War's Brighter Side Part 16

"Well, bein' agreed on reskewin', wot's our plan of battle? A frontal attack is always to be depre--well, something that means it's a bally error." "Take 'em on the starboard quarter, then."

"But the first principel of tactics is to mystify and mislead the foe."

So far the Yank had been lying rather low, but now he chips in--

"Say, chum, you've pegged it out straight there, and if it ain't jumping your claim, I'll carry on the working." He did know a bit, the Yank did, and we'd fixed up the job in no time. He'd a bag of about a hundred loose cartridges he'd been carrying for days, and in two minutes he'd a nice hot glowing fire right down in a cleft behind the kopjy where it didn't show a bit. "Now boys," says I, taking command again, "that bag of cartridges on the top of that fire will make as much musketry noise as a brigade fits of joy. We'll let them have a few real bullets bang in the middle to help out the illooshun. We're three full battalions advancing to attack, and mind you let them hear it; not a word till the first cartridge pops off, and then all the noise you know."

We extended to fifty paces. Billy said it would come more natural if he was the Naval Brigade, and we puts him on the right. The Yank wanted to be the "Fighting Fifth," it reminded him somehow of fighting Stonewall Jackson down South; and the old Buffs was good enough for me, and I took the left. When we'd fixed our places up nicely and charged magazines, the Yank slips back to our fire and plunks the bag of cartridges down in the middle. Then we waited what seemed like a year.

"Bang!" from the fire.

"At 'em, my hearties!" roared the Naval Brigade; "broadside fire--don't lay on the whisky--well done, _Condor_!"

"Steady the Buffs," says I; "volley firing with magazines--ready--fixed sights--at that fat old buster next the fire--present--Fire!" and sooting the action to the word I let the old buster have a volley in the fattest part.

The Fighting Fifth didn't make much noise, but was shooting straight enough.

Those cartridges went off so quick, once they'd started, that I knew they couldn't last long, so I gives 'em one more file of my magazine and then whistles on my fingers, "Cease fire!"--pop went the last cartridge on the fire--"Who's that silly blighter firin' after the whistle goes?--take his name, Sergeant-Majer--Now, Buffs, fix bayonets--prepare to charge!"

"Avast heaving, full speed ahead and ram them!" yells the Naval Brigade. But the Boers didn't wait for that--what with the dark, and surprise and noise, let alone a few real bullets, they had gone for their horses and were moving hard.

"Now then, Lancers!" I holloared, "round our left flank and pursue them to the devil!" That was just enough to prevent them turning their heads for the first mile or so. Then our brigade reforms and went down the hill to tally up the loot. There was half a dozen cripples, none of them bad, half a dozen knee-haltered horses, a pot of stew on the fire, and half a dozen black bottles. The Fighting Fifth, who was a kind-hearted chap in his way, turned over the wounded, gave them a sup of water, and tied them up with bits of their own s.h.i.+rts. The Naval Brigade had sweated through everything it had on, barrin' its rifle, just out of pure excitement, and it went for the bottles like a cartload of bricks. Blessed if they weren't _Dop_![3] "Never mind,"

says the Naval Brigade, "if the quality ain't up to Admiralty pattern, we'll have to issue a double ration"--and he did--so help me!

Meanwhile the Buffs had collected the horses and picked out a nice little chestnut for myself. After that the Brigade fell out and enjoyed itself.

[Footnote 3: Cape brandy, also known as "Cape smoke."]

But we couldn't waste too much time, so after half an hour we changed saddles, packed the _dop_ in our wallets, and hoisted the Naval Brigade on board. The whole way to Kimberley he was fighting the _Condor_ against the combined land and sea forces of all creation--even the Yank laughed fit to burst. I do believe Billy might have been a commander--one can't learn langwidge like that, even in the Navy, under a longish time.

Well, we fetched Kimberley about reveille after falling off our horses now and then, and we gives the Sergeant-Major half a bottle to look pleasant. Up we goes before the troop leader, who looked a bit glum at his own written order, but cheered up when I hands over three spare Boer horses we'd brought along.

"If I hear any more of this damfoolishness," sezee, "I'll hang the lot of you; so you'd better take care that n.o.body knows of it." He's almost as hard as the Adjy.

Well, that's why we don't say what Regiment we belong to. But just to give the devil his jew we don't see why General French gets all the telegrams from the Queen and Lord Mayors--and we ain't even had our chocolate served out yet.

