With Rimington Part 9

The ground sloped down in a slight hollow. It was thickly sprinkled with snow and dotted here and there with little green spots where the gra.s.s tufts showed through. A wire fence crossed the hollow lower down.

Luckily we heard their voices before they started shooting, and instantly we turned and rode for it, the Mausers all opening immediately and the bullets cracking and whistling round our ears. As bad luck would have it, my pony, which, like most of them, knows and dreads the sound of rifles fired at him (though he will stand close to a battery or among men firing without minding it in the least), became so frantic at the noise of the bullets that I was quite unable to steer him. With head wrenched round he bored away straight down the hill towards the wire. As we got to it I managed to lift him half round and we struck it sideways. The shock flung me forward on to his neck, which I clasped with my left arm and just saved myself falling. For an instant or two he struggled in the wire, a mark for every rifle, and then got clear. In his efforts he had got half through his girths and the saddle was back on his rump. A pretty spectacle we must have looked, I sitting back on his tail, my hat in my hand, both stirrups dangling, and the bullets whistling round both of us like hailstones. However, I lugged him out at last, and we went up the side of the fence broadside on to the shooters, as hard as ever we could lay legs to the ground. It is a difficult thing to bring off a crossing shot at that pace, and in a few hundred yards we were over the slope and out of shot. I have seen lots of our men have much narrower escapes than this.

Well, after all that, we will get back to the action. Having located the enemy, the Guides all collected behind the conical hill, climbed up, and from the edges of it began shooting down into the Boer position. Here we were joined by the Black Watch, who carried on the same game. It was not, however, at all a paying game, and the fact that the Boers had not held this hill themselves, though so close to their position, is sufficient of itself to show their remarkable skill in choice of ground.

For the hill, conical and regular in shape, was perfectly bare, and while they behind the sharp ledges and in the fissures of the rocks below were well concealed from the men above, these as they crept round the smooth hillside came into immediate view against the sky. The sleet of bullets shaving the hill edge was like the wind whistling past. The Black Watch lost a lot of men here. In the afternoon the Guides and some of Lovat's Scouts pushed forward on the left and gained a low ridge, where, lying down, we could command a part of the enemy's position, and send in a flanking fire. This manoeuvre was useful and suggested a plan for next day. That night I had to take out a picket on a hill on our south-east front and had but a sorry time of it; for it was a bitterly cold, rather wet night, and the position was not without its anxiety. I got little sleep.

Next morning, July 24, soon after light, the main body of the Guides and Lovat's Scouts (who are under Rimington at present) came out, and we rode down to the slopes on the left of the Boer valley again. Here we crept up as far as we could and began to put in our fire. It must have been very annoying for them, for a part of their position was quite exposed to us. We could see the short white cliff at the edge of the basin and the Boers moving about and running up and down, diving into fissures and getting under cover, for all the world like rabbits, as our fire searched the position. They replied, but though a lot of bullets were whistling about, no one was. .h.i.t. There was a Maxim at the foot of the conical hill rattling away, and the Black Watch were again on the hill itself, blazing away at the rocks as vigorously as ever. Then at last between us and them up gallops a section of guns, and the little puff b.a.l.l.s begin to burst along the rock edge in a way which we could see was very disconcerting for the Boers, who were rapidly finding the place too hot for them. A little after, some one sings out, "Here comes the attack!" and true enough we can make out the little khaki dots in long loose strings moving forward round the hill towards the valley head. It is the Seaforths. We on our side "carry on the motion," dash forward, lie down and shoot, and on again. We make for a kopje on our edge of the valley. The fire is too hot for the Boers to dare to show up much and there is not much opposition. But I can a.s.sure you that a charge of 1500 yards, even without the enemy's fire, is a serious thing enough. Puffing and panting, I struggle on. Long-legged Colonials go striding by land leave me gasping in the rear. When at last we reach the kopje and look down into the sunken valley, the Seaforths are pouring in their fire on the retreating Boers, our fellows are doing the same from the kopje top, but I myself am too pumped out to care for anything and can only lie on the ground and gasp.

