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ROM CAPETOWN 
 
 To 
 
 LADYSMITH 
 
I 
 
 
I 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN 
 
 TO 
 
 LADYSMITH 
 
 AX UNFINISHKI) 
 RECORD OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN WAR 
 
 BY 
 
 (r, W. STKKVKXS 
 
 ACrnOR OK 'WITH KIT'^HKNKI! To KUARTIM' 
 ■ IN INDIA,' K:' .. KT( , 
 
 EDITED BV VERXOX BLACKBURN 
 
 TORONTO 
 THE C01>r CLARK CO., IJAHTED 
 

 %# 
 
 »s^ •* ^i 'i O ^ 
 
 Entered accordins to Act of the Pnrliament of Canada, in the year one thonsand nine 
 hundred, by Che Corp, Ci.akk CoMr,>NV. Limited, 'roronlo, antano. in the 
 Office of the Minister of ARriculturc. 
 
 '^& 
 
COiNTKNTS. 
 
 sand nine 
 o, in tTTe 
 
 I. FIRST rUJMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE. 
 
 First impressions— Denver with a dash of Delhi— Uovern- 
 inent House— The Legislative Assembly— A wrangling' 
 debate— A demonstration of the unemployed — The 
 menace of conuiij' war 
 
 I'AOB 
 
 II. THE ARMY CORPS -HAS NOT LEFT 
 ENGLAND ! 
 
 A little patch of white tents— A dream of distance— The 
 desert of the Karroo- War at last— A campaign with- 
 out headquarters— Waiting for the Army Corps . 
 
 10 
 
 ITT. A PASTOLS POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 An ideal of Arcady-Re1)el Burghersdorp—Tts monuments 
 ~ Dopper theolo{„y — An interview with one of its 
 piofessors ... 
 
 Ill 
 
viHiiii'iri f^nn'i-TTii — ' f....,, — ■■ — . 
 
 vi 
 
 cox Ti: NTS. 
 
 TV. WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR? 
 
 On the borrler of the Free State An ajtjM'al to the 
 (Colonial Boers — The bej^inning of warlike nunours 
 — A coniinercial and social hoycoti -The Hoer secret 
 service —The Basutos and their mother, the Queen - 
 Boer brutiilitv to Kaflirs 28 
 
 V. LOYAL ALIWAL: A TRAGI COMEDY. 
 
 The Cape Police — A ;,'arrison of six men — Merry-go- 
 rounds and naphtha Hares — A clamant want of fifty 
 men — Where are the troops ? — *' It'll be just the same 
 as it was in '81 " 35 
 
 VI. THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. 
 
 French's reconnaissance — An artillery duel — Beginning of 
 the attack — Ridge after ridge — A crowded half-hour . 43 
 
 VIT. THE BIVOUAC. 
 
 A victorious and helpless mob — A break-neck hillside — 
 Bringing down the wounded — A hard-worked doctor 
 — Boer prisoners — Indian bearers — An Irish High- 
 lander in trouble 56 
 
 VIII. THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE. 
 
 Superfluous assistance — A smiling valley — The Border 
 Mounted Rifles — A rain-storm — A thirty-two miles' 
 march — How the troops came into Ladysmith . . 66 
 
 y V 
 
CO N I' i: NTS. 
 
 Vll 
 
 28 
 
 TX. THE STOKY OK NK^FTOT.SON'S NEK. 
 
 All uttenimted mess- A rt-giiiient 220 stroni; A miser- 
 able story -The white flag— Boer kindness— Ashamed 
 for England 
 
 74 
 
 X. THE GUNS AT HTETFONTEIN. 
 
 A column on the move— The nimble guns- Garrison 
 gunners at work— The veldt on fire— EHective shrapnel 
 —The value of the engagement 
 
 81 
 
 35 
 
 43 
 
 XI. TH': BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 Long Tom— A family of harmless monsters— Our inferi- 
 ority in guns— The sensations ol' a bombardment— A 
 little custom blunts sensibility .... 
 
 92 
 
 56 
 
 XII. THE DEVIL'S TIN-TACKS. 
 
 The excitement of a rifle fusilade~A six-hours' figh. 
 The picking oft' of oflicers- A display of infernal tire 
 works-" God bless the Prince of Wales " 
 
 106 
 
 66 
 
 XIII. A DIARY OF DULNESS. 
 
 The mythopoeic faculty— A miserable day— The voice of 
 the pompom— Learning the Boer game— The end of 
 Fiddling Jimmy— Melinite at close quarters— A lake 
 °^^^^ 114 
 
VIII CONIKNTS. 
 
 \TV. NEAHINd TIIK KNP. 
 
 Duliioss iiilcnniiiiihlr — Lailysiiiith in iOiH' ad. Sicj^es 
 obsoU'tf liMi'lshiprt- l)(;a<l to the worM — 'riic appal- 
 ling I'l-atun's of a bonibardiiiciit 124 
 
 XV. IN v\ (H)NN I NO-TOW KR. 
 
 Thi' self-ivs]>«'ctin.t; bluejacket- A Oennan atlieist--The 
 sailors' telephone — What the naval guns meant to 
 Ladvsniith—The salt of the eai'th . . . .134 
 
 THE LAST OHAPTEK. By Veknon Blackburn . 144 
 
 
 I i 
 
 I 
 
124 
 
 
 M A 1^ S. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 MAP OF THE COUNTRY ROUND LADYHMITH . . y5 
 
 MAP ILLUSTRATING THE SEAT OF WAR IN .SOUTIf 
 
 AFKICA ....... At end 
 
 I I 
 
 l\ 
 
ii^y 
 
 Fn 
 
FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 I. 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE. 
 
 ' V 
 
 ' I 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS— DKNVKR WITH A DASH OF DELHI— GOVERN- 
 MENT HOUSE — THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY— A WRANGLING 
 DEBATE — A DEMONSTRATION OF THE UNEMPLOYED — THK 
 MENACE OF COMING WAR. 
 
 Capetown, Oct. 10. 
 
 This morning I awoke, and behold the Nor- 
 man was lying alongside a wharf at Capetown. 
 I had expected it, and yet it was a shock. 
 In this breathless age ten days out of sight of 
 land is enough to make you a merman : I 
 looked with pleased curiosity at the grass 
 and the horses. 
 
 After the surprise of beinu; ashore afain 
 
-I ■ 
 
 I 
 
 2 FROM (^APKTOVVN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 the first thing to notice was the air. It was 
 as olear — hut there is nothing else in exist- 
 ence clear enough with which to coniparn it. 
 Yon felt that all your life hitherto you had 
 been breathing mud and looking out on the 
 world through fog. This, at last, was air, 
 was ether. 
 
 Right in front rose three purple - brown 
 mountains — the two supporters peaked, and 
 Table Mountain flat in the centre. More like 
 a coffin than a table, sheer steep and dead 
 flat, he was exactly as he is in pictures ; and 
 as I gazed, I saw his tablecloth of white 
 cloud gather and hang on his brow. 
 
 It was enough : the white line of houses 
 nestling hardly visible between his foot and 
 the sea must indeed be Capetown. 
 
 Presently I came into it, and began to 
 wonder what it looked like. It seemed half 
 Western American with a faint smell of India 
 — Denver with a dash of Delhi. The broad 
 streets fronted with new - looking, ornate 
 buildings of irregular heights and fronts were 
 Western America ; the battle of warming 
 
 i 
 
air, 
 
 to 
 alf 
 idia 
 oad 
 ate 
 ere 
 
 iiii^- 
 
 FIIIST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUGGLE. 
 
 3 
 
 sun with the stabbing morning cold was 
 Northern hidia. The handsome, blood-like 
 electric cars, with their impatient gongs and 
 racing trolleys, were pure America (the 
 motor - men were actually imported from 
 that hustling clime to run them). For Cape- 
 town itself — you saw it in a moment — does 
 not hustle. The machinery is the West's, 
 the spirit is the East's or the South's. In 
 other cities with trolley-cars they rush ; here 
 they saunter. In other new countries they 
 have no time to be polite ; here they are 
 suave and kindly and even anxious to gossip. 
 I am speaking, understand, on a twelve hours' 
 acquaintance — mainly with that large section 
 of CapetoAvn's inhabitants that handled my 
 baggage between dock and railway -station. 
 Tlie niggers are very good - humoured, like 
 the darkies of America. The Dutch ton'aie 
 sounds like German spoken by j)eople who 
 will not take the trouble to tinish pron<»unc- 
 
 niir it. 
 
 All in all, Ca})etown gives you the idea of 
 being neither veiy rich nor \<'iy poor, neither 
 
4 
 
 4 FROM (.lAPJyi'cnVX TO LADYS.MITH. 
 
 over- industrious nor over -lazy, decently suc- 
 cessful, reasonably happy, whole - heartedly 
 easy-going. 
 
 The public buildings — what I saw of them 
 — confirm the idea of a placid half- prosperity. 
 The place is not a baby, but it has hardly 
 tak(Mi the trouble to grow up. It has a 
 post - office of truly German stability and 
 magnitude. It has a well -organised railway 
 station, and it has the merit of being in 
 Adderley Street, the main thoroughfare of 
 the city : imagine it even possible to bring 
 Euston into the Strand, and you will get an 
 idea of the absence of push and crush in 
 Capetown. 
 
 When you go on to look at Government 
 House the place keeps its character : Govern- 
 ment House is half a countrv house and half 
 a country inn. One sentry tramps outside 
 the door, and you pay your respects to the 
 Governor in shepherd's plaid. 
 
 Over everything brooded peace, except 
 over one liamboycint many -winged building 
 of red brick and white stone with a garden 
 
 ^'^ 
 
FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRUlWLE. 
 
 5 
 
 lent 
 
 lern- 
 
 half 
 
 Iside 
 
 the 
 
 lept 
 len 
 
 \ 
 
 A 'i 
 
 m 
 
 about it, an avenue — a Capetown avenue, 
 shady trees and cool but not lar^e : attractive 
 and not imposing — at one side of it, with a 
 statue of the Queen before and broad-flago-cd 
 stairs behind. It was the Parliament House. 
 The Legislative Assembly — their House of 
 Commons — was characteristically small, yet 
 characteristically roomy and characteristically 
 comfortable. The members sit on flat green - 
 leather cushions, two or three on a bench, 
 and each man's name is above his seat : no 
 jostling for Capetown. The slip of Press 
 gallery is above the Speaker's head ; the 
 sloping uncrowded public gallery is at the 
 other end, private boxes on one side, big 
 windows on the other. Altoge^ther it looks 
 like a copy ' 'i the Westminster original, 
 improved by leaving nine - tenths of the 
 members and press and public out. 
 
 Yet here — alas, for placid Capetown! — 
 they were wrangling. They were wrangling 
 about the commandeering of gold and tlie 
 sjamboking — shamboking, you pronounce it 
 — of Johannesburg refugees. There was Sir 
 
6 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 !i 
 
 I 
 
 y 
 
 j ; 
 
 t- 
 
 Gordon Sprigs, thrice Premier, grey-bearded, 
 dignified, and responsible in bearing and 
 speech, conversationally reasonable in tone. 
 There was Mr Schreiner, the Premier, almost 
 boyish with plump, smooth cheeks and a 
 dark moustache. He looks capable, and looks 
 as if he knows it : he, too, is conversational, 
 almost jerky, in speech, but with a flavour 
 of bitterness added to his reason. 
 
 Everything sounded quiet and calm enough 
 for Capetown — yet plainly feeling was strained 
 tight to snapping. A member rose to put a 
 question, and prefaced it with i. brief invective 
 against all Boers and their friends. He Avould 
 go on for about ten minutes, when suddenly 
 angry cries of "Order!" in English and 
 Dutch would rise. The questioner commented 
 with acidity on the manners of his opponents. 
 They appealed to the chair : the Speaker 
 blandly pronounced that tlie hon. gentleman 
 had been out of order from the first word 
 he uttered. The hon. gentleman thereon in- 
 dignantly refused to put his question at all ; 
 but, being prevailed to do so, gave an opening 
 
 . 
 
FIRST GLIMPSKS OF THK STRUGGLK. 
 
 Dearrled, 
 ng and 
 n tone. 
 , almost 
 
 and a 
 ad looks 
 national, 
 
 flavour 
 
 enough 
 strained 
 bo put a 
 ivective 
 e would 
 ddenly 
 ill and 
 Imented 
 )onents. 
 Speaker 
 itleman 
 word 
 ^on in- 
 lat all ; 
 pening 
 
 to a Minister, who devoted ten minutes to 
 a brief invective against all Uitlanders and 
 their friends. Then up got one of the other 
 side —and so on for an hour. Most delicious 
 of all was a wln'te-haired German, once colonel 
 in the Hanoveriaa Le^iion which was settled 
 in the Eastern Province, and which to this 
 day remains the loyallest of her Majesty s 
 subjects. When the Speaker T'uled against 
 his side he counselled defiance in a re- 
 sounding whisper ; when an opponent wns 
 speaking he snorted thunderous derision ; 
 when an opponent retorted he smiled 
 blandly and admonished him : " Ton't lose 
 yer deinper." 
 
 In the Assembly, if nowhere else, rumbled 
 the menace of comino; war. 
 
 One other feature there was tliat was not 
 Capetown. Along Adderley Street, before 
 the steamship companies' otlices, loafed a 
 thick string of sun-reddened, unshaven, Hannel- 
 shirted, corduroy -trousered Britisli workinir- 
 men. Inside th<' offices they thronged the 
 counters six deep. Down to the docks they 
 
 % 
 
8 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LA DV SMITH. 
 
 I ( 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 filed steadily with bundles to be penned in 
 the black hulls of homeward liners. Their 
 words were few and sullen. These were the 
 miners of the Rand — who floated no com- 
 ])anies, held no shares, made no fortunes, who 
 only wanted to make a hundred pounds to 
 furnish a cottage and marry a girl. 
 
 They had been turned out of work, packed 
 in cattle-trucks, and had come down in sun by 
 day and icy wind by night, empty- })ellied, to 
 pack off home again. Faster than the ship- 
 loads could steam out the trainloads steamed 
 in. They choked the lodging - houses, the 
 bars, the streets. Capetown was one huge 
 demonstration of the unemployed. In the 
 hotels and streets wandered the pale, dis- 
 tracted employers. They hurried hither and 
 thither and arrived nowhither ; they let their 
 cigars go out, left their glasses half full, broke 
 ofl* their talk in the middle of a word. They 
 spoke now of intolerable grievance and hoarded 
 revenge, now of silent mines, rusting machin- 
 ery, stolen gold. They held their houses in 
 Johannesburg as gone beyond the reach of 
 
IITB. 
 
 penned in 
 >rs. Their 
 e were the 
 i no com- 
 tunes, who 
 pounds to 
 1. 
 
 rk, packed 
 
 in sun by 
 bellied, to 
 L the ship- 
 Is steamed 
 )use8, the 
 one huge 
 In the 
 pale, dis- 
 ither and 
 
 let their 
 ull, broke 
 d. They 
 i hoarded 
 
 uiachin- 
 ^ouses in 
 
 reach of 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE STRFCOLE. 9 
 
 insurance. They hated Capetown, they could 
 not tear themselves away to England, they 
 dared not return to the Rand. 
 
 This little quiet corner of Capetown held 
 the throbbui^r hopes and fears of all Johannes 
 burg and more than half the two Republics 
 anfl the m«ss of all South Africa 
 
 Noi,e doubted-though many tried to doubt 
 -that at last it was-war ! They paused an 
 ;nstant before they said the word, and spoke 
 ;t softly. It had come at last-the mon.ent 
 they nad worked and waited for- and they 
 knew not whether to exult or to despair. 
 
V 
 
 t 
 
 11 
 
 ■ i 
 ; \ 
 
 5 ! 
 
 I i 
 
 'I 
 
 i ' 
 
 I i 
 
 1 ' 
 
 • , I 
 
 1 \ 
 
 10 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ARMY CORPS- TI AS NOT LEFT ENGLAND I 
 
 a little patch of white tents — a dream ov distance — 
 the desert of the karroo — war at last— a campaign 
 without headyuarteus — waitix<i for the army corps. 
 
 Stormberg Jdnx'tign. 
 
 The wind screams down from the naked hills 
 on to the little junction station. A platform 
 with dinino'-i'ooni and telegraph office, a few 
 corrugated iron sheds, the station-master's cor- 
 rugated iron bungalow — and there is nothing 
 else of Stormberg but veldt and kopje, wind 
 and sky. Only tliese last days there has 
 sprung up a little patch of white tents a 
 quarter of a niilt^ IVom the station, and about 
 them move men in putties and kliaki. Signal 
 flags blink from tlie lises, pickets with fixed 
 bayonets dot the lidgx'S, mounted men in 
 
THK AIJMV rOIU'S. 
 
 11 
 
 riLAND 1 
 
 
 DISTANCE — 
 
 
 CAMPAIGN 
 
 ,. 
 
 MY CORPS. 
 
 .i\ 
 
 UNCTION. 
 
 .-•% 
 f 
 
 ied hills 
 
 
 )latform 
 
 i 
 
 3, a few 
 
 4 
 
 er's cor- 
 
 
 nothing 
 
 . 
 
 e, wmd 
 
 M 
 
 ive has 
 bents a 
 
 1 
 
 m about 
 1 Signal 
 
 .'A 
 
 1 
 
 ■i fixed 
 
 
 miiiu in 
 
 # 
 
 coii])l('S patrol tlie plain and thr dip and 
 the sl()p<*. Four c(>ni[)ani(»s of tli<' I M'lk.Jiire 
 KeLdnient and the mounted infantry section 
 — in all they may count 400 men. Fifty 
 miles north is the ()rani;(^ river, and beyond 
 it, maybe by now this side of it, thousands 
 of armed and mounted burghers — and war. 
 
 I wonder if it is all real ? By the clock I 
 have been travelling something over forty 
 hours in South Africa, Init it might just as 
 well be a minute or a lifetime. It is a minute 
 of experience prolonged to a lifetime. South 
 Africa is a dream — one of those dreams in 
 which you live years in the instant of waking 
 — a dream of distance. 
 
 Departing from Cajietown by night, I awoke 
 in the Karroo. Between nine and six in the 
 morning we had made less than a hundred and 
 eighty miles. Now we were climbing the vast 
 desert of the Karroo, the dusty stairway that 
 leads on to the highlands of South Africa. Once 
 you have seen one desert, all the others are 
 like it ; and yet once you have loved the 
 desert, each is lovable in a new way. In the 
 
 
t . 
 
 i^l 
 
 I 
 
 M 
 
 'if. 
 
 12 
 
 FKOM ('APirroVVN TO I.A DVS.M ITFT. 
 
 Karroo yon seem to be ^c^oin^ np a winding 
 ascent, like the ramps that lead to an Indian 
 fortress. Yon aie ever pnlling up an incline 
 between hills, inakincr for a coi'ner round one 
 of the ranges. You feel that when you get 
 round that corner you will at last see .some- 
 thing : you arrive and only see another in- 
 cline, two more ranges, and another corner — 
 surely this time with something to arrive at 
 beyond. You arrive and arrive, nnd once 
 more you arrive — and once more you see 
 the same vast nothing you are coming fr^m. 
 Believe it or not, .that is the very charm of 
 a desert — the anfenced emptiness, the space, 
 the freedom, the unbroken arch of the sky. 
 It is for ever fooling you, and yet you for 
 ever pursue it. And then it is only to the 
 eye that cannot do without green that the 
 Karroo is unbeautiful. Every other colour 
 meets others in harmony — tawny sand, silver- 
 grey scrub, crimson-tufted flowers like heather, 
 black ribs of rock, puce shoots of screes, violet 
 mountains in the middle distance, blue fairy 
 battlements guarding the horizon. And 
 
 1 
 
 
THK AH MS ('OKI'8. 
 
 13 
 
 iiding 
 [idljiri 
 icline 
 d one 
 u get 
 riome- 
 jr in- 
 ner — 
 ve at 
 once 
 u see 
 fr'^m. 
 irm of 
 pace, 
 sky. 
 u for 
 the 
 the 
 olour 
 Iver- 
 ther, 
 iolet 
 fairy 
 And 
 
 above all broods the intense purity of the 
 South African azure — not a coloured thing, 
 Hke the plants and the hills, but sheer colour 
 existing by and for itself 
 
 It is sheer witching desert for five hundred 
 miles, and for aught I know five hundred 
 miles after that. At the rare stations you 
 see perhaps one corrugated-iron store, perhaps 
 a score of little stone houses with a couple of 
 churches. The land carries little enouiih 
 stock- -here a dozen goats browsing on the 
 withered sticks goats love, there a dozen 
 ostriches, high-stepping, supercilious heads in 
 air, wheeling like a troop of cavalry and trot- 
 ing out of the stink of that beastly train. Of 
 men, nothing — only here at the bridge a 
 couple of tents, there at the culvert a black 
 man, grotesque in sombrero and patched 
 trousers, loafing, hands in pockets, lazy pipe 
 in mouth. The last man in the world, you 
 would have said, to suggest glorious war — yet 
 war he meant and nothing else. On the line 
 from Capetown — that single track through 
 five hundred miles of desert — hang Kimberley 
 
■TWpMagjaCSL'rtwrTOPiT-VTJy^-jHfiW 
 
 I 
 
 ^ 
 
 r 
 
 14 
 
 FROM CAL'ETUWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 and MnfekiDof nnd Rhodrsia : It runs through 
 Dutcli country, and the black man was there 
 to watch it. 
 
 War — and war sure enoiiirh it was. A tele- 
 ^a*ain at a tea-bar, a whisper, a gathering; 
 rush, an electric vibration — and all the station 
 and all the train and the very nig<^ers on the 
 dunghill outside knew it. War — war at last ! 
 Everybody had })redicted it — and now every- 
 body t^asped with amazement. One man 
 broke off in a joke about killing' Dutchmen, 
 and could only say, " My God — my God — my 
 God ! " 
 
 I too was lost, and lost I remain. Where 
 was I to go ? What was I to do ? My small 
 experience has been confined to wars you 
 could put your fingers on : for this war I have 
 been looking long enough, and have not found 
 it. I have been accustomed to wars with 
 headquarters, at any rate to wars witli a main 
 body and a concerted plan : but this war in 
 Cape Colony has neither. 
 
 It could not have either. If you look at 
 the map you will see tliat the Transvaal and 
 
 J' 
 
 1 
 
tlicre 
 
 L tele- 
 leriiig 
 tatioii 
 )ii the 
 ; last ! 
 3vei'y- 
 inaii 
 hmen, 
 
 my 
 
 ¥here 
 
 small 
 
 you 
 
 have 
 
 Ifound 
 with 
 main 
 
 lar in 
 
 )k at 
 and 
 
 THE AiniV CORPS. 
 
 15 
 
 (h-anij^e Free State are all but lapped in IIh^ 
 rod of British territory. Thnt would he to 
 our advantage were our fighting force su[)erior 
 or equal or even not much inferior to that of 
 the enemy. In a general way it is an advan- 
 tage to have your frontier in the form of a 
 re-entrant angle ; for then you can strike on 
 your enemy's flank and threaten his connnuni- 
 cations. That advantage the Boers possess 
 against Natal, and that is why Sir George 
 White has abandoned Laing's Nek and New- 
 castle, and holds the line of the Biofirars- 
 berg : even so the Boers might conceivably 
 get between him and his base. The same 
 advantage we should possess on this western 
 side of the theatre of war, except that 
 we are so heavily outnumbered, and have 
 adopted no heroic plan of abandoning the 
 indefensible. We have an irregular force 
 of mounted infantry at Mafeking, the Loyal 
 North Lancashire Rei»'inuMit at Kimberley, 
 the jVlunster Fusiliers at I)e Aar, halt the 
 Yorkshire Lii-ht Intantrv at De Aar, half 
 the Berkshire Kegiment at Xaauwpoort do 
 
16 
 
 KlfoM (\\PK'|'()\VN TO LADYSMTTH. 
 
 n 
 
 not try to pronounce it — and ihe other half 
 here at Storm berg. The Northumberlands — 
 the Famous Fi;^hting Fifth — came crawling 
 up behind our train, and may now be at 
 Naauwpoort or De Aar. Total : say, 4100 
 infantry, of whom some 600 mounted : no 
 cavalry, no field-guns. The Boer force avail- 
 able against these isolated positions might 
 be very reasonably put at 12,000 mounted 
 infantry, with perhaps a score of guns. 
 
 Mafeking and Kimberley are fairly well 
 garrisoned, with auxiliary volunteers, and 
 may hold their own : at any rate, I have 
 not been there and can say nothing about 
 them. But along the southern border of 
 the Free State — the three railway junctions 
 of De Aar, Naauwpoort, and Stormberg — 
 our position is very dangerous indeed. I 
 say it freely, for by the time the admission 
 reaches England it may be needed to ex- 
 plain failure, or pleasant to add lustre to 
 success. If the iVrmy Corps were in Africa, 
 which is still in England, this position would 
 be a splendid one for it — three lines of 
 
THK AilMV CORPS. 
 
 17 
 
 r half 
 [ids 
 wling 
 be at 
 4100 
 I : no 
 avail- 
 might 
 uuted 
 
 well 
 and 
 have 
 about 
 er of 
 tious 
 lerg— 
 I 
 lission 
 ex- 
 re to 
 ^frica, 
 'ould 
 ?s oi' 
 
 supply Prom rVi{)ptown, Port Klizaheth, and 
 East London, and thicc converuino- lint^s 
 of advance by Norval's Pont, Bethulie, and 
 Aliwal North. Hut with tiny forces of half 
 a battalion in front and no support behind 
 — nothing but long lilies of railway with 
 ungarrisoned ports hundreds of miles at the 
 far end of them — it is very dangerous. There 
 are at this moment no supports nearei* than 
 England. Let the Free Staters bring lown 
 two thousand good shots and resolute men 
 to-morrow morning — it is only fifty miles, 
 with tw^o lines of railway — and what will 
 happen to that little patch of white tents 
 by the station ? The loss of any one means 
 the loss of land connection between Western 
 and Eastern Provinces, a line open into the 
 heart of the Cape Colony, and nothing to 
 resist an invader short of the sea. 
 
 It is dangerous — and yet nobody cares. 
 There is nothing tc do but wait — for the 
 Army Corps that has not yet left England. 
 Even to-day — a day's ride from the frontier 
 — the war seems hardly real. All will be 
 
 B 
 
m 
 
 I 
 
 18 
 
 FROM CAPiyrowx to ladysmitii. 
 
 (lone that man cnn do. In the nu'an time 
 the irood lady of the refreslniient-room says: 
 "Dinner? There's been twenty-one to-day 
 and dirnier not ready for fifteen; but you're 
 welcome to it, such as it is. We must take 
 thini^s as they come in war-time." ller 
 children play with their cats in the passage. 
 The railway man busies himself about the 
 new triangles and sidings that are to be 
 laid down against the beginning of December 
 for the Army Corps that has not yet left 
 England. 
 
 
 * 
 
 
19 
 
 HI 
 
 A PASTOR'S POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 AN IDEAL OF ARCADY-RKMEf. BURrmKRSr>OK,. ,TS MOXLMPXTS 
 -DOPPER THEOLOGY -AN INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF ' ,T8 
 PROFESSORS. 
 
