Two notable Advocates of Clemency.
This championship of clemency is no new thing in the war annals of our island home, and Lord Roberts, in his insistence on it, did but tread in the steps of the very mightiest of his predecessors. Wellington during the Peninsular wars actually dismissed from his service and sent back in disgrace to Spain 25,000 sorely-needed Spanish soldiers, simply because he could not restrain their wayside barbarities. He recognised that a policy which outrages humanity, in the long run means disaster; and frankly confessed concerning his troops, that if they plundered they would ruin all. In a precisely similar vein is Nelson's last prayer, which constitutes the last entry but one in his diary:—"May the great God, whom I worship, grant to my country ... a glorious victory. May no misconduct in anyone tarnish it, and may humanityafter victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet."
It was in the spirit of Nelson's prayer and Wellington's precept that Lord Roberts strove to conduct his South African operations. With what success let all the world bear witness!
Mines without Men, and Men without Meat.
From "The three Sisters," which we reached on our Sabbathless Sunday, we tramped all day on Monday till we reached a tributary of the Crocodile River close to the Noordkaap railway station, about seven miles out from Barberton, which we were not then privileged to visit. Near this place we found the famous Sheba gold mine, its costly machinery for the present lying idle, and its cottages deserted at the stern bidding of intruding war—that most potent disturber of the industries of peace. Here from the loftiest mountain peaks were cables, with cages attached, sloping down to the gold-crushing house; and across the river, in which, crocodiles or no crocodiles, we enjoyed a delicious bathe, there was a similar steel rope suspended as the only possible though perilous way of getting across when the river is in flood. In this as in all other respects, however, a gracious Providence seemed to watch over us for good, seeing that not once during all the eleven months we had been in the country had we found a single river so full as to be unfordable. Moreover, though now tramping through a notorious fever country, the long overdue rain and fever alike lingered in their pursuit of us and overtook us not, so that up to that time not a solitary case of enteric occurred in all our camp. The incessantuse of one's heels seems to be the best preservative of health, for it is only among sedentary troops that sickness of any sort really runs riot.
The rations, however, have often been of the short measure type in consequence of the prodigious difficulty of transport over roads that are merely unfrequented tracks, and the utter wearisomeness of such day after day tramps on almost empty stomachs has been so pronounced that the men often laughingly avowed they would prefer fourth class by train to even first class on foot. When they occasionally marched and climbed in almost gloomy silence I sometimes advised them to try the effect on their pedestrian powers of a lively song, and playfully suggested this new version of an old-time melody—
Cheer, boys, cheer,No more of idle sorrow;Cheer, boys, cheer,There'll be another march to-morrow.
But though they readily recognised the appropriateness of the sentiment, they frankly confessed it was impossible to sing on three-quarters of a pound of uncooked flour in place of a full day's rations, which indeed it was. Next day these much-tried men had to wade three times through the river, mostly with their boots and putties on, so that though short of bread and biscuit they were well supplied with "dampers," unfortunately of a sort that soaked but never satisfied.
Much fat in the fire.
After passing "Joe's Luck," where for us "there was no luck about the house, there was no luck at all," the Guards reached Avoca, another station on the Barbertonbranch; and here we found not only a fine railway bridge destroyed with dynamite, but also the railway sheds, recently crammed full with government stores, mostly provisions, now ruthlessly given to the flames and absolutely destroyed. Thousands of tins of condensed milk had flown like bombs in all directions, and like bombs had burst, when the intense heat had turned the confined milk to steam. Butter by the ton had ignominiously ended its days by merely adding so much more fat to the fire. All good things here, laboriously treasured for the benefit of the Transvaal troops, were consumed in quite another fashion from that intended. Even accumulated locomotives to the number of about fifty had been in some cases elaborately mutilated, or caught, and twisted out of all utility, by the devouring flames. So wanton is the waste war begets. The torch has played a comparatively small part in this contest; but it is food supplies that have suffered most from its ravages, and the Boers, with a slimness that baffled us, having thus burned their food, bequeathed to us their famished wives and children. Thousands of these innocents drew full British rations, when thousands of British soldiers were drawing half rations. That is not the Old Testament and Boer-beloved way of waging war, but it foreshadows the slow dawning of an era when, constrained by an overmastering sense of brotherhood,
Men will hang the trumpet in the hall,And study war no more!
More fat and mightier flames.