I see in your last letter you want to know about the character of the Guides, and whether there has been any cases of treachery among them. I don't know what started these old yarns. They were invented about Magersfontein time, probably to account for that awful mishap, and got into the local press here and made a lot of fuss, but we have heard nothing since on that score. There is such a lot of treachery put here (owing to the intermingling of English and Dutch in their two territories) that almost anything in that line seems credible, and there are numbers of people about, loafers in bars and fifth-rate boarding-houses, to whom anything base seems perfectly natural, and who delight in starting and circulating such tales. At the same time there are also numbers of honest and loyal men, and it is from these, and exclusively from these, that the fighters are drawn. In South Africa, and among the South Africans, a war of this sort, between neighbours and cousins, is the sternest test of loyalty. Many have failed to stand it.

But the loyalty of those who have not wavered, but have taken up arms for their country in a quarrel like this, is of a sort you can trust to the utmost extremity. There are no men in the field who feel so deep an animosity towards the Boers, and whom the Boers in their turn hate so much, as the fighting South African Colonials. As for the Guides, I can a.s.sure you that there has not been a single case of any one of our men having been accused of treachery, nor suspected of treachery. I have made careful inquiries, lest such a case might have occurred without my knowledge, and I am a.s.sured by our adjutant (C.H. Rankin, Captain 7th Hussars) that there has been no such case, and that the slander was without the slightest foundation whatever.

Shortly after Magersfontein the greater part of the Guides turned back to Colesberg, leaving fifteen of us with Methuen, the services of the whole corps not being required, as Methuen's force was now stationary.

Before it left, Methuen paraded the corps and spoke in the warmest terms of the good work it had done. Nevertheless it was their turning back, or being _sent back_, as it was called, that gave a pretext to the slander that was then started. Later, when his attention was called to the story, Methuen wrote to the _Cape Times_ a most emphatic letter vindicating the corps from the least suspicion, and indignantly denying that the least cause for any had existed. Lord Roberts himself, who came up soon afterwards, wrote a very handsome and decisive letter to the same paper, and since then I don't think we have heard anything about it. The whole story is so ridiculous, considering the way the Guides hate the Boers, and the danger of the services they do, that to any one who knows anything about the corps it is a tale rather to be laughed, at than seriously resented. I saw the other day a letter from Hunter to Rimington, in which the General speaks of the corps with a kind of weighty deliberation that is very satisfactory, mentioning emphatically its "trustworthiness," its "bravery," and its "exceptional and proved value in the field."

Our casualty list so far is about forty per cent., I believe; but this loss, though not light, does not in a Colonial corps give an adequate idea of the service done. All the Colonials, so far as I know (the Australians and South Africans certainly), have much the same qualities that make our enemies so formidable. They have individual intelligence and skill, a faculty for observation, and the habit of thinking for themselves. They are therefore able to take care of themselves in a way which our regular troops, mostly town-bred men, without independent training, cannot do.

The difference comes out chiefly in scouting, including all the flanking and advance guard business, extending for several miles to left and right, and in front and rear of an army column, by which that column feels its way through an enemy's country. The regulars usually carry out these tactics in long lines with wide intervals between the men. But nothing is so conspicuous as a long line of men riding at fifty yards'