 BURGHERSDORP, Oct. 14. 
 
 The village lies comjiact and clean-cut, a dot 
 in the wilderness. No fields ,„• orchards 
 break the transition from man to nature; 
 step out of the street and you are ,tt once' 
 on rock-ribbed kopje or raw veldt. As you 
 stand on one of the bare lines of liill t|,a* 
 S(|ueeze it into a narrow valley, Buro-hersd„ri> 
 is a chequer-board of white house, green tree, 
 and grey iron roof; bej-ond its edges every- 
 thhig is th,- changeless yellow brown of South 
 African landscape. 
 
 Go down into the streets, and Rurghersdorp 
 
BBHi 
 
 20 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYiSMlTH. 
 
 is an ideal of Arcacly. The broad, dusty, un- 
 metalled roads are steeped in sunshine. The 
 houses are all one-storeyed, some brick, some 
 mud, some the eternal corrugated iron, most 
 faced with whitewash, many fronted with 
 sliady verandahs. As blinds against the 
 sun they have lattices of trees down every 
 street — white -blossoming laburnum, poplars, 
 sycamores. 
 
 Despite verandahs and trees, the sunshine 
 soaks down into every corner — genially, lan- 
 guorously warm. All Burghersdorp basks. 
 You see half-a-dozen yoke of bullocks with a 
 waggon, standing placidly in the street, too 
 lazy even to swish their tails against the 
 flies ; pass by an hour later, and they are 
 still there, and the black man lounging by 
 the leaders has hardly shifted one leg ; pass 
 by at evening, and they have moved on three 
 hundred yards, and are resting again. In 
 the daytime hens peck and cackle in every 
 street ; at nightfall the bordering veldt hums 
 with crickets and bullfrogs. At morn come 
 a flight of locusts— flrst yellow- white scouts 
 
A PASTORS POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 21 
 
 the 
 
 
 whirring down every street, then a pelthig 
 snowstorm of them high up over the houses, 
 spanghng the hlue heaven. But Btughersdorp 
 cared nothing. '' There is nothing for them," 
 said a farmer, with cosv satisfaction; "the 
 frost killed everything last week." 
 
 British and Dutch salute and exchange tlie 
 news with lazy mutual tolerance. The British 
 are storekeepers and men of business ; the 
 Boers ride in from their farms. They are 
 big, bearded men, loose of limb, shabbily 
 dressed in broad - brimmed hats, corduroy 
 trousers, and brown shoes : thev sit their 
 ponies at a rocking-chair canter erect and 
 easy; unkempt, rough, half- savage, theii 
 tanned faces and blue eyes express lazy 
 good- nature, sluggish stubbornness, dormant 
 fierceness. They ask the news in soft, lisping 
 Dutch that might be a woman's ; but the lazy 
 imperiousness of their bearing stamps them 
 as free men. A people hard to rouse, you 
 say — and as hard, when roused, to subdue. 
 
 A loitering Arcady — and then you hear 
 with astonislmient that Burghersdorp is 
 
 I; 
 
i I 
 
 I 
 
 9'> 
 
 KKOM 'JAI'ETOVVN TO LADYSMlTll. 
 
 fjimoiis tlirou<^hout South AfVicji as a strong-- 
 liold of bitter Dutch purtisaiiship. '* Rel)el 
 Burghei'sdorp " they call it in the Bi'itish 
 c<^ntres, and Cajjetown turns anxious ears 
 towards -t for the first inutterinuf of insur- 
 rection. What historv its staixnant annals 
 record is [)ur6^y anti-British. Its two prin- 
 cipal monuments, after the Jubilee fountain, 
 are the tombstone of the founder of the 
 Dopper Church— the Ironsides of South 
 A frica — and a statue with inscribed pedes- 
 tal complete put up to commemorate the 
 introduction of the Dutch ton<i:ue into the 
 Ca[)e Parliament. Malicious comments add 
 that Afrikander patriotism swindled the 
 stone - mason out of £30, and it is certain 
 that one of the i^entlemen whose names 
 appear thereon most pi'ominently, now lan- 
 guishes in jail for fraud. Leaving that 
 point for thought, 1 find that tlie rest of 
 Burghei'sdoi'})'s history consists in the fact 
 that the Afrikander Bond was founded lu^re 
 in 1881. And at this moment Burghersdorp 
 is out - Bondiiiu' the Bond: the reverend 
 
 i> 
 
 \ 
 
ebel 
 
 Le 
 
 itish 
 ears 
 tisur- 
 inuils 
 prin- 
 itain, 
 ■ the 
 ^outh 
 )edes- 
 p the 
 D the 
 add 
 the 
 rtain 
 lames 
 lan- 
 that 
 st of 
 fact 
 hr^re 
 sdorp 
 lereiid 
 
 A PASTORS POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 28 
 
 .11 
 
 gentleman who edits its Dutch paper and 
 dictates its Dutch poHcy sluices out weekly 
 vials of wrath upon Hofineyr and Schreuier 
 for machinating to keep patriot Afrikanders 
 oil' the oppressing Briton's throat. 
 
 I went to see this reverend pastor, who 
 is professor of a school of Dopper theology. 
 He was short, but thick - set, with a short 
 but shaggy grey beard ; in deference to his 
 calling, he wore a collar over his grey 
 flannel shirt, but no tie. Nevertheless, he 
 turned out a very charming, courteous old 
 gentleman, well informed, and his political 
 bias was mellowed with an irresistible sense 
 of humour. He took his own side strongly, 
 and allowed that it was most proper for a 
 Briton to be equally strong on his own. 
 And this is more or less what he said : — 
 
 ''Information? No, I shall not give you 
 any ; you are the enemy, you see. Ha, ha ! 
 They call me rebel. But I ask you, my 
 friend, is it natural that I — I, Hollander 
 born, Dutch Afrikander since '60 — should 
 be as loval to the British Government as 
 
r I 
 
 24 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 a Britisher should be ? No, I say ; one can 
 be loyal only to one's own country. I am 
 law - abiding subject of the Queen, and that 
 is all that they can ask of me. 
 
 " How will the war o-o ? That it is im- 
 possible, quite impossible, to say. The Boer 
 might run away at the first shot and he 
 might fight to the death. All troops are liable 
 to panic ; even regular troop ; much more 
 than irregular. But I have been on com- 
 mando many times with Boer, and I cannot 
 think him other than brave man. Fighting 
 is not his business ; he wishes always to be 
 back on his farm with his people ; but he 
 is brave man. 
 
 " I look on this war as the sequel of 
 1881. I have told them all these years, it 
 is not finish ; war must come. Mr Gladstone, 
 whom I look on as greatest British states- 
 man, did wrong in 1881. If he had kept 
 promises and given back country before the 
 war, we would have been grateful ; but he 
 only give it after war, and we were not 
 grateful. And English did not feel that 
 
 1 
 
A PASTORS POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 25 
 
 I can 
 
 L am 
 that 
 
 3 im- 
 Boer 
 
 d he 
 
 liable 
 more 
 com- 
 
 jannot 
 hting 
 to be 
 at he 
 
 lel of 
 irs, it 
 [stone, 
 itates- 
 kept 
 re the 
 lut he 
 not 
 that 
 
 they were generous, only giving independ- 
 ence after war, though they had a large 
 army in Natal ; they have always wished 
 to recommence. 
 
 " The trouble is because the Boer have 
 never had confidence in the English Govern- 
 ment, just as you have never had confidence 
 in us. The Boer have no feeling about Cape 
 Colony, but they have about Natal ; they 
 were driven out of it, and they think it still 
 their own country. Then you took the 
 diamond - fields from the Free State. You 
 gave the Free State independence only be- 
 cause you did not want trouble of Basuto 
 war ; then we beat the Basutos — I myself 
 was there, and it was very hard, and it lasted 
 three years — and then you would not let us 
 take Basutoland. Then came annexation of 
 the Transvaal ; up to that I was strong advo- 
 cate of federation, but after that I was one of 
 founders of the Bond. After that the Afri- 
 kander trusted Rhodes — not I, though ; I 
 always write I distrust Rhodes— and so came 
 the Jameson raid. Now how could we have 
 
TT 
 
 1. } 
 
 >\ 
 
 
 26 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 confidence after all this in British Govern- 
 ment ''' 
 
 " I do not think Transvaal Government 
 have been wise ; I have many times told them 
 so. They made great mistake when they let 
 people come in to the mines. I told them, 
 * This gold will be your ruin ; to remain inde- 
 pendent you must remain poor.' But when 
 that was done, what could they do ? If they 
 gave the franchise, then the Republic is 
 governed by three four men from Johannes- 
 burg, and they will govern it for their own 
 pocket. The Transvaal Boer would rather be 
 British colony than Johannesburg Bepublic. 
 
 " Well, well ; it is the law of South Africa 
 that the Boer drive the native north and the 
 English drive the Boer north. But now the 
 Boer can go north no more; two things stop 
 him : the tsetse fly and the fever. So if he 
 must perish, it is his duty — yes, I, minister, 
 say it is his duty — to perish fighting. 
 
 " But here in the Colony we have no race 
 hatred. Not between man and man ; but 
 when many men get together there is race 
 
 I 
 
 
Dvern- 
 
 nment 
 [ them 
 ley let 
 them, 
 1 inde- 
 i when 
 :f they 
 blic is 
 lannes- 
 ir own 
 ;her be 
 ublic. 
 Africa 
 d the 
 w the 
 s stop 
 if he 
 nister, 
 
 race 
 
 ; but 
 
 race 
 
 A PASTORS POINT OF VIEW. 
 
 27 
 
 i 
 
 hatred. If we fight here on this border it is 
 civil war — the same Dutch and English are 
 across the Orange as here in Albert. My son 
 is on commando in Free State ; the other day 
 he ride thirteen hours and have no food for 
 two days. I say to him, * You are Free State 
 burgher ; you have the benefit of the country ; 
 your wife is Boer girl ; it is your duty to fight 
 for it.' I am law-abiding British subject, but 
 I hope my son will not be hurt. You, sir, I 
 wish you good luck — good luck for yourself 
 and your corresponding. Not for your side : 
 that I cannot wish you." 
 
 i^ 
 
 I 
 
28 
 
 IV. 
 
 WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR?» 
 
 ON THE BORDER OF THE FREE STATE — AN APPEAL TO THE 
 COLONIAL BOERS — THE BEGINNIXa OF WARLIKE RUMOURS 
 — A COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL BOYCOTT — THE BOER SECRET 
 SERVICE — THE BASUTOS AND THEIR MOTHER, THE QUEEN — 
 BOER BRUTALITY TO KAFFIRS. 
 
 Oct. 14 (9.55 p.m.) 
 
 The most conspicuous feature of the war on 
 this frontier has hitherto been its absence. 
 
 The Free State forces about Bethulie, which 
 is just over the Free State border, and Aliwal 
 North, which is on our side of the frontier, 
 make no sign of an advance. The reason for 
 this is, doubtless, that hostilities here would 
 amount to civil war. The* .t is the same mixed 
 
 * This c'«"^pter has been deliberately included in this volume 
 notwithstanding its obviously fragmentary nature. The swift 
 picture which it gives of flying events is the excuse for thii 
 decision. 
 
WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR f 
 
 ? 
 
 29 
 
 L TO THE 
 
 RUMOURS 
 
 R SECRET 
 
 QUEEN — 
 
 5 p.m.) 
 
 var oil 
 ence. 
 which 
 Allwal 
 oiitier, 
 on for 
 would 
 mixed 
 
 volume 
 le swift 
 for thui 
 
 English and Dutch population on each side of 
 the Orange river, united by ties of kinship 
 and friendship. Many law - abiding Dutch 
 burffhers here have sons and brothers who are 
 citizens of the Free State, and therefore out 
 with the forces. 
 
 In the mean time the English doctor at- 
 tends patients on the other side of the border, 
 and Boer riflemen ride across to buy goods at 
 the British stores. 
 
 The proclamation published yesterday morn- 
 ing forbidding trade with the Republics is 
 thus difficult and impolitic to enforce here- 
 abouts. 
 
 Railway and postal communication is now 
 stopped, but the last mail brought a copy of 
 the Bloemfontein ' Express,' with an appeal 
 to the Colonial Boers concluding with the 
 words : — 
 
 " We shall continue the war to the bloody 
 end. You will assist us. Our God, who has 
 so often helped us, will not forsake us.'* 
 
 What effect this may have is yet doubtful, 
 but it is certain that any rising of the Colonial 
 
 i 
 
Mi 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 I. 
 
 I 
 
 30 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH, 
 
 Dutch would send the Colonial British into 
 the field in full strength. 
 
 Burghersdorp, through which I passed yes- 
 terday, is a village of 2000 inhabitants, and, 
 as I have already put on record, the centre 
 of the most disaffected district in the colony. 
 If there be any Dutch rising in sympathy 
 with the Free State it will begin here. 
 
 Later. 
 
 And so there's warlike news at last. 
 
 A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, 
 shifted camp to-day to within three miles of 
 the bridire across the Oran^^^e river. Well- 
 informed Dutch inhabitants assert that these 
 are to be reinforced, and will march throuofh 
 Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack 
 Stormberg Junction, sixty miles south. 
 
 The bridge is defended by two Cape police- 
 men with four others in reserve. 
 
 The loyal inhabitants are boiling with in- 
 di '••nation, declarinix themselves sacrificed, as 
 usual, bv the dllatorlness of the Government. 
 
 Besides the Bo< ... force near here, there is 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 1 
 
into 
 
 iinc 
 
 )lice- 
 
 in- 
 
 1, as 
 'lit. 
 he is 
 
 WILL IT BK CIVIL WAR? 
 
 'M 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 another, reported to be 450 strong, at Great- 
 heads Drift, forty miles up the river. 
 
 The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, 
 are believed to be pulling up the railway on 
 their side of the frontier, and to be march- 
 ing to Nervals Pont, which is the ferry over 
 the Orange river on the way to Colesberg, 
 with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort 
 Junction, on the Capetown - Kimberley line ; 
 but as there are no trains now runninij to 
 Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, 
 and, indeed, all reports must be received with 
 caution. 
 
 The feeling here between the En owlish and 
 Dutch extends to a commercial and social 
 boycott, and is therefore far more bitter than 
 elsewhere. Several burghers here have sent 
 their sons over the border, and promise that 
 the loyal inhabitants will be "sjambokked" 
 (you remember how to pronounce it ?) when 
 the Boer force passes through. 
 
 So far things are quiet. The broad, sunny, 
 dusty streets, fringed with small trees and 
 lined with single-storeyed houses, are dotted 
 
"W 
 
 32 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 f 
 
 with strolling inhabitants, both Dutch and 
 natives, engrossed in their ordinary pursuits. 
 The whole thing looks more like Arcady than 
 revolution. 
 
 The only sign of movement is that eight 
 young Boers, theological students of the 
 Dopper or strict Lutlieran college here, left 
 last night for the Free State for active service. 
 
 The Boers across the Orange river so far 
 make no sign of raiding. Many have sent their 
 wives and families here into Alivval North, 
 on our side of the border, in imitation, per- 
 haps, of President Steyn, whose wife at this 
 moment is staying with her sister at Kino- 
 William's Town, in the Cape Colony. 
 
 Many British farmers, of whom there are a 
 couple of hundred in this district, refuse to 
 believe that the Free State will take the 
 offensive on this border, considering that such 
 aggression would be impious, and that the 
 Free State will restrict itself to defendinof its 
 own frontier, or the Transvaal, if invaded, in 
 fulfilment of the terms of the olfensive and 
 defensive alliance. 
 
 \ 
 
WILL IT BE OIVIL WAR? 
 
 33 
 
 1 and 
 rsuits. 
 r than 
 
 eiorht 
 f the 
 3, left 
 
 3rvice. 
 so far 
 t their 
 ^orth, 
 , per- 
 it this 
 Kinof 
 
 are a 
 ise to 
 the 
 such 
 t the 
 ig its 
 sd, in 
 and 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 Nevertheless there is, of course, very acute 
 tension between the Dutch and Ensrlish here. 
 No Boers are to be seen talk in or to EnMish- 
 men. The Boers are very close as to their 
 feelings and intentions, which those who 
 know them interpret as a bad sign, because, 
 as a rule, they are inclined to irresponsible 
 garrulity. A point in which Dutch feeling 
 here tells is that every Dutch man, woman, 
 or child is more or less of a Boer secret ser- 
 vice agent, revealing our movements and con- 
 cealing those of the Boers. 
 
 If there be any rising it may be expected 
 by November 9, when the Boers hold their 
 " wappenschouwing," or rifle contest — the 
 L'Oal Bisley, in fact — which every man for 
 miles around attends armed. Also the Afri- 
 kander Bond Congi-ess is to be held next 
 month ; but probably the leaders will do their 
 best to keep the people together. 
 
 The Transvaal agents are naturally doing 
 their utmost to provoke rebellion. A lieuten- 
 ant of their police is known to be hiding here- 
 abouts, and a warrant is out for his arrest. 
 
- 
 
 4 
 
 34 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 All depends, say the experts, on the results 
 of the first few weeks of fighting. 
 
 The attitude of the natives causes some 
 uneasiness. Every Basuto employed on the 
 line here has returned to his tribe, one say- 
 ing : " Be sure we shall not harm our mother 
 the Queen." 
 
 Many Transkei KaflSrs also have passed 
 through here, owing to the closing of the 
 mines. Sixty-six crammed truckloads of them 
 came by one train. They had been treated 
 with great brutality by the Boers, having 
 been flogged to the station and robbed of 
 their wages. 
 
 I 
 
 1 s 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
:s 
 
 66 
 
 V. 
 
 LOYAL ALIWAL: A TRAGI -COMEDY. 
 
 THE CAPE POLICE-A GARRISON OF SIX MEN-MERRY-GO-ROUNDS 
 AND NAPHTHA FLARRS— A CLAMANT WANT OF FIFTY MEN— 
 WHERE ARE THE TROOPS ?-" It'LL BE JUST THE SAME^ AS 
 IT WAS IN '81." 
 
 Aliwal North, Oct. 15. 
 
 " Halt ! Who goes there ? " The trim figure, 
 black in the moonlight, in breeches and putties, 
 with a broad-brimmed hat looped up at the 
 side, brought up his carbine and barred the 
 entrance to the bridge. Twenty yards beyond 
 a second trim black figure with a carbine 
 stamped to and fro over the planking. They 
 were of the Cape Police, and there were four 
 more of them somewhere in reserve; across 
 the bridge was the Orange Free State; 
 behind us was the little frontier town 
 
I 
 
 If 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 li 
 
 1 
 
 36 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 of Aliwal North, and these were its sola 
 garrison. 
 
 The river shone silver under its high banks. 
 Beyond it, in the enein^^'s country, the veldt 
 too was silvered over with moonlight and was 
 blotted inkily with shadow from the kopjes. 
 Three miles to the right, over a rise and down 
 in a dip, they said there lay the Rouxville 
 commando of 350 men. That night they 
 were to receive 700 or 800 more from Smith- 
 field, and thereon would ride through Aliwal 
 on their way to eat up the British half- 
 battalion at Stormberg. On our side of the 
 bridge slouched a score of Boers — waiting, 
 they said, to join and conduct their kinsmen. 
 In the very middle of these twirled a 
 battered merry-go-round — an island of garish 
 naphtha light in the silver, a jarr of wheeze 
 and squeak in the swishing of trees and 
 river. Up the hill, through the town, in 
 the bar of the ultra-English hotel, proceeded 
 this dialogue. 
 
 A fat man (thimderoushj, nursing a Lee- 
 Metford sporting rifle). Well, you've your- 
 
 [ 
 
 I 
 
LOYAL ALIWAL : A TRAGI-COMEDY. 37 
 
 I 
 
 selves to blame. I've done my best. With 
 fifty men I'd have held this place against a 
 thousand Boers, and not ten men'd join. 
 
 A thin -faced ma7i {piphig). We haven't 
 got the rifles. Every Dutchman's armed, 
 and how many rirles will you find among the 
 Entrlish ? 
 
 Fat man {shooting home holt of Lee-Met- 
 ford). And who's fault's that? I've left my 
 property in the Free State, and odds are I 
 shall lose every penny I've got— what part ? 
 all over— and come here on to British soil, 
 and what do I find? With fifty men I'd 
 hold this place — 
 
 Thin-faced man. They'll be here to-night, 
 old De Wet says, and they're to come here 
 and sjambok the Englishmen who've been 
 talking too much. That's what comes of 
 being loyal ! 
 
 Fat man. Loyal ! With fifty men 
 
 Brown-faced, grey-haired man {smoking 
 deep - howled i^ipe in corner). No, you 
 wouldn't. 
 
 Fat man {playing with sights of Lee- 
 
 U; 
 
 J 
 

 r 
 
 il 
 
 38 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Metford). What ! Not keep the bridge with 
 fifty men 
 
 Brotvn-faced, grey -haired man. And they'd 
 cross by the old drift, and be on every side of 
 you in ten minutes. 
 
 Fat man (grounding Lee - Metford). Ah ! 
 Well— h'm ! 
 
 Thick-set man. But we're safe enoucjh. 
 Has not the Government sent us a garrison ? 
 Six policemen ! Six policemen, gentlemen, 
 and the Boers are at Pieter's farrm, and 
 they'll be here to-night and sjambok 
 
 Thin-faced man. Where are the troops ? 
 Where are the volunteers? Where are 
 the 
 
 Broivn-faced^ grey-haired man. There are 
 no troops, and the better for you. The 
 strength of Aliv/al is in its weakness. [To 
 fat man.) Put that gun away. 
 
 Thin-faced man, thick-set man, and general 
 chorus. Yes, put it away. 
 
 Thin-faced man. But I want to know why 
 the Boers are armed and we aren't ? Why 
 does our Government 
 
 t 
 
 ■ii 
 
e with 
 
 they'd 
 
 side of 
 
 Ah! 
 
 OUOrh. 
 
 1 
 
 ^ison ? 1 
 
 emen, i 
 
 and 
 
 Dops? 
 
 are 
 
 B are 
 
 The 
 
 {To 
 
 leral 
 
 why 
 ^hy 
 
 LOYAL ALIVVAL: A TRAGI-COMEDY. 29 
 
 Brown-faced man. Are you accustomed to 
 shoot ? 
 
 Tliin-faccd man {faintly). No. 
 
 Fat man {returning from pntting aivay 
 Lee - Metford). But where do you come 
 from ? 
 
 Broivn-faced man. Free State, same as you 
 do. Lived there five-and-twenty years. 
 
 Thinfaced man. Any trouble in gettino- 
 away ? 
 
 Brown-faced man. No. Field-cornet was a 
 good old fellow and an old friend of mine, and 
 
 he gave me the hint 
 
 Thinfaced man. Not much like ours I 
 Why, there's a lady staying here that's 
 friendly with his daughters, and she went out 
 to see them the other day, and the old man 
 said they'd stop here and sjam 
 
 Fat man. Gentlemen, drinks all round I 
 Here's success to the British arms ! 
 
 All. Success to the British arms I 
 
 Tliich-set man. And may the British Gov- 
 ernment not desert us arrain 1 
 
 Fat man, I'll take a shade of odds about it 
 

 
 \'- 
 
 ili 
 
 'I! 
 
 ?i» 
 
 40 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 They will. I've no trust in Chamberlain. 
 It'll be just the same as it was in '81. A few 
 reverses and you'll find they'll begin to talk 
 about terms. I know them. Every loyal 
 man in South Africa knows them. (General 
 murmur of assent. ) 
 
 Hotel- keeper. Gentlemen, drinks all round ! 
 Here's success to the British arms ! 
 
 All. Success to the British arms I 
 
 Thick-set man. And where are the British 
 arms ? Where's the Army Corps ? Has a 
 man of that Army Corps left England ? 
 Shilly-shally, as usual. South Africa's no 
 place for an Englishman to live in. Ar- 
 moured train blown up, Mafeking cut off, 
 Kimberley in danger, and General Butler — 
 what ? Oh yes — General BuUer leaves Eng- 
 land to-day. Why didna they send the 
 Army Corps out three months ago ? 
 
 Brown -faced man. It's six thousand 
 miles 
 
 Thick-set man. Why didna they send them 
 just after the Bloemfontein conference, before 
 the Boers were ready ^ British Gov 
 
)erlain. 
 A few 
 to talk 
 r loval 
 reneral 
 
 round ! 
 
 British 
 Has a 
 gland ? 
 la's no 
 Ar- 
 |ut off, 
 tier— 
 Eng- 
 the 
 
 msand 
 
 them 
 Ibefore 
 
 LOYAL ALIWAL : A TRAGI-COMEDY. 
 
 41 
 
 Brown-faced man. They've had three rifles 
 a man with ammunition since 189G. 
 
 / (timidly). Well, then, if the Army Corps 
 had lei't three months ago, wouldn't the Boers 
 have declared war three months ago too ? 
 
 All except hroivn-faced man (loudly). No ! 
 
 Brown-faced man (quietly). Yes. Gentle- 
 men, bedtime ! As Brand used to say," Al zal 
 rijt komen ! " 
 
 All (fervently). Al zal rijt komen ! Success 
 to the British arms 1 Good night ! 
 
 (All go to bed. In the night somebody 
 on the Beer side — or elsewhere — goes out 
 shooting, or looses off his rifle on general 
 grounds ; two loyalists and a refugee spring 
 up and grasp their rev^olvers. In the morn- 
 ing everybody w^akes up unsjamboked. The 
 hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points 
 whence Pieter's farm can be reconnoitred : 
 there is not a single tent to be seen, and no 
 sign of a single Boer. ) 
 
 It is a shame to smile at them. They are 
 really very, very loyal, and they are excellent 
 fellows and most desirable colonists. Aliwal 
 
 1 i 
 
 t 
 
v'/'' 
 
 V 
 
 1 
 
 ;■■■" 
 
 • 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 ' V'-- 
 
 4;-. 
 
 ' i 
 
 
 42 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 is a nest of green on the yellow veldt, speck- 
 less, well-furnished, with Mar^chal Niel roses 
 fifrowinur over trellises, and a scheme to dam 
 
 O CD ' 
 
 the Orange river for water - supply, and 
 electric light. They were quite unprotected, 
 and their position was certainly humiliating. 
 
 i 
 
i. 
 
 b, speck- 
 iel roses 
 to dam 
 ly, and 
 'otected, 
 iliating. 
 
 4B 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. 
 
 FRENCH'S RECONNAISSANCE-AN ARTILLERY DUEL-BEGINNING 
 OP THE ATTACK-RIDGE AFTER RIDGE-A CROWDED HALP- 
 HODB. 
 
 Ladtsmith, Oct. 22. 
 
 From a bHlow of the rolling veldt we looked 
 back, and black columns were coming up 
 behind us. 
 
 Along the road from Ladysmith moved 
 cavalry and guns. Along the railway line to 
 right of it crept trains — one, two, three of 
 them -packed with khaki, bristling with the 
 rifles of infantry. We knew then that we 
 should fight before nightfall. 
 
