A Brevet-Colonelcy was conferred upon Baden-Powell for his work on the Gold Coast,—he was then eight-and-thirty,—and in the same year he was back at regimental work in Ireland. Hardworking as ever, and keen on making his men practical soldiers, B.-P. was settling down to what is called the dull part of soldiering when the gods, in the shape of the heads of the War Office, again interfered with the even tenor of his way. A telegram from Sir Frederick Carrington arrived at Belfast towards the end of April telling our hero that there was to be fighting in Matabeleland, and that there would be room for him on the staff. B.-P. was attending that day the funeral of a man in his squadron who had been killed by a fall from his horse, and after the service he rushed back tobarracks, changed his kit, arranged about selling his horses, dogs, and furniture, and just when the English world sits down to its most excellent meal of the day, that oasis of the afternoon desert, he was in a train rushing as fast as an Irish train can rush towards the steamer that sailed for England.
At twelve o'clock next day B.-P. was saying good-bye to Sir Frederick Carrington, who sailed before him, and that done he spent a few miserable days in constant dread that he would be bowled over by a hansom, or catch scarlet fever, and thus be prevented from sharing in the hardships and glory of a campaign. But nothing contrary happened to him, and after affectionate farewells to his family he embarked for Cape Town on board theTantallon Castleon 2nd May. One of his first labours was to begin an illustrated diary for his mother's delectation, a diary that was afterwards published by Messrs. Methuen in book form under the title of "The Matabele Campaign—1896." The keeping of this diary had its good uses for B.-P.; in what manner he explains in the preface, addressed to his mother,—"Firstly, because thepleasures of new impressions are doubled if they are shared with some appreciative friend (and you are always more than appreciative). Secondly, because it has served as a kind of short talk with you every day." That is the way in which British soldiers go forth to war.
The voyage was uneventful. Drill in pyjamas every morning prevented B.-P. from putting on flesh, and that drill, especially "Knees Up!" seems to have been of a pretty severe kind, for it draws from Baden-Powell the exclamation, "I'd like to kill him who invented it—but it does us all a power of good." That is the saying of the old soldier. In the barrack-room it is considered the right thing to grumble, or "grouse" as it is called, while one is working hardest. Thus the man with a jack-boot on his left arm and a polishing brush in his right hand—going like lightning,—the sweat running down his red face, is the man who swears he ain't goin' to bother about his blooming boots any more, dashed if he is; and after the brushing proceeds to "bone" them violently. The first part of B.-P.'s exclamation reminds me of a friend who says that ever since he arrived atyears of discretion he has been searching for the man who invented work on purpose to murder him. He is, of course, the hardest of hard workers.
There were pleasures as well as drill on board: athletic sports, tableaux, concerts, and a grand fancy dress ball. At this ball a lady with a Roman nose appeared as Britannia, but as the peak of the helmet threatened to bore a hole through the bridge of her nose she was obliged to wear her war-hat (as the Hussar calls his busby) the wrong way round. It was probably B.-P. himself who said to the good lady of her helmet, "That is not the rule, Britannia."
On the 19th May B.-P. looked from his port and saw "the long, flat top of grand old Table Mountain" looming darkly against the glittering stars, its base twinkling with electric lights that glinted on the water. That day was of course a busy one for B.-P. as Chief of the Staff, and the first news received by the Man of Mafeking (how odd it seems now!) was that Sir Frederick Carrington had gone up to Mafeking, and that he was to follow. In three days Baden-Powell was in Mafeking, the guest of Mr. Julius Weil, who gavean anxious England as much important news of the gallant little Mafeking garrison during the Boer war as the universal Reuter himself. Odd, too, it seems that while in Mafeking in 1896 B.-P. should write in his diary that "Plumer's force, specially raised here in the South, had got within touch of Buluwayo." Names how much more familiar in 1900!
Buluwayo was the town selected by the Matabele for their first blow, and accordingly with Sir Frederick Carrington and two other officers B.-P. set out from Mafeking on the 23rd May in a ramshackle coach, drawn by ten mules, on a drive of ten days and nights to Buluwayo. On this journey the officers encountered the celebrated King Khama, and it interested B.-P. to find that Khama knew him as the brother of Sir George Baden-Powell, and that he inquired after Sir George's little girl, just as a lady in the Park asks if one's baby has got over the measles. This (if we leave out a dinner at a wayside "hotel," where the waiter smoked as he served our officers) was the one picturesque incident of that jolting, clattering drive of nearly 560 miles, and, therefore, while our hero is groaning in the coach or travellingafield after partridges and guinea-fowl for dinner, we will take leave to look hastily for the reason of his presence in South Africa.
