Ladysmith Part 2

They came back slowly, tired and disheartened and sick with useless losses, but entirely refusing to hurry or crowd. With bullet and sh.e.l.l the enemy followed them hard. Our batteries did what they could to protect them, and Colonel c.o.xhead, in command of the guns, received the General's praise afterwards. The Natal Volunteers and Gordons, and at least part of the Manchesters were there to cover the retreat, but nothing could restore the position again. Battalions and ranks had got hopelessly mingled, and as soon as they were out of range the men wandered away in groups to the town, sick and angry, but longing above all things for water and sleep. The enemy's sh.e.l.ls followed hard on their trail nearly into the town, plumping down in the midst whenever any body of men or horses showed themselves among the ridges of the kopjes. Seeing what was happening on the right the centre began to withdraw as well, and as their baggage train climbed back into the town up the Newcastle road a sh.e.l.l from "Long Tom" fell among them at a corner of the hill, blowing a poor ambulance and stretcher to pieces, and killing one of the Naval Brigade just arrived from the _Powerful_.

It was the Naval Brigade that saved the day, though, to be sure, a retirement like that is in itself a check, though no disaster. Captain Lambton had placed two of his Elswick wire guns on the road to the town, and sent shot after shot straight upon "Long Tom's" position four miles away. Only twelve-pounders, I believe, they were, but of fine range and precision, and at each successful shot the populace and Zulus standing on the rocks clapped their hands and laughed as at a music-hall. For a time, but only for a time, "Long Tom" held his tongue, and gradually the noise of battle ceased--the bang and squeal of the sh.e.l.ls, the crackle of the rifle, the terrifying hammer-hammer of the enemy's two Krupp automatic guns. It was about half-past two and blazing hot. The rest of the day was quiet, but for rumours of the lamentable disaster of which one can hardly speak at present. The Gloucesters and Royal Irish prisoners--1,100 at least after all losses! They say two Boers were brought in blindfold last night to tell the General. This morning an ambulance party has gone out to bring in the wounded, and whilst they are gone with their flag of truce we have peace.

I take the opportunity to write, hurriedly and without correction, for the opportunity is short. "Long Tom" sent two sh.e.l.ls into us this morning as we were dressing (I should have said washing, only the water supply is cut), and at any moment he may begin again.

_November 1, 1899._

I may add that the retirement of the battalions of the 60th, with the Leicesters, is the theme of every one's praise to-day. Its success was chiefly due to General Hunter, and the dogged courage of the men themselves.

But the second part of the despatch is after all the main point of interest. Such a disaster has, I suppose, seldom befallen two famous and distinguished battalions. After heavy loss they are prisoners. They are wiped out from the war. The Gloucesters and the Royal Irish Fusiliers--they join the squadron of the 18th Hussars in Pretoria gaols.

Two Boers came in blindfolded to tell the news last night. All day long we have been fetching in the wounded. Their wounds are chiefly from Martini rifles, and very serious. I know the place of the disaster well, having often ridden there when the Boers were at a more respectful distance. It is an entangled and puzzling country, full of rocks and hills and hidden valleys. It was only some falling boulders that caused the ruin--a few casual shots--and the stampeding mules. That ammunition mule has always a good deal to bear, but now the burden put on him officially is almost too heavy for any four-legged thing.

CHAPTER VII

HEMMED IN

LADYSMITH, _November 2, 1899_.

"Long Tom" opened fire at a quarter-past six from Pepworth Hill, and was replied to by the Naval Brigade. Just as I walked up to their big 4.7 in. gun on the kopje close to the Newcastle road, a sh.e.l.l came right through our battery's earthwork, without bursting. Lieutenant Egerton, R.N., was lying close under the barrel of our gun, and both his legs were shattered. The doctors amputated one at the thigh, the other at the shin. In the afternoon he was sitting up, drinking champagne and smoking cigarettes as cheery as possible, but he died in the night. "Tom" went on more or less all day. In the afternoon Natal correspondents dashed down to the Censor with telegrams that he had been put out of action.