 Major-General French, who commanded, had 
 been out from before daybreak with the Im- 
 perial Light Horse and the battery of the 
 
...Uil — IL-J^-r" 
 
 44 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Natal Volunteer Artillery reconnoitring to- 
 wards Elandslaagte. The armoured train — 
 slate-colour plated engine, a slate-colour plated 
 loopholed cattle-truck before and hehin.l, an 
 open truck with a Maxim at the tail of all — 
 puffed along on his right. Elandslaagte is a 
 little village and railway station seventeen 
 miles north-east of Ladysmith, where two 
 days before the Boers had blown up a culvert 
 and captured a train. That cut our direct 
 communication witli the force at Dundee. 
 Moreover, it was known that the Free State 
 commandoes were massing to the north-west 
 of Ladysmith and the Trans vaalers to attack 
 Dundee again. On all grounds it was desir- 
 able to smash the Elandslaagte lot while they 
 were still weak and alone. 
 
 The reconnaissance stole forward until it 
 came in sicfht of the little blue-roofed villacje 
 and the little red tree-girt station. It was 
 occupied. The Natal battery unlimbered and 
 opened fire. A round or two — and then sud- 
 denly came a flash from a kopje two thousand 
 yards beyond the station on the right. The 
 
 I 
 
ng to- 
 traln — 
 ' plated 
 in.l, an 
 )f all— 
 rte is a 
 venteen 
 re two 
 
 culvert 
 I' direct 
 Dundee, 
 e State 
 
 th-west 
 attack 
 
 s desir- 
 
 le they 
 
 intil it 
 village 
 It was 
 fed and 
 jn sud- 
 lousand 
 The 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ELANDS i. A AGTE. 
 
 46 
 
 Boer guns ! And the next thing was the 
 hissing shriek of a shell — and plump it 
 dropped, just under one of the Natal liinhers. 
 By luck it did not burst ; but if the Boer 
 ammunition contractor was suspect, it was 
 plain that the Boer artillerist could lay a 
 gun. Plump : plump : they came right into 
 the battery ; down went a horse ; over went 
 an ammunition-waggon. At that range the 
 Volunteers' little old 7-pounders were pea- 
 shooters ; you might as well have spat at the 
 enemy. The gms limbered up and were off. 
 Next came the vicious ^jAu^^ / of a bursting 
 shell not fifty yards from the armoured train 
 — and the armoured train was putllng back for 
 its life. Everybody went back half-a-dozen 
 miles on the Lady smith road to Modder Spruit 
 Station. 
 
 The men on reconnaissance dutv retired, as 
 is their business. They had discovered that 
 the enemy had guns and meant figliting. Lest 
 he should follow, they sent out from Lady- 
 smith, about nine in t' morning, half a 
 baLtalion apiece of the Devonshire and Man- 
 
 I 
 
46 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Chester Regiments by train, and the 42nd 
 Field Battery, with a squadron of the 5th 
 Lragoon Guards, by road. They arrived, 
 and there fell on us the common lot of recon- 
 naissances. We dismounted, loosened girths, 
 ate tinned meat, and wondered what we 
 should do next. We were on a billow of veldt 
 that heaved across the valley : up h ran, road 
 and rail ; on the left rose tiers of hills, in 
 front a huge green hill blocked our view, with 
 a tangle of other hills crowding behind to peep 
 over its shoulders. On the right, across the 
 line, were meadows ; up from them rose a wall 
 of red-brown kopje ; up over that a wall of 
 grass-green veldt ; over that was the enemy. 
 We ate and sat and wondered what we should 
 do next. Presently we saw the troopers 
 mounting and the trains getting up steam ; 
 we mounted ; and scouts, advance - guard, 
 flanking patrols — everybody crept slowly, 
 slowly, cautiously forward. Then, about hali- 
 past two, we turned and beheld the columns 
 coming up behind us. The 21st Field Battery, 
 the 5 th Lancers, the Natal Mounted Volunteers 
 
 • -t' 
 
 p 
 
 r 
 
 i 
 
f 
 
 I 42iid 
 tie 5th 
 rrived, 
 recon- 
 girths, 
 lat we 
 .f veldt 
 n, road 
 ills, in 
 V, with 
 to peep 
 pss the 
 1 a wall 
 wall of 
 snemy. 
 should 
 'oopers 
 ;team ; 
 Iguard, 
 jlowly, 
 It hall- 
 )lumns 
 .ttery, 
 Inteers 
 
 THB BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. 
 
 47 
 
 • i 
 
 h 
 
 P 
 
 on the road ; the other half of the Devons and 
 half the Gordon Highlanders on the trains — 
 total, with what we had, say something short of 
 3000 men and eighteen guns. It was battle ! 
 The trains drew up and vomited khaki into 
 the meadow. The mass separated and ordered 
 itself A line of little dots began to draw 
 across it ; a thicker line of dots followed ; a 
 continuous line followed them, then other 
 lines, then a mass of khaki topping a ddrk 
 foundation^ the kilts of the Highlanders. 
 From our billow we could not see them move ; 
 but the green on the side of the line grew 
 broader, and the green between them and the 
 kopje grew narrower. Now the first dots were 
 at the base — now hardly discernible on the 
 brown hill flanks. Presently the second line 
 of dots was at the base. Then the third line 
 and the second were lost on the brown, and 
 the tliird — where ? There, bold on the sky- 
 line. Away on their right, round the hill, 
 stole the black column of the Imperial Light 
 Horse. The hill was crowned, was turned — 
 but where were the Bo 
 
r 
 
 i- i 
 
 ' 
 
 "y 
 
 48 
 
 PROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 A hop, a splutter, a rattle, and then a snar- 
 ling roll of musketry broke on the question, 
 — not from the hill, but far on our left front, 
 where the Dragoon Guards were scouting. 
 On that the thunder of galloping orderlies 
 and hoarse yells of command — advance ! — in 
 line! — waggon supply !— and with rattle and 
 thunder the batteries tore past, wheeled, un- 
 limbered as if they broke in halves. Then 
 rattled and thundered the waggons, men 
 gathered round the guns like the groups 
 round a patient in an operation. And the 
 first gun barked death. And then after all 
 it was a false alarm. At the first shell you 
 could see through glasses mounted men 
 scurrying up the slopes of the big opposite 
 hill ; by the third they were gone. And 
 then, as our guns still thudded — thud came 
 the answer. Only where ? Away, away on 
 the right, from the green kopje over the 
 brown one where still struggled the reserves 
 of our infantry. 
 
 Limbers 1 From halves the guns were 
 whole again, and wheeled away over plough- 
 
 1 
 
f 
 
 THE BATTLE OF ELANPSLA AGTE. 
 
 49 
 
 land to the railway. Down went a length 
 of wire -fencing, and gun after gun leaped 
 ringing over the metals, scoring the soft 
 pasture beyond. We passed round the left- 
 ward edge of the brown hill and joined our 
 infantry in a broad green valley. The head 
 of it was the second skyHne we had seen ; 
 beyond was a dip, a swell of kopje, a deep 
 valley, and beyond that a small sugar-loaf 
 kopje to the left and a long hog-backed one 
 on the right — a saw of small ridges above, a 
 harsh face below, freckled with innumerable 
 boulders. Below the small kopje were tents 
 and waggons ; from the leftward shoulder of 
 the big one flashed once more the Boer 
 guns. 
 
 This time the shell came. Faint whirr 
 waxed presently to furious scream, and the 
 white cloud flung itself on to the very line of 
 our batteries unlimbering on the brow. Whirr 
 and scream — another dashed itself into the 
 field between the guns and limbers. Another' 
 and another, only now they fell harmlessly 
 be^ ind the guns, seeking vainly for the 
 
* 
 
 Hi I 
 
 i' 
 
 i 
 
 i^' 
 
 I 
 
 " 
 
 50 
 
 FROM CAPKTOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 waggons and teams which were drawn snugly 
 away under a hillside on the right. Another 
 and another — bursting now on the clear space 
 in rear of the guns between our right and left 
 infantry columns. All the infantry were 
 lying down, so well folded in the ground that 
 I could only see the Devons on the left. The 
 Manch esters and Gordons on the right seemed 
 to be swallowed by the veldt. 
 
 Then between the bangs of their artillery 
 struck the hoarser bay of our own. Ball after 
 ball of white smoke alighted on the kopje — 
 the first at the base, the second over, the 
 third jump on the Boer gun. By the fourth 
 the Boer gun flashed no more. Then our guns 
 sent forth little white balloons of shrapnel, 
 to right, to left, higher, lower, peppering the 
 whole face. Now came rifle- fire — a few re- 
 ports, and then a roll like the ungreased 
 wheels of a farm cart. The Imperial Light 
 Horse was at work on the extreme right. 
 And now as the guns pealed faster and faster 
 we saw mounted men riding up the nearer 
 swell of kopje and diving over the ^dge. 
 
THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAjVGTK. 
 
 51 
 
 '\ 
 
 !5 
 
 k 
 
 Shrapnel followed ; some dived and came up 
 no more. 
 
 The guns limbered up and moved across to 
 a nearer position towards the right. As they 
 moved the Boer gun opened again — Lord, but 
 the German gunners knew their business ! — 
 punctuating the intervals and distances of 
 the pieces with scattering destruction. The 
 third or fourth shell pitched clean into a 
 labouring wrggon with its double team ^f 
 eight horses. It was full of shells. We held 
 our breath for an explosion. But, when the 
 smoke cleared, only the near wheeler was on 
 his side, and the waggon had a wheel in the 
 air. The batteries unlimbered and bayed 
 again, and again the Boer guns were silent. 
 Now for the attack. 
 
 The attack was to be made on their front 
 and their left flank — along the hog -back of 
 the big kopje. The Devons on our left formed 
 for the front attack ; the Manchesters went 
 on the right, the Gordons edged out to the 
 extreme rightward base, with the long, long 
 boulder-freckled face above them. The guns 
 
I 
 
 i 
 
 ^m 
 
 
 i 
 
 i ■ 
 
 
 J 
 13i' 
 
 62 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 flung shrapnel across the valley ; the watch- 
 ful cavalry were in leash, straining towards 
 the enemy's flanks. It was ahout a quarter 
 to five, and it seemed curiously dark for the 
 time of day. 
 
 No wonder — for as the men moved forward 
 before the enemy the heavens were opened. 
 From the eastern sky swept a sheer sheet 
 of rain. With the first stabbing drops horses 
 turned their heads away, trembling, and no 
 whip or spur could bring them up to it. It 
 drove through mackintoshes as if they were 
 blotting-paper. The air was filled with hiss- 
 ing ; underfoot you could see solid earth 
 melting into mud, and mud flowing away in 
 water. It blotted out hill and dale and enemy 
 in one grey curtain of swooping water. You 
 would have said that the heavens had opened 
 to drown the wrath of man. And throuofh 
 it the guns still thundered and the khaki 
 columns pushed doggedly on. 
 
 The infantry came among the boulders and 
 began to open out. The supports and re- 
 serves followed up. And then, in a twinkling, 
 
THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAOTE. 
 
 63 
 
 You 
 
 )ened 
 
 lough 
 
 :haki 
 
 and 
 re- 
 lling, 
 
 
 
 .1 
 
 on the stone-pitted hill-face burst loose that 
 other storm — the storm of lead, of blood, of 
 death. In a twinkling the first line was 
 down behind rocks tiring fast, and the bullets 
 came Hicking round them. Men stopped and 
 started, staggered and dropped limply as if 
 the string were cut that held them upright. 
 The line pushed on ; the supports and re- 
 serves followed up. A colonel fell, shot in 
 the arm ; the regiment pushed on. 
 
 They came to a rocky ridge about twenty 
 feet hiofh. Thev clunj^ to cover, firinij:, then 
 rose, and were among the shrill bullets again. 
 A major was left at the bottom of that ridge, 
 with his pipe in his mouth and a Mauser bul- 
 let through his leg ; his company pushed on. 
 Down again, tire again, up again, and on ! 
 Another ridge won and passed — and only a 
 more hellish hail of bullets beyond it. More 
 men down, more men pushed into the firing 
 line — more death -piping bullets than ever. 
 The air was a sieve of them ; they beat on 
 the boulders like a million liammers ; they 
 tore the turf like a harrow. 
 
:n 
 
 I 
 
 I ! 
 
 
 54 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Another ridge crowned, another welcoming, 
 whistling gust of perdition, more men down, 
 more pushed into the firing line. Half the 
 officers were down ; the men puffed and 
 stumbled on. Another ridge — God ! Would 
 this cursed hill never end ? It was sown 
 with bleeding and dead behind ; it was edged 
 with stinging fire before. God ! Would it 
 never end ? On, and get to the end of it ! 
 And now it was surely the end. The merry 
 bugles rang out like cock - crow on a fine 
 morning. The pipes shrieked of blood and 
 the lust of glorious death. Fix bayonets I 
 Staff officers rushed shouting from the rear, 
 imploring, cajoling, cursing, slamming every 
 man who could move into the line. Line — 
 but it was a line no longer. It was a surg- 
 ing wave of men — Devons and Gordons, 
 Manchester and Light Horse all mixed, in- 
 extricably; subalterns commanding regiments, 
 soldiers yelling advice, officers firing carbines, 
 stumbling, leaping, killing, falling, all drunk 
 with battle, shoving through hell to the 
 throat of the enemy. And there beneath 
 
 II 
 
 [ 
 
 ■•? 
 
commor, 
 1 down, 
 [alf the 
 id and 
 
 Would 
 s sown 
 3 edfifed 
 ould it 
 
 of it! 
 
 merry 
 
 a fine 
 )d and 
 'onets I 
 3 rear, 
 
 every 
 Line — 
 
 surg- 
 >rdons, 
 id, in- 
 dents, 
 'bines, 
 drunk 
 o the 
 neatb 
 
 THE BAT-IXE OF ELANDSLAAGTE. 65 
 
 our feet .as the Boor ca.np a,., u., ,,,, 
 Boers ^..II,,,,,,,. „,.t of it. TUve a!.s,.-tl,a„'- 
 
 Heaven, thank Heaven !_.ve,.e.s,,,,„!,„n.s of 
 
 Lancers an.l Dra^^oon Gnar.ls .storn,in„. in 
 
 amorcr them «?lmnf,*r. , • '^ 
 
 « tntm, sliontmo., .spear,„„ stan,,,in,r 
 
 them into the ground. Cease fire ! 
 
 It was over-tuelve hours of n.arch, of 
 veconnajssance of u-aitin. of preparation, 
 ;"^ '-'f «" I^our of attack. Rut U.lf an 
 hour cranuned with the life of half a life- 
 time. 
 
! 1 
 
 66 
 
 r! I 
 
 VII. 
 
 X THE BIVOUAC. -* 
 
 A VICTORIOUS AND HELPI-ESS MOB — A BREAK-NECK HILLSIDE — 
 BRINGING DOWN THL WOUNDED — A HARD-WORKED DOCTOR — 
 BOEH PRISONERS — INDIAN BEARERS — AN IRISH HIGHLANDER 
 IN TROUBLE. 
 
 Ladysmith, Oct. 23. 
 
 Pursuing cavalry and pursued enemy faded 
 out of our sight ; abruptly we realised that 
 it was night. A niob of unassorted soldiers 
 stood on the rock -sown, man -sown hillside, 
 victorious and helpless. 
 
 Out of every quarter of the blackness leaped 
 rough voices. " G Company ! " " Devons 
 here I " " Imperial Light Horse ? " " Over 
 here ! " " Over where ? " Then a trip and a 
 heavy stumble aid an oath. " Doctor wanted 
 'ere ! 'Elp for a wounded orficer ! Damn 
 you there ! who are you fallin' up against ? 
 
THE BIVOUAC. 
 
 57 
 
 HILLSIDE — 
 KD DOCTOR — 
 HIGHLANDER 
 
 H, Ort. 23. 
 
 ny faded 
 sed that 
 1 soldiers 
 hillside, 
 
 iss leaped 
 r Devoiis 
 " Over 
 [ip and a 
 wanted 
 Damn 
 [against ? 
 
 This is the Gordon 'Ighlanders — what's left 
 em. 
 Here and there an inkier hlackn(^ss movinof 
 showed a unit that had begun to tind itself 
 
 again. 
 
 But for half an hour the hillside was still a 
 maze — a maze of bodies: of men wandering 
 they knew not whither, crossing and recross- 
 ing, circling, stopping and returning on their 
 stumbles, slipping on smooth rock-faces, break- 
 ing shins on rough boulders, treading with 
 hobnailed hoots on wounded finofers. 
 
 At length underfoot twinkled lights, and 
 a strong, clear voice sailed into the con- 
 fusion, " All wounded men are to be brought 
 down to the Boer camp between the two 
 hills." Towards the lights and the Boer 
 camp we turned down the face of jumbled 
 stumljling- block. A wary kick forward, a 
 feel below — firm rock. Stop — and the firm 
 rock spun and the leg shot into an ankle- 
 wrenching hole. Scramble out and ft'el again; 
 here is a flat face — forward ! And then a tug 
 that jerks you on to your back again : you 
 
I 
 
 58 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 forgot you had a horse to lead, and he does 
 not like the look of this bit. Climb back 
 again and take him by the head ; still he 
 will not budge. Try again to the right. 
 Bang ! goes your knee into a boulder. Circle 
 cannily round the horse to the left ; here at 
 last is something like a slope. Forward horse 
 — so, gently ! Hurrah ! Two minutes gone 
 — a yard descended. 
 
 By the time we stumbled down that preci- 
 pice there had already passed a week of nights 
 — and it was not yet eight o'clock. At the 
 bottom were half-a-dozen tents, a couple of 
 lanterns, and a dozen waggons — huge, heavy 
 veldt-ships lumbered up with cargo. It was 
 at least possible to tie a horse up and turn 
 round in the sliding mud to see what next. 
 
 What next? Little enough question of that ! 
 Off the break-neck hillside still dropped hoars(* 
 importunate cries. " Wounded man here ! 
 Doctor wanted ! Three of 'em here ! A 
 stretcher, for God's sake ! " *' A stretcher 
 there ! Is there no stretclier ? " There was 
 not one stretcher within voice-shot. 
 
 I 
 
[. 
 
 he does 
 ab back 
 still he 
 e right. 
 Circle 
 here at 
 ,rd horse 
 tes gone 
 
 at preci- 
 
 of niffhts 
 
 
 At the 
 
 
 :ouple of 
 
 
 e, heavy 
 
 
 It was 
 
 
 .nd turn 
 
 
 b next. 
 
 
 of that! 
 
 
 d hoarse^ 
 
 
 n here ! 
 
 
 ;re ! A 
 
 
 itretcher 
 
 
 ere was 
 
 I 
 
 THE HIVorAC. 
 
 59 
 
 Already the men were bringing down the 
 fii\st of their wounded. 8hing in a blanket 
 came a captain, his wet hair matted over his 
 forehead, brow and teeth set, lips twitching 
 as they put hin> down, gi'ipping his whole soul 
 to keep it from crying out. He turned with 
 the beiiinnini"- of a smile that would not 
 finish : " Would you mind straightening out 
 my arm ? " The arm was bandaged above the 
 elbow, and the foi'earm was hooked under him. 
 A man bent over — and suddenly it was dark. 
 *' Here, bring back that lantern ! " But the 
 lantern was staggering up-hill again to fetch 
 the next. " Oh, do straighten out my arm," 
 wailed the voice from the irround. " And 
 cover me up. I'm perishing with cold." 
 "Here's matches!" "And ere; I've got a 
 bit of candle." " Where ? " " Oh, do straicdit- 
 <n out my arm ! " " 'Eie, 'old out your 'and." 
 ''Got it," and the light flickered up again 
 round the broken figur(3, and the arm was 
 laid str.'ught. As the touch came on to the 
 clannny lingers it met something wet and 
 r^^, and the prone body quivered all over. 
 
60 
 
 FROM CArETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 if ■ 
 
 "What," said the weak voice — the smile 
 struggled to come out again, but dropped 
 hack even sooner than before — " have thev 
 got my finger too ? " Then they covered up 
 the body with a blanket, wringing wet, and 
 left it to soak and shiver. And that was one 
 out of more than two hundred. 
 
 For hours — and by now it was a month of 
 nights— every man with handc and legs toiled 
 up and down, up and down, that ladder of 
 pain. By Heaven's grace the Boers had filled 
 their waggons with the loot of many stores ; 
 there were blankets to carry men in and 
 mattresses whereon to lay them. They came 
 down with sprawling bearers, with jolts and 
 groans, with " Oh, put me down ; I can't 
 stand it ! I'm done anyhow ; let me die 
 quiet." And always w^ould come back the 
 cheery voice from doctor or officer or pal, 
 — "Done, colour - sergeant ! Nonsense, man! 
 Why, you'll be back to duty in a fortnight." 
 And the answer was another choked groan. 
 
 Hour by hour — would day never break ? 
 Not yet ; it was just twenty minutes to ten — 
 
THE BIVOUAC. 
 
 61 
 
 le smile 
 dropped 
 ,ve thev 
 ^ered up 
 wet, and 
 was one 
 
 [iionth of 
 gs toiled 
 adder of 
 lad filled 
 f stores ; 
 in and 
 ey came 
 olts and 
 I can't 
 me die 
 ack the 
 or pal, 
 
 B, man 
 
 ! 
 
 tniglit." 
 roan, 
 break ? 
 ;o ten — 
 
 man by man they brought them down. The 
 tent was carpeted now with limp l)odies. 
 With breaking backs they heaved some shoul- 
 der-high into waggons; others they laid on 
 mattresses on the ground. In the rain-blurred 
 light of the lantern — could it not cease, that 
 piercing drizzle to-night of all nights at least? 
 The doctor, the one doctor, toiled buoyantly 
 on. Cutting up their clothes with scissors, 
 feeling with light firm fingers over torn chest 
 or thigh, cunningly slipping round the band- 
 age, tenderly covering up the crimson ruin of 
 strong men- -hour by hour, man by man, he 
 toiled on. 
 
 And mark — and remember for the rest of 
 your lives — that Tommy Atkins made no dis- 
 tinction between the wounded enemy and his 
 dearest friend. To the men who in the after- 
 noon were lying down behind rocks with riHes 
 pointed to kill him, who had shot, may 
 be, tlie comrade of his heart, he gave the 
 last drop of his water, tiie last drop of his 
 melting strengtii, the last drop of comfort 
 he could wring out of his seared, gallant 
 
r>2 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 i^ 
 
 Si' t 
 
 B ' 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 
 !'■« 
 
 I! 
 
 r 
 
 soul. In war, they say, — and it is true,— 
 men grow callous : an afternoon of shooting 
 and the loss of your brother hurts you less 
 than a week before did a thorn in your dog's 
 foot. But it is only compassion for the dead 
 that dries up ; and as it dries, the spring 
 wells up among good men of sympathy with 
 all the living. A few men had made a fire in 
 the gnawing damp and cold, and round it they 
 sat, even the unwounded Boer prisoners. Foi' 
 themselves thev took the outer rinti", and not 
 a word did anv man say that could mortifv 
 the wound of defeat. In the afternoon 
 Ton my was a hero, in the evening he was a 
 gentleman. 
 
 Do not forget, either, the do -tors of the 
 enemy. We found their wounded with our 
 own, and it was pardonable to be glad that 
 whereas our men set their teeth, in silence, 
 S'>me of theirs wept and groaned. Not all, 
 thouo'h : we found Mr Kok, father of the Boer 
 general and member of the Transvaal Execu- 
 tive, lying high up on the hill — a massive, 
 white-bearded patiiarch, in a black frock-coat 
 
 f.' 
 
 A 
 
 ;0 
 
 f;- 
 
 '1 
 
 
H. 
 
 5 true,— 
 shooting 
 you less 
 our doom's 
 the dead 
 le spring 
 thy with 
 e i\ lire in 
 id It they 
 ers. Foj' 
 ;, and not 
 d mortify 
 afternoon 
 he Avas a 
 
 's of the 
 
 Iwith our 
 
 'lad that 
 
 silence, 
 
 Not all, 
 
 Ithe Boer 
 
 Execu- 
 
 I massive, 
 
 ock-coat 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 Q 
 
 > t 
 
 4 
 
 f 
 '4 
 
 I 
 
 M 
 
 THE BIVOUAC. 
 
 63 
 
 and trousers. With simple dignity, with the 
 right of a dying man to command, he said in 
 his strong voice, "Take me down the hill and 
 lay me in a tent ; I am wounded by three 
 bullets." It was a bad day for the Kok 
 family : four were on the field, and all were 
 hit. They found Commandant Schiel, too, the 
 German free-lance, lying with a bullet through 
 his thigh, near the two guns which he had 
 served so w^ell, and w^hich no German or 
 Dutchman would ever serve asrain. Tlien 
 there were three field - cornets out of four, 
 members of Vol ksraad, two public prosecutors 
 — Heaven only knows whom ! But their owji 
 doctors were among them almost as soon as 
 were ours. 
 
 Under the Red Cross — under the black 
 sky, too, and the drizzle, and the creeping 
 cold — w^e stood and kicked numbed feet in 
 the mud, and talked together of the fight. 
 A prisoner or two, allowed out to look for 
 wounded, came and joined in. We were all 
 most friendly, and naturally congratulated 
 e>ich other on having done so well. Theee 
 
I 
 
 64 
 
 FROW CAPETOWX TO LADVSMITIT. 
 
 Boers were neither sullen nor complaisant. 
 They had fouoht their best, and lost ; they 
 were neither ashamed nor angry. Thev 
 were manly and courteous, and through 
 tlieir untri mined beards and rough cordu- 
 roys a voice said very plainly, " Tlulin^- 
 race." These Boers mi^i-ht be brutal, micfht 
 be treachi • n . but they held their heads 
 like fifentle ^ t Tommy and the veldt 
 peasant - a coinedy of good manners in wet 
 and cold and mud and blood! 
 
 And so the long, long night wore on. At 
 midnight came outlandish Indians stagger- 
 ing under the green - curtained palanquins 
 they call doolies : these were filled up and 
 taken awav to the Elandslaai^te Station. 
 At one o'clock we had the rare sight of a 
 general under a waggon trying to sleep, 
 and two privates on top of it rummaging 
 for loot. One found himself a stock of 
 iient's underwear, and contrived comforters 
 and gloves therewith : one got his fingei's 
 into a case and ate cooking raisins. Once, 
 when a few were as near sleep as any were 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 a 
 
 
 
THE BIVOUAC. 
 
 65 
 
 lin<r 
 
 At 
 ;er- 
 ulns 
 and 
 :ioii. 
 
 that ni<rlit, there was a rattle and there was 
 a clasli that brought a hundred men spring- 
 inL*" up and reachinf^ for their rifles. On th*^ 
 i^round lay a bucket, a cookinpf-pot, a coupU* 
 of tin plates, and knives and forks — all 
 emptied out of a sack. On top of them de- 
 scended from the vvai-ixon on hiti'h a flame- 
 coloured shock of hair surmountini^ a freckled 
 face, a covert coat, a kunnu' Innid, and cloth 
 gaiters. Were we mad ? Wj^. it an appa- 
 rition, or was that undei the kumnierlmnd 
 a bit of kilt and an end of sporran ? Then 
 said a voice, " Ould Oireland in throuble 
 again ! Oi'm an Oirish Highlander ; I beg 
 your pardon, sorr — and in throuble again. 
 They tould me there was a box of cigars 
 here ; do ye know, sorr, if the bhoys have 
 shmoked them all ? " 
 
 •ters 
 gei's 
 nee. 
 
 n 
 
 vere 
 
66 
 
 VIIL 
 
 THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE. 
 