Matabeleland, let us say at the beginning, is included in Rhodesia, a country 750,000 miles in extent, or, so that the size may jump to the eye, let us say as big as France, Italy, and Spain lumped together. This vast country was under the administration of the British Government, but the Matabele, who had been but partially beaten in the taking of their country in 1893, were only waiting their opportunity to throw off the white man's yoke. The opportunity came when the deplorable Jameson raid emptied the country of troops, and left our brave hard-working colonists at the mercy of these savages. But there were other causes contributory to the rebellion. Rinderpest was slaying the cattle of the Matabele by thousands, and the white man's order that, to prevent the scourge from spreading, healthy beasts as well as diseased should be killed was, not unnaturally, quite unintelligible to the Matabele. The rumour spread that the hated white man was killing the cattle in order that the tribes should perish of starvation. The fact, too, that raiding weaker tribes for foodwas punished by the British further aggravated this "offence." The priests encouraged the spirit of rebellion, and the oracle-deity, the M'limo, promised through the priests that if the Matabele would make war upon the white man his bullets in their flight should be changed to water, and his cannon shells become eggs. Horrible murders followed upon this encouragement, too horrible, indeed, to repeat; but a general idea of the blood-lust which now possessed the Matabele may be gathered from the fact of over a hundred and fifty English people (scattered, of course, in outlying districts) being killed within a week of the M'limo's call to battle. Only a swift blow, then, could prevent the loss of civilisation to South Africa for many years; only a terrible lesson could teach the Matabele that the white man was his lord and master.
Buluwayo, prior to the time of Sir Frederick Carrington's arrival, contained about seven hundred women and children and some eight hundred men. The women and children were accommodated in a laager of waggons built up with sacks full of earth, and further protected from assault by a twenty or thirty yards' entanglement of barbed wire with asprinkling of broken bottles on the ground. The eight hundred men were organised in troops, and were armed and horsed in an incredibly short space of time.
Outside the town, on the north, south, and east, lay more than seven thousand Matabele, two thousand of whom were armed with Martini-Henry rifles, while the others possessed Lee-Metfords, elephant guns, Tower muskets, and blunderbusses, besides their own native assegais, knobkerries, and battle-axes. This formidable force was further strengthened by the desertion of a hundred Native Police, who took with them to the enemy their Winchester repeaters. Thus it will be seen that all the odds were in favour of the Matabele, but it is only when the odds are overwhelming against him that the Englishman feels he must buck up, and Buluwayo was fortunate enough to possess men of the true breed. Among these let us make special mention of the Hon. Maurice Gifford, who lost an arm in a gallant dash upon the besiegers[1]—a man "for whom rough miners and impetuous cowboys work likewell-broken hounds"; Mr. F.C. Selous, hunter and explorer; Colonel Napier, and Captain MacFarlane. These men gave the enemy no rest, and by repeated attacks at last rid the town of any immediate danger of being rushed by the blacks.
