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WITH RIMINGTON

BY

L. MARCH PHILLIPPS

LATE CAPTAIN IN RIMINGTON'S GUIDES

SECOND IMPRESSION

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD

37 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.

1902

_All rights reserved_

_DEDICATION_

_This book is dedicated to the memory of my friend Lieutenant Gustavus
Coulson, D.S.O., of the King's Own Scottish Borderers, who fell at
Lambrechtfontein on May 19, 1901._

_The Colonel in command writes that in that action Lieutenant Coulson
rallied some men and saved a gun from falling into the enemy's hands. He
lost his life in bringing off a wounded man from under the enemy's fire.
For this deed, the last of many deeds as brave, he was recommended for
the Victoria Cross._

_I knew him from his childhood, and on the march from Lindley to
Pretoria, and thence far south to Basutoland, we often rode together,
and talked of West Country sport and his Devonshire home and faces that
we both knew and loved there._

_A keen soldier, a cheery comrade, and a brave and kindly English
gentleman, he stands, it seems to me, the very type of those gallant
boys who in this South African war have died for England_.

PREFACE

These letters were written without any idea of publication, and it was
not until I had been home some months that suggestions from one or two
sources caused me to think of printing them. They appear much as they
were written, except that sometimes several letters dealing with the
same event have been thrown into one; and occasionally a few words have
been added to fill up gaps. In no case have I been wise after the event,
or put in prophecies which had already come off.

The parts in inverted commas are extracts from note-books which I used
to carry about in my pocket, and these passages I have left just as they
were jotted down, thinking that such snap-shots of passing scenes might
have an interest of their own.

It is unlucky from a descriptive point of view that the big actions and
fine effects should all have occurred during the first part of the war,
leaving the dulness and monotony for the later stages. During the last
six months of my service it was not my chance to see any important
action, though slight skirmishing was constant, and I find therefore
nothing in the later letters of a very exciting nature.

Such as they are, however, these letters contain a quite faithful
account of things that happened under my own eyes throughout the chief
stages of the western campaign. During the early part of the war many
things happened that were splendid to see and that it gave me great
pleasure to write about. During the later stages nothing particularly
splendid occurred, though the patience and endurance of our men were in
their way fine; but some things happened which were, as we say,
regrettable; and these things also are in their turn briefly described.

  L.M.P.

  15 BURY STREET,
  ST. JAMES'S, S.W.

CONTENTS

LETTER                                PAGE

    I. ORANGE RIVER CAMP                 1

   II. BELMONT                           8

  III. GRASPAN                          15

   IV. MODDER RIVER                     22

    V. THE 4.7                          30

   VI. MAGERSFONTEIN                    34

  VII. A RECONNAISSANCE                 43

 VIII. SCOUTING ON THE MODDER           49

   IX. THE ADVANCE                      59

    X. RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY              63

   XI. PAARDEBERG--THE BOMBARDMENT      73

  XII. PAARDEBERG--THE SURRENDER        77

 XIII. POPLAR GROVE                     83

  XIV. BLOEMFONTEIN                     89

   XV. MODDER REVISITED                 97

  XVI. JUSTIFICATION OF THE WAR        104

 XVII. THE MARCH NORTH                 112

XVIII. PRETORIA                        126

  XIX. THE MARCH SOUTH                 139

   XX. PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER--I         151

  XXI. PRINSLOO'S SURRENDER--II        165

 XXII. FIGHTING AND TREKKING           173

XXIII. WRITTEN FROM HOSPITAL           185

 XXIV. FIGHTING AND FARM-BURNING       192

  XXV. THE SITUATION                   205

 XXVI. PLAIN MISTER!                   217

WITH RIMINGTON

LETTER I

ORANGE RIVER CAMP

ORANGE RIVER, _November_ 18, 1899.

The sun is just rising on Orange River Camp. Our tents are pitched on
the slopes of white sand, soft and deep, into which you sink at every
step, that stretch down to the river, dotted with a few scraggy
thorn-trees. There are men round me, sleeping about on the sand, rolled
in their dark brown blankets, like corpses laid out, covered from head
to foot, with the tight folds drawn over their feet and over their
heads. A few bestir themselves, roll, and stretch, and draw back the
covering from their sleepy, dusty faces. The first sunbeams begin to
creep along the ground and turn the cold sand yellow.

I am beginning this letter in the shade of a mimosa. The whole scene
reminds me very much of Egypt; and you might easily believe that you
were sitting on the banks of the Nile somewhere between the first and
second cataract. There are the same white, sandy banks, the same narrow
fringe of verdure on each side, the same bareness and treelessness of
the surrounding landscape, the same sun-scorched, stony hillocks; in
fact, the whole look of the place is almost identical. The river, slow
and muddy, is a smaller Nile; there only wants the long snout and heavy,
slug-like form of an old crocodile on the spit of sand in the middle to
make the likeness complete. And over all the big arch of the pure sky is
just the same too.

Our camp grows larger and rapidly accumulates, like water behind a dam,
as reinforcements muster for the attack. Methuen commands. We must be
about 8000 strong now, and are expecting almost hourly the order to
advance. Below us De Aar hums like a hive. From a deserted little
wayside junction, such as I knew it first, it has blossomed suddenly
into a huge depôt of all kinds of stores, provisions, fodder,
ammunition, and all sorts of material for an important campaign. Trains
keep steaming up with more supplies or trucks crowded with khaki-clad
soldiers, or guns, khaki painted too, and the huge artillery horses that
the Colonials admire so prodigiously. Life is at high pressure. Men talk
sharp and quick, and come to the point at once. Foreheads are knit and
lips set with attention. Every one you see walks fast, or, if riding,
canters. There is no noise or confusion, but all is strenuous, rapid
preparation.

Do you know Colonials? In my eight months of mining life at Johannesburg
I got to know them well. England has not got the type. The Western
States of America have it. They are men brought up free of caste and
free of class. When you come among Colonials, forget your birth and
breeding, your ancestral acres and big income, and all those things
which carry such weight in England. No forelocks are pulled for them
here; they count for nothing. Are you wide-awake, sharp, and shrewd,
plucky; can you lead? Then go up higher. Are you less of these things?
Then go down lower. But always among these men it is a position simply
of what you are in yourself. Man to man they judge you there as you
stand in your boots; nor is it very difficult, officer or trooper, or
whatever you are, to read in their blunt manners what their judgment is.
It is lucky for our corps that it has in its leader a man after its own
heart; a man who, though an Imperial officer, cares very little for
discipline or etiquette for their own sakes; who does not automatically
assert the authority of his office, but talks face to face with his men,
and asserts rather the authority of his own will and force of character.
They are much more ready to knock under to the man than they would be to
the mere officer. In his case they feel that the leader by office and
the leader by nature are united, and that is just what they want.

There are Colonials out here, as one has already come to see, of two
tolerably distinct types. These you may roughly distinguish as the
money-making Colonials and the working Colonials. The money-making lot
flourish to some extent in Kimberley, but most of all in Johannesburg.
You are soon able to recognise his points and identify him at a
distance. He is a little too neatly dressed and his watch-chain is a
little too much of a certainty. His manner is excessively glib and
fluent, yet he has a trick of furtively glancing round while he talks,
as if fearful of being overheard. For the same reason he speaks in low
tones. He must often be discussing indifferent topics, but he always
looks as if he were hatching a swindle. There is also a curious look of
waxworks about his over-washed hands.

This is the type that you would probably notice most. The Stock Exchange
of Johannesburg is their hatching-place and hot-bed; but from there they
overflow freely among the seaside towns, and are usually to be found in
the big hotels and the places you would be most likely to go to. Cape
Town at the present moment is flooded with them. But these are only the
mere froth of the South African Colonial breed. The real mass and body
of them consists (besides tradesmen, &c., of towns) of the miners of the
Rand, and, more intrinsically still, of the working men and the farmers
of English breed all over the Colony. It is from these that the fighting
men in this quarrel are drawn. It is from these that our corps, for
instance, has been by the Major individually and carefully recruited;
and I don't think you could wish for better material, or that a body of
keener, more loyal, and more efficient men could easily be brought
together.

Many of them are veterans, and have taken part in some of the numerous
African campaigns--Zulu, Basuto, Kaffir, Boer, or Matabele. They are
darkly sunburnt; lean and wiry in figure; tall often, but never fat (you
never see a fat Colonial), and they have the loose, careless seat on
horseback, as if they were perfectly at home there. As scouts they have
this advantage, that they not only know the country and the Dutch and
Kaffir languages, but that they are accustomed, in the rough and varied
colonial life, to looking after themselves and thinking for themselves,
and trusting no one else to do it for them. You can see this
self-reliance of theirs in their manner, in their gait and swagger and
the way they walk, in the easy lift and fall of the carbines on their
hips, the way they hold their heads and speak and look straight at you.

Your first march with such a band is an episode that impresses itself.
We were called up a few days ago at dead of night from De Aar to relieve
an outlying picket reported hard pressed. In great haste we saddled by
moonlight, and in a long line went winding away past the artillery lines
and the white, ghostly tents of the Yorkshires. The hills in the still,
sparkling moonlight looked as if chiselled out of iron, and the veldt
lay spread out all white and misty; but what one thought most of was the
presence of these dark-faced, slouch-hatted irregulars, sitting free and
easy in their saddles, with the light gleaming dully on revolver and
carbine barrel. A fine thing is your first ride with a troop of fighting
men.

Though called guides we are more properly scouts. Our strength is about
a hundred and fifty. A ledger is kept, in which, opposite each man's
name, is posted the part of the country familiar to him and through
which he is competent to act as guide. These men are often detached, and
most regiments seem to have one or two of ours with them. Sometimes a
party is detached altogether and acts with another column, and there
are always two or three with the staff. Besides acting as guides they
are interpreters, and handy men generally. All these little subtractions
reduce our main body to about a hundred, or a little less; and this main
body, under Rimington himself, acts as scouts and ordinary fighting men.
In fact, a true description of us would be "a corps of scouts supplying
guides to the army."

One word about the country and I have done. What strikes one about all
South African scenery, north and south, is the simplicity of it; so very
few forms are employed, and they are employed over and over again. The
constant recurrence of these few grave and simple features gives to the
country a singularly childish look. Egyptian art, with its mechanical
repetitions, unchanged and unvaried, has just the same character. Both
are intensely pre-Raphaelite.

South Africa's only idea of a hill, for instance, is the pyramid. There
are about three different kinds of pyramid, and these are reproduced
again and again, as if they were kept all ready made in a box like toys.
There is the simple kopje or cone, not to be distinguished at a little
distance from the constructed pyramids of Egypt, just as regular and
perfect. Then there is the truncated or flat-topped pyramid, used for
making ranges; and finally the hollow-sided one, a very pretty and
graceful variety, with curving sides drooping to the plain. These are
all. Of course there are a few mistakes. Some of the hills are rather
shakily turned out, and now and then a kopje has fallen away, as it
were, in the making. But still the central idea, the type they all try
for, is always perfectly clear. Moreover, they all are, or are meant to
be, of exactly the same height.

Most strange and weird is this extraordinary regularity. It seems to
mean something, to be arranged on some plan and for some humanly
intelligible purpose. In the evenings and early mornings especially,
when these oft-repeated shapes stand solemnly round the horizon, cut
hard and blue against the sky like the mighty pylons and propylons of
Egyptian temples, the architectural character of the scenery and its
definite meaning and purpose strike one most inevitably. So solemn and
sad it looks; the endless plains bare and vacant, and the groups of pure
cut battlements and towers. As if some colossals here inhabited at one
time and built these remains among which we now creep ignorant of their
true character. The scenery really needs such a race of Titans to match
it. In these spaces we little fellows are lost.

Well, farewell. My next will be after some sort of a contest. There has
been a touch or two; enough to show they are waiting for us. A corporal
of ours was shot through the arm yesterday and struggled back to camp on
another man's horse. The dark-soaked sleeve (war's colour for the first
time of seeing!) was the object, you may guess, of particular attention.

LETTER II

BELMONT

BELMONT SIDING.

It is to be called Belmont, I believe, from the little siding on the
railway near which it was fought. On the other hand it may be called
after the farm which it was fought on. Who decides these things? I have
never had dealings with a battle in its callow and unbaptized days
before, and it had never occurred to me that they did not come into the
world ready christened. Will Methuen decide the point, or the war
correspondents, or will they hold a cabinet council about it? Anyhow
Belmont will do for the present.

What happened was the simplest thing in the world. The Boers took up
their position in some kopjes in our line of march. The British
infantry, without bothering to wait till the hills had been shelled,
walked up and kicked the Boers out. There was no attempt at any plan or
scheme of action at all; no beastly strategy, or tactics, or outlandish
tricks of any sort; nothing but an honest, straightforward British march
up to a row of waiting rifles. Our loss was about 250 killed and
wounded. The Boer loss, though the extent of it is unknown, was probably
comparatively slight, as they got away before our infantry came fairly
into touch with them. The action is described as a victory, and so, in a
sense, it is; but it is not the sort of victory we should like to have
every day of the week. We carried the position, but they hit us hardest.
On the whole, probably both sides are fairly satisfied, which must be
rare in battles and is very gratifying.

