Rarely, if ever, in the annals of the Ordnance Survey has the British Government sent out a fully equipped Survey Section, for the purpose of reconnaissance duty, previous to the present war. During the march from Modder River to Bloemfontein, they have had plenty of scope for displaying the special training received, necessary for successful sketching, surveying and reconnoitring an enemy's position.
At Paardeberg a very successful and complete sketch to scale was made of the Boers' laager by Major Jackson, R.E., who, whilst exposed to a hot fire every day and within 800 yards of the enemy's trenches, and where men were falling every minute, nevertheless completed the whole sketch within four days.
This part of the warfare, where you walk well within the enemy's firing line with only a revolver, the Boers continually sniping and potting, no cover, and no chance of a "kick or hit back," makes you feel as though you would like to charge into their midst, get hand to hand, and at least have one shot or hit, in return for the compliments and salutes they pay you. But no, you must stand still in the open, coolly go on with the sketching, and not mind the bullets, even if they take a leg off the plane table or knock the pencil out of your hand. The only thing that is to be feared seriously is the rain, and that may make the ink run, spoil the sketch, and cause a lot of trouble and annoyance.
The Boers may "knock spots off you," but the sketch is the principal thing; another R.E. Surveyormay be obtained, but not another plan, until probably too late for practical use.
Presumably the burghers mistake the tripod and plane table (used for the purpose) for a new kind of machine gun, or some other deadly weapon, from the way in which they bang away when it is erected, and it does, no doubt, surprise them when they find it does not spit fire and lead, and probably they put it down as a "Rooinek" risking a snapshot at close quarter; but they are very restless "sitters" and resent the intrusion of Mausers, although never asked to pay for a proof in advance—proof positive of a neglected education.
'Twas well remarked by Mack-Praed,In wise and witty lay,"We're known to be extremely brave;So take the sword away."Aye, let the sword and feather go,Bright belt and glitt'ring braid;Assume a sad and grub-like hue,For battle or for raid.No more in steel the warrior gleams,In scarlet cuts a dash;The hero now may scarce permitHis eagle eye to flash.For glint and gleam and flash and flareWill all afford a mark;The better plan, in modern days,Is just "to keep it dark."We ask no more that you shall shine;Be dull if you would win.I mean, of course, in outward show—Lucidity within.For "slim's" the word now most in vogue(That's "sly," if read aright);From head to heel be dull and dim,Your brain alone be bright.It is no joy that you should smashYour head against a wall;"We're known to be extremely brave,"So pray be wise withal.Be lion-mettled—as you were;But not too proud to scout;And if the foe is right in front,Why, go a mile about.Go forth in strength of intellect,Shining with all your wit;So shall you baulk the wily foe—Unhit, shall make a hit.E. T.
'Twas well remarked by Mack-Praed,In wise and witty lay,"We're known to be extremely brave;So take the sword away."
Aye, let the sword and feather go,Bright belt and glitt'ring braid;Assume a sad and grub-like hue,For battle or for raid.
No more in steel the warrior gleams,In scarlet cuts a dash;The hero now may scarce permitHis eagle eye to flash.
For glint and gleam and flash and flareWill all afford a mark;The better plan, in modern days,Is just "to keep it dark."
We ask no more that you shall shine;Be dull if you would win.I mean, of course, in outward show—Lucidity within.
For "slim's" the word now most in vogue(That's "sly," if read aright);From head to heel be dull and dim,Your brain alone be bright.
It is no joy that you should smashYour head against a wall;"We're known to be extremely brave,"So pray be wise withal.
Be lion-mettled—as you were;But not too proud to scout;And if the foe is right in front,Why, go a mile about.
Go forth in strength of intellect,Shining with all your wit;So shall you baulk the wily foe—Unhit, shall make a hit.
E. T.
A Study of Tommy Atkins, the Inscrutable—Our Dutch Compositors Arraigned.
The lady who signed herself "Miss Uitlander" was also kind enough to write for us an article on "Tommy in a Lady's Eyes." It was clever. She said that Tommy walked the streets looking as if he always had walked them—and that was true. It is also true that Tommy did everything else in the same way. Wherever you put him or he found himself he uttered no comments or exclamations, but at once adapted himself to the situation. During the seven months I was with him I never could fathom the operations of his mind. Sometimes I suspected that he had none; at other times I envied him the kind of mind he had.