Beyond Avoca we rested for the night at Fever Creek, and were alarmed by the approach of a heavy thunderstormjust as we were commencing our dinner in the dense darkness. So I crept for refuge between the courses of our homely meal under a friendly waggon, and thence came forth from time to time as wind and weather permitted, to renew acquaintance with my deserted platter. Finally, when the storm had somewhat abated, we sought the scanty protection and repose to be found under our damp blankets. That for us with such favouring conditions Fever Creek did not justify its name seems wonderful.
On the Wednesday of that week the Guards' Brigade made a desperate push to reach Kaap Muiden, where the Barberton branch joins the main line to Delagoa Bay, though the ever-haunting transport difficulty made the effort only imperfectly successful. Three out of the four battalions were compelled to bivouac seven miles behind, while the one battalion that did that night reach the junction had at the finish a sort of racing march to get there. While resting for a few minutes outside "The Lion's Creek" station the colonel told his men that they were to travel the rest of the way by rail; whereupon they gave a ringing cheer and started at a prodigious pace to walk down the line in momentary expectation of meeting the presumably approaching train. Each man seemed to go like a locomotive with full head of steam on, and it took me all my time and strength to keep up with them. Nevertheless that train never met us. It never even started, and at that puffing perspiring pace the battalion proceeded all the way on foot. We hadindeed come byrail, but that we found was quite another thing from travelling bytrain; and the sequel forcefully reminded one of the simpleton who was beguiled into riding in a sedan-chair from which both seat and bottom had been carefully removed. When the ride was over he is reported to have summed up the situation by saying he might as well have walked but for "the say so" of the thing. And but for the say so of the thing that merrily beguiled battalion might as well have gone by road as by rail.
It was, however, a most wonderful sight that greeted them as they stumbled through the darkness into the junction. At one end of the station there was a huge engine-house, surrounded as well as filled, not only with locomotives but also with gigantic stacks of food stuffs, now all involved in one vast blaze that had not burned itself out when the Brigade returned ten days later. There were long trains of trucks filled with flour, sugar and coffee, over some of which paraffin had been freely poured and set alight. So here a truck and there a truck, with one or two untouched trucks between, was burning furiously. In some cases the mischief had been stopped in mid-career by friendly Kaffir hands, which had pulled off from this truck and that a newly-kindled sack, and flung it down between the rails where it lay making a little bonfire that was all its own. Then too broken sacks of unburnt flour lay all about the place looking in the semi-darkness like the Psalmist's "snow in Salmon"; but flour so flavoured and soaked with paraffin that when that night it was served out to be cooked as best itcould be by the famished men some of them laughingly asserted it exploded in the process. Oh, was not that a dainty dish to set before such kings! At the far end of the station were ten trucks of coal blazing more vigorously than in any grate, besides yet other trucks filled with government stationery and no one knows what beside. It was an awe-inspiring sight and pitiful in the extreme.
A welcome lift by the way.
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 solitarypair 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.
"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, andin 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 circumstance 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 astonishingly 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 wordOats, and underneath the O was printed 80 lbs. The proudest man in all the brigade that day seemed he! Well-nigh as travel-stainedwere we, and torn, as Hereward the Wake when he returned to Bruges.
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 thorny 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 quantity 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 arsenal; and about this same time French on the 14th, at Barberton, had found in addition to more warlike stores fortylocomotives 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 prickly 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.
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 masses of their foes, and under such conditions good marksmanship is easy toattain. 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 gratitude, 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 God'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 God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord!" To the God of Battles the Boer had made his mutely stern appeal and with this result.
Two notable Fugitives.
TheHousehold Brigade Magazinetells 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! God blesshim!" 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 God of righteousness, so surely will the Vierkleur be victorious."
The propaganda of the Africander Bond.
What that victory, however, would inevitably have involved was made abundantly plain in the pages ofDe 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 Britishflag. 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.
Ex-President Steyn.
Martinus Theunis Steyn, late President of what was once the Orange Free State, is in almost all respects amarked 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 multitudinous 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 association 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 emphasisedthan by Paul Botha in his famous book "From Boer to Boer." Rightly or wrongly, this is what, briefly put, Botha says:—
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 God 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 areterrifying 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.
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 God 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 areterrifying 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 assert 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 surpassed by their courage, and of them may be generally asserted what Maitland said to the heroic defenders of Hougoumont—"Every man of you deserves promotion."[Back to Contents]
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!
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 weekbefore 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 assented 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.
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, assured me that the Boers were so dismayed by the tidings of our approach that at first they precipitately fled leaving everythinguntouched; 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 multitude whose ignominious departure from the Transvaal will minister much to its future wholesomeness and honesty.
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 assailing 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.
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 adeep 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 pronounced 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 sportsmanship was as bad as their marksmanship, 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.
