With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back Part 4

QUICK MARCH TO THE TRANSVAAL

It was with feelings of unfeigned delight that the Guards learned May Day was to witness the beginning of another great move towards Pretoria. We had entered Bloemfontein without expending upon it a single shot; we had been strangely welcomed with smiles and cheers and waving flags and lavish hospitality; but none the less that charming little capital had made us pay dearly for its conquest, and for our six weeks of so-called rest on the sodden veldt around it. Its traders had levied heavy toll on the soldiers' slender pay; and no fabled monster of ancient times ever claimed so sore a tribute of human lives. It was not on the veldt but under it that hundreds of our lads found rest; and hundreds more were soon to share their fate. The victors had become victims, and the vanquished were avenged. Seldom have troops taken possession of any city with such unmixed satisfaction, or departed from it with such unfeigned eagerness.

[Sidenote: _A Comedy._]

My quartermaster friend and myself, unable to start with the Brigade, set out a few hours later, and tarried for the night at a Hollander platelayer's hut. The man spoke little English, and we less Dutch; but he welcomed us to the hospitality of his two-roomed home with a warmth that was overwhelming. His wife, when the war began, was sent away for safety's sake; and married men thus flung back upon their bachelorhood make poor cooks and caterers unless they happen to be soldiers on the trek; but this man, in his excitement at having such guests to entertain, expectorated violently all over the floor on which presently we expected to sleep; fire was soon kindled and coffee made; the quartermaster produced some tinned meat; I produced some tinned fruit; the ganger produced some tinned biscuits--in this campaign we have been saved by tin--and so by this joint-stock arrangement there was provided a feast that hungry royalty need not have disdained. Next our entertainer undertook to amuse his guests, and did it in a fas.h.i.+on never to be forgotten. He produced a box fitted up as a theatre stage--all made out of his own head, he said--and mostly wooden; there were two puppets on the stage, which were made to dance most vigorously by means of cords attached secretly to the ganger's foot, whilst his hands were no less vigorously employed on the concertina which provided the accompanying dance music. This delighted old man was the oddest figure of the three, as the perspiration poured down his grimy face. To light on such a comedy when on the war path would have been enough to make Momus laugh; and when the laugh was spent we swept the floor, for reasons already hinted at, sought refuge in our blankets; and long before breakfast time next morning landed in Karee Camp.

[Sidenote: _A Tragedy._]

To reach Karee we pa.s.sed through "The Glen" lying beside the Upper Modder, where a deplorable tragedy had occurred not long before. A remarkably fine-looking sergeant of the Guards went to bathe in what he supposed were the deep waters of the Modder, and dived gleefully into deeps that alas were not deep. Striking the bottom with his head, instantly his neck was dislocated, and when I saw him a few hours after, though he was perfectly conscious and anxiously hopeful, he was paralysed from his shoulders downwards. A married man, his heart, too, was broken over such an undreamed of disaster, and in three weeks he died. The mauser is not the only reaping-machine the great harvester employs in war time. There have been over five hundred "accidental"

deaths in the course of this campaign. At the Lower Modder we once arranged to hold a Sunday morning service for the swarms of native drivers in our camp, but in that case also were compelled to prove it is the unexpected that happens. One of the "boys" went to bathe that morning in the suddenly swollen river; he sank; and though search parties were at once sent out, the body was never recovered. So instead of a service we had this sad sensation.

About that same time, and in that same camp, one of my most intimate companions, the quartermaster of the Scots Guards, was one moment laughing and chatting with me in his tent; but the next moment, without the slightest warning, he dropped back on his couch, and that same evening was laid by his sorrowing battalion in a garden-grave.

The other quartermaster, who shared with me the ganger's hospitality and laughter, when the campaign was near its close, was found lying on the floor of his tent. He had fallen when no friendly hand was near to help, and had been dead for hours when discovered. My first campaign, and last, has stored my mind with tragic memories; it has filled my heart with tendernesses unfelt before; and perchance has taught me to interpret more truly that "life of lives" foreshadowed in Isaiah's saying: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."

