War's Brighter Side Part 25

There was to have been a military guard for the gold at Norval's Pont, but somehow the guard did not connect. The bank men found themselves stalled at a broken bridge, with the choice of trusting their bullion to a thin wire rope slung across the broken spans, or putting it on a pont that formed a rope ferry across the river. They chose the pont.

The train from Capetown reached Orange River at 2 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon. The train on the north side of the river had to wait until 7 o'clock for the gold.

The transfer across the river was the most interesting part of the journey. Messrs. Mich.e.l.l and du Preez deny that their interest had anything of anxiety in it. They trusted the twelve sweating volunteers who wandered wide from the train to the pont with its 960 pounds avoirdupois and 25,000 pounds sterling. Du Preez walked at the head of the volunteers and Mich.e.l.l at the tail. The volunteers seemed to be walking all over the country.

So the twelve boxes were finally slammed into the guard's van on the north side of the river, and the bank manager and his teller clambered in on top of them. If there was a military guard on the train they didn't have the comfort of knowing it. They had been told that all the Boers were giving in their arms and that the country through which they rode was thoroughly pacified, but then, as du Preez said, "when you are travelling with twelve boxes of bullion you can't be dead sure of anything."

When the train reached Bloemfontein on Wednesday, the boxes were taken at once to the vaults of the National Bank of the Orange Free State, and the two men, wearied by their six days' vigil, went at once to bed, and to sleep.

Mr. Mich.e.l.l, who manages the Standard Bank affairs in all parts of South Africa, is only temporarily in Bloemfontein. Mr. D. Savory, formerly of the branch bank at Oudtshoorn, will be manager of the Bloemfontein branch. Mr. A. S. D. Robertson, formerly in the branch bank at Ceres, will be accountant, and Mr. du Preez will be teller.

CHAPTER XIII

WE LEAVE "THE FRIEND" TO SEE A FIGHT

_The Thirteenth Number, produced by Mr. James Barnes of New York._

The last of the dinner was still in our mouths, the last words in answer to the toasts had not been spoken five hours when, at daybreak on the 29th, we were all, except Mr. James Barnes, on the way to the battle of the Glen (or of Karree Siding, as it is sometimes called).

Mr. Barnes most kindly remained to take entire control of THE FRIEND, which is to say that he undertook the work of four men, and had as his only a.s.sistant a bright young American journalist from Philadelphia, Mr. Joseph W. Jenkins. This young gentleman had worked hard and gratuitously for us from the first as the gatherer of the news of the little capital, and very fertile and versatile he proved.

Mr. Bennet Burleigh took Mr. Kipling to the fight in his Cape-cart, and they started out with more style and comfort than an Oriental general swaying on the cus.h.i.+oned howdah of his elephant charger. But the course of a day in war is as uncertain as that of love or as the nature of the white men, and, early in the day, the Poet of the Empire was under a hot Mauser fire. Far from being nervous or regretting the experience, he seemed to feel only the tingle of the excitement. If you could get him to refer to it you saw that he rejoiced to have felt the breath and heard the weird, low song of the leaden rain.

For myself I had such an inglorious escapade as no man would care to dwell upon who was in a war to get the best or the worst, but not to be incapacitated by what could have happened at home. In a word, I went into a wire fence off the back of a frightened racehorse, and was obliged to go on to the battle, belated and with both fore-arms torn into strips, not to speak of injuries which must stay by me as mementoes of the day so long as I live.

Mr. Barnes's number of THE FRIEND was a good one. His editorial, "As to the Future," was very vigorous, and must have pleased Sir Alfred Milner, who did us the honour to say that he valued the paper as a most efficient arm of the effort to pacify and reconcile to their fate our neighbours of the Free State. He suggested to me that we should address ourselves more directly to the Boers, and always with a view to impressing them with our magnanimous intentions, and the benefits and advantages of enlightened British rule. It was his suggestion, also, that all articles calculated to encourage resignation on their part should be duplicated in the Taal language, and this wise plan we began at once to endeavour to follow. We succeeded but feebly, because we did not know the Taal ourselves, and we could not trust the majority of the sometimes "slim" ones among the few who were able to perform the work of translation creditably.

In this number of the paper Mr. Barnes published No. 4 of Mr.

Kipling's "Fables for the Staff," and the poem by Mr. Kipling on Perceval Landon's birthday. "A Realistic Comedy," by an anonymous writer, the third of Mr. Gwynne's articles on the art of war, and a bit of a brief correspondence between the army telegraphists and Mr.

Bennet Burleigh were also in this entertaining number.

