With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back Part 15

Close to the railway station at Waterval Onder was a comfortable little hotel, kept by a French proprietor, whose French cook had deserted him, and who would not therefore undertake to cater for the Grenadier officers, though he courteously placed his dining-room at their disposal, with all that appertained thereto; and sold to them almost his entire stock of drinkables, probably at fancy prices. The men of the Norfolk Regiment are to this day called "Holy Boys" because their forbears in the Peninsular War, so it is said, gave their Bibles for a gla.s.s of wine; but the Norfolks are not the only lovers of high-cla.s.s liquor the army contains, though army Bibles will not now suffice to buy it. British officers on the trek, however, not only know how to appreciate exquisitely any appropriate home comforts, when for a brief while procurable, but also how to surrender them unmurmuringly at a moment's notice when duty so requires. We had been in possession of our well-appointed hotel table only two days when a sudden order sent us all trekking once again.

It is worth noting that this French hotelkeeper and the German baron in the adjoining hospital had both fought, though of course on opposite sides, in the great Franco-Prussian war of thirty years ago, and now they found themselves overwhelmed by another great war wave in one of the remotest and seemingly most inaccessible fastnesses of South Central Africa. In this new war between Boer and Briton the German lost a limb, if not his life, and the Frenchman a large part of his fortune. So intimately are men of all nationalities now bound in the same bundle of life!

[Sidenote: _A Sheep-pen of a Prison._]

On Monday afternoon we marched to Nooitgedacht, where the prisoners already referred to had been confined like sheep in a pen for many a weary week. That pen was made by a double-barbed wire fence; the inner fence consisting of ten strands of wire, about eight inches apart, and the outer fence of five strands, with sundry added entanglements; and a series of powerful electric lights was specially provided to watch and protect the whole vast area thus enclosed. It gave me a violent spasm of heart sickness as I thought of English officers and men by hundreds being thus ignominiously hemmed in and worse sheltered than convicts. They had latterly been allowed to erect for themselves grotesquely rough hovels or hutches, many of which they set on fire when suddenly permitted to escape, so that as I found it the whole place looked indescribably dirty and desolate.

Even the shelters provided for the officers, and the hospital hastily erected for the sick, were scarcely fit to stable horses in, and were by official decree doomed to be given to the flames as the surest way of getting rid of the vermin and other vilenesses, of which they contained so rich a store. Here I found huge medicine bottles, never made for the purpose, on which the names of sundry of our sick officers remained written, to wit: "Lieut. Mowbray, one tablespoonful four times a day. 3. VIII. 1900." In one of these bunks I found a packet of religious leaflets, one of which contained Hart's familiar hymn:--

Come ye weary, heavy laden, Lost and ruined by the fall; If you tarry till you are better, You will never come at all.

Not the righteous, Sinners, Jesus came to call.

Although, therefore, religious services were never held in that prison pen, the men were not left absolutely without religious counsel and consolation. I was unfeignedly glad thus to find in that horrible place medicine for the soul as well as physic for the body, and some of those leaflets I brought away; but the physic I thought it safest not to sample.

Over this unique combination of prison house and hospital there floated a very roughly-made and utterly tattered red cross flag, which now serves as a memento of one of the most humiliating sights it ever fell to my lot to witness, and I could not help picturing to myself the overpowering heartache those prisoners must have felt as hour after hour they were hurried farther and yet farther still through deep defiles and vast mountain fastnesses into a region where it must have seemed as though hope or help could never reach them. But "men, not mountains, determine the fate of nations"; and to-day, through the mercy of our G.o.d, that pestilential pen is no longer any Englishman's prison.

[Sidenote: _Pretty scenery, and superb._]

Our next halting place was at G.o.dwand River, still on the Delagoa line, and here we found a wee bit of river scenery almost rivalling the beauty of the stream that has given to Lynmouth its world-wide fame. At this little frequented place two rivers meet, which even in the driest part of the dry season are still real rivers, and would both make superb trout streams, if once properly stocked, as many a river at home has been.