[Sidenote: _A wide front and a resistless force._]

When, on the 3rd of May, we started from Karee Camp the Guards'

Brigade consisted, as from the outset, of the 1st and 2nd Coldstream battalions, the 3rd Grenadier Guards, and the 1st Scots Guards, all under the command of General Inigo Jones, from whom I received unfailing courtesy. With them was linked General Stephenson's Brigade, consisting of the Welsh, the Warwicks, the Ess.e.x, and the Yorks, these two Brigades forming the Eleventh Division under General Pole Carew.

On our left was General Hutton with a strange medley of mounted infantry to which almost every part of the empire had contributed some of its n.o.blest sons. On our right was General Tucker's Division, the Seventh; and beyond that again other Divisions, covering a front of about forty miles, which gradually narrowed down to twenty as we neared Kroonstad. Reserves were left at Bloemfontein under General Kelly Kenny; and Lord Methuen was on our remote left flank not far from Mafeking; while on our remote right was Rundle's Division, the Eighth. There thus set out for the conquest of the Transvaal a central force nearly 50,000 strong--the finest army by far that England had ever yet put into the field, and led by the ablest general she has produced since Wellington. Yet it perhaps would be more correct to speak of it as the first army _Greater_ Britain had ever fas.h.i.+oned; and in my presence Lord Roberts openly gloried in being the first general the empire had entrusted with the command of a really Imperial host. In this epoch-making conflict neither the commander nor the commanded had any cause to be ashamed one of the other.

Yet from this point onward there was astonis.h.i.+ngly little fighting.

Before the campaign was over some of the guardsmen wore out several pairs of boots, but scarcely fired another bullet. The Boers were so out-manoeuvred that their mausers and machine-guns availed them little. They fought scarcely any but rear-guard actions, and their retreat was so rapid as to be almost a rout. Within about a month of leaving Bloemfontein the Guards' Brigade was in Pretoria; which, considering all they had to carry, and the constant repairing of the railway line required from day to day, would be considered good marching even if there had been no pom-poms planted to oppose progress.

[Sidenote: _Brandfort._]

When we left Karee it was confidently predicted that the Boers would make a stiff stand amid the kopjes which guard the prettily placed and prettily planted little town of Brandfort. So the next day and the day after we walked warily, while cannon to right of us and cannon to left of us volleyed and thundered. Little harm was however done; and as the second afternoon hastened to its sunset hour, we were gleefully informed that "the brother" had once more "staggered humanity" by a precipitate retreat from positions of apparently impregnable strength.

So Brandfort pa.s.sed into our hands for all that it was worth, which did not seem to be much; but what little there was, no man looted. All was bought and paid for as in Piccadilly; but at more than Piccadilly prices. Whatever else however could be purchased, no liquor was on sale; no intemperance was seen; no molestation of woman or child took place. So was it with rare exceptions from the very first; so was it with very rare exceptions to the very last.

[Sidenote: _"Stop the War" slanders._]

In this respect my a.s.sistant-chaplain, the Rev. W. Burgess, a.s.sures me that his experience tallies with mine, and he told me this tale as ill.u.s.trative of it. At Hoekfontein he called at a farmhouse close to our camp, and in it he found an old woman of seventy and her husband, of whom she spoke as nearly ninety. "Do you believe in G.o.d?" she asked the chaplain, and added, "so do I, but I believe in h.e.l.l as well; and would fling De Wet into it if I could." Then she proceeded to explain that her first husband was killed in the last war; that of her three sons commandeered in this war one was already slain, and that when the other two returned from the fighting line De Wet at once sent to fetch them back.