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 surpassed 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 butter lay there inwild 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 shells of every sort and size, and piles of boxes on which was painted
"ExplosiveSafety CartridgesSupplied by Vickers, Maxim & Co.; for the use ofthe Government of the South African Republic."
Likewise boxes of ammunition, broken and unbroken bearing the brand of "Kynoch Brothers, Birmingham" were there in piles; and it was while some men of the Gordons were superintending the destruction of this ammunition that a terrific explosion occurred a few days later by which three of them were killed and twenty-one wounded, including the "Curio" of the regiment, who was stuck all over with splinters like pins in a cushion; and in spite of seven-and-twenty wounds had the daring to survive. Byron somewhere tells of an eagle pierced by an arrow winged with a feather from its own breast, and in this war many a British hero has been riddled by bullets that British hands have fashioned. Moreover, among these bullets that thus littered that railway track I found vast quantities of the soft-nosed and slit varieties of which I brought away some samples; and others coated with a something green as verdigris. It is said that in love and war all is fair; but we should have more readily believed in the much belauded piety of the Boers, if it had deigned to dispense with "soft noses" and "explosivesafeties," which were none the less cruel or unlawful because of British make!
Whole stacks of sugar I also found, in flaming haste to turn themselves into rippling lakes of decidedly overdone toffee; and in similar fashion piled up sacks of coffee berries were roasting themselves not wisely but too well. Pyramids of flour were much in the same way baking themselves into cakes, monstrously misshapen, and much more badly burnt than King Alfred's ever were. "The Boers are poor cooks," laughingly explained our men; "they bake in bulk without proper mixing." Nevertheless, along that line everything seemed very much mixed indeed.
Over the Line.
On reaching the Portuguese frontier I somewhat ceremoniously saluted the Portuguese flag, to the evident satisfaction of the Portuguese marines who mounted guard beside it. There were just then about 600 of them on duty at Resina Garcia, and as they were for the most part dressed in spotless white they looked delightsomely clean and cool. Indeed, the contrast between their uniforms and ours was almost painfully acute; but it was the contrast between men of war's men in holiday attire, which no war had ever touched, and weary war-men tattered and torn by ten months' constant contact with its roughest usage. A shameful looking lot we were—but ashamed we were not!
As these foreigners on frontier guard knew not a word of English, and I unfortunately knew not a word of Portuguese, there seemed small chance of any very luminous conversation; but presently I pronounced themagic word "Padré," and pointed to the cross upon my collar, when lo! a look of intelligence crept into the very dullest face. They passed on the word in approving tones from one to another, and I was instantly supplied with quite a new illustration of the ancient legend, "In hoc signo vinces." In token of respect for my chaplain's badge, without passport or payment, I was at once courteously allowed to cross the line and set foot in Portuguese Africa. There are compensations in every lot, even in a parson's!
The village immediately beyond the frontier is little else than a block or two of solidly built barracks, and a well appointed railway station, with its inevitable refreshment room, in which a group of officers representing the two nationalities were enjoying a friendly lunch. But great was my surprise on discovering that the vivacious Portuguese proprietor presiding behind the bar was a veritable Scotchman hailing from queenly Edinburgh; and still greater was my surprise on hearing a sweetly familiar accent on the lips of a Colonial scout hungrily waiting on the platform outside till the aforesaid officers' lunch was over, and he, a private, might be permitted to purchase an equally satisfying lunch and eat it in that same refreshment room. It was the accent of the far away "West Countree," and told me its owner was like myself a Cornishman. Yet what need to be surprised? Were I to take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, I should probably find there as at Resina Garcia, thriving Scotchman in possession, and a famished Cornishman waiting at his gate. Tothese two, in this fashion, have been apportioned the outposts of the habitable globe!
Westward Ho!
It was to everybody's extreme surprise and delight that at noon on Thursday we received sudden orders to leave Koomati Poort at once, and to leave it not on foot but by rail. The huge baboon, therefore, which had become our latest regimental pet and terror, was promptly transferred to other custody, and our scanty kits were packed with utmost speed. We soon discovered, however, that it was one thing to reach the appointed railway station, and quite another to find the appointed train. Two locomotives, in apparently sound condition, had been selected from among a multitude of utterly wrecked and ruined ones, but serviceable trucks had also to be warily chosen from among the leavings of a vast devouring fire; then the loading of these trucks with the various belongings of the battalion began, and long before that task was finished darkness set in, so compelling the postponement of all journeying till morning light appeared. It was on the King of Portugal's birthday that morning light dawned, and it was to the sound of a royal salute in honour of that anniversary we attempted to start on our westward way, while the troops left behind us joined with those of Portugal in a royal review.
