With Botha In The Field Part 2

When we got safely aboard the _Galway Castle_ many of us fancied, in expressive phrase, that we were "well away"; that we had struck a good thing. Our officers were accommodated in befitting state in the first cla.s.s; our warrants and staff non-commissioned dignitaries were also fixed up in correct style; the rest of us had plenty of room and quietness to ourselves in the third cla.s.s. All this by 2.30 in the afternoon.

And then eighteen hundred more warriors filed down the quays and, like Mr. Jim Hawkins, came aboard, sir. Now most of these were as good fellows as you could wish for; but they were landsmen, such as never go down to the sea in ships. A large proportion, indeed, had never seen the sea before viewing it at Cape Town. (South Africa is a fair-sized territory.) Very few of them were good sailors. It is not a man's fault that he is not a good sailor; nor is he to blame for knowing little of the ways that make for cleanliness and comfort under even the most trying conditions on shipboard. But on the whole we did not enjoy that four days' voyage to Walvis Bay. It was a case of bedlam as to noise, and "muck in" and take what you can get.

Though my knowledge of organisation for a campaign is not great, I would suggest that for campaign work the only kind of ship used should be a vessel absolutely and completely fitted up as a troopship. If the ships the Government used for the South-West campaign transport had all been fitted up uncompromisingly as "troopers" I fancy we should have fared better.

At 8 a.m. on the 9th we arrived at Walvis Bay. General Botha, who, with his Chief of Staff, A.D.C.'s, etc., had embarked at the Cape on the auxiliary cruiser _Armadale Castle,_ arrived at Walvis later in the morning. We spent the day on board the _Galway Castle_ awaiting orders and the disembarkation of horses.

Since the beginning of the operations in South-West Africa the world has been flooded with descriptions of Walvis Bay; at least I have seen two books with long descriptions of the place, and more than a dozen articles on the subject. I shall not add to this list by any long (and a.s.suredly unconvincing) attempt at a new picture. When you have left the green-covered kopjes of the Cape a few days before and come to anchor in Walvis Bay on a cold morning you think you have reached No-man's-land after a fast voyage. It is a first impression only. The place is desolate enough; it suggests the Sahara run straight into the sea, or the discomforting dreariness of Punta Arenas, in Patagonia.

But first impressions are not everything. Walvis Bay is desolate; a study in yellow ochre sands, burnt sienna duns, tin shanties veiled in hot desert winds, and a sea that seldom knows anything more than a ripple. But that is the point. Walvis Bay is nothing now--but it is a bay. As a fact, it looks to be one of the finest natural harbours in the world. With the South-West interior developing in the future, Walvis Bay should have something to look forward to.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Before the Advance. General Botha photographed with the Red Cross Sisters]

[Ill.u.s.tration: General Botha and Staff alighting for an Inspection.

(The famous Brigadier-General Brits, who trekked to Namutoni, is the fourth figure from the right.)]

We left the _Galway Castle_ on the 11th, disembarking into lighters, to be towed up the coast to the occupied German port of Swakopmund. Down to the tender, on to the lighter, kits and equipment, and farewell to the quietened steamer. For a while we stood away from her, and rose and fell under no way on the still grey waters. Then we saw a tender from the _Armadale Castle_ steaming towards us. She came up on our starboard quarter and made fast. A figure well known to us all crossed the gangway and climbed to the boat-deck of our steam tender. We had not seen the Commander-in-Chief in personal command since the past bitter days of the Rebellion. A great cheer hit the morning silence and echoed over the bay to each transport at anchor. With a smile of genuine pleasure, General Botha brought his hand to the salute. And away we went, the tender steaming full speed ahead, blunt-nosed barges surging in her wake, for Swakopmund.

Swakopmund was the first Headquarters of the Northern Force, Union Expeditionary Army; we made two sojourns at this German port. First we were there for a period of some five weeks, from February 11 till March 18, whilst awaiting the first advance into the Namib Desert; then we were there for a further month, from the 27th of March till the 25th of April, whilst awaiting the general advance to Windhuk and Karibib.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Awaiting the Advance. The Commander-in-Chief at tea with the Red Cross Sisters]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Awaiting the Advance. Garrison Sports at Swakopmund.