interval. They can be detected a dozen miles off, and plenty of opportunities will occur for a mobile, cunning enemy like the Boers to lie in ambush and get a shot at the outsider. Our regulars are better at this game than they used to be, but many lives have been lost at it. On the other hand, Colonials adopt more the tactics of a Scotch gillie in a deer forest, whose object is to see, but not to be seen. Sky-lines are avoided and cover taken every advantage of. From places where a good view is to be obtained the country is intently studied; not by a horseman poised in relief like the Achilles statue in Hyde Park, but by a man who has left his horse on the reverse slope and lies hidden among the rocks with his gla.s.s. Again, if a farm or suspicious-looking kopje has to be approached, this is partly encircled, and threatened or examined in flank or rear before being occupied; while if the place, a long range of hills for instance, has to be approached in front, a sudden left or right wheel at long range may often draw the enemy's fire. These are a few of the many expedients that sometimes suggest themselves to lessen risk. In all, the first necessity is personal intelligence in the men and the habit of taking notice and thinking for themselves, faculties which the independent, self-reliant life of the Colonials has greatly developed. Just the same holds good when it comes to shooting; choosing cover, keeping oneself hidden, creeping on from point to point without giving the enemy a fair shot, or detecting the probable bushes or rocks behind which an enemy may be lying, or any sign of his whereabouts. The Tommy as he advances is apt to expose himself, because he doesn't think. The Colonial will get to the same spot perhaps quite unperceived. This is why I say that our loss does not give an adequate idea of the work done by the corps. The defence of the conical hill here at Relief's Nek is a good example. Our men hold the hill for several hours before the regulars come up, and lose one man. As soon as the regulars arrive (though by this time the exposed places are known and the enemy located), they begin to lose men, and by the conclusion of the action have lost, I am told, over forty. I think, and have often spoken so highly of our soldiers' courage, that I don't hesitate to point out their weakness. They are lacking in personal intelligence.

For all their pluck, they don't know how to look after themselves. There have been, as you will have heard, many cases in which detached parties of our cavalry, mounted infantry, and yeomanry have been cut off and captured. How often has this happened to the Colonials?

LETTER XXI

PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER--II

_August 4th_.

We have been up the valley and back again, and I write this once more from Fouriesberg. We pa.s.sed through here, joining Rundle, as I told you a week ago, and pushed on eastward in the direction of Naawpoort Nek and the Golden Gate. Six miles out from here, pa.s.sing through a very rugged country, we came on their outposts. These we sh.e.l.led and drove back.

They then retired to some hills not very high, but with perpendicular sides of low white cliffs commanding the approach across the plain.

These they held till nightfall. We sh.e.l.led them a good deal and knocked out the only gun they had, and the infantry pushed forward in front and we took a hill on the right, but the attack was not pressed home, as it would have cost too many lives. The infantry took the hill during the night, but found it evacuated, the Boers having retired as soon as it got dark.

We did not know all this time how things had gone with Macdonald and Bruce-Hamilton, and whether or not they had been able to block the eastern exits. On this everything depended. So it was with a feeling of the most gleeful satisfaction that we heard next morning, having followed the Boers up some two or three miles without seeing anything of them, the deep, heavy baying of a big gun in the distance, which we all recognised as the voice of one of the 5-inch cow-guns that had gone with Bruce-Hamilton. It fired a few shots and then ceased. With infinite toil, forty oxen to each gun, we then dragged our own two 5-inchers up the hill we were on, and got them into position for sh.e.l.ling the defiles ahead. They were not, however, needed. Messengers now began to arrive from the Boer laagers carrying white flags. There was a lot of palaver.

These went, others came. Le Gallais, our chief of the staff, interviewed them, while Hunter strolled a little way apart, dreamily admiring the view. It was evident the Boer envoys were sticking out for terms which they couldn't get. I could see Le Gallais indicate the surroundings with summary gestures. The Boers looked very glum. They eyed the cow-guns especially with profound disgust. These were looking particularly ridiculous. The nose of one of them projected in the direction of those secret Boer-tenanted defiles as if the great creature were sniffing for its enemies in the distance; which gave it a very truculent and threatening air, as who should say, "Come now, Le Gallais, old fellow, suppose you let me put a word in," while the other, hanging its head till its nose touched the very ground, seemed overcome, poor wretch, with a sudden fit of bashfulness, most absurd in so huge and warlike a monster. The Boers looked from them to Le Gallais and from Le Gallais to them, but there was no more hope from one than the other, and at last they realised that there was nothing for it but to surrender, and surrender was agreed to. We could scarcely believe our good fortune. At Paardeberg we caught 4000, but we used 50,000, more or less, to do it, and we lost about 1500 doing it. Here we trapped as many or more, composed of some of the best commandoes of the Free State, caught them, too, in a wild mountainous country such as you would think was almost impregnable. We used 15,000 to do it, and we lost, I suppose, not 200 altogether. Also, we have taken enormous quant.i.ties of horses, oxen, and waggons, which will come in very useful.

