With Botha In The Field Part 3

The enemy's sh.e.l.ls burst in the depression behind us on both flanks-- "Pa-ha-ha." They look like slabs of cotton wool against the brazen blue sky. And all afternoon the heat strikes up at you overpowering, like the breath of a wild animal. Then the wind rises, and the sand s.h.i.+fts in eddies. Veils and goggles are useless. They can't keep out that spinning curtain of grit. The horses rattle the hard, dry bits in their mouths, trying to get some moisture.

On the 21st Headquarters moved into Riet. Here we found two water-holes in the bed of the river; one was a splendid Persian well, with chain buckets. Riet was no paradise; it was a luxury though, even if the river sand was blinding, to lie under a wagon and hear the water running.

[Ill.u.s.tration: An unique picture of General Botha, the Commander-in-Chief and his Staff reconnoitring]

[Ill.u.s.tration: After Riet water in blessed profusion]

Our casualties in the actions on the Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet front were fifteen killed, thirty-nine wounded and forty-two missing. On the 21st our commandos occupied Salem, eight miles further up the Swakop River.

The Commander-in-Chief and his party remained at Riet till the 24th. It was then decided that a supply depot must be established at Riet before further advance was made. On the evening of the 24th Headquarters returned to Swakopmund, reaching the coast at 9.30 on the morning of the 26th--an extremely fast trek.

Looking out of my window in the heart of civilisation at the evening sun that glorifies the Pretoria green kopjes, the scene dissolves. In its place comes the picture of the first gaunt daylight on the 26th of March last at fifteen kilometres, just going into Swakopmund. The mist from the coast had rolled inland; through it after dawn came miles of hors.e.m.e.n and wagons, guns, limbers, lorries, ambulances. Every human unit in that column was covered in white dust, and every horse was weary. And except for the staccato "click-click" of bits and an occasional deep hum from a pa.s.sing motor the army moved in perfect silence through the sand.

The official history of the South-West campaign remains to be written, of course; in the meantime I am convinced that the actions on the twenty-one mile Pforte-Jakalswater-Riet front were practically the deciding factors of the campaign.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Typical Parade of the Germans in South-West Africa]

SECTION III

THE RECORD TREK TO WINDHUK

On the 27th of March General Botha left Northern Force Headquarters at Swakopmund for Luderitzbucht, the landing-place of the Central Force under the commands of Brigadier-General Mackenzie.

The whole plan of campaign was very much this. The Protectorate was to be invaded from several angles, the route of these various forces being quite clear, I hope, in the diagram given. Roughly speaking there were three forces: the Northern (General Botha, Commander-in-Chief), working inland from Swakopmund; the Central (Brigadier-General Mackenzie) working inland from Luderitzbucht; and the Southern and South-Eastern converging on Keetmanshoop from Raman's Drift-Warmbad-Kalkfontein (Hartigan's Horse), from Upington (Brigadier-General van Deventer and Colonel Celliers) and from Kimberley-Hasuur (Colonel Berrange's column). As a result of this great concentration on Keetmanshoop and northwards from all sides, the Germans would be forced to decisive action, to retreat northwards, or be cut off. Upon these forces reaching a certain distance inland a general move would be made in the direction of Windhuk--and again the enemy would have to fight or retreat to the limits of his railway system.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Typical captured German Infantry]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Trek. Otjimbingwe: its Palms and Wells]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Trek. Otjimbingwe: the Commander-in-Chief at the old German capital]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Trek. Getting Milk from a Goat. Milk was priced beyond Silver]

On the 30th of March the Commander-in-Chief returned to Swakopmund, and the same day news came of the occupation of Aus by the Central Force.

It was now that we heard definitely that General s.m.u.ts was in the field with the forces south of us.