Start for 100 yards race]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Awaiting the Advance. Garrison Sports. Winner]

It is difficult to write about Swakopmund. As a town it is the most extraordinary place I have seen. I use the superlative deliberately.

But I do not wish to live there. It is purely artificial, and artificial to a ghastly degree too. There is not a spot of vegetation.

There is not a genuine tree to be seen. The water has a detestable, unsatisfying blurred taste, to which the adjective "brackish" is applied. It is probable that a town occupied by enemy troops does not look at its best; but the fact that it was under such conditions when I first knew Swakopmund makes no important difference. The place in its essentials must always be the same. If ever there was a work of bluff Swakopmund is that thing. One fancies the German commercial expert, a Government official, or, maybe, a representative of the ubiquitous Woermann, Brock & Co., looking along this ferocious and awful coast for a spot to found a town that should appear on the maps and be esteemed a seaport. The Swakop River? Very well. Was there water there? But certainly so; water obviously of the worst quality--yet water. Besides, were there not always refrigerators and condensing machinery? Upon which Swakopmund was forced into existence--planked down there bit by bit in the face of circ.u.mstance. Walk a trifle over a thousand yards from the edge of the changeful Atlantic through Swakopmund's deep sandy streets and you get the key to the town. For it ceases utterly, abruptly; from the door of its last villa, fitted with perfect furnishings from Hamburg, the bitter desolation that is the Namib Desert stretches away from your, very feet. Marvelling at this place, I was particularly struck by the size of its cemetery. But I was not long puzzled. If you strike Swakopmund on a fine sunshiny day you will be pretty favourably impressed with the climate; it seems warm and temperate, and the sun sparkles on the sea.

In a week or so you will learn to modify that judgment. More than half the days we were at Swakopmund a heavy pall of dampness hung over the place, and after a day or two of it one's system seemed to be badly affected. Maybe we were not acclimatised, but the fact remains that a very large proportion of us were down with a kind of dysentery, attended by vomiting and violent pains in the stomach. Then there are days when the winds blow from the desert--an indescribable experience.

They bring moths and flies with them, and great clouds of sand; it is a genuine labour to breathe, and at noon and for two hours after the temperature in the sun runs up into the "hundred-and-sixties."

Swakopmund is not a health resort; or perhaps we dwelt there in the wrong season. But it is a monument to Teutonic determination. The Germans willed this town there, planted it on the edge of the wilderness; fitted it out, from bioscope theatre to church with organ and electric organola; and they lived in it, with the climate of perdition and all the accessories of a suburb of Berlin, and called it a seaport. It is not a seaport; in a fair gale you can't land a barrel of corks at the pier. But given time and they would have built in the face of nature a two million pounds breakwater and everything complete.

Yes, they are a thorough people; they are human ants as regards work.

Nevertheless, it is not colonising. The Germans are not colonists.

Army Headquarters were fixed at the Damaraland Building close to the sh.o.r.e--a splendidly equipped edifice, with a tower commanding a fifteen-mile-radius view of the desert and the sea. General Botha made the private quarters of the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief at the Woermann Line House close by.

When we arrived at the northern seaport it had been in our possession many weeks, but our troops were occupying the trenches just outside the town, and from the Damaralands Building Tower our look-out and signallers could see through the heat-haze the enemy's patrols moving to and fro in the glistening sands beyond.

Whilst awaiting orders for an advance, life at Swakopmund was in some ways quite good. There were two attractions: regimental concerts, when sanctioned, and the sh.o.r.e. South Africa at war differs in great degree from other parts of the world. The country has the germ in its blood.