Our mounted men, Guides, 9th Lancers, and a few Mounted Infantry,
marched out an hour before dawn. A line of kopjes stood up before us,
rising out of the bare plain like islands out of the sea, and as we
rounded the point and opened up the inner semicircle of hills, we could
distinguish the white waggon tops of the Boer laager in a deep niche in
the hillside, and see the men collecting and mounting and galloping
about. By-and-by, as we advanced, there came a singing noise, and
suddenly a great pillar of red dust shot up out of the ground a little
to our left. "That's a most extraordinary thing," thinks I, deeply
interested, "what land whale of these plains blows sand up in that
fashion?" Then I saw several heads turned in that direction, and heard
some one say something about a shell, and finally I succeeded in
grasping, not without a thrill, the meaning of the phenomenon.

The infantry attack came off on the opposite side of the ridge from
where we were, and we could see nothing of it. But we heard. As we drew
alongside of the hills, suddenly there broke out a low, quickly uttered
sound; dull reports so rapid as to make a rippling noise. The day was
beautifully fine, still, and hot. There was no smoke or movement of any
kind along the rocky hill crest, and yet the whole place was throbbing
with Mausers. This was the first time that any of us had listened to
modern rifle fire. It was delivered at our infantry, who on that side
were closing with their enemy.

The fire did not last long, though in the short time it did terrible
damage, and men of the Northumberlands and Grenadiers and Coldstreams
were dropping fast as they clambered up the rocky hillside. But that
brief burst of firing was the battle of Belmont. In that little space of
time the position had been lost and won, and we had paid our price for
it. During the march across the flat, as I have been told since, our
loss was comparatively light; but when the climbing of the hill began,
numbers of Boers who had been waiting ready poured in their fire. All
along the ridge, from behind every rock and stone, the smokeless Mausers
cracked (it was then the fire rose to that rippling noise we were
listening to on the other side of the range), and the sleet of bullets,
slanting down the hill, swept our fellows down by scores. But there was
never any faltering. They had been told to take the hill. Two hundred
and fifty stopped on the way through no fault of theirs. The rest went
on and took it. That's the way our British infantry put a job through.

Soon, on our side, scattered bands of the enemy began to emerge from the
kopjes and gallop north, whilst right up at the top of the valley their
long convoy of waggons came into view, trekking away as hard as they
could go, partly obscured by clouds of dust. We made some attempts to
stop them, but our numbers were too few. Though defeated, they were not
in any way demoralised, and the cool way in which they turned to meet
us showed that they knew they were safe from the infantry, and did not
fear our very weak cavalry. We did not venture to press the matter
beyond long shots. Had we done so, it was evident we should have been
cut up.

Various little incidents occurred. This one amused me at the moment. We
had captured a herd of cattle from some niggers who had been sent by the
Boers to drive them in, and I was conveying them to the rear. From a
group of staff officers a boy came across the veldt to me, and presently
I heard, as I was "shooing" on my bullocks, a very dejected voice
exclaim, "How confoundedly disappointing." I looked round and saw a lad
gazing ruefully at me, with a new revolver tied to a bright yellow
lanyard ready in his hand. "I thought you were a Boer," he said, "and I
was going to shoot you. I've _got leave_ to shoot you," he added, as
though he were in two minds about doing the job anyway. I looked at him
for a long while in silence, there seemed nothing to say, and then,
still ruefully, he rode away. This, you will understand, was right up
our end of the valley, and I was driving cattle on to our ground, only I
had a soft hat on.

We have plenty of youngsters like this; brave, no doubt, but thoughtless
and quite careless about the dangerous qualities of the men they have to
meet. "They'll live and learn," people say. They'll learn if they live,
would perhaps be nearer the mark. The Boers, on the other hand, such as
I have seen yet, are decidedly awkward-looking customers, crafty, but
in deadly earnest, versed in veldt wars and knowing the country to an
anthill. Looking from one to the other, I fear there are many mothers in
England who'll go crying for their boys this campaign.

Later a troop of us penetrated into the deep recess among the hills
where they had their laager. It seemed evident, from the number of
waggons and the amount of clothing and stores left behind and littered
in every direction, that the Boers had not expected to be shifted nearly
so suddenly as they were. There were heaps of provisions, quantities of
coffee tied up in small bags, sugar, rice, biltong, _i.e._ dried strips
of flesh, a sort of bread biscuit much used by them on the march, and
made at the farms, and other things. All were done up in small
quantities in such a way that individual men could carry it. There were
waggons loaded, or half loaded, with old chests and boxes, and many
heaped about the ground. Most contained clothes, and the place was
strewn in all directions with blankets, greatcoats, and garments of all
sorts, colours, and sizes. I annexed a very excellent black mackintosh,
quite new and splendidly lined with red; a very martial and imposing
garment.

Diligent search was made for any paper or memoranda, which might show
the plans or strength of the enemy, but all we found were the
love-letters of the young Boers, of which there were vast numbers,
extremely amusing. It never seems to have occurred to any of the writers
that they could be going to get the worst of it. They seem to put the
responsibility for the management of the whole campaign into the hands
of the Deity. They are religious but practical. "God will protect us.
Here is a pound of coffee," is about what they all come to. It is the
fashion to scoff at the calm way in which our enemies have appropriated
the services of the Almighty, but all the same it shows a dangerous
temper. People who believe they have formed this alliance have always
been difficult to beat. You remember Macaulay's Puritan, with his "Bible
in one hand and a two-edged sword in the other." The sword has given
place to a Mauser now, but I am not sure that we are likely to benefit
much by the change. As to the Bible, it is still very much in evidence.
Not a single kit but contained one; usually the family one in old brown
leather. Now it is an historical fact that Bible-reading adversaries are
very awkward customers to tackle, and remembering that, I dislike these
Bibles.

More practically important than love-letters and Bibles, we found also a
lot of abandoned ammunition, shell and Mauser. Our ambulance parties
were at work in the hills. Several Boers, as they fled, had been shot
down near the laager. We found one, shot through the thigh, groaning
very much, and carried him into the shade of a waggon, and did what we
could for him. Meantime some of us had gathered bits of boxes and wood,
and made a fire and boiled water. Tea-cups, coffee, sugar, and biscuits
were found, and we made a splendid feast in the midst of the desolation.
Horrid, you will say, to think of food among the dead and wounded. And
yet that coffee certainly was very good. Somehow I believe the Boers
understand roasting it better than we do.

Before going we collected all the ammunition and heaped it together and
made a pile of wood round it which we set ablaze and then drew out into
the plain and reined in and looked back. Never shall I forget the view.
The hills, those hills the English infantry had carried so splendidly,
were between us and the now setting sun, and though so close were almost
black with clean-hacked edges against the sunset side of the sky. To
eastward the endless grassy sea went whitening to the horizon, crossed
in the distance with the horizontal lines of rich brown and yellow and
pure blue, which at sunrise and sunset give such marvellous colouring to
the veldt. The air here is exactly like the desert air, very
exhilarating to breathe and giving to everything it touches that
wonderful clearness and refinement which people who have been brought up
in a damp climate and among smudged outlines so often mistake for
hardness. Our great ammunition fire in the hollow of the hill burned
merrily, and by-and-by a furious splutter of Mauser cartridges began,
with every now and then the louder report of shells and great smoke
balls hanging in the air. But sheer above all, above yellow veldt and
ruined Boer laager, rose the hill, the position we had carried, grim and
rigid against the sunset and all black. And, with the sudden sense of
_seeing_ that comes to one now and then, I stared at it for a while and
said out loud "Belmont!" And in that aspect it remains photographed in
my memory.

LETTER III

GRASPAN

_November_ 26, 1899.

We marched out from our Orange River Camp on November 22nd, and fought
at Belmont on the 23rd. On the 24th we marched north again, and on the
25th (yesterday) fought another action at Graspan, or, as some call it,
Enslin--there is still the difficulty about names. March a day and fight
a day seems the rule so far.

At home, when you are criticising these actions of Methuen, you must
always bear two facts in mind. First, we are bound to keep our line of
communication, that is, the railway, open, and hold it as we advance. We
can bring Kimberley no relief unless we can open and guard the railway,
and so enable supplies to be poured into the town. Second, we are not
strong enough, and above all not mobile enough, while holding the
railway to attempt a wide flanking movement which might threaten the
Boer retreat, or enable us to shell and attack from two sides at once.
If we had anything like a decent force of mounted men I suppose we could
do it, but with our handful to separate it from the main body would be
to get it cut off. "Want of frigates" was to be found on Nelson's heart,
as he said on some occasion, and I am sure by this time that "want of
cavalry" must be written on poor Methuen's. So you must figure to
yourself a small army, an army almost all infantry, and an army tied to
the railway on this march; and if we bring off no brilliant strategy,
but simply plod on and take hard knocks, well, what else, I ask, under
the circumstances can we do?

Yesterday in the early morning we found ourselves emerging from some
stony hills with a great plain before us about four miles wide, I should
think, with an ugly-looking range of hills bounding it on the north and
the railway running north and south on our left. This we had every
reason to believe was the enemy's position; toll-gate No. 2 on the
Kimberley road. We went on to reconnoitre. Rimington led us straight
towards the hills in open order, and when we were somewhere about rifle
range from them, we right turned and galloped in line along their front;
but no gun or rifle spoke. When we reached the eastern point of the
range, we turned it and rode on with the hills on our left; and now,
with the Lancers a little farther out on our right, we offered too good
a shot for the enemy to resist. They opened on us with, as I thought
three, but others think two, guns, and put in some quick and
well-directed shots, of which the first one or two fell short and the
rest went screaming over our heads and fell among the Lancers.

One point of difference, I notice, so far as a short experience goes,
between cavalry and infantry, which is all in favour of the cavalry; and
that is, that when they get into fire the infantry go calmly on, while
the much wiser cavalry generally run away. We retired from these guns,
but when opposite the corner of the range the Lancers got on to some
bad ground in front of us, and we had to halt a minute, which gave the
Boer Long Tom an excellent chance of a few parting words with us. The
first shell came along, making the mad noise they do, whooping and
screaming to itself, and plunged into the ground with a loud snort only
about thirty or forty yards off. The gunner, having got his range, was
not long in sending down another, and when the white curl of smoke
appeared lying again on the hillside, one guessed that the individual
now on his way would prove a warmish customer. It burst with a most
almighty crack, and I involuntarily bent down my head over my horse's
neck. "Right over your head," shouted the next man, in answer to my
question as to where it burst.

If you are at all interested in "projectiles," you may care to hear that
shrapnel is most effective when it bursts over, but a little short of,
the object aimed at; the bullets, released by the bursting charge,
continuing the line of flight of the shell, which is a downward slant.
There is a rather anxious interval, of about ten or fifteen seconds
generally after you see the smoke of the gun, and before anything else
happens. Then comes the hollow boom of the report, and almost
immediately afterwards the noise of the shell, growing rapidly from a
whimper to a loud scream, with a sudden note of recognition at the end,
as if it had caught sight of and were pouncing on you. It is a curious
fact, however, that, in spite of the noise they make, you cannot in the
least distinguish in which direction they are coming. You find yourself
looking vaguely round, wondering where this yelling devil is going to
ground, but till you see the great spurt of earth you have no idea where
it will be. We came back across the plain, having more or less located
the position and the guns. Rimington with one squadron got into a tight
place among some kopjes on our right. The rifle fire was very hot, and
at close range. The Major took up his orderly, whose horse was shot, on
his own pony, and brought him off. For a moment the squadron came under
cover of a hill, but they had to run the gauntlet of the Boer fire to
get away. Rimington laughingly asked for a start as his pony was
carrying double, and rode first out into the storm of bullets. Several
men and horses were hit, but no men killed, and they were lucky in
getting off as cheap as they did. We then drew back to a cattle kraal on
the slope overlooking the plain, from which we watched the development
of the infantry attack.

I usually carry a note-book and pencil in my pocket, partly to jot down
any information one may pick up at farms from Kaffirs, &c., and partly
to make notes in of the things I see. Here is a note from the kraal.

"10 A.M.--There is a wide plain in front of me, four miles across, flat
as the sea, and all along the farther side a line of kopjes and hills
rising like reefs and detached islands out of it. You might think the
plain was empty at first glance, but, if you look hard, you will see it
crawling with little khaki-clad figures, dotted all over it; not packed
anywhere, but sprinkled over the whole surface. They are steadily but
very leisurely converging on the largest end hill of the opposite range.
Meantime, from three or four spots along the sides of those hills, locks
and puffs of white smoke float out, followed at long intervals by deep,
sonorous reports; and if you look to the left a bit, where our naval
guns are at work, you will see the Boer shells bursting close to or over
them. The artillery duet goes on between the two, while still the
infantry, unmolested as yet, crawls and crawls towards those hills."

This is our first sight of an infantry attack, and it doesn't impress me
at first at all. Its cold-bloodedness, the absence of all excitement,
make it so different from one's usual notions of a battle. It is really
difficult to believe that those little, sauntering figures are
"delivering an attack." They don't look a bit as if they were going to
fight. The fact is, they have a long distance to cover before reaching
the hills, and must go fairly slow. Accordingly, you see them strolling
leisurely along as if nothing particular were happening; while the hills
themselves, except for the occasional puffs of smoke, look; quite bare
and empty; ridges of stone and rock, interspersed with grass tussocks,
heaped up against the hot, blue sky.

