War's Brighter Side Part 10

Perhaps it is truer to say that one or two London papers did so, for a certain number relied--and with justice--on the recuperative powers of Captain Faussett and his myrmidons of the wire.

To ride a hundred miles across the veldt against time, and against at least two other competing riders, through the enemy's country, and at a moment's notice, is not the least exciting occupation that can be chosen by a light-weight searching for a new sensation.

It combines the certainty of hards.h.i.+p and discomfort with the possibility of being shot; and over and above all is the pressing need of saving every minute of time.

Three despatch riders set out from Bloemfontein during the evening of Tuesday or the earliest dawn of Wednesday. First in order of starting was the _Times_ messenger, second that of Reuter's Agency, third came the "angelos" of the _Daily Mail_.

From Bloemfontein to Kimberley is, as we have said, a distance of a hundred miles. It is best understood by a Londoner by suggesting the comparison that he should be compelled to ride to Hereford every time he wished to despatch a telegram.

Out from the isolated city the messengers went, making their way in the darkness or in the dawn over the red slus.h.i.+ng tracks that had suffered the steady downpour of the night's rain, till, by whichever road they had moved out of Bloemfontein, they met at the battle-ground of Driefontein.

From that point onwards the struggle became keen, and the breakdown of a horse meant a delay that might perhaps be reckoned in days rather than hours. The public that glances casually at the telegrams of their morning papers does not often realise the importance of a few minutes to the correspondents whose work they are reading. In this case, besides the ordinary delay, the lonely riders that were making way across the veldt had to spur them on the risk of finding the Field Telegraph repaired before they could reach the Diamond City, and the cable blocked with messages sent over their heads from Bloemfontein.

Early in the great race the _Times_ rider met with disaster. The horse he rode fell, and, though the injury seemed slight enough at the time, never properly recovered itself, causing a delay of some hours before the next relay could be reached.

But the _Daily Mail_ was still more unlucky. Starting last of all, the well-known light-weight who carried the fortunes of the "largest circulation of this earth" made his way forward through the fading light of Wednesday, gaining rapidly on his predecessors, and, confident in the excellent provision made for him, was getting out of his mount the last pound of pace, when a cut corner flung him against a barbed wire fence, which so terribly lacerated his leg that further riding was out of the question.

Binding up his scratches as best he might, he found himself compelled to walk back thirty-five miles to Bloemfontein, unable to ride, and at the journey's end almost unable to stand.

So the _Times_ and Reuter--each armed with a duplicate despatch from the Commander-in-Chief--were left to compete for the contingent advantage of getting first into Kimberley.

And now was done a notable achievement. Browning, in his poem, "How we brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," has chosen, by an odd accident, exactly the distance which divides Kimberley from Bloemfontein; but we can rest a.s.sured that the "good news" of the capture of the Boer capital sped on as fast as ever went the news across the flat plains of Flanders.

Over the grey sage-brush of the veldt, over the high, dry gra.s.s, under the rare shade of poplar trees, where the horse was watered, along the red crumbling road or the mere beaten wheel track where a thousand waggons and twenty thousand animals had worn a temporary track, the hurrying hoof of the courier's mount lessened the long distance between the capital of the O.F.S. and the end of that wire of which the other lies in the capital of the world.

In the afternoon of Wednesday three bullets whistled past the rider of the Agency, and the newspaper's courier had a similar experience at the same spot as he pa.s.sed a little later.

It soon became obvious that there was no possibility of getting into Kimberley in time to send the despatches before the office closed for the day, and the _Times_ despatch rider took the latter stages of the journey more easily. Reuter's man,[1] however, continued his ride at his utmost speed, and actually achieved what will long remain a record, travelling the entire distance on three horses in twenty hours and twenty minutes.

[Footnote 1: Gilbert H. Stevens.]

The need for such lengthy despatch riding luckily seldom occurs, as the expense is one of the heaviest items that can be incurred by newspaper representatives on behalf of their papers; only in the very exceptional circ.u.mstances in which the war correspondents found themselves at the capture of Bloemfontein would the enormous expenditure be justified.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Who the deuce set this hash up. Find out. RK Proper names ought to be capped throughout but it's no use with this staff.

FABLES FOR THE STAFF.

THE ELEPHO[A]NT AND THE LARK'S NEST.

