The Covenant Part 63

General Buller had been as humiliated as any general in history. His heliogram advising Ladysmith to surrender because he could think of no quick way to rescue it had been circulated to the cabinet, causing such a scandal that the War Office had to take action, and they had deprived him of the supreme command, handing it to an extraordinary man, Lord Roberts of Kandahar, approaching seventy, the hero of Afghanistan, five feet four inches tall, one hundred and twenty-three pounds in weight and blind in one eye. His chief-of-staff would be Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, and it was agreed that these two would really fight the Boers, while Good Old Buller could be left off to one side, wrestling with the Tugela River, which he had now failed twice to cross.

To compound his problems, the War Office had given him as second in command a general whom he positively detested and to whom he preferred not to speak. For Sir Charles Warren, nearing sixty, this would have to be his last command, and unless he performed with some brilliance, he could hope for no further honors, which probably did not worry him, for he had other loves, especially archaeology and the secrets of Jerusalem. He had also made an abortive run for Parliament and a more successful one for head of the London constabulary, a post he held for three years, losing it when he failed to uncover the mystery of the century: the ident.i.ty of Jack the Ripper. Quietly he moved back to the army, and when war broke out he reminded everyone that he had seen much service in South Africa, had helped solve the ticklish question of who owned the diamond mines, and 'knew a thing or two about the Boers.'

Warren despised Buller, holding him to be an a.s.s, but it was nevertheless essential that he keep close to the old general because Warren carried in his pocket a most dangerous piece of paper: it was called 'a Dormant Commission,' and it stated that if anything should happen to Buller, or if he should fall apart, as seemed likely, Warren was to a.s.sume command. Consequently, it was in Warren's interest to see that Buller did fail.

Relieved of responsibility for the other fronts in South Africa, General Buller was free to direct all his attention to the Tugela River, and as he rode back and forth along its southern sh.o.r.e, pondering how best to reach the northern, he began to see that his previous attempts had been doomed because he had been heading straight for Ladysmith along roads which had to be heavily defended. What he would do would be to dash far to the west, outflank the Boers, and swing into Ladysmith in a leftward charge. With Warren's troops he again had more than twenty thousand first-cla.s.s men to face a Boer force of less than eight thousand. But he had Sir Charles Warren breathing down his neck, and he still had to cross the Tugela.

A flanking movement like this required speed and deception; unfortunately, Buller surrendered both those advantages by entrusting the most important part of the campaign to the 'ex-policeman,' as he contemptuously called Warren. Sending the difficult and unreliable Warren off to the left, he moved his own sybaritic tent some twenty miles upstream, and when his feather bed and iron bathtub were in position, he astonished Saltwood and his other aides by scouting the opposite sh.o.r.e with his French telescope.

He did this by lying flat on his back and propping his scope on his enormous belly and toes, moving it slowly through whatever arc his position permitted, and shouting his observations to Saltwood. By now, newspapers throughout the world knew that 'General Buller is once more thinking about crossing the Tugela.'

What he saw when he lay prostrate looking through his toes were three hills perched menacingly behind the north sh.o.r.e of the Tugela: Hill One, nearest at hand; Hill Two in the middle; Hill Three well to the west. The plan was for Warren to move far west of Hill Three and cut the Boer line, if he ever got his land-armada across the river, with his innumerable wagons and fifteen thousand trek-oxen; this incredible train was fifteen miles long and required two days to pa.s.s a spot, even when moving sharply. Buller would then make a drive for Hill One and join up with Warren, opening the pathway to Ladysmith. A tremendous amount of staff work was done to prepare the English forces for these carefully planned moves.

At Warren's crossing point, four huge wood-fueled steam tractors had been maneuvered into position, and as they huffed and puffed, belching fire, wagons were pulled across small crevices while engineers sought low spots in the river at which pontoon bridges might be built. They isolated three such spots, and their officers chose each one in turn, abandoning it as soon as any difficulty arose. The delay was intolerable.