But this is the truth--Billy and the Yank'll both swear to it.

Yours truly, NUMBER ONE.

IS THE ART OF WAR REVOLUTIONISED?

BY H. A. GWYNNE.

1.--_Infantry._

Since the days of bows and arrows the art of war has been gradually developing. The arquebus followed the silent bow, and perhaps it may be said that this change was the most revolutionary change ever experienced in the history of warfare. But the arquebus could not effectively prevent the opposing forces from coming to close quarters, and therefore the strong man with a thorough knowledge of the use of the _arme blanche_--be it pike, sword, or spear--was the mainstay of their armies. With the successive introduction of the matchlock, Brown Bess, and the host of old muzzle-loading rifles, up to the time when the Snider rifle came into use, still the same conditions of fighting remained. By the same conditions I mean the following:--

(1) The enemy, when firing at an effective range, was visible to the naked eye of his opponent.

(2) Even when concealed behind cover the smoke of his rifle easily disclosed his position.

(3) Neither the accuracy nor the rapidity of fire was sufficient to make an attack across open ground by a slightly superior force impossible.

The introduction of the Martini-Henry completely altered at least the third of these conditions, but owing to the fact that no European war of great importance was fought with Martini-Henrys, the change was not brought home to military theorists. It is true that the Turks fought the Greeks with the Martini and the Gras rifles, but the war was not serious, and the Greeks never held even their entrenched positions with sufficient tenacity to bring home to the world the fact that an advance across the open towards an enemy under cover was becoming more and more impossible.

But smokeless powder and the long range rifle brought with them changes which do not appear to be properly understood. In the first place, it may be laid down as an axiom of warfare that the area of effective rifle fire (and indeed of any fire) is restricted by the areas of vision. During the present war it has become evident to those who have studied the question, that the dangerous zone of fire with modern rifles is not, as was at first supposed, within the 1,000 yards range, but within 1,500 or even 1,600 yards.

To advance in the open against an enemy, even when that enemy is not under cover but simply lying on the ground, involves one of two alternatives. Either the advancing force is annihilated by the time it gets to within 500 yards of the enemy, or it is forced to lie down 1,500 yards away or less and return the enemy's fire. But the latter alternative produces a state of things which has never been known in the history of war. Both the advancing and the expectant forces are put out of action. Neither can advance and, what is more serious still, neither can _retire_.

This contingency opened up an entirely new field of tactics. The general who can, with a smaller force, succeed in putting out of action, at least for the time being, a greater force of his opponent, is more likely to win his battle. In the future, the curious sight will be seen of regiments or even brigades lying flat on the ground, doing little damage to the enemy and suffering little loss, and yet being as useless to their general as if they were snoring in their barracks at home. Perhaps this is too sweeping, for their presence in front of the enemy will have the advantage of containing him, but in the open, across which an enemy has to advance, a containing force of a proportion of one man to five of the enemy is quite sufficient.

Therefore the use of a brigade to contain a brigade would be a waste of material. Even those of us who have followed closely and carefully all the stages of the campaign do not yet perceive the magnitude of the changes involved by the use of modern rifles, but they appear to me to be so radical that instead of describing them as fresh developments, I would prefer to give an affirmative answer to the t.i.tle of this article.

But there yet remains to be discussed the question of the _arme blanche_--the bayonet, the weapon with which our gallant army has won so many of its victories. I have heard not a few officers declare that this war will be known in history as the last war in which a British soldier carried a bayonet. But is the discarding of the bayonet to be one of the results of the use of the new rifle and the smokeless powder? When fighting against an enemy who does not carry it, the force which is armed with a bayonet has a tremendous moral superiority. In the present war, there have been one or two cases--one, particularly, at Slingersfontein--where the Boer has made a frontal attack on a prepared position held by us. The attacks have always been made along the tops of kopjes which afforded excellent cover for a stealthy advance. The obvious way to meet such attacks was to wait until the enemy came close enough to allow the use of the bayonet, and this was done with great success at Slingersfontein. So that it may be laid down that in cases where one only of two opposing forces is armed with the bayonet, it is obviously to its advantage that the enemy should in attacking come to close quarters.

