OURS WAS NO BED OF ROSES
_Kipling's regard for "Tommy Poetry"--Our English as it was
set up by Boer compositors._
"THE FRIEND" was an afternoon paper published at three or four or five
o'clock in the evening, according as the Dutch compositors chose to
get it out. We editors went to our tiny editorial room between nine
and ten o'clock in the morning, and worked until lunch time--one
o'clock--writing, seeing visitors, correcting proofs, and reading
manuscripts. What I have called "seeing visitors" mainly consisted in
turning away private soldiers who came for copies of the paper. Though
we posted notices that ours was the editorial room, and that papers
were to be had at Barlow's stationery shop, "Tommy" would insist upon
coming to us; therefore we gave up a large part of our time to sending
him away, now yelling at him, now bursting into expletives, and anon
pleading most politely that we were neither newsboys nor railway
bookstall keepers.
What I have called "reading manuscripts" was largely the work of
examining the poetry of this same Mr. Atkins, who, fired by the genius
of Mr. Kipling, is sometimes a better poet than you would think,
sometimes a worse poet than you can imagine, but is generally a
poet--of one sort or another.
We had good "Tommy" poets in our ranks; wherefore, when Mr. Kipling
came, he insisted that all soldier poetry should be religiously read,
and the best of it published. He pored over miles of it. At the idea
of re-writing and improving Tommy's verse he was pained, and when Mr.
James Barnes, on one occasion, spent half a day in putting a "Tommy"
poem into Queen's English, Mr. Kipling was righteously indignant, and
spent an hour in getting it back to Tommy's vernacular. But we are
coming to Mr. Kipling presently.
The rest of the time of all except the man who wrote the leader of the
day was spent in correcting the typographical errors of the Dutch
compositors, who, by the way, could make more numerous and more
dreadful mistakes in type than ever an intelligence officer made in
getting news of the enemy. The consequence was that we often took up
the first paper that reached us from the presses, and with a sigh
assured each other that it was almost wholly given up to bad verse and
printers' errors.
At noon during these early days one of us would gather up all the
proofs that we could get from the printers, and march over to Lord
Stanley's office to have them censored. He was so considerate and
liberal that this soon proved a mere formality. I think he must have
regarded the eccentric but interesting journal as a child of his own,
or at least as one whose parentage he would be too polite to dispute
if Lord Roberts claimed it. We used to hear how very much the great
Field Marshal, also, was interested in it; how eagerly he secured his
copy every day, and how much he liked all that it contained. A visitor
at the Residency told us that one afternoon Lord Roberts saw an
officer reading THE FRIEND, and called to one of his staff: "I see a
man in there reading THE FRIEND. How is it I have not had my copy?"
The officer's paper proved to be a copy of an earlier number, so that
the Field Marshal's wounded pride was healed. But we liked that story;
we liked it very much indeed.
Our fifth number, published on March 21st, began with Mr. Gwynne's
hearty leader on Rudyard Kipling, who was expected to reach
Bloemfontein on that day. Mr. Gwynne also wrote one of his
characteristic satirical articles on "The Soberest Army in the World."
Mr. Landon contributed a lively and picturesque narrative of the
principal feat our despatch riders had performed up to that time, and
I perpetrated a modest bit of reporting on South Africa's
attractions--an article of greater interest here and now than it was
then and for our army readers.
We had made it known that private soldiers would be charged only a
penny for the paper, the original threepence being demanded solely of
officers. In this way we hoped to earn a greater profit than by
shutting out of our trade the humble private, to whom a threepence (a
"ticky," as it is called in Africa) sometimes appears as big as a
cart-wheel. But our new plan brought us a lot of trouble--especially
of the kind you feel when you know you are being done out of something
and yet cannot help yourself. The fact was that the officers encamped
at a distance sent in their servants for their papers, and these
messengers, being privates, only paid a penny for each paper. Then,
again, the officers were dressed so nearly like the men that the
newsboys and assistants in Barlow's shop could not distinguish them
apart, and charged many of the officers the penny of the private. This
annoyed us, because we were intent upon making as much money as
possible in order to turn over a handsome sum to a soldier charity
when we should end our stewardship--for not a penny did we mean to
keep for ourselves. Mr. Landon wrote a strenuous appeal to the
officers to help us to get our just dues. To the same paper Mr. A. B.
Paterson, of the _Sydney Herald_, contributed a very clever bit of
verse, entitled, "Fed up." He was one of the contributors of whom we
were most proud--and justly so.