Saltwood had found it a memorable experience to watch these two elderly generals, Buller and Warren, go about their planning of this crucial battle, for it became apparent that in their extreme jealousy, neither was backing up the other, and each was holding his choice cards tight to his chest without permitting his colleague to see them. One of Buller's most ambitious young a.s.sistants told Frank, 'We're going to witness three great battles. Us against the Boers. Buller against Warren. And Warren against Buller.'

'Dreadful way to run a war.'

'Ah, but the last two battles will be well matched, because our two generals are of equal intelligence, somewhat higher than a mule but markedly lower than a good bird dog.'

'Buller told me yesterday we'd be ready to strike tomorrow.'

'It won't happen. General Warren has this curious fixation that armies should be allowed to get into position and face each other for three or four days. Get the feel of contest.'

'We've been trying to get the feel of it for two months now,' Frank said. 'Those poor devils in Ladysmith.'

'They've nothing to worry about. Buller heliographed them again yesterday that he'd be there within five days.'

'Any chance?' Frank asked.

'If Warren punches west through the Boer line, I'm sure we can make it. But if he swings over to Hill Two in the middle, we'll be in deep trouble.'

'Would he do such a thing?'

'With these two generals, anything can happen.'

'Tonight we should pray,' Saltwood said, and he did.

It did not help. For days Warren plodded along until Buller, who had watched helplessly since giving the man an independent command, could no longer contain his anger. Riding over to Warren's headquarters, he said gruffly, 'For G.o.d's sake, move!'

'There are thousands of Boers out there waiting.'

'There were only ten hundred when you started.'

'I've decided to go for Hill Two,' Warren said.

The young officer had been correct in his fears that these two generals would dissipate their great opportunity: the 'ex-policeman' was swinging to his right to club the Boers on Spion Kop. With incomplete orders to the troops involved, the vast plans were sc.r.a.pped and whole battalions were ordered to march right when they had planned to go left. What seemed incredible then, and even more so now, they were to attack a sizable hill that no one had scouted and for which only the roughest maps existed. This error could easily have been corrected had General Buller authorized his balloonist to go aloft, for the man was a skilled observer and from twelve hundred feet, his optimum operating level, could have informed the generals of exactly what lay ahead. Buller did not hold with balloons and other such nonsense, so this invaluable tool was not used; the troops would march up Spion Kop with no concept of where they were going or what they might face when they got there.

What was worsemuch worse, as it turned outGeneral Warren kept his headquarters far to the west, which would have been reasonable had the drive continued in that direction, while General Buller kept his far to the east, removed from everything. When Major Saltwood protested this wide separation of the two headquartersseven miles with crude communicationsBuller growled through his enormous mustache, 'It's his show. He's in charge of the troops.'

'But you're the commander-in-chief, sir.'

'Never meddle with another man's fight.'

'But it's your battle, sir.'

'It's Warren's day. He's got the finest English troops to win the battle.'

Frank wanted to cry, 'Then G.o.d save the empire.' But he did not. He rode the seven miles to General Warren's headquarters, where he arrived in time to witness an incomprehensible performance.

Warren had in his command a brilliant, headstrong cavalry leader named Lord Dundonald, a charismatic type whom the older generals distrusted, and when this fiery chap, leading fifteen hundred of the finest mounted troops, was set loose on the left flank, he launched a glorious charge which quite neutralized Hill Three and gained access to an unpatrolled road along which Warren's infantry could advance directly into Ladysmith. By this daring and gallant maneuver he opened the way to an English victory, and the younger officers were cheering when Frank reached their headquarters: 'Dundonald's done it! He said he would.'

But then Warren sprang into action. Gray with fury, he stormed into the room where the younger men were cheering and cried, 'Bring that d.a.m.ned fool back here. We need cavalry to protect our oxen. Let him keep a few men on his d.a.m.ned road, but I want the rest back here in camp!' and on the spot he deputized Major Saltwood and two others to ride posthaste after the cavalry and bring them back. 'd.a.m.ned young fellows! Put them on a horse, they think they know everything.'

Saltwood, not being a member of General Warren's force, was not afraid to confront him: 'Sir, I believe Lord Dundonald should be allowed to hold the road, and we should rush men to ensure he keeps it.'