But just a little farther on we found scenery immeasurably more grand than anything we had ever seen before. The Dutch name of this astounding place is Kaapsche Hoop, which seems reminiscent of "The Cape of Good Hope," though it lies prodigiously far from any sea. It apparently owes its sanguine name to the fact that hereabouts the earliest discoveries of gold in the Transvaal were made. But it is also popularly called "The Devil's Kantoor," just as in the Valley of Rocks at Lynton we have "The Devil's Cheesering," and other possessions of the same sable owner. This African marvel is, however, much more than a mere valley of rocks, and it bids absolute defiance to my ripest descriptive powers. It is a vast area covered with rocks so grotesquely shaped and utterly fantastic as would have satisfied the artistic taste, and would have yielded fresh inspiration to the soul of a Gustave Dore. The rocks are evidently all igneous and volcanic, but often stand apart in separate columns, and sometimes bear a striking resemblance to enormous beasts or images that might once have served for Oriental idols.

Indeed, looked at by the bewitching but deceptive light of the moon, the whole place lends itself supremely well to every man's individual fancy, and even my unimaginative mind could easily have brought itself to see here a once majestic antediluvian city with its palaces and temples, but now wrecked and ruined by manifold upheavals of nature, and worn into rarest mockeries of its ancient splendours by the wild storms of many a millennium.

What I did certainly see, however, among those rocks were sundry roughly constructed shelters for snipers, who were therefrom to have picked off our men and horses as they crossed the adjacent drift.

Terrible havoc might have been wrought in the ranks of the Guards'

Brigade, without apparently the loss of a single Transvaaler's life, but there is no citadel under the sun the Boers just then had heart enough to hold.

Immediately adjoining this unique city of rocks is a stupendous cliff from which, our best travelled officers say, the finest panoramic view in the whole world is obtained. The cliff drops almost straight down twelve or fifteen hundred feet, and at its base huge baboons could be seen sporting, quite heedless of an onlooking army. Straight across what looked like an almost level plain, which, nevertheless, was seamed by many a deep defile and scarred by the unfruitful toil of many a gold-seeker, lay another great range of hills, with range rising beyond range, but with the town of Barberton, which I visited twenty months later, lying like a tiny white patch at the foot of the nearest range, some twenty miles away. To the right this plateau looked as though the tempestuous waves of the Atlantic had broken in at that end with overwhelming force, and then had been suddenly arrested and petrified while wave still battled with wave. It is such a view of far-reaching grandeur as I may never hope to see again, even were I to roam the wide world round; and could Kaapsche Hoop, with its absolutely fascinating attractiveness, be transplanted to, say Greenwich Park, any enterprising vendor of tea and shrimps who managed to secure a vested interest in the same, might reasonably hope to make such a fortune out of it as even a Rothschild need not despise.

CHAPTER XIII

WAR'S WANTON WASTE

Day after day we steadily worked our way _down_ to Koomati Poort, even when climbing such terrific hills that we sometimes seemed like men toiling to the top of a seven-storied house in order to reach the cellar. Hence Monday morning found us still seemingly close to "The Devil's Kantoor," which we had reached on the previous Sat.u.r.day, though meanwhile we had tramped up and down and in and out, till we could travel no farther, all day on Sunday.

[Sidenote: _A Surrendered Boer General._]

During that Sunday tramp there crossed into our lines General Schoeman, driving in a Cape cart drawn by four mules, on his way to Pretoria _via_ the G.o.dwand River railway station. Months before he had joined in formally handing over Pretoria to the British, and had been allowed to return to his farm on taking the oath of neutrality. That oath he had refused to break, so he was made a prisoner by his brother Boers. It was in Barberton gaol General French found him and once more set him free. Such a man deemed himself safer in the hands of his foes than of his friends, so was hasting not to his farm but to far-off Pretoria. This favourite commandant was by the Boers called "King David," and not only in the authoritativeness of his tone, but also in the sharp diversities of his martial experiences, bore some not remote resemblance to his ancient namesake.