Our lady reporter said that Tommy "loves to make an impression on the feminine heart—but, alas! his khaki uniform does not suit him. Like country, like dress. We now see ourselves as others see us, a khaki-coloured people in a vast khaki-coloured land." Of the officers she said, "their amiability, patience, and high breeding are a treat to come in contact with in a country such as this, where Jack is considered as goodas his master; in his own estimation, a very good deal better."
"Bloemfontein is khaki-mad," she concluded; "Tommy is everywhere. The shops overflow with him—andhowhe spends his money! It will be an object-lesson to those who, a few short weeks ago, were sure that England was on the verge of bankruptcy. The streets abound with him. The place is a beehive of soldiery, and never again will be any other, I most fervently hope and trust."
I copy this bit of a long article because it brings strongly to mind and in full swing and colour the daily scenes in the streets of Bloemfontein. Whenever we ran out ofThe Friendoffice to the hotel or the printing works or the Club, we saw the same endless parade of soldiers up and down the pavements, the same motley cavalcade of mounted men in the streets. At the sound of drums we all ran out—for civilisation was far away, and the natural man was welling up strong in us—to see a regiment marching in, or out—or, too often, to view a funeral procession leading a poor bundle of the dust of a hero strapped upon a gun-carriage.
In the shops we found a wall of soldiers before every counter. They were in swarms like flies in all except the drinking places. There they could not go; poor fellows, to whom a drink would have seemed so much more than to us, who could have it whenever and wherever we wanted it.
I will say again, here, as I have said elsewhere once before, that though we underwent more danger than many of the soldiers (who were not sent, as we were, into every battle), and though we endured hardshipssufficient to break many strong men, we correspondents had this advantage over the rest—that, no matter how light was the marching-kit ordered for the troops, we were usually followed by our carts, and when these came up with us, we had abundance—and some luxuries.
It was my good fortune to be able to replenish the larder of one regiment more than once when, between battles, it entertained a general or the Commander-in-Chief. We in Roberts's and Methuen's army, were never criticised for living as well as we could, but there is a story current in army and war correspondent circles to the effect that the hero of Omdurman severely rebuked certain correspondents for living on a scale which provoked the envy of the officers, and demoralised them. One correspondent of the little mess that was thus criticised—a man who drank very little himself—is said to have utilised one camel solely to carry the champagne with which he entertained his friends among the officers. I do not say what I might have done had this story been told me earlier, but, as it was, I had no camel, and the champagne that kind friends sent me from England never reached me.
My stores consisted of poultry in tins, puddings, jams (how good those Cape jams are, by the way; they should have a great sale in all civilised parts), tinned vegetables, bully beef and bullier tongue and ham, preserved fruits, biscuits, figs, cigarettes, cigars, and a little most evanescent whisky.
But to get back to the streets of soldier-burdened Bloemfontein; how surely, as we assembled in the corner by the office, did the soldiers recognise their poet and friend. He looked at all of them in general,but all of them stared at him in particular. They passed the word from rank to rank, "There's Rudyard Kipling!" and then marched on, leaving their eyes on his face while their bodies passed along, until it looked as if they must dislocate their necks before they had their fill of seeing him.
He was like a comrade when he talked to a private, and talk to them he did. Jack tar, Colonial, regular, and Pathan, he talked to all alike.
"How are you getting on? Is your camp all right? Near here? Where was your last fight?" So he both introduced himself and set them talking and at ease—all in a breath.
But, as I have said, "Tommy" is inscrutable. I stepped one day into a German tobacconist's across the street from, and farther along than, the Club, and found it packed by soldiers who were being served by an insolent German with a portrait of ex-President Steyn in his coat lapel.
"Take that picture out of your button-hole," said I. "What do you mean by wearing a thing like that when you are under British rule, and have been both protected and generously treated?"
"I vill vear vot I shoose," said he.
I made a mental promise to see that he did not wear that emblem much longer, and then turning to the soldiers I said, "Men, did you not see what this man is wearing? Why do you spend your money on a man whose sympathies are with the Boers? Give his shop the cold shoulder, and he will soon see that he is making a mistake."
The appeal was in vain. The men instantly began to look very uncomfortable. They rolled their eyesup to the ceiling or pinned their gaze on the floor. No one said a word or even shot a glance of approval in my direction. They did not care. Tommy does not care—never cares—about anything, apparently.
I tried to keep my promise. Search was made for that tobacconist, but he never served behind his counter after that visit of mine. He saved the military the trouble of sending him to Capetown.