'He'll come back here, and he'll obey my orders. My G.o.d, I'll take his hors.e.m.e.n away from him. Insubordination.'

So Frank Saltwood had the miserable task of riding west to inform the gallant young Lord Dundonald that he was to pull back the bulk of his men. On this day Dundonald had beaten off a series of Boer patrols in savage encounters; he had won a notable victory; but now he must retreat. The burghers would win this segment of the battle without having fired a shot!

On the night of 23 January 1900 General Warren sent his men up the south face of Spion Kop; they were led by a major-general, but he was fifty-five years old, had weak legs and did not take easily to steep places, so that he had to be shoved up them by his troops. Poor man, he was soon dying from a sh.e.l.l fragment.

What ensued must have been orchestrated by some mad genius, because both Warren and Buller, from their separate headquarters, appointed different replacements to the vacant major-general's slot. Unfortunately, communications collapsed and no one knew who was in charge. There were, as a consequence, two British officers conducting the fight, each unaware of the other and a.s.suming that he was in supreme command.

Two additional officers were sent in to take charge, one by Buller, one by Warren, and once again each a.s.sumed that he was in sole command. One way or another, the hill now contained four commanders leading nineteen hundred of the empire's finest, while another eighteen thousand were kept in reserve; they would be sorely needed as the terrible struggle developed, but no one would command them to march.

In grandeur General Buller sat in his tent like a sulking Achilles, out of contact with the progress of the battle and doing nothing to sort out the mess his 'ex-policeman' was getting his men into. 'It's Warren's fight,' he insisted when Saltwood galloped back from the other general's camp, begging for clarifications.

On the other hand, Buller was not loath to intervene whenever a particularly brilliant idea occurred to him, and he issued commands that would have bewildered generals as quick-minded as Hannibal and Napoleon. As for Warren, he was a fool who moved at a snail's pace, fighting a night battle on a hill he did not comprehend. Not once did he move to Spion Kop; not once did he try to see for himself the dreadful slaughter occurring there.

He issued some twenty crucial orders, half to one of his commanders on the hill, half to others battling toward it. A German observer watching this amazing battle said, 'The English army is composed of ordinary soldiers who are lions of bravery led by officers who are a.s.ses of stupidity.' And he said this before the two generals had an opportunity to display their true talents.

General de Groot chafed. Much against his counsel, his truncated commando was being held in reserve behind Spion Kop. 'We'll throw you in at the crucial moment,' he was told, but two more of his men, seeking action, had slipped away.

The scene behind the hill was extraordinary. Row after row of sleek Boer ponies stood with their halters tied to trees or rocks while their masters fought on foot up the steep hill. Some five hundred wagons huddled at a distance, field ambulances and Red Cross units outspanned among them, their oxen peacefully grazing. Near them waited the wives who had accompanied their husbands, and in one tent Sybilla de Groot tended such men as were dragged to her impromptu hospital ward. Other women helped their servants do the cooking, and from time to time everyone would stop to listen to the raging battle which was taking place less than a quarter of a mile from where they worked.

When, toward noon, General de Groot walked back through the dust to talk with his wife, the women learned that whereas the English troops had captured the top of the hill, they had placed their trench so poorly that the Boers had a good chance of taking it away from them. 'Will there be many dead?' Sybilla asked.

'A great many,' the old man said.

'Will you be going up?'

'Soon as they set us free.'

'Be careful, Paulus,' she said as he shuffled back to the hill.

It was men of the Carolina Commando, from the small town east of Venloo, who won the honors for bravery this day. They were led by Commandant Henrik Prinsloo and a short, stocky veldkornet named Christoffel Steyn, almost as thick through the belly as he was tall; when Steyn ran forward, rolling from side to side, men muttered, 'If he can do it, I can do it.' What he did was run straight through a heavy barrage to the top of Hill Three, a kopje opposite the summit of Spion Kop, where he positioned his men behind rocks so that they could fire directly into the side openings of the English trenches. This fat fellow, who had never fought before, could not believe that the highly trained English officers opposing him could have allowed him to occupy this fatal hill, but he accepted his luck and ordered his men to increase their fire into the exposed English ranks.

