London to Ladysmith via Pretoria Part 13

The coign of vantage which I found on the side of the hill was not only to a great extent sheltered from the bullets, but afforded an extensive view of the general action, and for the rest of the day I remained with Lord Dundonald watching its development. But a modern action is very disappointing as a spectacle. There is no smoke except that of the bursting sh.e.l.ls. The combatants are scattered, spread over a great expanse of ground, concealed wherever possible, clad in neutral tint.

All the pomp and magnificence of Omdurman, the solid lines of infantry, the mighty Dervish array, bright with flas.h.i.+ng spears and waving flags, were excluded. Rows of tiny dots hurried forward a few yards and vanished into the brown of the earth. Bunches and cl.u.s.ters of brown things huddled among the rocks or in sheltered spots. The six batteries of artillery unlimbered, and the horses, hidden in some safe place, were scarcely visible.

Once I saw in miniature through gla.s.ses a great wave of infantry surge forward along a spur and disappear beyond a crest line. The patter of the Mauser rifles swelled into a continuous rumbling like a train of waggons pa.s.sing over a pontoon bridge, and presently the wave recoiled; the minute figures that composed it squeezed themselves into cover among some rocks, a great many groups of men began carrying away black objects. A trickle of independent dots dispersed itself. Then we groaned. There had been a check. The distant drama continued. The huddling figures began to move again--lithe, active forms moved about rearranging things--officers, we knew, even at the distance. Then the whole wave started again full of impetus--started--went forward, and never came back. And at this we were all delighted, and praised the valour of our unequalled infantry, and wished we were near enough to give them a cheer.

So we watched until nightfall, when some companies of the Queen's, from General Hildyard's Brigade, arrived, and took over the charge of our hill from us, and we descended to get our horses, and perhaps some food, finding, by good luck, all we wanted, and lay down on the ground to sleep, quite contented with ourselves and the general progress of the army.

The action of the 21st had begun before I awoke, and a brisk fusillade was going on all along the line. This day the right attack stood still, or nearly so, and the activity was confined to the left, where General Hildyard, with five battalions and two batteries, skilfully felt and tested the enemy's positions and found them most unpleasantly strong.

The main difficulty was that our guns could not come into action to smash the enemy in his trenches without coming under his rifle fire, because the edge of the plateau was only a thousand yards from the second and main Boer position, and unless the guns were on the edge of the plateau they could see very little and do less. The cavalry guarded the left flank pa.s.sively, and I remember no particular incident except that our own artillery flung the fragments of two premature sh.e.l.ls among us and wounded a soldier in the Devons.h.i.+re Regiment. The following fact, however, is instructive. Captain Stewart's squadron of the South African Light Horse dismounted, held an advanced kopje all day long under a heavy fire, and never lost a man. Two hundred yards further back was another kopje held by two companies of regular infantry under equal fire. The infantry had more than twenty men hit.

On the 22nd the action languished and the generals consulted. The infantry had made themselves masters of all the edge of the plateau, and the regiments cl.u.s.tered in the steep re-entrants like flies on the side of a wall. The Boers endeavoured to reach them with sh.e.l.ls, and a desultory musketry duel also proceeded.

During the afternoon I went with Captain Brooke to visit some of the battalions of General Hart's Brigade and see what sort of punishment they were receiving. As we rode up the watercourse which marks the bottom of the valley a shrapnel sh.e.l.l cleared the western crest line and exploded among one of the battalions. At first it seemed to have done no harm, but as we climbed higher and nearer we met a stretcher carried by six soldiers. On it lay a body with a handkerchief thrown across the face. The soldiers bearing the stretcher were all covered with blood.

We proceeded and soon reached the battalions. A company of the Dublin Fusiliers were among those captured in the armoured train, and I have the pleasure of knowing most of the officers of this regiment. So we visited them first--a dozen gentlemen--begrimed, unwashed, unshaven, sitting on the hillside behind a two-foot wall of rough stones and near a wooden box, which they called the 'Officers' Mess.' They were in capital spirits in spite of every abominable circ.u.mstance.

'What did you lose in the action?'

'Oh, about fifty. Poor Hensley was killed, you know; that was the worst of it.'

Captain Hensley was one of the smallest and bravest men in the Army, and the Dublin Fusiliers, who should be good judges, regarded him as their very best officer for all military affairs, whether attack, retreat, or reconnaissance. Each had lost a friend, but collectively as a regiment they had lost a powerful weapon.

'Very few of us left now,' said the colonel, surveying his regiment with pride.

'How many?'

'About four hundred and fifty.'