Lively days were those for rebels and irreconcilables. The men who had most ardently furthered the cause of the Bond and the Transvaal war party, and who had the indecency to loiter in the town, were quickly weeded out and sent to the Boer prison camp near Capetown. If we could not always tell who were our friends, these mischievous wretches were worse off, for, ofttimes, their old neighbours, tired of the war and awake to the folly of keeping it up, pointed them out to the military, and retailed their nauseous histories.
"I feel a little like a lieutenant of Fouché," said one correspondent to me. "I had pointed out to me a former editor of one of the local papers whose pen was used with vitriol and who did as much as any man to degrade and spoil this little country. I was told that he is still talking angrily and abusively of us, and I was indignant. I mentioned the case to a prominent military officer and in three hours the man was a prisoner on his way to Capetown. I feel as if I was living in Paris in the French revolution—very creepy and uncomfortable. I shall keep my discoveries of such rascals to myself after this."
In this number mine was the leader entitled, "Do we Spare the Rod too Much?" A friendly visitor, whose signature "L. D.-J." unfortunately fails to recallhis full name to my mind, wrote a very interesting sketch called "Towards War," which shows with fidelity to the truth how the mere process of going to war prepares one for the war itself. Mr. Landon wrote the first true account most of us saw or heard of the mishap at Karree Siding, where four of our officers were shot, on March 23, while riding over the country on a search for forage. Lieut. Lygon, who was one of the killed, was an intimate and beloved friend of Mr. Landon, who mourned him deeply and most lovingly looked after his burial and the proper marking of his grave. Death had come too close to all of us far too often, but never quite so close to any one of us as in this instance.
Mr. Gwynne's thoughtful essays on the revolutionised science of war produced a first reply in this number, from an officer competent to discuss the subject. General Sir Henry Colvile wrote with much good humour twitting us for the blundering of our compositors, who had made a botch of the double acrostic he had so kindly sent us some days before. The fact that we were as much to blame as the compositors he managed, with extremely clever wording, to make us feel, though he did not say so. Those compositors!—were ever men so badly served as we were by them? They doubled our work, and though we corrected every error they made they often spoiled our efforts at the last by failing to carry out our corrections. They were so ingenious as to spell struggle "strxxlg," and then to insist that it should appear so inThe Friend. They invented the new rank of "branch colonel" to take the place of brigadier-general or lance-corporal, I cannot remember which. I used to think they madethis trouble on purpose, for I knew that some were Dutch and all had been with the Boers before we came. And when secret pro-Boer circulars and incentives to disorder were found to have been printed in the town, I had a sneaking suspicion that I could guess who were the printers.
We cut the Gordian knot of one of our troubles in this number by reducing the price ofThe Friendto one penny to men of all ranks alike.
THE FRIEND.(Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force.)
BLOEMFONTEIN, TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 1900.
To Correspondents.—Please do not write on both sides of your letter sheets when you contribute toThe Friend.
It's all right to take a kopje on both sides, but you should not send it in on both sides.
Some of the Editors are sufficiently profane already.
Sir,—"We don't hexpect hart and we don't hexpect hacting, but yer might jine yer flats."
It is perhaps too much to expect that the gentleman who sets up the type ofThe Friendshould know the usual structure of a double-acrostic, or that he should trouble himself with such details as mypunctuation and spelling; but he might have let my lines continue to scan and retain some germ of meaning; and, even if he did not realise that theproemwas intended for verse, he might have let it stand as English prose. His statement that "according to the writer" the answer gives "the most appropriate cognomen," &c., is interesting, as anything must be that falls from his stick. It further reveals a wealth of imagination of which his previous efforts gave us no hint.
H. C.Writer of the Double Acrosticin Saturday's issue.
Bloemfontein, 24th March, 1900.
(Please don't shoot the Editors, they are doing their best.—Ed., Friend.)
The crowded platform at Waterloo, the groups of men in great-coats gathered round figures in ulsters with travelling rugs upon their arms; the long train with its dirty painted boards above the carriages inscribed "Aldershot," "Basingstoke," "Southampton"; the last joke, the last catchword, the last farewell grip of parting hands; the sudden remembrance of need of newspaper or sandwich; the bustle and hurry of railway officials, servants, late voyagers, or later friends, thronging the platform from refreshment-room to bookstall: these tell little to the observer of war and its alarms. Only at either end of the platform where the great doorsof the baggage-brakes yawn upon piles of valises, beneath whose white-painted rank, name, regiment, the bold initials "S.A.F.F." catch the eye, guarded by soldier servants, field-service cap on right eye, uniform hidden under collared great-coat; or on the racks of the compartments, where curiously shaped tin cases cover the cocked hat or the helmet, and where, showing through a bundle of canes, golf-clubs, and polo sticks, is seen the clumsy brown leather shape of a sword case, is there a hint of military significance, a clue to the tension of the thronged faces, taking a farewell under circumstances not of the ordinary.