But now, as they advance farther across the plain, the muffled,
significant sound of the Mauser fire begins. The front of the attack is
already so far across that it is impossible to see how they are faring
from here; but it is evident that our shell fire, heavy though it has
been, for all our guns have been in action some time now, has not turned
the Boers out of their position. The big chunks of rock are an
excellent defence against shrapnel, and behind them they lie, or down in
the hollow of the hills, as we saw them earlier in the day, to be called
up when the attack approached; and now, gathering along the crest, their
fire quickens gradually from single shots to a roar. But it has no
effect on that fatal sauntering! Of the men who leave this side nigh on
two hundred will drop before they reach the other, but still, neither
hurrying nor pausing, on they quietly stroll, giving one, in their
uniform motion over that wide plain, a sense as of the force and
implacability of some tidal movement. And, as you watch, the
significance of it all grows on you, and you see that it is just its
very cold-bloodedness and the absence of any dash and fury that makes
the modern infantry attack such a supreme test of courage.

Of the details of the attack, when it came to the last charge, we could
see nothing. The Naval Brigade, who had the hardest part of the position
to take, lost terribly, but did the job in a way that every one says was
perfectly splendid. It is said, however, that they made the mistake, in
the scaling of the hill, of closing together, and so offering a more
compact mass to the enemy's fire. We came on behind the infantry with
our friends the Lancers, and passed through a gap in the range and on
across some open ground and through a few more kopjes as fast as we
could go. Then we came in sight of the enemy, and the same thing
happened as at Belmont. A lot of horsemen, enough to have eaten us up,
that were hanging about the rear of the Boer column, came wheeling out
against us, and as we continued to approach, opened fire. Luckily there
was good cover for our ponies behind some hillocks, and, leaving them
there, we crawled out among the rocks and blazed at the Boers. But this
was all we could do. We daren't attack. The only hope was guns, and it
was a long and inexplicable time before any guns came up. By that time
the Boer column was almost across the plain, winding its way in among
the kopjes on the farther side, but the 15-pounders made some very
pretty practice at the rear-guard, and considerably hastened their
movements. The Boer retreat seems to have been conducted with much
coolness and method. They ceased firing their big guns while the attack
was still a good way distant, and limbered up and sent them on, the
riflemen remaining till the attack was close upon them, and firing their
last shots right in our infantry's faces, then rushing down to their
horses and mounting and galloping off. No doubt, they exposed themselves
a bit in doing this, but pumped and excited men can't be expected to
shoot very straight, and I'm afraid their losses were light compared to
ours. They have now retired, we presume, to the next range of kopjes,
there to smoke their pipes and read their Bibles and await our coming. I
suppose we shall be along to-morrow or next day.

LETTER IV

MODDER RIVER

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

_December 1_, 1899.

We had a great old fight here two days ago, and suffered another
crushing victory; but though I saw it all, I daresay you know more about
the whole thing by this time than I do.

This is Modder River, deep and still, just beneath my feet. It is a
lovely, cloudless morning, and going to be a very hot day. I am writing
my letter on the banks of the river in the shade of green trees and
shrubs, with birds singing and twittering, and building their nests
round me; it is spring-time here, you know, or early summer. Here and
there, sauntering or sitting, are groups of our khaki soldiers enjoying
mightily a good rest after the hard work, marching and fighting, of the
last ten days. From the river-bed come voices calling and talking,
sounds of laughing, and now and then a plunge. Heads bob about and
splash in the mud-coloured water, and white figures run down the bank
and stand a moment, poised for a plunge. Three stiff fights in seven
days doesn't seem to have taken much of the spring out of them.

You would scarcely think it was the scene of a battle, and yet there are
a few signs. If you look along the trees and bushes, you see here and
there a bough splintered or a whole trunk shattered, as though it had
been struck by lightning. A little lower down the river there is a shed
of corrugated iron, which looks as if some one had been trying to turn
it into a pepper-pot by punching it all over with small holes. They run
a score to the square foot, and are a mark of attention on the part of
our guards, who, lying down over yonder in the plain, could plainly
distinguish the light-coloured building and made a target of it. In many
places the ground is ploughed up in a curious way, and all about in the
dust lie oblong cylinders of metal, steel tubes with a brass band round
one end. These would puzzle you. They are empty shell cases. The tops,
as you see, have been blown off, which is done by the bursting charge
timed by a fuse to ignite at a certain range, _i.e._, above and a little
short of the object aimed at. The explosion of the bursting charge by
the recoil, checks for an instant the flight of the shell, and this
instant's check has the effect of releasing the bullets with which the
case is filled. These fly forward with the original motion and impetus
of the shell itself, spreading as they go. Horizontal fire is easy to
find cover against, but these discharges from on high are much more
difficult to evade. For instance, ant-hills are excellent cover against
rifles, but none at all against these shells. It is shrapnel, as this
kind of shell is called, that does the most mischief. The round bullets
(200 to a caseful) lie scattered about in the dust, and mixed with them
are very different little slender silvery missiles, quite pretty and
delicate, like jewellers' ornaments. These are Lee-Metford bullets. You
could pick up a pocketful in a short time.

The action itself was mainly an infantry one. Here are one or two
jottings taken that day:--

"_November 26th_, 7.30 A.M.--We left camp, six miles south of Modder
River, a little before daylight and marched north. The country is like
what one imagines a North American prairie to be, a sea of whitish,
coarse grass, with here and there a low clump of bushes (behind one of
which we are halted as I write this). One can see a vast distance over
the surface. Along the north horizon there is a ripple of small hills
and kopjes, looking blue, with the white grass-land running up to them.
It is a comparatively cool morning with a few light clouds in the sky
and a pleasant breeze. On our left is the railway, and all along on our
right, extending far in front and far behind, advances the army."

"We incline to the left near to the railway. The horrid, little,
grey-bluish, armoured train crawls in front. It is dreadfully excited
always in presence of the enemy, darting forward and then running back
like a scorpion when you tease it with your stick-end. One can see by
its agitation this morning that the enemy are not far off. Behind it
comes a train of open trucks with the famous Naval Brigade, with their
guns, search-light, &c. The river flows somewhere across the landscape
yonder in the plains. One cannot see it, but a few belts of bushes
indicate its course. It is just that awkward moment before one gets
touch of the enemy. They, no doubt, can see us (I wonder how they like
the look of us), but we cannot see them. They must be somewhere along
the river among those bushes, and probably in trenches. But where does
their main strength lie? where are their guns? There goes fire, away on
the right (probably at the Lancers, who are the right flankers); the
dull short discharge of Mausers. The train moves forward a hundred
yards, but as yet the men keep their places, clustered in the trucks.
Two officers standing on a carriage roof watch with a telescope the
distant fire. It has now ceased. A flag-wagger flutters his flag in
eager question. Nothing moves on the plain save here and there a lonely
prowling horseman, cantering on, or dismounted and peering through his
glass. It was three minutes to eight when the first shot was fired.
'This will be a bit more history for the kiddies to learn,' yawns the
next man to me, leaning idly over his pony."

"It is a half-hour later as the great guns begin their booming; that
solemn, deep-toned sound like the striking of a great cathedral clock.
We moved forward to the top of a rise overlooking the distant river and
village."

"A dead level stretches below us to the river, marked by some bush tufts
and the few roofs of Modder River village. The Naval Brigade have got
their four guns in the plain just near the foot of our hill. They are
hard at work now bombarding the enemy's big gun by the river. This,
after a while, is almost silenced. Each time it speaks again the deadly
naval guns are on to it. At last, when it does fire, it shows by its
erratic aim that its best gunners are out of action."

"9.30.--The naval guns draw slowly closer to the river. Every shell
bursts along the opposite bank where the enemy are. More to the right
and nearer the river our field-batteries are pounding away as hard as
they can load and fire. All the time the subdued rumble of Maxims and
rifles goes on, like a rumble of cart-wheels over a stony road. Now it
increases to one continuous roar, now slackens till the reports
separate. Now, after one and a half hours, the fight seems to be
concentrating towards the village opposite. A haze of smoke hangs over
the place. The guns thunder. The enemy's Maxim-Nordenfelt goes
rat-tat-tat a dozen times with immense rapidity. 'Come in,' says a Tommy
of the Grenadiers who has come to our hill for orders; and indeed it
sounds exactly like some one knocking at a street door. Now the
under-current of rifle fire becomes horrible in its rapidity. Can
anything in that hell down there be left alive? Suddenly their plucky
big gun opens again and sends several well-directed shells among our
batteries. The naval guns turn their attention to it immediately. You
can see the little, quick glints of fire low along the ground at each
discharge, and then the bursting shell just over the big gun on the
river-bank."

"10 A.M.--Both sides are sticking to the business desperately. The
rattle of rifle-fire is one low roar. The air shudders and vibrates
under it. Now the naval guns draw towards the river again; so do the
rest of our batteries. Things can't stand at this tension. The big gun
speaks again, but wildly; its shell bursts far out on the plain."

"10.30.--The aspect of the place is now awful. The breeze has died a
little and the smoke hangs more. It is enveloped in a haze of yellow and
blue vapour, partly from bursting shell and partly firing guns. Those
volumes of smoke, with gleams of fire every now and then, make it look
like some busy manufacturing town, and the blows and throbs with which
the place resounds convey the same idea."

"11 A.M.--The fight is dogged as ever but slower. There are cessations
of firing altogether, and it is comparatively slow when continued. The
stubbornness of the enemies' resistance to our attack and to the fearful
shelling they have had is calling forth expressions of astonishment and
admiration from the onlooking officers on the hill."

"As the circle narrowed and our attack concentrated on the village and
bridge, we all thought that the end was coming, and, on a lull of the
firing about 11.30 the Major even exclaimed, 'There, I think that's the
end, and I can only say thank God for it.' But he was wrong. He had
scarcely said it when that indomitable heavy gun of theirs, re-supplied
with gunners, began again; again the Naval guns, on a tested range,
crack their shrapnel right in its face; the batteries all open and soon
the whole orchestra is thundering again. That dreadful muttering, the
'rub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub, a-dub-a-dub' (say it as fast as you can) of the
rifles keeps on; through all the noise of fire, the sharp, quick bark of
the Boer Maxim-Nordenfelt sounds at intervals and the mingled smoke and
dust lies in a haze along the river."

It was, all through, almost entirely an infantry action, but about the
middle of the day we were sent down to the river on the Boer right, as
parties of the enemy were thought to be breaking away in that direction.
And here, I am sorry to say, poor Parker who had served in the
Greek-Turkish war, and used to beguile our long night marches with
stories of the Thessalian hills and the courage of the Turks, was hit,
it is feared mortally. The fight itself continued with intermissions all
day, and even in the evening, though parts of the Boer position had been
captured and many of them had fled, there were some who still made good
their defence, holding out in places of vantage with the greatest
obstinacy. These took advantage of the night to escape, and it was not
till next morning that we had the place in our possession. The Boers
themselves, as we are told by people here, thought the position
impregnable. Certainly it was very strong. The river has cut a channel
or groove thirty feet deep in the ground; the edges, sharp and distinct,
so that men can lie on the slant and look out across the plain. A big
loop in the river is subtended by a line of trenches and rifle-pits
hastily dug (they only decided twenty-four hours before the attack to
defend the position; this by Cronjé's advice, who had just come south
from Mafeking, the others were for retiring to the next range of hills),
from which the whole advance of our infantry across the level is
commanded. "We," as the soldiers explained to me, "could see nothing in
our front but a lot of little heads popping up to fire and then popping
down again." These shelters, a long line of them, are littered thick
with empty cartridge cases, hundreds in each; one thinks involuntarily
of grouse-driving. Bodies, still unburied, lay about when I was there.
Such odours! such sights! The unimaginable things that the force of shot
and shell can do to poor, soft, human flesh. I saw soldiers who had
helped to do the work turn from those trenches shaking.

LETTER V

THE FOUR POINT SEVEN

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

_December_ 1899.

A few days ago we welcomed a distinguished stranger here in the shape of
a long 4.7 naval gun. They set him up in the road just outside the
station, with his flat-hatted sailors in zealous attendance, where he
held a day-long levée. The gun is a remarkable object among the rest of
our artillery. Its barrel, immensely long but very slender, has a
well-bred, aristocratic look compared with the thick noses of our
field-guns. It drives its forty-five pound shell about seven miles, and
shoots, I am told, with perfect accuracy. It is an enlarged edition of
the beautiful little twelve-pounders which we have hitherto been using,
and which exceed the range of our fifteen-pounder field-guns by about a
half. Why should naval guns be so vastly superior to land ones?