'Out of a thousand?'

'Well, out of about nine hundred.'

This war has fallen heavily on some regiments. Scarcely any has suffered more severely, none has won greater distinction, than the Dublin Fusiliers--everywhere at the front--Dundee, Lombard's Kop, Colenso, Chieveley, Colenso again, and even here at Spion Kop. Half the regiment, more than half the officers killed or wounded or prisoners.

But the survivors were as cheery as ever.

'Do these sh.e.l.ls catch anyone?'

'Only two or three an hour. They don't come always: every half-hour we get half a dozen. That last one killed an officer in the next regiment.

Rather bad luck, picking an officer out of all these men--only one killed to-day so far, a dozen wounded.'

I inquired how much more time remained before the next consignment of sh.e.l.ls was due. They said about ten minutes. I thought that would just suit me, and bade them good morning, for I have a horror of being killed when not on duty; but Captain Brooke was anxious to climb to the top and examine the Boer position, and since we had come so far it was perhaps worth while going on. So we did, and with great punctuality the sh.e.l.ls arrived.

We were talking to the officers of another regiment when they began. Two came in quick succession over the eastern wall of the valley and then one over the western. All three burst--two on impact, one in the air. A fourth ripped along a stone shelter behind which skirmishers were firing. A fifth missed the valley altogether and screeched away into the plain clear of the hills. The officers and men were quite callous. They scarcely troubled to look up. The soldiers went on smoking or playing cards or sleeping as if nothing had happened. Personally I felt no inclination to any of these pursuits, and I thought to sit and wait indefinitely, for the caprice of one of these shrieking iron devils would be most trying to anyone. But apparently you can get accustomed to anything. The regiment where the officer had been killed a few minutes before was less cheerful and callous. The little group of officers crouching in the scanty shelter had seen one of their number plucked out of their midst and slain--uselessly as it seemed. They advised us to take cover, which we would gladly have done had there been any worth speaking of; for at this moment the Boers discharged their Vickers-Maxim gun--the 'pom-pom'--and I have never heard such an extraordinary noise. Seven or eight bangs, a rattle, an amazing cluttering and whistling overhead, then the explosions of the little sh.e.l.ls, which scarred the opposite hillside in a long row of puffs of brown dust and blue-white smoke, suggesting a lash from a knotted scourge.

'Look out!' we were told, 'they always follow that with a sh.e.l.l.' And so they did, but it pa.s.sed overhead without harming anyone. Again the Vickers-Maxim flung its covey of projectiles. Again we crouched for the following sh.e.l.l; but this time it did not come--immediately. I had seen quite enough, however, so we bade our friends good luck--never good-bye on active service--and hurried, slowly, on account of appearances, from this unhealthy valley. As we reached our horses I saw another sh.e.l.l burst among the infantry. After that there was another interval. Further on we met a group of soldiers returning to their regiment One lad of about nineteen was munching a biscuit. His right trouser leg was soaked with blood, I asked whether he was wounded. 'No, sir; it's only blood from an officer's head,' he answered, and went on--eating his biscuit.

Such were the fortunes for four days of the two brigades forming Warren's left attack.

I have already written a general account of the final action of Spion Kop on January 24, and have little to add. As soon as the news spread through the camps that the British troops were occupying the top of the mountain I hurried to Gun Hill, where the batteries were arrayed, and watched the fight from a flank. The spectacle was inconsiderable but significant. It was like a shadow peep-show. Along the mighty profile of the hill a fringe of little black crotchets advanced. Then there were brown and red smudges of dust from sh.e.l.ls striking the ground and white puffs from shrapnel bursting in the air--variations from the black and white. Presently a stretcher borne by five tiny figures jerks slowly forward, silhouetted on the sky-line; more sh.e.l.ls; back goes the stretcher laden, a thicker horizontal line than before. Then--a rush of crotchets rearwards--one leading two mules, mules terrified, jibbing, hanging back--all in silhouette one moment, the next all smudged with dust cloud; G.o.d help the driver; shadows clear again; driver still dragging mules--no, only one mule now; other figures still running rearwards. Suddenly reinforcements arrive, hundreds of them; the whole sky-line bristles with crotchets moving swiftly along it, bending forward almost double, as if driving through a hailstorm. Thank heaven for that--only just in time too--and then more smudges on the shadow screen.

Sir Charles Warren was standing near me with his staff. One of his officers came up and told me that they had been disturbed at breakfast by a Boer sh.e.l.l, which had crashed through their waggon, killing a servant and a horse. Presently the General himself saw me. I inquired about the situation, and learned for the first time of General Woodgate's wound--death it was then reported--and that Thorneycroft had been appointed brigadier-general. 'We have put what we think is the best fighting man in command regardless of seniority. We shall support him as he may request. We can do no more.'