Baden-Powell's work when he arrived was almost entirely confined to the office; and working at a desk from early morning to late at night, with no prospect of an early closing movement, began to tell upon his spirits. He became convinced that "our force is far too small adequately to cope with so numerous and fairly well-armed an enemy, with well-nigh impregnable strongholds to fall back on.... Our force, bold as it is, is far too small, and yet we cannot increase it by a man, for the simple reason that if we did we could not find the wherewithal to feed it." If this sort of thing had gone on much longer B.-P. might have learned to look glum for an entire five minutes; but one night at ten o'clock, when he and Sir Frederick Carrington were putting up the shutters of office, into the town rode Burnham, the famous American scout, with news of a large impi of the enemy about three miles outside Buluwayo. This necessitated action, and B.-P.was himself again. With a police-trooper as a guide he rode out to find for himself how matters stood, and, after a hard and refreshing ride, in the early dawn he was able to see the enemy. There they were on the opposite bank of the Umgusa river, their fires crackling merrily, and they themselves apparently as happy as bean-feasters in Epping Forest. Not long after he had caught sight of these fires and the Matabele going backwards and forwards from the water, Baden-Powell was at the head of two hundred and fifty men riding towards the Umgusa. Under the impression, conveyed to them by their sorry old humbug of an oracle, that the waters of the Umgusa would open its jaws and swallow up the wicked white man, the Matebele allowed Baden-Powell to get his force across the stream without firing a shot; but when they found that not only did the waters fail to overwhelm their enemies, but that these same enemies were riding hard towards them, the Matabele took to their heels in order to find cover in some thicker bush. Then the air began to scream and whistle. Bullets flew by the ears of the charging English with aphit, phit!and, when they ricocheted off the ground, with awh-e-e-e-w!Up and down bobbed the black heads in the long rank grass, andbang, bang, bangwent the guns. Some of Baden-Powell's force wanted to dismount and return the fire, but B.-P., without a sword among his men, sang out, "Make a cavalry fight of it. Forward! Gallop!" Then, as the horses raced snorting forward, and the English gave a shout of battle, the Matabele, 1200 against 250, poured an irregular volley into their enemies. The next minute the horses were in among them, flashing by with the lather on their necks, while their riders' revolvers barked angrily in every quarter of the field. The Matabele ran. As hard as they could lick, they bolted like rabbits to their holes, but faster behind them came the avenging English with the velvet glove flung aside and the iron hand visible to their terror-stricken eyes. In the general rout, the mere act of punishment, there were many instances of coolness and bravery. One man got detached from the rest, and suddenly found himself confronted by eight of the enemy. In an instant his horse was shot under him, but almost in the same instant he was standing in front of the eight with his rifle to his shoulder. Before they could close on him with theirknobkerries and assegais, or before they could shoot him down, he had used his magazine fire with such deadly effect that four of his enemy were dead and the other four were sprinting for dear life. Baden-Powell had two pretty adventures in this engagement. Having emptied his Colt's repeater, he threw it carefully under a peculiar tree, so that he might find it when business was done; then he went to work with his revolver. As he rode forward he came upon an open stretch of ground, and the first object that struck his attention was a well-knit Kaffir on one knee covering his body with a Martini-Henry. The distance was about eighty yards, and Baden-Powell, telling the story, says that he felt so indignant at the fellow's rudeness that he rode at him as hard as he could gallop, calling him every name under the sun. But the Kaffir was not to be moved even by the best-bred abuse, and he remained kneeling with the rifle pointed at B.-P., until that horseman, with locked jaws and gleaming eyes (those who know him will understand), was only ten yards off. Then he fired, and B.-P. says he felt quite relieved "when I realised he had clean missed me." That nigger was shot immediatelyafterwards by one of Baden-Powell's men, who was riding to his help from behind.
The other close shave will make the nervous turn cold to think of it. B.-P. had ridden to the help of two men kept at bay by a nigger under a tree, and when the nigger had been killed, he was standing for a moment under the tree, when something moving above him made him look up. It was a gun-barrel taking aim at him. The man behind the gun, standing on a branch, was so jammed against the trunk of the tree as to look part of it, and while B.-P. was making a note of this fact for his next lecture on scouting,bangwent the gun, and the ground in front of his toes was as if a small earthquake had struck it. That nigger's knobkerrie and photograph are now in the Baden-Powell museum—a museum which began with butterflies and birds' eggs, and now includes mementos of nearly every tribe and animal on the face of the earth.
After the fight Baden-Powell got back to Buluwayo in time for late lunch, and—"made up for lost time in the office." From now it was a case of office for many weary weeks, and Baden-Powell could only at rare intervals steal away forexercise, which he took in the form of hard scouting, sometimes by himself, sometimes with Burnham—"a most delightful companion." His rides with the famous American gave him great pleasure, and each man, both born scouts, learned something from the other. While he was enjoying these expeditions as relaxation from the cramping work of office, he was at the same time picking up valuable information concerning the enemy. During this grind at the office B.-P. used to long for the lunch hour; "it sounds greedy," he says, "but it is for the glimpse of sunlight that I look forward,notthe lunch." On one occasion his work as Chief of the Staff was so severe that he was unable to leave the office for four days. He was feeling "over-boiled," and got rid of this stuffiness of mind in his own characteristic way. After dinner on the fourth day he saddled up and rode off to the Matopos, spent the night there, and was back in the office by 10.30 on the following day, "all the better for a night out."
All this time the office work increased, and the anxiety of the General and his staff was doubled by reports of rebellion in Mashonaland. The fire of lawlessness was spreading its evil flames in alldirections, till reports of murder and outrage covered an area of one hundred thousand square miles, and about 2000 whites found arrayed against them an army of some 20,000 maddened savages.
