LINDLEY.
We were off for the front at last, and I shall now, making a few
necessary alterations, transcribe my diary, as I wrote it from day to
day and often hour to hour, under all sorts of varying conditions.
_June 21._--_7 A.M._--I am writing this on the seat of a gun in an
open truck on the way by rail to Kroonstadt. I have been trying to
sleep on the floor, but it wasn't a success, owing to frozen feet. Now
the sun is up and banishing the hoar-frost from the veldt, and the
great lonely pasture-plain we are travelling slowly through looks
wonderfully pleasant.
But I must go back.
Yesterday afternoon things looked profoundly settled. I walked down to
town with a lot of clothes, and left them to be washed by a nigger,
and also left my watch to be mended. But when I got back to "stables"
it was announced that we were to leave for Kroonstadt that night.
There was great joy, though I fear it means nothing. It's true De Wet
and some rebels have been giving trouble round there, and even held up
a train, and captured a battalion of militia not long ago; but I
believe it's all over now. It was soon dark, and camp had to be struck
and horses harnessed in the dark. I got leave, ran down to town and
fetched up my unwashed clothes, and put most of them on there and
then. There was the usual busy scene of packing kit, striking tents,
drawing rations, filling water-bottles; the whole scene lit up by
blazing bonfires of rubbish. In leaving a camp no litter may be left;
it has to be left as clean as the surrounding veldt. At nine hot
coffee was served out, and at 9.45 "boot and saddle" went. Harnessing
in pitch dark is not very easy, unless you have everything exactly
where you can lay your hand on it.
We marched down to the station, and unharnessed near the platform in a
deposit of thick mud. Entraining lasted all night, the mules and
buck-waggons giving a lot of trouble. Some exciting loose-mule-hunts
round the station in the dark. Hours of shoving, hauling, lifting,
slamming. At last all was in but ourselves. There were evidently no
carriages, so we hurriedly shovelled our kit and ourselves into the
open gun-trucks, squirming into cracks and corners; and at 6.30 A.M.
to-day, with the sun just topping the distant veldt, the whistle blew,
and we started. It was a piercing frosty morning; but we were all so
tired that we slept just as we were. I found myself nestling on the
floor of a truck (very dirty), between a gun-wheel and the three foot
high side with feed-bags for pillows. Cold feet soon roused me, and I
got up on to the gun in the sun, and saw we were slowly climbing a
long incline through the usual veldt and kopjes, only more inhabited
looking, with a tree and a farm or two. A lovely scene with the sun
reddening the veldt in the pure crisp air. I smoked a cigarette in
great content of mind. Soon shapeless heaps of blankets began to move
down the trucks, muffled heads blinked out from odd corners, and
gradually the Battery woke, and thawed, and breakfasted on biscuit and
bully beef. We have said good-bye to bread.
We rumbled slowly on all the morning, past the same sort of country,
with dead horses and broken bridges marking Roberts's track, and at
Brandfort stopped to feed horses, which, by the way, is a nasty
dangerous game when you are dealing with closed horse-boxes. You have
to climb through a small window, get in among the horses, and put the
feeds on as they are handed up. The horses are not tied up, and are
wild with hunger. You have simply to fight to avoid being crushed or
kicked in that reeking interior, for they are packed as thick as
possible.
At Vet River we got the first news of fighting. Boers under De Wet had
been breaking bridges, and cutting wires. A very seedy-looking
Guardsman gave us the news, and said they were cold and starving; and
they looked it. What regiment was there? "Oh, we're all details 'ere,"
he said, with a gloomy shrug. At Zand River infantry were in trenches
expecting attack. A fine bridge had been blown up, and we crossed the
river, which runs in a deep ravine, by a temporary bridge built low
down, the track to it most ingeniously engineered in a spiral way. An
engineer told us they had had hard fighting there a day or two ago. We
reached Kroonstadt about dark; but remained outside all night,
supperless and freezing.
