With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back Part 16

Though too late to save all the treasure stored at this junction, we nevertheless secured an invaluable supply of rolling stock and of certain kinds of provender, so that for a few days we lacked little that was essential except biscuits for the men and forage for the mules. But to prevent if possible further down the line another such holocaust as took place here, our men started at break of day on a forced march towards Koomati Poort.

The line we learned was in fair working order for the next fifteen miles, and for that distance the heavy baggage with men in charge of the same was sent by train. I did not confess to being baggage nor was I in charge thereof, but none the less when my ever courteous and thoughtful colonel urged me to accompany the baggage for those few miles I looked upon his advice in the light of a command, and so accepted my almost only lift of any sort in the long march from the Orange River to Koomati Poort. The full day's march for the men was twenty-five miles through a region that at that season of the year had already become a kind of burning fiery furnace; and the abridging of it for me by at least a half was all the more readily agreed to because my solitary pair of boots was unfortunately in a double sense on its last legs. A merciful man is merciful to his boots, especially when they happen to be his only pair.

[Sidenote: "_Rags and tatters get ye gone._"]

Nor in the matter of leather alone were these Guardsmen lamentably lacking. One of the three famous Napier brothers when fighting at close quarters in the battle of Busaco fiercely refused to dismount that he might become a less conspicuous mark for bullets, or even to cover his red uniform with a cloak. "This," said he, "is the uniform of my regiment, and _in it I will show_, or fall this day." Barely a moment after a bullet smashed his jaw. At the very outset of the Boer war, to the sore annoyance of Boer sharpshooters, the British War Office in this one respect showed great wisdom. All the pomp and pride and circ.u.mstance of war were from the outset laid aside, especially in the matter of clothing; but though in that direction almost all regimental distinctions, and distinctions of rank, were deliberately discarded, so that scarcely a speck of martial red was anywhere to be seen, the clothing actually supplied proved astonis.h.i.+ngly short-lived.

The roughness of the way soon turned it into rags and tatters, and disreputable holes appeared precisely where holes ought not to be. On this very march I was much amused by seeing a smart young Guardsman wearing a sack where his trousers should have been. On each face of the sack was a huge O. Above the O, in bold lettering, appeared the word OATS, and underneath the O was printed 80 lbs. The proudest man in all the brigade that day seemed he! Well-nigh as travel-stained were we, and torn, as Hereward the Wake when he returned to Bruges.

[Sidenote: _Destruction and still more destruction._]

On Sunday, September 23rd, at Hector Spruit we most unexpectedly lingered till after noonday, partly to avoid the intense heat on our next march of nineteen miles through an absolutely waterless wilderness, and partly because of the enormous difficulties involved in finding tracks or making them through patches of th.o.r.n.y jungle. We were thus able to arrange for a surprise parade service, and when that was over some of our men who had gone for a bathe found awaiting them a still more pleasant surprise. In the broad waters of the Crocodile they alighted on a large quant.i.ty of abandoned and broken Boer guns and rifles. Such abandonment now became an almost daily occurrence, and continued to be for more than another six months, till all men marvelled whence came the seemingly inexhaustible supply. At Lydenberg, which Buller captured on September 6th, and again at Spitzkop which he entered on September 15th, stores of almost every kind were found well-nigh enough to feed and furnish a little army; though in their retreat to the latter stronghold the burghers had flung some of their big guns and no less than thirteen ammunition waggons over the cliffs to prevent them falling into the hands of the British. Never was a nation so armed to the teeth. As nature had made every hill a fortress, so the Transvaal Government had made pretty nearly every hamlet an a.r.s.enal; and about this same time French on the 14th, at Barberton, had found in addition to more warlike stores forty locomotives which our foes were fortunately too frightened to linger long enough to destroy. Those locos were worth to us more than a king's ransom!

