Ladysmith Part 11

Lieutenant Haag, 18th Hussars, kept apologising to the man next him for using his legs as a pillow. At dawn he found the man was a Rifleman long dead, his head in a puddle of blood, his stiff arms raised to the sky.

Many such things happened. Under the storm of fire it had been impossible to recover all the wounded before dark. Some lay out fully twenty-four hours without help, or food, or drink. One of the Light Horse was used by a Boer as a rest for his rifle. When I reached Waggon Hill about nine this morning the last of the wounded were being brought down. Nearly all the Light Horse dead (twenty of them) had been taken away separately, but at the foot of the hill lay a row of the Gordons, b.l.o.o.d.y and stiff, their Major, Miller-Wallnutt, at their head, conspicuous by his size. The bodies of the Rifles were being collected.

Some still lay curled up and twisted among the dripping rocks. Slowly the waggons were packed and sent off to the place of burial.

The broad path up the hill and the tracks along the top were stained with blood. It lay in sticky pools, which even the rain could not wash out. It was easy to see where the dead had fallen. Most had lain behind some rock to fire and there met their end. On the summit some Kaffirs were skinning eight oxen which had been spanned to the "Lady Anne's"

platform, and stood immovable during the fight. Four had been shot in the action, the others had just been killed as rations. Pa.s.sing to the further edge where the Boers crept up I saw a Boer ambulance and an ox-waggon waiting. Bearded Boers in their slouch hats stood round them with an English doctor from Harrismith, commandeered to serve. Our men were carrying the Boer wounded and dead down the steep slope. The dead were laid out in line, and put in the ox-waggon. At that time there were seventeen of them waiting, but eight others were still on the hill, and I found them where they fell. Most were grey-bearded men, rough old farmers, with wrinkled and kindly faces, hardened by a grand life in sun and weather. They were dressed in flannel shirts, rough old jackets of brown cloth, rough trousers with braces, weather-stained slouch hats, and every variety of boot. Only a few had socks. Some wore the yellow "veldt-shoes," some were bare-footed; their boots had probably been taken. They lay in their blood, their glazed blue eyes looking over the rocks or up to the sky, their ashen hands half-clenched, their teeth yellow between their pale blue lips.

Beside the outer wall of "Lady Anne's" sangar, his head resting on its stones, lay a white-bearded man, poorly dressed, but refined in face. It was De Villiers, the commandant of the Harrismith district--a relation, a brother perhaps, of the Chief Justice De Villiers, who entertained me at Bloemfontein less than four months ago. Across his body lay that of a much younger man, with a short brown beard. He is thought to have been one of the old man's field cornets, and had fought up to the sangar at his side till a bullet pierced his eye and brain.

Turning back from the extremity of our position, I went along the whole ridge. The ground told one as much as men could tell. Among the rocks lay blood-stained English helmets and Dutch hats; piles of English and Dutch cartridge-cases, often mixed together in places which both sides had occupied; sc.r.a.ps of biltong and leather belts; handkerchiefs, socks, pieces of letters, chiefly in Dutch; dropped ball cartridges of every model--Lee-Metford, Mauser, Martini, and Austrian. I found a few hollow-nosed bullets, too, expanding like the Dum-Dum. The effect of such a bullet was seen on the hat of some poor fellow in the Light Horse. There was a tiny hole on one side, but the further side was all rent to pieces. I hear some "express" sporting bullets have also been taken to the Intelligence Office, but I have not seen them. Beside one Boer was found one of the old Martini rifles taken from the 52nd at Majuba.

On the top of Caesar's Camp our dead were laid out for burial--Manchesters, Gordons, and Rifle Brigade together. The Boers turned an automatic Maxim on the burying party, thinking they were digging earthworks. In the wooded valley at the foot of the hill they themselves, under Geneva flags, were searching the bushes and dongas for their own dead, and disturbing the little wild deer beside the stream. On the summit parties of our own men were still engaged unwillingly in finding the Boer dead and carrying them down the cliff.

Just at the edge of the summit, to which he had climbed in triumph, lay the body of a man about twenty. A sh.e.l.l had almost cut him in half....

Only his face and his hands were untouched. Like most of the dead he had the blue eyes and light hair of the well-bred Boer. When first he was found, his father's body lay beside him, shattered also, but not so horribly. They were identified by letters from home in their pockets.

CHAPTER XVII

A PAUSE AND A RENEWAL

_January 8, 1900._

All was ready to receive another attack, but the Boers made no sign beyond the usual bombardment. One of the wounded--a Harrismith man--says there is a strong party in favour of peace, men who want to get back to their farms and their families. We have heard that tale before, but still, here the Boers are fighting for freedom and existence if ever men did.