Fortunately for B.-P. he had in Sir Frederick Carrington a chief who never wastes a man. Excellent as Baden-Powell was in the office (and Tim Linkinwater would not have feared, I believe, to hand the precious Cherryble ledgers over to his keeping) he could render much more valuable service in the field. In the middle of July the reward came for all his independent scouting; he was chosen by Sir Frederick Carrington, as a man who knew the Matopos country and the whereabouts of the enemy, to act as guide to Colonel Plumer—the officer chosen for the immediate direction of operations in the Matopos. With joy B.-P. flung down the pen and took up the sword.
His first move was towards Babyan's stronghold, Babyan being one of the great Matabele chiefs—a chief great in the glorious days of Lobengula—and who now occupied the central and important impi in the Matopos. This work was well done, the enemy's exact whereabouts wereascertained, and the scouting ended in a glorious gallop back to camp after emptying a few guns into a party of savages attempting to cut off Baden-Powell's party. After this came battle.
In the moonlight of the 19th July the little force, nearly a thousand strong, moved out into the Matopos, Baden-Powell going on alone as guide. He went alone because he feared to have his attention distracted by a companion, thereby losing his bearings. There was something of a weird and delightful feeling, he says, in mouching along alone, with a dark, silent square of men and horses looming behind one. So they marched forward, the one incident, and that a sad one, being the killing with an assegai of a dog who had followed the force, and had endangered the success of its movement by barking at a startled buck. The only noise in the column marching behind the lithe, wiry guide was the occasional muffled cough of a man and the sharp snort of an excited horse. When the force was within a mile of Babyan's impi a halt was called, and the men lay down to sleep in the freezing cold night. It was not a long sleep, for an hour before dawn they were in the saddle again, and moving through thedarkness as silently as before towards the enemy's stronghold. When the pass was reached which led into the valley held by Babyan the column was prepared for attack, the advance force being under the command of Baden-Powell.
The guide almost jumped with joy, he says, when he spotted the enemy's fires. The fight was to begin. The guns were got up, and in a few minutes they were volleying and thundering, flinging their whirring shells into the masses of Matabele, whose assegai blades glistened in the morning sun. While this opening cannonade was proceeding Baden-Powell found useful work to do. With a few native scouts he started off on his own account and soon found a large body of the enemy elsewhere enjoying a bombastic war-dance, which plainly portended the staggering of humanity and the driving of the British into the sea. Thinking that Colonel Plumer ought not to miss this performance, Baden-Powell sent back word of it, and calling together the Native Levy proceeded to attack the dancers. Their sound of revelry died away, or changed to something more dismal, when Baden-Powell and his men came clambering up the rocky height, leaping over boulders,dodging behind crags, and pouring lead into their astonished midst. With very little delay the Matabele went to earth, tumbling pell-mell into their caves and holes, from whence the rattle of their musketry soon rolled, and where they fancied themselves as safe as a rabbit in its burrow from the attack of an eagle. To add to Baden-Powell's difficulty his Native Levy began to show the white feather, getting behind rocks and wasting their ammunition on the desert crags. Had the Matabele come out of their caves, given one war-whoop, and made a show of descending upon the besiegers, those precious friendlies would assuredly have turned tail and bolted. But the Matabele in the security of their caves made no such sign, and Baden-Powell called up the Cape Boys and the Maxims in the nick of time. In a few minutes the guns were in position on what looked like inaccessible crags, and the Cape Boys shouting and cheering were floundering through bogs, leaping over boulders, and firing with firm hand wherever firing was of use. The fight was now begun in earnest, and B.-P., on a rock directing the movements of his force, was surrounded by the deafening roar of artillery. In nearly everycave on those hills savages lay with rifle to shoulder, finger on trigger, waiting to pick off the besiegers as they came bounding over the rocks towards them. The Cape Boys never wavered; up they dashed, panting and sweating, to the very mouths of the caves, fired their rifles into the darkness, charged in, to reissue in a few minutes, jabbering to each other, and then rushing off to "do ditto" wherever these man-holes existed. Now they were creeping stealthily round rocks "like stage assassins," now leaping forward through the long yellow grass like men in a paper-chase,—always fighting well and pluckily, lifting up their wounded and carrying them to places of safety, and then again joining in the battle, charging without fear upon their maddened enemy, parrying the thrust of sudden assegai with the bayonet that kills almost in the instant that it guards. And while this work was going on, a sudden corner revealed another string of rebels running down a path. "For a moment," writes B.-P., "the thought crosses one's mind, shall we stop to fire or go for them? but before the thought has time to fashion itself, we find ourselves going for them." Again there was the cheering rush, the rattle ofrifles, and hard fighting till the enemy was scattered. So the battle went on, and it did not cease until the stronghold was completely cleared. Then the "flag-waggers" signalled back to the main body for stretchers.[2]During this pause Baden-Powell wrote an account of the fighting (illustrated), to be sent home to his mother.