Far as either of us then was from foreseeing it, the general's path and mine, though just now so divergent, were destined to meet once more. Within a year in Pretoria on the following Whit-Sunday I was sitting in the house of a friend, and was startled, as all present were, by the firing, as we all supposed, of one of our huge 4.7 guns.

Later in the day we learned it was the bursting of a 4.7 sh.e.l.l, nearly two miles away from where we heard the dread explosion. That particular British sh.e.l.l happened to be the first that had long ago been fired in the fight near Colesberg, and as it had fallen close to the general's tent without bursting, he brought it away to keep as a curio, and on that particular Sunday, so it is said, was showing it to a Boer friend, and explaining that the new explosive now used by the English is perfectly harmless when properly handled.

His demonstration, however, proved tragically inconclusive. Precisely what happened there is now no one left alive to tell. As in a moment the part of the house in which the experimenters sat was wrecked, and as I next day noted, some neighbouring houses were sorely damaged. The general was blown almost to pieces; one of his daughters who was sitting at the piano was fatally hurt. On the day of the general's funeral the general's friend died from the effect of the injuries received, and three other members of that family circle barely escaped with their lives.

On my first Whit-Tuesday in South Africa I marched with the triumphant Guards into Pretoria. On this second Whit-Tuesday I stood reverently beside the new-made grave of this famous Pretorian general, who had proved himself to be one of the best of the Boers, one of the few concerning whom it is commonly believed that his word was as good as his bond; and thus all strangely a shot ineffectually fired from one of our guns in Cape Colony, claimed eighteen months afterwards this whole group of victims in far-off Pretoria. Thus in the home of peace were so tragically let loose the horrors and havoc of war!

This general's case aptly ill.u.s.trates one of the most debatable of all points in the conduct of this doubly lamentable struggle. Whilst those who were far away from the scene of operations denounced what they deemed the wanton barbarities of the British, those on the spot denounced almost as warmly what they deemed the foolish and cruel clemency by which the war was so needlessly prolonged. These local complainers a.s.serted that if every surrendered burgher had been compelled to bring in not a rusty sporting rifle, but a good mauser, a good supply of cartridges and a good horse, the Boers would much sooner have reached the end of their resources. That saying is true.

Our chiefs a.s.sumed they were dealing with only honourable men, and so in this matter let themselves be sorely befooled. Some who surrendered to them one week, were busy shooting at them the next, with rifles that had been buried instead of being given up; and among those who thus proved false to their plighted troth were, alas, ministers of the Dutch Reformed Church.

[Sidenote: _Two Unworthy Predikants._]

When near the close of the war I paid a visit to Klerksdorp I was informed by absolutely reliable witnesses that one of the predikants of that neighbourhood had not been required to take an oath because of his sacred calling, and his simple word of honour was accepted. Yet at the time of my visit he was out on commando, hara.s.sing with his rifle the very village in which his own wife was still residing under our protection. Next day at Potchetstroom eye-witnesses told me that one of Cronje's chaplains, whom long ago we had set at liberty, soon after seized bandolier and rifle in defiance of all honour, and so a second time became a prisoner. "Straying shepherds, straying sheep!" When pastors thus proved unprincipled, their people might well hold perverted views as to what honour means and oaths involve.

It is further maintained by these protesters against excessive clemency that all surrendered burghers should have been placed in laagers, or sent to the coast on parole, where they could not have been compelled or tempted to take up arms again; but it was this express promise that they should return to their farms there personally to protect families and flocks and furniture, that induced them to come in. They would never have surrendered to be sent far afield, but would have remained in the fighting line to the finish.

All was not gained that was hoped for by this generous policy, but it was not such an utter failure as some suppose; and it at least served to pacify public opinion. The experiment of dealing gently with surrendered foemen was fairly tried, and if in part it failed the fault was not ours!