In this day's paper there were seventeen notices of horses
lost--presumably stolen, but a close scrutiny of all horseflesh was in
progress, and in the same column with the wails of the robbed was a
notice of the recovery of twenty-one horses--none of them being the
same as any of the lost that were advertised for. The Provost-Marshal,
Major R. M. Poore, on this day announced that every native with a
horse must carry a certificate proving that the animal was his own. He
also declared that every person possessing any property of the Orange
Free State Government--horses, mules, oxen, or anything else--must
quickly hand it up.
Lord Roberts reviewed the Naval Brigade on the preceding day, and we
had a report of it showing how splendidly Captain Bearcroft's command
appeared. The late Admiral Maxse, out there on a visit, witnessed the
review, and said that it was the first one he had attended since the
Crimea, when he acted as naval A.D.C. to Lord Raglan. This review gave
us all one of our rare chances of seeing Lord Roberts, for he went out
but little, and even at such times hurried directly to his
destination, returning with as little loss of time. Every man, of
every rank, saluted him, and he was scrupulously careful to return the
salute even of the bugler boys. It was said to be surprising to note
how many men he knew of all ranks, and how watchful and observant he
was. "You managed that very cleverly," he would say to a man in
conflict with unruly horses; or he would reprove a soldier for
untidiness in dress. Nothing escaped his restless eyes.
He wore no decorations of any kind, and I have even heard it said that
not every coat of his was decked with gilt buttons--though this I
repeat only upon hearsay. I can testify, however, that no man more
modest and making less of his rank was in his army. I always saw him
in plain khaki with that badge of mourning upon one sleeve which gave
us all a keener thrust in our emotions than even the hardest felt
losses of comrades and acquaintances which befell us all so
frequently.
* * * * *
THE FRIEND.
(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)
BLOEMFONTEIN, MARCH 21, 1900.
RUDYARD KIPLING.
EDITORIAL BY H. A. GWYNNE.
To-day we expect to welcome here in our camp the great poet and
writer, who has contributed more than any one perhaps towards the
consolidation of the British Empire. His visit is singularly
appropriate. He will find encamped round the town not only his friend
Tommy Atkins, but the Australian, the Canadian, the New Zealander, the
Tasmanian, the volunteer from Ceylon, from Argentine, and from every
quarter of the globe. He will see the man of the soil--the South
African Britisher--side by side with his fellow colonist from over the
seas. In fact, Bloemfontein will present to him the actual physical
fulfilment of what must be one of his dearest hopes--the close union
of the various parts of the greatest Empire in the world. His visit,
therefore, will have in it something of the triumph of a conqueror--a
conqueror who, with the force of genius, has swept away barriers of
distance and boundary, and made a fifth of the globe British, not only
in title, but in real sentiment.
We, belonging to that portion of the Press to which is assigned the
duty of witnessing and chronicling the deeds which make history,
extend to the illustrious writer a welcome, sincere and whole-hearted.
We feel, all of us, that his brush alone can do complete justice to
the wonderful pictures of war which we have been privileged to see.
We, who have been with Tommy Atkins on many a hard campaign, have long
ago come to love him for his quiet, unostentatious courage and his
patient endurance of hardships; but we feel that Mr. Kipling alone can
translate to the world the true inwardness of Tommy's character. We
feel sure that the Mulvaneys, the Learoyds, and the Ortherises will
welcome him as heartily as we do, and we are hopeful that this fresh
meeting of Tommy Atkins and perhaps the only man who rightly
understands him, will be productive of fresh pictures of the British
soldier.
* * * * *
THE SOBEREST ARMY IN THE WORLD.
BY H. A. GWYNNE.
The force which, under the command of Field-Marshal Lord Roberts, left
Enslin and occupied Bloemfontein will undoubtedly be known in history
as the "Sober Army." Never before in the history of campaigning has
there been known such an absence of excess in the way of drinking--and
eating too, as far as that is concerned. Some people have dared to
cast aspersions on the British army by insinuating that drunkenness is
not unknown among its members. They have even gone further and
declared that officers and men are very fond of their "tot" or their
"pint" or their whisky and soda. I only wish some of these
calumniators could have accompanied Lord Roberts' force. They would
have recanted on the spot, and returned home convinced that the
British army was not only the finest but the soberest in the world.
