had been heavier than we had thought.
I have said that the neighbourhood of the Boers made our journey
exciting, and there was one point at which the excitement became very
nearly painful. We had made a long stage one day, and at about sundown
arrived at the Modder, which we intended to cross at a drift near
Koodoesrand. This was the dangerous neighbourhood, and we were anxious
to push on and cross the river before encamping for the night. The banks
of the Modder at this drift are about forty feet high and almost
precipitous, the path down to the drift being little better than a track
worn at a long diagonal down the bank. It was steep enough going down,
but when we had crossed the shallow river and begun the ascent of the
other bank we found the track very soft and almost perpendicular. By
fetching a compass and putting the horses to it at a great pace the two
Cape carts managed to reach the top, but a four-wheeled American waggon
stuck fast at the bottom and could not be moved. At that moment the last
of the daylight ebbed, and darkness began to quench the sunset embers.
We tried unhitching the teams from the Cape carts and hitching them to
the waggon, but we only succeeded in breaking harness. It was after the
second attempt, when we were all standing hot and angry after our
unavailing exertion of whip-cracking and shouting, that we suddenly saw
a light shine out from the edge of a low kopje about two miles in front
of us. One of us lost his head, and by speaking his fears communicated
the malady.
"There are the Boers," he said, "and if they haven't heard us yelling
they must have seen the light from our lanterns. The sooner we get out
of this the better."
There was nothing for it but to unload the waggon and carry the contents
up by hand, and this we did in an agony of excitement, staggering and
sweating up the steep path with portmanteaus, beds, valises, cases of
tinned provisions, kettles, bottles, saucepans, bags of harness, oats,
and guns. The empty waggon was easily drawn up to the top, and then we
must reload it again with a burden which seemed to have swollen
enormously since it was unpacked. We were working so frantically that we
had not even time to look at the kopje, but when at length I glanced at
it I saw that a strange thing had happened.
The light was now suspended about thirty feet above the hill.
Had they a balloon? Major Pollock and I gazed blankly for more than a
minute at that mysterious shining, which seemed to rise higher and
higher. More than a minute: just so long did it take us to remember that
Orion rises low in the west!
Now for what will remain with me as the crowning impression of this
journey. The road we took led through a fairly fertile country, and that
in the Free State means that there generally was grass instead of karoo.
There were many farms; we probably passed twenty in the course of ninety
miles. Each of those farms I visited, and at each stood aghast at the
ruin that had been wrought. Signs of looting one expected--the looting
of food-stuffs and livestock and necessaries; that, after all, is but a
kind of self-defence, and I suppose it is allowable to live upon an
enemy when one invades his land. But the destruction that had here taken
place was wanton and savage. One seemed to travel in the footsteps of
some fiend who had left his mark upon every home, destroying the things
that were probably most prized by the owners, and destroying with a
devilish ingenuity that had saved him all unnecessary labour. For
example, in one little farmhouse I found a flimsy, showy, London bedroom
suite that was clearly the pride of the establishment, with its wardrobe
and full-length mirror. The destroyer had smashed just what could not be
mended--the mirror and the marble top of the washstand. In another
cottage I found an old clock that had ticked, most likely, for years on
end in the quietness of the little home; its hands were torn off, and
its works strewn upon the floor. In every house the little bits of
rubbish that adorn the homes of the poor were destroyed or disfigured;
in all were the same signs of violation, the same marks of the beast.
It has always seemed to me that a little farm in a lonely country
contains more than anything else the atmosphere of a home. It is
self-centred; there you see all the little shifts and contrivances which
result from the forced supplying of wants that cannot be satisfied from
outside. And when such a homestead is deserted, I think the atmosphere
is only the more pronounced; the disused implements find voices in the
silence and cry aloud for their absent owners. But when all that is
personal and human in such a place is ruined, the pathos turns to
tragedy. One farm I found absolutely gutted save for a great and old
Bible which stood upon a table in the largest room. It was a beautiful
folio, full of quaint plates and fine old printing, and bound in a rich
leather that time and the sun had tanned to an autumn gold. While I was
regarding it the breeze came through the window and stirred the yellow
leaves, exposing a pencil-marked verse in the most pastoral of psalms:
"_Hy doert my nederliggen in grasige wenden; Hy doert my sachtkens aen
seer stille wateren._" There was something impressive in the accident:
the old book stoutly reminding the chance passer-by that present evil
cannot affect the ultimate good, promising amid rude circumstances a
time of quietness. He was an old man who owned that book; his name and
age were marked upon the leaf; I think, to judge by the signs of
handling, that he had the heart of its contents; and I hope that
whatever his bodily circumstances, his soul retained some of the peace
of the "_grasige wenden_."
Who is responsible for all this mischief it is hard to say. I am sure
that the English soldiers, thoughtless though they may be, would not
stoop to this sort of purposeless outrage. I do not like to accuse the
colonial troops as a whole either, although I suspect that some of them,
some whose own homes had been destroyed by the enemy, might conceivably
have taken vengeance in kind. It is thought by many whose opinion is
valuable that the Kaffirs were here, as in Natal, responsible for much
of the damage; and that is a view which one would willingly take, for it
would acquit English-speaking troops of a miserable suspicion. Perhaps
the thing is well-nigh inevitable, for I know what pains Lord Roberts
took to prevent it; and it may be as well that we should recognise it as
one of the realities of war. For myself, the horrors of actual fighting
did not touch me half so nearly; I have seen men killed close to me and
been less shocked than I was by these domestic outrages. To die, for the
one who dies, is nothing; it affects him not at all; he is absent. But
here was not death, but outrage on the foundations of civilised life;
outrage upon living people, who suffer and remember.