I will only relate one other incident--a miserable one. The day before the attack on Spion Kop I had chanced to ride across the pontoon bridge.

I heard my name called, and saw the cheery face of a boy I had known at Harrow--a smart, clean-looking young gentleman--quite the rough material for Irregular Horse. He had just arrived and pushed his way to the front; hoped, so he said, 'to get a job.' This morning they told me that an unauthorised Press correspondent had been found among the killed on the summit. At least they thought at first it was a Press correspondent, for no one seemed to know him. A man had been found leaning forward on his rifle, dead. A broken pair of field gla.s.ses, shattered by the same sh.e.l.l that had killed their owner, bore the name 'M'Corquodale.' The name and the face flew together in my mind. It was the last joined subaltern of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry--joined in the evening shot at dawn.

Poor gallant young Englishman! he had soon 'got his job.' The great sacrifice had been required of the Queen's latest recruit.

CHAPTER XIX

A FRESH EFFORT AND AN ARMY CHAPLAIN

Spearman's Hill: February 4, 1900

The first gleams of daylight crept underneath the waggon, and the sleepers, closely packed for shelter from the rain showers, awoke. Those who live under the conditions of a civilised city, who lie abed till nine and ten of the clock in artificially darkened rooms, gain luxury at the expense of joy. But the soldier, who fares simply, sleeps soundly, and rises with the morning star, wakes in an elation of body and spirit without an effort and with scarcely a yawn. There is no more delicious moment in the day than this, when we light the fire and, while the kettle boils, watch the dark shadows of the hills take form, perspective, and finally colour, knowing that there is another whole day begun, bright with chance and interest, and free from all cares. All cares--for who can be worried about the little matters of humdrum life when he may be dead before the night? Such a one was with us yesterday--see, there is a spare mug for coffee in the mess--but now gone for ever. And so it may be with us to-morrow. What does it matter that this or that is misunderstood or perverted; that So-and-so is envious and spiteful; that heavy difficulties obstruct the larger schemes of life, clogging nimble aspiration with the mud of matters of fact? Here life itself, life at its best and healthiest, awaits the caprice of the bullet. Let us see the development of the day. All else may stand over, perhaps for ever. Existence is never so sweet as when it is at hazard. The bright b.u.t.terfly flutters in the suns.h.i.+ne, the expression of the philosophy of Omar Khayyam, without the potations.

But we awoke on the morning of the 25th in most gloomy spirits. I had seen the evacuation of Spion Kop during the night, and I did not doubt that it would be followed by the abandonment of all efforts to turn the Boer left from the pa.s.sages of the Tugela at and near Trichardt's Drift. Nor were these forebodings wrong. Before the sun was fairly risen orders arrived, 'All baggage to move east of Venter's Spruit immediately. Troops to be ready to turn out at thirty minutes' notice.'

General retreat, that was their meaning. Buller was withdrawing his train as a preliminary to disengaging, if he could, the fighting brigades, and retiring across the river. Buller! So it was no longer Warren! The Commander-in-Chief had arrived, in the hour of misfortune, to take all responsibility for what had befallen the army, to extricate it, if possible, from its position of peril, to encourage the soldiers, now a second time defeated without being beaten, to bear the disappointment. Everyone knows how all this, that looked so difficult, was successfully accomplished.

The army was irritated by the feeling that it had made sacrifices for nothing. It was puzzled and disappointed by failure which it did not admit nor understand. The enemy were flushed with success. The opposing lines in many places were scarcely a thousand yards apart. As the infantry retired the enemy would have commanding ground from which to a.s.sail them at every point. Behind flowed the Tugela, a deep, rapid, only occasionally fordable river, eighty-five yards broad, with precipitous banks. We all prepared ourselves for a b.l.o.o.d.y and even disastrous rearguard action. But now, I repeat, when things had come to this pa.s.s, Buller took personal command. He arrived on the field calm, cheerful, inscrutable as ever, rode hither and thither with a weary staff and a huge notebook, gripped the whole business in his strong hands, and so shook it into shape that we crossed the river in safety, comfort, and good order, with most remarkable mechanical precision, and without the loss of a single man or a pound of stores.

The fighting troops stood fast for two days, while the train of waggons streamed back over the bridges and parked in huge black squares on the southern bank. Then, on the night of the 26th, the retreat began. It was pitch dark, and a driving rain veiled all lights. The ground was broken. The enemy near. It is scarcely possible to imagine a more difficult operation. But it was performed with amazing ease.