It seems to me that Hunter deserves the utmost credit that can be given to him. We have had plenty of generals who have done direct fighting and done it well; but, with the doubtful exception of Paardeberg, we have had no triumph of tactics. We have never scored off the Boers, never made a big capture, or cut them up, or taken guns or transport, or bested them in any decisive way by superior strategy till now. This has always been our lament. We have always said, "Why, with all these armies in the field, cannot we surround them, or catch them, or deal a decisive blow of some sort?" But hitherto we have never succeeded in bringing off such a coup. We have pushed them before us, losing as many or more than they at every shift, but, whenever we have thought to get a hold of them, they have always eluded us. You may think it is a strange thing that they have been caught this time. The daring of Hunter's plan and the rapidity it was carried out with made it succeed. The Boers--so they tell me at least--never believed that we should venture with so small a force to penetrate by four or five different routes into such a strong country. The scheme seemed to lay us open to a disaster if the enemy had rapidly concentrated and flung itself on one of the separated forces.

This danger, however, was more apparent than real, because the ground manoeuvred over was not altogether of very large extent, so that relief might be sent from one column to another, or the enemy, if concentrated against one column, rapidly followed up by one or more of the others.

Besides which, if the country offered strong positions to take, it offered strong ones to hold, and in a very short time any threatened column could have placed itself in such a position as to make it impossible for the Boers to shift it in the time at their disposal.

Still the plan, considering the Boers' skill in defending strong positions, had an audacious look about it. Several of the Boer prisoners have since told me--I don't know with what truth--that they thought we should follow them in by the Relief Nek pa.s.s, and that it was their intention to work round and threaten our communications, and either cut us off or force us to fight our way out as best we could.

The quickness of our advance, too, was of the utmost importance. From the moment we started, the enemy was given no opportunity to pull himself together and look about him. Hunter, Paget, Clements, and Rundle dashed into the Fouriesberg Valley exactly together. Directly we had got through, Hunter detached the main part of his column, the Highland Brigade, under Macdonald, and sent it with several guns as hard as it could pelt to back up Bruce-Hamilton, knowing, now that we had carried our end of the valley, that the pressure would come at the east end.

Meantime, while Macdonald marched, we waited. We even retreated two or three miles, and for twenty-four hours lay on the pa.s.s and slept. Then we got up and began sauntering up the big irregular valley along the Basutoland border towards Naawpoort Nek.

It was a moment of infinite expectation. Bets were laid on the amount of our bag. The general impression was that we should get some of them, but that the main body would, somehow or other, escape. We had so often toiled and taken nothing, that this sudden miraculous draught quite flabbergasted us. And what must have been the feelings of the poor Boers? They tried Naawpoort Nek: no exit. They knocked at the Golden Gate: it was locked. Then back they turned and met Hunter sauntering up the valley, and we gave them the time of day with our cow-guns, and told them how glad we were to see them. "Fancy meeting you, of all people in the world!" And so they chucked it. It was a complete checkmate.

The surrender occupied the next three days; our total bag 4100, I am told. I wish you could have been there. It was a memorable sight among those uninhabited and lonely mountains. The heights of Basutoland, ridge behind ridge, to right of us; the tops snow streaked; groups of excited Basutos riding about in the plains, watching our movements; to left the great mountain chain we had fought our way through; and in the midst spread over the wide saddle-backed hill, that slopes away north-eastward, and breaks up in a throng of sharp peaks and a jumble of inaccessible-looking hills in the direction of the Golden Gate, is drawn up the dirty, ragged, healthy, sun-scorched British army with greasy rifles in its blackened hands, watching imperturbably and without much interest, the parties of Boers, and waggons, and droves of cattle as they come meandering in. Each Boer, as he rides up, hands over his rifle, or more often flings it angrily on the ground, and the armourers set to work, smashing them all across an anvil. Rather a waste of good weapons it seemed, I must say. Many of the Boers were quite boys, about fourteen or fifteen. They are much better looking than you would think from the men. The men are big and well built, but they look, for the most part, stupid and loutish, and when this is not so, their expression is more often cunning than intelligent. The amount of hair about their face, too, and their indifference to washing, does not improve their appearance. However, in the boy stage, and before the dulness of their surrounding has had time to tell, they are quite different, frank-faced and manly, with clear skin, tall and well grown, like young larches. It does seem strange that such mere children should be in the field against us. What would you think of giving Puckie a rifle and sending him out to fight? Boer prisoners have told me that the courage of these boys could be relied on; they were often braver, and would stick to a position they had been placed in longer than the men. They showed traces of the experience they had been through, though. Not only in being deeply tanned and more or less ragged and thin, but by an unmistakable expression (in many instances) in their faces and in their eyes; a dilated look, as of one who sees something appalling before him, and braces himself to face it out. Considering what it is to be exposed to lyddite and shrapnel fire (the absolute h.e.l.l of din and concussion besides rain of bullets), one doesn't wonder that it leaves marks on young faces.