_June 22._--I walked about most of the night, and got an engine driver
to squirt some hot water into a mess-tin to make tea with out of
tablets. In early morning a train disgorged a crowd of men who had
been prisoners with the Boers at Pretoria, some ever since the first
battle. When Roberts came they all escaped, under shell-fire from the
Boers as a final _congé_. They were a most motley crew, dressed in all
manner of odd clothes. At 7 P.M. coffee and porridge, and at 7.30
orders came to detrain and harness up sharp, the sections to separate
again. Then followed a whole series of contrary orders, but we
ultimately harnessed up and hooked in; the right section marched away,
and soon after we of the left section did so too, about two o'clock.
About three miles off, after climbing a long hill, we unlimbered the
guns in a commanding position, and remained there till dark, in the
close and fragrant neighbourhood of about twenty dead horses. I
believe we had something to do with some possible or probable fight,
but what, I don't know. A very dull battle. We marched back at dark,
and bivouacked near the town, close to some Lancers. Of course tents
are said good-bye to now. I slept by my harness, very cold.
_June 23._--I woke early and chatted to the Lancers' cook over a
roaring wood fire till reveillé. Orders came to start at two, as part
of the escort of a convoy going to Lindley, distant about fifty miles
east. Something real to do at last. Quiet morning; sewed buttons on.
At one "boot and saddle," and at two we started and joined the convoy,
a long train of ox-waggons, with some traction engines drawing trucks.
Our officers are Captain Budworth (in command) and Lieutenant Bailey,
just as at Piquetberg Road. The troops with us are some Buffs Militia,
Yorkshire Light Infantry, Australian Mounted Infantry (Imperial
Bushmen Contingent), and some Middlesex Yeomanry. Went through the
rambling white desolate town, forded a broad river, mounted a steep
hill, and came out on the open, rolling veldt. Here we halted till
near sunset, waiting for some waggons, and many and eager were our
speculations on what was in store for us on this first step into the
field of war. For the first time we saw and talked to infantry on the
march. Our escort (there is always an escort for guns) is a company of
Buffs, lean, stained, ragged, and very _blasé_ about this journey
which they have made twice before. They are short of most things, and
pitifully clad. I saw two with no breeches, only under-pants. All say
they are "fed up," a phrase always used out here to mean "sick and
tired of the war." The Bushmen seem a pleasant set of fellows. It is
their first campaign too.
When the truant waggons came up we marched on a few miles, following
the road, which is just a hard track across the veldt, and bivouacked
for the night, the out-spanned waggons ranged in rows in a rough
square, as far as I could see, but it was very dark, and we had plenty
to do ourselves. After unhooking, we drivers had a long ride over the
veldt to a watering-place, losing the way in the dark two or three
times. It was late when we got back to camp, guided by the fires. We
unharnessed, fed the horses, swallowed some tea and biscuit, and laid
down as we were to sleep.
_June 24_--_Sunday._--Up at 3.45 A.M. and harnessed; very cold. We
started at five, in the dark, and marched over rolling switchback
veldt till 9.30, and then halted to let the convoy oxen get their
day's graze and chew. Unharnessed our horses. Coffee and porridge. I
went on fatigue to fill water-bottles at a filthy pond, and afterwards
laboriously filtered some in a rather useless filter, which is carried
on the gun. The water was so foul that the filter had to be opened and
cleaned every four strokes.
At 12.45 we harnessed up and started again. I am writing now at one of
the periodical halts, when every one dismounts. A soft, mild sunset is
laying changing tints of colour on the veldt, rose, amber, fawn, with
deep blue shadows. When I speak of _veldt_ I mean simply grass-land,
but not a hint of green in it. The natural colour at this season is
buff, with a warm red undertone. When the setting or rising sun
catches this the effect is exquisite.
There is a rumour that a Boer patrol has been sighted, and a prisoner
captured. I believe there is no doubt that De Wet and his force are
between us and Lindley, and will have a shot at this convoy. We were
warned that we might be attacked to-night. At dark we bivouacked, and,
soon after, our right section, under the Major, whom we parted from at
Kroonstadt, marched in. They had been sent out with a relief column to
Honing Spruit, where a train had been attacked and the troops in it
hard pressed. The Boers cleared off just before the Battery came up,
which then had followed and overtaken us. Another bothersome hunt
after water for the horses in the dark. All we could find was a
stagnant pool, which ought to poison those that drank of it. Some more
troops also joined the column. Colonel Brookfield (M.P.) is in command
of the whole force.