Their excessive sobriety and wonderful self-restraint in the face of
temptation rather tempts one to delve deep down for the psychological
reasons. I have myself made inquiries, but I must confess that I am at
a loss for a real reason. My firm belief is that the British soldier
is so actuated by a deep sense of duty that, having come to the
conclusion that hard drinking and hard fighting were incompatible, he
promptly dropped the former and devoted all his energies to the
latter. It would have been expected that at the end of a long, dusty
march the men would have, immediately after being dismissed, made a
rush for the canteen. Nothing of the sort. They sat down to tea and
coffee and left the canteen waiters kicking their heels doing
nothing. It is true one or two soldiers have told me that they
couldn't find the canteen; but the majority of the men chose, of their
own free will, to ignore its existence, and actually never looked for
it. But this noble continence, this splendid self-restraint has been
very nearly spoilt by the folly and wickedness of some of the
authorities. They actually issued rum to the men at intervals. Now one
of Tommy's greatest virtues is obedience. He was ordered to drink rum
and he did it--just as he advanced against a kopje spitting forth lead
when he was ordered. But the task of swallowing the hateful stuff was
distasteful in the extreme. I have seen him take his mug and get his
tot and then look at his officer as much as to say, "Must I really
take it?" The officer's answering glance was invariably a command
which poor Tommy could not disobey, and he tossed off the liquor with
one gulp to get it over all the quicker, and then held his mug upside
down to show he had done the deed.
One would have thought, indeed, that this wonderful self-restraint
would be destroyed in the wild rush of joy with which the army was
filled the night that Cronje surrendered. Not a bit of it. The men
lying on the soaking ground never touched a drop of alcohol, although
many would say that the victory of our arms deserved an alcoholic
celebration. But that night the canteens were as deserted as ever. One
man, and one man only, fell. He was an officer's servant, and was
discovered gloriously happy, delightedly drunk. His comrades kept
hitting and punching him and asking him where he had found the liquor,
it evidently being their firm intention to destroy it. He refused,
however, to answer a word until his master found him and, seizing him
by the shoulder, shook him, and exclaimed with eager face, "Good
Heavens, Jones, where the devil did you get it?" And Jones answered
drunkenly to an eager crowd of expectant officers and men, "Meth'lated
Shpirits, Shir. I'sh found it in waggon."
Whereupon ten eager voices asked--
"Is there any left?"
"No; finished whole blooming lotsh."
And then his comrades gently kicked him for a cur.
* * * * *
CORRESPONDENCE.
_To the Editors of_ "THE FRIEND,"--GENTLEMEN,--I have read with much
of interest one article in one of your last issues touching the steal
at the horses.
As a veteran of the war of 1870, I think that this would be of
interest towards much of your abonnes if I should write some words of
my proper experiences.
It appears by the article in the number of THE FRIEND of the 19th that
the writer desires to carry to the observation of those who themselves
find in authority, that by their proper negligence he has been forced
to become that which you other English call jail-bird.
Now I have made the war of 1870. I was dragon. I have suffered the
same privations and I have smelt the same difficulties on the question
of horses, but never I not have failed of myself to find without horse
of war. This without myself to boast.
I not desire to blame the author of this article praiseworthy, who, as
he appears to wish to himself efface, in myself offering as
counsellor, but since, as to myself seems that he wishes to hold one
sale of his animals that it is all this that he has of most imbecile
of to announce on the roofs his crime.
An officer of dragons in 1870, I was having at the month of the June
twenty horses of the first quality, grand, strong, majestic animals,
worthy of to carry one officer of dragons in battle against those
canailles of Prussians.
At the month of September after Sedan he not me was remaining nothing,
and I not was having not even the means of me to save in Belgium.
What to do!--Officer French not is able not to render himself. Ah! not
know I not the anguish of himself to find without horse. What have I
done? To steal, no! This was indignant of officer. To buy, no! I of it
not was having not of what. I was aperceiving in the distance one
horse of officer of the Estate Major. This was the horse of my poor
friend Gu-gu, evidently killed or gravely blessed. If if not, why not
was he not, the brave gar, mounted on his horse, directing the flight?
In one instant I myself was launched thereon without hesitation. To
save the horse favourite of my poor friend dead Gu-gu was my first
thought. In rending to his corpse this little service I was rending to
my patrie one service again more grand. I myself was reserving for one
death more epouvantable. Then, since that he is possible of to find
the horses of friends blessed, for what himself to submit at the
stigma of to be accused of to be thief. More late, when one wishes to
sell the horses, one himself finds in face of one difficulty
inextricable, if the proper proprietor himself finds upon the market.
Gu-gu I have found more late in Paris, it is true, but we have eaten
the good horse together like good comrades.