R. and I rode eastward through the hills in the Golden Gate direction, meeting parties of Boers, waggons, Cape-carts, &c., coming straggling in. It reminded me of the road to Epsom on a Derby morning. There is some pleasure in meeting Boers on these terms. "Good morning. How are you? A pleasant morning for a ride, is it not?" "Good morning, sir; it is fine now, but I think we shall have rain later." That's what I like.

There's nothing like a little urbanity.

Towards the end of a long valley we come to some signs of defensive work that interest us. The Boers evidently expected to be able to await our advance here before they found their retreat was cut off. They have thrown up some shelters. We noticed from afar off several very conspicuous stone sangars, but coming close, we were surprised to find that they were made of stones loosely put together with big c.h.i.n.ks, very flimsy and frail, and much too high for their purpose, too. They evidently were not intended for shelters at all. What were they there for? We looked carefully round, and at last the meaning of the device struck us. A hundred yards to the right the ground dropped sharp, leaving an edge; here was the real position and the natural cover. We walked over, and found the usual little hollows and inconspicuous stones arranged. Here was where their riflemen had lain, with a view right up the valley. And the meaning of those conspicuous edifices was now plain. Stuck up on the bare brow, plain to be seen at 2000 yards, they were simply meant to draw our fire. The smokeless Mausers would have told no tales, and I have no doubt that, if the attack had come off, the device would have more or less succeeded, for the stone shelters, though obviously dummies on close inspection, looked all right at a distance. Besides, a definite mark always attracts fire. It was characteristic of Boer cuteness.

LETTER XXII

FIGHTING AND TREKKING

HEILBRON, _August 17_.

We stayed several days among the mountains on the scene of the surrender, collecting our prisoners and the waggons, guns, horses, &c., and sending them off to the railway. The valley, viewed from the hill where we were camped, looked much like one of our West Country horse fairs on a very large scale. The separate commandoes were herded together in big groups of several hundred men, sitting and lying about and talking. The ox-waggons and battered Cape-carts were drawn up together in a great array; but the busiest part of it all was the division of the horses into mobs fit or unfit for remounts, and the distribution of them to the various regiments. Rimington superintended this job. Of course, after all our marching, we were sadly in want of remounts. The Boers had any number of horses, many of them bringing in two or three apiece, and the majority were in good condition and fit for work, probably owing to the fact that the grazing all about this side of the Free State, especially among these mountains, is excellent. The South African ponies, I may tell you, are the only satisfactory mounts for South Africa. We have tried horses from all parts of the world now, and they can none of them stand the climate, work, and food like the native breeds. The South African pony, wretched little brute as he looks, will tripple and amble on, week after week and month after month, with a heavy man on his back, and nothing to eat but the pickings of sour, dried-up veldt gra.s.s and an occasional handful of Indian corn; and though you will eye him with an eye of scorn, no doubt (if he should happen to be allotted to your use), and envy some other man his fat Burmese or Argentine, yet by-and-by you will find out your mistake; for the fat Burmese and the Argentine, and all the other imported breeds, will gradually languish and fade away, and droop and die, worn down by the unremitting work and the bad, insufficient food; but your ragged little South African will still amble on, still hump himself for his saddle in the morning, and still, whenever you dismount, poke about for roots and fibres of withered gra.s.s as tough as himself, or make an occasional hearty meal off the straw coverings of a case of whisky bottles. With an action that gives the least possible exertion; with the digestion of an ostrich, and the eye of a pariah dog for any stray morsel of food; with an extraordinary capacity for taking rest in s.n.a.t.c.hes, and recouping himself by a roll whenever you take his saddle off; and of course, from the natural toughness of his const.i.tution, too, he is able to stand the long and gradual strain of being many hours under the saddle every day (and perhaps part of the night, too) in a way that unaccustomed horses cannot do. By this time we all know his merits, and there is immense demand from every mounted corps for the Boer ponies. The Major is up to his eyes in work, as officers and orderlies come galloping up with requisitions from the various regiments. He has the born horse lover's dislike for parting with a really good horse except to a man he knows something about. Loud and uproarious is the chaff and protestations (now dropping to confidential mutterings) as the herds of horses are broken up and the various lots a.s.signed. As I say, it looks from the hilltop exactly like a west country fair on an enlarged scale, and the great lonely Basuto mountains, too, might seem a larger edition of the Exmoor hills around Winsford. The Boer prisoners, poor fellows, have no eye for the picturesque. They congregate together and grumble and watch the distribution of their horses with a very sour expression.