The Saturday afternoon in December, yellow and dull under the bitter black frost which has gripped the heart of the land, as the ill news has gripped the heart of the people, which comes to round off a week whose despatches have announced the disasters of Stormberg, Maghersfontein, Tugela, the threefold defeat on hill and plain and river—is no day for cheerful leave-taking. Although every lip is silent on the subject of the morning's news, latest and worst of all; although the spoken word is all of a brilliant campaign, a stroke of luck, a speedy and safe return, there looms before each mind the coming list of casualties, the thought of war's inevitable chances, the possibility that here and now are some who may never be seen again firm-footed on a metropolitan causeway, whose trick of a smile, twist of a moustache, and cock of hat upon forehead must become a slowly dimming memory through the remnants of a life.
*****
The fire blazes against the frosty draught in thehall of the Southampton Hotel. Baggage is piled upon baggage half-ceiling high in every corner. Hungry men are hurriedly moving along the corridors towards the dining-room, in their travelling suits of tweed or serge. At two or three tables family parties are dining together for the last time; the women silent, quiet-eyed, smiling but momentarily at the sally of light-hearted youth, a sigh ever held in suspense behind kind lips and white teeth. The writing-room holds a group of scrawling men, finishing final letters, re-iterant of parting phrases, enforcing last injunctions, expressing forgotten behests. And at the foot of the stairs stand two officers in uniform, both in peaked caps, one military, one naval, with white bands upon their sleeves. They are the Embarking Staff Officers; they are the first visible sign of war.
*****
Grey fog upon the waters, grey fog hanging round the sheds upon the wharves, a grey transport with red funnels, towering above the levels of water and quay. Cranes rapidly sling guns, wagons, cases, with creak, shout and thud over the grey bulwarks. Lines of uncouth figures in grey great-coats, and blue red-banded sea-caps, pass sight-protected rifles from hand to hand up the steep gangways and along between rows of boxes and baggage to the armoury. The saloon is filled with lunching officers, their friends and relatives. The last toast is lifted in silence to the last lips; and eyes looking over brim of wine-glass are eloquent of more than speech is master of. The harsh clang of the warning bell, speaking full-voiced the words of Destiny, transfers to the grey quay groups of dispirited, saddenedwomen, and of men stern-eyed and holding between their teeth and under the cover of moustache or beard, minute bleeding portions of their inner lips.
On the promenade deck, gay in a scarlet jumper, over-weighted a little by his large khaki-covered helmet, leans upon a stanchion a very junior subaltern. His boyish, hairless face is blue with the cold frost-fog, he is biting very rapidly and nervously at the end of a cigar that went out ere half its length was smoked. Looking up at him from the wharf below, a group isolated from other groups holds a tall lady clad in furs, heavily veiled, her handkerchief peeping from her muff, and one arm resting heavily upon that of a grey-haired military man, while son and daughter, or nephew and niece, perhaps, gather protectingly to her side.
There is still delay. The gangways are removed, but still the hawsers hold. The cold compels the watchers on the wharf to take a few hurried, swiftly-turned paces up and down its length. The voyagers stamp upon the deck, or beat a furtive arm across a swelling chest. But they do not turn even for a second from contemplation of that shore they may never see again.... A whistle blows, there is the sound of a cable slipping through the water, the lady in the furs comes hastily forward, puts up her veil a little way and tries to shout. The youthful subaltern leans out perilously over the side. The words come faintly up.... "Goodbye! Rex.... God bless you!... I know I shall see you again...." The lady beats her hand desperately upon her muff, and dabs her handkerchief unknowingly against her veil....
The band aft is playing "Auld Lang Syne," a stretch of greenish water spreads between ship and shore, a few half-hearted cheers are rising through the grey fog, and the sound of a melancholy chapel bell in the distant town tells of a half-forgotten Sabbath.... The subaltern's eyes no longer see things clearly, and the handkerchief he waves as answer to those fluttering along the grey length of the quay is heavy and damp....
So we come a little closer to the realities of war.
*****
Lights flicker and gleam in the dark shade of the poplar trees fringing the platform. There is a hush over those who hold space upon the gravel before the station-master's office. In the darkness it is difficult to see who one's neighbour may chance to be. But voices betray the presence of the P.M.O. and half a dozen officers from the Field Hospital behind the church. At the other end of the platform lie the sinister stretchers of a bearer company laid out in an interminable row. Up to the line comes the low melancholy whistle of the armoured train....