With the Central and Southern advances, General Mackenzie, from Luderitzbucht, occupied Garub on the 22nd of February, and Aus on March 31. Colonel Berrange's column, having left Hasuur on the 3rd of March, reached Kabus, by Keetmanshoop, on the 19th. Leaving Raman's Drift on the 2nd of April, Colonel Hartigan's column occupied Kalkfontein on the 14th of April, and reached Keetmanshoop on the 20th of April. Seeheim was occupied on the 18th of April. The advance to these towns was achieved by a series of fast treks in which frightful conditions of thirst and fatigue were encountered. General Mackenzie's troops in their advance north occupied Bethany on the 13th of April, and continued northward to Berseba, Gibeon, etc., on the way to Windhuk.

We now come to the feat that broke all known marching records and caused two hemispheres to talk. On Sunday and Monday, the 25th and 26th of April, General Botha's forces left the coast: on the 5th of May they were outside Windhuk. Striking right across the desert through every kind of country, General Botha's army marched night and day, and in five of those days covered a minimum distance of a hundred and ninety miles. Many units did much more than two hundred miles--over forty miles per day.

It was some trekking.

Swakopmund was left on the 26th of April at dawn. Haigkamchab was reached by I on the same afternoon, and Husab supply base at 6.30 p.m.

Next day Husab was left at 2.15 p.m.; the column halted for a few minutes at 5 p.m., and pushed right through to Riet, which was made at 10.20 that evening. Headquarters rested all day on the 28th at Riet, left it at 8 p.m., trekked by moonlight along the Swakop River for three hours, outspanned till an hour before dawn, and made Salem at 6.45 a.m. on March 29. At 9.30 that morning the column moved on again, reached outspan at twenty miles by 1.35 in the afternoon, rested for an hour and a half and pushed on again till a quarter before midnight, when it rode into Wilhelmsfeste. But the water was at Kaltenhausen, some miles further ahead of this military post. We reached it at 1.15 on the morning of the 30th. Animals took two hours to water in the bitterly cold morning air. The guards had not taken two steps on their beat before the sand was littered with sleepers that looked like dead men. These sleeping columns, some ninety to a hundred miles from the coast, were now half way to Windhuk.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Great Trek. An extempore bath towards the end of the Trek]

Two hours after daylight General Headquarters moved to a camping ground two miles back towards Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis), and rested during the day in the shade of the scant trees with which the veld was covered as the desert was left behind. The rest of the Northern Army had trekked on with scarcely any pause. Shortly before sunset, the Commander-in-Chief set out on a night march of twenty odd miles to Otjimbingwe. The trek was done at a fierce pace till midnight, when an outspan was ordered; the party slept for four hours, and made Otjimbingwe just as the dawn of the 1st of May was breaking. As General Botha rode into this old mission settlement the rear of the German forces, closely pursued, was galloping in retreat over the kopjes to the east. Many prisoners were taken here.

General Botha spent the day at Otjimbingwe, left at dawn on the 2nd, and trekked north-west seventeen miles to Pot Mine, which he reached at 12.45 p.m. Here the Commander-in-Chief awaited the arrival of General s.m.u.ts, had a conference with him, and moved in force on Karibib at 2 a.m. on the 5th of May. He trekked the whole of that day, with two halts of an hour each, and entered Karibib on the heels of the enemy at five o'clock in the afternoon. At the same time the rest of the Northern Force had entered Okasise, Okahandja, Waldau, and other stations on the railway, had captured the whole system practically up to Omaruru, and were at the gates of Windhuk. The German forces were in full retreat to the north and north-east. Their civilian populations, left behind in the towns, seemed dumfoundered at the appearance of the Union troops. Meantime the Southern and Central Armies had approached the German capital on the southern flank.

This account of the advance through the desert of General Botha's Northern Force is purposely bald. The process of a vast flooding of water over a country is in essence bald and direct. And that is as near as I can get for comparison. General Botha's advance was like a well-ordered flood: which, I take it, was exactly the idea. At a fixed time organised bodies of men, mounted, dismounted and with artillery, were systematically poured over the German territory. I am sure most of the fellows who took part in that advance and recall it in detail will in the future look back and wonder. For it is a subject for wonder, even if history does contain some marches more eventful. It has been stated since that all transport was left behind. But that is not strictly true: a large quant.i.ty of transport was brought on by the Union Forces; pa.s.sed through the deepest sand in waterless desert, between gorges, over big kopjes, into almost trackless bushveld--and was never more than a day and a half behind. At one place out of a convoy of twenty-seven wagons, seventeen capsized.

