With Rimington Part 4

We were told afterwards that the plan on this side was to draw the Boers south of the hills, so as to give the cavalry, which was to move westward just north of the range, a chance of cutting them off. The cavalry, however, didn't turn up. No one seemed to know what had become of them, and I daresay they were saying the same of us. The advice not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing is sometimes rather too literally followed in these manoeuvres, I think. Meantime the Boers have driven off all old Cook's cattle and all Mrs. Dugmore's too; and as we were sent out with the express object of "rea.s.suring the farmers," the result is not entirely satisfactory.

No matter; this was all a side issue; now for a larger stage and more important operations. Blow trumpets and sound drums. Enter Lord Roberts and the main army.

LETTER X

RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY

KIMBERLEY CLUB, _February 18_.

It is with feelings of the deepest satisfaction that I look at the address at the head of this notepaper. Indeed for the last five minutes I have been staring at it dreamily without putting pen to paper, repeating "Kimberley Club, Kimberley," to myself, vaguely thinking of all it portends; the varied fortunes of the last three months; the cheery setting out; the first battles, that already seem so long ago; the repulse, and long, dreary wait by Modder; the gradual reconstruction of the whole plan of attack, and now the final achievement. Christian and I have been sharing a pint of champagne in the club bar. It was not till I heard the bottle pop that I realised, as by a sudden inspiration, that the British army had really attained its object at last. Very gravely we gave each other luck, and gravely drank our wine. Both of us, I am glad to be able to tell you, rose to the occasion, and as we looked across the bubbles, no foolish chaff or laughter marred the moment.

I wrote you my last letter from old Modder just as we were leaving to catch French. Marching light and fast, we got up with him on the night of the 15th at the Klip Drift on the Modder, northeast of Jacobsdal.

From there we were sent back to guide on Kitchener, which we did, bringing him to French's camp on the river by 6 A.M. next morning (16th). We met on the way our little ambulance cart bobbing home with the adjutant languidly reclining. He had had one of those escapes that now and then come off. There was a high hill to the north, and up this the previous morning, R., an active walker, had climbed to have a view of the country. He reached the top, which is like a gable, slanting both sides to a thin edge, and precisely as he did so, ten or a dozen great hairy Boers reached it from the other side, and, at ten yards' distance across the rock edge, their eyes met. Can you conceive a more disgusting termination to a morning stroll? Without a word said, R. took to his heels and the Boers to their Mausers. Down the hill went R., bounding like a buck, and all round him whipped and whined the bullets among the rocks. Twice he went headlong, twisting his ankle badly once as the stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away without a scratch, him and his pony. Was ever such luck?

French started on his final relief march about an hour later, and we were not able to accompany him as our horses were absolutely done up. It was very disappointing at the time to see him ride off on this last stage with a large party of our comrades, led by Rimington himself (he was first into Kimberley, we heard afterwards) at the head. However, as things turned out, it did not much matter, for the next day we had an interesting time, and saw a big job put in train, which is not finished yet, and which we shall probably see more of if we start, as they say, to-morrow.

The thing began at grey dawn. Chester Master and two or three Guides were sent forward to reconnoitre a kopje where the Boers the day before had had a gun. We found the gun gone. Some marks of blood, a half-dug grave, and two dead horses, showed that the fire of our long naval gun had been more or less effective. We then rode on, the column we were guiding getting gradually into formation, and we were just mounting the next ridge, when down in the valley beneath we saw a long line of waggons, stretching away eastward for miles, dragged by huge bullock teams. They were making the best of their way forward, each with a party of mounted men riding at the side, and at the first glance, so close to our army and camp were they, I almost fancied it must be a convoy of our own. However, we realised what was up pretty quickly. The Boers, hearing of French's flank march, and fearing they would be cut off if they remained, were abandoning their position in the hills about Magersfontein, which they had intrenched so strongly, and were quietly and promptly moving off towards Bloemfontein. The rearguard of their line was at that moment just opposite to us.

Chester Master immediately sent back an orderly as hard as he could go to tell our fellows what was in front and hurry them up, every moment being now of the utmost importance if we wanted to intercept the enemy.

The Boers themselves took their measures instantly and with their usual coolness. A long line of kopjes ran eastward across the plain, flanking the line of their march, and directly they saw they were discovered, their hors.e.m.e.n dashed forward and began to occupy these, thus guarding the right flank of their retreat from our attack. Seeing this, Chester Master galloped back himself to urge on our Mounted Infantry, who were now mustering rapidly to the attack.