From a photograph by Mr WestermanBoer Families on their Way to a Concentration Camp.
From a photograph by Mr Westerman
Boer Families on their Way to a Concentration Camp.
As all the regular railway employés had fled with the departing Boers, it became necessary to call for volunteers from among the soldiers to do duty as drivers, stokers and guards. The result was at times amusing, and at times alarming. Our locomotives were so unskilfullyhandled that they at once degenerated into the merest donkey engines, and played upon us donkey tricks. One of these amateur drivers early in the journey discovered that he had forgotten to take on board an adequate supply of coal, and so ran his engine back to get it, while we patiently awaited his return. Soon after we made our second start it was discovered that something had gone wrong with the injectors. "The water was too hot," we were told, which to us was a quite incomprehensible fault; the water tank was full of steam, and we were in danger of a general blow up. So the fire had to be raked out, and the engine allowed to cool, which it took an unconscionably long time in doing, and we accounted ourselves fortunate in that on a journey so diversified we escaped the further complications that might have been created for us by our ever invisible foes, who managed to wreck the train immediately following ours—so inflicting fatal or other injuries on Guardsmen not a few.
Meanwhile we noted that "fever" trees, with stems of a peculiarly green and bilious hue, abounded on both sides the line; trees so called, not because they produce fever, but because their presence infallibly indicates an area in which fever habitually prevails. Hundreds of the troops that followed us into the fatal valley were speedily fever-stricken, and it is with a sense of devoutest gratitude I record the fact that the Guards' Brigade not only entered Koomati Port without the loss of a single life by bullets, but also left it without the loss of a single life by fever.
At first at the foot of every incline we were compelled to pause while our engines, one in front and one behind, got up an ampler pressure of steam, but presently it was suggested that the hundreds of Guardsmen on board the train should tumble out of the trucks and shove, which accordingly they did, the Colonel himself assenting and assisting. So sometimes shoving, always steaming, we pursued our shining way, as we fondly supposed, towards Hyde Park corner and "Home, sweet Home."
At Waterval Onder we stayed the night, and I was thus enabled to visit once again the tiny international cemetery, referred to in a former chapter, where I had laid to rest an unnamed, because unrecognised, private of the Devons. Now close beside him in that silent land lay the superbly-built Australian, whom I had so often visited in the adjoining hospital, and whom our general had promised to recommend for "The Distinguished Service Medal." Not yet eighteen, his life work was early finished; but by heroisms such as his has our vast South African domain been bought; and by graves such as his are the far sundered parts of our world-wide empire knit together.
Ruined farms and ruined firms.
Throughout this whole journey I was painfully impressed not only by the almost total absence of all signs of present-day cultivation, even where such cultivation could not but prove richly remunerative, but also by the still sadder fact that many of the farmhouses we sighted were in ruins. Along this Delagoa line, as in other parts of the Transvaal, there had been so much sniping at trains,and so many cases of scouts being fired at from farmhouses over which the white flag floated, that this particular form of retribution and repression, which we none the less deplored, seemed essential to the safety of all under our protection; and in defence thereof I heard quoted, as peculiarly appropriate to the Boer temperament and tactics, the familiar lines:—
Softly, gently, touch a nettle,And it stings you for your pains;Grasp it like a man of mettle,And it soft as silk remains.
Amajuba led to a fatal misjudgement of the British by the Boer. In all leniency, the latter now recognises only an encouraging lack of grit, which persuades him to prolong the contest by whatever tactics suit him best. Its effect resembles that of the Danegeld our Saxon fathers paid their oversea invaders, with a view to staying all further strife. Their gifts were interpreted as a sign of craven fear, and merely taught the recipients to clamour greedily for more. Long before this cruel war closed it became clear as noonday that Boer hostilities could not be bought off by a crippling clemency, and that an ever-discriminating severity is, in practice, mercy of the truest and most effective type.
How great the pressure on the military authorities became in consequence of these frequent breakages of the railway line, and how serious the inconvenience to the mercantile community, as indeed to the whole civil population, may be judged from the fact that only on the day of my return from Resina Garcia did thePretoria merchants receive their first small consignments of food stuffs since the arrival of the British troops some four months before. Clothing, boots, indeed goods of any other type than food, they had still not the faintest hope of getting up from the coast for many a week to come. War is always hard alike on public stores and private cupboards; but seldom have the supplies of any town, not actually undergoing a siege, been more nearly exhausted than were those of Pretoria at the time now referred to. For hungry and impecunious folk the City of Roses was fast becoming a bed of thorns.