 SUPERFLUOU8 ASSISTANCE — A SMILING VALLE/ — THE BORDEl: 
 MOUNTED RIKLES — A RAINSTORM — A THIRTY-TWO MILKS 
 MARCH — HOW THE TROOPS CAME INTO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Ladysmith, Oct. 27. 
 
 *' Come to meet us ! " cried the staff officer 
 with amazement iu his voice ; " what on 
 earth for?." 
 
 It was on October 25, about five miles out 
 on the Helpmakaar road, which runs east from 
 Ladysmith. By the stream below the hill 
 he had just trotted down, and choking'- tlie 
 pass luiyond, wriggled the familiar tail oi 
 waggons and water-carts, ambulances, and 
 doolies, and spare teams of old mules in new 
 harness. A couple of squadrons of Lancers had 
 off-saddled by the roadside, a phalanx of horees 
 
THE HOME-COMING FROV DUNDEE. 
 
 67 
 
 BORDEi; 
 ) MILKS 
 
 ct. 27. 
 
 officer 
 t on 
 
 Is out 
 from 
 hill 
 I'- the 
 11 oi 
 and 
 new 
 had 
 )rees 
 
 topped with furled red and white pennons. 
 Behind them stood a 1 mattery of artillery. 
 Half a battalion of ;^a'cen - kilted Gordons 
 sunned their bare knees a little lower down ; 
 a company or owo of Manchesters back-boned 
 the flabbv convov. The staff officer could 
 not make out what in the world it meant. 
 
 He liad pushed on from the Dundee 
 column, but it was a childish superstition to 
 imagine that the Dundee column could pos- 
 sibly need assistance. They had only marched 
 thirty odd miles on Monday and Tuesday ; 
 starting at four in the morning, they would by 
 two o'clock or so have covered the seventeen 
 miles that would bring them into camp, 
 fifteen miles outside Ladysmith. They were 
 coming to help Ladysmith, if you like ; but 
 the idea of Ladysmith helping them ! 
 
 At his urgency they sent the convoy back. 
 I rode on miles through the openest country 
 I had yet seen he^^eabouts — a basin of wave- 
 like veldt, just growing thinly green under 
 the spring rains, spangled with budding 
 mimosa-thorn. Scarred here and there with 
 
1 k 
 
 . 
 
 i 
 
 
 (58 
 
 FUOM CAPETOWN TO LADYSAJITH. 
 
 the dry water courses they call shiits, patched 
 witii heaves of wire-fenced down, hvened with 
 a verandah, blue cactus-hedged farmhouse or 
 two, losino- itself finally in a ma/y fairyland 
 of azure mountains — this valley was the 
 nearest approach to what you would call a 
 smiling country I had seen in Africa. 
 
 Eight miles or so along the road I came 
 upon the Border Mounted Uifles, saddles off, 
 and lolling on the grass. All farmers and 
 transport riders from the northern frontier, 
 lean, bearded, sun-dried, framed of steel and 
 whipcord, sitting their horses like the riders 
 of the Elgin marbles, swift and cunning as 
 Boeis, and far braver, they are the heaven- 
 sent type of irregular troo[)ers. Tt was they 
 who had ridden out and made connection 
 with the returning column an hour before. 
 
 Two miles on I dipped over a ridge — and 
 here was the camp. Bugles sang cheerily ; 
 mules, linked in tives, were being zigzagged 
 frowardly down to water. The Royal Irish 
 Fusiliers had loosened their l)elts, but not 
 their sturdy bearing. Under their horses' 
 
 ^1 
 
TIIK HOME-('OMIN(; FKOM DUNDKK. 
 
 «;o 
 
 itched 
 1 witl) 
 use oi' 
 •ylcind 
 ,s the 
 call M 
 
 came 
 es off, 
 \s and 
 Dntier, 
 il and 
 riders 
 ng as 
 5aven- 
 they 
 action 
 fore. 
 
 and 
 
 jrily ; 
 
 Lgged 
 
 Irish 
 
 not 
 
 )rses' 
 
 bellies lay the diminislied 1 8th Hussars. 
 Presently came up a sul)alt('rii of the regi- 
 ment, who had been on leave and returned 
 just too late to rejoin before the line was cut. 
 They had put him in connujind of the ad- 
 vanced troop of the Lanccn's, and how he 
 cursed the infantry and the convoy, and how 
 he shoved the troop along when the drag was 
 taken off! Now he was lauij^hino; and talk- 
 inor and listenint^ all at once, like a louir 
 wanderer at his home-coming. 
 
 No use waiting for sensational stories 
 among these men, going about their daily- 
 camp duties as if battles and sieges and forced 
 marches with the enemy on your flank were 
 the most ordinary business of life. No use 
 waiting for fighting either ; in open country 
 the force could have knocked thousands of 
 Boers to pieces, and there was not the least 
 chance of the Boers coming to be knocked. 
 So I rode back through the rolling veldt 
 basin. As I passed the stream and the nek 
 beyond the battery of artillery, the Gordons 
 and Mancliesters were lighting their biv( ac 
 
 
■Ml 
 
 ! 
 
 I' : 
 
 fii 
 
 I ■. 
 
 I 
 
 70 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 fires. This pass, crevicing under the solid 
 feet of two great stony kopjes, was the only- 
 place the Boers would be likely to try their 
 luck at. It was covei-ed ; already the Dun- 
 dee column was all right. 
 
 Presently I met the rest of the Gordons, 
 swinging along the road to crown the heights 
 on either side the nek. Coming through I 
 roticed — and the kiltea Highlanders noticed, 
 bOO, they were staying out all night — that 
 the sky over Ladysmith was very black. The 
 great inky stain of cloud spread and ran up 
 the heavens, then down to the whole circum- 
 ference. In five minutes it was night and 
 rain-storm. It stung like a whip -lash ; to 
 meet it was like riding into a wall. Lady- 
 smi ,h streets were ankle deep in half an 
 hour ; the camps were morass and pond. 
 And listening to the ever-fresh bursts ham- 
 mering all the evening on to deepening pools, 
 we learned that the Dundee men had not 
 camped after all, had marchod at six, and 
 were coming on all night into Ladysmith. 
 Thirty-two miles without rest, through sting- 
 
 », 
 
 ( 
 
solid 
 
 "t only 
 
 tbelr 
 
 Dun- 
 
 )rcloiis, 
 leights 
 
 )Ugll I 
 
 loticed, 
 ; — that 
 :. The 
 ran up 
 ircum- 
 it and 
 sh ; to 
 Lady- 
 alf an 
 pond, 
 ham- 
 pools, 
 d not 
 , and 
 smith. 
 
 sting- 
 
 THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE. 
 
 71 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 4 
 
 « 
 
 ino" cataract and spongy loam and glassy 
 slime ! 
 
 Before next morning was grey in came the 
 1st Rifles. They plashed uphill to their blue- 
 roofed Inits on the south-west side of the 
 town. By tlie time the sun was up they 
 were fed by their sister battalion, the 2nd, 
 and had b(»gun to unwind tlieir putties. But 
 what a sight ! Their putties were not soaked 
 and not caked ; say, rather, that there may 
 haye been a core of putti(» inside, but that the 
 men's legs were embedded in a serpentine cast 
 of clay. As for their boots, you could only 
 infer them from the huge balls of stratified 
 niud men bore round their feet. Red nmd, 
 yellow mud, black mud, brown mud - they 
 lifted their feet toilsomely ; they were land 
 pluimnets that liad sucked up specimens of 
 ;dl the heavy, sticky soils for fifteen miles. 
 (Jflicers and men alike bristled stiff with a 
 week's b(\ard. Rents in their khaki showed 
 white skin ; from their grimed hands and 
 heads you might have iudii'ed tliem half red 
 men, half soot-black. Eyelids iiung fat and 
 
72 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 heavy over hollow cheeks and pointed cheek- 
 bones. Only the eye remained — the sky-blue, 
 steel-keen, hard, clear, unconquerable English 
 eye — to tell that thirty -two miles without 
 rest, four days without a scjuare meal, six 
 niglits — for many — without a stretch of sleep, 
 still found them soldiers at the end. 
 
 That was the beginning of them ; but they 
 were not all in till the middle of the after- 
 noon — which made thirty-six hours on their 
 legs. The Irish Fusiliers tramped in at lunch- 
 time, going a bit short some of them, nearly 
 all a trifle stiff on the feet, but solid, square, 
 and sturdy from the knees upward, They 
 straightened up to the cheers that met them, 
 and stepped out on scorching feet as if they 
 were ready to go into actic^n again on the 
 instant. After them came the guns not the 
 sleek creatures of Lati'an's Plain, rough with 
 earth a!id spinning mud from their wheels, 
 but war-worn and fresh from slaughter ; you 
 might imagiiii' their damj) muzzles were 
 dripping blood. You could count the horses' 
 ribs; thev Icoked as If von could bi-enk tiiem 
 
ITH. 
 
 ted cheek- 
 e sky-blue, 
 )le English 
 3S without 
 meal, six 
 ;h of sleep, 
 
 ; but they 
 the after- 
 s on their 
 n at lunch- 
 em, nearly 
 lid, square, 
 ird, They 
 met them, 
 as if they 
 in on the 
 s not the 
 ough with 
 'ir wheels, 
 filter ; you 
 zles were 
 he horses' 
 \Vi\U tliem 
 
 ""■' """''■TOMINr; FHOM DUNDEE. 
 
 i3 
 
 ''"«in,eK„.e the ,„arte,..s. But they, too 
 knew they „,,,,. ,,^i„„. , y ^«"- 
 
 tliH,-- , " °"''<''«1. they threw 
 
 ^wn euf.s HI) ,iii( Hiiii.r .,11 fi 
 ,1 . I "' niiiiy all the weiirit left 
 
 tl-en. ,Mt.) the traces. 
 
 ''''Mo„.h lire, water, an,] earth, the Dundee 
 coluuiu had co,„e ho,„e ao-ain. 
 
-^ 
 
 74 
 
 \. .■ ^' 
 
 I i 
 
 t'l 'I 
 
 li I 
 
 It 
 
 a : 
 
 TX. 
 
 THE STORY OF N1CH0I.S(^N'S NKK. 
 
 AN ATTKNUATED MKKK — A RK(ilMKNT 220 STRONG- A MISKRABLK 
 STORY — THE WHITE FLAU — BOEH KINDNEHK ASHAMED FOR 
 ICNQLAND. 
 
 Lauvsmith, yov. 1. 
 
 The soddrn tents hurg dankly, black-i;rey 
 in the gusty, rainy morning. At tlie entrance 
 to the camp stood a sentry ; half -a dozen 
 privates moved to and tro. Perhaps half-a- 
 dozen were to he seer In all — the same hard, 
 thick-set bodies tha' Ladysmith had cheered 
 six days before as they mjirched in, square- 
 shouldered tlirough the mud, from Dundee. 
 The same bodies — but the elastic was out of 
 them and the brigiitness was not in their 
 eyes. But for these few, though it was 
 an hour after reveille, the camp was cold and 
 
 *m 
 
!f 
 
 THJ-: STOKY r)F MrH<»LSOVS NKK. 
 
 / o 
 
 KK. 
 
 \ MISKRABLE 
 
 \ 
 
 SHAMED FOR 
 
 
 rn, Nov. 1. 
 
 
 lack-j;rey 
 
 , 
 
 entrance 
 
 
 'a dozen 
 
 
 w ralf-a- 
 
 
 nie hard, 
 
 
 I cheered 
 
 
 , squ.ire- 
 
 
 Dundee. 
 
 
 18 out of 
 
 
 ill their 
 
 
 it was 
 
 f 
 
 cold and 
 
 ■-rifj- 
 
 
 -^ 
 
 
 ^S 
 
 empty. It was tliff c^p'j) oS ti»e Hoyal hrfih 
 Fu -fillers. 
 
 An oflicer apjM'jnrd from the niess-tent — 
 pah' and y)infhe(i. I saw him wlien h<* came 
 in tVom Pnndee with f'nin* sirt'plrss nights 
 behind liiin : tliis ninniinL^ lie was tar more 
 ha«j.gard. Inside were one otlier niHcer, tlie 
 doct(H', and the ([uarter-niastci-. That was 
 all the mess, except a Svcond iientenant, a 
 boy just i^^reen from Sandhurst, lie had just 
 arrived from En<j;'land, afhime foi- his first 
 reuiment and hi^ hrst cam])aii'n. And this 
 was the re^'imcnt he found. 
 
 Tliev had been busy half tlie nii'lit naek- 
 in;^^ up tlie lost oilicers' kits lo send down 
 to Durban. Now tiiey were |)ackini'- '\i''\' 
 own; a re^-iivicnt 220 stronj;- could do sith 
 a smaller camp. The iriess stores laid in at 
 [jadysmith stood in open cases round \\\i\ teat, 
 All th(^ small luxuries the carei'ul mess 
 president had pi'ovided against the hard 
 campaign had been lost at 1 )unde.'\ Now \\ 
 was the regimtMit was lost, and tlu^re was 
 nob(^dy to eat the tinned meats arid pickles. 
 
Ill 
 
 I 
 
 * I 
 
 1 1 
 
 tf 
 
 m 
 
 \ 
 
 76 
 
 FROM f\\PP'IOWN TO LADVSMITfl. 
 
 The common words "Natal Field Force" on 
 the boxes cut like a knife. Tn the middle 
 of the tent, on a table of cases, so low that 
 to reach it you must sit on the ground, were 
 the japanned tin plates and mugs for five 
 men's breakfast — five out of five-and-twenty. 
 Tied up in a water j)roof sheet were the 
 officers' letters — the letters of their wives 
 and mothers that had arrived that morn i no- 
 seven thousand miles from home. The men 
 they wrote to were on their way to the 
 prisoners' camp on Pretoria racecourse. 
 
 A miserable tale is best told badly. On 
 the night of Sunday, October 20, No. 10 
 M<iuntain Battery, four and a half com- 
 panies of the Gloucestershire Regiment, and 
 six of the Iloval Irish Fusiliers — some 1000 
 men in al) — were sent out to seize a nek some 
 seven miles north - west of Ladysmith. At 
 dayljreak they were to operate on the enemy's 
 riglii ihnk — the j)arallel v>'ith Majuba is 
 grm>ly obvious — in conjunction with an attack 
 from Lj.dy inith on his centre and right. 
 They started. At half-past ten thc^y passed 
 
 ' ti 
 
 i 
 
>> 
 
 rce oil 
 middle 
 ow that 
 id, were 
 for five 
 -twenty, 
 ere the 
 ir wives 
 inornino- 
 
 rhe men 
 to the 
 
 se. 
 
 ly. On 
 No. 10 
 If com- 
 mit, and 
 le 1000 
 ^k some 
 th. At 
 enemy's 
 ijuba is 
 attack 
 ri<^ht. 
 passed 
 
 1' 
 
 THE STOIIV OF NICHOLSONS NKk. /7 
 
 through u kind ol' defile, the Boers a thousand 
 feet above them followinir every movement 
 hy ear, if not by eye. By some means — 
 either by rocks rolled down (. i Miem or other 
 hostile ao'encv, or bv sheer bad luck — the 
 small-arm ammunition mules were stai ipeded. 
 They dashed back on to the battery nuiles ; 
 there was alarm, confusion, shots tlyin^^ — and 
 the battery mules stam[)eded also. 
 
 On that the othcer in command appears to 
 have resolved to occupy the nearest hill. He 
 did so, and the men spent the hours before 
 dawn in T)rotectini2; themselves bv schanzes or 
 breastworks of stones. At dawn, about half- 
 past four, they were attacked, at first li^ditly. 
 There were two companies of the CJloucesters 
 in an advanced position ; the rest, in close 
 order, occu})ied a hi^h point on the kopje ; to 
 line the whole summit, they sav. would have 
 needed 10,000 m(»n. Behind the schanzes 
 the men, shooting spart'ly because of the loss 
 of the resei-ve ammunition, at first held their 
 own with litth' loss. 
 
 But then, as our ill-luck or Boer irood 
 
"wm 
 
 t 
 
 I 
 
 !H 
 
 78 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LAD'iSMJTII. 
 
 management would have it, there appeart^d 
 over a hill a new Boer commando, which a cool 
 eye-witness put at over 2000 stronir. They 
 divided and came into action, half in front, 
 half from the kopjes in rear, shooting at 1000 
 yards into the open rear of the scha^nzes. Men 
 began to fall. The two advanced companies 
 were ordered to fall back ; up to now they had 
 lost hardly a man, but once in the open they 
 suffered. The Boers in rear picked up the 
 range with great accuracy. 
 
 And then — and then again, that cursed 
 white flag ! 
 
 It is some sneaking consolation that for a 
 long time the soldiers refused to heed it. 
 Careless now of life tSey were sitting up well 
 be'iind their breastworks, altering their sights, 
 aiming coolly by the half-minute together. 
 At the nadir of their humiliation they could 
 still sting — as that new-come Boer found who, 
 desirino^ one Eno-lishman to his bacf Ijefore the 
 end, thrust up his incautious head to see 
 where they were, and got a bullet tlirough it. 
 Some of them said they lost their whole firing- 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ii 
 
 
 
 I 
 
THE STORY OF NICUOLSON S NEK. 
 
 
 
 ppearr^d 
 ih a cool 
 • Tbi'y 
 n front, 
 at 1000 
 
 5S. 
 
 Men 
 
 111 pa Ales 
 
 :hey had 
 
 leii tliey 
 
 up the 
 
 : cursed 
 
 at for a 
 leed it. 
 up well 
 
 sights, 
 >iietber. 
 fy could 
 |id who, 
 fore the 
 
 to see 
 lugh it. 
 
 firing- 
 
 >»■■■ 
 
 line ; others no more than nine killed and 
 sixteen wounded. 
 
 But what matters it whetlier they lost one 
 or one million ? The cursed white Hai;' was up 
 attain over a British force in 8(nitli Africa. 
 The best part of a thousand British soldiers, 
 witli all their arms and e(|uipmeiit and four 
 mountain guns, were caj)tured hy the <'nemy. 
 The Boers had their reveng(^ for Dundee 
 niid Elandslaagte in war ; now they took it, 
 full measure, in kindness. As Atkins had 
 tended their wounded and succoni'ed theii' 
 prisoners there, so they tended and succoured 
 him here. One commandant wished to send 
 the wounded to Pretoria ; the others, luorv 
 prudent as well as more humane, decided to 
 send them back into Ladysmith. They gave 
 the wliole men the water out of their own 
 bottles; they gave the wounded the blankets 
 off their own saddles and slept themselves on 
 the naked veldt. They wen^ short of transport, 
 and they were mostly armed with Martinis : 
 yet they gave captured mules for the hospital 
 paimiers and captured Lee-Met fords for splints. 
 
,M J ' H P 
 
 80 
 
 FHOM CAPF/roWN TO r.ADVSMITJf. 
 
 I 
 
 A man was rnhhlng a hot sore on lils head 
 with a half-crown ; nohody oHered to take it 
 from him. Some of them nsked solch'ers for 
 their emhroidered waist-belts as mementoes of 
 the day. " It's got my money in it," replied 
 Tommy — a little surly, small wonder — and 
 the captor said no more. 
 
 Then they set to sinij^ino" doh ful hymns of 
 praise nndc^r trees. Apparently they were 
 not especially elated. They believed that Sir 
 George White was a prisoner, and that we 
 were flying in ront from Ladysmith. They 
 said that they had Rhodes shut up in Kim- 
 berley, and would hang him when they caught 
 him. That on their side — and on oiu'S ? We 
 fought them all that morning in a fight that 
 for the moment may wait. At the end, when 
 the tardy truth could be withheld no more — 
 what shame ! What bitter shame for all the 
 camp ! All ashamed for England ! Not of her 
 — never that !— but for her. Once more she 
 was a laughter to her enemies. 
 
 'A 
 
 "J: 
 
 
i 
 
 81 
 
 ake It 
 ers for 
 toes of 
 replied 
 ' — and 
 
 X- 
 
 mns of 
 Y were 
 hat Sir 
 hat we 
 
 Kim- 
 cauo^ht 
 We 
 it that 
 when 
 iiore — 
 ill the 
 of her 
 re she 
 
 3i 
 
 3 
 
 THE r^rx.^ AT RTETFONTKIN. 
 
 A COM'MN ON THE MOVF — THK NIM15I.K (U'NS — OAHRIflON 
 OLNNKRS AT WOKK — THE VKI.DT ON FIRK — KFFKUTIVK 
 SUUAI'NKL— THE VALUE OF THK ENOAOKMENT. 
 
 Ladysmitii, Ort. 26. 
 
 The business of the last few days has been to 
 secure the retreat of the column fioni Dundee. 
 On Monday, the 23rd, the whisper be<ran to iiy 
 round liadysmith tliut Colonel Yule's force hud 
 left town and camp, and was endeavourin*^ to 
 join us. On Tuesday it became certainty. 
 
 At four in the dim morning guns began 
 to roll and rattle throuu^h the nnid-i;r«'ased 
 streets of Ladysmith. By six the whole 
 nortborn road was iammed tiijht with bearer 
 company, field hospital, annnunition column, 
 supply cohuim— all the still", unwieldy, crawl- 
 
 \: 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-S) 
 
 / 
 
 O 
 
 ^[iLe 
 
 
 7a 
 
 1.0 !f i^ i 
 
 I.I 
 
 1.25 
 
 1^ 
 
 ^ tiS, 
 
 2.5 
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 U IIIIII.6 
 
 Photograpliic 
 
 Sciences 
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 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 

 
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 82 
 
 FKOxM (CAPETOWN TO LADYSMFTH. 
 
 ing tail of an army. Indians tottered and 
 staggered under green - curtained doolies ; 
 Kaffir boys guided spans of four and five 
 and six mules drawing ambulances, like 
 bakers' vans ; others walked beside wao-o-ons 
 curling whips that would dwarf the biggest 
 salmon-rod round the flanks of small -bodied, 
 huire-horned oxen. This tail of the army 
 alone covered three miles of road. At length 
 emerging in front of them you found two 
 clanking field-batteries, and sections of moun- 
 tain guns jingling on mules. Ahead of these 
 again long khaki lines of infantry sat beside 
 the road or pounded it under their even 
 tramp. Then the General himself and his 
 Staff; then best part of a regiment of in- 
 fantry ; then a company, the reservQ of the 
 advanced -guard ; then a half- company, the 
 support ; then a broken group of men, the 
 advanced party ; then, in the very front, the 
 point, a sergeant and half-a-dozen privates 
 trudging sturdily along the road, the scenting 
 nose of the column. Away out of sight were 
 the horsemen. 
 
 f: 
 
 ■4 
 
TUE GUNS AT RIETFOXTEIX. 
 
 83 
 
 Altogether, two regiments of cavalry — 5th 
 Lancers and 19th Hussars — the 42nd and 
 53rd Field Batteries and 10th Mountain 
 B.ittery, four infantry battalions — Devons, 
 Liverpools, Gloucesters, and 2nd King's 
 Eoyal Rifles — the Imperial Light Horse, and 
 the Natal Volunteers. Once more, it was 
 ti<>'htin<:-. The head of the column had come 
 within three miles or so of Modderspruit 
 station. The valley there is broad and open. 
 On the left runs the wire -fenced railway; 
 beyond it the land rises to a high green 
 mountain called Tinta Inyoni. On the 
 left front is a yet higher green mountain, 
 double - j)eaked, called Matawana's Hoek 
 Some call the place Jonono's, otliers lliet- 
 fontein ; the last is perhaps the least out- 
 landish. 
 
 The force moved steadily on towards Mo(H 
 derspruit, one battalion in front of the guns. 
 "Tell Hamilton to watcli his left tiank," said 
 one in authority. "The enemy are on both 
 those hills." Sure enough, there on the 
 crest, there dotted on the sides, were the 
 
I 
 
 i' I 
 
 L,i! i 
 
 S.|! 
 
 
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 IP 
 
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 i| it 
 
 '! 'ft 
 
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 ■9\ 
 
 84 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 moving black mannikins that we have already 
 come to know afar as Boers. Presently the 
 dotted head and open files of a battalion 
 emerged from behind the guns, changing 
 direction half- left to cover their flank. 
 The batteries pushed on with the one bat- 
 talion ahead of them. It was half- past 
 eight, and brilliant sunshine ; the air was 
 dead still ; through the clefts of the nearer 
 hills the blue peaks of the Drakensberg 
 looked as if you could shout across to them. 
 Boom ! The sound we knew well enough ; 
 the place it came from was the left shoulder 
 of Matawana's Hoek ; the place it would arrive 
 at we w^aited, half anxious, half idly curious, 
 to see. Whirr — whizz — e-e-e-e — phutt ! 
 Heavens, on to the very top of a gun I For 
 a second the gun was a whirl of blue-white 
 smoke, with grey-black figures struggling and 
 plunging inside it. Then the figures grew 
 blacker and the smoke cleared — and in the 
 name of wonder the gun was still there. 
 Only a subaltern had his horse's blood on 
 his boot, and his haversack ripped to rags. 
 
 ,■(■ 
 
 ft 
 
 fct 
 
i 
 
 past 
 
 Si* 
 
 
 
 Vh 
 
 IS 
 
 
 ^1 
 
 THE (JLTNS AT lUETFONTElN. 
 
 85 
 
 But tliere was no time to look on that or 
 anythino- else but the amazing nimbleness of 
 the guns. At the shell — even before it — they 
 flew apart hke aiits from a watering-can. 
 From crawling reptiles they leaped into 
 scurrying insects — the legs of the eight 
 horses [)attering as if tliey belonged all to 
 one creature, the deadly sting in the tail 
 leaping and twitching with every movement. 
 One battery had wheeled about, and was 
 drawn l)ack at wide intervals facinof the Boer 
 hill. Another was pattering swiftly under 
 cover of a rido-e leftward ; the leadinij- miw 
 had crossed the railway ; tlie last had fol- 
 lowed ; the battery had utterly disappeared. 
 Boom! Whirr — whizz — e-e-e-e — phutt! The 
 second Boer shell fell stu})idly, and burst in 
 tlie eni})ty veldt. Then bang ! — from across 
 the railway — e-e-e-e — whizz — whirr — silence 
 — and then the little white balloon just over 
 the place the Boer shell came from. It was 
 twenty-five minutes to nine. 
 
 In a double cliorus of bangs and booms the 
 infantry began to deploy. Gloucesters and 
 
 * 
 
 
I 
 
 86 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 I. ! 
 
 Devons wheeled half left off the road, split 
 into firing line and supports in open order, 
 trampled through the wire fences over tlie 
 railway. In front of the Boer position, 
 slightly commanded on the left flank b\' 
 Tinta Inyoni, w^as a low, st( ly ridge; this 
 the Gloucesters lined on the left. The 
 Devons, who led the cohnnn, fell natiu'allv 
 on to the right of the line ; Liverpools and 
 E,ifles backed up right and left. But almost 
 before they were there arrived the irrepress- 
 ible, ubiquitous guns. They had silenced the 
 enemy's guns ; they had circled round the left 
 till they came under cover of the ridge ; now 
 they strolled up, unlimbered, and thrust their 
 grim noses over the brow. And then — whew! 
 Their appearance was the signal for a cataract 
 of bullets that for the moment in places almost 
 equalled the high-lead mark of Elandslaagte. 
 The air whistled and hummed with them — 
 and then the guns began. 
 