In this manner Babyan was beaten, and the victors went back to camp satisfied with their day's work. On the following morning it was discovered that a column sent by the General to attack the enemy on the Inugu Mountain had not returned, and Baden-Powell with a patrol of a hundred men was ordered to go in search. When the sun was up the little body moved off towards the mountains, and after passing through much difficult country, parts of which were actually in the occupation of the enemy, they struck the spoor of the missing column, and to Baden-Powell's great joy found that the marks were quite fresh and leading outwards from themountains—showing that the missing men were safe. Very soon after that the patrol was further cheered by seeing the gleam of the column's camp-fires, and after an exchange of events Baden-Powell hurried back to camp to acquaint the General with the good news.
The next morning, forgetting that he had had another night out, Baden-Powell started off for solitary exercise in the mountains, his purpose being to "investigate some signs I had noted two days before of an impi camped in a new place," and to select a position for the building of a fort to command the Matopos. Returning to camp he drew his design and plan for the fort, and in the evening was back in the mountains again with a number of Cape Boys, ready to begin the business of building.
One of Baden-Powell's little relaxations when fighting slackened was the "rounding off" of cattle, a sport almost as exciting as chasing a solitary boar, especially when the cattle are being driven into the mountains for "home consumption" by bloodthirsty and hungry Matabele. On one of these occasions Baden-Powell was wounded. Having rounded off some cattle he was ridingtowards a party of niggers when he felt a sharp blow on his thigh as though Thor had given him a playful tap with his big hammer. He was bowled over, and thinking that he must have charged into the stump of a tree turned round to have a look at it; but there was no tree. Then he realised that he had only been struck with a lead-covered stone fired from a big-bore gun, and so hopped off like a man who has been kicked on the shins in a football match, to continue the game. No blood was drawn by this bullet, but our hero's thigh was black and blue for many days afterwards.
This was the kind of life Baden-Powell lived at this time as Chief of the Staff. An officer who knows him very well tells me that it is impossible to wear him out; "Baden-Powell," he says, "is tireless." He is keen to be given the most risky and the most solitary work; he can go for days without food and never complains of broken nights. He has an enthusiasm for hard work, and when that work demands cunning of the brain as well as quickness of the hand, as in scouting, B.-P. is as much lost in the labour as a wolf in search of food for its young.Never throughout the Matabele campaign was Sir Frederick Carrington better served than when the young Englishman slunk away into the darkness, and wandered alone and unprotected into the rocky mountains held by the murderous Matabele. And never were those savages more disquieted than when news was brought to them in the morning that the Wolf had been in the mountains during the night.
FOOTNOTES:[1]After the arm was amputated at the shoulder Mr. Gifford used to feel the pain as if it were in his hand.[2]Let it not be thought that B.-P. had neglected to bring stretchers. They were brought, but the friendlies who carried them, like the hen that laid the rotten egg, were nervous, and had dropped them in the river, they themselves taking up positions of safety till the fighting was over.
[1]After the arm was amputated at the shoulder Mr. Gifford used to feel the pain as if it were in his hand.
[1]After the arm was amputated at the shoulder Mr. Gifford used to feel the pain as if it were in his hand.
[2]Let it not be thought that B.-P. had neglected to bring stretchers. They were brought, but the friendlies who carried them, like the hen that laid the rotten egg, were nervous, and had dropped them in the river, they themselves taking up positions of safety till the fighting was over.
[2]Let it not be thought that B.-P. had neglected to bring stretchers. They were brought, but the friendlies who carried them, like the hen that laid the rotten egg, were nervous, and had dropped them in the river, they themselves taking up positions of safety till the fighting was over.