They had seen him lying on his side. I started to look for myself, and at the first 100 yards he threw a sh.e.l.l right into the off-side of the street, as though to save me the trouble of going further. Another rumour, quite as confidently believed by the soldiers, was that the Devons had captured him with the bayonet and rolled him down the hill. I heard one of them "chipping" a Gordon for not being present at the exploit. Now "Tom" is a 15-centimetre Creusot gun of superior quality.

All morning I spent in the Manchesters' camp on the top of the long hill to the south-west, called Caesar's Camp. There had been firing from a higher flat-topped mountain--Middle Hill--about 3,000 yards beyond, where the Boers have taken up one of their usual fine positions, overlooking Ladysmith on one side and Colenso on the other. At early morning a small column under General Hunter had attacked a Boer commando on the Colenso road unawares and gave them a bad time, till an order suddenly came to withdraw. Sir George White had heard Boer guns to the west of their right rear, and was afraid of another disaster such as befell the Gloucesters and Royal Irish Fusiliers. The men came back sick with disappointment, and more shaken than by defeat.

I found the Manchesters building small and almost circular sangars of stones and sandbags at intervals all along the ridge. The work was going listlessly, the men carrying up the smallest and easiest stones they could find, and spending most of the time in contemplating the scenery or discussing the situation, which they did not think hopeful. "We're surrounded--that's what we are," they kept saying. "Thought we was goin'

to have Christmas puddin' in Pretoria. Not much Christmas puddin' we'll ever smell again!" A small mounted party rode past them, and the enemy instantly threw a sh.e.l.l over our heads from the front. Then the guns just set up on the long mountain of Bulwan, threw another plump into the rocks by the largest picket. "It's like that Bally Klarver," sighed a private, getting up and looking round with apprehension. "Cannon to right of 'em, cannon to left of 'em!" Then we went on building at the sangar, but without much spirit. They laughed when I told them how a sh.e.l.l from "Long Tom" fell into the Crown Hotel garden this morning, and all the black servants rushed out to pocket the fragments. But the only thing which really cheered them was the thought that they had only to "stick it out" till Buller's force went up to the Free State and drew the enemy off--that and a supply of cigarettes.

Early in the afternoon I took my telegram to the Censor as usual, and after the customary wanderings and waste of time I found him--only to hear that the wires were bunched and the line destroyed. So telegrams are ended; mails neither come nor go. The guns fired lazily till evening, doing little harm on either side. A queer Boer ambulance, with little gla.s.s windows--something between a gipsy van and a penny peep-show--came in under a huge white flag, bringing some of our wounded to exchange for wounded Boers. The amenities of civilised slaughter are carefully observed. But one of the ambulance drivers was Mattey, "Long Tom's" skilled gunner, in disguise.

_November 3, 1900._

The bombardment continued, guns on Bulwan throwing sh.e.l.ls into various camps, especially the Natal Volunteers. Many people chose the river bed as the most comfortable place to spend a happy day. They hoped the high banks or perhaps the water would protect them. So there they sat on the stones and waited for night. I don't know how many sh.e.l.ls pitched into the town to-day--say 150, not more. Little harm was done, but people of importance had one grand shock. Just as lunch was in full swing at the Royal, where officers, correspondents, and a nurse or two congregate for meals in hope of staying their intolerable thirst--bang came a sh.e.l.l from "Long Tom" straight for the dining-room window. Happily a little house which served as bedroom to Mr. Pea.r.s.e, of the _Daily News_, just caught it on its way. Crash it came through the iron roof, the wooden ceiling, into the brick wall. There it burst, and the house was in the past. Happily Mr. Pea.r.s.e was only on his way to his room, and had not reached it. Some of the lunchers got bricks in their backs, and one man took to his bed of a shocked stomach.

At the time I was away on the Maritzburg road, which starts west from the town and gradually curves southward. The picket on the ridge called Range Post is a relic of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, now in the show-ground at Pretoria. Major Kincaid was there, only returned the night before from the Boer camp behind "Long Tom." He had been ill with fever and was exchanged. He spoke with praise of the Boer treatment of our wounded and prisoners. When our fellows were worn out, the Boers dismounted and let them ride. They brought them water and any food they had. Joubert came round the ambulance, commanding there should be no distinction between the wounded of either race. Major Kincaid had seen a good deal of the so-called Colonel Blake and his so-called Irish Brigade. He found that the very few who were not Americans were English.