I interviewed the sailors on the accomplishments of the new-comer, and
on the effects especially of lyddite, about which we hear so much. One
must allow for a little friendly exaggeration, but if the mixture of
truth is in any decent proportion, I should say that spades to bury dead
Boers with are all the weapons that the rest of us will require in
future. The gun uses shrapnel as well, but relies for its main effects
on lyddite. As for this horrible contrivance, all I can say is that the
Geneva Conference ought to interdict it. The effects of the explosion of
a lyddite shell are as follows:--Any one within 50 yards is obliterated,
blown clean away. From 50 to 100 yards they are killed by the force of
the concussion of the air. From 100 to 150 yards they are killed by the
fumes or poisonous gases which the shell ex-hales. From 150 to 200 they
are not killed, but knocked senseless, and their skin is turned to a
brilliant green colour. From 200 to 250 they are so dazed and stupefied
as to be incapable of action, and, generally speaking, after that any
one in the district or neighbourhood of the shock is "never the same man
again." This is no mere rumour, for I have it direct from the naval
gunners themselves.

This morning, well before light, we took out our gentleman, dragged by
an immense string of oxen, to introduce him to his future victims and
whet his appetite by a taste. The Boer position lies some six miles to
the north of the river. The most conspicuous feature of it is a hill
projecting towards us like a ship's ram and dipping sharply to the
plain. Magersfontein, they call it. The railway going north leaves it to
the right, but other hills and kopjes carry on the position westward
across the railway, barring an advance. It is evident that we shall have
to take the place in front, as we are not strong enough nor mobile
enough to go round.

We have a few reinforcements, notably the Highland Brigade, also the
12th Lancers under Airlie, and some Horse Artillery pop-guns.

There is a good deal of bush on the plain, especially to the right of
the steep hill, where it is quite thick. During the last week we have
been poking about in this a good deal, approaching the hill now on this
side, now on that, under cover of the scrub, examining and searching,
but with very little result. They keep themselves well hidden. The hills
look untenanted except that now and then we have seen parties of Boers
wending their way in between the kopjes and driving in herds of cattle.

In the thick bush on the eastern plain, as we lay one morning at
daybreak, we could hear the shouts of men and catch glimpses of them
here and there riding about and urging their cattle on. Some passed not
far from where we lay crouched (we had left our ponies on the outskirts
of the bush). It seemed funny to watch them riding to and fro,
unconscious of our presence and calling to each other. It reminded me of
some boy's game of hide-and-seek or Tom Tiddler's ground. We have had
two or three casualties, and lost two prisoners, and we have bagged
several of them. The army is resting.

Well, this morning, as I was saying, we take our Long Tom (Joey, as he
is now called, out of compliment to Chamberlain) out for a shot. Here is
a note about it:--

"4.30 A.M.--Our little groups of horse, in threes and fours, are
clustered behind bushes. There is a whispered consultation round our
large gun and his nose slowly rises. The jerk of the lanyard is followed
by a frightful explosion and then comes the soaring noise of the flying
shell and the red spark and column of dust on the kopje. The range has
been well judged, for the first shot falls with beautiful accuracy just
on the hill where they are supposed to be.

"It is worth getting up at this time to enjoy the delicious, pure, and
fresh air. The glow of sunrise is in the sky, but not yet the sun. There
are some long streaks and films of rosy cloud along the east. Already,
after five shots, the whole kopje is enveloped in dust and reddish smoke
from the bursting lyddite, but elsewhere between us and the sunrise the
hills are a perfect dark blue, pure blocks of the colour. The Lancers on
their horses show black against the sky as they canter, scattering
through the underwood with graceful slanting lances. At slow deliberate
intervals the long gun tolls. Dead silence is the only reply. The sun
rises and glares on the rocky hills. Not a living thing is to be seen."

LETTER VI

MAGERSFONTEIN

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

_December 13_, 1899.

When we were camped a day's march south of this, two Boers brought in a
wounded man of ours in a Cape cart. "You will never get to Kimberley,"
they said to us. "It will take better men than you to stop us," said we.
"Not a bit of it," said they, and off they drove. As it turns out, they
were nearer the mark than we were.

While I write this, early on the morning of the 13th, you at home may
just be reading in the papers the accounts of our last two days'
disastrous fighting. It was a defeat, but yet it was a defeat which was
not felt nor realised by the bulk of the army. It was a blow that fell
entirely on one brigade, and the greater part of our force was still
awaiting the order to advance, and expecting to engage the enemy when
already the attack, unknown to us, had been delivered and repulsed.

Last Sunday, December 10th, about 2 P.M., we moved out of camp northward
towards the point of the big hill, that, like a cape, juts south into
the plain. With all our guns ranged about the point of the hill, we then
proceeded to thrash and batter it with shell-fire. No gun-fire that we
have had as yet has approached this for rapidity. The batteries roared
ceaselessly from the plain; the big 4.7 lifting up its voice from a
little in the rear high above the din. The day was cloudy, and rain fell
at intervals, but towards the evening it cleared. My troop was on the
extreme left front, on the west side of the hill, and we had a fine view
of the effect as the shells burst one after another, or sometimes three
or four together, all along the hill flank, up on the crest, or in the
plain along the base.

"5 P.M.--The hill is all one heavy dull hue in the sombre evening light,
and against it the sharp glints of fire as the shrapnel bursts, and the
round puff-balls of white smoke show vividly. Every now and then a great
curtain of murky vapour goes up to show where the old lyddite-slinger in
the rear is depositing his contributions. We had three field-batteries
engaged, the naval twelve-pounders, Joey, and the pop-guns; about thirty
guns altogether."

We slept that night by the side of the railway, tethering our horses to
the wire fence that runs down it. Rain fell heavily all night. Most of
us had no blankets, and we lay bundled up, shivering under our
greatcoats on the sopping ground. Unable to sleep well, I heard, just
about or before dawn, a distant drumming, like the noise of rain on the
window, but recognised immediately as distant rifle-fire. Morning broke,
cheerless and wet. I asked if any one had heard firing during the night,
but no one near me had. Shivering and breakfastless, save for a morsel
of biscuit and a sip of muddy water, we saddle our dripping horses and
fall in. A Tommy sitting in the ditch, the picture of misery; cold, and
hungry, with the rain trickling from his sodden helmet on to his face;
breaks into a hymn, of which the first verse runs:--

    "There is a happy land
      Far, far away,
    Where they get ham and eggs
      Three times a day."

I find myself dwelling on the words as we move off. Can there be such a
land? Can there be so blessed a place?

We reach the ganger's hut, and the light spreads and rests on the hills.
Immediately we are deafened by a shattering report close behind us, and
starting round, find the long nose of Joey projecting almost over our
heads, while the scream of the shell dies away in the distance as it
speeds towards the Boer hill. One of the naval officers gives me a first
hint of the truth. There has certainly been an attack, he says, but he
fears unsuccessful.

We took the matter up, then, where we left off yesterday, all our
batteries coming into action and shelling the hills most furiously. The
enemy replied with three guns only, but so well placed were they that we
found it impossible to silence them. While our fire was concentrated on
to any one of them, it would remain silent, but, after a short interval,
would always begin again, to the rage of our gunners. There is
especially a big gun of theirs in a fold of the hill just at the crest,
between which and "Joey" exist terms of mortal defiance. Nothing else it
appears can touch either of them; so while the lesser cannonade rages in
the middle, these two lordly creatures have a duel of their own and
exchange the compliments of the season with great dignity and
deliberation over the others' heads. It has gone all in favour of "Joey"
while I was watching, the Boer gun being rather erratic and most of its
shells falling short. It made one good shot just in front of us, and it
was really comic to see how "Joey," who had been looking for other
adversaries for the moment, came swinging round at the voice of his
dearest foe. The explosion of the big gun almost knocks one backwards,
and I feel the sudden pressure on my ears of the concussion.

Later in the day "Joey" and I got quite thick. There is a double kopje,
detached from the main Boer position on our side, known as the Dumbell
Kopje. From our left-front place we could see a lot of Boers clustered
under the hill, pasted, like swarming bees, up against the lee of it,
while the naval gun's shells--for he evidently had a nonchalant idea
that there was some one about there--went flying overhead and bursting
beyond. This was very irritating to watch, and I was glad to be sent
back to "whisper a word in his ear." Making a hasty sketch of the hill,
I galloped back and presented it to the captain with explanation, and
had the satisfaction of seeing 300 yards knocked off "Joey's" next shot,
which was, I should judge, a very hot one. "Stay and have some grub,"
said the jolly naval captain. We sat on the ground eating and drinking,
while "Joey" peppered the Dutchmen.

As for the fight itself, people seem inclined to make a great mystery
about it and talk about "the difficulty of getting at the truth;" but I
don't see myself where the mystery comes in. What happened was this. The
Highland Brigade (Black Watch, Seaforths, Argyle and Sutherlands, and
Highland Light Infantry) was told off for the night attack and marched
before light to the hill. The night was very dark and heavy rain
falling. The ground was rough, stony, and rocky, with a good deal of low
scrub, bushes, and thorn trees, very difficult to get through at night.
The difficulty of moving masses of men with any accuracy in the dark is
extreme, and to keep them together at all it was necessary for them to
advance in a compact body. In quarter column, therefore, the Brigade
advanced and approached the foot of the hill. I have noticed several
times that when you get rather close to the hill the rise comes to look
more gradual and the ridge itself does not stand up in the abrupt and
salient way that it does from a distance. Whether it was this, or simply
that the darkness of the night hid the outline, at any rate the column
approached the hill and the trench which runs at the foot of the hill
much too closely before the order to extend was given. When it was given
it was too late. They were in the act of executing it when the volley
came.

Of course an attack like this cannot be intended altogether as a
surprise--that is, it cannot be pushed home as a surprise. You cannot
march 4000 heavy-booted men through broken ground on a dark night
without making plenty of noise over it; also the Boers must certainly
have had pickets out, which would have moved in as we advanced and
given the alarm. But had our fellows deployed at half a mile, or less,
under cover of darkness, and then advanced in open order, the enemy
could not have seen clearly enough to shoot with accuracy until they
were fairly close, and I daresay the fire then would not have stopped
their rush.

As it was, the fire came focussed on a mass of men, such a fire as I
suppose has never been seen before, for not only was it a tremendous
volley poured in at point-blank range, but it was a sustained volley;
the rapid action of the magazines enabling the enemy to keep up an
unintermittent hail of bullets on the English column. To advance under
fire of this sort is altogether impossible. It is not a question of
courage, but of the impossibility of a single man surviving. At the
Modder fight our men advanced to a certain distance, but could get no
nearer. They were forced to lie down and remain lying down. The fire of
magazine rifles is such that, unless helped by guns or infinitely the
stronger, the attackers have no chance of getting home. People will keep
on talking as if courage did these things. What the devil's the use of
the bravest man with half-a-dozen bullets through him? It is just as
certain as anything can be that, if the Highlanders had "gone on," in
two minutes not a man would have been left standing. Already in the
brief instant that they stood, dazed by the fire, they lost between six
and seven hundred men. The Black Watch was in front, and nineteen out of
twenty-seven officers were swept down. You might as well talk of "going
on" against a volcano in eruption.

I am writing this on the day after the action in my favourite
lurking-place by the side of the river under the evergreens and big
weeping willows that overhang the sluggish water. Our own small camp is
close to the stream, and here every morning the Highlanders are in the
habit of turning up, usually with much laughing and shouting, to bathing
parade. There is no laughing this morning, only sad, sullen faces,
silence and downcast looks. Still they are glad to talk of it. A few
come under the shade of my tree, and sit about and tell me the little
bit that each saw or heard. You only get a general impression of chaos.
Some tried to push on, some tried to extend, some lay down, and some ran
back out of close range and took up such cover as they could get. This
was, luckily, pretty good, there being a lot of bush and rocks about,
and here they gradually crawled together and got into some sort of
order, and kept up a counter fire at the Boer position. The Brigade,
however, had been badly shaken, and as hour after hour passed all
through the blazing day, and they were kept lying there under the fire
of an entrenched enemy, exhausted and parched with thirst, their
patience gradually failed, and they made another rush back, but were
rallied and led up again to where the Mausers might play on them. They
were not allowed to retire till after five, when all the troops were
withdrawn--that is, until they had been shot over at close range for
about fourteen mortal hours.

The Brigade was asked to do too much, and when at last they staggered
out of action, the men jumped and started at the rustle of a twig. It's
a miserable thing when brave men are asked to do more than brave men can
do.

One thing that added to the panic was that none, at least among the men
and junior officers, knew anything at all about the trench. They thought
they were going to storm the hill. So that things were so contrived that
the bewilderment of a surprise should be added to the terrors of the
volley. You will scarcely believe this perhaps. I have just come from
having tea with the Argyle and Sutherland. Of the eight or ten officers
there, not one had heard of the trench. Here, by the river, I have
talked to a score of Highlanders, and not one had heard of it either.
They "didn't know what the hell was up" when the volley came. We could
scarcely have provided all the elements of a panic more carefully.