_June 25_--_(My birthday)._--Up at 4.15 A.M. Off at 5.15, as part of
the advance guard of the column, the Bushmen and Yeomanry scouting far
ahead, and the infantry on either flank in a widely extended line. We
all admired the steady regularity of their marching, heavily weighted
as they were. Our own gunners also have a good deal of walking to do.
"Dismount the detachment" is the order at all up-grades, and at
difficult bits of the road. Drivers dismount at every halt, however
short, but on the move are always safe in the saddle. We marched over
the same undulating land, with occasional drifts and _spruits_, which
are very hard on the horses. The convoy behind looked like a long
sinuous serpent. Watered at seven at a farm. Williams was sent out to
forage, and bought a sheep for 15s., chickens at 1s. 6d., and a
turkey. Gunners were sent out to pillage a maize field. Then we
marched on some miles to the top of a steep ridge looking down upon a
lower plain, the road crossing a deep ravine at the bottom by a big
steel bridge. We took up a commanding position at the top, overlooking
the bridge, so as to cover the convoy while it descended and crossed.
An attack seems likely,--a curious birthday treat!--4 P.M.--Nothing
has happened. An interminable procession of ox and mule-waggons files
down the pass; it is a much larger convoy than I thought, and must
have received additions since we started. At this rate we shall be
ages getting to Lindley.
One no longer wonders at the slowness of an army's movement out here.
The standard of speed is the trek-ox, lurching pensively along under
his yoke, very exacting about his mealtimes, and with no high notions
about supreme efforts, when he has to get his waggon out of a bad
drift. He often prefers to die, and while he is making up his
ponderous mind he may be blocking up a column, miles in length, of
other waggons in single file. We talk of the superior mobility of the
Boers; but it puzzles me to know how they got it, for oxen and mules
are their standards of speed too, I suppose.
At dark, when all had passed, we followed ourselves down an abominably
dangerous road, and over the bridge to camp, which looked and sounded
like a big busy town, scintillating with fires and resonant with the
yells of black drivers packing their waggons.
_June 26_--_Eight A.M._--We are in action, my waggon at present halted
in the rear. We harnessed up at 3.45 this morning, and marched some
miles to the top of another hill, overlooking another plain, a
crescent of steep kopjes on the left, occupied by Boers. The convoy
halted just as a spattering rifle-fire ahead struck on the still
morning air (it was just dawn), and the chatter of a Maxim on the left
flank. We were all rather silent. A staff-officer galloped up,
"Walk,--March," "Trot," rang out to the Battery, and we trotted ahead
down the hill, plunged down a villainous spruit, and came up on to the
level, under a pretty heavy fire from the kopje on our left. For my
part, I was absorbed for these moments in a threatened mishap to my
harness, and the dread of disgrace at such an epoch. My off horse had
lost flesh in the last few days, and the girth, though buckled up in
the last hole, was slightly too loose. We had to gallop up a steep bit
of ascent out of the drift, and to my horror, the pack-saddle on him
began to slip and turn, so I had to go into action holding on his
saddle with my right hand, in a fever of anxiety, and at first
oblivious of anything else. Then I noticed the whing of bullets, and
dust spots knocked up, and felt the same sort of feeling that one has
while waiting to start for a race, only with an added chill and
thrill.
The guns unlimbered, and came into action against the kopje, and we
and the limbers trotted about 300 yards back, and are waiting there
now. A gunner and a driver slightly wounded, and some horses hit. One
bullet broke our wheel-driver's whip. Our shrapnel are bursting
beautifully over the Boer lines.
_(Later.)_--We have just taken our waggon up to the firing line, and
brought back an empty one with our team.
_(Later.)_--We have been back to the convoy, and refilled the empty
waggon from the reserve, and are back again. The Boers seem to be
dislodged from the ridge, and infantry have occupied it. I hear some
Boers made for a farm, but we plumped a shell right into it, and they
fled. The convoy is now coming on, and crossing the drift with
discordant yells. Infantry and mounted infantry pressing on both
flanks. Our guns have taken up another position farther on. The
Captain asked after the broken whip, and told us we could not have
gone into action better. He has been riding about all day on his
stumpy little Argentine, radiant and beaming, with his eternal pipe in
his mouth!