From this point we sent our prisoners in, _via_ Winberg, to the railway, the Major and most of the corps going with them as part of the escort; while I with twenty men, consisting partly of Guides and partly of Lovat's Scouts, was detached to continue as bodyguard to Hunter. He, with the main column (we reunited at Bethlehem), marched to Lindley and then here to Heilbron.

It was ten miles south of this that we came in contact with Olivier.

Olivier and De Wet had both broken through our cordon at different times and escaped from the hills. Sent one morning with a message to the Suss.e.x outside Slabbert's Nek I saw sh.e.l.ls bursting, and all the appearance of a heavy fight going on over the hills to the north-west.

This was Christian De Wet, who with several guns and about 1500 well-mounted men, had made a dash for freedom when he found the place was getting too hot, and had been promptly tackled by Broadwood when he got outside. Pursuer and pursued vanished into the blue distance of the veldt, battering each other as they went, like birds that fight and fly at the same time. Broadwood, however, had got hold of his enemy by the wrong end. What happened exactly we don't know, but De Wet got clear somehow, and immediately turned his attention to his beloved railway line, which he never can tear himself away from for more than a few days at a time. He is now, I should imagine, in the very seventh heaven of delight, having torn up miles of it, besides capturing several trains.

De Wet is getting an immense reputation. The rapidity of his movements is extraordinary. He always has two or three of our columns after him; sometimes half-a-dozen. Among these he wings his way like a fowl of some different breed, a hawk among owls. Some amus.e.m.e.nt was caused by the report in orders the other day that De Wet had marched north pursued "by various generals;" as if two or three, more or less, didn't matter, as indeed it didn't. Of course, mere fast marching would not always extricate him, but he shows such marvellous coolness and common sense in the way in which he doubles. Several times he has been reported surrounded; but each time when we came to look he had disappeared. It is like a conjuring trick. He seems to have an intuitive knowledge of the plans of our generals, and to divine how any movements of his will modify theirs. He makes a swift march. This he knows will set in motion a certain column. Night comes and back he steals, and dashes out through the gap left without any one being the wiser. He never loses his sangfroid, but acts always, in the most hopeless positions, with equal craft and rapidity. In short, like the prophet Isaiah, he is "_capable de tout_." For he can hit hard, too. I think since the arrival of the main army he is the only man who has scored off us at all freely.

Sanna's Post and Reddersberg came first; then, last May, came the capture of the 500 Yeomanry at Lindley; that was followed immediately by the surprise of the Heilbron convoy and all its escort; then came the capture of the Derbyshire Militia, and a few days later the taking of Roodeval with a train of mails and various details. Even when he had bolted out the other day between our legs, and was flying north with two or three cavalry brigades after him, he found time to snap up a hundred Welsh Fusiliers and break the line as he pa.s.sed. He is, they say, extremely amusing, and keeps his men always in a good temper with his jests; the other day, after one of his many train captures, he sent a message to the base to say that "he was sufficiently supplied with stores now, and would they kindly send up some remounts." He is now the only prize left worth taking, and every one is desperately keen in his pursuit. I notice, however, that people never seem to meet him when they want to, though when they don't want to, they very often do.