Whole trenches were wiped out, not a single man surviving, and of ten dead soldiers, nine had been shot not through the front of their bodies, but through the side of the head. Christoffel Steyn's men had made the difference, but they did so from a hill they should never have been able to occupy for as long as they did.

Why the ragged line of burghers was permitted to hold the strategic kopje was one of the disgraceful incidents of this battle. While eighteen thousand crack troops still remained in reserve, powerless to aid their brothers dying in such numbers on Spion Kop, a commander of the King's Royal Rifles, on his own initiative, dispatched his two finest battalions, ordering them to rush another hill opposite to the one held by Steyn. If they were successful, they could drive Steyn out with gunfire, and thus save the men on Spion Kop.

It was an impossible ascent, almost straight up, in heat of day, with Boers firing down at them from above, but these brave men, goaded by their energetic officers, somehow made it to the top, drew much of the fire away from their exposed comrades, and began to batter the Carolina burghers. It was a triumph of courage and grit, giving the English their first victory of the day.

Saltwood, witnessing the triumph, hastened to inform General Buller, but when this confused leader heard that a commander of troops had acted on his own, and had, furthermore, split his men into two groups, he fell into a fury and began to heckle his commander. At this moment a message reached Buller, warning that the Boers were in such firm control that if the King's Royal Rifles tried to cross over to Spion Kop, they would be annihilated.

'Bring them back down!' Buller fumed.

'Sir!' Saltwood objected. 'They've performed a miracle. Let them stay.'

'They should never have been split into groups.'

The commander, seeing his general in such confusion, lost all confidence in the daring action and signaled his men to climb down: 'Get off the hill! Come back immediately!' At first the men refused to believe that such a stupid order could have been issued, and one colonel refused to obey it. 'd.a.m.n them all,' he shouted, whereupon a Boer bullet struck him below the heart, killing him instantly. The retreat began.

Night fell as the beleaguered soldiers on Spion Kop watched with dismay as the King's Royal Rifles abandoned the neighboring hill. For a few more hours the officers on Spion Kop held their positions, but finally one of the finest commanders signaled a retreat. This heroic man, Colonel Thorneycroft, had been breveted general in the midst of the battle; he weighed about twenty stonetwo hundred and eighty poundsmost of it hard muscle, and he was afraid of nothing. Only his courage had kept the trenches in English hands, despite the awful slaughter, but now he lost his nerve.

He led his brave men down the hill, conceding defeat, just as one of the other commanders was climbing up with fresh troops, hoping for victory. They pa.s.sed in silence.

When the new commander reached the crest of Spion Kop, in darkness, he found an amazing situation: the Boers, who had faced tremendous fire that day, had decided, half an hour before General Thorneycroft began to evacuate troops down the hill, that Spion Kop could not be taken. The constant pressure of the English gunners had been more than even these Boers could absorb, and they had deserted the hill. They knew they were defeated.

In other words, two heroic armies who had fought as bravely as men could fight, had decided within fifteen minutes of each other that the day was lost. Their two retreats occupied the same moments. After deaths innumerable, Spion Kop was deserted.

The Englishman climbing up as Thorneycroft went down was the first to discover this; he was another of the four in command that tangled day, and now he had a chance to save the day for the English. All he had to do was rush back down the hill, signal his superior, General Warren, and convince him to send more troops scurrying back to the summit. Full victory rested in the hands of the English if only this officer could contact General Warren.

This could not be done. The officer framed an excellent message, calling for quick reinforcements to occupy the abandoned hill and explaining how victory was a.s.sured, but when he summoned the signalman and told him to use his night lantern to flash the good word to General Warren's headquarters, the man said, 'I have no paraffin.'

'Try the wick. It may burn. Even for one minute.'

The signalman lit his wick. It did not even sputter. For want of a thimbleful of kerosene, the fateful message was not sent. The Battle of Spion Kop was lost.

While those futile efforts were being made to get English soldiers back onto Spion Kop, on the northern side of the hill a few of the defeated Boers consulted at two in the morning concerning their fate, and as an occasional rifle shot echoed from some distant place where soldiers were nervous, they whispered in the darkness, 'General de Groot, what did you think of the battle? Could we have won?'