It is hackneyed, I know, but there is only one way to describe the great trek to Windhuk. It was absolutely "a chequer-board of nights and days." Looking at my diary just now, that I have had ten years'

practice at keeping, I see a confusion got into the dates. You didn't know anything about the date or the day of the week. Existence was just a dateless alternation of light and darkness, of saddle-up and off-saddle, of cossack-post, of thinking about water--and of yearning with every fibre of one's being for the ineffable boon of a long sleep.

It will be seen that the key to the advance over the Namib Desert was the Swakop River. The water-holes of the Swakop River are very singular; they form the nucleus of a kind of settlement (even if it be only a couple of small huts) right in the dry river bed. At Kaltenhausen, to take but one example, there is a splendid shooting-lodge slapbang in the centre of the river; it has a fine courtyard walled and railed in. It seemed extraordinary. At these water-holes you suddenly leave the stony sand of the desert and come on to finest soft sand. It is quite pleasant at night, but day tells another story. Just after sunrise a wind starts blowing down the river valley and raises this superfine, mineralised sand. To lie exposed to this for a day is an awful experience; the fine dust will penetrate anywhere. I am sure it must lead to positive blindness in time.

I mentioned the water-holes of the Swakop River for the particular reason that their situation in most cases adds immensely to the merit of the Northern Army's great trek. The trek-road from Swakopmund follows the river only in a broad sense; the Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb water-holes are really three to four and five miles from the road and the camping grounds. That is to say, the columns, after a twenty mile trek in the sand and sun had another quarter of the distance to go--_to water_. And to water usually means across the yard to the troughs, so to speak. We shall remember the water-holes of South-West Africa. There is many a fellow now back in civilisation who can recall vividly the tramp over stony, loose gravel through those great echoing rocks down to the water-holes at Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb. Hour after hour the processions of weary riders pa.s.sed each other in a cloud of dust that rose five hundred yards and filled the choking canyon. The invariable question from him going wearily to water to him coming refreshed and smothered in water-bottles and with a livelier horse from it: "Is it far, boy?" And the stereotyped answer of encouragement was as always: "No, no; just round the corner." All these water-holes are almost duplicates of each other. I suppose not the echo of a bird now hurts their pristine and awful quietude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Beauty Spot pa.s.sed during the last Trek]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. Conference at Omaruru. German Staff lunching]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The General receives his Bodyguard at a Garden Party after return]

The marvellous series of changes as one advances const.i.tutes the most striking feature of the advance to Windhuk from the coast. By rail it is not so striking; but taking the marching route via the Swakop River water-holes--Swakopmund, Nonidas, Haigamkhab, Husab, Riet, Salem, Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis), Otjimbingwe, Windhuk--the changes in the country and the stages that show them are as palpable as if marked by a system of parallel walls. I have never seen this feature of the veld so marked elsewhere in South Africa.

Swakopmund is the limit in the down-grade--deep sand; brak water; a treacherous, dreary climate, with visitations of furnace-heat desert winds; a huge cemetery; moths and flies. From Nonidas to Haigamkhab and Husab the sand lightens and hardens, the atmosphere improves, rocks, barren kopjes begin to appear; the little water you get is fairly good.

Riet comes; the barren kopjes are more frequent; the atmosphere, hot in the day, is beautiful by night; the water is perfect. Salem is a duplicate Riet; a small settlement in the river bed; but the water is more plentiful, the vegetation more profuse. Then comes the great trek to Tsaobis.

It does not look far on the map; it is a huge stretch nevertheless. For the first three hours it was Riet-Salem country with extensions and additions. Vast gorges, black and brown kopjes, boulders, sand stretches, clumps of bush, minute trees. And then, on Thursday the 29th of April (memory holds the date like a vice), we saw gra.s.s. It was gra.s.s. It was undoubtedly gra.s.s--the kind of gra.s.s that gave one the feeling that this particular veld, like a man prematurely bald through worry or riotous living, had been trying some hair restorer with ludicrous results--gra.s.s whitish, feeble, attenuated, that to be seen at all wanted an eye levelled along the ground.