_(Later.)_--We marched on a few miles, and bivouacked, while the whole
convoy slowly trailed in, and formed up in laager. This operation, and
the business of posting the troops for the night, is horribly tedious.
It has to be done in the dark, and one is continually mounting and
dismounting, and moving on a bit, and making impossible wheels round
mules and waggons. Probably we get too small a space allotted, and the
horses are all jammed together in the picket-lines, causing a vast
loss of temper at unharnessing. After unharnessing and feeding horses,
which you have to look sharp about, or you will miss coffee, every one
crowds round the cook's fire, and looks with hungry eyes at the pots.
Coffee or tea, biscuits and tinned meat, are served out. You are
ravenous, as you have lived on chance scraps during the day. Then you
make your bed, stretching your blankets behind your harness, standing
a saddle on end, and putting a feed-bag behind it for a pillow. Next
morning's feeds have first to be made up, and then you sleep like a
log, if you can, that is. I generally have to get up at least once,
and walk about for the cold. Fellows who are lucky enough to have fuel
make small fires (an anthill provides a natural stove), and cook soup,
but it's hard to spare the water, which is as precious as gold in this
country. Besides, drivers are badly placed for such luxuries; their
work is only begun when camp is reached, while gunners can go off and
find beds under waggons, etc. It is the same all day, except, of
course, in action, when the gunners have all the work. At all halts we
have to be watching a pair of horses, which have manifold ways of
tormenting one. To begin with, they are always hungry, because they
get little oats and no hay. One of mine amuses himself by chewing all
leather-work in his reach, especially that on the traces, and has to
be incessantly worried out of it. The poor brutes are standing all the
time on rich pasture, and try vainly to graze. They are not allowed
to, as it involves taking out big bits, undoing wither straps, etc.,
and you have to be ready to start at a moment's notice. There are
thousands of acres of rich pasture all about, vast undeveloped wealth.
Farms are very few and far between; mostly dismal-looking stone
houses, without a trace of garden or adornment of any sort. There was
a load off all our minds this night, for the H.A.C. had at last been
in action and under fire. All went well and steadily. My friend
Ramsey, the lead-driver of our team, brushed his teeth at the usual
intervals. I don't believe anything on earth would interfere with him
in this most admirable duty. He does it with miraculous dexterity and
rapidity at the oddest moments, saying it rests him!
_June 27._--Up at 3.45 and harnessed, but it was almost dawn before
our unwieldy convoy creaked and groaned into motion. We are rearguard
to-day, with some Yeomanry, Australians, and Buffs, but just now we
were ordered up to the front, trotted past the whole convoy, and are
now in action; limbers and waggons halted behind a rise. The Boers
have guns in action to-day, and a shell of theirs has just burst about
400 yards to our right, and others are falling somewhere near the guns
ahead. It seems to be chiefly an artillery duel so far, but a
crackling rifle fire is going on in the distance.
_(Midday.)_--The convoy is closing up and getting into a sort of
square. We have changed positions several times. Shells have fallen
pretty close, but have done no damage. Some of them burst, others only
raise a cloud of dust. We are already getting used to them, but the
first that fell made us all very silent, and me, at any rate, very
uncomfortable. Later we relieved ourselves by a rather overstrained
interest in their probable direction and point of impact. We were
standing waiting, of course, with no excitement to distract our minds.
_(2 P.M.)_--A curious feature in the scene is the presence of veldt
fires all over the place, long lines of dry grass blazing. Possibly
the Boers start them to hide their movements. The Boers evidently want
this convoy; they are right round our rear and on both flanks; all our
troops are engaged. The convoy is being moved on, and my section is
left as rear-guard. The smoke of burning grass has blotted out the
sun, and it is cold. The sun is a red ball, as on a foggy day in
London. Shells have ceased to fall here, but a hill on the left is
being heavily shelled by the enemy, and the infantry on it are in
retreat.