 The mountain guns came up on their mules 
 — a drove of stupid, uncontrolled creatures, 
 vou would have said, lumljei'ed up with the 
 
 I 
 
 * w 
 
 
•»; 
 
 THE GUNS AT RIETFONTEIN. 
 
 87 
 
 I, split 
 
 order. 
 
 er tlic 
 
 )sitioii, 
 
 ik bv 
 
 ; this 
 
 The 
 
 tu rally 
 
 )ls Jind 
 
 almost 
 
 ■epress- 
 
 ;ed the 
 
 he left 
 
 ^ ' now 
 
 t their 
 
 whew ! 
 
 itaract 
 
 almost 
 
 lagte. 
 
 tiem — 
 
 mules 
 itures, 
 [h the 
 
 -^ 
 
 odds and ends of an ironworks and a wagc^on- 
 factorv. But the moment they were in posi- 
 tion the i;'unners swarmed upon them, and till 
 you have seen the garrison gunners working 
 vou do not know what work means. In a 
 minute the scrap-heaps had flown together 
 into little guns, hugging the stones with 
 their low hellies, jumping at the enemy as 
 the men lay on to the ropes. The detach- 
 ments all cuddled down to their guns ; a man 
 knelt by the ammunition twenty paces in rear; 
 the mules by now were snug under cover. 
 " Two thousand," sang out the major. The 
 No. 1 of each gun held up something like a 
 cross, as if he were going through a religious 
 rite, altered the elevation delicately, then 
 flung up his hand and head stiffly, like a 
 dog })ointing. "Number 4" — and Number 4 
 gun hurled out fire and filmy smoke, then 
 leaped back, half frightened at its own fury, 
 half anxious to get a better view of what it 
 had done. It was a little over. " Nineteen 
 hundred," cried the major. Same ritual, only 
 a little short. " Nineteei) fifty " — and it was 
 
88 
 
 FROiM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 , ., 
 
 ^ ^'i 
 
 just right. Therewith field and mountain 
 truns, yard by yard, up and down, right and 
 left, carefully, methodically, though roughly, 
 sowed the whole of Matawana's Hoek with 
 bullets. 
 
 It was almost magical the way the Boer 
 fire dropped. The guns came into action 
 about a quarter-past nine, and for an hour 
 you would hardly have known they were 
 there. Whenever a group put their heads 
 over the sky-line 1950 yards away there came 
 a round of shrapnel to drive them to earth 
 again. Presently^ the hillside turned pale 
 blue — blue with the smoke of burnino- veldt. 
 Then in the middle of the blue came a patch 
 of black, and spread and spread till the huge 
 expanse was all black, pocked with the khaki- 
 coloured boulders and bordered with the blue 
 of the ever - extending fire. God help any 
 wounded enemy who lay there 1 
 
 Crushed into the face of the earth by the 
 guns, the enemy tried to w^ork round our 
 left from Tinta Inyoni. They tried first at 
 about a quarter - past ten, but the Natal 
 
 ) 
 
 If 
 
TH. 
 
 mountain 
 right and 
 1 roughly, 
 loek with 
 
 the Boer 
 to action 
 
 an hour 
 hey were 
 eir heads 
 i^iere came 
 
 to earth 
 ■ned pale 
 no- veldt. 
 
 a patch 
 the huge 
 le khaki- 
 
 the blue 
 lelp any 
 
 by the 
 
 und our 
 
 first at 
 
 Natal 
 
 THi: (a'NS AT RIETFONTEIN. 
 
 80 
 
 Volunteers and some of* the Imperial Light 
 Horse met them. We heard the rattle of 
 their rifles; we lieard the rap-rnp lap-rap-rap 
 of their Maxim knocking at the door, and 
 the Boer fire stilled again. The Boer gun 
 had had another try at the Volunteers before, 
 but a round or two of shrapnel sent it to 
 kennel auain. So far we had seemed to be 
 losing nothing, and it was natural to suppose 
 that the Boers were losing a good dejd. 
 But at a quarter-past eleven the Gloucesters 
 pushed a little too far between the two hills, 
 and learned that the Boers, if their bark was 
 silent for the moment, could still bite. Sud- 
 denly there shot into them a cross-fire at a 
 few hundred yards. Down went the colonel 
 dead ; down went fifty men. 
 
 For a second a few of the rawer hands in 
 the regiment wavered ; it might have been 
 serious. But the rest clung doggedly to their 
 position under cover ; the officers brought the 
 flurried men up to the bit again. The moun- 
 tain guns turned vengeful towards the spot 
 whence the fire came, and in a lew minutes 
 
 
w 
 
 90 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 ■ ! * 
 
 there was another spreading, blackening patch 
 of veldt —and silence. 
 
 From then the action flickered on till half- 
 past one. Time on time the enemy tried to 
 be at us, but the im[)erious guns rebuked him, 
 and he was still. At length the regiments 
 withdrew. The hot guns limbered up and 
 left Rietfontein to burn itself out. The sweat- 
 ing gunners covered the last retiring detach- 
 ment, then lit their pipes. The Boers made 
 a half-hearted attempt to get in both on left 
 and right ; but the Volunteers on the left, 
 the cavalry on the right, a shell or two from 
 the centre, checked them as by machinery. 
 We went back to camp unhampered. 
 
 And at the end of it all we found that in 
 those five hours of straggling bursts of fight- 
 ing we had lost, killed and wounded, 116 
 men. And what was the good ? asked doubt- 
 ing Thomas. Much. To begin with, the 
 Boers must have lost heavily ; they confessed 
 that aloud by the fact that, for all their 
 pluck in standing up to the guns, they made 
 no attempt to follow us home. Second, and 
 
 K! 1 
 
IITH. 
 
 3ning patch 
 
 n till half- 
 ny tried to 
 buked him, 
 
 regiments 
 'd up and 
 The sweat- 
 tig detach - 
 ioei's made 
 )th on left 
 1 the left, 
 
 two from 
 nachinerv. 
 ed. 
 
 d that in 
 s of fight- 
 ided, 116 
 ed doubt- 
 with, the 
 confessed 
 all their 
 bey made 
 !ond, and 
 
 THK (;rxs AT lUKTFoXTHIN. 
 
 91 
 
 moiv linporta?it, (liis commando was driven 
 westward, and others were di-awn westward 
 to aid it -and the Dundee force was marchincr 
 HI from the east. Dragging sore feet along 
 the miry roads they heard the guns at Iliet- 
 fontein and were glad. The seeming object- 
 less cannonade secured the unharassed home- 
 coming of the 4000 way-weary marchers from 
 Dundee. 
 
 i^ 
 
92 
 
 XL 
 
 THE BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 LONG TOM — A FAMILY OF HARMLESS MONSTERS — OUR IN- 
 FERIORITY IN GUNS— THE SENSATIONS OF A BOMBARDMENT 
 — A. LITTLE CUSTOM BLUNTS SENSIBILITY. 
 
 I / 
 
 nc ii 
 
 Ladysmith, JVoiK 10. 
 
 "Good morning," banged four - point - se veii ; 
 " have you used Long Tom ? " 
 
 "Crack-k — whiz-z-z," came the riving 
 answer, " we have." 
 
 "Whish-h — patter, patter," chimed in a 
 cloud -high shrapnel from Bui wan. It was 
 half-past seven in the morning of Novembt^r 
 7 ; the real bombardment, the terrific sym- 
 phony, had begun. 
 
 During the first movement the leading 
 performer was Long Tom. He is a friendly 
 old gun, and for my part I have none but 
 
 •5? 
 
TTii; i',omh.\i{i»mi:nt. 
 
 1)3 
 
 LS — OUR TN- 
 aOMBARDMENT 
 
 rn, iVoy. 10. 
 
 nt- seven 
 
 16 rivincr 
 
 Tied in a 
 It was 
 November 
 'ific syni- 
 
 leacl 
 
 ino- 
 
 
 friendly 
 none but 
 
 tbe kindest feelings townnls him. It was 
 his (hitv to sbt'll us, and he did ; but he d 
 
 « 
 
 it in an open, manly way. 
 
 Behind tlie half-comitrv of light red soil 
 they had [)iled up round him you could see 
 his ugly })hiz thrust up and look hungrily 
 around. A jet of flame and a spreading toad- 
 stool of thick white smoke told us he had 
 fired. On the fiash four-point-seven banged 
 his punctilious reply. You waited until you 
 saw the black smoke jump behind the red 
 mound, and then Tom was due in a second 
 or two. A red flash — a juni]) of red-brown 
 dust and smoke — a rending -crash : he had 
 arrived. Then sang slowly through the air 
 his fragments, like wounded birds. You could 
 hear them coming, and they came with digni- 
 fied slowness : there was plenty of time to get 
 out of the way. 
 
 Until we ca[)ture Long Tom — when he will 
 be treated with the utmost consideration — I 
 am not able to tell you exactly what brand 
 of gun he may be. It is evident from his 
 conservative use of black powder, and the 
 
 m 
 
A 
 
 
 I ti 
 
 a 
 
 \ 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 f 
 
 li 
 
 I 
 
 
 04 
 
 FROM c^api«:T()\vx to la I)V. smith. 
 
 olfl-i^a^iitleinaiily stMidiH^Rs of liis inovements, 
 that lu; is an elderly <^nin. His calibre ap- 
 pears to be six inches. From tli(3 phinging 
 nature of his fii'e, some have conjectured hhn 
 a sort of howitzer, but it is next to certain 
 he is one r>f th(^ sixteiMi 15-cni. Creusot iruns 
 bou«dit for the forts of Pretoria and Johannes- 
 buriif- Anyhow, he conduct(ul his enforced 
 task with all possible humanity. 
 
 On this same 7th a brotln'r Long Tom, by 
 the name of Fiddling Jiinmy, opened on the 
 Manchesters and (yjesar's Camp from a fiat- 
 top})ed ko[)ie three or four miles south of 
 them. This gun had been there certainly 
 since the 3rd, when it shelled our returning 
 reconnaissanc(^ ; but he, too, was a gentle 
 creature, and did little luirm to anyl)ody. 
 Next day a third brother. Pulling Billy, made 
 a somewliat bashful first appearance on Bul- 
 wan. Four rounds fi'om the four-point- seven 
 silenced him for the day. Later came other 
 brothers, of whom you will hear* in due course. 
 
 In general you may say of the Long Tom 
 family that their favourite habitat is among 
 
 vl... 
 
'IN, 
 
 overnents, 
 alihro np- 
 plungiiig 
 tured him 
 to certain 
 usot guns 
 Joliannes- 
 1 entbrced 
 
 ^ Tom, by 
 B(l on the 
 )m a fiat- 
 south of 
 certainly 
 returning 
 a gentle 
 anybody, 
 lly, made 
 on Bul- 
 •Uitseven 
 me other 
 le course, 
 ong Tom 
 
 18 among 
 
 1 
 
 * 
 
 k. 
 
 British cia 
 
 Boers -^ 
 
 THE COUNTRY ROUND LADYSMITH. 
 
THE BOM B A RDM ENT. 
 
 97 
 
 lof>sn soil on the tops of optMi hills; they are 
 slow and unwieklv, and verv open in all their 
 
 ft/ ' ft- 1. 
 
 actions. They are ^"ood shootinor guns ; Tom 
 oil tlie 7th made a day's lovely practice all 
 round om* hattery. They are impossihle to 
 disahle hehind their hum' e})aulements uidess 
 you actually hit thr ^i;nn, and they are so 
 harmless as hardly to he woi'th disahling. 
 
 The four r2-])()und(H' field-guns on Buhvana 
 — I say four, hecause one day there were 
 four; hut the Boers contirnially shifted their 
 lighter guns from hill to hill — were very 
 different. These creatiu'es are stealthy in 
 their hahits, lurkintjf amonij: woods, firinuf 
 smokeless powder with very little Hash ; 
 consequently they are very difficult guns to 
 locate. Their favourite diet a})peared to be 
 balloons; or, failing them, the Devons in 
 the Helpmakaar Koad or the Manchesters 
 in (Ja3sar's Camp. Botli of these they enfil- 
 aded ; also they peppi^red the roads whenever 
 troops were visible moving in or out. 
 
 Altogether they were very judiciously 
 handled, though erring perhaps in not firing 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
98 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMTTH. 
 
 % P 
 
 persistently eiioiigli at any one target. Rut, 
 despite their great altitude, the range — at 
 least 6000 yards — and the great height at 
 which they burst their time shrapnel made 
 them also comparatively harmless. 
 
 There were also one or two of their field- 
 guns opposite the Manchesters on the flat- 
 topped hill, one, I fancy, with Long Tom 
 on Pepworth's Hill, and a few others on the 
 northern part of Lombard's Kop and on 
 Surprise Hill to the north-westward. 
 
 Westward, on Telegraph Hill, was a gun 
 which appeared to prey exclusively on cattle. 
 I am afraid it was one of our own mountain 
 * guns turned cannibal. The cattle, during 
 the siege, had of course to pasture on any 
 waste land inside the lines they could find, 
 and gathered in dense, distractingly noisy 
 herds ; but though this gun was never tired 
 of firing on the mobs, I do not think he 
 ever got more than one calf. 
 
 There was a gun on Lombard's Kop called 
 Silent Susan — so called because the shell 
 arrived before the report — a disgusting habit 
 
THE BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 99 
 
 Rut, 
 
 — at 
 
 in a gun. The menagerie was completed by 
 the pompons, of which there were at least 
 three. This noisome beast always lurks in 
 thick bush, whence it barks chains of shell 
 at the unsuspecting stranger. Fortunately 
 its shell is small, and it is as timid as it 
 is poisonous. 
 
 Altogether, with three Long Toms, a 5- inch 
 howitzer, Silent Susan, about a dozen 12- 
 pounders, four of our screw guns, and three 
 Maxim automatics, they had about two dozen 
 guns on us. Against that we had two 47- 
 inch — named respectively Lady Ann and 
 Bloody Mary — four naval 12-pounders, thirty- 
 six field-guns, the two remaining mountain 
 guns, an old 64-pounder, and a 3-inch quick- 
 firer — these two on Caesar's Camp in charge 
 of the Durban Naval Volunteers — two old 
 howitzers, and two Maxim-Nordenfeldts tp^en 
 at Krugersdorp in the Jameson raid, and re- 
 taken at Elandslaagte, — fifty pieces in all. 
 
 On paper, therefore, we had a great ad- 
 vantage. But we had to economise anununi- 
 tion, not knowing when we should get more, 
 
^ , 
 
 II 
 
 1 
 
 ; 
 
 : ilf 
 
 il 
 
 I) 
 
 III 
 
 ' 1 ! 
 
 II I 
 
 i 
 
 II 
 
 113 
 
 
 I I !■. 
 
 
 [ I 
 
 If, I 
 
 100 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 and also to keep a reserve of field - guns 
 to assist any threatened point. Also their 
 guns, being newer, better pieces, mounted 
 on higher ground, outranged ours. We had 
 more guns, but they were as useless as 
 catapults : only the six naval guns could 
 touch Pepworth's Hill or Bulwan. 
 
 For these reasons we only fired, I suppose, 
 one shell to their twenty, or thereabouts ; 
 so that though we actually had far more 
 guns, we yet enjoyed all the sensations of 
 a true bombardment. 
 
 What were they ? That bombardments 
 were a hollow terror 1 had always under- 
 stood ; but how hollow, not till I exper- 
 ienced the bombardment of Ladysmith. 
 Hollow things make the most noise, to 
 be sure, and this bombardment could at 
 times be a monstrous sympliony indeed. 
 
 The first heavy day was November 3 : 
 while the troops were moving in and out 
 on the Van Reenen's road the shells traced 
 an aerial cobweb all over us. After that 
 was a lull till the 7th, which was anottier 
 
THE BOMJARDMENT. 
 
 101 
 
 
 clattering day. November 8 broutrlit a 
 tumultuous morning and a still afternoon. 
 The 9 til brought a very tumultuous morning 
 indeed ; the 10th was calm ; the 11th patchy ; 
 the 12th, Sunday. 
 
 It must be said that the Boers made war 
 like gentlemen of leisure ; they restricted 
 their hours of work with trade - unionist 
 punctuality. Sunday was always a holiday ; 
 so was the day after any particularly busy 
 shooting. They seldom began before break- 
 fast ; knocked oft* regularly for meals — the 
 luncheon interval was 11.30 to 12 for rifle- 
 men, and 12 to 12.30 for gunners — hardly 
 ever fired after toa-time, and never when it 
 rained. I believe that an enterprising enemy 
 of the Boer strength — it may have been any- 
 thing from 10,000 to 20,000; and remember 
 that their mobility made one man of them 
 equal to at least two of our reduced 11,000 
 — could, if not have taken Ladysmith, at 
 least have put us to great loss and discom- 
 fort. But the Boers have the great defect 
 of all amateur soldiers : they love their ease, 
 
102 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 
 i: 1' I:; 
 
 i: 
 
 and do not mean to be killed. Now, with- 
 out toil and hazard they could not take 
 Ladysmith. 
 
 To do them justice, they did not at first 
 try to do wanton damage in town. They 
 fired almost exclusively on the batteries, 
 the camps, the balloon, and moving bodies 
 of troops. In a day or two the troops 
 were far too snugly protected behind 
 schanzes and reverse slopes, and grown far 
 too cunning to expose themselves to much 
 loss. 
 
 The inhabitants were mostly underground, 
 so that there was nothing really to sufier 
 except casual passengers, beasts, and empty 
 buildings. Few shells fell in town, and of 
 the few many were half- charged with coal- 
 dust, and many never burst at all. The 
 casualties in Ladysmith during a fortnight 
 were one white civilian, two natives, a horse, 
 two mules, a waggon, and about half-a-dozen 
 houses. And of the last only one was ac- 
 tually wrecked ; one — of course the most 
 desirable habitation in Ladysmith — received 
 
 ■\ 
 
 Ti 
 
, with- 
 t take 
 
 at first 
 
 They 
 
 -tteries, 
 
 bodies 
 
 troops 
 
 behind 
 
 wn far 
 
 > much 
 
 ground, 
 suffer 
 empty 
 and of 
 1 coal- 
 The 
 tnight 
 horse, 
 -dozen 
 as ac- 
 most 
 ceived 
 
 thp: bombardment. 
 
 103 
 
 no less than three shells, and remained hab- 
 itable and inhabited to the end. 
 
 And now what does it feel like to be 
 bombarded ? 
 
 At lirst, and especially as early as can be 
 in the m.orning, it is quite an uncomfortable 
 sensation. 
 
 You know that gunners are looking for 
 you through telescopes ; that every spot is 
 commanded by one big gun and most by a 
 dozen. You hear the squeal of the things 
 all above, the crash and pop all about, and 
 wonder when your turn will come. Per- 
 haps one falls quite near you, swooping 
 irresistibly, as if the devil had kicked it. 
 You come to watch for shells — to listen to 
 the deafening rattle of the big guns, the 
 shrilling whistle of the small, to guess at 
 their pace and their direction. You see 
 now a house smashed in, a heap of chips 
 and rubble ; now you see a splinter kicking 
 up a fountain of clinking stone - shivers ; 
 presently you meet a wounded man on a 
 stretcher. This is your dangerous time. If 
 
104 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 It: * 
 
 you have nothing else to do, and especially 
 if you listen and calculate, you are done : 
 you get shells on the hrain, chink and talk 
 of nothing else, and finish by going into a 
 hole in th( ound before daylight, and 
 hiring better men than yourself to bring 
 you down your meals. Whenever you put 
 your head out of the hole you have a nose- 
 breadth escape. If a hundredth part of the 
 providential deliverances told in Lady smith 
 were true, it was a miracle that anybody 
 in the place was alive after the first quarter 
 of an hour. A day of this and you are a 
 nerveless semi-corpse, twitching at a fly-buzz, 
 a misery to yourself and a scorn to your 
 neighbours. 
 
 If, on the other hand, you go about your 
 ordinary business, confidence revives imme- 
 diately. You see what a prodigious weight 
 of metal can be thrown into a small place 
 
 f room for e 
 
 and yet leave plenty 
 
 irybody 
 
 else. You realise that a shell whicli makes 
 a great noise may yet be hundreds of yards 
 aw^ay. You learn to distinguish between a 
 
ITH. 
 
 especially 
 are clone : 
 : and talk 
 ing into a 
 light, and 
 
 to bring 
 r you put 
 ^e a nose- 
 art of the 
 Lady smith 
 ' anybody 
 st quarter 
 you are a 
 I fly-buzz, 
 I to your 
 
 THE nOMBAHDMEXT. 
 
 105 
 
 gun's report nnd an overturned water-tanks. 
 You perceive that the most awful noise of 
 all is the throat- ripping cough of your cwn 
 guns firing over your head ut an enemy 
 four miltvs away. So you leave the matter 
 to Allah, and by the middle of the morning 
 do not even turn your head to see where 
 the bang came from. 
 
 bout your 
 es imme- 
 iis weight 
 lall place 
 everybody 
 ch makes 
 i of yards 
 letween a 
 
106 
 
 XII. 
 
 ! 
 
 m 
 
 THE DEVIL'S TIN-TACKS. 
 
 THK EXCITEMENT OK A RIFLE FUSILADE — A SIX-HOURS' FIGHT 
 — THE PICKING OFF OF OFFICERS — A DISPLAY OF INFERNAL 
 FIREWORKS — "god BLESS THE PRINCE OF WALES." 
 
 When all is said, there is nothing to stir 
 the blood like rifle -fire. riiflo-fire wins or 
 loses decisive actions ; rifle - fire sends the 
 heart galloping. At five in the morning of 
 the 9 th I turned on my mattress and heard 
 guns ; I got up. 
 
 Then I heard the bubble of distant mus- 
 ketry, and I hurried out. It came from the 
 north, and it was languidly echoed from 
 Caesar's Camp. Tack -tap, tack -tap — each 
 shot echoed a little muffled from the hills. 
 Tack-tap, tack-tap, tack, tack, tack, tack, tap 
 — as if the devil was hammerinof nails into 
 
 I 
 
 If' 
 
THK DKVTLS TIV-'»'ArKS. 
 
 10' 
 
 aOURS' FIGHT 
 OF INFERNAL 
 
 [iE8." 
 
 g to stir 
 3 wins or 
 lends the 
 lorning of 
 lid heard 
 
 :ant mus- 
 from the 
 oed from 
 ip — each 
 the hills, 
 tack, tap 
 lails into 
 
 the hills. Then ;i huri'loMiH' of tJickiiiL^, nni- 
 niiig round all Ladysmith, nimiiiig toi^t'ther 
 into a scnnidiiiii'' roar. Fi'oiii thr hill above 
 Mulberry Grove you can see every shell 
 drop; but of this there was no sign — only 
 noise and furious heart -l)oats. 
 
 T went out to the strongest tiring, and 
 toiled up a ladder of boulders. 1 came U{) on 
 to the sky-line, and bent and stole forward. 
 To the riifht was ('ave Redoubt with the 
 47 ; to the left two field-guns, unliinl)ered 
 and left alone, and some of the Rifle Brigade 
 snuof behind their stone and earth schanzes. 
 In front was the low, woody, stony crest of 
 Observation Hill ; behind was the tall table- 
 top of Surprise Hill — the tirst ours, the second 
 the enemy's. Under the slope of Observation 
 Hill were long dark lines of horses ; up to the 
 sky-line, prolonging the front leftward, stole 
 half-a-dozen of the 5th Lancers. From just 
 beyond them came the tack, tack, tack, tap. 
 
 Tack, tap ; tack, tap — it went on minute 
 by minute, hour by hour. 
 
 The sun warmed the air to an oven ; painted 
 

 1 I 
 
 ii 
 
 I 
 
 t I 
 
 i\ 
 
 Ik t 
 
 
 ,1 . 
 
 
 i I 
 
 108 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 butterflies, azur( 
 over the stones : 
 
 and 
 
 crimson, came 
 
 flitti 
 
 ng 
 
 still the devil went on ham- 
 
 mering nails into the liills. Down leftward 
 a black -powder gun was popping on the 
 film - cut ridge of Bluebank. A Boer shell 
 came fizzing from the right, and dived into 
 a whirl of red dust, where nothino- was. 
 Another — another — another, each pitched 
 with mathematical accuracy into the same 
 nothing. Our gunners ran out to their guns, 
 and flung four rounds on to the shoulder 
 of Surprise Hill. Billy pufled from Bulwan 
 — came 10,000 yards jarring and clattering 
 loud overhead — then flung a red earthquake 
 just beyond the Lancers' horses. Again and 
 aijfain, — it looked as if he could not miss 
 them ; but the horses only twitched their 
 tails, as if he were a new kind of fly. The 
 47 crashed hoarsely back, and a black 
 nimbus flung up far above the trees on the 
 mountain. And still the steady tack and 
 tap — from the right among the Devons and 
 Liverpools, from the right centre, where the 
 Leicesters were, from the? left centre, among 
 
H. 
 
 ^ flitting 
 on liam- 
 leftward 
 
 on the 
 3er shell 
 ved into 
 ntr was. 
 
 pitclied 
 he same 
 eir guns, 
 shoulder 
 
 Bui wan 
 lattering 
 
 th quake 
 rain and 
 lot miss 
 dd their 
 
 y. The 
 
 black 
 
 on the 
 
 ick and 
 
 ons and 
 
 lere the 
 among 
 
 f- 
 
 > 
 
 THE devil's tin-tacks. 10!> 
 
 > 
 
 the 60th, 
 
 and the extreme left, from Cresar's 
 
 fi 
 
 L'amp. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 I'he floht tacked on six mortal hours and 
 then guttered out. From the early hour 
 they began and from the number of shells 
 and cartridges they burned 1 suppose the 
 Boers meant to do something. But at not 
 one point did they gain an inch. We were 
 playing with them — playing with them at 
 their own game. One of our men would fire 
 and lie down behind a rock ; the Boers 
 answered furiously for three minutes. When 
 they began to die down, another man fired, 
 and for another three minutes the Boers 
 hammered the blind rocks. On six hours' 
 fi^'htinof alone: a front of ten or twelve miles 
 we lost three killed and s'jventeen wounded. 
 And, do you know, I really believe that 
 this tack-tapping among the rocks was the 
 attack after all. They had said — or it was' 
 among the million things tliey were said to 
 have said — that they would be in Lady- 
 smith on November 9, and 1 believe they 
 half believed themselves. At any rate I 
 
110 
 
 FROM (JArKT(AVN To f.ADYSMITH. 
 
 i' i: 
 
 I' i 
 
 ■.i J. 
 
 make no 'K ubb that all this niorniiiL,^ the^^ 
 were feelinc;: — feelini- our tliln lines all round 
 for a weak spot to })reak ni hy. 
 
 They did not find it, and thev gave over; 
 but they would have come had they thouglit 
 tliey could come snfely. They began before 
 it was fully light with the Manchesters. 
 The Manchesters on Caesar's CV\mp were, in 
 a way, isolated : they were connected by 
 telephone with headquarters, but it took half 
 an hour to ride uj) to their eyrie. They 
 were shelled religiously for u part of every 
 day by Puffing Billy from Bui wan and 
 Fiddling Jimmy from Middle Hill. 
 
