War's Brighter Side Part 12

GO TO ---- STELLENBOSCH!!

_To the Editors of_ "THE FRIEND," SIRS:--In the course of a lengthy experience I have heard many quaint conceits and many hard swear words, and have kept a small notebook in which I have jotted down anything especially new. I was the unwilling auditor the other day of a quarrel between two individuals whose rank and profession shall be nameless. The conversation became very animated, and finally one exclaimed with savage irony, "Oh, go to Stellenbosch!" Fortunately some pa.s.sers-by interrupted the fracas or else I verily believe blows would have been exchanged. Now you, sirs, with your opportunities of knowing many lands and varied languages, may perhaps be able to inform me where this place is and why the request to go there should have caused such fury and such agitation on the part of the individual addressed. It will be a relief to the consciences of Her Majesty's lieges if the time-honoured "D----" can be relegated to the limbo of forgotten oaths in favour of such an apparently innocent expression. I write in all innocence, as no man likes to use a phrase, especially such a potent one, without understanding its meaning.--

Faithfully yours, CHIRIOGICUS.

[We believe that the place mentioned was located somewhere in the Arctic Regions by the Jackson expedition.--EDS.]

CHAPTER VIII

LORD ROBERTS'S HEADQUARTERS

_Like a beehive for industry when Rudyard Kipling went to lunch with the Field-Marshal._

Rudyard Kipling was paying visits and getting acquainted with the local situation. He had left his wife and family at the far-famed Mount Nelson Hotel--the "Helot's Rest," as a statesman had called it--with its strange a.s.sembly of Rand and Kimberley millionaires, and other refugees from the two republics, its army officers, both of the invalid and the idle cla.s.s, its censors, war correspondents, sight-seers, and ladies longing to get to the more exciting front.

I first saw Mr. Kipling there, and now found him tenanting a bedroom across the pa.s.sage from my own in the Free State Hotel at Bloemfontein. When I went to shake his hand he was in the room of W.

B. Wollen, the artist, and one of those men who having nothing good to say, are never content to stop there, was exclaiming, "Is it possible that I have the honour to meet the author of 'The Absent-Minded Beggar'?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C., K.G., K.P., G.C.B., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E., Commander-in-Chief._]

"Yes," said Kipling, "I have heard that piece played on a barrel-organ, and I would shoot the man who wrote it if it would not be suicide."

A man of such broad build and short neck that you do not realise him to be of the average stature, wearing a broad-brimmed, flat brown hat of Boer pattern, and below that a brown short coat and very full trousers to match; a vigorous figure, quick in movement as a panther, quicker still in speech; a swinging and rolling figure with head up and hat well back out of the way of his sight which is ever thrown upward as if he searched the sky while he walked. His face is quite a match for his body, being round and broad as well as wide-eyed and alert. His eyes are its most notable features, for they are very large and open, and each one is arched by the bus.h.i.+est of black eyebrows.

They are habitually reflective and sober eyes, but, like a flash, they kindle with fun, and can equally quickly turn dull and stony when good occasion arises. It is not the typical poet's or scholar's face so much as it is the face of the man among men, the out-of-door man, the earnest, shrewd observer and the irrepressible hard worker.

It happened that both of us were to pay our respects to the Field-Marshal at the Residency on the same day, and both were invited to lunch. Of course, Mr. Kipling knew Lord Roberts very well--had seen much of him in India, where they had been both friends and mutual admirers. We went to the Residency together. There we met a very kindly and hospitable young gentleman who asked us who we were and offered us a visitors' book in which to record our signatures. To him we were presently introduced and found him to be none other than the Duke of Westminster, who, as Lord Belgrave had at an earlier stage, been with Sir Alfred Milner at the Cape. The Duke proffered us refreshment of the coveted sort, which, as we have seen, was quoted at 11s. a bottle "on a rising market," and then he conducted us to the great drawing-room with its strong suggestion of the grandeur of a ruler's residence, despite its garish wall-paper and its puckered-up carpet.

The whole Residency was like a beehive for industry. In the dining-room privates were hammering away upon typewriters, and officers were supplying them with copy. We peeped into the large ball-room, and lo! it was appointed with many desks at which members of the ill.u.s.trious and aristocratic staff of the Field-Marshal were hard at work with pens and ink. Even in the drawing-room, the merely ornamental desks and tables were strewn with doc.u.ments at which far from merely ornamental lords were writing.