'I wasn't allowed in the battle. They never called for our reserve.'

'Our losses were heavy, General. But not like the English. Did you hear about the Carolina Commando? They had a clear shot, right down the English trenches. They killed everybody.'

It was another young fellow, only a boy, really, who asked the question that saved the day for the Boers: 'I was on the eastern hill when the English crawled up and took it. Why did they go back down?'

In the darkness General de Groot asked, 'You saw them go down?'

'Yes. They were very brave. One officer . . .'

'But they went back down?'

'Yes, they drove us off the hill. We lost sixteen, seventeen men. Jack Kloppers standing beside me. Right through the forehead.'

De Groot took the lad by his shoulders, pulling him into the flickering light of a small fire. 'You say they held the hill, then abandoned it?'

'Yes. Yes. I covered Jack Kloppers with a blanket and I went back to the summit. They went down and we didn't even fire at them.'

For some minutes General de Groot stood in silence, looking up at Spion Kop. Finally he said in a very low voice, 'Son, I think you and I should go back up that hill. I think that maybe G.o.d has been holding me in reserve for this moment.' He asked for volunteers, and Jakob van Doorn, of course, stepped forward.

So the three tired Boers, at two-thirty on that dark, forlorn morning, set out to climb the hill where so many had died. In front, walking faster than the others, was Paulus de Groot in top hat and frock coat. Behind him came the lad who had occasioned this expedition, and behind, puffing heavily, came Jakob van Doorn, who had been quite content to have his commando held in reserve: death terrified him.

They climbed slowly, for there was no moon, and from time to time they trod on the face of some fallen comrade. When they approached the crest, where the fighting had been most hazardous, they stepped on many bodies, and then the old general, his hat still in place, rose upon the horizon in a position which would have been fatal had English troops been on the hill. Slowly the other two joined him, and like scouts reconnoitering some dismal field of death, they moved forward, coming to the trench where the English lads lay stacked, bullets through the sides of their heads, and all the way to the other edge of the plateau, where they could look down upon the silent camp of the enemy.

Running back to the center of the silent battlefield, where he a.s.sured himself that this miracle had taken place, Paulus de Groot removed his hat, placed it over his heart, and kneeled in the b.l.o.o.d.y dust: 'Almighty G.o.d of the Boers, You have brought us victory, and we didn't know it. Almighty G.o.d of the Boers . . . dear faithful G.o.d of the Boers . . .'

The sky was brightening when he straightened up and walked to the edge of the hill to alert his comrades below: 'Boers! Boers!'

In their bivouac the commandos had watched as sun began to break, uncertain as to what they might have to face this day from that b.l.o.o.d.y embattled mount.

An incredible sight greeted them. On the summit, outlined against the sky, stood an old man, the victor of Majuba nineteen years before, waving his top hat triumphantly. General Paulus de Groot had captured Spion Kop.

There had been at the hill that twenty-fourth day of January 1900 three young men of radically different character; no one of the three saw the other two, but each would live to play an outstanding role in the future history of his particular country.

The oldest was a Boer officer, only thirty-seven, on whom fell the burden of rallying his troops when all seemed lost and sustaining them when the leaders.h.i.+p of the older generals proved defective. Had some young English colonel of comparable ability managed to insert himself in place of his own wavering and slow-witted generals, that side would probably have won this crucial battle; fortune dictated that it would be the Boers who would act intelligently. This splendid military genius was Louis Botha, who would become the first Boer prime minister of the new nation that would emerge from this battle. At Spion Kop young Botha, who ended the day in overall command, became convinced that Boer and Englishman would do better if they worked together. In the rage of battle he knew that this internecine warfare was senseless, and that unless the two white races coalesced in their common interests and humanity, South Africa must be torn apart. He became the great conciliator, the prudent counselor, the head of state, and few names in the history of his country would stand higher.