Nothing of note followed during the day. Airlie fended off a Boer
flanking move on our right, and the Coldstreams backed up the
Highlanders a bit, but practically only the Highland Brigade was in it.
It was a disaster to that Brigade only, and consequently the rest of the
army does not feel itself defeated, and is not in any way discouraged.
Some people suggest now that we in our turn may be attacked, and that
the enemy may try and retake the river position from which we shifted
him a fortnight ago. It is reported that they have got up heavy
reinforcements from Natal, and some long-range guns that will reach our
camp from the hill. All kinds of rumours are afloat, mostly to the
effect that the Boers are circling round behind us, _via_ Douglas on the
west and Jacobsdal on the east, and mean cutting our communications.
However, as I have long since found out, a camp is a hot-bed of lies.
Nothing positive is known, for every one is kept in careful ignorance of
everything that is going on. The idea is that the British soldier can
only do himself justice when the chance of taking anything like an
intelligent interest in his work is altogether denied him. The
consequence is he is driven to supply the deficiency out of his own
imagination. Ladysmith has already been taken and relieved at least a
dozen times, and Mafeking almost as often. To-day Buller is on his way
to Pretoria; to-morrow the Boer army will be marching on Cape Town.

As for our own little army, we have been digging ourselves in here, and
are perfectly secure, and I daresay we shall be able to keep open the
line all right. As to relieving Kimberley, that is another thing. Cronjé
evidently doesn't think we can, for he has just sent us in a message
offering us twenty-four hours to clear out in. He is a bit of a wag is
old Cronjé.

LETTER VII

RECONNAISSANCE

BIVOUAC ON THE MODDER,

_January 15_, 1900.

At Modder River camp the dust lies thick and heavy. Every breeze that
blows lifts clouds of it, that hang in the air like a dense London fog,
and mark the site of the camp miles and miles away. The river, more
muddy than ever, moves languidly in its deep channel. There is a Boer
laager some miles above the camp, the scourings of which--horrid
thought!--are constantly brought down to us. The soldiers eye the
infected current askance and call it _Boervril_. Its effect is seen in
the sickness that is steadily increasing.

Thank goodness we escape it. An advantage of scouting is, that, when it
comes to a standing camp, with its attendant evils of dirt, smells, and
sickness, your business carries you away, in front, or out along the
flanks, where you play at hide-and-seek with the enemy, trap and are
trapped, chase and are chased, and where you bivouac healthily and
pleasantly, if not in such full security, at some old Dutch farm, where
probably fowls are to be bought, or milk and butter; or under groups of
mimosa trees among stoney deserted kopjes, where there is plenty of wood
for burning, as likely as not within reach of some old garden with figs
in it ripening and grapes already ripe.

One of the little pictures I shall remember belonging to Modder camp is
the sight of the soldiers at early mass. You can picture to yourself a
wide, flat dusty plain held in the bent arm of the river, with not a
tree or bush on it; flat as a table, ankle-deep in grey dust, and with a
glaring, blazing sun looking down on it. The dust is so hot and deep
that it reminds one more of the ashes on the top of Vesuvius--you
remember that night climb of ours?--than of anything else.

Laid out in very formal and precise squares are the camps of the various
brigades, the sharp-pointed tents ranged in exact order and looking from
far off like symmetrical little flower-beds pricked out on the sombre
plain.

A stone's throw from the river is a mud wall, with a mud house at one
side scarcely rising above it, yet house and wall giving in the early
morning a patch of black shadow in the midst of the glare. Here the old
priest used to celebrate his mass. A hundred or two of Tommies and a few
officers would congregate here soon after sunrise, and stand bare-headed
till the beams looked over the wall, when helmet after helmet would go
on; or kneel together in the dust while the priest lifted the host.
Every man had his arms, the short bayonet bobbing on the hip; every
brown and grimy hand grasped a rifle; and as the figures sink low at the
ringing of the bell, a bristle of barrels stands above the bowed heads.
Distant horse hoofs drum the plain as an orderly gallops from one part
of the camp to another. Right facing us stands Magersfontein, its ugly
nose with the big gun at the end of it thrust out towards us. How many
of this little brotherhood under the mud wall, idly I wonder, will ever
see English meadows again?

The Boers still face us at Magersfontein. Their left is south of the
Modder. They have a strong laager at Jacobsdal on the Reit, and have
pushed west and south of that, where, from the kopjes about Zoutspan and
Ramdam, they threaten our lines of communication. The Reit river,
flowing almost south and north for some distance parallel to the
railway, though a good way east of it, is a strengthening feature for
them in that part of the field, and taking advantage of it, they have
brought their left well round. Their right, on the other hand, is
scarcely brought round at all, but stretches about east and west,
following the course of the Modder, and extending as far west as
Douglas, fifty miles from Modder camp. They make raids south. Pilcher
the other day cut some of them up at Sunnyside and took Douglas, but
evacuated it again, and it is now in their hands. Altogether you can
compare the Boer attitude to a huge man confronting you, Magersfontein
being his head, his left arm brought round in front of him almost at
right angles to his body and his right stretched wide out in line with
his shoulders. From time to time he makes little efforts to bring these
outstretched arms farther round, as if to clasp and enfold the British
position at Modder River, and it is with the special object of observing
and reporting on these movements that our scouting is carried on. This
is now attended to by fifteen of us only, under Chester Master, the
rest of the corps, with the Major, having gone down to join French at
Colesberg now that the advance here has ceased. On the east side of the
line we patrol the plain nearly to Jacobsdal, and often lie in the grass
or sit among the rocks and watch the little figures of Boers cantering
along the road that leads south by the river. Further scouting in that
direction is carried on by the garrison along the line.

A strong reconnaissance of ours the other day (January 9th) in the
direction of Jacobsdal was a very dignified and solemn exhibition. Our
guns rumbled forward with their eight-horse teams across the plain,
while our cavalry, stretched out in open order at fifty yards apart,
traversed the country in long strings that might have been seen and
admired by the enemy at a distance, I daresay, of twenty miles. Chester
Master took us forward on the left close to the river, where a party of
the enemy, stealing up from the river-bed, tried to cut us off--there
were only six or eight of us--and chivied us back to the main body as
hard as we could go, two miles _ventre à terre_ through the pelting
rain, blazing away from horseback all the time at us, but naturally
doing no harm. We thought we should lead them into a trap when we lifted
the rise, but our troops had all halted far back in the plain, and our
pursuers turned as soon as they saw them. However, we got some men to
join us, and set to work to chase them as they had done us. It was
really quite exciting; little bent figures of horsemen with flapping
hats on ahead, bundling along for dear life, each with its spot of dust
attending, we following, whooping and spurring. But bustled as they
were, the Boers knew the way they were going. There are some narrow
belts of bush that run out from the river into the plain, and as we
neared one of these, crick-crack, crick-crack, the familiar croaking
voices of Mausers warned us against a nearer approach. We dismounted and
fired away vaguely at the distant foe, not so much with the idea of
hitting anything, but it is always a relief to one's feelings. I don't
know why the guns didn't come up, but was told that they didn't like to
push on too far, as the Boers were supposed to be in force here. It
seemed a pity to miss such a good shot, especially as we had an enormous
great escort and an open country back to camp. But that is the way with
guns; sometimes they rush up to within 500 yards of the enemy before
they shoot, and sometimes they won't shoot at all.

The afternoon was spent in carrying out our reconnaissance. A
reconnaissance is undertaken with a view to exposing the enemy's
position and strength. Without intending a real attack, you demonstrate,
feign a forward movement, push on in one place or another, or threaten
to turn his flanks; so obliging him to move his men here and there,
expose his strength and the limits of the position, and, perhaps, the
whereabouts and number of his guns, if they should be tempted to open
fire at our scouts. This is the theory of the thing. In practice it
doesn't quite work, owing to the utter ignorance of the Boers of all
military tactics. On all occasions when we have carried out these
manoeuvres, notably round the Magersfontein hills before the battle,
they have not only failed to make the proper responses to our moves, but
have neglected to take notice of them in any way whatever. Not a gun
speaks, not a man is to be seen. We demonstrate before empty hills.
Creepily, you may conjecture the fierce eyes along the rock edge, but
nothing shows. In vain we circle about the plain, advance, retire,
curtsey, and set to him; our enemy, like the tortoise, "will not join
the dance." Nothing is more discouraging. It is like playing to an empty
house. However, as young B---- said to me, we did our part anyway, and
if they are so ignorant as not to know the counter-moves, well, they
must take the consequences. Manoeuvres of this kind, I must tell you,
are a high test of military skill, and are often not fully intelligible
to the lay mind. As an instance of this, I heard a man of ours, a shrewd
fellow but no soldier, say, in his coarse Colonial way, as we were
riding home, that he "was glad we had finished making a b----y
exhibition of ourselves." It is to be hoped that after a little we shall
get to appreciate these manoeuvres better. Just at first there is a
slight suggestion of Gilbert and Sullivan about them.

LETTER VIII

SCOUTING ON THE MODDER

THORNHILL FARM, _January 30_, 1900.

On the eastern or Jacobsdal side the country is all a plain, dull and
monotonous like a huge prairie, with no shade from the heat or shelter
from the thunderstorms. On the western side it is very different. Great
hills run roughly parallel to the river course, but leave a wide plain
between themselves and it. They are clothed with a few scant bushes, out
of which their tops rise bare and rocky; but in the shady hollows and
gorges the low thorn-trees (mimosas) grow thickly, and over the plain
that stretches to the river their grey foliage gathers into thick covers
or is sometimes dotted here and there. The smell of the mimosa flowers
(little yellow balls of pollen-covered blossom) is the most delicious I
know, and the air as we ride through these lonely covers, where a few
buck seem the only tenants, is fragrant with it. Far apart there are
farms, prettily situated, generally close to the hills, the rocky sides
of the kopjes rising behind, the wide plain spread in front. Each has
its dam, sometimes more than one, built round with mud embankments, with
huge weeping willows overhanging, and rows of tall poplars and blue gums
(with shreds of bark rattling), and plenty of other trees. The
farmhouses themselves are uninteresting, but the gardens, with their
great thicket hedges of prickly pear and quince and brilliant blossoming
pomegranate, are delightful, especially at this time, when the fruit is
just getting ripe.

It was out on this western side, where we were feeling for the enemy's
right flank, some twenty miles from camp, in a niche half way up the
mountain, that we spent our last Christmas. We rather expected an
attack, as a Kaffir of ours had been taken by them, and might be
expected to reveal our movements. After dark we climbed the hill,
dragging our ponies over the boulders and scratching our way through the
thorns.

The Boer hill was four or five miles distant, north across the plain.
All along its purple sides we ranged with our glasses, seeing nothing;
but after dark several little points of light showed where their laager
was. We sat all night among the rocks (I thought of you and the
roast-turkey and holly), occasional heavy drops of rain falling, and a
flicker of lightning now and then. Heavy clouds rolled up, and the night
set in as dark as pitch. The level plain below us lay flat as a pancake
from their hill to ours. So passed our '99 Christmas, picturesque
possibly, but not very comfortable. Dark hillside; rain in large warm
drops; night dark, with a star or two and struggling moon. In front, a
distant hillside, with points of camp-fire twinkling, where the Boers,
indifferent to our little party, were carousing and drinking their
_dop._ Now and then a yawn or groan as a man stretches his cramped
limbs. Down below under us an expanse of dark plain, like a murky sea,
reaching to our feet, which we peer across, but can make out nothing.
Peep-of-day time is the Boer's favourite hour for a call, and we were
all very much on the _qui vive_ when the white line showed along the
east. No doubt, however, they all had such heads after their Christmas
drink that they were in no humour for such a diversion. At any rate,
they let us alone. Very stiff and weary and wet, we crept down the hill
soon after daybreak and started on our twenty-mile homeward march. It
was 5 P.M. before we reached camp, and we had had nothing to eat all
day. I don't know if we were most tired or hungry. Take that three days
as a sample of work. We start at 6 A.M. on Sunday; do a full day's
riding and scouting, and get three hours' sleep that night at Enslin.
Then we saddle up and pass the rest of the night and all the next day
riding, except when we are climbing hills on foot to look out. The
second night we sit among the hills expecting an attack, and next day
till one o'clock are in the saddle again. _À la guerre comme à la
guerre_. Three days and two nights' hard work on three hours' sleep. And
all this time you are drinking champagne (well, most of it, anyway), and
sleeping in soft beds with delicious white sheets, and smoking Egyptian
cigarettes, and wearing clean clothes, with nice stiff collars and shirt
cuffs, and having a bath in the morning, warm, with sweet-smelling soap
(Oh, my God!), and sitting side by side at table, first a man and then a
woman; the same old arrangement, I suppose, knives to the right and
forks to the left as usual. Ho! ho! There are times I could laugh. No
doubt we shall all get _redigested_ as soon as we get back, but
meantime, as a set-off to the hardship, one knows what it is to feel
free. We eat what we can pick up, and we lie down to sleep on the bare
ground. We wash seldom, and our clothes wear to pieces on our bodies. We
find we can do without many things, and though we sometimes miss them,
there comes a keen sense of pleasure from being entire master of oneself
and all one's possessions. Your water-bottle hangs on your shoulder;
your haversack, with your blanket, is strapped to your saddle; rifle,
bandolier, and a pair of good glasses are your only other possessions.
As you stand at your pony's side ready to mount, you may be starting for
the day or you may be away a fortnight, but your preparations are the
same.