He had not a single real Irishman among them. Blake, an American, had come out for the adventure, just as he went to the Chili War.

As we were talking, up galloped General Brocklehurst, Ian Hamilton, and the Staff, and I was called upon to give information about certain points in the country to our front--names and directions, the bits of plain where cavalry could act, and so on. The Intelligence Department had heard a large body of Free State Boers was moving westward from the south, as though retiring towards the pa.s.ses. The information was false.

The only true point about it was the presence of a large Boer force along a characteristic Boer position of low rocky hills about three miles to our front. There the General thought he would sh.e.l.l them out with a battery, and catch them as they retired by swinging cavalry round into the open length of plain behind the hills. So at 11 a.m. out trotted the 19th Hussars with the remains of the 18th. Then came a battery, with the 5th Dragoon Guards as escort In half an hour the guns were in full action against those low hills. The enemy's one gun there was silenced, but not before it had blown away half the head of a poor fellow among the Dragoon Guards. For an hour and a half we poured shrapnel over the rocks, till, except for casual rifle fire, there was no reply. Then another battery came up to protect the line to our rear, across which the Boers were throwing sh.e.l.ls from positions on both sides, though without much effect. Soon after one, up cantered the Volunteers--Imperial Light Horse and Border Mounted Infantry--and they were sent forward, dismounted, to take the main position in front and occupy a steep hill on our left. To front and left they went gaily on, but they failed.

At their approach the rocks we had so persistently sh.e.l.led, crackled and hammered from end to end with rifle fire. The Boers had hidden behind the ridge, and now crept back again. Perhaps no infantry could have taken that position only from the front. I watched the Volunteers advance upon it in extended lines across a long green slope studded with ant-hills. I could see the puffs of dust where bullets fell thick round their feet. It was an impossible task. Some got behind a cactus hedge, some lay down and fired, some hid behind ant-hills or little banks.

Suddenly that moment came when all is over but the running. The men began shifting uneasily about. A few turned round, then more. At first they walked and kept some sort of line. Then some began to run. Soon they were all running, isolated or in groups of two or three. And all the time those puffs of dust pursued their feet. Sometimes there was no puff of dust, and then a man would spring in the air, or spin round, or just lurch forward with arms outspread, a mere yellowish heap, hardly to be distinguished from an ant-hill. I could see many a poor fellow wandering hither and thither as though lost, as is common in all retreats. A man would walk sideways, then run back a little, look round, fall. Another came by. The first evidently called out and the other gave him a hand. Both stumbled on together, the puffs of dust splashing round them. Then down they fell and were quiet. A complacent correspondent told me afterwards, with the condescending smile of higher light, that only seven men were hit. I only know that before evening twenty-five of the Light Horse alone were brought in wounded, not counting the dead, and not counting the other mounted troops, all of whom suffered.

It was all over by a quarter-past three. The Dragoon Guards, who had been trying to cover the retreat, galloped back, one or two horses galloping riderless. Under the Red Cross flag the dhoolies then began to go out to pick up the results of the battle. For an hour or so that work lasted, the dead and dying being found among the ant-hills where they fell. Then we all trailed back, the enemy sh.e.l.ling our line of retreat from three sides, and we in such a mood that we cared very little for sh.e.l.ls or anything else.

_November 4, 1899._

This morning Sir George White sent Joubert a letter by Major Bateson, asking leave for the non-combatants, women and children to go down to Maritzburg. The morning was quiet, most people packing up in hopes of going. But Joubert's answer put an end to that. The wounded, women, children, and other non-combatants might be collected in some place about four miles from the town, but could go no further. All who remained would be treated as combatants. I don't know what other answer Joubert could have given. It was a mistake to ask the favour at all. But the General advised the town to accept the proposal. At a strange and unorganised public meeting on the steps of the Ionic Public Hall, now a hospital, the people indignantly rejected the terms. Leave our women and children at Intombi's Spruit--the bushy spot fixed upon, five miles away--with Boers creeping round them, perhaps using them as a screen for attack! Britons never, never will! The Mayor hesitated, the Archdeacon was eloquent, the Scotch proved the metaphysical impossibility of the scheme. Amid shouts and cheers and waving parasols the people raised the National Anthem, and for once there was some dignity in that inferior tune. Everybody's life was in danger for "The Queen." The proposal to leave the town was flung back with defiance. Rather let our homes be flattened out!