Agree my compliments most respected,
M. VOL AU VENT.
(The Editors, for obvious reasons, divest themselves of any
responsibility for the opinions held by our distinguished Gallic
friend.)
* * * * *
"FED UP!"
_The Cavalryman's Growl._
BY A. B. PATERSON.
I ain't a timid man at all, I'm just as brave as most;
I'll take my turn in open fight and die beside my post.
But riding round the whole day long as target for a Krupp,
A-drawing fire from koppies--well, I'm quite Fed Up!
There's not so many men get hit--it's luck that pulls us through,
Their rifle fire's no class at all--it misses me and you;
But when they sprinkle shells around like water from a cup
From that there bloomin' pom-pom gun--well, I'm Fed Up!
We never gets a chance to charge--to do a thrust and cut--
think I'll chuck the Cavalry and join the Mounted Fut.
But, after all, what's Mounted Fut? I saw them t'other day,
They occupied a koppie when the Boers had run away.
The Cavalry went ridin' on, and seen a score of fights,
But there they stuck, those Mounted Fut, for seven days and nights--
For seven solid days and nights--with scarce a bite or sup,
So when it comes to Mounted Fut--well, I'm Filled Up.
And trampin' with the Footies ain't as pleasant as it looks--
They scarcely ever sees a Boer, except in picture books.
They make a march of twenty mile, which leaves 'em nearly dead,
And then they find the bloomin' Boers is twenty mile ahead!
Each "Footy" is as full of fight as any bulldog pup,
But walking forty miles to fight--well, I'm Fed Up!
So, after all, I think that when I leave the Caval-ree
I'll have to join the Ambulance, or else the A.S.C.
There's always tucker in the plate and coffee in the cup;
But bully beef and biscuits--well, I'm fair Fed Up!
* * * * *
MISS BLOEMFONTEIN.
There appears to be some general misapprehension as to the
authenticity of the letter written by "Miss Bloemfontein" in our
issue of yesterday. The Editors wish to state that the communication
in question was written by a lady, a member of a well-known family in
this city, and undoubtedly reflects with wit and frankness the feeling
of many of those to whom the abandonment of this place to the British
forces has been a bitter disappointment.
* * * * *
THE GREAT RIDE.
BY PERCEVAL LANDON.
The newspapers of the world published a notice of the surrender of
Bloemfontein on the evening of Thursday, March 15th.
The Boers had wrecked the telegraph line to the south of the town; to
the west the field telegraph was useless; yet perhaps not one reader
in ten millions stayed a moment to wonder how the news had reached
them.
When Lord Roberts left Doornboom the entire expedition was _en
l'aire_. Telegraphic communication was at the mercy of the passing ox
or the malicious passer-by, rain and wind were almost equally
destructive, and the inevitable breakdown occurred. The wire, aerial
or earth-borne, was useless in forty-eight hours, and, so far as outer
communication was concerned, Bloemfontein and all around and within it
might have been Tristan d'Acunha.
But the London papers published the full account of the surrender on
the second day after the capitulation.
The manner in which news was sent to the English papers may perhaps
be of interest. It must be remembered that there was then no
communication with the south. It was impossible to pick up the cut
wire north of Norval's Pont. The line from Kimberley to Boshof lies,
even as we write, in a cat's cradle on the veldt. There was no
option--the telegrams must be sent through Kimberley and by despatch
riders.
Perhaps it is truer to say that one or two London papers did so, for a
certain number relied--and with justice--on the recuperative powers of
Captain Faussett and his myrmidons of the wire.
To ride a hundred miles across the veldt against time, and against at
least two other competing riders, through the enemy's country, and at
a moment's notice, is not the least exciting occupation that can be
chosen by a light-weight searching for a new sensation.
It combines the certainty of hardship and discomfort with the
possibility of being shot; and over and above all is the pressing need
of saving every minute of time.
Three despatch riders set out from Bloemfontein during the evening of
Tuesday or the earliest dawn of Wednesday. First in order of starting
was the _Times_ messenger, second that of Reuter's Agency, third came
the "angelos" of the _Daily Mail_.
From Bloemfontein to Kimberley is, as we have said, a distance of a
hundred miles. It is best understood by a Londoner by suggesting the
comparison that he should be compelled to ride to Hereford every time
he wished to despatch a telegram.
Out from the isolated city the messengers went, making their way in
the darkness or in the dawn over the red slushing tracks that had
suffered the steady downpour of the night's rain, till, by whichever
road they had moved out of Bloemfontein, they met at the battle-ground
of Driefontein.