Olivier, with a force about equal to De Wet, also broke out from the hills, and having reached the open country, hung about to watch our movements. There are some kopjes ten miles south of Heilbron, very nicely arranged, with a back hill commanding a front one, so that the first position gained would only bring us under the fire of the second; a very favourite Boer trick. Here Olivier awaited our coming, and, knowing the range to an inch, landed his first sh.e.l.l plump in the middle of our convoy. Hunter, and we with him (it is certainly great fun being with the Staff for the time being), were at the head of the column, and heard the sh.e.l.l go over. Never have I seen a better shot. It exploded on the track, right underneath a great waggon, to the amazement and consternation of the Kaffir drivers and the wretched oxen; though they were all, I believe, a good deal more frightened than hurt. Three or four more quickly followed. "Roll that up," said Le Gallais to the Guide carrying the General's flag. A few minutes pa.s.sed, during which we were shot at without being able to reply. Then two Field Batteries came galloping to the front. Guns! Guns! Way for the guns! like the fire-engines down Piccadilly they came tearing along. As the iron wheels strike upon rocks the guns leap and swing. Stones and splinters fly right and left, and the dust flung up by wheel and hoof boils along their course. Nothing is more stirring than to see guns coming full speed into action. In another minute they have lined up on the ridge and their sh.e.l.ls are bursting on the enemy's hill.

Hector Macdonald is a man who always amuses me. Ordinarily he is a somewhat grim-looking individual; but when there is any fighting going on his whole manner changes, and he beams and mantles with a sort of suppressed mirth. He comes swaggering up now as the guns are opening, looking like a man who has just been told the best story he ever heard in his life, and is still chuckling over it. "They're on to us again,"

he bubbles out, knocking his boot with his whip in irrepressible glee.

"What! what! they're on to us again." He looks round at us and grins, and seems to lick his lips as a sh.e.l.l goes howling overhead and bursts behind us. His merits as a general are very much discussed, but there is one thing he does thoroughly enjoy, more than any man I know, and that is being shot at. I suppose he would rather win a battle than lose one, but I am sure he would rather lose one than not fight at all.

Next to him, in marked contrast to his excitement, stands out the cool attentive face of "Archie" Hunter; the most popular officer, as I believe one might call him, of all the British army. He is noted chiefly as a fighter and for his dash and gallantry. He did all the fighting in the Egyptian campaign. During the siege of Ladysmith it was he who planned and led the night attack which blew up the big Boer gun. When I was coming out on the steamer the one question asked among the war correspondents, who wanted to be where the most fighting was going on, was "Where will Hunter be?" But it is probably his kindness and the deep interest he feels in all his men that makes him so universally popular.

Here is a tiny instance, perhaps not worth mentioning. We were halted on the march for a moment, sitting about and smoking, when the General gave the word to mount, and one of the orderlies, a trooper of the Lancers, jumped up in a hurry and left his pipe behind him. Hunter saw the filthy, precious object lying on the ground, and put it in his own pocket. At the next halt he went up to the trooper, and with that manner of his of deliberate kindness, returned it to him. A mere nothing, of course, but very characteristic.

He has a way of looking at you, no matter who you are, Tommy or officer or what not, with a wonderfully kind expression, as if he felt the most friendly interest in you. And so he does; it is not a bit put on. He does not seem to think about himself, but about the people and things round him. Every morning he finds time to stop and ask after the horses and men of our little body, and to exchange a word with one or two of the men whom he has had occasion to notice. Not a grain of condescension is there in him; not even a thought that he is giving them pleasure. It is a natural impulse with him, the result of the real regard and interest he feels in every soldier that marches under him. In action his manner, always calm, is just as calm as at any other time. He says little; observing the most important developments or listening to the reports of orderlies from various parts of the field, more often than not without any comment at all. Yet nothing escapes him.