To-day's bombardment nearly destroyed the tents and dhoolies of our field hospital, but did little else save beheading and mangling some corpses. The troops were changed about a good deal, half the K.R.R.

being sent to the old Devon post on Helpmakaar road; half the Liverpools to King's Post, and the Rifle Brigade to Waggon Hill.

At night there was a thanksgiving service in the Anglican Church. I ought to have mentioned earlier that on the night before the attack the Dutch held a solemn supplication, calling on G.o.d to bless their efforts.

_January 9, 1900._

One long blank of drenching rain unrelieved by sh.e.l.ls, till at sunset a stormy light broke in the west, and a few shots were fired.

_January 10, 1900._

In the night the authorities expected an attack on Observation Hill.

They hurried out two guns of the 69th Battery to a position outside King's Post. The guns were dragged through the heavy slush, but when they arrived it was found no guns could live in such a place, fully exposed to all fire, and unsupported by infantry. So back came the weary men and horses through the slush again, getting to their camp between 2 and 3 a.m.

At intervals in the night the two mountain guns on Observation Hill kept firing star-sh.e.l.l to reveal any possible attack. But none came, and the rest of the day was very quiet. My time was occupied in getting off a brief heliogram, and sending out another Kaffir with news of Sat.u.r.day's defence. Two have been driven back. The Boers now stretch wires with bells across the paths, and it goes hard with any runner caught.

_January 11, 1900._

The enemy was ominously quiet. Bulwan did not fire all day. From King's Post, whilst visiting the new fortifications and the guns in their new positions all about it, I watched the Boers dragging two field guns hastily southward along the western track, perhaps to Springfield Drift, over the Tugela. Then a large body--500 or 600--galloped hurriedly in the same direction.

A sadness was thrown over the day by Lord Ava's death early in the afternoon. If he could have recovered the doctors say he would have been paralysed or have lost his memory. He was the best type of Englishman--Irish-English, if you will--excellently made, delighting in his strength and all kinds of sport, his eye full of light, his voice singularly beautiful and attractive. His courage was extraordinary, and did not come of ignorance. At Elands Laagte I saw him with a rifle fighting side by side with the Gordons. He went through the battle in their firing line, but he told me afterwards that the horror of the field had sickened him of war. In manner he was peculiarly frank and courteous. I can imagine no one speaking ill of him. His best epitaph perhaps is the saying of the Irish sergeant's which I have already quoted.

The ration of sugar was increased by one ounce to-day, the mealies by two ounces, so as to give the men porridge in the morning. For a fortnight past all the milk has been under military control, and can only be obtained on a doctor's certificate. We began eating trek-oxen three days ago. Some battalions prefer horse-flesh, and get it.

Dysentery and enteric are as bad as ever, but do not increase in proportion to the length of siege. There are 1,700 soldiers at Intombi sick camp now. A great many horses die every day, but not of the "horse-sickness." Their bodies are thrown on waste ground along the Helpmakaar road, and poison the air for the Liverpools and Rifles there.

To-night the varied smell all over the town is hardly endurable.

_January 12, 1900._

A quiet day again. Hardly a gun was fired. Wild rumours flew--the Boers were trekking north in crowds--they were moving the gun on Bulwan--all lies!

I spent the whole day trying to induce a Kaffir to risk his life for 15. A Kaffir lives on mealie-pap, varied by an occasional cow's head.

He drinks nothing but slightly fermented barley-water. Yet he will not risk death for 15! After four false starts, my message remains where it was. The last Kaffir who tried to get through the Boers with it was shot in the thigh by our pickets as he was returning. That does not encourage the rest.

_January 13, 1900._

Between seven and eight in the morning the Bulwan gun hurled three sh.e.l.ls into our midst, and repeated the exploit in the afternoon. But somehow he seemed to have lost form. He was not the Puffing Billy whom we knew. We greeted him as one greets an enemy who has come down in the world--with considerate indulgence. The sailors think that his carriage is strained.

A British heliograph began flashing to us from Schwarz Kop, a hill only one and a half miles over Potgieter's or Springfield Drift on the Tugela. It is that way we have always expected Buller's main advance.

Can this be the herald of it? Most of us have agreed never to mention the word "Buller," but it is hard to keep that pledge.