At the latter end, when guerilla warfare became the order of the day, and the only end aimed at was not fighting, but the mere securing or destruction of food supplies, it became necessary to sweep the veldt as with a broom, and to bring within the British lines everybody still left and everybody's belongings; but even then it was a gigantic task, involving much wrecking of what could not be removed; and in the earlier stages of the war such a sweep, if not actually enormously beyond the strength available for it, would certainly have involved many a fatal delay in the progress of the troops.

[Sidenote: _Two notable Advocates of Clemency._]

This champions.h.i.+p of clemency is no new thing in the war annals of our island home, and Lord Roberts, in his insistence on it, did but tread in the steps of the very mightiest of his predecessors. Wellington during the Peninsular wars actually dismissed from his service and sent back in disgrace to Spain 25,000 sorely-needed Spanish soldiers, simply because he could not restrain their wayside barbarities. He recognised that a policy which outrages humanity, in the long run means disaster; and frankly confessed concerning his troops, that if they plundered they would ruin all. In a precisely similar vein is Nelson's last prayer, which const.i.tutes the last entry but one in his diary:--"May the great G.o.d, whom I wors.h.i.+p, grant to my country ... a glorious victory. May no misconduct in anyone tarnish it, and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet."

It was in the spirit of Nelson's prayer and Wellington's precept that Lord Roberts strove to conduct his South African operations. With what success let all the world bear witness!

[Sidenote: _Mines without Men, and Men without Meat._]

From "The three Sisters," which we reached on our Sabbathless Sunday, we tramped all day on Monday till we reached a tributary of the Crocodile River close to the Noordkaap railway station, about seven miles out from Barberton, which we were not then privileged to visit.

Near this place we found the famous Sheba gold mine, its costly machinery for the present lying idle, and its cottages deserted at the stern bidding of intruding war--that most potent disturber of the industries of peace. Here from the loftiest mountain peaks were cables, with cages attached, sloping down to the gold-crus.h.i.+ng house; and across the river, in which, crocodiles or no crocodiles, we enjoyed a delicious bathe, there was a similar steel rope suspended as the only possible though perilous way of getting across when the river is in flood. In this as in all other respects, however, a gracious Providence seemed to watch over us for good, seeing that not once during all the eleven months we had been in the country had we found a single river so full as to be unfordable. Moreover, though now tramping through a notorious fever country, the long overdue rain and fever alike lingered in their pursuit of us and overtook us not, so that up to that time not a solitary case of enteric occurred in all our camp. The incessant use of one's heels seems to be the best preservative of health, for it is only among sedentary troops that sickness of any sort really runs riot.

The rations, however, have often been of the short measure type in consequence of the prodigious difficulty of transport over roads that are merely unfrequented tracks, and the utter wearisomeness of such day after day tramps on almost empty stomachs has been so p.r.o.nounced that the men often laughingly avowed they would prefer fourth cla.s.s by train to even first cla.s.s on foot. When they occasionally marched and climbed in almost gloomy silence I sometimes advised them to try the effect on their pedestrian powers of a lively song, and playfully suggested this new version of an old-time melody--

Cheer, boys, cheer, No more of idle sorrow; Cheer, boys, cheer, _There'll be another march to-morrow_.

But though they readily recognised the appropriateness of the sentiment, they frankly confessed it was impossible to sing on three-quarters of a pound of uncooked flour in place of a full day's rations, which indeed it was. Next day these much-tried men had to wade three times through the river, mostly with their boots and putties on, so that though short of bread and biscuit they were well supplied with "dampers," unfortunately of a sort that soaked but never satisfied.