Baden-Powell now had what one might term a roving commission. He was sent by Colonel Plumer in charge of a patrol to wander over the vast country covered by the rebellion and see what he could of the enemy, and when found make a note of. It was exactly the work B.-P. liked above all others. There was romance in the dangers of it, and intellectual joy in its difficulties. There was freedom in it, and the glorious feeling that every step he took he was carrying his life in his hand. And not only was life menaced by the bullets and assegais of Matabele lurking in the tall yellow grass, but there was considerable danger, though of a more humorous order, even in the taking of a bath, as B.-P. discovered in going down to a pool and spotting just in time a leering crocodile in the reeds. Lions, too, were stumbledupon in clumps, just as in peaceful England one walks upon a covey of partridges. Then, lying down one day after dinner for a nap, B.-P. discovered on awaking that a snake had selected precisely the same spot for its own siesta. The charm of night marches, too, was occasionally broken by the growling of a bloodthirsty hyæna, following and snarling at the heels of the horses. These were dangers, however, that added the few touches necessary to complete the picture of our smart adjutant of Hussars in cowboy hat, grey flannel shirt, breeches and gaiters, with a face as brown as a Kaffir's, wandering over the South African veldt. During these expeditions, by the way, Baden-Powell's wardrobe came to ignominious grief, and under the tattered breeches, the stained shirt, and the split boots, he was a mere network of holes. The ankles of his socks remained true to the end, but the rest of them, in B.-P.'s euphemistic phrase, were most delicate lace. The one drawback to the tub in the river, leaving out the chance of a stray crocodile, was the difficulty he experienced in getting back into these delicate open-work socks, and the only way of surmounting this difficulty was by bathing—socks and all!
The marches, too, had their intervals of fighting, and the little patrol was frequently so in touch with the enemy that Tommy Atkins and Master Matabele could exchange compliments. "Sleep well to-night," the grinning savages would shout from the hills; "to-morrow we will have your livers fried for breakfast!" And the compliments became sterner whenever the Matabele recognised in the little force of whites the dread "Wolf that never Sleeps." "Wolf! Wolf!" they shrieked with savage ferocity, and if Baden-Powell had the nerves of some of us he must have had many a bad night after hearing that yell, and marking the gleaming eyes and the frothing lips that twitched with lust for his destruction.
Then there was the bitterest work of all. The closing of suffering eyes that had grown so strangely dear during the hardships of such work as this; the saying of farewells to the men who had raced by one's side with Death at their heels for how many hard weeks. Of one of these Baden-Powell writes in his diary: "His death is to me like the snatching away of a pleasing book half read." And solemn as the funeral service ever is, one fancies how awe-inspiring, howpoignant its impressiveness, when in the dark, "among the gleams of camp-fires and lanterns, with a storm of thunder and lightning gathering round," a few fighting Englishmen heard its message over the body of a fellow-soldier.
Baden-Powell's description of the day's work at this time gives one a good idea of the life of a patrol. This is what he wrote in his diary for his mother's eyes: "Our usual daily march goes thus: Reveillé and stand to arms at 4.30, when Orion's belt is overhead. (The natives call this Ingolobu, the pig, the three big stars being three pigs, and the three little ones being the dogs running after them; this shows that Kaffirs, like other nations, see pictures in constellations.) We then feed horses—if we have anything to feed them with, which is not often; light fires and boil coffee; saddle-up, and march off at 5.15. We go on marching till about 9.30 or 10, when we off-saddle and lie up for the heat of the day, during which the horses are grazed, with a guard to look after them, and we go a-breakfasting, bathing, and in theory writing and sketching, but in practice sleeping, at least so far as the flies will allow. At 3.30 saddle-up and march till 5.30; off-saddleand supper; then we march on again, as far as necessary, in the cool hours of the early night. On arriving at the end of our march, we form our little laager; to do this we put our saddles down in a square, each man sleeping with his head in the saddle, and the horses inside the square, fastened in two lines on their 'built up' ropes. To go to bed we dig a small hole for our hip-joints to rest in, roll ourselves up in our horse-blanket, with our heads comfortably ensconced in the inside of the saddle, and we would not then exchange our couch for anything that Maple could try and tempt us with."
But after months of this hard work, the tireless B.-P. began to knock up. Fever and dysentery attacked him, and he said unkind things to people who bothered him—as witness the message sent to one of the patrolling columns: "If you let the men smoke on a night march, you might as well let the band play too." The justness of the gibe!