In the afternoon I was able to accompany Colonel Stoneman (A.S.C.) over the scene of battle on Caesar's Camp. His duties in organising the food supply keep him so tied to his office--one of the best sh.e.l.led places in the town--that he has never been up there before. All was quiet--the mountains silent in the sunset. The Boers had been moving steadily westward and south. They had taken some of their guns on carts covered with brushwood. We had not more than half a dozen shots fired at us all round that ridge which had blazed with death a week ago. In his tent on the summit we found General Ian Hamilton. It was to his energy and personal knowledge of his men that last Sat.u.r.day's success was ultimately due. Not a day pa.s.ses but he visits every point in his brigade's defences.

All in camp were saddened by the condition of Mr. Steevens, of the _Daily Mail_. Yesterday he was convalescent. To-day his life hangs by a thread. That is the way of enteric.

_Sunday, January 14, 1900._

Absolute silence still from the Tugela. On a low black hill beyond its banks I could see the British heliograph flashing. On a spur beside it I was told a British outpost was stationed. In the afternoon we thought we heard guns again, but it was only thunder. With a telescope on Observation Hill I saw the Boers riding about their camps. On the Great Plain they were digging long trenches and stretching barbed wire entanglements. To-day all was peaceful. The sun set amid crimson thunder-clouds behind the Drakensberg; there was no sign of war save the whistle of a persistent sniper's bullet over my head. Our weather-beaten soldiers were trying to make themselves comfortable for the night in their little heaps of stones.

_January 15, 1900._

This is the day I had fixed upon long ago for our relief. There were rumours of fighting by the Tugela, and some said they had seen squadrons of our cavalry and even Staff officers galloping on the further limits of the Great Plain. But beyond the wish, there is no need to believe what they said.

In the morning Steevens, of the _Daily Mail_, was so much worse that we sent off a warning message to Mrs. Steevens by heliograph. At least I climbed to all the new signal stations in turn, trying to get it sent, but found the instruments full up with official despatches. Major Donegan (R.A.M.C.) was called in to consult with Major Davis, of the Imperial Light Horse, who has treated the case with the utmost patience and skill. Strychnine was injected, and about noon we recovered hope. A galloper was sent to stop the message, and succeeded. Steevens became conscious for a time, and Maud, of the _Graphic_, explained to him that now it was a fight for life. "All right," he answered, "let's have a drink, then." Some champagne was given him, and he seemed better. When warned against talking, he said, "Well, you are in command. I'll do what you like. We are going to pull through." Maud then went to sleep at last, and between four and five Steevens pa.s.sed quietly from sleep into death.

Everything that could possibly be done for him had been done. For five weeks Maud had nursed him with a devotion that no woman could surpa.s.s.

Two days ago we thought him almost well. He talked of what it would be best to do when the siege was raised, so as to complete his recovery.

And now he is dead. He was only thirty. What is to most distinguished men the best part of life was still before him. In eight working years he had already made a name known to all the Army and to thousands beyond its limits. Beyond question he had the touch of genius. The individuality of his power perhaps lay in a clear perception transfused with an imaginative wit that never failed him. The promise of that genius was not fulfilled, but it was felt in all he said and wrote. And beyond this power of mind he possessed the attractiveness of courtesy and straightforward dealing. No one ever knew him descend to the tricks and dodges of the trade. There was not a touch of "smartness" in his disposition. On the field he was too reckless of his life. I saw him often during the fighting at Elands Laagte, Tinta Inyoni, and Lombard's Kop. He was usually walking about close to the firing line, leading his grey horse, a conspicuous mark for every bullet. Veteran officers used to marvel that he was not hit. In the midst of it all he would stand quite unconcerned, and speak in his usual voice--slow, trenchant, restrained by a cynicism that came partly from youth and an English horror of fuss. How different from the voice of unconsciousness which I heard raving in his room only this morning!

To-night we buried him. The coffin was not ready till half-past eleven.

All the London correspondents came, and a few officers, Colonel Stoneman (A.S.C.) and Major Henderson, of the Intelligence Department, representing the Staff. Many more would have come, but nearly the whole garrison was warned for duty. About twenty-five of us, all mounted, followed the little gla.s.s hea.r.s.e with its black and white embellishments. The few soldiers and sentries whom we pa.s.sed halted and gave the last salute. There was a full moon, covered with clouds, that let the light through at their misty edges. A soft rain fell as we lowered the coffin by thin ropes into the grave. The Boer searchlight on Bulwan was sweeping the half circle of the English defences from end to end, and now and then it opened its full white eye upon us, as though the enemy wondered what we were doing there. We were laying to rest a man of a.s.sured, though unaccomplished genius, whose heart had still been full of hopes and generosity. One who had not lost the affections and charm of youth, nor been dulled either by success or disappointment.

"From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure; and now can never mourn A heart grown old, a head grown grey, in vain-- Nor when the spirit's self has ceased to burn With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn."

_January 16, 1900_.