 Every officer who showed got a round of 
 shrapnel at him. Their riflemen would fol- 
 low an oflicer about all day with shots at 
 2200 yards ; the day b(^fbre they liad hit 
 Major Grant, of the Intelligence, as he was 
 sketching the country. Tommy, on the 
 other hand, could swagger along the sky- 
 ]in(3 unmolested. No doubt the Boers thought 
 that exposed Coesar s Camp lay within their 
 hands. 
 
 I 
 
 h 
 
 '4 
 
 ■ 
 
rj; they 
 1 round 
 
 e over ; 
 thouglit 
 1 before 
 iliesters. 
 were, in 
 3 ted by 
 Dok half 
 They 
 )f every 
 in and 
 
 ound of 
 
 uld fol- 
 
 ots at 
 
 ad hit 
 
 ne was 
 
 un the 
 
 le sky- 
 
 hought 
 
 n their 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 1 
 
 .;. 
 
 
 THi; DKVILS riX-'IACKS. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But tliey V. ere vcrv ui'oiin'. ?>nnj' hehiiid 
 their sclifinzas, the Manchf\stei\s cared as 
 much for shells as for butterflies. Most of 
 them were [)osted on the inner edge of tho 
 flat top with a (juai-ter of a niilo of naked 
 veldt to fire across. fhey had been rein- 
 forced the day before by a field battery and 
 a S(jua(lron and a haU' of the Light Horse. 
 And they had one scIkidzc on tlie outer edge 
 of the hill as an advanced post. 
 
 In the dim of dawn, the ofRcer in cfiarge 
 of this post saw the Ijoers creeping down 
 behind a stone wall to th(^ left, gathering 
 in the bottom, advancing in, for tlu^:r^., close 
 order. Tie welted them with rifle-fire : they 
 scattered and sciu'ried back. 
 
 'Jlie guns got to woik, silenced the field- 
 guns on Flat Top Hill, and addcMl scatter 
 and scurry to the assailing riflemen. Cer- 
 tainly some innnber were killed ; half-a-dozen 
 bodies, they said, lay in the open all day ; 
 lanterns moved to and fro amont; the rocks 
 and bushes all night ; a new field hospital 
 and graveyard were opened next day at 
 
112 
 
 FKoM CAI'KTOWX To LADYSMFTH. 
 
 n 
 
 Bester's Sfation. On the other hoin of onr 
 position the Di^vons had a brisk morning. 
 They had in most places at least a mile of 
 clear ground in front of them. But beyond 
 that, and approaching within a few hundred 
 yards of the extreme horn of the position, 
 is scrub, which ought to have been cut 
 down. 
 
 Out of this scrub the enemy began to 
 snipe. We had there, tucked into folds of the 
 hills, a couple of tubby old black-powdered 
 howitzers, and they let fly three rounds which 
 should have been very effective. But the 
 black powder gave away their position in 
 a moment, and from every side — Pepworth's, 
 Lombard's Nek, Bui wan — came spouting 
 inquirers to see who made that noise. The 
 Lord Mayor's show was a fool to that display 
 of infernal fireworks. The pompon added 
 his bark, but he has never yet bitten 
 anybody : him the Devons despiae, and 
 have christened with a coarse name. They 
 weathered the storm without a man touched. 
 
 Not a point had the Boers gained. And 
 
 % I 
 
ini': F)i:vil's ti\ tativS. 
 
 113 
 
 of oiir 
 loriiirig. 
 mile of 
 beyond 
 lundred 
 losition, 
 en cut 
 
 ^an to 
 
 ii of the 
 
 wdered 
 
 5 which 
 
 ut the 
 
 :ion in 
 
 k^orth's, 
 
 )outing 
 
 . The 
 
 iisplay 
 
 added 
 
 bitten 
 
 , and 
 
 They 
 
 uched. 
 
 And 
 
 then canir twelve o'clock, and, if thr Rorrs 
 had fixed tlir date of the 9tU of November, 
 so hud we. We !,;,(] it in niind whose birth- 
 day it was. A trumpet - major went forth, 
 mid presently, golden - tono-ued, rann- (,nt, 
 "God bless tlie Prince of Wales." The 
 general up at Cove Redoubt led the cheers. 
 The sailors' champagne, like their shells, is 
 being saved i'o»' Christmas, but there was 
 no stint of it to drink the Prince's health 
 withal. And then the Royal salute — bang 
 on bang on bang— twenty-on(^ shotted guns, 
 as cpiick as the quickfirer can fire, plump 
 into the enemy. 
 
 That finished it. What with the guns 
 and the cheering, each Boer conunando must 
 have thought the next was pounded to mince- 
 meat. The rifle- tire dropped. 
 
 The devil had driven home all ns tin-tacks 
 and for the rest of the day we had calm. 
 
i 
 
 
 I 
 
 1i 
 
 i:i' <• 
 
 •I H 1 
 
 n* 
 
 M 
 
 114 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A DIARY OF DULNESS. 
 
 I'HE MYTHOPCEIC FACULTY — A MISERABLE DAY — THE VOICE OF 
 THE POMPOM — LEARNING THE HOER GAME — THE END OF 
 FIDDLING JIMMY — MELINITE AT CLOSE QUARTERS — A LAKE 
 OF MUD. 
 
 Nov. 11.— Ugh! What a day! Dull, cold, 
 dank, and misty — the spit of an 11th of 
 November at home. Not even a shell from 
 Long Tom to liven it. The High Street looks 
 doubly dead ; only a sodden orderly plashes 
 up its spreading emptiness on a sodden horse. 
 The roads are like rice-pudding already, and 
 the paths like treacle. Ugh ! Outside the 
 hotel drip the usual loafers with the usual 
 fables. Yesterday, I hear, the Leicesters en- 
 ticed the enemy to parade across their front 
 at 410 yards; each man emptied his magazine, 
 
I 
 
 A DIARY OF DULNP:8S. 
 
 115 
 
 VOICE OF 
 E END OF 
 — A LAKE 
 
 cold, 
 1th of 
 1 from 
 t looks 
 plashes 
 horse. 
 \y, and 
 de the 
 usual 
 ers en- 
 r front 
 gazine, 
 
 and the smarter got in a round or two of in- 
 dependent firing besides. Then they went out 
 and counted the corpses — 230. It is certainly 
 true : the narrator had it from a man who was 
 drinking a whisky, while a private of the 
 regiment, who was not there himself, but had 
 it from a friend, told the barman. 
 
 The Helpmakaar road is as safe as Regent 
 Street to - day : a curtain of weeping cloud 
 veils it from the haunting gunners on Bui wan. 
 Up in the schanzes the men Iniddle under 
 waterproof sheets to escape the pitiless drizzle. 
 Only one sentry stands up in long black over- 
 coat and grey woollen nightcap pulled down 
 over his ears, and peers out towards Lombard's 
 Kop. This position is safe enough with the 
 bare green field of fire before it, and the 
 sturdy, shell-hardened soldiers behind. 
 
 But Lord, pooi* Tommy ! His waterproof 
 sheet is spread out, mud-slimed, over the top 
 of the wall of stone and earth and sandbair, 
 and pegged down inside the schanz. He 
 crouches at the base oi* the wall, in a miry 
 hole. Nothing can keep out this film of 
 
116 
 
 Fr<OM CAPF/roWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 \ \ 
 
 w 
 
 water. He sops and sneezes, runs at the 
 eyes and nose, half manful, half miserable. 
 He Is earning the shilling a-day. 
 
 i^t lunch - time they began to shell us a 
 bit, and it \\as almost a relief At anvrate 
 it was something to see and listen to. They 
 wt^e dead-oii* Mulberry Grove to-day, but 
 the} dotted a line of sliells elegantly down 
 the High Street. The bag was unusually 
 good - a couple of mules and a cart, a tennis- 
 lawn, and a water- tank. Towards ev^ening 
 the voice of the pompom was heard in the 
 land ; but he bagged nothing — never does. 
 
 Nov. 12. — Sunday, and the few rifle-shots, 
 but in the main the usual calm. The sky 
 is neither obscured by clouds nor streaked 
 with shells. I note that the Sunday popu- 
 lation of Lady smith, unlike that of the City 
 of London, is double and treble that of week- 
 da vs. 
 
 Long Tom chipped a corner off the church 
 y(\sterday : to-day the archdeacon preached 
 a sermon [)ointing out that we are the 
 hea\en-appointed instrument to scourge the 
 
 « 
 

 A DIARY OF DULNESS. 
 
 117 
 
 at the 
 
 serable. 
 
 '11 us <*i 
 anvrate 
 They 
 av, but 
 y down 
 lusually 
 tennis- 
 ev^ening* 
 In the 
 does. 
 e-shots, 
 le sky 
 leaked 
 popu- 
 le City 
 week- 
 church 
 each eel 
 •e the 
 o-e the 
 
 Boers. Very sound, but perhaps a thought 
 premature. 
 
 Xoc. 13. — Laid three sovs. to one with 
 the 'Graphic' vesterdav awiinst to-day beino- 
 the most eventful of* tlie siege. He dragged 
 me out of bed in aching cold at four, to see 
 the events. 
 
 At daybreak Observation Hill and King's 
 Post were being shelled and sln^lling back. 
 Half l)attalions of the 1st, GOth, and IliHe 
 Brigade take day and day about on 01)serva- 
 tion Hill and King's Post, whicli is the con- 
 tinuation of Cove Redoubts. To-day the 
 GOth were on Leicester Post. When shells 
 came over them they merely laughed. One 
 ring shell burst, fizzing inside a schanz, with 
 a steamy curly tail, and splinters that wailed 
 a quarter of a mile on to the road below us ; 
 the men only raced to pick up the pieces. 
 
 When this siege is over this force ought 
 to be the best fighting men in the world. 
 We are learning lessons every day from the 
 Boer. We are uettin<»- to know his iiame, 
 9.nd learning to play it ourselves. 
 
f p XJU.1 1W 
 
 118 
 
 FKOM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Our infantry are already nearly a^ patient 
 and cunning as he ; nothing hut being shot 
 at will ever teach men the art of using cover, 
 but they get plenty of that nowadays. 
 
 Another lesson is the use of very, very 
 thin firing-lines of good shots, with the 
 supports snugly concealed : the other day 
 fourteen men of the Manch esters repulsed 
 200 Boers. The gunners have momentarily 
 thrown over their first commandant and 
 cheerfully split up batteries. They also lie 
 beneath the schaiizes and let the enemy 
 bombard the dumb guns if he will — till the 
 moment comes to fire ; .htit moment you need 
 never be afraid that tlie E-.A. will be any- 
 where but with the guns. 
 
 The enemy's shell and long-range rifle- fire 
 dropped at half- past six. The guns had 
 breached a new epaulement on Thornhill's 
 Kop — to the left of Surprise Hill and a few 
 hundred yards nearer — and perhaps knocked 
 over a Boer or two, — perhaps not. None of 
 our people hurt, and a good appetite for 
 breakfast. 
 
 
 m 
 
I. 
 
 A DIARY OF DULNESS. 
 
 119 
 
 patient 
 ng shot 
 Lg cover, 
 
 7, very 
 ith the 
 ler day 
 repulsed 
 lentarily 
 int and 
 
 also lie 
 ) eneuiv 
 -till the 
 ^ou need 
 
 be any- 
 
 rifle-fire 
 ns had 
 ornhill's 
 d a few- 
 knocked 
 None of 
 tite for 
 
 m 
 
 vf 
 
 
 % 
 
 if 
 
 In thp afternoon one of our guns on Caesar's 
 Camp smashed a pompom. Fiddling Jimmy 
 has been waved away, it seems. The Man- 
 chesters are cosy behind the best built 
 schanzes in the environs of Ladysmith. 
 Above the w^all they have a double course 
 of sandbags — tlie lower pkiced endwise across 
 the stone, the upper lengthwise, which forms 
 a series of loopholes at the height of a man's 
 shoulder. 
 
 The subaltern in command sits on the 
 highest rock inside ; the men sit and lie 
 about him, sleeping, smoking, reading, sew- 
 ing, knitting. It might almost be a Dorcas 
 meeting. 
 
 I won the bet. 
 
 Nov. 14. — The liveliest day's bombardment 
 yet. 
 
 A party of officers who live in the main 
 street were w^aiting for breakfast. The new 
 president, in the next room, was just swear- 
 ing at the servants for being late, when a 
 shell came in at the foot of the outside 
 wall and burst under the breakfast - room. 
 
 
120 
 
 FROM CArRTOVVN TO I.ADVSMITH. 
 
 ■?i 
 
 I1J 
 
 ;^i 1 
 
 The whole place was dust and thunder and 
 the half-a^rid, half- tat, all - sickly smell of 
 melinite. Half the floor was chips ; one 
 plank was hurled up and stuck in the ceil- 
 ing. All the crockery was smashed, and 
 the clock thrown down ; the pictures on the 
 wall continued to survey the scene through 
 unbroken glasses. 
 
 Much the same thing happened later in 
 the day to the smoking - room of the Royal 
 Hotel. It also was inhabited the minute 
 before, would have been inhabited the minute 
 after, but just then was quite empty. We 
 had a cheerful lunch, as there were guns 
 returning from a reconnaissance, and they 
 have adopted a thoughtless habit of coming 
 home past our house. Briefly, from six till 
 two you would ^^^ve said that the earth 
 was being shivered to matchwood and fine 
 powder. But, alas ! man accustoms himself 
 so quickly to all things, that a bombard- 
 ment to us, unless stones actually tinkle 
 on the roof, is now as an egg without 
 salt. 
 
 i! 
 
iider Mild 
 
 smell of 
 
 ips ; one 
 
 the ceil- 
 
 hed, and 
 
 38 on the 
 
 through 
 
 later in 
 he Royal 
 e minute 
 le minute 
 ty. We 
 ere guns 
 ind they 
 f coming 
 Q six till 
 he earth 
 and fine 
 1 himself 
 Dombard- 
 y tinkle 
 without 
 
 A DIAin ol' DUIAKSS 
 
 121 
 
 
 The said I't'Cniiiiaissjinct^ I did not altciul, 
 knowint,^ exactly what it would be. I 
 mounted a hill, to get warm and to make 
 sure, and it was exactly what I knew it 
 would be. Our guns fired at the Boer 
 guns till they were silent ; and then the 
 Boer dismounted men tired at our dis- 
 mounted men ; then we came home. We 
 had one wounded, but tliey say they dis- 
 covered the Boer strength on Bluebank, 
 outside Range Post, to be 500 or 000. 1 
 doubt if it is as much ; but, in any case, 1 
 think two men and a boy could have found 
 out all that three batteries and three regi- 
 ments did. With a little dash, they could 
 have taken the Boer guns on Bluebank ; but 
 of dash there was not even a little. 
 
 Nov. 15. — I wake at 12.25 this morninof, 
 apparently dreaming of shell -tire. 
 
 " Fool," says I to myself, and turn over, 
 when — swish-h ! pop-[) ! — by the piper, it is 
 shell - tire ! Thud tluul thud ten or a 
 dozen, I should say, counting the ones that 
 woke me. What in the name of gvni])owder 
 
122 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 »■*; 
 
 I ! 
 
 \ ! 
 
 is it all about ? But there is no rifle - fire 
 that I caii hear, and there are no more 
 shells now : I sleep again. 
 
 In the morning they asked the Director 
 of Military Intelligence what the shelling 
 was ; he replied, " What shelling ? " Nobody 
 knew what it was, and nobody knows yet. 
 They had a pretty fable that the Boers, in 
 a false alarm, fired on each other : if they 
 did, it was very lucky for them that the 
 shells all hit Ladysmith. My own notion 
 is that they only did it to annoy — in which 
 they failed. They were reported in the 
 morning, as usual, searching for bodies with 
 white flags ; but 1 think that is their way 
 of reconnoitring. Exhausted with this effort, 
 the Boers — heigho ! — did nothing all day. 
 Level downpour all the afternoon, and 
 Ladysmith a lake of mud. 
 
 Nov. 16. — "''^ive civilians and two natives 
 hit by a shrapnel at the railway station ; a 
 railway guard and a native died. Languid 
 shelling during morning. 
 
 Nov. 17. — During morning, languid shell- 
 
 -^ 
 
TH. 
 
 A DIARY OF nriAESS. 
 
 12.S 
 
 rifle - fire 
 no more 
 
 Director 
 1 shelling 
 
 Nobodv 
 lows yet. 
 Boers, in 
 : if they 
 that the 
 'n notion 
 -in which 
 I in the 
 dies with 
 heir way 
 lis effort, 
 all day. 
 »on, and 
 
 5 natives 
 
 ;ation ; a 
 
 Languid 
 
 ing. Afternoon, raining — Ladysmith wallow- 
 ing deeper than ever. 
 
 And that- heigh -h-ho! — makes a week 
 of it. Relieve n^^, in Ht^aven's name, oood 
 countrymen, or we die of dulness I 
 
 lid shell- 
 
124 
 
 XIV. 
 
 NEARCNG THE RND. 
 
 DULNESS INTERMINABLE — LADYSMITH IN 2099 A.D. — SIEGES 
 OBSOLETE UAUDSHIPS — DEAD TO THE WORLD— THE APl'AL- 
 LINQ FEATURES OF A BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 November 26, 1899. 
 
 I WAS going to give you another dose of the 
 dull diary. But I haven't the heart. It 
 would weary you, and I cannot say how 
 horribly it would weary me. 
 
 I an^ ^'ck of it. Everybody is sick of it. 
 They said the force which would open the 
 line and set us going against the enemy would 
 befjfin to land at Durban on the 11th, and L^et 
 into touch with us by the 16th. Now it is 
 the 26th ; the force, they tell us, has landed, 
 and is somewhere on the line between Maritz- 
 burr; and Estcourt ; but of advance not a sign. 
 
 I 
 
NEARING THK END. 
 
 125 
 
 . — SIEGES 
 HE APPAL- 
 
 J6, 1899. 
 ! of the 
 rt. It 
 ly how 
 
 51 of it. 
 len the 
 T would 
 md ffet 
 ►w it is 
 landed, 
 Maritz- 
 a sign. 
 
 Rullei', thpy lell us one day, is at Bloem- 
 fontein ; next day he is coming round to 
 Durban ; the next he is a prisoner in Pre- 
 toria. 
 
 The only thing certain is that, whatever 
 is happening, we are out of it. We know 
 nothing of the outside : and of the inside 
 there is nothing to know. 
 
 Weary, stale, flat, unprofitable, the whole 
 thing. At first, to be besieged and bom- 
 barded was a thrill ; then it was a joke ; now 
 it is nothing but a weary, weary, weary bore. 
 We do nothing but eat and drink and sleep — 
 just exist dismally. We have forgotten when 
 the siege began ; and now we are beginning 
 not to care when it ends. 
 
 For my part, I feel it will never end. 
 
 It will go on just as now, languid nghting, 
 languid cessation, for ever and ever. We 
 shall drop off one by one, and listlessly die 
 of old age. 
 
 And in the year 2099 the New Zealander 
 antiquarian, digging among the buried cities 
 of Natal, will come upon the forgotten town 
 
m 
 
 \ 
 
 31 
 
 H I 
 
 It 
 
 IM 
 
 
 f:: 
 
 ! 
 
 
 lii^ 
 
 126 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 of Ladysmith. And he will find a handful of 
 Rip Van Winkle Boers with white beards 
 down to their knees, behind quaint, antique 
 guns shelling a cactus-grown ruin. Inside, 
 sheltering in holes, he will find a few decrepit 
 creatures, very, very old, the children born 
 during the bombardment. He will take these 
 links with the past home to New Zealand. 
 But they will be afraid at the silence and se- 
 curity of peace. Having never known any- 
 thing but bombardment, they will die of 
 terror without it. 
 
 So be it. I shall not be there to see. But 
 I shall wrap these lines up in a Bed Crors 
 flag and bury th.em among the ruins of Mul- 
 berry Grove, that, after the excavations, the 
 unnumbered readers of the ' Daily Mail may 
 in the enlightened year 2100 know what a 
 siege and a bombardment were like. 
 
 Sometimes I think the siege would be just 
 as bad without the bombardment. 
 
 In some ways it would be even worse ; for 
 the bombardment is somethiuir to notice and 
 talk of, albeit languidly. But the siege is an 
 
NKARING TIIH: F>ND. 
 
 127 
 
 
 But 
 
 Cross 
 
 Mul- 
 
 , the 
 
 may 
 
 lat a 
 
 just 
 
 ; for 
 and 
 lis an 
 
 unredeemed curse. Sieges are out of date. 
 In the days of Troy, to be besieged or besieger 
 was the natural lot of man ; to give ten years 
 at a stretch to it was all in a life's work ; 
 there was nothing else to do. In the days 
 when a great victory was gained one year, and 
 a fast frigate arrived with the news the next, 
 a man still had leisure in his life for a year's 
 siege now and again. 
 
 But to the man of 1899 — or, by'r Lady, 
 inclining to 1900 — with five editions of the 
 evening papers every day, a siege is a thou- 
 sand-fold a hardship. We make it a griev- 
 ance nowadays if we are a day behind the 
 news — news that concerns us nothin":. 
 
 And here are we with the enemy all round 
 us, splashing melinite among us in most hours 
 of the day, and for the best part of a month 
 we have not even had any definite news about 
 the men for whom we must wait to get out 
 of it. We wait and wonder, first expectant, 
 presently apathetic, and feel ourselves grow old. 
 
 Furthermore, we are in prison. We know 
 now what Dartmoor feels like. The practised 
 
 i I 
 
 !: 
 
 
I 
 
 ' j'il 
 
 I 
 
 
 128 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMTTH. 
 
 vagabond tires In a fortnight of a European 
 capital ; of Ijadysmith he sickens in three 
 hours. 
 
 Even when we could ride out ten or a dozen 
 miles into the country, there was Httle that 
 was new, nothing that was interesting. Now 
 we He in the bottom of the saucer, and stare 
 up at the pitiless ring of hills that bark death. 
 Always the same stiff, naked ridges, flat- 
 capped with our intrenchments — always, 
 always the same. As morning hardens to 
 the brutal clearness of South African mid-day, 
 they march in on you till Bulwan seems to 
 tower over your very beads. There it is close 
 over you, shady, and of wide prospect ; and if 
 you try to go up you are a dead man. 
 
 Beyond is the w^orld — w^ar and love. Clery 
 marching on Colenso, and all that a man holds 
 dear in a little island under the north star. 
 But you sit here to be idly shot at. You are 
 of it, but not in it — clean out of the world. 
 To your world and to yourself you are every 
 bit as good as dead — except that dead men 
 have no time to till in. 
 
 I! 
 
 11 
 
iropean 
 three 
 
 L dozen 
 ie that 
 Now 
 1 stare 
 death. 
 ;, flat- 
 Jways, 
 Bns to 
 d-day, 
 ims to 
 s close 
 and if 
 
 Clery 
 1 holds 
 1 star. 
 3u are 
 world. 
 
 every 
 i men 
 
 NEARIXG THE KXD. 
 
 129 
 
 r know now how a monk \\ithont a voon- 
 tion feels. 1 know fiow a fly in a hoer-bottle 
 feels. 
 
 I know how it tastes, too. 
 And with it all there is the melinite and 
 the shrapnel. To be sure they u-ive us the 
 only pin-prick of interest to be had in 
 Ladysmith. It is something novel to live in 
 this town turned inside out. 
 
 Where people should be, the long, long 
 day from dawn to daylight shows only a 
 dead blank. 
 
 Where business should be, the sleepy shop- 
 blinds droop. But where no i)usiness should 
 be — along the crumbling ruts that lead no 
 whither — clatters waggon after waggon, with 
 curling whip-lashes and piles of bread and 
 hay. 
 
 Where no people should be — in the clefts 
 at the river- bank, in bald patches of \eldt 
 ringed with rocks, in overgrown ditches — all 
 these you find alive with men and beasts. 
 
 The place that a month ago was only fit 
 to pitch empty meat-tins into is now j)rice- 
 
 i! 
 
 ) 'I 
 
 i ill 
 
130 
 
 FROM f'APF/roVVN TO LADVSMITH. 
 
 less stable - room ; two squadrons of troop- 
 horses pack flank to flank inside its shelter. 
 A scrub-entangled hole, which perhaps nobody 
 save runaway Kaffirs ever set foot in before, 
 is now the envied habitation of the balloon. 
 The most worthless rock-heap below a per- 
 pendicular slope is now the choicest of town 
 lots. 
 
 The whole centre of gravity of Ladysmith 
 is changed. Its belly lies no longer in the 
 multifarious emporia along the High Street, 
 but in the earth-reddened, half-invisible tents 
 that bashfully mark the commissariat stores. 
 Its brain is not the Town Hall, the best target 
 in Ladysmith, but Headquarters imder the 
 stone-pocked hill. The riddled Royal Hotel is 
 its social centre no longer ; it is to the tn nch- 
 seamed Sailors' Camp or the wind - swept 
 shoulders of Caesar's Camp that men go to 
 hear and tell the news. 
 
 Poor Ladysmith ! Deserted in its markets, 
 repeopled in its wastes ; here ripped with iron 
 splinters, there rising again into rail-rooted, 
 
I I 
 
 NEARTXG THE EXD. 
 
 131 
 
 troop 
 shelter, 
 nobody 
 
 before, 
 balloon. 
 
 a per- 
 of town 
 
 dysniith 
 In the 
 Street, 
 >le tents 
 b stores. 
 it target 
 der the 
 Hotel is 
 ! trv nch- 
 1 - swept 
 Q go to 
 
 markets, 
 i^ith iron 
 l-roo(ed, 
 
 rock - walled caves; trampled down in its 
 gardens, manured where nothing can ever 
 grow ; skirts hemmed with sandbags and 
 bowels bored with tunnels -- the Boers mav 
 not have hurt us, but they have left their 
 mark for years on her. 
 
 They have not hurt us much— and yet the 
 casualties mount up. Three to - day, two 
 yesterday, four dead or dying and seven 
 wounded with one shell- -they are nothing at 
 all, but they mount up. I suppose we stand 
 at about fifty now, aiid there will be more 
 before we are done with it. 
 
 And then there are moments when even this 
 dribbling bombardment can be appalling. 
 
 I happened into the centre of the town one 
 day when the two big guns were concentrating 
 a cross fire upon it. 
 
 First from one side the shell came tearinsr 
 madly in, with a shrill, a blast. A mountain of 
 earth, and a hailstorm of stones on iron roofs. 
 Houses winced at the buffet. Men ran madly 
 away from it. A dog rushed out yelping — 
 
 ( 
 
 i 'II 
 
 * ^ 
 
 i 
 
 
182 
 
 FROM CAPmOWN TO LADYSMITM. 
 
 and on the yelp, from the other quarter, came 
 the next shell. Along the broad straight 
 street not a vehicle, not a white man was to 
 be seen. Only a herd of niggers cowering 
 under flimsy fences at a corner. 
 
 Another crash and quaking, and this time 
 in a cloud of dust an outbuilding jumped and 
 tumbled asunder. A horse streaked down the 
 street with trailing halter. Round the corner 
 scurried the niggers : the next was due from 
 Pepworth's. 
 
 Then the tearing scream : horror ! it was 
 coming from Bulwan. 
 