B.-P. relates a good story, by the way, of smoking while on guard. A Colonial volunteer officer, Captain Brown, in times of peace Butcher Brown, ordered a sentry found smoking to consider himself a prisoner. "What!" exclaimed the volunteersoldier, "not smoke on sentry? Then where the ——amI to smoke?" The dignified Captain only reiterated his first remark. Then did the sentry take his pipe from his mouth and confidentially tap his officer upon the shoulder. "Now, look here, Brown," said he, "don't go and make a —— fool of yourself. If you do, I'll go elsewhere for my meat."
To return. B.-P., having lived straight and hard, soon fought down the fever, and in little more than a week was back again at work. It is nice to know that during the time of his being on the sick-list Sir Frederick Carrington went regularly to his bedside and sat for a long time, retailing all the cheerful news of the campaign. Sir Frederick and Baden-Powell, by the bye, are probably the two Imperial officers who know most about South Africa.
During his illness Major Ridley had started off with a column to make war upon the Somabula, and when B.-P. got about again he was ordered to go in search of this force, with three troopers as an escort, and to take command of it. "I could picture nothing more to my taste," he says, "than a ride of from eighty to one hundred miles in awild country, with three good men, and plenty of excitement in having to keep a good look-out for the enemy, enjoying splendid weather, shirt-sleeves, and a reviving feeling of health and freedom." So the man who had only just got off a sick-bed started for a ride into the forest after Ridley's column, and during the ride the twentieth anniversary of his joining Her Majesty's Service came round and brought its reflections for the diary. "I always think more of this anniversary than of that of my birth, and I could not picture a more enjoyable way of spending it. I am here, out in the wilds, with three troopers.... We are nearly eighty miles from Buluwayo and thirty from the nearest troops. I have rigged up a shelter from the sun with my blanket, a rock, and a thorn-bush; thirteen thousand flies are, unfortunately, staying with me, and are awfully attentive.... I am looking out on the yellow veldt and the blue sky; the veldt with its grey hazy clumps of thorn-bush is shimmering in the heat, and its vast expanse is only broken by the gleaming white sand of the river-bed and the green reeds and bushes which fringe its banks." How could a man feel unhappy with the whole of his wardrobe packed away inone wallet of the saddle, and his larder in the other? Be sure that Lucullus never enjoyed a banquet with the same sharpness of delight as Baden-Powell squatting amid the yellow grass of the veldt with his cocoa and rice.
But there were anxious moments coming for the man who kept on the open veldt the twentieth anniversary of his joining Her Majesty's army with gladness in his heart. After he had found the column and had got into the Lilliputian forest with its stunted, bushy trees and its sandy soil, he was brought face to face with the greatest enemy that can harass, fret, and wear down nerves of steel—absence of water. A commander whose mind is racked by the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of finding water for his troops is like the man haunted day and night, waking and sleeping, by debt. "This was our menu," says Baden-Powell: "weak tea (can't afford it strong), no sugar (we are out of it), a little bread (we have half a pound a day), Irish stew (consisting of slab of horse boiled in muddy water with a pinch of rice and half a pinch of pea-flour), salt, none. For a plate I use one of my gaiters, it is marked'Tautz & Sons, No. 3031'; it is a far cry from veldt and horseflesh to Tautz and Oxford Street!" But this was at a time when B.-P. wrote in his diary: "Nothing like looking at the cheery side of things." The morrow came when he could see nothing but arid miles of sand, when his eyes ached as they ranged the pitiless desert for water; there is no cheery side to that view. Halting his party to give them a rest, he and an American scout named Gielgud started off to make one grand effort to find river or puddle. Hill after hill was climbed to find only a valley of dead, baked grass beyond, and at last, broken-hearted and weary, the two riders turned their horses' heads back to camp. Soon after this the American's head began to bob till the chin rested on the chest, and he forgot the quest of water in the fairyland of dreams. But B.-P. could not sleep, and those keen eyes of his were ranging the desolate country every dreary minute of that ride. And at last he noticed on the ground certain marks which he knew to be those of a buck that had scratched in the sand for water. Overjoyed he got down from the saddle and continued the work of the buck,digging and digging with his lean sunburnt fingers till he came to damp earth, and then—to water. At that moment he saw two pigeons get up from behind a rock some little way off, and leaving his oozing water in the sand he hastened there and discovered to his supreme joy the salvation of his party—a little pool of water.