"But look at the broken panel of that door," said the old lady. "Your men did that when I would not answer to their knocks, and they stole my fowls." "Very well," replied Burgess, "where yonder red flag is flying you will find General Ian Hamilton; go and tell him your story." As the result, a staff officer sent to inspect the premises asked the Dutch dame whether food or money should be given her by way of compensation, and whether 15 would fully cover all her loss? She seemed overwhelmingly pleased at such an offer in payment for a broken panel and a few fowls. "Very good," added the staff officer.

"To-morrow I will send you 20, but," quoth he to Burgess, "we'll make the scouts that broke the panel pay the twenty!"

In spite of all the real and the imaginary horrors recorded in "War against War," this has been the most humanely conducted struggle the world has ever seen; but would to G.o.d it were well over.

[Sidenote: _A prisoner who tried to be a poet._]

In the yard of the little town jail I saw nine prisoners of war, only two of whom were genuine Boers. Some were Scotch, some were English, some were Hollanders; and one a fiery Irishman, who expressed so fervent a wish to be free, to revel in further fightings against us, that it was deemed desirable to adorn his wrists with a pair of handcuffs. In one of the cells, it was clear some of our British soldiers had at an earlier date been incarcerated, and were fairly well satisfied with the treatment meted out to them. Written on the wall I found this interesting legend: No. 28696, I. M'Donald, 4th Reg.

M. Inf., Warwick's Camp; taken prisoner 7-3-1900; arrived here 11-3-1900. Also this, by a would-be poet called Wynn, a scout belonging to Roberts' Horse:--

"To all who may read: I have been well treated By all who have had me in charge Since I've been a prisoner here."

The poetry is not much; but the peace of mind which could pencil such lines in prison is a great deal!

[Sidenote: _Militant Dutch reformed predikants._]

The two best buildings in Brandfort appeared to be the church and manse belonging to the Dutch Reformed Community. The church seats 600, though the town contains only 300 whites. But then the wors.h.i.+ppers come from near and far. Hence I found here, as at Bloemfontein that the farmers have their "church houses"--whole rows of them in the latter town--where with their families they reside from Sat.u.r.day to Monday, especially on festival occasions, that they may be present at all the services of the Sabbath and the sanctuary. A typical Dutchman is nothing if he is not devout; though unfortunately his devoutness does not prevent his being exceeding "slim," which seems to some the crown of all excellencies.

The young and intelligent pastor of this important country congregation on whom I called, was evidently an ardent patriot, like almost all his cloth. He had unfortunately firmly persuaded himself that the British fist had been thrust menacingly near the Orange Free State nose; and that therefore the owner of that aforesaid nose was perfectly justified in being the first to strike a deadly blow. He told me he had been for a month at Magersfontein, and that he was out on the Brandfort hills the day before I called watching our troops fighting their way towards the town. I understood him to say he had been shooting buck. What kind of buck is quite another question.

Whether as a pastor his patriotism had confined itself to the use of Bunyan's favourite weapon, "all-prayer," on our approach; or whether as a burgher he had deemed it a part of his duty to employ smokeless powder to emphasise his patriotism, I was too polite to ask. But he pointed out to me on his verandah two old and useless sporting guns, which the day before he had handed to some of our officers, by whom they had been snapped in two and left lying on the floor. There they were pointed out to me by their late owner as part of the ravages of war. They were the only weapons he had in the house, he said, when he surrendered them.

It was a very common trick on the part of surrendered burghers who took the oath of neutrality and gave up their arms, to hand in weapons that were thus worthless and to hide for future use what were of any value. We did not even attempt to take possession of any such a burgher's horse. We found him a soldier, and when he surrendered we left him a soldier, well horsed, well armed, and often deadlier as a pretended friend than as a professed foe. Because of that exquisite folly, which we misnamed "clemency," we have had to traverse the whole ground twice over, and found a guerilla war treading close on the heels of the great war.

