Ladysmith Part 15

_February 25, 1900._

Nearly all the patients who have pa.s.sed through the field hospital during the fortnight have been poor fellows shot by snipers in arms or legs. Except when their wounds are being dressed, they lie absolutely quiet, sleeping, or staring into vacancy. They hardly ever speak a word, though the beds are only a foot apart. On my left is the fragment of the sergeant gunner whom I took for a drive. His misfortunes and his cheerful indifference to them make him a man of social importance. He shows with regret how the sh.e.l.l cut in half a marvellous little Burmese lady, whose robes once swept down his arm in glorious blues and reds, but are now lapped over the bone as "flaps."

Another patient was a s.h.a.ggy, one-eyed old man, between whose feet a Bulwan sh.e.l.l exploded one afternoon as he was walking down the main street. Beyond the shock he was not very seriously hurt, but his calves were torn by iron and stones. He said he was the one survivor of the first English ship that sailed from the Cape with settlers for Natal. He was certainly very old.

On the night of the 22nd a man was brought into the hospital where I lay--also attacked by sunstroke--his temperature 107 degrees, and all consciousness happily gone. It was Captain Walker, the clever Irish surgeon, who has served the Gordons through the siege as no other regiment has been served, making their bill of health the best, and their lines a pleasure to visit. His skill, especially in dysentery, was looked to by many outside the Gordons themselves. Nothing could save him. He was packed in cold sheets, fanned, and watched day and night.

For a few moments he knew me, and reminded me of a story we had laughed over. But yesterday evening, after struggling long for each breath, he died--one of the best and most useful men in camp.

If it was fated that I should be laid up for a fortnight or more of the siege it seems that this was about the best time fate could choose. From all the long string of officers, men, telegraph clerks, and civilians, who, with unceasing kindliness have pa.s.sed beside my bed bringing news and cheering me up, I have heard but one impression, that this has been the dullest and deadliest fortnight of the siege. There has been no attack, no very serious expectation of Buller's arrival. The usual bombardment has gone wearily on. Sometimes six or seven big sh.e.l.ls have thundered so close to this little chapel, that the special kind of torture to which I was being subjected had for a time to be interrupted.

Really nothing worthy of note has happened, except the building by the Boers of an incomprehensible work beside the Klip at the foot of Bulwan.

About 300 Kaffirs labour at it, with Boer superintendents. It is apparently a dam to stop the river and flood out the town. No doubt it is the result of that German specialist's arrival, of which we heard.

On coming to my first bit of bread to-day I found it uneatable. In the fortnight it has degenerated simply to ground mealies of maize--just the same mixture of grit and sticky dough as the peasants in Pindus starve upon. Even this--enough in itself to inflame any English stomach--is reduced to 1/2 lb. a day. As I stood at the gate this afternoon taking my first breath of air, I watched the weak-kneed, lantern-jawed soldiers going round from house to house begging in vain for anything to eat. Yet they say the health of the camp as a whole has improved. This they attribute to chevril.

During my illness, though I cannot fix the exact day, one of the saddest incidents of the siege has happened. My friend Major Doveton, of the Imperial Light Horse, a middle-aged professional man from Johannesburg, who had joined simply from patriotism, was badly wounded in the arm in the great attack of the 6th. Mrs. Doveton applied to Joubert for leave to cross the Boer lines to see her husband, and bring medical appliances and food. The leave was granted, and she came. But amputation was decided upon, and the poor fellow died from the shock. He was a fine soldier, as modest as brave. Often have I seen him out on the hillside with his men, quietly sharing in all their hardships and privations. I don't know why the incident of his wife's pa.s.sage through the enemy's lines should make his death seem sadder. But it does. On Sat.u.r.day night I drove away from the hospital in my cart, though still in great pain and hardly able to stand. I was unable to endure the depression of all the hospital sights and sounds and smells any longer. Perhaps the worst of all is the want of silence and darkness at night. The fever and pain both began to abate directly I got home to my old Scot.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL RT. HON. SIR REDVERS HENRY BULLER, V.C., G.C.B., K.C.M.G., K.C.B.]

CHAPTER XXI

RELIEVED AT LAST

_Tuesday, February 27, 1900._

This is Majuba Day, and in the afternoon the garrison was cheered by the news that Roberts had surrounded Cronje and compelled him to surrender.

For ourselves, relief seems as far off as ever, though it is said sh.e.l.ls were seen bursting not far beyond Intombi Camp. The bread rations are cut down again to half, after a few days' rise; though, indeed, they can hardly be called bread rations, for the maize bread was so uneatable that none is made now. The ration is biscuits and three ounces of mealie meal for porridge.

Towards evening I went for my first drive through old familiar scenes that have come to look quite different now. The long drought has turned the country brown, and it is all the barer for the immense amount of firewood that has been cut. It was decided about a week ago not to issue any more horse as rations till the very last of the oxen had been killed.

_February 28, 1900._

From early morning it was evident that the Boers were much disturbed in mind. Line after line of waggons with loose strings of mounted men kept moving from the direction of the Tugela heights above Colenso, steadily westward, across the top of Long Valley, past the foot of Hussar Hill, out into the main road along the Great Plain, over the Sandspruit Drift at the foot of Telegraph Hill, and so to the branching of the roads which might lead either to the Free State pa.s.ses or to Pepworth Hill and the railway to the north. All day the procession went on. However incredible it seemed, it was evident that the "Great Trek" had begun at last.