It is, equally, to the manifest advantage of the defending force, if unarmed with the bayonet, to prevent, with heavy rifle fire, the enemy from being able to use the bayonet. But in my humble opinion, the bayonet will not be discarded for a long time. In the first place, the best tactician in the world cannot always prevent, even with modern rifles, such things as surprises, and small bodies of men might still, even under the new conditions, be able to get unperceived into close quarters with the enemy. But the greatest reason for its retention is that night attacks are still possible, and in night attacks the bayonet is undoubtedly the weapon to be used. The very mention, however, of night attacks opens up a long vista of discussion and arguments which I do not wish to raise. I am aware that there are many prominent soldiers who will have nothing to say to night attacks and condemn them lock, stock and barrel, but they can never be eliminated from the already long list of the contingencies of warfare.

Until something is mooted which will render night attacks absolutely impossible, so long will the bayonet be retained.

But perhaps the most radical changes effected by the use of the long range rifle will be in purely regimental organisation. A company now extends for the attack over a s.p.a.ce of over half a mile. The ordinary complement of officers a.s.signed to a company can never hope to control the whole of it. What is the remedy? And how are we to bring up ammunition to the firing line, or carry away our wounded from it? Can a regiment extended for the attack eight paces apart act as a regiment, or in the future is the company to be the biggest infantry unit in action? All these questions spring from the experiences of the present campaign, and it is to be hoped that they will be answered by those whose experience in the many engagements against the enemy will give value and force to their words.

FROM ENSLIN TO BOBSFONTEIN.

BY H. PREVOST BATTERSBY.

Received orders at 10 a.m. to proceed at once to Ram Dam and to join the main column as soon as possible. Requisitioned for transport immediately and supplied at 6 p.m. with about four dozen small dilapidated hair trunks, misnamed mules, which looked as if they required three square meals rolled into one, and a fortnight in bed!

No self-respecting cat would have looked at them twice, even cold on a wooden skewer!

Made a disastrous stand at 8 p.m., as we succeeded in losing our way in the record time of fifteen minutes, thanks to having no guide and to a flighty and uncertain young moon, which insisted on playing hide and seek at the most awkward times. However, we struck the wire at last, not the barbed variety fortunately, and had brief periods of comparatively smooth going, variegated by such trifling mishaps as a broken trace, falling mule, or mule and harness so mixed up that we couldn't distinguish which was harness and which was mule and requiring careful sorting out! Veldt stones were also somewhat inconvenient, as they vary in size to anything above or below a Pickford van. However, it was a fine night and the mules almost seemed to warm to their work, racing along in great style at fully three miles an hour on a smoothish bit of road and appreciably downhill!

What rapture to be out on the starry veldt and to have left that Enslin "News"--the transport lines--miles (five and a doubtful bit) behind us. Shortly afterwards the moon again appeared, and we proceeded to negotiate a very promising nullah with gently sloping sides. Full speed ahead and up we go, but, alas! the latter part of our programme was somewhat disarranged, like Labby's furniture at Northampton, owing to the fact that buck waggons and mule transport are not adapted to racing through a truckload of sand of uncertain depth but of certain difficulty! However, "man the wheels and shove behind" was the natural sequence of events, and when the mules ceased pulling in every direction except the right one from sheer exhaustion, a few judicious cracks of the sjambok, together with a few different languages, mostly bad, and up we eventually did go.

A wide stretch of perfectly flat veldt lay before us, and we shortly lost both moon and wire simultaneously. Some one suggested "follow the track": valuable advice, but difficult to carry out, as there happened to be about fourteen of them, and all in different directions.

Pleasant predicament to be in: 1 a.m., cloudy sky, and lost on the anything but trackless veldt! Feel about as comfortable as the man who was going to be hanged at 8 a.m. Finally decided to proceed at right angles, and return our wrong way if necessary, and succeeded in finding that precious wire at last. Persistency is the road to success, but what about an old hen sitting on a china egg?

Moon on the wane, but reached Ram Dam at 3 a.m., and all of us surprised and delighted to get there, as it would have very shortly been a case of the "light that failed!" Ram Dam itself looks like a remarkably _low_ Thames somewhere near the Isle of Dogs, but glad to get anywhere, and ready to eat or drink anything.

G. W. STEEVENS.

BY LIONEL JAMES.

(_With an Original Verse by Rudyard Kipling._[4])

[Footnote 4: Copyrighted in England and America, used here by permission.]