From that point onwards the struggle became keen, and the breakdown of
a horse meant a delay that might perhaps be reckoned in days rather
than hours. The public that glances casually at the telegrams of their
morning papers does not often realise the importance of a few minutes
to the correspondents whose work they are reading. In this case,
besides the ordinary delay, the lonely riders that were making way
across the veldt had to spur them on the risk of finding the Field
Telegraph repaired before they could reach the Diamond City, and the
cable blocked with messages sent over their heads from Bloemfontein.
Early in the great race the _Times_ rider met with disaster. The horse
he rode fell, and, though the injury seemed slight enough at the time,
never properly recovered itself, causing a delay of some hours before
the next relay could be reached.
But the _Daily Mail_ was still more unlucky. Starting last of all, the
well-known light-weight who carried the fortunes of the "largest
circulation of this earth" made his way forward through the fading
light of Wednesday, gaining rapidly on his predecessors, and,
confident in the excellent provision made for him, was getting out of
his mount the last pound of pace, when a cut corner flung him against
a barbed wire fence, which so terribly lacerated his leg that further
riding was out of the question.
Binding up his scratches as best he might, he found himself compelled
to walk back thirty-five miles to Bloemfontein, unable to ride, and at
the journey's end almost unable to stand.
So the _Times_ and Reuter--each armed with a duplicate despatch from
the Commander-in-Chief--were left to compete for the contingent
advantage of getting first into Kimberley.
And now was done a notable achievement. Browning, in his poem, "How we
brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," has chosen, by an odd
accident, exactly the distance which divides Kimberley from
Bloemfontein; but we can rest assured that the "good news" of the
capture of the Boer capital sped on as fast as ever went the news
across the flat plains of Flanders.
Over the grey sage-brush of the veldt, over the high, dry grass, under
the rare shade of poplar trees, where the horse was watered, along the
red crumbling road or the mere beaten wheel track where a thousand
waggons and twenty thousand animals had worn a temporary track, the
hurrying hoof of the courier's mount lessened the long distance
between the capital of the O.F.S. and the end of that wire of which
the other lies in the capital of the world.
In the afternoon of Wednesday three bullets whistled past the rider of
the Agency, and the newspaper's courier had a similar experience at
the same spot as he passed a little later.
It soon became obvious that there was no possibility of getting into
Kimberley in time to send the despatches before the office closed for
the day, and the _Times_ despatch rider took the latter stages of the
journey more easily. Reuter's man,[1] however, continued his ride at
his utmost speed, and actually achieved what will long remain a
record, travelling the entire distance on three horses in twenty hours
and twenty minutes.
[Footnote 1: Gilbert H. Stevens.]
The need for such lengthy despatch riding luckily seldom occurs, as
the expense is one of the heaviest items that can be incurred by
newspaper representatives on behalf of their papers; only in the very
exceptional circumstances in which the war correspondents found
themselves at the capture of Bloemfontein would the enormous
expenditure be justified.
[Illustration: Who the deuce set this hash up. Find out. RK Proper
names ought to be capped throughout but it's no use with this staff.
FABLES FOR THE STAFF.
THE ELEPHO[A]NT AND THE LARK'S NEST.
A discriminating b[B]oer having laid a nestful of valuable and
infy[o]rming eggs, fled across the horizon under pressure of necessity
ler[a]ving his nest in a secli[u]ded spot where it was discovered
by a disinterested observed[r] who reported the same to an
i[I]ntee[l]liga[e]nce o[O]fficer. The latter arriving at his leisure
with a great pomposite[]y said "s[S]ee me hatch![;]" A[a]nd sitting down
without reserve convo[e]rted the entire output into i[a]n unnecessaru[y]
omelette. After the mess was removed, the disinterested obso[e]rver
observed:--"h[H]ad you approached this matter in anu[o]ther spirit you
might hu[a]ve obtained valuable information." "That," [quote] replied
the i[I]ntelligence o[O]fficer, "sho[ow]s your ne[a]rrow-minded
prejudice. Besides I am morally certain that those eggs co[a]me out of a
my[a]re's nest." "It is now too late to enquire" said the disinterested
observer, "i[a]nd that is a pity." "But am I not an intelligent
officer?" S[s]u[a]id the i[I]ntelligence o[O]fficer. "Of that there can
be no twe[o] opinions," said the disinterested observer. Whereupon he
was sent down.
Moral. _Do not teach the i[I]ntelligence to hatch [suck] eggs_
_A Corrected "Proof" by Rudyard Kipling._
(_Giving a glimpse of the struggle between the editors and the Dutch
compositors._)]