Above all others does this scouting life develop your faculties, sharpen
your senses of hearing and of seeing, and, in practical ways, of
thinking too; of noting signs and little portents and drawing
conclusions from them; of observing things. You feel more _alive_ than
you ever felt before. Every day you are more or less dependent on your
own faculties. Not only for food and drink for yourself and your pony,
but for your life itself. And your faculties respond to the call. Your
glance, as it scans the rocks and the plain, is more wary and more
vigilant; your ears, as you lie in the scrub, prick themselves at a
sound like a Red Indian's, and the least movement among cattle or game
or Kaffirs, or the least sign that occurs within range of your glasses,
is noticed and questioned in an instant.

This you get in return for all you give up--in return for the
sweet-smelling soap and the footman who calls you in the morning. Oh,
that pale-faced footman! It is dawn when, relieved on look-out, I
clamber down the rocks to our bivouac. A few small fires burn, and my
pal points to a tin coffee cup and baked biscuit by one of them. It is
the hour at home for the pale-faced footman. I see him now, entering the
room noiselessly with cautious tread as if it were a sick-room, softly
drawing a curtain to let a little light into the darkened apartment, and
approaching with a cup of tea that the poor invalid has barely to reach
out his hand to. Round our little camp I look, noting trifles with a
keen enjoyment. Shall I ever submit to that varlet again? No, never! I
will leap from my bed and wrestle with him on the floor. I will anoint
him with my shaving soap and duck him in the bath he meant for me. Do
you know the emancipated feeling yourself? Do you know the sensation
when your glance is like a sword-thrust and your health like a devil's;
when just to touch things with your fingers gives a thrill, and to look
at and see common objects, sticks and trees, is like drinking wine?
Don't you? Oh, be called by twenty footmen and be hanged to you!

This Christmas patrol of ours was of use in touching the southernmost
and westernmost limits of the Boer position. It has shown that the
enveloping movement of which so much has been said, and which has been
pressed now and then on the east side, has not made much progress on the
west.

The big mountain range, running east and west, comes to an end some
thirty miles west of Modder Camp, where it breaks up into a few detached
masses and peaks. The extreme one of these, a sugar-loaf cone, is called
the Pintberg, and on this lonely eerie a picket of ours is generally
placed; crouched among the few crags and long grass tufts that form its
point, the horses tethered in the hollow behind; listening by night and
watching by day. When we come out thus far, we sometimes stay out a week
or more at a time. The enemy's position is along the hills north of the
plain by the river--chiefly north of it, but in places south.

I am turning over my diary with the idea of giving you a notion of the
sort of life we lead, but find nothing remarkable.

"Last night, Vice, Dunkley, and I were on lookout on the kopje. There
had been a heavy storm in the afternoon and another broke as we reached
the hill. We crouched in our cloaks waiting for it to pass before
climbing up, as the ironstone boulders are supposed to attract the
lightning (I have heard it strike them; it makes a crack like a
pistol-shot, and Colonials don't like staying on the hill tops during a
storm). We passed all night on our airy perch among the rocks, half wet
and the wind blowing strong. It was a darkish and cloudy night, rather
cold. Watched the light die out of the stormy sky; the lightning
flickering away to leeward; wet gleams from the plain where the water
shone here and there; moaning and sighing of wind through rock and
branch. We were relieved by Lancers in the morning and jogged back to
Thornhill, where our little camp is, and I am writing this in the shade
of a big mimosa close to the garden wall.

"I have seen prints in shop windows of farms and soldiers, bits of
country life and war mixed, a party of Lancers or Uhlans calling at some
old homestead, watering their horses or bivouacking in the garden. Often
what I see now makes me think of these subjects. A large camp is hideous
and depressing; dirty and worn, the ground trampled deep in dust; filth
and refuse lying about; the entrails and skins of animals, flies,
beastly smells, and no excitement or animation. But these outlying
scenes, scouts, pickets, &c., have a peculiar interest. This garden, for
instance, is itself pretty and wild, with its tangle of figs, its avenue
of quinces (great golden fruit hanging), its aloes all down the side,
with heavy, blue spikes and dead stems sticking thirty feet in air,
branching and blackened like fire-scorched fir-trees, and its dark green
oranges and other fruit and flower-trees all mixed in a kind of
wilderness; and behind this the steep kopjes, with black boulders heaped
to the sky, and soft grey mimosas in between. It is a pretty spot in
itself, but what a different, strange interest is brought in by the two
or three carbines leaning against the wall, the ponies, ready saddled,
tethered at the corner, the hint of camp-fire smoke climbing up through
a clump of trees, and now and then a khaki-clad figure or two passing
between the trunks or lying under them asleep."

Here is another little extract, a bit of a night-spy by three of us on
the west side, where we had heard that the Douglas commando was
establishing a laager near a drift some thirteen miles below camp; a
move forward of their right arm, if true.

"The night was dark as pitch, and very windy, just what we wanted. After
missing our way several times, whispering, consulting, and feeling about
in the dark, we came on the wattle fence and beehive huts of a Kaffir
kraal. Up to this we crept, and Vice dived into the hole of an entrance,
and after some underground rumblings emerged with an old nigger as you
draw a badger from his earth. The old man was soon persuaded by a
moderate bribe to be our guide to the spot we wished to reconnoitre. He
told us that parties of Boers were pretty often round that way, and that
one had passed the previous night at the kraal. Dunkley agreed to stay
with the horses, and Vice and I went on with the Kaffir. The country was
grassy, with plentiful belts and clumps of silvery bush. After a while
the moon shone out and the clouds dispersed, which made us feel
disagreeably conspicuous in the white patches between the bush."

Exmoor, as far as the contour of the ground is concerned, is a little
like the more up-and-down parts of the veldt, and scouting there would
be very much like scouting here. For instance, suppose your camp was at
Minehead, the Boers being in strength at Winsford, and a report comes in
that they have pushed on a strong picket to Simonsbath. This rumour it
is your business to test. With two friends on a dark, windy night you
set out. You leave the road and take to the moor. You ride slowly,
listening, watching intently, keeping off the high ground, and as much
as possible avoiding sky-lines. At some cottage or moorland farm you
leave the horses and creep forward on foot, working along the hollows
and studying every outline. If they are at Simonsbath, they will have a
lookout on the hill this side. A British picket would show its helmets
at a mile, but the Boers don't affect sky-lines. They will be on this
side, with the hill for a background, and very likely right down on the
flat; for though by day the higher you are the better for seeing, yet at
night, when your only chance is to see people against the sky, the lower
you are the better. These points and others you discuss in whispers,
crouched in the dark hollows, and then creep forward again.

"Vice and I crawled to the top of our ridge at last just as morning was
breaking. There were bushes and rocks to hide among, and the clouds had
all gone, and day broke clear. The deep river ravine lay right below us,
and as the light penetrated, the first thing we saw was a small shelter
tent with a cart or waggon by the side of it. We grinned and nudged each
other and wagged our heads at the discovery, but kept them carefully
hidden. Farther west was a detached kopje, the site of a permanent Boer
picket, according to the Kaffir; but there was no regular laager. There
were no horses grazing about, no cattle, no smoke, none of the usual and
inevitable signs. A picket! Yes. Pushed out from Koodoosberg, the big
hill which rises abruptly from the plain three or four miles off, but no
real occupation. After studying the country yard by yard with our
glasses, and making a few notes about the lie of the land and the names
and positions of farms, we creep off and get back to camp by mid-day."

The results of these exciting little prowls, when worth while, are sent
in to the General, and from the mass of evidence thus placed before him
he is supposed to be able to define the enemy's position and movements.

Chester Master and our little body were paid a pretty compliment by the
General the other day; for the Major having written to ask if we might
join him, Methuen replied that he was sorry to have to refuse, but that
we were doing invaluable work, and he really couldn't spare us.

Well, fare you well. We hear of heavy reinforcements arriving. They will
be very welcome. Magersfontein, Colenso, Stormberg; we could do with a
change. But what a revelation, is it not? Are these the prisoners that
we played at dice for? One thing in it all pleases me, and that is the
temper and attitude of England. I like the gravity, the quiet, dogged
rolling up of the shirt-sleeves much better than the blustering,
wipe-something-off-a-slate style which the papers made so familiar to us
at the beginning.

LETTER IX

THE ADVANCE

MODDER RIVER CAMP,

_February 13_, 1900.

We are back in the old camp, but only for a few hours. This afternoon we
march. Yesterday, crossing the line, we had a glimpse of Rimington and
the rest of the corps. They have come up with French, and are off
eastward on the flank march. We shall be after them hotfoot before dark.
Things begin to shape themselves. We are going to bring our right arm
round, leaving Magersfontein untouched, and relieve Kimberley by a flank
march in force. Methuen stays here. Poor fellow! I wish him joy of it.
Bobs and Kitchener direct the advance; French heads it. They say we
shall march 50,000 strong. The line is choked with troop trains,
batteries, siege guns, naval guns, and endless truckloads of stores and
provisions. _At last!_ is every one's feelings. The long waited for
moment has come. You know a hawk's hover? Body steady, wings beating,
and then the rushing swoop. So with the army. We have hovered steady
here these two months with our wings stretched. Now we swoop.

Far out on the left flank our little body of fifteen has been in a great
state of suspense for several weeks. We knew the great tide of advance
was setting up from Orange River to the Modder, and as no orders came
for us, we began to think we should be out of it. Then one evening, as I
was sitting on some boulders above camp looking out over the country, I
saw Chester Master riding in from headquarters with a smile on his face,
and the sort of look that a man has who brings good news. Down I
clambered. Yes, it had come. We were to move that night. The advance had
begun, and we were off on an all-night march to catch up French. What a
change came over the men! Instead of bored, sulky faces, and growlings
and grumblings, all were now keen and alert. When the moon rose we
started. Our very ponies seemed to know they were "in the movement," and
stepped out cheerily. The night was clear as silver, and each man's
shadow moved by his side, clean cut on the ground like the shadows
thrown by the electric light outside the Criterion. Song and joke passed
once more, and soon up went the favourite cavalry march, the most
stirring tune of any, "Coming thro' the Rye." It was very jolly. Not
often has one ridden on such a quest, on such a night, to such a tune as
that.

So, old Modder, fare you well! Farewell the huge plain that one grew so
fond of, with its blue and yellow bars of light, morning and evening;
the shaggy kopjes heaped with black rocks, the secluded, lonely farms
nestling beneath, old Cook's, where the figs were ripe in the garden,
and Mrs. Dugmore, who gave us fresh bread and butter and stewed peaches.
Not soon shall I forget those morning patrols. The sea of veldt, the
pure air, the carelessness, the comradeship, and the freedom. Old
Gordon has a good verse that I find sometimes running in my head--

    "It was merry in the morning
    Among the gleaming grass,
    To wander as we've wandered many a mile,
    And blow the cool tobacco cloud
    And watch the white wreaths pass,
    Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while."

And then the secret bivouacs and lurking-places along the river or in
among the deserted hills. The lookout from the tall pyramid, where I
have kept watch so many hours day and night, in heat of sun or with
stars glittering overhead.

It was from this kopje that we got notice to quit, by the way. Our
notice taking the shape of several little brown-backed Boers galloping
about and spying at us from a hill one and a half miles to the north.
That night we drew out in the plain after dark and camped (no fires)
among the bushes, and at grey dawn stole back to have another look. Back
dashes one of our advance scouts to tell us that a big force of Boers
was just rounding the point. Next minute we were swinging out into the
plain, through the low scrub and thorn bush, and as we did so the Boers
came through the Nek. They must have known exactly where our usual camp
was, and crept up overnight to cut us off. It wasn't by much that they
missed. Three or four loiterers, as it was, had a warm minute or two.
The first single shots grew to a sudden fierce crackle, like the crackle
of a dry thorn branch on the fire, as they came through the bush. But
they came on nevertheless, one horse hit only, and joined us, and we
formed up and started at a steady gallop for the hills beyond the plain,
six miles off; where there was a quite strong camp, established a few
days before, for which we have lately been scouting. The Boers chased us
some way, but we had got a long start, as they came through the rough
ground, and they were never on terms with us. Still it was near enough.
Five minutes earlier and what a slating we should have got!

We were told afterwards that the plan on this side was to draw the Boers
south of the hills, so as to give the cavalry, which was to move
westward just north of the range, a chance of cutting them off. The
cavalry, however, didn't turn up. No one seemed to know what had become
of them, and I daresay they were saying the same of us. The advice not
to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing is sometimes
rather too literally followed in these manoeuvres, I think. Meantime the
Boers have driven off all old Cook's cattle and all Mrs. Dugmore's too;
and as we were sent out with the express object of "reassuring the
farmers," the result is not entirely satisfactory.

No matter; this was all a side issue; now for a larger stage and more
important operations. Blow trumpets and sound drums. Enter Lord Roberts
and the main army.

LETTER X

RELIEF OF KIMBERLEY

KIMBERLEY CLUB, _February 18_.

It is with feelings of the deepest satisfaction that I look at the
address at the head of this notepaper. Indeed for the last five minutes
I have been staring at it dreamily without putting pen to paper,
repeating "Kimberley Club, Kimberley," to myself, vaguely thinking of
all it portends; the varied fortunes of the last three months; the
cheery setting out; the first battles, that already seem so long ago;
the repulse, and long, dreary wait by Modder; the gradual reconstruction
of the whole plan of attack, and now the final achievement. Christian
and I have been sharing a pint of champagne in the club bar. It was not
till I heard the bottle pop that I realised, as by a sudden inspiration,
that the British army had really attained its object at last. Very
gravely we gave each other luck, and gravely drank our wine. Both of us,
I am glad to be able to tell you, rose to the occasion, and as we looked
across the bubbles, no foolish chaff or laughter marred the moment.