Each half hour brought its surprise as we moved along, General Botha on his white horse at the head of the column, just visible to the eye through the thick curtain of white dust our horses' feet flung up into the sun glare. We rode in great gorges between kopjes. We crossed dry river courses. We clattered over the hard bosoms of rocks, switchbacked up and down each hour working out of the desert. Trees began to appear--caricatures of trees. Then game spoor was reported. And suddenly, just after noon, rain fell--out of one cloud in a sky otherwise brazenly clear five drops fell. I counted five on my bridle hand.

Rain on the edge of the Namib Desert. It was ludicrous, too bizarre; it was the last straw. We gasped. A deep roar of ironical cheering went up. The Commander-in-Chief looked round and laughed. When we outspanned later the horses made a show of grazing for the first time for five months. The sagacious animals showed plain amazement in their eyes. At Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis) the bushveld begins. The water supply of Otjimbingwe is the feature of that rather quaint settlement. One must ever a.s.sociate it with its fine aeromotor pumping the precious fluid for parched man and beast to drink their full after the desert pa.s.sage in the shade of cool palms many years old.

[Ill.u.s.tration: German prisoners of war, imprisoned at Karibib]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Karibib]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. The first troops in Waldau]

[Ill.u.s.tration: The first South African Engineer Corps Staff at Windhuk]

During the great trek alarms regarding mines were most frequent. There were many wonderful escapes. It seems a marvel that the enemy were not more successful than they were with these deadly machines. Suffer casualties we did; but if all the mines that were laid had blown up our casualties would have been formidable indeed. But somehow those mines seemed foreordained not to act. They were discovered by the merest chance; or they failed to go off; or they exploded at the wrong time.

Making for Karibib in the forenoon of the 5th of May, the authorities naturally showed the greatest caution for the safety of General Botha-- though a large body of Union mounted troops had pa.s.sed over the same ground before the Commander-in-Chief, Staff and Bodyguard traversed the road.

In view of the fact that the South African Army was operating against the forces of the same nation that has ravaged and despoiled Belgium, a point should be made here. It must be remembered that the armed forces of the Protectorate simply cleared bag and baggage out of all the important inland towns in the face of Botha's overwhelming advances.

They left wife and child, the old and infirm, every stick of property they could not carry, at our mercy. When we entered Karibib at five in the evening the non-combatant population were moving about the streets, or standing in best bib and tucker at their doors, calmly gazing at the trek-stained hors.e.m.e.n that sought the nearest water tanks. They had not the slightest fear of us. I spoke to a comrade who has seen war aforetime. He said he had never seen a more orderly occupation of a town.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. A quick railway repair after the Germans' usual practice of blowing up railway bridges]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. The first train to Windhuk. The South African Engineer Corps Construction Party aboard]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At Windhuk. How we treat the German women. Ten minutes after occupation]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At Windhuk. The Commander-in-Chief addresses his ma.s.sed troops from the Rathaus ]

The conduct of the South African troops should a.s.suredly be noted. The very confidence of these German townspeople that they had nothing to fear from the hated troops of the British Union of South Africa was eloquent. The thing stood out, a piece of bitterest irony in connection with a people whose kindred across the seas were making civilisation shudder at their atrocities afloat and ash.o.r.e. The news of the _Lusitania_ ma.s.sacre on the high seas reached Karibib just after occupation. Did one Teuton in the place have to suffer as a consequence even the insult of a word? No. What would the Germans have done?

General Botha's forces had crossed a desert through which it was the open boast of the enemy that it was strewn with mines and with every well poisoned. Was a single defenceless citizen of Windhuk or Karibib the worse for it after the occupation? Not one. The greater part of General Botha's forces were on a half--a quarter--an eighth rations when they made Karibib, Okahandja, Okasise, Waldau and the capital; they lived until all supplies could come up on less than one biscuit a day, a pinch or two of meal, and fresh meat.

How much looting occurred in these towns?