To-night my grey-haired Cape-boy and my Zulu came to me in silence and tears. They had hoped for escape. They longed for the peace of Maritzburg, and now, like myself, they were bottled up amid "pom-poms."

Had I not promised never to bring them into danger--always to leave them snug in the rear? They were devoted to my service. Others ran. Them no thought of safety could induce to leave me. But one had a wife and descendants, the other had ancestors. It was pitiful. Better savages never loomed out of blackness. In sorrow I promised a pension for the widow if the old man was killed. "But how if you get pom-pom too, boss?"

he plaintively asked. I pledged the _Chronicle_ to take over the obligation. The word "obligation" consoled him. The lady's name is Mrs.

Louis Nicodemus, now of Maritzburg. For the Zulu's ancestry I promised no provision.

CHAPTER VIII

TRAGEDY AND COMEDY

_Sunday, November 5, 1899._

The armistice lasted all day, except that the enemy threw two sh.e.l.ls at a waggon going up the Helpmakaar road and knocked it to pieces, and, I hear, killed a man or two--I don't know why. The townspeople were very busy building shelters for the bombardment. The ends of bridges and culverts were closed up with sandbags and stones. Circular forts were piled in the safest places among the rocks. The Army Service Corps constructed a magnificent work with mealy-bags and corn-beef cases--a perfect palace of security. But, as usual, the Kaffirs were wisest. They have crept up the river banks to a place where it flows between two steep hills of rock, and there is no access but by a narrow footpath.

There they lie with their blankets and bits of things, indifferent to time and s.p.a.ce. Some sort of Zulu missionary is up there, too, and I saw him n.o.bly washing a cooking-pot for his family, dressed in little but his white clerical choker and a sort of undivided skirt. A few white families have gone to the same place, and I helped some of them to construct their new homes in the rocks amidst great merriment. The boys were as delighted as children with a spade and bucket by the sea, and many an impregnable redoubt was thrown up with a dozen stones. What those homes will be like at the end of a week I don't know. A picnic where love is may be endurable for one afternoon, when there are plenty of other people to cook and wash up. But a hungry and unclean picnic by day and night, beside a muddy river, with little to eat and no one to cook, nowhere to sleep but the rock, and nothing to do but dodge the sh.e.l.ls, is another story. "I tell you what," said a serious Tory soldier to me, "if English people saw this sort of thing, they'd hang that Chamberlain." "They won't hang him, but perhaps they'll make him a Lord," I answered, and watched the women trying to keep the children decent while their husbands worked the pick.

In the afternoon the trains went out, bearing the wounded to their new camp across the plain at Intombi's Spruit. The move was not well organised. From dawn the ambulance people had been at work shifting the hospital tents and all the surgical necessities, but at five in the afternoon a note came back from the officer in camp urging us not to send any more patients. "There is no water, no rations," it said; "not nearly enough tents are pitched. If more wounded come, they will have to spend the night on the open veldt." But the long train was already made up. The wounded were packed in it. It was equally impossible to leave them there or to take them back. So on they went. In all that crowd of suffering men I did not hear a single complaint. Administration is not the strong point of the British officer. "We are only sportsmen," said one of them with a sigh, as he crawled up the platform, torn with dysentery and fever.

In front of the wounded were a lot of open trucks for such townspeople as chose to go. They had hustled a few rugs and lumps of bedding together, and, sitting on these, they made the best of war. But not many went, and most of those had relations among the Boers or were Boers themselves.

When the trains had gone, Captain Lambton, of the _Powerful_, showed me the new protection which his men and the sappers had built round the great 4.7 in. gun, which is always kept trained on "Long Tom." The sailors call the gun "Lady Anne," in compliment to Captain Lambton's sister, but the soldiers have named it "Weary Willie"--I don't know why.