On this expedition you will be interested to hear that a man who lent valuable assistance to Baden-Powell was your hero of the cricket-field—Major Poore. In the days of the Matabele campaign he had not slogged Richardson out of the Oval, nor driven Hearne distracted to the ropes at Lord's; he was there as Captain Poore of the 7th Hussars, working like a nigger, brave as a Briton, and quite delighted to be soldiering under the peerless Baden-Powell. His fame came afterwards.
During this expedition Baden-Powell gave brilliant evidence of his capacity as a general. He had drawn up a plan for an attack by his own and another column upon a great chief named Wedza, who lived with his warriors in a mountain consisting of six rocky peaks ranging from eighthundred to a thousand feet high. On the top of these peaks were perched the kraals, while the mountain itself, nearly three miles long, resembled nothing so much as a rabbit-warren, being a network of caves held by the burrowing rebels. Wedza's stronghold was steep, and its sides were strewn with bush and boulders; only by narrow and difficult paths was it accessible, and these paths had been fortified by the Matabele with stockades and breastworks. This important and well-nigh impregnable stronghold was held by something like sixteen hundred Matabele—six or seven hundred of whom were real fighting men. Baden-Powell, nevertheless, drew up his plan for the attack, and sat down to wait for the other column which was to act with him. That column never came; only a letter arrived by runner saying that it would be unable to join in the attack after all. "The only thing we could do," says Baden-Powell, "was to try and bluff the enemy out of the place."
So he arranged to win the battle by cunning of the brain. Sending five-and-twenty men to climb a hill which commanded a part of the stronghold, with instructions to act as if they were twohundred and fifty, and giving small parties of Hussars similar instructions regarding the left flank and rear of the enemy, Baden-Powell got his artillery ready to bombard the central position. Just as the five-and-twenty reached the summit of their hill, however, they were observed by the enemy and instantly fired upon. From hilltop to hilltop rang the call to arms, and B.-P. watched through his telescope the yelling savages rushing with their rifles and assegais to massacre his gallant little force of five-and-twenty men under a lieutenant. To create a diversion, Baden-Powell galloped off with seven men to the left rear of the stronghold, crossing a river on the way, and opened fire upon a village on the side of the mountain. By continually moving about in the grass and using magazine fire, B.-P. with his seven men gave the enemy the impression that he had a large army there, and soon the strain was taken off the five-and-twenty on the hilltop. Then Hussars and Artillery joined the five-and-twenty, while a 7-pounder flung deadly shells at every important point of the mountain. Soon after this the enemy made a backward move, and the lieutenant on the hilltop (with the Field-Marshal'sbaton already in his hand) incontinently began to harry him effectively from the rear.
The end of it was that Wedza's warriors were completely bluffed by the resourceful B.-P.; they were driven out of their stronghold, and the stronghold itself blown into smithereens. During this attack Baden-Powell narrowly escaped death, a small party he was with being fired upon at close range by a number of the enemy hidden behind a ridge of rocks. "My hat," says B.-P., "was violently struck from my head as if with a stick."
This reminds me of the service rendered by Baden-Powell as a doctor. "Three times in this campaign have I taken out to the field with me a few bandages and dressings in my holster, and on each occasion I have found full use for them." Once he doctored some Matabele women and children who had been hit by stray bullets while lying in the long grass. On this occasion he invented what he calls a perfect form of field syringe: "Take an ordinary native girl, tell her to go and get some lukewarm water, and don't give her anything to get it in. She will go to the stream, kneel, and fill her mouth, and so bring the water; by the time she is back thewater is lukewarm. You then tell her to squirt it as you direct into the wound, while you prize around with a feather."
After the breaking of Wedza there was work to be done in Mashonaland, and then, when the rebellion had been crushed and the colonist was able to search fearlessly among the charred beams of his homestead ere setting about building anew, the gallant Baden-Powell turned his face towards Old England. Before leaving South Africa, however, he spent the Christmas Day of that memorable 1896 in Port Elizabeth. "After breakfast," he writes in his diary, "to church. Everything exactly ordered as if at home: the Christmas Day choral service with a good choir and a fine organ. And as the anthem of peace and goodwill rolled forth, it brought home to one the fact that a year of strife in savage wilds had now been weathered to a peaceful close."
Then came the voyage across the 6000 odd miles of ocean with Cecil Rhodes, Sir Frederick Carrington, and other interesting people. After that the English coast, and the train to London. And, after that, "through the roar of the sloppy, lamp-lit streets, to the comfort and warmth—of Home."