That afternoon we marched till dark, then lighted our fires, and bemoaned the emptiness of our water bottles, while awaiting the arrival of our blanket waggons. But in half an hour came another sharp surprise, for without a moment's warning we were ordered to resume our march for five miles more. So through the darkness we stumbled as best we could along the damaged railway line. About midnight in the midst of a p.r.i.c.kly jungle, a bit of bread and cheese, a drink of water if we had any left, and a blanket, paved the way for brief repose; but at four o'clock next morning we were all astir once more, to find ourselves within sight of a tiny railway station called Tin Vosch, where two more locomotives and a long line of trucks awaited capture.

[Sidenote: _At Koomati Poort._]

On Monday, September 24th, at about eight o'clock in the morning, to General Pole Carew and Brigadier-General Jones fell the honour of leading their Guardsmen into Koomati Poort, the extreme eastern limit of the Transvaal--and that without seeing a solitary Boer or having to fire a single bullet. The French historian of the Peninsular War declares that "the English were the best marksmen in Europe--indeed the only troops who were perfectly practised in the use of small arms." But then their withering volleys were sometimes fired at a distance of only a few yards from the wavering ma.s.ses of their foes, and under such conditions good marksmans.h.i.+p is easy to attain. A blind man might bet he would not miss. On the other hand, he must be a good shot indeed who can hit a foe he never sees. In these last weeks there were few casualties among the Boers, because they kept well out of casualty range. They were so frightened they even forgot to snipe.

The valiant old President so long ago as September 11th had fled with his splendidly well-filled money bags across the Portuguese frontier; abandoning his burghers who were still in the field to whatever might chance to be their fate. That fate he watched, and waited for, from the secure retreat of the Portuguese Governor's veranda close by the Eastern Sea, where he sat and mused as aforetime on his stoep at Pretoria; his well-thumbed Bible still by his side, his well-used pipe still between his lips. Surely Napoleon the Third at Chislehurst, broken in health, broken in heart, was a scarcely more pathetic spectacle! Six or seven days later the old man saw special trains beginning to arrive, all crowded with mercenary fighting men from many lands, all bent only on following his own uncourageous example, seeking personal safety by the sea. First came 700; then on the 24th, the very day the Guards entered Koomati Poort, 2000 more, who were mostly ruined burghers, and who thus arrived at Delagoa Bay to become like Kruger himself the guests or prisoners of the Portuguese.

To the Portuguese we ourselves owe no small debt of grat.i.tude, for they had sternly forbidden the destruction of the magnificent railway bridge across the Koomati, in which their government held large financial interests. But other destruction they could not hinder.

Just in front of us lay the superbly lovely junction of the Crocodile with the Koomati River, and appropriately enough I then saw in midstream, clinging to a rock, a real crocodile, though, like the two Boer Republics, as dead as a door nail. Immediately beyond ran a ridge of hills which served as the boundary between the Transvaal and the Portuguese territory. Along that ridge floated a line of Portuguese flags, and within just a few yards of them the ever-slim Boer had planted some of his long-range guns, not that there he might make his last valiant stand, but that from thence he might present our approaching troops with a few parting shots. This final outrage on their own flag our friendly neighbours forbade. So we discovered the guns still in position but destroyed with dynamite. Thus finding not a solitary soul left to dispute possession with us we somewhat prematurely concluded that at last, through G.o.d's mercy, our toils were ended, our warfare accomplished. What wonder therefore if in that hour of bloodless triumph there were some whose hearts exclaimed, "We praise Thee O G.o.d, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord!" To the G.o.d of Battles the Boer had made his mutely stern appeal and with this result.

[Sidenote: _Two notable Fugitives._]

The _Household Brigade Magazine_ tells an amusing story of a Guardsman hailing from Ireland who at one of our base hospitals was supplied with some wine as a most welcome "medical comfort." Therein right loyally he drank the Queen's health, and then after a pause startled his comrades by adding, "Here's to old Kruger! G.o.d bless him!" Such a disloyal sentiment, so soon tripping up the heels of his own loyalty, called forth loud and angry protests, whereupon he exclaimed, "Why not? Only for him where would the war be? And only for him I would never have sent my old mother the Queen's chocolate!"