From the kopje on the extreme left front, where we were, we could now see extended at our feet the whole plan of the approaching battle, while as yet the two sides were invisible to each other. In the valley on the north side of the kopjes the Boers were urging on their convoy and rapidly despatching their sharpshooters to hold the hills along their right. On the south side were the ma.s.ses of our columns, with the squadrons of Mounted Infantry now detaching themselves from the main body, and beginning to stream across the level plain towards the same hills; all with heads bent one way, horses prancing and pulling, and with all the signs of eager excitement, as though they divined, though as yet they could not see, the presence of the enemy. Over the dusty plain they canter, but they are too late by a few minutes. The Boers are there already, and as the Mounted Infantry come along, pa.s.sing close beneath us, an outbreak of rifle-fire occurs, and the dry plain, which is of perfectly bare earth, is dotted with little white puffs of dust as the bullets strike along it. The fire is a bit short, but schooled by this time in "kopje tactics," and realising what is coming, our squadrons very prudently pull up and wait for the guns. They haven't long to wait. I always love to see the guns come up. Over stones and rocks and bushes, six strong horses at the gallop, the drivers las.h.i.+ng the off horses, the guns jumping and rumbling and swinging; then the yell, "Action front," and round come the teams with a splendid sweep; next instant they are cast off and jingle to the rear, and the little venomous guns are left crouching like toads, looking towards the enemy; the gunners are upon them before they are at a standstill (everything happens simultaneously); there is an instant's pause while the barrel rises, and then comes the naked spurt of fire, no smoke, and the officer steps clear of the dust and glues his gla.s.ses to his eyes as the sh.e.l.l screams on its way. Within ten minutes of our first viewing the enemy, half a battery had got into action near our kopje, and was bombarding the first hill along the enemy's flank.

Two or three of the Boer waggons, the last of the line, had been abandoned when their retreat was first discovered. These we took possession of, and with them two Dutchmen and some coloured boys, one of whom had been driver to a field-cornet of Cronje's. From him we learnt that Cronje had definitely abandoned the whole Magersfontein position, that this was the tail of his force going through, and that consequently there was nothing to be feared from a rear attack. Chester Master wrote a hasty despatch to this effect to Kitchener and gave it to me, after which I had a most amusing ride through our lines from the extreme left to the extreme right, where Kitchener was. First by our batteries, thundering and smoking (the enemy only had one gun in action that I saw, but I must say it did very well, feeling for the range with two short shots, and after that getting well into our guns every time), and then on through the Mounted Infantry, who kept on charging and retiring, until finally after three miles' ride I came to the far right, where Kitchener and the big naval gun sat together in state on the top of a small kopje strewn with black s.h.i.+ning rocks. Here I gave in my despatch, "From Captain Chester Master, left front, sir," and the best military salute I have yet mastered (inclined to go into fits of laughter at the absurdity of the whole thing all the time), and the great man, with his sullen eye, sitting among his black rocks all alone, reads it and asks me a question or two, and vouchsafes to tell me that the information is "very important," which I suppose meant that he had not been certain whether he was in contact with the middle or extreme tail of the enemy's force. Various officers of the staff come up and I tell them all I know.

I am very hungry and parched with thirst, but I know I shall get nothing out of these fellows. However, my luck holds. Under some thorn-trees below I spy the flat hats of the sailors, and under the lee of an ammunition waggon hard by a group of officers. All is well. Five minutes later I am pledging them in a whisky and sparklet, and sitting down to such a breakfast as I have not tasted for weeks. G.o.d bless all sailors, say I!

Orders meantime come thick and fast from the grim watcher on the rocks above, and troop after troop of Mounted Infantry go scouring away to the attack. It is a running fight. Kopje after kopje, as the Boers push on, breaks into fire and is left extinct behind. But still they keep their flank unbroken and their convoy intact. For the hundredth time I admire their dogged courage under these, the most trying of all circ.u.mstances, the protection of a slow retreat.

So it goes on through the day, and I have great fun galloping about on my own account, looking into things here and there, and watching the general progress of events. I meet Chester Master again about 5 P.M., and he asks me to ride forthwith to Kimberley with him if Flops can stand it. All the Boer force has cleared from Magersfontein (our information was all right) and is in retreat on Bloemfontein, and Kitchener is sending word by Chester Master to French, bidding him right turn and march to head off the Boer retreat, while he (Kitchener) hangs on their tail.