When lunch was announced we found the dining-hall set with two tables--a very long one for the staff, and a very small one at its head for Lord Roberts. Mr. Kipling sat with the Field-Marshal, while I was placed between Lord Stanley and Lord Herbert Scott at the big table. I was not impressed by any unlooked-for excellence in the simple meal with which we were served. I had lived better on the open veldt whenever I had been able to get at my Cape cart, and the boxes I had stored in it. But the flow of wit and the hospitality and courtesy that were shown to me would have rendered worse fare beyond reproach.

After the meal Lord Stanley introduced me to the Field-Marshal, and my very first words caused those who do not know how great and broad a man he is, to think that I had offended Lord Roberts.

"I am very proud to know you, General," I said.

We talked for a few moments of trifling things, merely by way of making acquaintance.

"You called him 'General'; you should have said 'Sir,' or 'Lord Roberts,'" said those who were concerned about the episode.

"The highest rank and t.i.tle in the American Army is 'General,'" said I; "and in that way Was.h.i.+ngton, Grant, and all our leaders were saluted. Lord Roberts spoke of my being an American. I am sure he understands how I came to make a mistake, while, at the same time, paying him the highest respect."

Our newspaper showed that we were getting on rapidly with the new forces of administration--the outcome, first, of Lord Roberts's brain, and, next, of the extraordinary industry at the Residency. That most skilful of military railway engineers, Colonel E. P. C. Girouard, who, while head of the Egyptian Railways was also restoring our wrecked lines and manning them efficiently, announced in our 6th number (March 23rd), that the daily train to the south would leave at 7 a.m., and the train from the south would arrive at twenty-six minutes after midnight each day.

The Gordon Club opposite the Cathedral was to be reopened next day.

The Wesleyan Church announced a parade service for the coming Sunday.

The Presbyterian Church announced its meetings for the week. Services at the English Cathedral were also advertised. The Army Sports began on this date. Major Lorimer, of the Cape Police, came with a trooper and some despatch riders and was taken on the strength. C. V. F.

Townshend, A.A.G. to the Military Governor, grappled with the negro problem in a warning notice that all natives must be indoors by eight o'clock p.m. unless possessed of a special permit, and that dancing and drunkenness in the streets would meet with severe punishment.

We published a very informing and authoritative editorial upon martial law, which one of the editors was at some pains to secure. I have a strong idea that it was written either by General Pretyman or Major Poore, but I have no means for making certain.

James Barnes, the distinguished American correspondent, who very kindly and with able results, took my place as correspondent of the _Daily Mail_ when I was invalided home, wrote for this number a comparison between this and some recent American wars.

We led the paper with the full text of Mr. Kipling's poem, only one verse of which had reached us a week before.

THE FRIEND.

(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)

BLOEMFONTEIN, MARCH 23, 1900.

POEM BY RUDYARD KIPLING.

(Owing to the exigencies of war, we were unable at the time to print more than one stanza of Mr. Kipling's poem, which we now present in its entirety.)

Oh! Terence dear, and did ye hear The news that's going round?

The Shamrock's Erin's badge by law Where'er her sons are found!

From Bobsfontein to Ballyhack 'Tis ordered by the Queen-- We've won our right in open fight, The Wearin' of the Green!

We sailed upon commando To vierneuk our Brother Boer-- A landlord and a Protestant, What could the bhoys want more?

But Redmond cursed and Dillon wept, And swore 'twas shame and sin; So we went out and commandeered The Green they dared not win.

'Twas past the wit of man, they said, Our North and South to join-- Not all Tugela's blood could flood The black and bitter Boyne; But Bobs arranged a miracle (He does it now and then), For he'll be Duke of Orange, sure, So we'll be Orange men!

Take hold! The Green's above the red, But deep in blood 'tis dyed, We plucked it under Mauser-fire Along the trenched hill-side: Talana's rush, the siege, the drift, The Fight of Fourteen Days, Bring back what's more than England's rose And dearer than her praise!

G.o.d heal our women's breaking hearts In Ireland far away!

An' Mary tell the news to those That fell before this day--

Dear careless bhoys that laughed and died By kopje and fontein-- Our dead that won the living prize-- The Wearin' of the Green!

RUDYARD KIPLING.

[_Copyright in England and the U.S.A._]

MILITARY LAW.

(_Editorial._)