The Queen's chocolate is not the only bit of compensating sweetness begotten out of the bitterness of this war. The fiery hostility of Kruger, like the quenchless hate of Napoleon a hundred years ago, has not been without beneficent influence on our national character and destiny, and these two years of war have seemingly done more for the consolidation of the empire than twenty years of peace. Whether he and Steyn used the Africander Bond as their tool or were themselves its tools the outcome of the war is the same. To Great Britain it has so bound Greater Britain in love-bonds and mutual loyalty as to make all the world wonder. The President of the Transvaal months after the war began is reported to have said: "If the moon is inhabited I cannot understand why John Bull has not yet annexed it"; but with respect to his own beloved Republic he reckoned it was far safer than the moon, for he added: "So surely as there is a G.o.d of righteousness, so surely will the Vierkleur be victorious."

[Sidenote: _The propaganda of the Africander Bond._]

What that victory, however, would inevitably have involved was made abundantly plain in the pages of _De Patriot_, the once official organ of the Africander Bond. There, as long ago as 1882, it was written: "The English Government keep talking of a Confederation under the British flag. That will never happen. There is just one hindrance to Confederation, and that is the British flag. Let them take that away, and within a year the Confederation under the Free Africander flag would be established; but so long as the English flag remains here the Africander Bond must be our Confederation. The British must just have Simon's Bay as a naval and military station on the road to India, and give over all Africa to the Africanders."

It then adds: "Let every Africander in this Colony (that is, the Cape) for the sake of security take care that he has a good rifle and a box of cartridges, and that he knows how to use them." English trade is to be boycotted, nor is this veiled hostility to end even there. "Sell no land to Englishmen! We especially say this to our Transvaal brethren.

The Boers are the landowners, and the proud little Englishmen are dependent on the Boers. Now that the war against the English Government is over, the war against the English language must begin.

It must be considered a disgrace to speak English. The English governess is a pest. Africander parents, banish this pest from your houses!"

Now, however, that Kruger is gone, and the Africander Bond has well nigh given up the ghost, English governesses in South Africa will be given another chance, which is at least some small compensation for all the cost and complicated consequences of this wanton war.

[Sidenote: _Ex-President Steyn_.]

Martinus Theunis Steyn, late President of what was once the Orange Free State, is in almost all respects a marked contrast to the Transvaal President, whose folly he abetted and whose flight for a while he shared. Steyn, speaking broadly, is almost young enough to be Kruger's grandson, and was never, as Kruger was from his birth, a British subject, for he was born at Wynburg some few years after the Orange Free State received its independence. Whilst Kruger was never for a single hour under the schoolmaster's rod, and is laughingly said even now to be unable to read anything which he has not first committed to memory, Steyn is a man of considerable culture, having been trained in England as a barrister, and having practised at the bar in Bloemfontein for six years before he became President. He therefore could not plead ignorance as his excuse when he flung his ultimatum in the face of Great Britain and Ireland. Whilst Kruger was a man of war from his youth, a "strong, unscrupulous, grim, determined man," Steyn never saw a shot fired in his life except in sport till this war began, yet all strangely it was the fighting President who fled from the face of the Guards, with all their mult.i.tudinous comrades in arms, and never rested till the sea removed him beyond their reach, while the lawyerly President, the man of peace, doubled back on his pursuers, returned by rugged by-paths to the land he had ruined, and there in a.s.sociation with De Wet became even more a fugitive than ancient Cain or the men of Adullam's cave.