Buller himself--not Buller by proxy or Buller at the end of a heliograph--Buller himself managed it. He was the man who gave orders, the man whom the soldiers looked to. He had already transported his train. At dusk he pa.s.sed the Royals over the ford. By ten o'clock all his cavalry and guns were across the pontoon bridges. At ten he began disengaging his infantry, and by daylight the army stood in order on the southern bank. While the sappers began to take the pontoon bridges to pieces the Boers, who must have been astonished by the unusual rapidity of the movement, fired their first sh.e.l.l at the crossing. We were over the river none too soon.

A successful retreat is a poor thing for a relieving army to boast of when their gallant friends are hard pressed and worn out. But this withdrawal showed that this force possesses both a leader and machinery of organisation, and it is this, and this alone, that has preserved our confidence. We believe that Buller gauged the capacity of one subordinate at Colenso, of another at Spion Kop, and that now he will do things himself, as he was meant to do. I know not why he has waited so long. Probably some pedantic principle of military etiquette: 'Commander-in-Chief should occupy a central position; turning movements should be directed by subordinates.' But the army believes that this is all over now, and that for the future Buller will trust no one but himself in great matters; and it is because they believe this that the soldiers are looking forward with confidence and eagerness to the third and last attempt--for the sands at Ladysmith have run down very low--to shatter the Boer lines.

We have waited a week in the camp behind Spearman's Hill. The General has addressed the troops himself. He has promised that we shall be in Ladysmith soon. To replace the sixteen hundred killed and wounded in the late actions, drafts of twenty-four hundred men have arrived. A mountain battery, A Battery R.H.A., and two great fortress guns have strengthened the artillery. Two squadrons of the 14th Hussars have been added to the cavalry, so that we are actually to-day numerically stronger by more than a thousand men than when we fought at Spion Kop, while the Boers are at least five hundred weaker--attrition _versus_ recuperation. Everyone has been well fed, reinforced and inspirited, and all are prepared for a supreme effort, in which we shall either reach Ladysmith or be flung back truly beaten with a loss of six or seven thousand men.

I will not try to foreshadow the line of attack, though certain movements appear to indicate where it will be directed. But it is generally believed that we fight to-morrow at dawn, and as I write this letter seventy guns are drawing up in line on the hills to open the preparatory bombardment.

It is a solemn Sunday, and the camp, with its white tents looking snug and peaceful in the sunlight, holds its breath that the beating of its heart may not be heard. On such a day as this the services of religion would appeal with pa.s.sionate force to thousands. I attended a church parade this morning. What a chance this was for a man of great soul who feared G.o.d! On every side were drawn up deep ma.s.ses of soldiery, rank behind rank--perhaps, in all, five thousand. In the hollow square stood the General, the man on whom everything depended. All around were men who within the week had been face to face with Death, and were going to face him again in a few hours. Life seemed very precarious, in spite of the sunlit landscape. What was it all for? What was the good of human effort? How should it befall a man who died in a quarrel he did not understand? All the anxious questionings of weak spirits. It was one of those occasions when a fine preacher might have given comfort and strength where both were sorely needed, and have printed on many minds a permanent impression. The bridegroom Opportunity had come. But the Church had her lamp untrimmed. A chaplain with a raucous voice discoursed on the details of 'The siege and surrender of Jericho.' The soldiers froze into apathy, and after a while the formal perfunctory service reached its welcome conclusion.

As I marched home an officer said to me: 'Why is it, when the Church spends so much on missionary work among heathens, she does not take the trouble to send good men to preach in time of war? The medical profession is represented by some of its greatest exponents. Why are men's wounded souls left to the care of a village pract.i.tioner?' Nor could I answer; but I remembered the venerable figure and n.o.ble character of Father Brindle in the River War, and wondered whether Rome was again seizing the opportunity which Canterbury disdained--the opportunity of telling the glad tidings to soldiers about to die.

CHAPTER XX

THE COMBAT OF VAAL KRANTZ

General Buller's Headquarters: February 9, 1900.

During the ten days that pa.s.sed peacefully after the British retreat from the positions beyond Trichardt's Drift, Sir Redvers Buller's force was strengthened by the arrival of a battery of Horse Artillery, two powerful siege guns, two squadrons of the 14th Hussars, and drafts for the Infantry battalions, amounting to 2,400 men. Thus not only was the loss of 1,600 men in the five days' fighting round Spion Kop made good, but the army was actually a thousand stronger than before its repulse.