All day from far beyond the ring of hills that cages the camp upon the plain has come the dull booming of heavy guns. There has been a battle and there have been losses: this we know. The approaching train is bringing in the wounded from the scene of action, but who they may be who suffer we have yet to learn. As the light comes round the bend above the water-tank, there is a stir among the waiting groups. A command rings out, and is followed by the shuffle of feet as the bearer company stands to its stretchers. The train glides slowly, looming upin its solid armoured squareness between the goods sheds and the rolling-stock upon the sidings. It draws into the little colonial wayside station with a flash of its headlight that renders the platform darker than ever. The form of its commander drops from the rear carriage, with its maxim-portals, and its loop-holes for rifles, all sliding by dim and grey and sinister. In a low voice he tells the P.M.O. "six killed, fourteen wounded. I have brought down eight." "Any officers?" questions some one in the background. "Jones is killed, and Spindrift missing," comes the response, "and young Michael is here, shot in five places." ...
Lanterns swing back and forth, the doctors get into the carriage, there is a low, subdued murmur of voices from within; a breath of some antiseptic comes from the interior; a groan is audible. Then the Bearer Company marches slowly along the edge of the platform. Four men enter with their stretcher, and after a painful lapse of time, the lanterns swing again, the group stands back a little, and slowly, carefully, feet foremost, the first wounded man is brought out, and lowered upon his stretcher to the ground. While his blankets are being arranged there is time to see him indistinctly: a bandage round his head with a dark, tell-tale patch soaking through it, a pale face with closed eyes and a pale moustache disarranged across his mouth. Last night we dined and drank together. Now, as he is borne off out of hearing, the medical officers whisper, "poor chap, there is no hope for him; he cannot last the night."
Gradually the armoured train disgorges its unhappy load, the stretchers receive their burdens, the marshalled procession goes slowly over the linetowards the hospital, the medical officers in close attendance, and the engine pushes and pulls its bullet-proof trucks back through the night to fetch another cargo.
War and its horrors are with us now, and are scarcely so terrible after all. Our gradual approach has softened them or possibly hardened us—who shall say which?
There has been so much misrepresentation of the facts connected with the unfortunate incident at Karree Siding on the 23rd that the following brief description of what actually occurred may be of interest.
A military camp had been formed at the Glen—the point at which the railway crosses the Modder River, thirteen miles north of Bloemfontein—on the previous day, and Colonel Eyre Crabbe, of the Grenadier Guards, had been appointed commandant, with his adjutant, Lieutenant Edward Lygon, as his staff officer.
Forage was scarce, and it became necessary to collect a small amount from the neighbouring farms. Colonel Crabbe, accompanied by Colonel Codrington of the Coldstream Guards, Lieutenant Lygon, Captain Trotter, and one orderly, set out after luncheon on Friday for this purpose, and, moving out in a northerly direction, visited three farms, and then, finding themselves close to the railway office at Karree Siding, entered the telegraph room at that place and found that the instruments had been removed.
On riding out from the station they saw on a ridge to the north four mounted Boers against the sky-line, and Colonel Crabbe, calling out "Come on, let us round them up," set out at once in their direction, followed by Colonel Codrington and the others. A slight protest was made against the danger of the attempt.
The Boers had ridden away to the west, but were still in sight, and they were seen attempting to double back over a slight rise in the ground strewn with boulders that scarcely deserves the name of a kopje.
Believing that the enemy had ridden over and away, the small party moved on and divided at the base of this fold, Captain Trotter and Lieutenant Lygon moving off to the right, the two Colonels and the orderly keeping to the left.
The Boers, however, leaving their horses at the back of the rise, took up positions behind the rocks, and opened a well-aimed and constant fire upon our men. Colonel Crabbe, whose horse had fallen at the first shot, was struck through the forearm and thigh, Colonel Codrington received a bullet as he lay on the ground attempting to return the fire, and the orderly was wounded in the ankle. Meanwhile firing on the other flank continued for two or three minutes, until Lieutenant Lygon, who had dismounted and was running forward to gain the cover of an anthill, was shot through the heart. Death was instantaneous, even Captain Trotter being unaware of it until he turned round, receiving at the same moment an expanding bullet through the elbow.
Thus the whole of the small force was now eitherdead or wounded, and Colonel Crabbe surrendered. The Boers instantly came down into the open, and, expressing their regret, did all they could to dress the wounds, Captain Trotter undoubtedly owing his life to the tourniquet applied to his arm.