Mr. Barnes was exceedingly well liked by all who knew him in the army, and was much sought as a companion, for his unvarying good humour and for such a fund of anecdotes, songs, and imitations as was possessed by no one else of our acquaintance. I think the best of his anecdotes of his own experiences in the war was concerning the Boer losses at Driefontein. The British had found more than sixty bodies, and knew that fifty other Boers had been killed. (I will not say that these are the exact figures, but they give a just idea of the actual losses of the Boers.) Nevertheless, when Barnes questioned a Boer prisoner taken at that battle, the man said that his force had suffered a loss of only eight killed.

"Then who is it that gets killed by our bullets in all these fights?"

Barnes asked. "We fight you, and after each battle we see the dead being carried off; we find other dead on the field, and we see the loose mounds of earth under which you have hastily buried others. Who are these dead men?"

"I don't know," said the prisoner, "our commandant said we only had eight men killed at Abraham's Kraal (Driefontein)."

"I understand," said Barnes. "He must know how many you lost. But we saw over sixty dead bodies where you had been fighting. Whose bodies do you suppose they were? Not Boers, of course, but still, they belonged to some people who had been shot. There seems to be in South Africa a mysterious race of people who follow you around in this war and persist in getting in the way of our bullets. I should think you would warn them of their danger, or give orders for them to stop coming to all the battles. They may have wives and children who mourn them; at all events, they are not needed as filters in all the rivers, or for starting informal cemeteries all over the veldt as they have been doing ever since the fighting began. I wonder what people they are."

"I don't know. We only lost eight," said the Boer.

"And we buried sixty," said Barnes. "Really you ought to find out who these bullet-stoppers are, and warn them not to be always getting killed by us who have no quarrel with them and are only trying to shoot Boers."

Another of Mr. Barnes's tales is of that awful daybreak ma.s.sacre at Maghersfontein. Mr. Barnes was forging ahead to learn what had happened when he met three men in kilts das.h.i.+ng over the veldt, away from the battle.

"Here," Mr. Barnes cried, "who are you? Where are you going?"

"Oh, mon," said one of the poor unnerved chaps, "we are a' that's left o' the ---- ----."

In defence of themselves against some inconvenience which Mr. Burleigh had complained, some telegraphers of the R.E. Corps declared that the staff in Bloemfontein "performed seventeen hours last Sunday in order to remove pressure produced to a great extent by work other than military. Whilst every other arm of the service had been enjoying a brief and well-earned rest, our portion has consisted of at least twelve hours' hard work at the instrument, cooped up in a room reeking with a pestilential atmosphere which has, in several cases, produced violent vomiting.

"After all, we can nurse to our b.r.e.a.s.t.s the satisfaction that our gallant Commander-in-Chief has been pleased to specially thank the much-despised corps for the indispensable services rendered by it."

THE FRIEND.

(_Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force._)

No. 11.] BLOEMFONTEIN, THURSDAY, MARCH 29, 1900. [Price One Penny

GOVERNMENT NOTICE.

By order of his Lords.h.i.+p the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief the British Forces in South Africa, it is notified that Quit Rents on Farms should now be paid in to the Receiver at the Landdrost's Office.

Amounts not paid on or before the 31st May, 1900, are liable to be doubled.

JAMES A. COLLINS, Landdrost.

Landdrost's Office, Bloemfontein, March 26, 1900.

FABLES FOR THE STAFF.[9]

[Footnote 9: Copyrighted, used by the author's permission.]

VAIN HORSES.

BY RUDYARD KIPLING.

IV.

A Cavalry-horse of indubitable Valour, carrying a complete Wardrobe Office and Housekeeping Apparatus on his back, met by chance a Boer pony of unprepossessing Exterior.

"My ungroomed Friend," said the Horse, "let me draw your attention to my Master's portable Bath, Umbrella, Typewriter, Hair Brushes, Dressing-case, and complete Service of Plate; also to my own spare Shoes and cold Collation for the next Week. Few I opine enjoy such luxurious appointments."

"They are indeed _fin de siecle_ and _non-plus-ultra_," remarked the ewe-necked Son of the Veldt, "but You must excuse Me for I see my Master approaching. He does not use Hair-brushes, and I have neither spare shoes nor curry combs."

"Then I must trouble you to return as my Prisoner," said the Horse.

"On the contrary," replied the Child of the ungra.s.sed Kopje; "it is a condition and not a theory that confronts us. Let me draw your attention to my scintillatery heels."

So saying the Unkempt Equine departed in a neat cloud of Dust, from the Centre of which his Master scientifically shot the Cavalry Horse in the Abdomen.