The fellow gun on Cove Hill is called "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary"--which is no compliment to anybody. The earthwork running round the "Lady Anne" is eighteen feet deep at the base. Had it been as deep the first day she came, Lieutenant Egerton would still be at her side.

_November 6, 1899._

When the melodrama doesn't come off, an indignant Briton demands his money back. Our melodrama has not come off. We were quite ready to give it a favourable reception. The shops were shut, business abandoned. Many had taken secure places the night before, so as to be in plenty of time.

Nearly all were seated expectant long before dawn. The rising sun was to ring the curtain up. It rose. The curtain never stirred. From whom shall we indignant Britons demand our money back?

With the first glimmer of light between the stars over Bulwan, those few who had stayed the night under roofs began creeping away to the holes in the river bank or the rough, scrubby ground at the foot of the hills south-west of the town, where the Manchesters guard the ridge. Then we all waited, silent with expectation. The clouds turned crimson. At five the sun marched up in silence. Not a gun was heard. "They will begin at six," we said. Not a sound. "They are having a good breakfast," we thought. Eight came, and we began to move about uneasily. Two miserable sh.e.l.ls whizzed over my head, obviously aimed only at the balloon which was just coming down. "Call that a performance?" we grumbled. We left our seats. We went on to the stage of the town. What was the matter? Was "Long Tom" ill? Had the Basutos overrun the Free State? Had Buller really advanced? Lieutenant Hooper, of the 5th Lancers, had walked through from Maritzburg, pa.s.sing the Royal Irish sentries at 2 a.m. He brought news of a division coming to our rescue. Was that the reason of the day's failure? So speculation chattered. The one thing certain was that the performance did not come off, and there was no one to give us our money back.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IMPERIAL LIGHT HORSE SHELTERS]

So we spent the day wandering round the outposts, washing ourselves and our rags in the yellow river, trying to get the horses to drink the water afterwards, contemplating the picturesque, and pretending to cook.

Perhaps the greatest interest was the work upon a series of caves in the river-bank, behind the Intelligence Office. They are square-topped, with straight sides, cut clean into the hard, sandy cliff. The Light Horse have made them for themselves and their ammunition. On the opposite side the Archdeacon has hollowed out a n.o.ble, ecclesiastical burrow. On the hills the soldiers are still at work completing their shelter-trenches and walls. I think the Rifle Brigade on King's Post (the signal hill of a month ago) have built the finest series of defences, for they have made covered pits against shrapnel. But perhaps they are more exposed than all the others except the Devons, who lie along a low ridge beside the Helpmakaar road, open to sh.e.l.l from two points, and perhaps to rifle-fire also. The Irish Fusiliers, under Major Churchill, have a very ingenious series of walls and covers. The main Manchesters' defences are circular like forts; so are the Gordons' and the K.R.R.'s. All are provisioned for fourteen days.

I spent the afternoon searching for a runner, a Kaffir the colour of night, who would steal through the Boer lines in the dark with a telegram. In my search I lost two hours through the conscientiousness of the 5th Lancers, who arrested me and sent me from pillar to post, just as if I was seeking information at the War Office. At last they took me--the Colonel himself, three privates with rifles and a mounted orderly with a lance--took me to the General Staff, and there the absurdity ended. But seriously, what is the good of having the very highest and most authoritative pa.s.ses possible--one from the War Office and one from the head of the Intelligence Department here--if any conscientious colonel can refuse to acknowledge them, and drag a correspondent about amid the derision of Kaffirs and coolies, and of Dutchmen who are known perfectly well to send every sc.r.a.p of intelligence to their friends outside? I lost two hours; probably I lost my chance of getting a runner through. I had complied with the regulations in every possible respect. My pa.s.s was in my hand; and what was the good of it?

But after all we are in the midst of a tragedy. Let us not be too serious. Dishevelled women are peering out of their dens in the rocks and holes in the sand. They crawl into the evening light, shaking the dirt from their petticoats and the sand from their back hair. They rub the children's faces round with the tails of their gowns. They tempt sc.r.a.ps of flame to take the chill off the yellow water for the children's tea. After sundown a steady Scotch drizzle settles down upon us.

_November 7, 1899._