Men who have campaigned before felt the stirring in them when the South-West campaign started. The call for volunteers acted like a magnet. All sorts and conditions of men were found with the Forces in the South-West. Patriotism called them; but there called them also that deep-seated spirit of unrest which prompts so powerfully when war drums sound once again. I used to think Kipling exaggerated a trifle; now I know the truth. At the concerts on the South-West front the most astonishing array of talent was to be found. One such function in particular stands out in mind. The stage was made up of army biscuit boxes supporting rough planking outside a builder's yard in the deep sand. At a borrowed piano belonging to some vanished resident a trooper officiated; he was clothed in a grey back shirt and ammunition boots-- and displayed the daedal methods of a Fragson. Singers of every type with every kind of voice, and perfectly trained, performed. Only later did I learn that amongst the artists were half a dozen of the best performers in Johannesburg. And at the foresh.o.r.e, between fatigues, drills, and spells of duty the fellows used to gather, to enjoy the one luxury of Swakopmund--the surf-bathing. Here you would meet men upon whom you never expected again to set eyes a.s.sembled literally from all over South Africa from the Cape to the Zambesi. Belonging to one regiment I met, in privates and corporals, six well-to-do farmers, a handful of solicitors, bank clerks, a sub-native commissioner or two, and the no longer youthful private secretary to one of the most eminent semi-public companies in Africa. And there we all were cut off from the outside world. Each evening we got an issue of the official Bulletin-- six square inches of paper thankfully received. For the rest we had no change from the perpetual sound of the sea and the mournful note of the bell-buoy that marks the insh.o.r.e shoal. Its "dong-dong, dong-dong-dong"

created a perfect illusion of the call to a tiny church through the country lanes of England. Everyone who was there can still hear the old bell-buoy at Swakopmund.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Swakopmund from the Lighthouse: Extreme Right]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Swakopmund: Centre]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Swakopmund: Extreme Left]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Man and Beast in the Desert: both absolutely spent]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Looking for Water in the River Bed]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Halt in a River Bed: General Botha has lunch]

SECTION II

THE FIRST TREK INTO THE NAMIB DESERT

There were some skirmishes outside Swakopmund early in February. On the 23rd the Commander-in-Chief took the field; leaving the base shortly after dawn, he carried out a driving movement which pushed the enemy back from the outspan at Nonidas to his posts much further into the desert. In the course of this successful operation we first heard rumours that the Germans as a whole were not anxious to fight. The Union patrols captured several prisoners, amongst whom was an officer with whom I had several chats when I got the opportunity. As was the case with many of the prisoners afterwards taken, for a while he feigned total ignorance of English. It was not long before it became perfectly clear that he of course understood it well.

Following the operations on the 23rd of February, the mounted troops pushed steadily into the desert, occupying with merely nominal resistance Goanikontes, the water-hole and police post at Haigamkhab, and the water-hole at Husab.

On the 18th of March the Commander-in-Chief and Staff, with all forces except those detailed to the base and infantry already holding the line and stores depots, etc., trekked out from Swakopmund on what was officially described as a "reconnaissance." It was really the first big push into the Namib Desert. The enemy had taken up an extremely strong position on the edge of the desert proper, on the front indicated on the general diagram of the campaign marked Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet.

I have little official knowledge on the tactics of the campaign; it is necessary, however, here to allude to the plan of proceeding known to every one who took any part in it. The vital consideration to the advance of any army across the Namib Desert is to secure the water-holes on the Swakop River. The Swakop is by no means the usual prepossessing kind of stream that flows efficiently between wide banks.

It flowed actually for a day just after General Botha landed at Swakopmund--the first and last time, apparently, within the memory of man. But it has water in it nevertheless; and at fixed and charted spots are to be found bore-holes and wells for the convenience of dwellers in the profitless wilderness. The princ.i.p.al wells and holes are at the places marked on the diagram. General Botha's princ.i.p.al task was to take an army right across the Namib Desert, and to do that he had to capture every water-hole and keep it. It is true that at certain points in the Swakop and other of the large rivers of South-West Africa you can find water by digging very near the surface--perhaps. But when you have a parched army at your back you must deal as little as possible in speculation. At Riet and Jakalswater the enemy had determined to hold the valuable water-holes at any cost, but especially at Riet.

When General Botha treks he treks at express speed. With him the intention is that the essence of strategy shall be surprise. The Commander-in-Chief left Swakopmund at 2.30 a.m. on the 18th of March.

We outspanned at Goanikontes, thirty-four kilos, at 10.30 that night.