The wounded men were afterwards carried by the Boers with great care to Mr. Maas' farm, and the news was sent back to the Glen by a Kaffir.
Lieutenant Lygon's body was borne back on the following morning, and was buried near the small white kraal a hundred yards to the east of the railway bridge. The funeral, which took place at sunset on Saturday, was most impressive, the entire battalion attending the voluntary parade and lining the path between the camp and the grave.
Little comment is needed. Clearly the virtue that runs to a fault has here been to blame. The same unquestioning pluck that impels an officer in leading his men on the field of battle prompted this careless enterprise, with the miserable result we have recorded. We have lost—and the loss is the loss of the whole force—one of the best and most popular of our younger officers, and of the other casualties one at least may prove more serious than was anticipated; but at least it is a compensation to remember that, however unfortunate the issue, the quiet pluck and discipline of the army have been once more tried and not found wanting.
Don't call on the Provost Marshal with a couple of live chickens on your saddle bow.
Don't attempt to carry off a grand piano on an ammunition waggon; it might be noticed.
Don't cook sheep's kidneys ostentatiously in camp; you may be asked where you found the sheep.
Don't load your horse with flannel petticoats when carrying a message to a general; flannel petticoats are not a part of military equipment.
Don't swagger about camp with an air of repletion when the force is subsisting on quarter rations.
Don't try to stuff a pillow into your helmet; it only spoils your appearance and gives the show away.
Don't "pick up" anything with the broad arrow on it.
Don't steal a horse from the Club railings when its owner is having a whisky and soda; it is distinctly dangerous.
Don't "steal" a horse at all, but let it "wander into your lines."
Don't drive a flock of sheep across the pond of the Headquarter Staff; they might delay the Commander-in-Chief and make him angry.
Don't wear a bunch of false hair in your hat; it was never served out to you.
Don't carry ladies' silk stockings in your wallets; they won't fit you.
Don't shout out in camp, "Who's stolen my silk umbrella?" People might ask you where you got it from.
Don't avoid ostentatiously the Provost Marshal as he rides along; greet him kindly and openly and perhaps he will not suspect you.
At Colesberg, in one of the numerous cavalry fights, an old Boer was held at mercy by a lancer who had his lance ready to strike. "Moe nie! Moe nie!" cried the old man, which, being translated, means "Don't, don't!" The lancer, however, didn't understand Dutch, and replied, "I don't want your money, I want your life," but the renewed appeal was too piteous, and the old man was taken prisoner.
Four Correspondents Dine the General, the Governor, and Rudyard Kipling, and ProduceThe Friendas well.
"Alles zal recht komen" were the words of the late President Brand, true friend of the English, which were graven on the pedestal of his statue before the doors of the Residency. We repeated them in new "tabs" beside the heading of our paper on March 28th, with an amended English translation facing them: "All has come right."
"All shall come right," we said, in our editorial, "was the motto of the late Orange Free State. What a prophet was he who conceived it, and how quickly has come the fruition of his prophecy! All has come right."
We published an appreciative editorial upon Sir Alfred Milner, who had come on the previous day upon a visit to Lord Roberts. It was written by Mr. Landon. Mr. Kipling contributed more "Kopje-Book Maxims," and bore a heavy hand in the production of an amusing column, entitled, "The Military Letter Writer."
This was the way that column came into being. Mr. Landon, Mr. Kipling, and I were in the poet'sbedroom when Mr. Landon produced a model letter-writer which he had found somewhere. I take great credit for the phrase "found somewhere"; it might, with any other man than Mr. Landon, be so full and rich in meaning. The book professed to be a sober guide to the young and the ignorant in the paths of epistolary literature; therefore it was bound to be supremely funny. We screamed over what Landon read to us out of it.
Said Mr. Kipling: "Let's write some model military letters," and, as was his wont, he seized a pencil and paper and began to write No. 1, reading as he wrote. He urged us both to contribute, and Mr. Landon tried with much good intent, while I wished to do so, but could not begin to keep pace with the poet. Instant collaboration is almost always impossible, especially where the inspiration comes to one man who is seized by it, and begins to give it expression before his companions can match their minds with his. Therefore Mr. Kipling went on and on, and Mr. Landon took the block and pencil and wrote as Mr. Kipling talked. Thus were produced letter No. 1 and the italicised introduction to No. 2; the rest Mr. Landon arranged and edited out of his book.