Soon after midday a heliogram came through from Buller, saying he had severely defeated the enemy yesterday, and believed them to be in full retreat. Better still, about three the Naval guns on Cove Redoubt and Caesar's Camp (whither "Lady Anne" was removed three days ago) opened fire in rapid succession on the great Bulwan gun. The Boers were evidently removing him. They had struck a "shearlegs" or derrick upon the parapet. One of our first shots brought the whole machinery down, and all through the firing of the Naval guns was excellent.

About six I had driven out (being still enfeebled with fever) to King's Post, to see the tail-end of the Boer waggons disappear. On returning I found all the world running for all they were worth to the lower end of the High-street and shouting wildly. The cause was soon evident. Riding up just past the Anglican Church came a squadron of mounted infantry.

They were not our own. Their horses were much too good, and they looked strange. Behind them came another and another. They had crossed the drift that leads to the road along the foot of Caesar's Camp past Intombi to Pieter's, and Colenso. There was no mistake about it. They were the advance of the relief column, and more were coming behind. It was Lord Dundonald's Irregulars--Imperial Light Horse, Natal Carbineers, Natal Police, and Border Mounted Rifles.

The road was crammed on both sides with cheering and yelling crowds--soldiers off duty, officers, townspeople, Kaffirs, and coolies, all one turmoil of excitement and joy. By the post office General White met them, and by common consent there was a pause. Most of his Staff were with him too. In a very few words he welcomed the first visible evidence of relief. He thanked his own garrison for their splendid service in the defence, and added that now he would never have to cut down their rations again, a thing that always went to his heart.

Then followed roar after roar of cheering--cheers for White, for Buller, for Ward, for many others. Then, all of a sudden, we found ourselves shouting the National Anthem in every possible key and pitch. Then more cheering and more again.

But it was getting dark. The General and Staff turned towards Headquarters. The new arrivals had to be settled in their quarters for the night. Most were taken in by the Imperial Light Horse--alas! there is plenty of room in their camp now! To right and left the squadrons wheeled, amid greetings and laughter and endless delight. By eight o'clock the street was almost clear, and there was nothing to show how great a change had befallen us.

About ten a tremendous explosion far away told that the Boers were blowing up the bridges behind them as they fled.

And so with to-night the long siege really ends. It is hardly credible yet. For 118 days we have been cut off from the world. All that time we have been more or less under fire, sometimes under terrible fire. What it will be to mix with the great world again and live each day in comparative security we can hardly imagine at present. But the peculiar episode called the Siege of Ladysmith is over.

APPENDIX

APPENDIX

HOW LADYSMITH WAS FED

LADYSMITH, _March 23, 1900_.

_Where all worked so well it would be a shame to say Ladysmith was saved by any particular branch of the service--the naval guns, the Army Service Corps, or the infantry soldier. But it is quite certain that without the strictest control on the food supply we could not have held out so long, and by the kindness of one whose authority is above question I am able to give the following account of how the town was fed for the seventeen weeks of the siege._

THE PROBLEM.

A celebrated French writer on military matters has said: "There are two words for war--_le pain et la poudre_."

In a siege _le pain_ is of even greater importance than _la poudre_, for "hunger is more cruel than the sword, and famine has ruined more armies than battle." Feeding must go on at least three times a day, and every day, or the men become ineffective, and the hospitals filled.

At the beginning of November, 1899, Ladysmith, containing over 20,000 souls, with 9,800 horses and mules, and 2,500 oxen and a few hundred sheep, was cut off from the outer world, and nothing in the way of supplies was brought in for 119 days, except a few cattle which our guides looted at night from the besieging enemy. The problem was how to utilise the food supplies which were in the place, and those who had the misfortune (or, as some say, the good fortune) to go through that trying period will say that the problem was very satisfactorily solved in spite of the enormous difficulties the Army Service Corps had to contend with.

The two senior officers of that corps--Colonel E.W. D. Ward, C.B., and Lieut.-Colonel Stoneman--recognising the possibility of a siege, and also that a big margin is everything in army administration, had caused enormous quant.i.ties of supplies to be sent up from the base to Ladysmith. The articles were not even tallied or counted as received, in spite of the remonstrances of the consignors; but by means of Kaffir labourers, working night and day, the trucks were off-loaded as fast as possible, and again sent down the line to bring up more food.

STORES AT THE BEGINNING.

The quant.i.ties of the various articles in hand at the beginning of November were as follows:--

lbs.

Flour 979,996 Preserved Meat 173,792 Biscuits 142,510 Tea 23,167 Coffee 9,483 Sugar 267,699 Salt 38,741 Maize 3,965,400 Bran 923,948 Oats 1,270,570 Hay, &c. 1,864,223

and a large amount of medical comforts, such as spirits, wines, arrowroot, sago, beef tea, &c.

In addition to the above we had rice, _ghi_, _goor_, _atta_, &c., for the natives of the Indian contingent. (_Ghi_ is clarified b.u.t.ter; _goor_, unrefined sugar; _atta_ is whole meal.)

At the beginning of the siege the scale of rations was as follows:--

Bread, 1-1/4 lb, or biscuit, 1 lb.

Meat (fresh), 1-1/4 lb., or preserved meat, 1 lb.

{ Coffee, 1 oz., { or { Tea, 1/2 oz.

Sugar, 3 oz.