A discriminating b[B]oer having laid a nestful of valuable and infy[o]rming eggs, fled across the horizon under pressure of necessity ler[a]ving his nest in a secli[u]ded spot where it was discovered by a disinterested observed[r] who reported the same to an i[I]ntee[l]liga[e]nce o[O]fficer. The latter arriving at his leisure with a great pomposite[]y said "s[S]ee me hatch![;]" A[a]nd sitting down without reserve convo[e]rted the entire output into i[a]n unnecessaru[y]

omelette. After the mess was removed, the disinterested obso[e]rver observed:--"h[H]ad you approached this matter in anu[o]ther spirit you might hu[a]ve obtained valuable information." "That," [quote] replied the i[I]ntelligence o[O]fficer, "sho[ow]s your ne[a]rrow-minded prejudice. Besides I am morally certain that those eggs co[a]me out of a my[a]re's nest." "It is now too late to enquire" said the disinterested observer, "i[a]nd that is a pity." "But am I not an intelligent officer?" S[s]u[a]id the i[I]ntelligence o[O]fficer. "Of that there can be no twe[o] opinions," said the disinterested observer. Whereupon he was sent down.

Moral. _Do not teach the i[I]ntelligence to hatch [suck] eggs_

_A Corrected "Proof" by Rudyard Kipling._

(_Giving a glimpse of the struggle between the editors and the Dutch compositors._)]

CHAPTER VII

RUDYARD KIPLING, a.s.sOCIATE EDITOR

_A chapter which introduces a Prince, and tells of our Appeal to the whole Army to write for_ THE FRIEND.

The next day's issue, that of March 22nd, was the best-looking number we had produced. We dropped those little frames on either side of the t.i.tle of the paper which journalists call "ears" or "ear-tabs," so that the front page looked dignified and s.h.i.+p-shape, and the t.i.tle read simply THE FRIEND, without its former addenda of "Playing cards"

and "Cue tips." In place of these we printed the royal coat-of-arms.

This issue contained a heart-felt eulogy of Sir W. S. A. Lockhart by the Field Marshal.

General Kelly in Camp Orders declared that hereafter horse thieves would be severely dealt with, and there appeared a notice by Prince Francis of Teck, "Staff Captain, Remount Department," that the army desired horses of certain ages and a certain height, as well as agents to buy them.

This reminds all who were at Bloemfontein how the Prince came and put up at the Bloemfontein Hotel, and began to fill up an immense yard just on the edge of the town with a marvellous collection of veldt horses, all of which, I understood, he succeeded in buying at 25 apiece, though I had just paid 100 for a pair, and most men were giving 40 at the least for every horse. The Prince worked like a beaver all the time he was at Bloemfontein.

There went to the stalwart and kindly Prince one day an artist who said he desired to surrender two mules which did not belong to him. It was not the truth that he desired to give them up, nor was it out of politeness that he told the falsehood. The fact was that the army had taken his horses and left him a pair of feeble, poorly animated steeds of the clothes-horse pattern, which gave out on the long road between Poplar Grove and Bloemfontein. At the same time two healthy mules, astray on the veldt, evinced a yearning for human companions.h.i.+p, and insisted upon intruding themselves upon the company of the artist and his Basuto servant while they were preparing lunch. To go on with his own weak and sick animals was to invite a loss of locomotive power in a country infested with Boers. To make use of the fresher mules was the natural and obvious alternative. Therefore the artist abandoned his horses and went on with the mules. Arrived in Bloemfontein, he at once continued his travels by joining the "bill-sticking expedition"

of General French over to Thaba N'chu and the region beyond.

"Bill sticking," by the way, was how the officers nicknamed the distribution of copies of Lord Roberts' proclamation calling on the Boers to lay down their arms and sign a promise not to continue the war. When the artist returned to Bloemfontein he was met by friends who said that he would certainly be shot if he was found to be using animals that did not belong to him. Lord Roberts had grown angry, it was said, and had exclaimed aloud that no matter who or what the man might be, the next offender in this respect should be shot. It was this stentorian cry, and not the still, small voice of conscience, that sent the artist to the Prince, to whom he told the truth and made formal surrender of the mules.

"And very nice indeed it is of you," said the Prince, "very honest and straightforward. I will send some one to get the mules this afternoon."