An hour later we start; four of us. Chester Master, myself, May, and a black boy. It is a twenty-three mile ride. A full moon is in the sky but clouds obscure it, which is a good thing, as the country is being traversed by stragglers of theirs, leaving the hills and in retreat eastward. We hear of several such fugitive bodies from our pickets for the first few miles. Then we are in absolute solitude. The plain lies bare and blanched around us. A thorn bush or two sticks up on it, or, now and then, the ghastly shape of a dead horse lying in puffed up relief with legs sticking out stiff and straight and an awful stench blowing from it. Kimberley's search-light at stated intervals still swings its spoke over our head.

Six or seven miles out from Kimberley my pony gives out, and Chester Master and May on fresh horses ride on, leaving me the boy. We plod on, an interesting, delicious ride. I get off and walk. A little wind rustles over the dry earth and bushes, but otherwise there is not a whisper of sound. The landscape at one moment lies white before us as if it had been washed in milk, and the next is blotted out with clouds. Now and again we pause to listen, and the boy stands like a bronze image of Attention with bent head and held breath, the whites only of his eyes moving as he rolls them from one object to another. At last from a low kopje top by the path comes the first loud and welcome "Halt! Who goes there?" of an English picket. Another two or three miles brings me to an outpost of the town, and there, dead tired and Flops the same, I fling myself on the ground, after hearty greetings and a word or two of talk with the guard, and do a three hours' sleep till the dawn of the 17th.

In a grey light I rouse myself to look out across the wet misty flat, hearing some one say, "Who's that? What force is that?" followed immediately by "Call out the guard; stand to your arms, men." But then, as light increases, we see by the regular files and intervals that the force is British, and I know that Chester Master has got in all right and delivered his message, and French already, at a few hours' notice, is casting back with that terrible cavalry of his after Cronje and the retreating Boers.

Kimberley does not in the least give one the idea of a beleaguered and relieved town. There are a few marks of sh.e.l.ls, but so few and far between as not to attract attention, and you might walk all about the town without being struck by anything out of the common. I have sampled the roast-horse and roast-mule which the garrison seems to have been chiefly living on for the past five or six weeks, and find both pretty good, quite equal, if not superior, to the old trek-ox. Some people tell us pathetic stories of the hards.h.i.+ps to women and young children and babies, owing to the difficulty of getting proper food, especially milk.

On the other hand, many seem to have actually enjoyed the siege, and two or three young ladies have a.s.sured me that they found it infinitely diverting and enjoyed an excellent time, making up afternoon tea-parties among their friends. The relief was not the occasion of any excitement or rejoicing whatever. People walked about the streets and went about their business and served in their shops without showing in their appearance or manner any trace of having pa.s.sed through a bad time or having been just delivered from it. They seemed, on the whole, glad to see us, but there was no enthusiasm. This was partly due, I think, to the absence of drink. The Colonial's idea of grat.i.tude and good-fellows.h.i.+p is always expressed in drink, and cannot be separated from it, or even exist without it. Many felt this. Several said to me, "We are awfully glad to see you, old chap, but the fact is there's no whisky." On the whole, except the last week, during which the Boers had a hundred-pounder gun turned on, one doesn't gather that the siege of Kimberley was noteworthy, as sieges go, either for the fighting done or the hards.h.i.+ps endured. But that is not to reflect on the defenders, who showed a most plucky spirit all through, and would have resisted a much severer strain if it had been brought to bear upon them.

LETTER XI

PAARDEBERG--THE BOMBARDMENT

_February 24_, 1900.

We are once more upon the Modder. I should think the amount of blood, Dutch and English, this river has drunk in the last few months will give it a bad name for ever. There is something deadly about that word Modder. Say it over to yourself. Pah! It leaves a taste of blood in the mouth.

We have been fighting in a desultory kind of way for the last week here.

Coming from Kimberley, where we had gone to holloa back French (you could follow him by scent all the way from the dead horses), we made a forced march and rejoined him here by the river, where he is busily engaged, with Kitchener at the other end, in bombarding old Cronje in the middle. They have fairly got the old man. Kitchener had stuck to him pretty tight, it seems, after we left them that evening at Klip Drift.