Goanikontes was left at 6.30 a.m., and the Husab Outspan was made at 10.20 that morning. The rest of the day was spent at Husab; at 6.30 in the evening the Commander-in-Chief, and with him General Brits, left for Riet, outspanned for a few hours and attacked the German position at Riet at dawn on the 20th. The general action which was fought on the Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet front on this day was conceivably the most important move of the campaign. It was essential that the water-holes should be secured.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Main Guard aboard--en route to hunt the Huns]

[Ill.u.s.tration: On the Great Trek--the Chief of the Staff has a hair-cut]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Action at Riet]

Around Riet, the princ.i.p.al point of attack and defence, the disposition of the Germans was as strong as it is possible to imagine. My sketch of the place should give a fair idea of things. In the technical sense it is not a true plan; but accuracy is not sacrificed to clearness. The veld around the Riet water-holes is just a ma.s.s of small kopjes and rocks; it narrows to a small defile that opens suddenly on to the coverless Husab Road. This defile is the only main approach to the Riet wells, and it is commanded close up on both flanks--on the right by the great bare kopje, Langer Heinreich, on the other by small kopjes and a line of ridges.

In attacking this position General Botha had to consider not only the enemy's strength of position, but also the fact that his troops had to go into action after a waterless twenty-odd mile trek over the desert.

As the Commander-in-Chief got up to his front on the 20th the big guns had started. The artillery duel continued well into the afternoon.

Every credit is due to the other units, but it was our artillery that cracked the nut at Riet. The range was 2,700 yards; but the Germans never got it. Why it is difficult to say; they had every advantage, and one understands that the Germans are nothing if not artillerists. But they were a wash-out at Riet; they were over-firing the whole time. On the other hand, the Union gunners got the range at once and were all over the enemy. They put an ammunition wagon out of action after three shots, and did further deadly work. That afternoon General Botha sent a detachment out to attempt an enveloping movement. But they came back later, reporting that the slopes of Langer Heinreich on the right and the sharp kopjes on the left made the thing impossible.

As the afternoon came on I may say I don't think we knew too much about the state of affairs with the enemy, and when he ceased artillery fire about 3.30 p.m. everyone seemed pleased enough. Few knew then that the German Commander had begun to evacuate the position; his supply of sh.e.l.ls was said to have run short. On account of our numbers, also, he feared an enfilading movement on his left flank should our mounted infantry advance to the defile Q.

In the meantime the authorities had decided we must find water in the rear; for that purpose a party was at once despatched to Gawieb, in the Swakop River bed. It was found by a party from the Commander-in-Chief's Bodyguard, and at the Gawieb Hole the greater part of the forces watered that night. And they took seven hours to do it.

Before sundown General Botha, with Staff and Bodyguard, fell back two miles on the Husab-Riet Road and camped there for the night. Scarcely had the Headquarters party arrived before news came that the enemy was in precipitate flight, had evacuated Riet and had blown up his small ammunition and railway water-tanks at the Riet terminus of the narrow gauge railway line to Jakalswater. Bodies of the Union troops had occupied Riet on the evening of the 20th.

The actions at the Jakalswater and Pforte fronts, to fight which the columns had swept away to our left the night before, were equally successful.

That is the general story of the fight of the 20th March on the inland edge of the Namib Desert. But how to picture vividly the scene before Riet that day? At dawn in those parts conditions are bearable enough; the sun has little strength; the night wind refreshes. From 6.30 till 10 o'clock the desert is endurable. Then comes the change. All along the front the stark yellow sand is taking on a different hue under the climbing sun rays. It turns almost to glaring whiteness all around--to where it stops short at the foot of those scorched and smothered rocks on the left flank. To our right the members of the Headquarters Staff are standing--sitting--resting. An officer brings his gla.s.ses down slowly, blinks, feels for a pipe, lights it. Another moves head and extended arm to the right and makes a remark to a colleague. Along the ridge we occupy the Bodyguard are standing-to and watching the action; you see that fellow wearily ease a heavy bandolier; further down another brings an army biscuit from his haversack and breaks it on his boot.

And now look at that little group almost straight ahead of us; as the tall Chief-of-Staff moves aside you see a figure on a little camp stool. The left hand is just under the hip, binoculars are in the right; up go both hands with the gla.s.ses; down they come. He speaks to the Chief-of-Staff; there is the favourite gesture--the arm is jerked out horizontally, the hand pointing loosely, and dropped again. The face is powdered with fine sand and dust; during the day he has been allowed a small beaker of water from the artillery. A favour indeed.

That is Botha--Louis Botha, Commander-in-Chief, the man who leads us.

And on either flank, well screened, little knots of men are grouped round the guns--and "Hampang-ky-yao!" they go in our ears, their report carrying ten miles back into the desert where our transport hears them in m.u.f.fled thunder. And look up as you hear that screeching whistle.