That many of his own people hotly disapproved of the course their infatuated ruler took is common knowledge; but by no one has that fact been more powerfully emphasised than by Paul Botha in his famous book "From Boer to Boer." Rightly or wrongly, this is what, briefly put, Botha says:--

[Sidenote: _Paul Botha's opinion of this Ex-President._]

When as a Free Stater I think of the war and realise that we have lost the independence of our little state, I feel that I could curse Martinus Theunis Steyn who used his country as a stepping stone for the furtherance of his own private ends. He sold his country to the Transvaal in the hope that Paul Kruger's mantle would fall on him. The first time Kruger visited the Orange Free State after Steyn's election the latter introduced him at a public banquet with these words, "This is my Father!" The thought occurred to me at the time, "Yes, and you are waiting for your father's shoes." He hoped to succeed "his father" as President of the combined republics of united South Africa. For this giddy vision he ignored the real interests of our little state, and dragged the country into an absolutely unnecessary and insane war. I maintain there were only two courses open to England in answer to Kruger's challenging policy--to fight, or to retire from South Africa--and it was only possible for men suffering from tremendously swollen heads, such as our leaders were suffering from, to doubt the issue.

I ask any man to tell me what quarrel we had with England? Was any injury done to us? Such questions make one's hair stand on end. Whether knave or fool, Steyn did not prepare himself adequately for his gigantic undertaking. He commenced this war with a firm trust in G.o.d and the most gross negligence. But it is impossible to reason with the men now at the front. With the exception of a few officials these men consist of ignorant "bywoners," augmented by desperate men from the Cape who have nothing to lose, and who lead a jolly rollicking life on commando, stealing and looting from the farmers who have surrendered, and whom they opprobriously call "handsuppers!"

These bywoners believe any preposterous story their leaders tell them in order to keep them together. One of my sons who was taken prisoner by Theron because he had laid down his arms, told me, after his escape, it was common laager talk that 60,000 Russians, Americans and Frenchmen were on the water, and expected daily; that China had invaded and occupied England, and that only a small corner of that country still resisted. These are the men who are terrifying their own people. I could instance hundreds of cases to show their atrocious conduct. Notorious thieves and cowards are allowed to clear isolated farmhouses of every valuable. Widows whose husbands have been killed on commando are not safe from their depredations. They have even set fire to dwelling-houses while the inmates were asleep inside.

As to the perfect accuracy of these accusations I can scarcely claim to be a judge, though apparently reliable confirmation of the same reached me from many sources; but I do confidently a.s.sert that no kindred accusations can be justly hurled at the men by whose side I tramped from Orange River to Koomati Poort. Their good conduct was only surpa.s.sed by their courage, and of them may be generally a.s.serted what Maitland said to the heroic defenders of Hougoumont--"Every man of you deserves promotion."

CHAPTER XIV

FROM PORTUGUESE AFRICA TO PRETORIA

Towards sundown on Tuesday, September 24th, while most of the Guards'

Brigade was busy bathing in the delicious waters of the Koomati at its juncture with the Crocodile River, I walked along the railway line to take stock of the damage done to the rolling stock, and to the endlessly varied goods with which long lines of trucks had recently been filled. It was an absolutely appalling sight!

[Sidenote: _Staggering Humanity._]

Long before, at the very beginning of the war, the Boers, as we have often been reminded, promised to stagger humanity, and during this period of the strife they came strangely near to fulfilling their purpose. They staggered us most of all by letting slip so many opportunities for staggering us indeed. Day after day we marched through a country superbly fitted for defence, a country where one might check a thousand and two make ten thousand look about them. Our last long march was through an absolutely waterless and apparently pathless bush. Yet there was none to say us nay! From Waterval Onder onwards to Koomati Poort not a solitary sniper ventured to molest us.

A more complete collapse of a nation's valour has seldom been seen. On September 17th, precisely a week before we arrived at Koomati, special trains crowded with fugitive burghers rushed across the frontier, whence not a few fled to the land of their nativity--to France, to Germany, to Russia--and amid the curious collection of things strewing the railway line, close to the Portuguese frontier, I saw an excellent enamelled fold-up bedstead, on which was painted the owner's name and address in clear Russian characters, as also in plain English, thus:--

P. DUTIL. ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIE.

That beautiful little bedstead thus flung away had a tale of its own to tell, and silently a.s.sented to the sad truth that this war, though in no sense a war with Russia, was yet a war with Russians and with men of almost every nationality under heaven.