 Again the annihilating blast, and not ten 
 yards away. A roof gaped and a house leaped 
 to pieces. A black reeled over, then terror 
 plucked him up again, and sent him running. 
 
 Head down, hands over ears, they tore 
 down the street, and from the other side 
 swooped down the implacable, irresistible 
 next. 
 
 You come out of the dust and the stench of 
 melinite, not knowing where you were, hardly 
 
H. 
 
 ;er, came 
 
 straio-ht 
 
 fi was to 
 
 lowering 
 
 bis time 
 ped and 
 own the 
 B corner 
 ue from 
 
 NEARFNC; TUK KNF). 
 
 .>.) 
 
 knowing whether you were hit— only knowircr 
 that the next was rushing on its way. No 
 eyes to see it, no limbs to escape, no bulwark 
 to protect, no army to avenge. You squirm 
 between iron fingers. 
 
 Nothing to do but endure. 
 
 U 
 
 it was 
 
 lot ten 
 leaped 
 terror 
 
 ming. 
 
 y tore 
 T side 
 jistible 
 
 nch of 
 lardly 
 
 1 ^ 
 
V 
 
 i: 
 
 I 
 
 i;i 
 
 I 
 
 
 134 
 
 XV. 
 
 IN A CONNINU-TOWER. 
 
 THE SELF-RESPECTING BLUEJACKET — A GERMAN ATHEIST — THE 
 sailors' TELEPHONE —WHAT THE NAVAL GUNS MEANT TO 
 LADYS.MITH— THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 Ladysmitii, Dec. 6. 
 
 " There goes that stinker on Gun Hill," said 
 the captain. " No, don't get up ; have some 
 draught beer." 
 
 I did have some draught beer. 
 
 " Wait and see if he fires again. If he does 
 we'll go up into the conning-tower, and have 
 both guns in action toge " 
 
 Boom ! The captain picked up his stick. 
 
 " Come on," he said. 
 
 We got up out of the rocking-chairs, and 
 went out past the swinging meat-safe, under 
 the big canvas of the ward -room, with its 
 
 ii ! 
 
IN A CON NINO-TOWER. 
 
 135 
 
 risT — THE 
 IE A NT TO 
 
 Dec. 6. 
 
 ," said 
 le some 
 
 le does 
 d have 
 
 ;ick. 
 
 'S, and 
 under 
 th its 
 
 table piled with stuti' to read. Trust the 
 sailor to make himself at home. As we 
 passed through thu camp the bluejackets 
 rose to a man and lined up trimly on either 
 side. Trust the sailor to keep his self- 
 respect, even in five weeks' beleaguered 
 Ladysmith. 
 
 Up a knee -loosening ladder of rock, and 
 we came out on to the green hill - top, 
 where they first had their camp. Among 
 the orderly trenches, the sites of the deporteil 
 tents, were rougher irregular blotches of hole 
 — footprints of shell. 
 
 " That gunner," said the captain, waving 
 his stick at Surprise Hill, *' is a German. 
 Nobody but a German atheist would have 
 fired on us at breakfast, lunch, and dinner 
 the same Sunday. It got too hot when he 
 put one ten yards from the cook. Anybody 
 else we could have spared ; then we had 
 to go." 
 
 We come to what looks like a sandbaor 
 redoubt, but in the eyes of heaven is a 
 conning-tower. On either side, from behind 
 
 ^'. 
 
 "i ill 
 
V' 
 
 {'■ < 
 
 .i 
 
 : 
 
 i 
 
 ' 1 
 
 i 
 
 I ; 
 
 ; 
 
 it M 
 
 r I 
 
 i ' 
 
 I. II 
 
 I 
 
 136 
 
 FROM (CAPETOWN TO LADY81V11TH. 
 
 a sandbag epaulemeiit, a 12-ponjider and a 
 Maxim thrust forth vigilant eyes. The sand- 
 bag plating of the conning - tower was six 
 feet thick and shoulder - high ; the rivets 
 were red earth, loose but binding ; on the 
 ^.arapets sprouted tufts of grass, una})ashed 
 and rejoicing in the summer weather. Against 
 the parapet leaned a couple of men with the 
 clean-cut, clean-shaven jaw and chin of the 
 naval officer, and half-a-dozen bearded blue- 
 jackets. They stared hard out of sun- 
 puckered eyes over the billows of kopje 
 and veldt. 
 
 Forward we looked down on the one 47 ; 
 aft we looked up to the other. On bow and 
 beam and quarter we looked out to the 
 enemy's fleet. Deserted Pej)\vorth's was on 
 the port-bow, Gun Hill, under Lombard's Kop, 
 on the starboard, Bulwan abeiim. Middle Hill 
 astern. Surprise Hill on the port-quarter. 
 
 Every outline was cui in adamant. 
 
 The Helpniakaar llidgv. with its Httle 
 black ants a crawl on iiwii liill, was crusht^d 
 flat beiieatli us. 
 
and a 
 ) sand- 
 ^as six 
 
 rivets 
 on the 
 bashed 
 Lgainst 
 ith the 
 of the 
 1 blue- 
 f sun- 
 
 kopje 
 
 le 47 ; 
 )w and 
 
 o the 
 
 ias on 
 
 Kop, 
 
 le Hill 
 
 httle 
 iished 
 
 IN A CONNING-TOVVf<:R. 
 
 137 
 
 A couple of vedettes racing over the pale 
 green plain northward looked as if we conld 
 jinnp on to their heads. We could have 
 tossed a biscuit over to Lombard's Kop. 
 The great yellow emplacement of their fourth 
 big piece on Gun Hill stood up like a Spit- 
 head Fort. Through the big telescope that 
 swings on its pivot in the centre of the 
 tower you could see that the Boers were 
 loafing round it dressed in dirty mustard- 
 colour. 
 
 " Left - hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said a 
 bluejacket, with his eyes glued to binoculars. 
 "At the balloon" — and presently we heard 
 the weary pinions of die shell, and saw the 
 little pufl' of white below. 
 
 " Ring up Mr Halsey, ' said the captain. 
 
 Then 1 was aware of a sort of tarpaulin 
 cupboard under the breastwork, of creeping 
 trails of wire on the ground, and uf* a couple 
 of sappers. 
 
 The corporal turned down his page of 
 * Ilarin>^;worth's Magazine,' laid it on the para- 
 pet, and dived under the laipaulin, 
 
 II 
 
 > I 
 
 E 
 
 li 
 
 Hf 
 
 '1 ! 
 
i t 
 
 t ■ 
 
 I I 
 
 s 1' I 
 
 ! 1 
 
 I. i 
 
 138 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMIT3. 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling ! buzzed the telephone 
 hell. 
 
 The gaunt up - towering mountains, the 
 long, smooth, deadly guns — and the telephone 
 bell ! 
 
 The mountains and the guns went out, and 
 there floated in that roaring office of the 
 * Daily Mail ' instead, and the warm, rustling 
 vestibule of the playhouse on a December 
 night. This is the way we make war now ; 
 only for the instant it was half joke and half 
 home - sickness. Wliere were we ? What 
 were we doing ? 
 
 " Right-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," came the 
 even voice of the bluejacket. " At the balloon." 
 
 " Captain wants to speak to you, sir," 
 came the voice of the sa})per from under the 
 tarpaulin. 
 
 Whistle and rnttl<' and poj) went the shell 
 in the valley below. 
 
 " Give him a round both guns together," 
 said the captain to the telephone. 
 
 " Left-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said the 
 bluejacket to the captain. 
 
 [ i 
 
IN A C'oNNlNii-TUWKIl. 
 
 i:^9 
 
 ephone 
 
 Qs, the 
 ephone 
 
 ut, and 
 of the 
 •ustling 
 !cember 
 r now ; 
 nd half 
 What 
 
 me the 
 alloon." 
 11, Sir, 
 ier the 
 
 le 
 
 shell 
 
 ^ether," 
 
 lid the 
 
 Nobody oared about left-hand Gun Hill ; 
 he was only a 4 "7 howitzer; every glass was 
 clamped on the big yellow emplacement. 
 
 "Right-hand Gun Hill ip up, sir." 
 
 Bang coughs the forward gun below up ; 
 bang-g-g coughs the after-gun overhead. 
 Every glass clamped on the em})iacement. 
 
 "What a time they take!" sighs a lieu- 
 tenant — then a leaping cloud a little in front 
 and to the right. 
 
 " Damn I " sighs a peach-cheeked midship- 
 man, who 
 
 " Oh, good shot ! " For the second has 
 landed just over and behind the epaulement. 
 " Has it hit the gun ? " 
 
 " No such luck," says the captain : he 
 was down again Hve seconds after we tired. 
 
 And the men had all gone to earth, oi' 
 course. 
 
 Ting-a-ling-a-ling ! 
 
 Down dives the sapper, and presently his 
 face reappears with *' Headcjuarters to speak 
 to you, sir. What the captain said to 
 Headquarters is not to be repealed by the 
 
 i 
 
 ! t 
 
I II 
 
 140 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 Ill 
 
 
 11 
 
 profane : the captain knows his mind, and 
 speaks it. As soon as that was over, ting- 
 a-ling again. 
 
 " Mr Halsey wants to know if he may 
 fire again, sir." 
 
 " He may have one more " — for shell is still 
 being saved for Christiias. 
 
 It was all quite unimportant and probably 
 quite ineffective. At first it staggers you to 
 think that mountain-shaking bang can have 
 no result ; but after a little experience and 
 thought you see it would be a miracle if it 
 had. The emplacement is a small mountain 
 in itself; the men have run out into holes. 
 Once in a thousand shots you might hit the 
 actual gun and destroy it — but shell is being 
 saved for Christmas. 
 
 If the natives and deserters are not lying, 
 and the sailors really hit Pep worth's Long 
 Tom, then that gunner may live on his ex- 
 ploit for the rest of his life. 
 
 *' We trust we've killed a few men," says 
 the captain cheerily ; " but we can't hope for 
 much more." 
 
IN A C0NNTN(4- TOWER. 
 
 141 
 
 aiH 
 
 ting- 
 
 may 
 
 3 still 
 
 bably 
 ^ou to 
 
 have 
 i and 
 t if it 
 mtain 
 
 loles. 
 
 t the 
 
 being 
 
 |iying, 
 
 Long- 
 Is ex- 
 says 
 pe tor 
 
 And yet, if <^hoy never hit a nmn. this 
 handful of s;iilors have been the saving of 
 Lady smith. You don't know, till yon have 
 tried it, what a worm vou feel when the 
 enemy is plugging shell into you and you can't 
 possibly plug back. Even though they spared 
 their shell, it made all the world of difference 
 to know that the sailors could reach the biu" 
 guns if they ever became unbearable. It 
 makes all the difference to the Boers, too, I 
 suspect ; for as sure as Lady Anne or Bloody 
 Mary gets on to them they shut up in a 
 round or two. To have the very men among 
 you makes the difierence between rain-water 
 and brine. 
 
 The other day they sent a 12-pounder up 
 to Caesar's Camp under a boy who, if he were 
 not commanding big men round a big gun in a 
 big war, might with luck be in the fifth form. 
 
 " There's a 94-pounder up there," said a 
 high officer, who might just have been his 
 grandfather. 
 
 " All right, sir," said the child serenely ; 
 
 ti 
 
 we'll ki]ock him out. 
 
 M 
 
iiiiiii'rr iTimaaaa— p 
 
 i 
 
 
 < 
 
 li i I 
 
 
 142 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADV.SMITH. 
 
 He hasn't knocked him out yet, but he is 
 going to next shot, which in a siege is the 
 next best thing. 
 
 In the meantime he has had his guns 
 name, " Lady Ellen," neatly carved on a stone 
 and put up on his emplacement. Another 
 gun-pit bears the golden legend *' Princess 
 Victoria Battery," on a board elegant beyond 
 the dreams of suburban preparatory schools. 
 A regiment would have had no paint or gold- 
 leaf ; the sailors always have everything. 
 They carry their home with them, self-sub- 
 sisting, self- relying. Even as the constant 
 bluejacket says, " Right Gun Hill up, sir," 
 there floats from below ting- ting, ting- ting, 
 ting. 
 
 Five bells I 
 
 The rock- rending double bang floats over 
 you unheard ; the hot iron hills swim away. 
 
 Five bells — and you are on deck, swishing 
 through cool blue water among white clad 
 ladies in long chairs, going home. 
 
 O Lord, how long ? 
 
 But the sailors have not seen home for two 
 
sir. 
 
 J) 
 
 IN A (.'ONNING-TOVVKR. 
 
 143 
 
 years, which is two less than their usual spell. 
 This is their holiday. 
 
 "Of course, we enjoy it," they say, alinost 
 apologising for saving us : " we so seldom get 
 a chance." 
 
 The Royal Navy is the salt o. the sea ami 
 the salt of the earth alsa 
 
 over 
 
 clad 
 
 ih 
 
 
r 
 
 I 
 
 \ 
 
 » 
 
 m 
 
 [i 
 
 I ! 
 
 li'' 
 
 til r 
 
 ... |,. 
 
 144 
 
 THE LAST CHAPTER 
 
 BY 
 
 VERNON BLACKBURN. 
 
 I WILL give no number to the last chapter 
 of George Steevens's story of the war. There 
 is no reckoning between the work from his 
 and the work from this pen. It is the chapter 
 which covers a grave ; it does not make a 
 completion. A while back, you have read 
 that surrendering wail from the beleaguered 
 city — a wail in what contrast to the humour, 
 the vitality, the quickness, the impulse, the 
 eagerness of expectation with which his toil 
 in South Africa began ! — wherein he wrote : 
 " Beyond is the world — war and love. Clery 
 marching on Colenso, and all that a mai. 
 holds dear in a little island under tlie north 
 
THK LAST (^H AFTER. 
 
 145 
 
 lorth 
 
 star. ... To your world and to yoursrlf 
 you are overy bit as gc^od as dead exct^jit 
 that dead nien liave no time to fill in." And 
 now he is dead. And I have undertaken the 
 most difficult task, at the command (or in 
 such a case the timorous suugestion, hooped 
 round by poignant apologies, is no less than 
 a command — of that human creature whom, 
 in the Httle island under the north star, he 
 held most dear of all — his wife, to set a coping- 
 stone, a mere nothing in the air, upon the 
 last work that came from his pen. T will 
 prefer to begin with my own summary, my 
 own intimate view of George Steevens, as he 
 wandered in and out, visible and invisible, of 
 the paths of my life. 
 
 " Weep for the dead, for his light hath 
 failed ; weep but a little for the dead, for 
 he is at rest." Ecclesiasticus came to my 
 mind when the news of his death came to 
 my knowledge. Who would not weep over 
 the extinction of a career set in a promise 
 so golden, in an accomplishment so rare and 
 splendid ? Sad enough thought it is that he 
 
 K. 
 
 
"• I' m I Hil l n ) ' i Ti i irnri i rfd 
 
 
 I ' f 
 
 ?! 
 
 i : 
 
 ■ i 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 ' 1 
 
 ! 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 146 
 
 FRO Al rW F/r( ) \N N TO L A UV SM I T 1 1 . 
 
 is at rest ; still — lu^ rests. " Under the wide 
 and starry sky," words which, as I have heard 
 him say, in his casual, unambitious manner 
 oF speech, he was wont to repeat to himself 
 in the open deserts of the Soudan — " Under 
 the wide and starry sky " the grave has been 
 dug, and " let me lie." 
 
 " Glad did I livo, and ^ludly die, 
 And I laid me down with a will." 
 
 The personality of George Steevens was one 
 which might have been complex and obscure 
 to the ordinary acquaintance, were it not for 
 one shining, one golden key which fitted 
 every ward of his temperament, his conduct, 
 his policy, his work. He was the soul of 
 honour. 1 use the words in no vague sense, 
 in no mere spirit of phrase-making. How 
 could that be possible at this hour? They 
 are words which explain him, which are the 
 commentary of his life, which- summarise and 
 enlighten every act of every day, his moment- 
 ary impulses and his acquired habits. " In 
 Spain," a great and noble writer has said, 
 
wide 
 beard 
 anner 
 imself 
 Jnder 
 been 
 
 as one 
 bscure 
 ot for 
 fitted 
 induct, 
 oul of 
 sense, 
 How 
 They 
 re the 
 le and 
 )ment- 
 "In 
 said, 
 
 THE LAST CHArTER. 
 
 147 
 
 '*was the point put upon honour." The point 
 of honour was with George Steevens his 
 helmet, his shield, his armour, his fla^j^. That 
 it was which made his lightest word a law, 
 his vaguest promise a necessity in act, his 
 most facile acce{)tance an engagement as fixed 
 as the laws of motion. In old, old chiys T well 
 remember how it came to be a compkicent 
 certainty with everybody associated with 
 Steevens that if he promised an article, an 
 occasional note, a review — whatever it might 
 be — at tw^o, three, four, five in the morning, 
 at that hour the work would be ready. He 
 never flinched ; he tiever made excuses, for 
 the obvious reason that there was never any 
 necessity for excuse. Truthful, clean-minded, 
 nobly unselfish as he was, all these things 
 played but the parts of planets revolving 
 around the sun of his life — tlie sun oi' honour. 
 To that point 1 always rctui-n : but a man 
 can be conceived who shall be .sr)lendidly 
 honourable, yet not lovable — a man who 
 might repel friendship. Steevens wa^ not of 
 that race. Not a friend of his but loved hini 
 
us 
 
 FFiOM CAPKTOVVN TO LADYSMITII. 
 
 
 h'- 
 
 I 
 
 with a great and serious affection lor those 
 fHiMhties whicli are too often separahle from 
 the jinstt^'ity of a fine chaiMcter, tlie honoui' 
 of an n[)right man. His sweetness was ex- 
 (juisite, and this partly ])ecause it was so un- 
 ex piloted. A somewhat shy and quiet maiuier 
 (hd not prepare men for the urhanity, the 
 tolei'ance, the mat^nanimity that hiy at th(^ 
 back of his heart. Generosity in thought 
 the }arest form of generosity that is reare(] 
 among the flowers of this sorrowful earth — 
 was with him habitual. He could, and did, 
 resent at every point the qualities in men 
 that ran counter to his principles of honour, 
 and he did not spare his keen irony when 
 such things crossed his path ; but, on the 
 other side, he loved his friends with a whole 
 and simple heart. 1 think that very few men 
 who came under his . influence refused him 
 their love, none their admiration. 
 
 Into all that he wrote — and T shall deal 
 latei- with that point in detail his true and 
 candid spirit was infused. Just as in his life, 
 in his daily actions, you were continually 
 
TIN-: LAST (IIAP'IIOH. 
 
 14!» 
 
 those 
 from 
 onour 
 IS ex- 
 so un- 
 laTinrr 
 y, the. 
 it th(^ 
 
 reared 
 arth — 
 d did, 
 Q men 
 I onour, 
 when 
 m the 
 , whole 
 w men 
 d him 
 
 111 deal 
 le and 
 liis life, 
 linually 
 
 
 surprised hy his tenderness tiu'nint^ round 
 the corner of his austere reserve, so in his 
 work his sentiment came with a ourinus 
 appeal, with tender surprises, witli an emo- 
 tion that was all the keener on account of 
 the contrast that it made with the courage, 
 the hope, and the fine manliness of all his 
 thoui;ht md all his word. Children, help- 
 lessness of all kinds, touched always that 
 merciful heart. T can scarcely think of him 
 as a man of the world, although he had had 
 ill his few and glorious days experience 
 enough to harden the spirit of any man. 
 He could never, as I think of him, have 
 grown into your swaggering, money- making, 
 bargaining man of Universal Trade. Keen 
 and significant his policy, his oiclering of his 
 affairs must ever have been ; but the keen- 
 ness and significance were the outcome, not 
 of any cool eye to tlie main chance, but of 
 a gay sense of the pure need of logic, not 
 only in letters !)Ut also in living. 
 
 Til 
 
 lere, ruiain. I tv>neli anotlx^r <'hara'^'teristi<! 
 
 --tiis feeling for logic, toj' dialectic, which 
 
 ^1 
 

 u 
 
 : 
 
 ! V. 
 
 i 
 
 
 • 
 
 il 
 
 150 
 
 FRO:.J CAPKTOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 made him one of the severest reasoners that 
 it would be possible to meet in argument. 
 Ho us<^d, in his admirably assumed air of 
 brag, an attitude which he could tak(^ with 
 perfect humour and [)erfect dignity — to pro- 
 test that he was one of two or three English- 
 men who had ever mastered the philosophical 
 systems of Germany, from Kant to Hegel, 
 from ilegel to Schopenhauer. Though he 
 said il with an airy sense of fun, and 
 almost of disparagement, I am strongly in- 
 clined to believe that it was true. He was 
 nevei- sal isHed with his knowledge : invari- 
 ably cnrious, he was guided by his joy in pure 
 reasoning to the philosophies of the world, 
 and in his silent, quiet, unobtrusive way 
 he became a master of many subjects which 
 life was too brief in his case to permit him 
 to show to his friends, much less to the 
 world. 
 
 This, it will be readily understood, is, as I 
 have said, the merest summary of a character, 
 as oi'e person has understood it. Others will 
 reacli him from other ))oints of view. Mean- 
 
THE LAST (;haptp:r. 
 
 l."l 
 
 way 
 
 'hich 
 
 him 
 
 the 
 
 as I 
 
 icter, 
 
 will 
 
 .ean- 
 
 whHe Ladvsmith has him — what is that 
 phrase of his? — '* You squirm between iron 
 fingers.' Fortunate he, so far that he is 
 at rest, squirming no longer ; and with the 
 wail on his lips, the catch in the throat, he 
 went down in the embrace of a deadlier 
 enemy than the Bui wan horror, to which he 
 made reference in one of the last lines he was 
 destined to write in this world. He fell ill 
 in that pestilent town, as all the world knows. 
 His constitution was strong enough ; he had 
 not lived a life of unpropitious preparation 
 for a serious illness ; but his heart was a 
 danger. Typhoid is fatal to any heart-weak- 
 ness, particularly in convalescence ; and he 
 was caught suddenly as he was growing 
 towards perfect health. 
 
 I have been privileged to see certain letters 
 written to his w^fe by the friend with whom 
 he shared his Ladysmith house during the 
 course of his illness. " How he contracted 
 enteric fever," says Mr Maud, " 1 cannot tell. 
 It is unfortunately very prevalent in the 
 camp just now. He began to be ill on the 
 
 m 
 

 iir 
 
 152 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO r.ADYSMITH. 
 
 i;i 
 
 
 iv 
 
 13th of Decern bei', but on that day the doctor 
 was not quite sure about its being enteric, 
 although he at once commenced with the 
 treatment for that disease. The following 
 day there was no doubt about it, and we moved 
 him from our noisy and uncomfortable quarters 
 in the Imperial Light Horse Camp to our pres- 
 ent abode, which is quite the best house in 
 Ladysmith. Major Henderson of the Intelli- 
 gence Department very kindly offered his 
 own room, a fine, airy, and well-furiiisjjcd 
 apartment, although he was barely r(^coven*d 
 of his wound. At first I could only procure 
 the services of a trained orderly of the 5th 
 Dragoon Guards lent to us by the colonel, 
 but a few days later we were lucky enough 
 to find a lady nurse, who has turned out most 
 excellently, and she takes charge at night. 
 ... I am. happy to tell you that everything 
 has gone on splendidly. . . ." After describ- 
 ing how the fever gradually approached a 
 crisis, Mr Maud continues: "When he was 
 at his worst ho was often delirious, but nevei* 
 violent ; the only troubN' w.is to |)i('vent him 
 
ctor 
 
 eric, 
 the 
 ^ing 
 oved 
 rters 
 pres- 
 ise in 
 itelli- 
 i his 
 
 wered 
 
 L'OCUir 
 
 e 5th 
 )l()nel, 
 lOUgh 
 most 
 nigiit. 
 thing 
 scrib- 
 led a 
 |e was 
 never 
 t him 
 
 THK LAST (CHAPTER. 
 
 153 
 
 getting out of bed. He was continually ask- 
 ing us to go and fetch you, and always thought 
 he was journeying homewards. It never does 
 to halloa before one gets out of the wood, but 
 I do really think that he is well on the road 
 to recovery." Alas ! 
 
 Not so much as a continued record of 
 Steevens's illness, as in the nature of a 
 pathetic side - issue to the tragedy of his 
 death, I subjoin one or two passages from 
 a letter sent subsequently from Ladysmith 
 by the same faithful friend before the end : 
 *' He has withstood the storm wonderfully 
 well, and he is not very much pulled down. 
 The doctor thinks that he should be ahout 
 aorain in a fortniefht "—the letter was written 
 on the 4th of January — "by which time I 
 trust General Buller will have arrived and 
 reopened the railway. Directly it is possihle 
 to move, I shall take him down to Notting- 
 ham Road. . . . There lias been little or 
 nothintr to do for the last month In'vond 
 listenincr to the bursting" of the Loni^ lorn 
 shells'' That touch ahout Oeiiernl P)iillrr's 
 
 si 
 
if 
 
 i '! 
 
 11 r 
 
 'Jii 
 ,1 
 
 ■^i! 
 
 154 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 arrival is surely one of the most strangely 
 appealing" incidents in the recent history of 
 human confidence and human expectation ! 
 Another friend, Mr George Lynch, whose 
 name occurred in one of his letters in a 
 passage curiously characteristic of Steevens s 
 drily incisive hiimrur, writes about the days 
 that must immediately have preceded his 
 illness : " He was as fit and well as pos- 
 sible when I left Lady smith last month." 
 (The letter is dated from Durban, January 
 11.) "We were drawing rations like the 
 soldiers, but had some '74 port and a plum- 
 pudding which we were keeping for Christmas 
 Day. . . . Shells fell in our vicinity more or 
 less like angels' visits, and I had a bet with 
 him of a dinner. I backed our house to be 
 hit against another which he selected ; and 
 he won. I am to pay the dinner at the Savoy 
 when we return." 
 
 There is little more to record of the actual 
 facts at this moment. The following cable, 
 which has till now remained unpublished, tells 
 its ow^n tale too sadly : — 
 
THK LAST riJAPTKR. 
 
 15" 
 
 "Steevens, a few days before death, had 
 recovered so far as to be able to attend to 
 some of his journahstic duties, though still 
 contined to bed. Relapse followed ; he died 
 at five in the afternoon. Funeral same niiJfht, 
 leavint^ Carter's house (where Steevens was 
 lying during illness) at 11.30. Interred in 
 Ladysmith Cemetery at midnight. Night 
 dism^^ rain falling, while the moon attempted 
 to pierce the black clouds. Boer searchlight 
 from Umbala flashed over the funeral party, 
 showing the way in the darkness. Large 
 attendance of mourners, several officers, garri- 
 son, most correspondents. Chaplain M'Varish 
 officiated." 
 
 When I read that short and simple cable- 
 gram, the thought came to my mind that if 
 only the greater number of modern rioters in 
 language were compelled to hoard their words 
 out of sheer necessity for the cable, we should 
 have better results from the attempts at 
 word-painting that now cumber the ground. 
 And this brings me directly to a considera- 
 tion of Steevens's work. In many respects, 
 
156 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 I 
 
 1 j! 
 