I wrote you my last letter from old Modder just as we were leaving to
catch French. Marching light and fast, we got up with him on the night
of the 15th at the Klip Drift on the Modder, northeast of Jacobsdal.
From there we were sent back to guide on Kitchener, which we did,
bringing him to French's camp on the river by 6 A.M. next morning
(16th). We met on the way our little ambulance cart bobbing home with
the adjutant languidly reclining. He had had one of those escapes that
now and then come off. There was a high hill to the north, and up this
the previous morning, R., an active walker, had climbed to have a view
of the country. He reached the top, which is like a gable, slanting both
sides to a thin edge, and precisely as he did so, ten or a dozen great
hairy Boers reached it from the other side, and, at ten yards' distance
across the rock edge, their eyes met. Can you conceive a more disgusting
termination to a morning stroll? Without a word said, R. took to his
heels and the Boers to their Mausers. Down the hill went R., bounding
like a buck, and all round him whipped and whined the bullets among the
rocks. Twice he went headlong, twisting his ankle badly once as the
stones turned underfoot; but he reached the bottom untouched and the
shelter of the bluff where he had left his pony, jumped on and dashed
out into the plain and under the Boer fire again, and got clean away
without a scratch, him and his pony. Was ever such luck?

French started on his final relief march about an hour later, and we
were not able to accompany him as our horses were absolutely done up. It
was very disappointing at the time to see him ride off on this last
stage with a large party of our comrades, led by Rimington himself (he
was first into Kimberley, we heard afterwards) at the head. However, as
things turned out, it did not much matter, for the next day we had an
interesting time, and saw a big job put in train, which is not finished
yet, and which we shall probably see more of if we start, as they say,
to-morrow.

The thing began at grey dawn. Chester Master and two or three Guides
were sent forward to reconnoitre a kopje where the Boers the day before
had had a gun. We found the gun gone. Some marks of blood, a half-dug
grave, and two dead horses, showed that the fire of our long naval gun
had been more or less effective. We then rode on, the column we were
guiding getting gradually into formation, and we were just mounting the
next ridge, when down in the valley beneath we saw a long line of
waggons, stretching away eastward for miles, dragged by huge bullock
teams. They were making the best of their way forward, each with a party
of mounted men riding at the side, and at the first glance, so close to
our army and camp were they, I almost fancied it must be a convoy of our
own. However, we realised what was up pretty quickly. The Boers, hearing
of French's flank march, and fearing they would be cut off if they
remained, were abandoning their position in the hills about
Magersfontein, which they had intrenched so strongly, and were quietly
and promptly moving off towards Bloemfontein. The rearguard of their
line was at that moment just opposite to us.

Chester Master immediately sent back an orderly as hard as he could go
to tell our fellows what was in front and hurry them up, every moment
being now of the utmost importance if we wanted to intercept the enemy.
The Boers themselves took their measures instantly and with their usual
coolness. A long line of kopjes ran eastward across the plain, flanking
the line of their march, and directly they saw they were discovered,
their horsemen dashed forward and began to occupy these, thus guarding
the right flank of their retreat from our attack. Seeing this, Chester
Master galloped back himself to urge on our Mounted Infantry, who were
now mustering rapidly to the attack.

From the kopje on the extreme left front, where we were, we could now
see extended at our feet the whole plan of the approaching battle, while
as yet the two sides were invisible to each other. In the valley on the
north side of the kopjes the Boers were urging on their convoy and
rapidly despatching their sharpshooters to hold the hills along their
right. On the south side were the masses of our columns, with the
squadrons of Mounted Infantry now detaching themselves from the main
body, and beginning to stream across the level plain towards the same
hills; all with heads bent one way, horses prancing and pulling, and
with all the signs of eager excitement, as though they divined, though
as yet they could not see, the presence of the enemy. Over the dusty
plain they canter, but they are too late by a few minutes. The Boers are
there already, and as the Mounted Infantry come along, passing close
beneath us, an outbreak of rifle-fire occurs, and the dry plain, which
is of perfectly bare earth, is dotted with little white puffs of dust as
the bullets strike along it. The fire is a bit short, but schooled by
this time in "kopje tactics," and realising what is coming, our
squadrons very prudently pull up and wait for the guns. They haven't
long to wait. I always love to see the guns come up. Over stones and
rocks and bushes, six strong horses at the gallop, the drivers lashing
the off horses, the guns jumping and rumbling and swinging; then the
yell, "Action front," and round come the teams with a splendid sweep;
next instant they are cast off and jingle to the rear, and the little
venomous guns are left crouching like toads, looking towards the enemy;
the gunners are upon them before they are at a standstill (everything
happens simultaneously); there is an instant's pause while the barrel
rises, and then comes the naked spurt of fire, no smoke, and the officer
steps clear of the dust and glues his glasses to his eyes as the shell
screams on its way. Within ten minutes of our first viewing the enemy,
half a battery had got into action near our kopje, and was bombarding
the first hill along the enemy's flank.

Two or three of the Boer waggons, the last of the line, had been
abandoned when their retreat was first discovered. These we took
possession of, and with them two Dutchmen and some coloured boys, one of
whom had been driver to a field-cornet of Cronjé's. From him we learnt
that Cronjé had definitely abandoned the whole Magersfontein position,
that this was the tail of his force going through, and that consequently
there was nothing to be feared from a rear attack. Chester Master wrote
a hasty despatch to this effect to Kitchener and gave it to me, after
which I had a most amusing ride through our lines from the extreme left
to the extreme right, where Kitchener was. First by our batteries,
thundering and smoking (the enemy only had one gun in action that I saw,
but I must say it did very well, feeling for the range with two short
shots, and after that getting well into our guns every time), and then
on through the Mounted Infantry, who kept on charging and retiring,
until finally after three miles' ride I came to the far right, where
Kitchener and the big naval gun sat together in state on the top of a
small kopje strewn with black shining rocks. Here I gave in my despatch,
"From Captain Chester Master, left front, sir," and the best military
salute I have yet mastered (inclined to go into fits of laughter at the
absurdity of the whole thing all the time), and the great man, with his
sullen eye, sitting among his black rocks all alone, reads it and asks
me a question or two, and vouchsafes to tell me that the information is
"very important," which I suppose meant that he had not been certain
whether he was in contact with the middle or extreme tail of the enemy's
force. Various officers of the staff come up and I tell them all I know.
I am very hungry and parched with thirst, but I know I shall get nothing
out of these fellows. However, my luck holds. Under some thorn-trees
below I spy the flat hats of the sailors, and under the lee of an
ammunition waggon hard by a group of officers. All is well. Five minutes
later I am pledging them in a whisky and sparklet, and sitting down to
such a breakfast as I have not tasted for weeks. God bless all sailors,
say I!

Orders meantime come thick and fast from the grim watcher on the rocks
above, and troop after troop of Mounted Infantry go scouring away to the
attack. It is a running fight. Kopje after kopje, as the Boers push on,
breaks into fire and is left extinct behind. But still they keep their
flank unbroken and their convoy intact. For the hundredth time I admire
their dogged courage under these, the most trying of all circumstances,
the protection of a slow retreat.

So it goes on through the day, and I have great fun galloping about on
my own account, looking into things here and there, and watching the
general progress of events. I meet Chester Master again about 5 P.M.,
and he asks me to ride forthwith to Kimberley with him if Flops can
stand it. All the Boer force has cleared from Magersfontein (our
information was all right) and is in retreat on Bloemfontein, and
Kitchener is sending word by Chester Master to French, bidding him right
turn and march to head off the Boer retreat, while he (Kitchener) hangs
on their tail.

An hour later we start; four of us. Chester Master, myself, May, and a
black boy. It is a twenty-three mile ride. A full moon is in the sky but
clouds obscure it, which is a good thing, as the country is being
traversed by stragglers of theirs, leaving the hills and in retreat
eastward. We hear of several such fugitive bodies from our pickets for
the first few miles. Then we are in absolute solitude. The plain lies
bare and blanched around us. A thorn bush or two sticks up on it, or,
now and then, the ghastly shape of a dead horse lying in puffed up
relief with legs sticking out stiff and straight and an awful stench
blowing from it. Kimberley's search-light at stated intervals still
swings its spoke over our head.

Six or seven miles out from Kimberley my pony gives out, and Chester
Master and May on fresh horses ride on, leaving me the boy. We plod on,
an interesting, delicious ride. I get off and walk. A little wind
rustles over the dry earth and bushes, but otherwise there is not a
whisper of sound. The landscape at one moment lies white before us as if
it had been washed in milk, and the next is blotted out with clouds. Now
and again we pause to listen, and the boy stands like a bronze image of
Attention with bent head and held breath, the whites only of his eyes
moving as he rolls them from one object to another. At last from a low
kopje top by the path comes the first loud and welcome "Halt! Who goes
there?" of an English picket. Another two or three miles brings me to an
outpost of the town, and there, dead tired and Flops the same, I fling
myself on the ground, after hearty greetings and a word or two of talk
with the guard, and do a three hours' sleep till the dawn of the 17th.

In a grey light I rouse myself to look out across the wet misty flat,
hearing some one say, "Who's that? What force is that?" followed
immediately by "Call out the guard; stand to your arms, men." But then,
as light increases, we see by the regular files and intervals that the
force is British, and I know that Chester Master has got in all right
and delivered his message, and French already, at a few hours' notice,
is casting back with that terrible cavalry of his after Cronjé and the
retreating Boers.

Kimberley does not in the least give one the idea of a beleaguered and
relieved town. There are a few marks of shells, but so few and far
between as not to attract attention, and you might walk all about the
town without being struck by anything out of the common. I have sampled
the roast-horse and roast-mule which the garrison seems to have been
chiefly living on for the past five or six weeks, and find both pretty
good, quite equal, if not superior, to the old trek-ox. Some people tell
us pathetic stories of the hardships to women and young children and
babies, owing to the difficulty of getting proper food, especially milk.
On the other hand, many seem to have actually enjoyed the siege, and two
or three young ladies have assured me that they found it infinitely
diverting and enjoyed an excellent time, making up afternoon tea-parties
among their friends. The relief was not the occasion of any excitement
or rejoicing whatever. People walked about the streets and went about
their business and served in their shops without showing in their
appearance or manner any trace of having passed through a bad time or
having been just delivered from it. They seemed, on the whole, glad to
see us, but there was no enthusiasm. This was partly due, I think, to
the absence of drink. The Colonial's idea of gratitude and
good-fellowship is always expressed in drink, and cannot be separated
from it, or even exist without it. Many felt this. Several said to me,
"We are awfully glad to see you, old chap, but the fact is there's no
whisky." On the whole, except the last week, during which the Boers had
a hundred-pounder gun turned on, one doesn't gather that the siege of
Kimberley was noteworthy, as sieges go, either for the fighting done or
the hardships endured. But that is not to reflect on the defenders, who
showed a most plucky spirit all through, and would have resisted a much
severer strain if it had been brought to bear upon them.

LETTER XI

PAARDEBERG--THE BOMBARDMENT

_February 24_, 1900.

We are once more upon the Modder. I should think the amount of blood,
Dutch and English, this river has drunk in the last few months will give
it a bad name for ever. There is something deadly about that word
Modder. Say it over to yourself. Pah! It leaves a taste of blood in the
mouth.

We have been fighting in a desultory kind of way for the last week here.
Coming from Kimberley, where we had gone to holloa back French (you
could follow him by scent all the way from the dead horses), we made a
forced march and rejoined him here by the river, where he is busily
engaged, with Kitchener at the other end, in bombarding old Cronjé in
the middle. They have fairly got the old man. Kitchener had stuck to him
pretty tight, it seems, after we left them that evening at Klip Drift.
French has nicked in ahead. Macdonald has arrived, I believe, or is
arriving, and there are various other brigades and divisions casting up
from different quarters, all concentrating on unhappy Cronjé. Lord
Roberts, I suppose, will get the credit, but part of it, one would
think, belongs to Kitchener, who planned the movement and put it in
train before Lord Roberts arrived.

Cronjé, by all accounts, has about 4000 men with him. He has dug
himself into the river banks, which are steep and afford good cover. You
would never guess, sweeping the scene with your glasses, that an army
could be hiding there. The river curves and winds, its course marked by
the tops of the willows that grow along its banks. The land on both
sides stretches bare and almost level, but there are a few rises and
knolls from which our artillery smashes down its fire on the Boer
laager. At one point you can make out a ragged congregation of waggons,
broken and shattered, some of them burning or smouldering. That is where
the laager is, but not a soul can one see move. The place looks an utter
solitude, bare and lifeless in the glare of the sun. There is no reply
to our busy guns. The little shrapnel clouds, stabbed with fire, burst
now here now there, sometimes three or four together, over the spot, and
the blue haze floats away, mingling with the darker, thicker vapour from
the less frequent lyddite. "What are they shooting at?" a stranger would
say; "there is nobody there." Isn't there? Only 4000 crafty, vigilant
Boers, crowding in their holes and cuddling their Mausers. Ask the
Highlanders.