The youngest of the men was a rowdy newspaperman whom n.o.body could discipline. Reporter for a London paper, he wrote penetrating, irreverent accounts of men like Warren, so that proper military men shuddered when he approached. He was then tallish and slim, and spoke with a lisp that caused merriment among the st.u.r.dier types. He had not done well in school, had avoided university altogether, and was thought of as pretty much a freak. Because of carelessness, he had already been captured once by the Boers but had escaped through sheer brazenness. There was a kind of price on his head, not to be taken seriously, perhaps, but had he been captured at Spion Kop, things might have been rather sticky. In spite of this, he climbed three times to the crest of the hill, where he was revolted by the confusion and inefficiency. He was Winston Churchill, twenty-five years old, already the author of several fine books and desperately hungry to get into Parliament. A brief fourteen years after this day on Spion Kop, young Churchill would find himself in the middle of a much greater war, and in the war cabinet, and in charge of naval operations. At Gallipoli he would interfere in military matters so disgracefully that he would ensure the tragic defeat of a major English operation, so that his name became synonymous with civilian incompetence. On Spion Kop that day he had learned a lesson from defeat, for when the battle was dismally lost, General Buller at last took complete charge, and in rallying his men he was superb, a stubborn man with iron courage who stared into the face of catastrophe and a.s.sured his troops: 'We shall win this war.' And his men were willing to support him. Of Buller, Churchill wrote: 'It's the love and admiration of Tommy Atkins that fortifies him.' In 1941 this lesson in bulldog tenacity would lead Winston Churchill to immortality.

The third young man was a curious type; scrawny, short, spindly-legged, very dark of countenance, with even darker hair, he served that day as an ambulance runner. If Louis Botha had seen him, he would have ignored him as an unwelcomed immigrant; had Winston Churchill seen him foraging among the dead to ascertain if even one man still survived, he would have dismissed him as inconsequential. Born in India, he had surveyed that impoverished land and decided that it held no promise for young lawyers, so he had eagerly emigrated to South Africa, where he fully intended to spend the remainder of his life. His name was Mohandas Karam-chand Gandhi, volunteer stretcher bearer to the English forces. Aware that the ruling castes, Boer and Briton, held all Indians in disdain, he had persuaded his fellow Hindus in Durban to volunteer for the war's most dangerous service to prove their worth; on this day he had escaped death a score of times, and two of his a.s.sociates had been killed. On Spion Kop, Mohandas Gandhi learned that warfare was unutterably stupid, that it solved no problems, and that when the dead were collected and the medals distributed, the warring parties still faced their insoluble problems. How much better had they avoided violent discourse and taken resort to peaceful non-resistance.

There was a fourth man on Spion Kop that day, or rather that night, but no one paid him any attention, and he did not rise in later years to lead his nation, but on this encrusted battlefield he did learn the first and only of his great lessons. When General de Groot, at two-thirty in the morning of the day following the battle, climbed back up Spion Kop, there were two men with him, the young fellow who alerted the move and Jakob van Doorn, his constant companion. There was a fourth man, but since he was black he didn't count. He was Micah Nxumalo, who would never be far from the old general in the days of this war. He did not have to partic.i.p.ate, and he had no gun to defend himself; he merely tagged along because he loved the old general and had served him in various capacities. He could tend horses, scavenge for food, help the women, serve as scout when conditions grew tense, and tend the sick commandos. On Spion Kop, Micah Nxumalo began to develop a great truth which he would later quietly pa.s.s along to his people. As he moved through that fiery day, seeing the troops who seemed so numerous, he noticed that taken altogether, they numbered far fewer than his Zulu tribe, or the Xhosa, or the Swazi, or the Basuto, or the Bechuana, or the Matabele. He saw that the English and the Boers were playing tremendous games, but that when the battles were finished they would be brothers, a few white men set down amidst a vast congregation of blacks: When the games are ended and the mighty guns are silenced, the real struggle will begin, and it will not be Englishman against Boer. It will be white man against black, and in the end we shall triumph.

For the duration of the present episode Nxumalo would continue with the Boers; they were his proven friends; and he hoped they would win this time. But he was struck by the fact that an equal number of blacks served with the English, hoping, no doubt, that they would win.