Our action with Olivier is a rather stupid one, and I shall not attempt to describe it. We take the first position, losing from forty to fifty men, only to find that the enemy have retired to the second range, and that it is too late to follow them up. Probably the only man at all satisfied with the day's performance is old Mac.

Through a weary land we have come marching north these ten days. The veldt is at its worst, parched and dry and dead. Our column trekking raises a huge cloud of reddish dust that hangs still in the air, and marks for miles back the way we have come. The whole expanse is quite colourless--almost white, or a dirty grey. All day long the blue sky is unvaried, and the sun glares down un.o.bscured by a cloud; sky and earth emphasising each other's dull monotony. Only at sunrise and late evening some richer and purer lines of colour lie across the distant plain, and the air is fresh and keen. Round about the town, which, like all these Boer towns, stuck down in the middle of the veldt, reminds one of some moonstruck flotilla becalmed on a distant sea, the gra.s.s is all worn and eaten to the very dust. Whiffs of horrid smell from dead carcases of horses and cattle taint the air. All the water consists of a feeble stream, stagnant now and reduced to a line of muddy pools, some reserved for horses, some for washing, and some for drinking, but all of the same mud colour.

And yet even for this country, I think it with a kind of dull surprise as I look out over the naked hideousness of the land, men can be found to fight. What is it to be a child of the veldt, and never to have known any other life except the life of these plains? It is to reproduce in your own nature the main features of this extraordinary scenery. Here is a life of absolute monotony, a landscape, huge, and on a grand scale, but dull and unvaried, and quite dest.i.tute of any kind of interest, of any noteworthy detail, of any feature that excites attention and remark.

And the people, its children, are like unto it. Their minds are as blank, as totally devoid of culture and of ideas as the plains around them. They have an infinite capacity for existing without doing anything or thinking anything; in a state of physical and mental inertia that would drive an Englishman mad. A Boer farmer, sitting on his stoep, large and strong, but absolutely lethargic, is the very incarnation of the spirit of the veldt. At the same time, when one remembers the clatter and gabble of our civilisation, it is impossible to deny him a certain dignity, though it may be only the dignity of cattle.

The problem will apparently be, when we have burnt these people out or shot them, and in various ways annexed a good deal of the land they now live on, how are we to replace them? What strikes one is that time and the country, acting on the naturally phlegmatic Dutch character, has produced a type exactly suited to this life and these surroundings. And it does seem in many ways a pity to destroy this type unless you have something to take its place. Except in one or two very limited areas, accessible to markets, and where there is a water supply, no English colonist would care to settle in this country. The Canadians and Australians, many of whom volunteered, and came here with the view of having a look at the land and perhaps settling, are, I hear, unanimous in condemning it. Indeed, it does not require any great knowledge of agriculture to see that a country like this, a lofty table-land, dry and barren, with no market handy, or chance of irrigation, is a wretched poor farming country. Hence the pity it seems of wiping out the burghers. They may not be a very lofty type of humanity, but they had the advantage in nature's scheme of filling a niche which no one else, when they are turned out, will care to fill in their place. The old dead-alive farm, the sunny stoep, the few flocks and herds and wandering horses spa.r.s.ely scattered over the barren plain, the huge ox-waggon, most characteristic and intimate of their possessions, part tent and part conveyance, formed for the slow but sure navigation of these solitudes, and reminding one a great deal of the rough but seaworthy smacks and luggers of our coasts, that somehow seem in their rudeness and efficiency to stand for the very character of a whole life, all these things are no doubt infinitely dear to the Boer farmer, and make up for him the only life possible, but I don't think it would be a possible life for any one else. It seems inevitable that large numbers of farms, owing to death of owners, war indemnity claims, bankruptcy, and utter ruin of present holders, &c., will fall into the hands of our Government when the war is over, and these will be especially the poorer farms. But yet probably as years pa.s.s they will tend to lapse once more into Dutch hands, for it is difficult to believe that men of our race will ever submit to such a life of absolute stagnation. In dealing with the future of the country, it will always be a point that will have to be borne in mind, that the natural conditions of life outside the towns are such as favour the Dutch character very much more than they do the English.

LETTER XXIII