[Sidenote: _Much fat in the fire._]

After pa.s.sing "Joe's Luck," where for us "there was no luck about the house, there was no luck at all," the Guards reached Avoca, another station on the Barberton branch; and here we found not only a fine railway bridge destroyed with dynamite, but also the railway sheds, recently crammed full with government stores, mostly provisions, now ruthlessly given to the flames and absolutely destroyed. Thousands of tins of condensed milk had flown like bombs in all directions, and like bombs had burst, when the intense heat had turned the confined milk to steam. b.u.t.ter by the ton had ignominiously ended its days by merely adding so much more fat to the fire. All good things here, laboriously treasured for the benefit of the Transvaal troops, were consumed in quite another fas.h.i.+on from that intended. Even acc.u.mulated locomotives to the number of about fifty had been in some cases elaborately mutilated, or caught, and twisted out of all utility, by the devouring flames. So wanton is the waste war begets. The torch has played a comparatively small part in this contest; but it is food supplies that have suffered most from its ravages, and the Boers, with a slimness that baffled us, having thus burned their food, bequeathed to us their famished wives and children. Thousands of these innocents drew full British rations, when thousands of British soldiers were drawing half rations. That is not the Old Testament and Boer-beloved way of waging war, but it foreshadows the slow dawning of an era when, constrained by an overmastering sense of brotherhood,

Men will hang the trumpet in the hall, And study war no more!

[Sidenote: _More fat and mightier flames._]

Beyond Avoca we rested for the night at Fever Creek, and were alarmed by the approach of a heavy thunderstorm just as we were commencing our dinner in the dense darkness. So I crept for refuge between the courses of our homely meal under a friendly waggon, and thence came forth from time to time as wind and weather permitted, to renew acquaintance with my deserted platter. Finally, when the storm had somewhat abated, we sought the scanty protection and repose to be found under our damp blankets. That for us with such favouring conditions Fever Creek did not justify its name seems wonderful.

On the Wednesday of that week the Guards' Brigade made a desperate push to reach Kaap Muiden, where the Barberton branch joins the main line to Delagoa Bay, though the ever-haunting transport difficulty made the effort only imperfectly successful. Three out of the four battalions were compelled to bivouac seven miles behind, while the one battalion that did that night reach the junction had at the finish a sort of racing march to get there. While resting for a few minutes outside "The Lion's Creek" station the colonel told his men that they were to travel the rest of the way by rail; whereupon they gave a ringing cheer and started at a prodigious pace to walk down the line in momentary expectation of meeting the presumably approaching train.

Each man seemed to go like a locomotive with full head of steam on, and it took me all my time and strength to keep up with them.

Nevertheless that train never met us. It never even started, and at that puffing perspiring pace the battalion proceeded all the way on foot. We had indeed come by _rail_, but that we found was quite another thing from travelling by _train_; and the sequel forcefully reminded one of the simpleton who was beguiled into riding in a sedan-chair from which both seat and bottom had been carefully removed. When the ride was over he is reported to have summed up the situation by saying he might as well have walked but for "the say so"

of the thing. And but for the say so of the thing that merrily beguiled battalion might as well have gone by road as by rail.

It was, however, a most wonderful sight that greeted them as they stumbled through the darkness into the junction. At one end of the station there was a huge engine-house, surrounded as well as filled, not only with locomotives but also with gigantic stacks of food stuffs, now all involved in one vast blaze that had not burned itself out when the Brigade returned ten days later. There were long trains of trucks filled with flour, sugar and coffee, over some of which paraffin had been freely poured and set alight. So here a truck and there a truck, with one or two untouched trucks between, was burning furiously. In some cases the mischief had been stopped in mid-career by friendly Kaffir hands, which had pulled off from this truck and that a newly-kindled sack, and flung it down between the rails where it lay making a little bonfire that was all its own. Then too broken sacks of unburnt flour lay all about the place looking in the semi-darkness like the Psalmist's "snow in Salmon"; but flour so flavoured and soaked with paraffin that when that night it was served out to be cooked as best it could be by the famished men some of them laughingly a.s.serted it exploded in the process. Oh, was not that a dainty dish to set before such kings! At the far end of the station were ten trucks of coal blazing more vigorously than in any grate, besides yet other trucks filled with government stationery and no one knows what beside. It was an awe-inspiring sight and pitiful in the extreme.

[Sidenote: _A welcome lift by the way._]