The column was pieced out at the end with No. 3 of Mr. Kipling's "Fables for the Staff," which was, therefore, hidden in a bottom corner of the page—a stroke of genius on the part of those whom we anathematised collectively in the singular number as "The Dutch Compositor."
Mr. Buxton had been called away to Capetown just after Mr. Kipling's arrival, and my associates, hag-ridden by the confusion and annoyances consequentupon the lack of a practised head to the little institution, had thrust upon me the honour and hard work of what may be called the managing editor's place. Thenceforth it was my duty to deal with the gnomes in the dust hall, the retiring and reticent cashier in another building, and the inmates of the Home for Boer Compositors, otherwise known as the office of the late unlamentedExpress. When I saw the genius of the Master thrust to the bottom corner of the paper, or made grotesque by mis-spelling and exhibitions of "pi," I felt that I alone was to blame, and hid myself and vowed to produce better results if I had to set up the type myself.
From an able major of Engineers we received for this number a confident and well-studied reply to Mr. Gwynne's articles on the effects of the war upon military science.
The Dinner of the 28th of March 1900 at Bloemfontein.
1st page of Menu.2nd page of Menu.3rd page of Menu.4th page of Menu.
This was the day upon which Mr. Landon, Mr. Gwynne, Mr. James Barnes, and myself were to entertain at dinner Sir Alfred Milner, Lord Roberts, and Rudyard Kipling. Themenushad been printed under the eye of Mr. Landon, and were very distinguished examples of plain typography. As twenty-four were to be used, we gave twelve each to Mr. W. B. Wollen, R.I., and to Mr. Lester Ralph, war artists with the army, requesting these able friends to do their best to produce on each guest'smenua picture illustrative of some exploit or leading characteristic of the recipient. A very notable series of drawings resulted—so notable that the Field-Marshal, whose own card showed him in the act of receiving the Keys of Bloemfontein, asked to see them all. When, toward the endof the repast, each man wrote his name on everymenu, you may be certain those bits of pasteboard bearing the simple words, "The Dinner of the 28th of March, Bloemfontein, 1900," leaped high in value, and in the jealous pride of every man who had one.
That was a dinner! An affair as unique and as singular an episode of war as—as, let us say,The Frienditself. Beside the great General, the High Commissioner, and the Poet of the Empire, we had with us General Pretyman, Military Governor of the town; General Forestier-Walker, the courtly commander of the Lines of Communication; the gallant, debonair Pole-Carew; the redoubtable flashing-eyed Hector Macdonald; the polished Sir Henry Colvile; Colonel Otter, the leader of the men with the maple-leaf; Lord Stanley, diplomat and censor; Lord Kerry; Colonel Girourd, binder of new Empire-fractions with threads of steel; Colonel Hanbury Williams, the High Commissioner's right hand; Colonel Neville Chamberlain, veteran at Empire building—and then our comrade-historians of the pen and pencil, W. B. Wollen, R.I., Lester Ralph, H. F. P. Battersby, A. B. Paterson, H. C. Shelley, and W. Blelock. We had invited Lord Kitchener, but he was away at Prieska. On his return he expressed his regret that he had not participated in this historic gathering. Excepting Lord Kitchener, whose field of endeavour was so ably represented, only Mr. Chamberlain, of all the great empire builders of the day, was missing.
We dined at the railway station, because it had the largest room and best cook in the new colony.
I hear the band outside. I see a carriage roll up, and Sir Alfred Milner springs out, spare-framed andvisaged like an eagle. The Field-Marshal follows him, precise in movement, gentle of mien but erect and firm as steel, with long usage of command resting as light and firm upon him as if he was born with it. I see the two leaders halt and urge one another to take the lead, but Lord Roberts is the firmer and will not go first. Again at the door of the dining-hall the two great men halt and dispute with pantomimic gestures, each anxious to honour the other. When the toasts came, and Mr. Landon told Sir Alfred Milner that he was to be toasted first, the High Commissioner exclaimed, "It's absolutely wrong." Mr. Landon replied, "I am under orders. I must obey Lord Roberts," for the Field-Marshal had already been consulted. All the others are in the room, under the flaming flag and the huge paper roses. We dine—better than at the Residency—upon several courses and with good wine a-plenty.