[Sidenote: _Food for Flames._]

Humanity was scarcely less severely staggered by the lavish destruction of food stuffs and rolling stock we were that day compelled to witness. In the sidings of the Koomati railway station, as at Kaap Muiden, I found not less than half a mile of loaded trucks all blazing furiously. The goods shed was also in flames, and so was a gigantic heap of coals for locomotive use, which was still smouldering months afterwards. Along the Selati branch I saw what I was told amounted to over five miles of empty trucks that had fortunately escaped destruction, and later on proved to us of prodigious use.

A war correspondent, who had been with the Portuguese for weeks awaiting our advent, a.s.sured me that the Boers were so dismayed by the tidings of our approach that at first they precipitately fled leaving everything untouched; but finding we apparently delayed for a few hours our coming, they ventured across the great railway bridge in a red cross ambulance train, on which they felt certain we should not fire even if our scouts were already in possession of the place; and so from the shelter of the red cross these firebrands stepped forth to perform their task of almost immeasurable destruction. It is however only fair to add that the great majority of these mischief-makers were declared to be not genuine Boers, but mercenaries,--a much-mixed mult.i.tude whose ignominious departure from the Transvaal will minister much to its future wholesomeness and honesty.

[Sidenote: _A Crocodile in the Koomati._]

Next morning while with several officers I was enjoying a before breakfast bathe, a cry of alarm was raised, and presently I saw those who had hurried out of the water taking careful aim at a crocodile clinging to a rock in midstream. Revolver shot after revolver shot was fired, but I quickly perceived it was the very same crocodile I had seen at that very same spot the day before; and as it was quite dead then I concluded it was probably still dead, though the officers thus furiously a.s.sailing it had not yet discovered the fact; so leaving them to continue their revolver practice I quietly returned to the bubbling waters and finished my bathe in peace.

[Sidenote: _A Hippopotamus in the Koomati._]

Later on a continuous rifle fire at the river side close to the Guards' camp attracted general attention, and on going to see what it all meant I found a group of Colonials had thus been popping for hours at a huge hippopotamus hiding in a deep pool close to the opposite bank. Every time the poor brute put its nose above the surface of the water half a dozen bullets splashed all around it though apparently without effect. The Grenadier officers p.r.o.nounced such proceedings cruel and cowardly, but were without authority to put a stop to it.

The crocodile is deemed lawful sport because it endangers life, but the Hippo. Transvaal law protects, because it rarely does harm, and is growing rarer year by year. I ventured therefore to tell these Colonials that their sportsmans.h.i.+p was as bad as their marksmans.h.i.+p, and that the pleasure which springs from inflicting profitless pain was an unsoldierly pursuit; but I preached to deaf ears, and when soon after our camp was broken up that Hippo. was still their target.

[Sidenote: _A Via Dolorosa._]

On the second day of our brief stay at Koomati Poort, I crossed the splendid seven spanned bridge over the Koomati River, and noticed that the far end was guarded by triple lines of barbed wire, nor was other evidence lacking that the Boers purposed to give us a parting blizzard under the very shadow of the Portuguese frontier flags.

Then came a sight not often surpa.s.sed since Napoleon's flight from Moscow. Right up to the Portuguese frontier the slopes of the railway line were strewn with every imaginable and unimaginable form of loot and wreckage, flung out of the trains as they flew along by the frightened burghers. Telegraph instruments, crutches, and rocking chairs, frying pans and packets of medicinal powders, wash-hand basins and tins of Danish b.u.t.ter lay there in wild profusion; likewise a homely wooden box that looked up at me and said "Eat Quaker Oats."

At one point I found a great pile of rifles over which paraffin had been freely poured and then set on fire. Hundreds more, broken and scattered, were flung in all directions. Then, too, I saw cases of dynamite, live sh.e.l.ls of every sort and size, and piles of boxes on which was painted

"_Explosive_ Safety Cartridges Supplied by Vickers, Maxim & Co.; for the use of the Government of the South African Republic."