This young predikant with more of prudence, and perchance more of honour, recollected next morning that though, as he had truly said, he had no more weapons in the house, he had a beautiful mauser carbine hidden in his garden. There it got on his nerves and perhaps on his conscience; so calling in a pa.s.sing officer of the Grenadier Guards he requested him to take possession of it, together with a hundred rounds of ammunition belonging to it. When with a sad smile he pointed out to me "the ravages of war" on his verandah floor my politeness again came to the rescue, and I said nothing about that lovely little mauser of his, which an hour before I had been curiously examining at our mess breakfast table. Too much frankness on that point would perhaps have spoiled our pleasant chat.

[Sidenote: _Our Australian Chaplain's pastoral experiences._]

In the course of that chat he candidly confessed himself to be thoroughly anti-British; and for his candour this young predikant is to be honoured; but some few of his ministerial brethren proved near akin to the ever-famous Vicar of Bray, whom an ancient song represents as saying:

"That this is law I will maintain Unto my dying day, Sir; That whatsoever king may reign, I'll be Vicar of Bray, Sir."

So were there Dutch predikants who were decidedly anti-British while the British were over the hills and far away; but who fell in love with the Union Jack the moment it arrived; even if they did not set it fluttering from their own chimney-top. One such our chaplain with the Australian Bushmen met at Zeerust. When the Bushmen arrived this predikant was one of the first to welcome them, and helped to hoist the British flag. Then "the Roineks," that is the "red neck" English, retired for a while, and De La Rey arrived; whereupon the resident Boers went wild with joy, and whistled and shouted one of their favourite songs, "Vat jougoed entrek," which means "Pack your traps and trek." That was a broad hint to all pro-Britishers. So this interesting predikant hauled down the Union Jack, which his sons instantly tore to tatters, ran up the Boer flag, and drove De La Rey hither and thither in his own private carriage. Though to our Australian chaplain he expressed, still later on, his deep regret that "the Hollanders had forced the President into making war on England,"

when Lord Methuen, in the strange whirligig of war, next drove out De La Rey from this same Zeerust, our versatile predikant's turn soon came to "Pack his traps and trek." Even in South Africa "Ye cannot serve two masters."

[Sidenote: _The Welsh Chaplain._]

After one day's rest at Brandfort the Guards resumed their march, and aided by some fighting, in which the Australians took a conspicuous part, we reached the Vet River, and encamped near its southern banks for the night. Here the newly-appointed Wesleyan Welsh chaplain, Rev.

Frank Edwards, overtook me; and until it could be decided where he was to go or what he was to do, he was invited to become my brother-guest at the Grenadiers' mess.

The next day being Sunday Mr Edwards had a speedy opportunity of learning how little the best intentioned chaplain can accomplish when at the front in actual war time. It was the sixth Sunday in succession I was doomed to spend, not in doing the work of a preacher but of a pedestrian. All other chaplains were often in the same sad but inevitable plight; and though Mr Edwards had come from far of set purpose to preach Christ in the Welsh tongue to Welshmen, had all the camp been Welsh he would that day have found himself absolutely helpless. We were all on the march; and the only type of Christian work then attemptable takes the form of a brief greeting in the name of Christ to the men who tramp beside us, though they are often too tired even to talk, and we are compelled to trudge on in stolid silence.

The drift we had to cross that Sunday at the Vet was by far the worst we had yet reached in South Africa, and till all the waggons were safely over, the whole column was compelled to linger hard by. I therefore took advantage of that long pause to hurry on to Smaldeel Junction, where the headquarter staff was staying for the day. Here I was privileged to introduce Mr Edwards to the Field-Marshal, and was so fortunate as to secure his immediate appointment as Wesleyan chaplain to the whole of General Tucker's Division, with special attachment to the South Wales Borderers. This important and appropriate task successfully accomplished, I retired to rest under the broken fans of a shattered windmill.