You will have heard all about that by this time. The desperate attempt
last Sunday to take the position by storm. It was another of those
fiendish "frontal attacks." Have we been through Belmont and Graspan and
Modder River and Magersfontein for nothing? Or must we teach every
general in turn who comes to take charge of us what the army has learnt
long ago, that a frontal attack against Mausers is leading up to your
enemy's strong suit. For Methuen there were reasons. Methuen could not
outflank, could not go round, was not strong enough to leave his lines
of communication, and had practically no cavalry. He had to go straight
on. Belmont, Graspan, and Modder were turnpike gates. The toll was
heavy, but there was no choice but to pay. But what was the reason of
this latest? We had them here safely bottled up. We have them still. It
is only a question of days. The attack could have gained nothing by
success; has lost little by its failure. The casualties were 1500. I
know all about eggs and omelettes, but these were simply thrown in the
gutter.

Never tell me these Boers aren't brave. What manner of life, think you,
is in yonder ditch? Our artillery rains down its cross fire of shells
perpetually. The great ox-waggons are almost totally destroyed or burnt.
The ammunition in the carts keeps blowing up as the fire reaches it. The
beasts, horses and oxen, are strewn about, dead and putrid, and
deserters say that the stench from their rotting carcasses is
unbearable. Night and day they have to be prepared for infantry attacks,
and yet, to the amazement of all of us, they still hold out.

Old Cronjé's apparent object is to try and save Bloemfontein by delaying
us till reinforcements come up from the south and east. This is really
what we want, because the more of the enemy we get in front of this
great army of ours, the harder we shall be able to hit them. But
evidently Cronjé is ignorant of our strength.

Meantime we can make out in our break-of-day scoutings up the river that
bodies of men are approaching from the east. They have made a laager
about ten miles up, and evidently mean to dispute our passage to the
capital. The longer old Cronjé holds out, the more men from Colesberg
and Natal will come up, the more entrenchments will be cut, and the
harder will be our way to Bloemfontein. 'Tis the only way he sees to
save the town, for we should march straight in else. Perhaps, too, he
cherishes some hope of being relieved himself; of a determined attack
from without, which might enable him, by a sudden sally, to break
through; though, for dismounted men (and their horses are all dead by
this time), the chances of ultimate escape in a country like this must
be very small, one would think. Anyhow, he sticks to his work like a
glutton. The shells burst over them. The lyddite blows them up in smoke
and dust, the sun grills, the dead bodies reek, our infantry creep on
them day and night; foul food, putrid water, death above and around,
they grin and bear it day after day to gain the precious hours. And all
the time we on our side know perfectly well that no relief they could
possibly bring up would serve our army for rations for a day.

LETTER XII

PAARDEBERG--THE SURRENDER

_March 5_, 1900.

Well, that is over, and I hope you are satisfied. We have got Cronjé.
His victories are o'er. We have also got Mrs. Cronjé, which was a bit
more than we bargained for. They cut her an extra deep hole, I hear, to
be out of shell-fire, and she sat at the bottom all day long, receiving
occasional visits from Cronjé, and having her meals handed down to her.
One can fancy her blinking up at her "Man," whom she always, I am told,
accompanies on his campaigns, and shaking her head sorrowfully over the
situation. There is nothing very spirit-stirring about a mud hole and an
old woman sitting at the bottom of it, but the danger and the terrible
hardships were real enough. That is always the way with these Dutch.
They have all the harsh realities and none of the glamour and romance.
Athens, with their history and record, would have made the whole world
ring for ever. But they are dumb. It seems such a waste.

Albrecht too is among the prisoners, the famous German "expert," who
designs their works for them and manages their artillery; and we have
taken 4000 prisoners, and several guns and one detested "pompon." Come,
now, here is a little bit of all right at last.

I was one of a party that rode down with the Major on the morning of
the surrender to the laager and saw the prisoners marched in. They
seemed quite cheery and pleased with themselves. They were dressed in
all sorts of ragged, motley-looking clothes; trousers of cheap tweed,
such as you see hung up in an East End slop-shop; jackets once black,
now rusted, torn and stained, and battered hats. They reminded me more
of a mob of Kent hop-pickers than anything else, and it was a matter of
some surprise, not to say disgust, to some of us to think that such a
sorry crowd should be able to withstand disciplined troops in the way
they did.

I talked to several of them. They all agreed in saying that they had
been through the most ghastly time in the last ten days and were
heartily glad it was over. They exchanged nods and good-days with us and
the soldiers who were standing about, and altogether seemed in a very
friendly and conciliatory mood. All this, however, it struck me, was
rather put on, a bit of acting which was now and then a trifle overdone.
Boers are past-masters at hiding their real feelings and affecting any
that they think will be acceptable. It is a trait which has become a
national characteristic, and the craft, dissimulation, the _slimness_,
as it is called, of the Boers is a by-word. I suppose it comes from the
political situation, the close neighbourhood of a rival race, stronger
and more energetic, which fosters in the stolid Dutchman, by way of
buckler, this instinctive reticence and cunning. His one idea is to make
what he can out of the situation without troubling his head for a
moment about his own candour and sincerity. It is Oriental, the trait
you expect to find in a John Chinaman, but which surprises you in a
burly old Dutchman. Still there it is. At any farm you go to, men,
women, and children will put on a semblance of friendship, and set to
work to lie with a calmness which is really almost dignified. No one in
this country ever believes a thing a bit the more because a Dutchman
says it.

We went on into the captured laager. It was an extraordinary,
interesting, and loathsome sight. Dead bodies of horses and men lay in
all directions in various stages of decomposition, and the reeking smell
was something quite indescribable. I fancied, even after leaving the
place, that I carried the smell about with me, and that it had got into
my clothes. The steep river banks were honeycombed with little holes and
tunnels, and deep, narrow pits, like graves; narrow at the top, and
hollowed out below to allow less entrance for shells. Evidently each man
had cut his own little den. Some were done carelessly, mere pits scooped
out. Others were deep, with blankets or old shawls spread at the bottom,
and poles with screens of branches laid across the top to keep off the
sun. I saw one or two which were quite works of art; very narrow tunnels
cut into the side of the river-cliff, and turning round after you
entered, making a quite secure retreat, unless perhaps an extra heavy
old lyditte might happen to burst the whole bank up. This actually
happened, they told us, with the very last shot fired the night before;
a bit of the bank having been blown up with eight men in it, of whom
five were killed and three wounded. The whole river channel looks as if
a big colony of otters or beavers had settled here, honeycombing the
bank with their burrows, and padding the earth bare and hard with their
feet. It was all worn like a highroad. On the other side, the waggons
were a sight; shattered, and torn, and wrecked with shot; many of them
burnt; several, huge as they are, flung upside down by the force of a
shell bursting beneath them. All their contents were littered and strewn
about in every direction; blankets, clothes, carpenters' and
blacksmiths' tools, cooking utensils, furniture. You would have thought
the Boers were settlers moving to a new country with all their effects,
instead of an army on the march. This is how they do things, however, in
the homely, ponderous fashion. They often take their women and children
with them. There were many in the crowd we captured.

I wandered about alone a long time, looking at the dismal, curious scene
where so much had been endured. White flags, tied to poles or stripped
branches, fluttered from waggon tops. Our ambulance carts came along,
and the Tommies, stripping to the waist, proceeded to carry, one by one,
the Dutch wounded through the ford on stretchers.

We are bivouacked ourselves far up the river, in a secluded nook among
mimosas and kopjes with the thick current of the lately unknown, but now
too celebrated, Modder rolling in front of us. The weather has changed
of late. It is now autumn. We have occasional heavy rains, and you wake
up at night sometimes to find yourself adrift in a pool of water. It
gets chilly too.

The enemy are all about the place, and we interview them every morning
at daybreak, sometimes exchanging shots, sometimes not. We lay little
traps for each other, and vary our manoeuvres with intent to deceive.
This advance guard business (we are dealing here with the relief parties
of Boers that have come up between us and Bloemfontein) always reminds
me of two boxers sparring for an opening. A feint, a tap, a leap back,
both sides desperately on the alert and wary.

We lost poor Christian yesterday in one of these little encounters. He
was mortally wounded in stopping at short range to pick up a friend
whose horse had been shot. I have mentioned him, I think, to you in my
letters. There was no one in the corps more popular. "Tell the old dad I
died game," was what he said when the Major, coming up with supports,
knelt down to speak to him.

Nothing very noteworthy has occurred since the surrender. The army has
been quietly resting, taking stock of the prisoners, and sending them to
the railway, and we are expecting every day now the order to advance.
The enemy, meanwhile, have been collecting in some force, and are
evidently prepared to dispute our march east. Yesterday we had a duel
with a gun which they have managed, goodness knows how, to drag up to
the top of a commanding hill some miles up the river. However, it was
too strongly placed. We lost several men. The enemy's fire was very
accurate, and they ended up by sending three shots deliberately one
after the other right into our ambulance waggons.

We shall be able to post letters to-day, and the reason this one is so
extremely dirty is that I am finishing it in a drizzling rain, being on
picket guard a couple of miles up the river, not far from the scene of
yesterday's shooting. The Boers are on the bustle this morning. One can
see them cantering about on the plain just across the river, where
thousands of their cattle are grazing. In front the big-gun hill
glimmers blue in the mist. Two or three of the enemy have crept up the
woody river-course and tried a shot at us; some close; the bullets
making a low, quick whistle as they flit overhead. My two
companions--there are three of us--are still blazing an indignant reply
at the distant bushes. By the amount of fire tap, tap, tapping like an
old woodpecker all round the horizon, it seems that there is a sudden
wish for a closer acquaintanceship among the pickets generally this
morning. Those fellows in the river are at it again!

LETTER XIII

POPLAR GROVE

_March 8_, 1900.

We left our camp on Modder River at midnight of the 6th. The night was
clear and starlit, but without moon. Moving down the river to take up
our position in the flank march, we passed battalion after battalion of
infantry moving steadily up to carry the position in front. The plan is
this. The infantry advance up the river as if to deliver a frontal
attack; but meanwhile the mounted troops, which have started during the
night, are to make a wide detour to the right and get round at the back
of the Boer position, so as to hem them in. The idea sounds a very good
one, but our plans were upset by the Boers not waiting to be hemmed in.
However, it is certain that if they _had_ waited we _should_ have hemmed
them in. You must remember that.

The guns go rumbling past in the darkness. We are on the right of the
column. Along our left we can just distinguish a long, black river of
figures moving solidly on. It flows without break or gap. Now and then a
jar or clank, the snort of a horse, the rattle of chains, rises above
the murmur, but underneath all sounds the deep-toned rumbling of the
wheels as the English guns go by.

Close in front of us is a squadron of Lancers, their long lances,
slender, and black, looking like a fringe of reeds against the fast
paling sky, and behind us there is cavalry without end. The morning is
beautifully clear with a lovely sunrise, and that early hour, with
horses fresh, prancing along with a great force of mounted men, always
seems to me one of the best parts of the whole show.

As soon as we can see distinctly we make out that we have got to the
south of the enemy's hills, and are marching along their flanks. They
look like a group of solid indigo pyramids against the sunrise. Are
those kopjes out of range? is a question that suggests itself as we draw
alongside, leaving them wide on our port beam. Yes, no! No! a lock of
smoke, white as snow, lies suddenly on the dark hillside, followed by
fifteen seconds of dead silence. Then comes the hollow boom of the
report, and immediately afterwards the first whimper, passing rapidly
into an angry roar of the approaching shell, which bursts close
alongside the Lancers. "D----d good shot," grunts the next man to me,
with sleepy approval, as indeed it is.

The order to extend is given, but before the Lancers can carry it out
the smoke curl shows again, and this time the shell comes with a yell of
triumph slosh into the thickest group of them, and explodes on the
ground. There is a flutter of lances for an instant round the spot, and
the head and mane of a shot horse seen through the smoke as it rears up,
but the column moves steadily on, taking no notice, only now it inclines
a little to the right to get away from that long-range gun.

We march on eastward as day broadens, through a country open and
grassy, rising and falling in long slopes to the horizon. Suddenly from
the far side of one of these ridges comes the rapid, dull,
double-knocking of the Mausers. The enemy are firing at our flankers;
these draw back under cover of the slope, and we continue to advance,
the firing going on all the time, but passing over our heads. Now the
Major, curious as to the enemy's position, sends half-a-dozen of our
troop up the slope to get a view. These ride up in open order, and are
at once made a mark of by the Boer riflemen, luckily at long range.
Wing, wing, with their sharp whirring note, came the bullets. They take
a rapid survey and return to tell the Major that the scenery in that
direction is exceptionally uninteresting, a long slant of grass
stretching up for a mile or more, and somewhere about the sky-line Boers
shooting. Then comes the usual interval while we wait for "the guns."
The guns shortly arrive and a brace of Maxims. These open a hot fire at
the top of the hill. They are rather in front of us, and fire back up
the slope across our front; the bullets passing sound like the rushing
of wind through grass.