French has nicked in ahead. Macdonald has arrived, I believe, or is arriving, and there are various other brigades and divisions casting up from different quarters, all concentrating on unhappy Cronje. Lord Roberts, I suppose, will get the credit, but part of it, one would think, belongs to Kitchener, who planned the movement and put it in train before Lord Roberts arrived.

Cronje, by all accounts, has about 4000 men with him. He has dug himself into the river banks, which are steep and afford good cover. You would never guess, sweeping the scene with your gla.s.ses, that an army could be hiding there. The river curves and winds, its course marked by the tops of the willows that grow along its banks. The land on both sides stretches bare and almost level, but there are a few rises and knolls from which our artillery smashes down its fire on the Boer laager. At one point you can make out a ragged congregation of waggons, broken and shattered, some of them burning or smouldering. That is where the laager is, but not a soul can one see move. The place looks an utter solitude, bare and lifeless in the glare of the sun. There is no reply to our busy guns. The little shrapnel clouds, stabbed with fire, burst now here now there, sometimes three or four together, over the spot, and the blue haze floats away, mingling with the darker, thicker vapour from the less frequent lyddite. "What are they shooting at?" a stranger would say; "there is n.o.body there." Isn't there? Only 4000 crafty, vigilant Boers, crowding in their holes and cuddling their Mausers. Ask the Highlanders.

You will have heard all about that by this time. The desperate attempt last Sunday to take the position by storm. It was another of those fiendish "frontal attacks." Have we been through Belmont and Graspan and Modder River and Magersfontein for nothing? Or must we teach every general in turn who comes to take charge of us what the army has learnt long ago, that a frontal attack against Mausers is leading up to your enemy's strong suit. For Methuen there were reasons. Methuen could not outflank, could not go round, was not strong enough to leave his lines of communication, and had practically no cavalry. He had to go straight on. Belmont, Graspan, and Modder were turnpike gates. The toll was heavy, but there was no choice but to pay. But what was the reason of this latest? We had them here safely bottled up. We have them still. It is only a question of days. The attack could have gained nothing by success; has lost little by its failure. The casualties were 1500. I know all about eggs and omelettes, but these were simply thrown in the gutter.

Never tell me these Boers aren't brave. What manner of life, think you, is in yonder ditch? Our artillery rains down its cross fire of sh.e.l.ls perpetually. The great ox-waggons are almost totally destroyed or burnt.

The ammunition in the carts keeps blowing up as the fire reaches it. The beasts, horses and oxen, are strewn about, dead and putrid, and deserters say that the stench from their rotting carca.s.ses is unbearable. Night and day they have to be prepared for infantry attacks, and yet, to the amazement of all of us, they still hold out.

Old Cronje's apparent object is to try and save Bloemfontein by delaying us till reinforcements come up from the south and east. This is really what we want, because the more of the enemy we get in front of this great army of ours, the harder we shall be able to hit them. But evidently Cronje is ignorant of our strength.

Meantime we can make out in our break-of-day scoutings up the river that bodies of men are approaching from the east. They have made a laager about ten miles up, and evidently mean to dispute our pa.s.sage to the capital. The longer old Cronje holds out, the more men from Colesberg and Natal will come up, the more entrenchments will be cut, and the harder will be our way to Bloemfontein. 'Tis the only way he sees to save the town, for we should march straight in else. Perhaps, too, he cherishes some hope of being relieved himself; of a determined attack from without, which might enable him, by a sudden sally, to break through; though, for dismounted men (and their horses are all dead by this time), the chances of ultimate escape in a country like this must be very small, one would think. Anyhow, he sticks to his work like a glutton. The sh.e.l.ls burst over them. The lyddite blows them up in smoke and dust, the sun grills, the dead bodies reek, our infantry creep on them day and night; foul food, putrid water, death above and around, they grin and bear it day after day to gain the precious hours. And all the time we on our side know perfectly well that no relief they could possibly bring up would serve our army for rations for a day.

LETTER XII

PAARDEBERG--THE SURRENDER

_March 5_, 1900.

Well, that is over, and I hope you are satisfied. We have got Cronje.

His victories are o'er. We have also got Mrs. Cronje, which was a bit more than we bargained for. They cut her an extra deep hole, I hear, to be out of sh.e.l.l-fire, and she sat at the bottom all day long, receiving occasional visits from Cronje, and having her meals handed down to her.

One can fancy her blinking up at her "Man," whom she always, I am told, accompanies on his campaigns, and shaking her head sorrowfully over the situation. There is nothing very spirit-stirring about a mud hole and an old woman sitting at the bottom of it, but the danger and the terrible hards.h.i.+ps were real enough. That is always the way with these Dutch.