_(4 P.M.)_--We are slowly getting on, covering the convoy's rear, the
enemy pressing hard. Our guns are now firing over our dismounted
troops. Williams has just ridden up. He has been orderly to the
Captain; a shell fell just by his horse without bursting. I have been
fearfully sleepy, and have snatched a few minutes of oblivion, during
halts, on the ground by my horses, who are as tired as I am, poor
beasts.
_(Written later.)_--The Boers, as it seemed to me (but what does one
know?), had us in a very tight place, but they never pressed home
their attack, and the convoy was rushed through the remaining seven
miles to Lindley. We covered its retirement till dark, and then
followed it with all speed. I shan't forget those seven miles. They
included the worst drifts of the whole journey, and getting up and
down them in pitch-dark was unpleasant work and a pretty severe test
of driving. Three mule-waggons of the convoy had to be abandoned at
one place, but the rest of it reached Lindley safely, as did we. It
was rather like making a port after a storm when the lights appeared
and a bugle blowing "first post" was heard. We passed some silent
houses, groped into an open space, picketed horses, chucked off
harness, and slept by it, dog-tired. We had hoped for a good night's
rest, but, the last thing, orders went round for reveillé at four.
_June 28._--It was icy cold at 4 A.M., and one's fingers could hardly
cope with straps and links. I had done one horse, when welcome orders
came that my waggon was not wanted. So I sat by the cook's fire and
cooked in the lid of my mess-tin a slice of meat I had hastily hacked
from an ox's carcase at our last camp. Also some Maggi soup. About
sunrise the limbers returned, having left the guns and gunners in
position on a hill somewhere, where they shot at any Boers they saw,
and were sniped at themselves. A slack day for the rest of us, and I
had a good sleep. Of course we are all delighted that the days of
waiting are over, and that we have had fighting and been of use.
Everything has gone well, and without a single hitch, and we were
congratulated by the Brigadier. As for De Wet, the plucky Boer who is
fighting down here, now that his cause is hopeless, we have sworn to
get him to London and give him a dinner and a testimonial for giving
us the chance of a fight.
Of course the whole affair was trivial enough, and I don't suppose
will ever figure in the papers, though it was interesting enough to
us. I should be sorry to have to describe what went on as a whole. I
just wrote what was under my eye during halts, and to grasp the plan
of the thing, when distances are so great and the enemy so invisible,
is impossible. But, as far as I could see, it was pretty well managed.
We had no casualties yesterday, chiefly owing to shells not bursting.
The Infantry and Yeomanry had some killed and wounded, but I don't
know the numbers. Some of the Boer practice was excellent. Once we
watched them shell some Infantry on a kopje, every shell falling clean
and true on the top and reverse edge of it. The Infantry had to quit.
But on the whole I was at a loss to understand their artillery
tactics, which seemed desultory and irresolute. They would get our
range or that of the convoy and then cease firing, never concentrating
their fire on a definite point. Their ammunition too was evidently of
an inferior quality. I saw no shrapnel fired. It is all very novel,
laborious, exciting, hungry work, and perhaps the strangest sensation
of all is one's passive ignorance of all that is happening beyond
one's own narrow sphere of duty. An odd discovery is that one has so
much leisure, as a driver, when in action. There is plenty of time to
write one's diary when waiting with the teams. One pleasant thing is
the change felt in the relaxation of the hard-and-fast regulations of
a standing camp. Anything savouring of show or ceremonial, all
needless _minutiæ_ of routine, disappear naturally. It is business
now, and everything is judged by the standard of common-sense.
The change of life since we left Bloemfontein has been complete; no
tents, no washing, no undressing, only biscuit and tinned-meat for
food, and not too much of that, very little sleep, etc.; but we have
all enjoyed it, for it is the real thing at last. The lack of water
was the only really trying thing, and the cold at night. We had fresh
meat for supper this night from a sheep commandeered on the march, and
weren't we ravenous! Another very cold night, but the joyful orders
for reveillé at 7 A.M.
_June 29._--"Stables" and harness-cleaning all the morning. In the
afternoon we were sent to graze our horses outside the town with a
warning to look out for sniping. As I write I am sitting under a rock,
the reins secured to one of my legs, which accounts for bad writing.