"But, I beg pardon," said the artist, "now everything's all right, isn't it? The mules were not mine, and I have surrendered them, and there's no trouble to follow?"

"No, indeed," said Prince Francis, "I am much obliged to you. Animals are very scarce and we need all we can get; so very good of you to do as you have done."

"Well, now," said the artist, "won't you please let me keep the mules?

The Army stole my horses and left me a broken-down pair. I had to turn them loose and take these mules or I should have been killed or captured by the Boers. I have nothing else to move on with. I wish you would let me keep the mules."

"Really," said the Prince, "I cannot do that. I never heard such a proposition in my life. I have no authority to do as you ask. Upon my word, this is most extraordinary. Come, I'll tell you what I will do.

I'll see that you get a pair of animals at the Army price. I can't sell them to you or buy them for you, but I can have a pair put aside for you to buy of somebody who brings them in to sell."

No one who was not there can form any idea of the extent to which this looting or commandeering of horses was then being practised. They were stolen not only from in front of the Club--the busiest spot in the heart of the town--but from before the headquarters of Lord Roberts, and from in front of the hotels. Men were desperate; so many were without horses. Sicknesses, slaughter, and overwork had left us with less than half the animals we needed.

At about this time an American correspondent who was never guilty of taking even an abandoned Boer horse, but who had purchased a fine animal of a negro on the veldt for five s.h.i.+llings, became very nervous over his purchase. He went to the stable and with the help of his servant clipped the animal close, so that it no longer resembled the long-haired beast he had bought. Then he went out into the street and met a Boer, who accused him of having taken his horse and who exactly described the animal in question. The Boer said he would report the case to Major Poore, the Provost-Marshal. The now frightened correspondent came to my room with his burden of sorrows, and stated his case to the company of officers, correspondents, and despatch-riders then present.

"The Boer's name is Voorboom," he said, "and he is in earnest. I suppose I shall be sent home in disgrace."

At the mention of the name three men spoke up saying that of all the rascals in need of a hanging this Voorboom was the sorriest. One had seen Boer combatants in Voorboom's house, another had seen Voorboom's brother trundling into a clump of bushes an English carriage which he had stolen; a third had met Voorboom and his negroes riding far and wide gathering up loose horses--English or Boer--which he was undoubtedly now bringing to town to sell to the Army.

"Give him an hour in which to leave town or go to jail at Simon's Bay," said a Colonel, ending the incident.

Mr. Kipling was in town at last and had promised us his a.s.sistance, but we could not then know whether this would be great or little; we could not have hoped or dreamed that it would prove a quarter or a third part of all our work, as it did. On the other hand, we were only too painfully aware that very little aid was being vouchsafed us. We found ourselves with a great newspaper on our hands, a newspaper with a gaping void of terrible dimensions. "Reuter" had promised its despatches to us, but these were not allowed on the crowded telegraph wires for days at a time, as it proved, and the whole burden was upon us, joined to the necessity we felt to do our full duty to our newspapers at home--one at least of which demanded a despatch every day and four letters a week if possible. The army had been counted upon for valuable and voluminous help, and it was practically sending us in nothing. Mr. Landon reminds me that within an hour of Mr.

Kipling's arrival in Bloemfontein he went to him and said (with considerable trepidation): "We have put you down as an editor of THE FRIEND, and we have announced it." Then Mr. Landon held his breath and waited. "Well," Mr. Kipling replied, "I should have been mortally offended if you had not. Where's the office? I want to go to work as soon as I have finished my grape jam." He did literally go straight to work. As he entered our editorial dustbin he sniffed the mingled odours of ink, wet paper, and dust, and said, "It's quite like old times in India." It was agreed that I should stir up the consciences and pens of all our friends and readers in an ink-blast, fierce and loud. I did this in the editorial of the day ent.i.tled, "The Silent Army":--

Other armies (I wrote), have always been distinguished by brilliant raconteurs. Other armies have always contained a plenitude of wits and humorists. Other armies have been noted for the abundance of funny anecdotes with which chum a.s.sailed chum and battalion guyed battalion. Other armies have taken note of the more striking deeds of prowess, of valour and of strategy which have been done among their members; and other armies have boasted poets grave, poets gay, poets rollicking, and poets who dedicated their verses to their mistress's eyebrows.