They have all the harsh realities and none of the glamour and romance.

Athens, with their history and record, would have made the whole world ring for ever. But they are dumb. It seems such a waste.

Albrecht too is among the prisoners, the famous German "expert," who designs their works for them and manages their artillery; and we have taken 4000 prisoners, and several guns and one detested "pompon." Come, now, here is a little bit of all right at last.

I was one of a party that rode down with the Major on the morning of the surrender to the laager and saw the prisoners marched in. They seemed quite cheery and pleased with themselves. They were dressed in all sorts of ragged, motley-looking clothes; trousers of cheap tweed, such as you see hung up in an East End slop-shop; jackets once black, now rusted, torn and stained, and battered hats. They reminded me more of a mob of Kent hop-pickers than anything else, and it was a matter of some surprise, not to say disgust, to some of us to think that such a sorry crowd should be able to withstand disciplined troops in the way they did.

I talked to several of them. They all agreed in saying that they had been through the most ghastly time in the last ten days and were heartily glad it was over. They exchanged nods and good-days with us and the soldiers who were standing about, and altogether seemed in a very friendly and conciliatory mood. All this, however, it struck me, was rather put on, a bit of acting which was now and then a trifle overdone.

Boers are past-masters at hiding their real feelings and affecting any that they think will be acceptable. It is a trait which has become a national characteristic, and the craft, dissimulation, the _slimness_, as it is called, of the Boers is a by-word. I suppose it comes from the political situation, the close neighbourhood of a rival race, stronger and more energetic, which fosters in the stolid Dutchman, by way of buckler, this instinctive reticence and cunning. His one idea is to make what he can out of the situation without troubling his head for a moment about his own candour and sincerity. It is Oriental, the trait you expect to find in a John Chinaman, but which surprises you in a burly old Dutchman. Still there it is. At any farm you go to, men, women, and children will put on a semblance of friends.h.i.+p, and set to work to lie with a calmness which is really almost dignified. No one in this country ever believes a thing a bit the more because a Dutchman says it.

We went on into the captured laager. It was an extraordinary, interesting, and loathsome sight. Dead bodies of horses and men lay in all directions in various stages of decomposition, and the reeking smell was something quite indescribable. I fancied, even after leaving the place, that I carried the smell about with me, and that it had got into my clothes. The steep river banks were honeycombed with little holes and tunnels, and deep, narrow pits, like graves; narrow at the top, and hollowed out below to allow less entrance for sh.e.l.ls. Evidently each man had cut his own little den. Some were done carelessly, mere pits scooped out. Others were deep, with blankets or old shawls spread at the bottom, and poles with screens of branches laid across the top to keep off the sun. I saw one or two which were quite works of art; very narrow tunnels cut into the side of the river-cliff, and turning round after you entered, making a quite secure retreat, unless perhaps an extra heavy old lyditte might happen to burst the whole bank up. This actually happened, they told us, with the very last shot fired the night before; a bit of the bank having been blown up with eight men in it, of whom five were killed and three wounded. The whole river channel looks as if a big colony of otters or beavers had settled here, honeycombing the bank with their burrows, and padding the earth bare and hard with their feet. It was all worn like a highroad. On the other side, the waggons were a sight; shattered, and torn, and wrecked with shot; many of them burnt; several, huge as they are, flung upside down by the force of a sh.e.l.l bursting beneath them. All their contents were littered and strewn about in every direction; blankets, clothes, carpenters' and blacksmiths' tools, cooking utensils, furniture. You would have thought the Boers were settlers moving to a new country with all their effects, instead of an army on the march. This is how they do things, however, in the homely, ponderous fas.h.i.+on. They often take their women and children with them. There were many in the crowd we captured.

I wandered about alone a long time, looking at the dismal, curious scene where so much had been endured. White flags, tied to poles or stripped branches, fluttered from waggon tops. Our ambulance carts came along, and the Tommies, stripping to the waist, proceeded to carry, one by one, the Dutch wounded through the ford on stretchers.

We are bivouacked ourselves far up the river, in a secluded nook among mimosas and kopjes with the thick current of the lately unknown, but now too celebrated, Modder rolling in front of us. The weather has changed of late. It is now autumn. We have occasional heavy rains, and you wake up at night sometimes to find yourself adrift in a pool of water. It gets chilly too.