Lindley is below, a mere little village with a few stores, which
nevertheless was for a proud week the capital of the Free State. For
some time past it has been closely besieged by the Boers, and entirely
dependent on one or two armed convoys like ours. The Boers have been
shelling the town most days, and fighting goes on outside nearly every
day. The day before we relieved it the Boers made an effort to take
it, and our Infantry lost heavily. There was a garrison of about a
thousand, I think, before we came. There is nothing eatable to be
bought at any price, and no communication with the outside world,
except by despatch-riders. I was talking yesterday to two Yeomanry
fellows who had escaped from one of the Boer commandos. They had lived
entirely on fresh meat, and were devouring dog-biscuit by our cook's
fire like famished terriers. They said they had been well treated.
_June 30._--Not much rest was allowed us. Reveillé was at 4 A.M., with
orders for our section, under Lieutenant Bailey, to march half-way to
Kroonstadt again, as part of an escort for a return convoy carrying
sick and wounded.
Started at five with Yeomanry, Bushmen, and Buffs, as before, but were
delayed two hours outside town, waiting for some traction-engines,
which puffed asthmatically at the bottom of a drift, unable to get up.
Marched rapidly for sixteen miles (most of the country burnt by veldt
fires), over the same difficult road, and (for a luxury) encamped
while it was still light. Washed in a river with great zest. Fresh
mutton for supper. Turned in with orders for reveillé at 4 A.M. But at
11.30 P.M. we were all awakened by "Come on, get up and harness up."
"Why, what's the time?" "11.30." However, up we got, not knowing why,
tossed on harness, and started straight away back for Lindley,
supposing they were being attacked. It was a hard march over those
detestable drifts, in pitch dark and freezing cold, with one halt only
of ten minutes. The centre driver has a trying time in bad places of
the road, for at steep bits on the down grade, if the wheelers get at
all out of control, he has the pole bearing down on him, either
punching his horses and making them kick, or probing for vulnerable
places in his own person. He has the responsibility of keeping his
traces just so that they are not slack, and yet that the horses are
not in draught and pulling the gun or waggon down. The lead-driver has
to pick the road and, with one eye on the gun just ahead, to judge a
pace which will suit the wheel-driver, who at such moments must have a
fairly free hand. All three live always in a fierce glare of criticism
from the gunners riding behind, who in their nasty moments are apt to
draw abusive comparisons between the relative dangers of shell-fire
and riding on a waggon. By the way, there is always a healthy
antagonism between gunners and drivers. When one class speaks of the
other there is generally an adjective prefixed.
_July 1._--_Sunday._--We marched into camp before dawn blear-eyed and
hungry, to find to our disgust that there was no hurry after all. It
seems an order had been received for the whole Battery to march away
this morning, to join some column or other, so they sent a messenger
to recall us. Meanwhile a countermanding order came to "Stand fast."
So here I am, at 8 A.M., sitting against my harness in the blessed
sunlight, warm, fed, sleepy, and rather irritated. What is going to
happen I don't know. It's no use writing the rumours.
_(Later.)_--A sudden order to harness up. Did so, and were all ready,
when we were told to take it off again. It seems General Clements has
come up near here with a division, and they want to finish off De Wet
at once. A quiet day. I foraged in the town in the afternoon, but got
nothing, though I heard of mealy biscuits at one cottage.
Later on we found a cottage kept by an Englishwoman, who gave us
delicious tea at 6d. a cup, and again in the evening porridge at 6d. a
plate. There was a number of mixed soldiers in there, all packed round
the room, which was dark and smoky, and full also of squalling
children. The way she kept her temper and fed us was wonderful. It is
safe to say that nowadays one can always eat any amount at any time of
day. The service biscuit is the best of its kind, I daresay, but not
very satisfying, and meat is not plentiful. We have never yet been on
full rations. Five is the full number of biscuits. We generally get
three or four. Sometimes the meat-ration is a "Maconochie," which is a
tin of preserved meat and vegetables of a very juicy and fatty nature,
most fascinating when you first know it, but apt to grow tinny and
chemical to the palate.