When the disaster of Spion Kop was ended, with the land-armada once again south of the Tugela, and the fifteen thousand trek-oxen pulling the ma.s.sive wagons back to where they started, Frank Saltwood had to evaluate the performance, which he had witnessed mainly at Buller's elbow: He had rotten luck. Having that Warren thrust upon him. What a dunderhead! The battle could have been won four different ways, and he rejected them all. But then the question arose: I wonder why Buller didn't discharge him? Buller was in command.

The more he thought about this the more he realized that as a South African not reared in the English military tradition, he could not appreciate the reticence one general would have in ever bringing criticism upon another: They're a fraternity of aging warriors, each supporting the other, each attentive to the traditions of the service. Losing a battle is far less important than losing relative position in the hierarchy.

But even Saltwood had to admit that not all the blame could be thrown on Warren; Buller, too, had partic.i.p.ated in the gross errors: He gave Warren command, then intervened a score of times. After all, it was my man Buller who heckled the commander of the King's Royal Rifles until those brave men were ordered to retreat.

When he had lined up in his mind all the pros and cons, one fact persisted: Buller's foot soldiers consider him the best general they ever served under. I've asked a score of them. Always the same answer: 'I'd go anywhere with Old Buller. He looks after his men.' And now Saltwood realized that many of the horrendous decisions he saw Buller make were done to preserve lives. He might drink too much Trianon sparkling, and as one correspondent wrote, he did eat gargantuan meals; but where human life was concerned, he was Spartan. 'Train them hard,' he had told Saltwood. 'Drive them hard. But bring them back in good order.' When Frank asked about this, the old man said, 'Most important fact of war? Keep your army in existence. Lose the battle, but keep your eye on winning the war.'

But everyone in Buller's command had to be aware of the attacks being made upon their general by the experts in Europe. London newspapers began calling him 'The Ferryman of the Tugela.' In Parliament he was known as 'Sir Reverse Buller.' After the last debacle he humphed and mumbled, 'By gad, they're splendid troops. Retreated without losing one gun carriage.' To which Saltwood said, 'They should do it well, sir. They've had plenty of rehearsal.' General Buller looked at him with his tiny pinched eyes and laughed. 'Yes, yes. What I mean, yes. They are great troops.'

He sent another smas.h.i.+ng heliogram to the besieged heroes at Ladysmith, a.s.suring them that he would rescue them within five days, and with fort.i.tude he crossed the Tugela yet again, only to get a shocking b.l.o.o.d.y nose which sent him reeling back across that pitiful stream once more. In Ladysmith the rations were diminis.h.i.+ng, and at the end of twelve weeks Buller was no closer to the town than when he started. Still he had the gall to heliograph yet again that he would succor the town at any moment now.

In view of the growing criticism, Saltwood sometimes wondered why the British authorities allowed him to retain command. There was one reason, tragic and accidental. In Buller's first attempt to cross the Tugela, that masterpiece of inept.i.tude, a gallant young officer volunteered to rescue some heavy guns that were about to be lost to the Boers. He was killed, and he happened to be the son of Lord Roberts, who would shortly become Buller's superior. Now, lest Roberts appear vengeful over a death for which Buller was in no way responsible, he remained silent, when otherwise he would have recommended his removal.

A more subtle explanation was given to some French and German observers one night by a young English officer: 'The War Office wants generals like Buller. They're never comfortable with uncertain types like Kitchener and Allenby. Buller is steady, which they like, and not too clever, which they prefer. As a young man he obeyed orders and plunged ahead. You should have seen him, they tell me, wading into Egyptians. Very forceful. They like it that he can't speak clearly, that he harrumphs all over the place. That's how a proper general should behave. Look at Raglan and Cardigan at Balaklava.'

'But why in G.o.d's name don't they dismiss him when his deficiencies become known?' the German asked.

'Ah! That's why we're English. That's why you'll never understand us. Who appointed Buller? The establishment. The older generals. The older politicians. Probably some of the archbishops had a hand, if the truth were known. They like him. They trust him. He's one of them. Good family, you know.'

'But he's destroying the army,' the Frenchman protested.