I see my handsome and gifted colleague, Mr. Landon, rise to toast the High Commissioner. What's this we hear? He is welcoming the Viceroy as a brother in journalism, a newspaper man like ourselves. Up rises the man who lives in the heart of care and the furnace of dissension—pale, grave, concentrated, like one who thinks of but one thing and has but one thing to do—and that a thing gigantic. He replies that it is true that he was once a writer like ourselves; that he enjoyed those days; that he made delightful friends and spent glad hours in them; that he has had much to do with the gentlemen of the Press in Capetown, and that his relations with all have been without a flaw. After that he speaks but little of the heart of care where his official bed is laid, or of the furnaceblasts of treason and of discord round his chair at the Cape, but, with unassumed modesty, calls our attention to the military magician across the table and to what he has done.
It is Mr. Gwynne who rises next—one of the very best-equipped war correspondents with the British forces, both as a campaigner and a critic of war, and high among the best as a writer. It is fitting that he should introduce the Field-Marshal, for he is liked and trusted by his distinguished guest, who has discovered, I fancy, that under the correspondent's khaki beats the heart of the soldier.
Lord Roberts replied that he was very proud to be the guest of the war correspondents. He liked to have them with him, and he was glad when they criticised whatever was amiss, for he profited by reading what they said. Turning to us, the Field-Marshal remarked, "You share all our hardships and exposure. All the troops do not engage in every battle, but you go to all, so that you experience even more danger than most of us. May I call you 'comrades'?"
I remember that he spoke earnestly of the work Sir Alfred Milner was doing, and credited that statesman with the most difficult task of any man who served the Empire. One other bit of his address I recall—a mere phrase, but a remarkable one: "The gentlemen I command—my gentlemanly army."
It was my good fortune to introduce Rudyard Kipling—a delicate as well as a proud task, because I knew that fulsome praise, or even the most honest appreciation, would make him uncomfortable. I remember that I spoke of the narrow compass of Shakspere's renown in his day, and the world-widefame of a man like Kipling in these days of multitudinous newspapers and telegraphs and cables.
"Gentlemen," said the poet, "you remember the story of the artist Whistler in Paris. An admirer came to him and said: 'Master, you and Velasquez are the greatest exponents of the art of painting.' 'True, true,' said Mr. Whistler, 'but why drag in Velasquez?' (A pause.) In all sincerity I ask you why need you drag in Shakspere? There is not a name in all literature more disheartening to those who try to do a bit of earnest work at writing. There is not a thought, an emotion, a picture, a bit of description that has not been written before—and written much better than we can write it—by William. We found a volume of his works in the office ofThe Friend. Take war. In 'Henry V.' you will find all that can be written—all the glory and all the shame, all the valour and the sordidness, the excitement and the pomp—you will find it all in 'Henry V.' better than any one can write it now. In all sincerity, then, I ask you, why drag in Shakspere?
"I propose to you to-night, gentlemen, the health of the man who has taught the British Empire its responsibilities, and the rest of the world its power, who has filled the seas with transports, and the earth with the tramp of armed men, who has made Cape Town see in Table Bay such a sight as she never saw before and, please God, will never see again; who has turned the loafer of the London streets into a man, and called out him who led our fathers to Kandahar, and who knew not what he did; who has made the Uitlander of South Africa stand shoulder to shoulder with the boundary rider of New Zealand, and taughtthe men of New South Wales to pick up the wounded men who wear the maple leaf—and all in support of the mother-country. Gentlemen, I give you the name of the Empire-builder—Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger."
After the great guests went home a dozen or fifteen of us remained and enjoyed an impromptu little sing-song, when this to me touching and singular incident occurred. General Pole-Carew came to me and said, "Your son Lester should go home and to bed. He is in a high fever. I know what it means, for I have had it six times. Look after him well." My son was then in the thirteenth day of an attack of enteric, about which he had said not a word to any one. In that condition he had drawn the pictures on themenusof Lord Roberts, General Pole-Carew, General French (who could not come), Lord Stanley, General Colvile, Colonel Otter, Mr. Kipling, and others. Lester, on hearing what the General had said, declared it was no news to him and, after thanking the General, went home and to bed. There, until we could get him to a hospital, Mr. Kipling nursed him with consummate skill and the gentleness of a woman; interesting and, to me, precious memories of a world in which some of us find too few of such suggestions of the better world to come.
In this "Free State Hospital," with the ministrations of the matron, Miss Young, and her devoted lady nurses, the same strong essence of unselfishness made the siege of sickness a period of pleasure. Generals, colonels, correspondents and all of the salt of the army went there often to cheer the patients—one of whom was Mr. Oppenheim of theDaily News.
We four private men, who gave this dinner in ourown name to our own friends, have been a great deal criticised, but it is a noticeable fact that the only critics are the men who were not invited to the feast.
THE FRIEND.(Edited by the War Correspondents with Lord Roberts' Force.)