Mr Edwards' a.s.sociation with the Guards' Brigade was thus of very short duration; but some interesting glimpses of his after work are given, from his own pen, in "From Aldershot to Pretoria." I must, therefore, only add that he was early struck by a small fragment of a sh.e.l.l, and was at the same time fever-stricken, so that for ten weeks he remained on the sick list. Still more unluckily he had only just resumed work, when there developed a further attack of dysentery, fever and jaundice, which ended in his being invalided home. Thus, like many another chaplain, he found his South African career became one of suffering rather than of service.

CHAPTER V

TO THE VALSCH RIVER AND THE VAAL

After resting for two days at Smaldeel, the Guards set out for Kroonstad on the Valsch or False River, so called because in some parts it so frequently changes its channel that after a heavy freshet one can seldom be quite sure where to find it. This march of sixty-five miles was covered in three days and a half; Smaldeel seeing the last of us on Wednesday and Kroonstad seeing the first of us about noon on Sat.u.r.day. In the course of this notable march we saw, or rather heard, two artillery duels; the Boers half-heartedly opposing our pa.s.sage, first at the Vet River just before we reached Smaldeel, and then at the Sand River, long since made famous by the Convention bearing that name.

[Sidenote: _The Sand River Convention._]

Though Great Britain is supposed to suffer from insatiable land hunger it is a notable truth that she has voluntarily surrendered more oversea territory than some important kingdoms ever possessed; but not one of these many surrenders proved half so disastrous to all concerned as that on which the Sand River Convention set its seal in 1852. At that time our colonial possessions were accounted by many overtaxed statesmen to be all plague and no profit, involving the motherland in incessant native wars out of which she won for herself neither credit nor cash. That had proved specially true in South Africa. When, therefore, the Crimean war hove in sight with its manifold risks and its drain on our national resources, it was resolved to lessen our liabilities in that then unattractive quarter of the globe. The Transvaal was at that time a barren land, given over to wild beasts, and to Boers who seemed equally uncontrollable. An Ishmael life was theirs, their hand against every man's and every man's hand against them. Every little towns.h.i.+p was a law unto itself and almost every homestead; so the British Government threw up the thankless task of governing the ungovernable, as soon as a life and death struggle with Russia appeared inevitable. The Sand River Convention gave to the Transvaal absolute independence save only in what related to the treatment of the natives. There was to be no slavery in the Transvaal; but no Convention ever yet framed could apparently bind a Boer when his financial interests bade him break it.

So set he his face to evade the conditions both of the Pretoria and the London Conventions of later date; and the one requirement of this first Convention he set at nought. During several following years he still hunted for slaves whom he took captive in native wars; sjamboked them into serving him without pay; bought them, sold them, but never called them slaves. They were "apprentices," which was a fine word for a foul thing. So was the Convention kept in the letter of it and broken in the spirit of it. For five-and-twenty years of widening and deepening anarchy that Convention remained in force, the Transvaal fighting with the Orange Free State, and Boer bidding defiance to Boer with bullets for his arguments. When little Lydenberg claimed the right to set up as an independent republic, Kruger himself reasoned with it at the muzzle of his rifle, as we have since been compelled to reason with him. So at last Shepstone appeared upon the scene to evolve order out of chaos; and though he knew it not, he was the true herald of the Guards' Brigade, and sundry others, that after many days crossed the Sand River to make an end for ever of all that the Sand River Convention involved.

The year following that in which the Convention was signed, another step was taken in the same direction and independence was forced on the Orange Free State. The people protested, and pleaded for permission to still live under the protection of the British flag; but their prayers were as unavailing as "the groans of the Britons,"

which, as recorded in the early pages of our own island story, followed the retiring swords of Rome. Now, after nearly forty years of uttermost neighbourliness, the Orange Free State, with machine gun and mauser hurls back the gift once so reluctantly accepted, and forces us to recall what now they still more reluctantly surrender. How bewildering are the ways of Fate!

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From a photograph by Mr Westerman_