 BM 
 
 1 
 
 \ 
 
 '1 
 
 
 H ' ^^ 
 
 mK^^^^b 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 
 of course, it was never, even in separate 
 papers, completed. Journalist and scholar 
 he was, both. But the world was allowed 
 to see too much of the journalist, too little of 
 the scholar, in what he accomplished. ' The 
 Monologues of the Dead' was a brilliant be- 
 ginning. It proved the splendid work of the 
 past, it presaged more splendid work for the 
 future. And then, if you please, he became 
 a man of action ; and a man of action, if he 
 is to write, must perforce be a journalist. 
 The preparations had made it impossible that 
 he should ever be anything else but an ex- 
 traordinary journalist ; and accordingly it fell 
 out that the combination of a wonderful 
 equipment of scholarship with a vigorous 
 sense of vitality brought about a unique thing 
 in modern journalism. Unique, I say : the 
 thing may be done again, it is true ; but he 
 was the pioneer, he was the inventor, of the 
 particular method which he practised. 
 
 I began this discussion with a reference to 
 the spare, austere, but quite lucid message 
 of the cablegram announcing the death of 
 
wmaams 
 
 THK r>AST CHAPTER. 
 
 1r ^ 
 / 
 
 img 
 
 the 
 
 he 
 
 the 
 
 |e to 
 
 jage 
 of 
 
 Steevens ; and I was carried on at once to a 
 deliberate coiisideratioi) of his litei'ary work, 
 because that work had, despite its vi<^a)ur, its 
 vividness, its l)rilliance. just the outline, tht' 
 spareness, the slinuiess, the austerity which 
 are so painfully inconspicuous in the custom- 
 ary painter of word-j)ictures. Some have said 
 that Steevens was destined to be the King- 
 lake of the Transvaal. That is patently in- 
 demonstrable. His war correspondence was 
 not the work of a stately historian. He 
 could, out of sheer imaginativeness, cieate for 
 himself the style of the stately historian. 
 His " New Gibbon " — a paper which appeared 
 in ' Blackwood's Magazine ' — is there to prove 
 so much ; but that was not the manner in 
 which he usually wrote about war. He was 
 essentially a man who had visions of things. 
 Without the time to separate his visions into 
 the language of pure classicism — a feat wliich 
 Tennyson superlatively contrived to accom- 
 plish — he yet took out the right details, and 
 by skilful combination built you, in the brief- 
 est possible space, a strongly vivid picture. If 
 
 '.I 
 
158 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSAllTH. 
 
 
 i 
 
 U 
 
 i- 
 
 you look straight out at any scene, you will 
 see what all men see when they look straight 
 out ; but when you inquire curiously into all 
 the quarters of the compass, you will see what 
 no man ever saw when he simply looked out 
 of his two eyes without regarding the here, 
 ibetN', and everywhere. When Tennyson 
 wr(j|.e of 
 
 " flush 'd Ganymede, his rosy thigh 
 Half-buried in tlie Eagle's dowu, 
 Sole as a flying star shot thro' the sky 
 Above the pillar'd town" — 
 
 you felt the wonder of tlie picture. Applied 
 in a vastly different way, put to vastly 
 different uses, the visual gift of Steevens 
 l)elonged to the same order of things. Con- 
 sider this passage from his Soudan book : — 
 ** Black spindle - legs curled up to meet 
 red-gimleted black faces, donkeys headless 
 and legless, or sieves of shrapnel : camels 
 with necks writhed back on to their humps, 
 rotting already in pools of blood and bile- 
 yellow water, !ieads without faces, and faces 
 without anything below, cobwebbed arms 
 
 
THE LAST (FTAPTER. 
 
 159 
 
 ;on- 
 
 ips, 
 
 )ile- 
 
 laces 
 
 Irms 
 
 and legs, and black skins grilled to crack- 
 ling on smouldering palm - leaf- - don't look 
 at it.' 
 
 The writer, swinging on at the obvious 
 pace with which this writing swings, of 
 course has no chance to make as flawless a 
 picture as the great man of leisure ; but the 
 pictorial quality of each is precisely the same. 
 Both understood the f :e art of selection. 
 
 I have sometimes w(ardered if I grudged 
 to journalism what Steevens stole from letters. 
 I have not yet q ute come to a decision ; 
 for, had he never left the groves of the 
 academic for the crowded career of the man 
 of the world, we should never have known 
 his amazing versatility, or even a fraction 
 of his noble character as it was published 
 to the world. Certainly the book to which 
 this chapter forms a mere pendant must, in 
 parts, stand as a new revelation no less of 
 the nobility of that character than of his 
 extraordinary foresight, his wonderful in- 
 stinct for the objectiveness of life. I believe 
 that in his earliest childhood his feeling for 
 
li 
 
 I 
 
 -h 
 
 100 
 
 FROM rAPKTOWN TO KADVSMITPI, 
 
 the [)i'f)se of t/eo^raphy was like Wojdsworth's 
 CJitaract it "liauiited him hke a passion." 
 And all the while the suhjective side of life 
 called for the intrusion of his prying eyes. 
 80 that you may say it was more or less 
 pure chance that led him to give what 
 has proved to be the hulk of his active 
 years to the objective side of things, the 
 purely actual. Take, in this very book, 
 that which amounts practically to a prophecy 
 of the difficulty of capturing a point like 
 Spion Ko}), in the passage where he describes 
 how impossible it is to judge of the value 
 of a hill- top until you get there. (Pope, by 
 the way — and I state the point not from 
 any desire to be pedantic, but because 
 Steevens had a classical way with him which 
 would out, disguise it how he might — Pope, I 
 say, in his " Essay on Criticism," had before 
 made the same remark.) Then again you have 
 in his chapter on Aliwal the curiously intimate 
 sketch of the Boer character — *' A people 
 hard to arouse, but, you would say, very 
 hard to subdue." Well, it is by the objective 
 
 
THK LAST CHAPTKR. 
 
 IGI 
 
 side of life tlifit we have to judge him. The 
 futility of death makes that an absolute 
 necessity ; but I like to think of a possible 
 George Steevens who, when tlu' dust and 
 sand of campaigns and daily journalism had 
 been wiped away from his shoon, wonld have 
 combined in a great and singlt'-heart(Hl career 
 all the various powers of his fine mind. 
 
 His death, as none needs to be told, came 
 as a great shcck and with almost staggering 
 surprise to the world ; and it is for his 
 memory's sake that I put on record a few 
 of the words that were written of him by 
 responsible people. An Oxford contemporary 
 has written of him : — 
 
 " I first met him at a meeting of the Russell 
 Club at Oxford. He was a great light there, 
 being hon. sec. It was in 1890, and Steevens 
 had been head - boy of the City of London 
 School, and then Senior Scholar at Balliol. 
 Even at the Hussell Club, then, he was re- 
 garded as a great man. The membership 
 was, I think, limited to twenty — all Radical 
 stalwarts. I well remember his witty com- 
 
1(52 
 
 KI{<)M CAI'KTOVVN TO LAr>YSMITfr. 
 
 ments on a paper advocating Women's Bights. 
 }\i' was at his bf^st when opening the debate 
 after some such paper. Little did that band 
 of ardent soids imagine their leader would, 
 in a few short years, be winning fame for a 
 Tory halfpenny paper. 
 
 " He sat next me at dinner, just before 
 he graduated, and he was in one of those 
 pensive moods which sometimes came over 
 him. I believe he hardly spoke. In '92 he 
 entered himself as a candidate foi* a Fellow- 
 ship at Pembroke. I recollect his dropping 
 into the examination-room half an hour late, 
 while all the rest had been eagerly waiting 
 outside the doors to start their papers at 
 once. But what odds ? He was miles ahead 
 of them all — an easy first. It was rumoured 
 in Pembroke that the new Fellow had been 
 seen smoking (a pipe, too) in the quad — that 
 the Dean had said it was really shocking, 
 such a bad example to the undergraduates, 
 and against all college rules. How could we 
 expect undergraduates to be mcn-al if Mr 
 Steevens did such things ? How, indeed ? 
 
Till', LAST CIIAITKR. 
 
 163 
 
 Then cnmo Mr Oscar Browning from T^ani- 
 bridm* and carried otV St^evens to the 
 'second university in thr klni^dom,' so tliat 
 we saw but little of him. Some \v()rs}ii[)[)(>d, 
 others (l(Miounced him. The C-Mmhi-idm' paprrs 
 took sides. One spoke of ' The Shadow ' or 
 *The Fetish,' an contraire : another would 
 praise the great Oxford genius. Whereas at 
 Balliol Steevens was boldly criticised, at 
 Cambridge he was hated or* arlored. 
 
 "A few initiated friends knew that Steevens 
 was writincj for the ' Pall Mall ' and th(^ 
 * Cambridi^e Observer,' and it soon became 
 evident that journalism was to be his life- 
 work. Last February I me't him in the 
 Strand, and he was much chan'^ed : no more 
 crush hat, and long hair, and Bohemian 
 manners. He was back from the East, and 
 a great man now— married and settled as 
 well — very spruce, and inclined to be en- 
 thusiastic about the T^mpire. F^ut still I 
 remarked his old inditTerence to criticism. 
 Success had improved him in everv way : 
 this seems a common thino- with Brit hers. 
 
 t M 
 
104 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 ! 
 
 '^i 
 
 [| i 
 
 In September last I knocked up against him 
 at Rennes during the Dreyfus trial. As I 
 expected, Steevens kept cool : he could always 
 see the other side of a question. We dis- 
 cussed the impending war, and he was 
 eagerly looking forward to going with the 
 troops. I dare not tell his views on the 
 political question of the war. They would 
 surprise most of his friends and admirers. 
 On taking leave I bade him be sure to take 
 care of himself He said he would." 
 
 What strikes me as being peculiarly sig- 
 nificant of a certain aspect of his charac- 
 ter appeared in ' The Nursing and Hospital 
 World.' It ran in this wise — I give merely 
 an extract : — 
 
 " Althougli George Steevens never used 
 his imperial pen for personal purposes, yet 
 it seems almost as if it were a premonition 
 of death by enteric fever which aroused his 
 intense sympathy for our brave soldiers 
 who died like flies in the Soudan from this 
 terrible scourge, owing to lack of trained 
 nursing skill, during the late war. Tiiis 
 
THK LAST CHAITKir. 
 
 IGo 
 
 sympathy he expressed to those in power, 
 and we beHeve that it was owinof to his 
 representations that one of the most splenchd 
 offers of help for our soldiers ever sut^^gesled 
 was made by his chief, the editoi* of the 
 'Daily Mail,' when he pioposed to equi]>, 
 regardless of expense, an ambulance to the 
 Soudan, organised on lines which would 
 secure, for our sick and wounded, skilled 
 nursing on modern lines, such iiursino- jjs 
 the system in vogue at the War Oflice 
 denies to them. 
 
 "The fact that the War Office refused 
 this enlightened and generous olfoi-, and 
 that dozens of valuable lives were sacrificed 
 in consequence, is only part of the monstrous 
 incompetence of its management. Who can 
 tell! If Mr Alfred Harmsworth's offer h;id 
 been accepted in the last war, niight not 
 army nursing reform have, to a certain 
 extent, been effected ere we came to blows 
 with the Transvaal, and many of the brave 
 men who have died foi* us long lingering 
 deaths fi'om enteric and dysentery have 
 
166 
 
 FROM CAPKTOWN TO LADYSMITH. 
 
 1 i 
 
 been spared to those of whom they are 
 beloved ? " 
 
 Another writer in the ' Outlook ' : — 
 ** As we turn over the astonish in<^ record 
 of Georges Warrington Steevens's thirty years, 
 we are divided between the balance of h)ss 
 and gain. The loss to his own intimates 
 must be intolerable. From that, indeed, we 
 somewhat hastily avert our eyes. Remains 
 the loss to the great reading public, which 
 we believe that Steevens must have done a 
 vMst deal to educate, not to literature so 
 much as to a pride in our country's imperial 
 destiny. Where the elect chieHy admired 
 a scarcely exampled grasp and power of 
 literarv Impressionism, the man in the street 
 was learning the scope and Jispect of his 
 and our imperial heritage, and gaining a 
 new view of his duties as a British citizen. 
 " A potent influence is thus withdrawn. 
 The j)en that had taught us to see and com- 
 ])rehend India and Egypt and the reconquest 
 of the Soudan would have burned in on the 
 most heedless the line which duty marks out 
 
hey are 
 
 TMi: LAST ( HAI'TKIl. 
 
 ir,7 
 
 y record 
 y yt^ars, 
 
 of loss 
 ritimates 
 leed, we 
 Remjiins 
 which 
 ) done a 
 at lire so 
 
 imperial 
 admired 
 ower of 
 le street 
 ' of his 
 lining a 
 
 citizen, 
 thdniwn. 
 md com- 
 conquest 
 1 on the 
 arks nut 
 
 for us in South Africa. Men who know South 
 Africa are [)r(^tty well united. Now Steevens 
 would have taken all Ent^land to South Africa. 
 Nay, more, we are no lont^^er ahle to l)link the 
 truth that all is not for the he;st in the hest of 
 all possihle armies, and the one satisfaction in 
 our reverses is that, when the war is over, no 
 Government will dare to resist a vigorous pro- 
 ofranune of reform. Steevens would not liave 
 been too technical for his readers ; he would 
 have given his huge public just as many 
 prominent facts and headings as had been 
 good for them, and his return from South 
 Africa with the materials of a hook must have 
 strengthened the hands of the intellige.it 
 reformer. That journahsm wliich, in a word, 
 really is a living influence in the State is 
 infinitt^ly the poorer. And so we believe is 
 literature. There is nuich hterature in his 
 journalism, but it is ifi his ' Monologues of the 
 Dead ' that you get the rare achievement and 
 rarer j)romisr which made one p(»sitive that, 
 his wanderings once over, he would settle down 
 to write son ^^thing of great and ptM'manent 
 
it 
 
 Ih 
 
 168 
 
 FROM CAPKTOWN TO LADYS^flTH. 
 
 value. Only one imv dimei:l couid we have 
 foreseen to such a consuin irdtion he :rno:ht 
 have been drawn into public life, i^^or he 
 spoke far better than the majority of even 
 distinguished contemporary politicians, and to 
 a man of his know]edi,^e of affairs, influence 
 over others, and clearness of conviction, any- 
 thing might have been open. 
 
 *' Well ! he is dead at Lady sin ith of enteric 
 fever. Turning over the pages of his famous 
 war-book we find it written of the Soudan : 
 *0f the men who escaped with their lives, 
 hundreds more will bear the mark oi' its fangs 
 till they die : hardly one of them but will die 
 the sooner for the Soudnii.' And so he is 
 dead ' the sooner foi* the Soudan.' It seems 
 bitter, unjust, o quite superfluous dispensation ; 
 and then one's oye falls on the next sentence 
 — 'What have we to show in return?' In 
 the answer is set forth (he bnlMOce of irain, for 
 we love 'to show in return' a wellnigh ideal 
 career. Fame, happiness, friendship, and that 
 whicli transcends friendship, all came to George 
 Steeveiis hefiMi' he was tfiirty. Fie did eyevy- 
 
THE LAST rHArTfOiJ. 
 
 160 
 
 thing, and everything well. He hridt^ef! a 
 gulf whiclj was deemed impassable, for from 
 being a head-boy at school and the younget^*: 
 Balliol scholar and a Fellow of his Col We pr.j 
 the very type of rising pedagogue, with a 
 career secure to him in these dusty meadows, 
 he chose to step forth into a world where these 
 things were accounted lightly, to glorify the 
 hitherto contemned office of the reporter. 
 Thus within a few years he hurried through 
 America, bringing back, the greatest of liv- 
 ing American journalists tells us, the best and 
 most accurate of all pictures of America. Thus 
 he saw the face of war with the conquering 
 Turk in Thessaly, and showed us modern Ger- 
 many and Egypt and British India, anr' i'l \ wo 
 Soudanese campaigns rode for dav : \x\ che 
 saddle in ' that God-accursed wilder: -'-ss, as 
 though his training had 'een in a stable, not 
 in the quad of Balliol. These thirty years 
 were packed with the happiness and success 
 which Matthew Ariioid desired for them that 
 must die young. He not only succeeded, but 
 he took success modestly, and leaves a iiame 
 
!i' 
 
 170 
 
 FU(h\l CAPETOWN TO f-ADYSM IIH. 
 
 for unselfishness and unhumptionsness. Also 
 he ' did the State some servic^^.' 
 
 " ' One paces up and down the shore yet 
 awhile,' says Thackeray, ' and looks towards 
 the unknown ocean and thinks of the tra- 
 veller whose boat sailed yesterday.' And so, 
 thinkln<; of Steevens, we nuist not altogether 
 repine when, ' tralhni,^ clouds of glory,' an 
 * ample, full-blooded spirit shoots into the 
 
 ) )> 
 
 night. 
 
 I take this passage from * Literature/ in 
 connection with Steevens, on account of the 
 grave moral which it draws from his life- 
 work : — 
 
 '' His cai'«'«'i* was an object-lesson in the 
 usefuliH'ss ol* those educational endowments 
 which link the humhlcst with the hlixhest 
 seats of leai'iing in the coinitry. If he had 
 n< t been able to win scholarshij)s he would 
 have had to begin life as a clerk in a b;vnk or 
 a hous*^ ol' business. I^nt he won them, and 
 a /'"OHil education with them, wlier«'vei' they 
 were to be won — at the (^ity of London 
 School, and at Halliol ('(»llege. O\|*oi'd. lie 
 
THK [.AST ('IIAI'Ti:i{. 
 
 171 
 
 was a first class man ('doIIi in 'Mods' and 
 ' (ii'eats '), pnt.rnna acccssi/ for the I Icrtlord, 
 and a Fellow of Penil)r<)k«'. H(^ learnt 
 German, and specialised n meta[>liysics. A 
 review which he wrote of Mr Balfour's 
 * Foundations of* Keliiiious ljv.^iler' showed 
 how much more deeply than tlie av(n'a<^e 
 journalist he had studied the subjects about 
 which philosophers doubt ; and his tirst book 
 — ' Monologues of the Dt^ad ' - established his 
 claim to scholarship. Some critics called 
 them vul<j^ar, and they certainly were frivo- 
 lous. But they proved two things — that Mr 
 Steevens had a lively sense of humour, and 
 that he had read the classics to s(nne purpose. 
 The monologue of Xanthippe — in which she 
 gave her candid opinion of Socrates- was, in 
 its way, and wi^lnn its limits, a masterpiece. 
 
 " But it was not by this sort of work that 
 Mr Steevens was to win his wide popularity. 
 Few writers, when one comes to think of it, 
 do win wide popularity by means of classical 
 jeux cVesjrrit. At the time when he was 
 throwing them off, he vas also throwing <jfl[ 
 
172 
 
 KliOM CAI'KToWN To I.ADN SM ITU. 
 
 ' Occ. Notes ' for the * Pall Mall Gazette.' 
 He was reckoned the humorist par excellence 
 of that journal in the years when, under the 
 editorship of Mr CMst, it was almost entirely 
 written by humorists. He was one of the 
 seceders on the occasion of Mr Cust's retire- 
 ment, and occupied the leisure that then pre- 
 sent«?d itself in writing his book on ' Naval 
 Policy,' His real chance in life came when he 
 was sent to America for the ' Daily Mail.' It 
 was a better chance than it might have been, 
 because that newspaper did not publish his 
 letters at irregular intervals, as usually hap- 
 pens, but in an unbroken daily sequence. 
 Other excursions followed — to Egypt, to 
 India, to Turkey, to Germany, to Rennes, 
 to the Soudan — and the letters, in almost 
 every case, quickly reappeared as a book. 
 
 " A rare combination of gifts contributed 
 to Mr Steevens's success. To begin with, 
 he had a wonderful power of finding his 
 way quickly through a tangle of complicated 
 detail : this he owed, no doubt, in large 
 measure to his Oxford training. He also 
 
 I ! ; 
 
 III:! 
 
TliK 1>AST (4IAP'ri:i{. 
 
 IT.s 
 
 was one of the few writers who hav(^ 
 brought to journalism the tal<^nts, and sym- 
 pathies, and touch hitherto rei^^arded as 
 belonging more properly to the writei- of 
 fiction. It was the dream of Mr T. P. 
 O'Connor, when he started the ' Sun,' to 
 ha.ve the happenings of the passing day 
 described in the stvle of tlie short - story 
 writer. The experiment failed, because it 
 was tried on an evening paper with printers 
 clamouring for copy, and the begiiniing of 
 the story generally had to be writt n before 
 the end of the story was in sight or the 
 place of the incidents could be determined. 
 Mr Steevens tried the same experiment 
 under more favourable conditions, and suc- 
 ceeded. There never were newspaper articles 
 that read more like short stories than his, 
 and at the same time there never were 
 newspaper articles that gave a more con- 
 vincing impression that the thing happened 
 as the writer described it." 
 
 A more personal note was struck perhaps 
 by a writer in the ' Morning Post ' : — 
 
174 
 
 FROM CAPETOWN TO LAOVS.MITU. 
 
 I 
 
 '* Few of the readliitr j)nhlic can fail to 
 b(^ acqiiniiited with the merits of his [)ui*ely 
 journalistic work. He had carefully devel- 
 oped a great natural gift of observation 
 until it seemed wellnigh an impossibility 
 that he should miss any im[)ortant detail ^ 
 however small, in a scrne which he was 
 watching. Moreover, he had a marvellous 
 power of vivid expression, and used it with 
 such a skill that even the dullest of readers 
 could hardly fail to see wliat he wished 
 them to see. It is given to some journal- 
 ists to wield great influence, and few have 
 done more to spread the imperial idea than 
 has been done by Mr Steevens during the 
 last four or five years of his brief life. Still 
 it must be remembered that, in order to 
 follow journalism successfully, he had to 
 make sacrifices which he undoubtedly felt 
 to be heavy. His little book, ' Monologues 
 of the Dead,' can never become pojmlar, 
 since it needs ibr its appreciation an amount 
 of scholarship which comparatively few 
 possess. Yet it [Moves none the less con- 
 
THK LAST CHAPTKR. 
 
 1 / i) 
 
 cliislvely that, had lit^ livrd mikI had leisure, 
 he would haves acooinnlished i^reMl thin*'S 
 in hterature. Those who had the privilege 
 
 of 1 
 
 kuowniL'" 
 
 \ 
 
 )\i\\. 
 
 1 
 
 lowever 
 
 aiK 
 
 1 al 
 
 )ove 
 
 those who at one period or another in his 
 career worked side by side with him, will 
 think hut little now of his success as 
 joui'nalist and author. The people who may 
 have tried, as they read his almost aggres- 
 sively hrilhant articles, to divine somethinj^^ 
 of the personality behind them, can scaicely 
 have contrived to picture him accurately. 
 They will not imai^ine the silent, undemon- 
 strative person, invariably kind and ready 
 unasked to do a colleague's work in ad- 
 dition to his own, who dwells in the meni- 
 ory of the friends of Mr Steevens. 1 hey 
 will not understand how entirelv natural it 
 seemed to these friends that when the lonjx 
 day's work was ended in Ladysmith he 
 should have gone habitually, until this ill- 
 ness struck him down, to labour amoni;' the 
 sick and wounded for tlu^ir amuseiiKMit, and 
 ill order to give them th«' courage which is 
 
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 FFJOM rAI»KT()\VV TO LAOVSMrTH. 
 
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 as necessary to the soldier facing disease as 
 it is to his colleague who lias to storm a 
 difficult position. Those who loved him will 
 presently find some consolation in consider- 
 ing the greatness of his achievement, hut 
 nothing that can now be said will mitigate 
 their grief at his untimely loss." 
 
 Another writer savs : — 
 
 " What Mr Kipling has done for fiction Mr 
 Steevens did for fact. He was a priest of the 
 Imperialist idea, and the glory of the Empire 
 was ever uppermost in his writings. That 
 alone would not have brought him the posi- 
 tion he held, for it was part of the age he 
 lived in. But he w^as endowed with a curious 
 faculty, an extraordinary gift for recording 
 his impressions. In a scientific age his style 
 may be described as cinematographic. He 
 was able to put vividly before his readers, 
 in a series of smooth-running little pictures, 
 events exactly as he saw them with his own 
 intense eyes. It has been said that on oc- 
 casion his work contained passages a purist 
 would not have passed. But Mr Steevens 
 
THK r>AS'r CHAPTKR. 
 
 177 
 
 ease as 
 torrn a 
 im will 
 >nsicler- 
 it, but 
 litigate 
 
 ion Mr 
 
 of the 
 
 Empire 
 
 That 
 
 e posi- 
 
 ige he 
 
 jurious 
 
 ording 
 
 5 style 
 
 He 
 
 aders, 
 
 !tures, 
 
 s own 
 
 3n oc- 
 
 purist 
 
 evens 
 
 wrote for the people, and he knew it. De- 
 liberately and by consummate skill he wrote 
 in the words of his avt'ratje reader : and had 
 he desired to offer his work for the considera- 
 tion of a more select class, there is little doubt 
 that he would have displayed the same felic- 
 ity. His mission was not of that order. He 
 set himself the more difficult task of enter- 
 taining the many ; and the same thoroughness 
 which made him captain of the school, Balliol 
 scholar, and the best note- writer on the ' Pall 
 Mall Gazette' in its brightest days, taught 
 him, aided by natural gifts, to write ' With 
 Kitchener to Khartum' and his marvellous 
 impressions of travel." 
 
 This record must close. Innumerable have 
 been the tributes to this brave youth s power 
 for capturing the human heart and the human 
 mind. The statesman and the workino- man 
 — one of these has written very curtly and 
 simply, " He served us best of all" — each has 
 felt something of the intimate spirit of his 
 work. 
 
m 
 
 ''lil 
 
 
 h 
 
 m 
 
 178 
 
 FKOM CAPiyiOWX TO LADYSMTTH. 
 
 Loi'd Hobprts cabled from Capetown in the 
 
 foil 
 
 owing woras 
 
 I' 
 
 " Deeply ici^ret death of your talented cor- 
 respondent, Steevens. KoBb:RTS." 
 
 And a correspondent writes : — 
 
 "To-day I called on Lord Kitchener, in 
 compliance with his request, having yester- 
 day received through his aide-de-camp, Major 
 Watson, the following letter : — - 
 
 "'I am anxious to have an opportunity of 
 ex})ressi ng to you personally my great regret 
 at the loss we have all sustained in the death 
 of Mr Steevens.' 
 
 *' Lord Kitchener said to me : — 
 
 *' ' I was anxious to tell you how very sorry 
 I was to hear of the death of Mr Steevens. 
 He was wita me in the Sudan, and, of course, 
 I saw a great deal of him and knew him well. 
 He was such a clever and able man. He did 
 his work as correspondent so brilliantly, and 
 he never gave the slightest trouble — I w^sh 
 all correspondents were like him. I suppose 
 they will try to follow in his footsteps. I am 
 sure I hope they will. 
 
THE LAST CHAPTER. 
 
 179 
 
 1 in tlie 
 
 ted cor 
 
 JITS 
 
 )) 
 
 3ner, in 
 
 yester- 
 
 ), Major 
 
 unity of 
 'j ret^ret 
 e death 
 
 y sorry 
 beevens. 
 
 course, 
 im well. 
 
 He did 
 
 bly, and 
 
 -I wish 
 
 suppose 
 
 I am 
 
 " * He was a model correspoiident, the l)est 
 I have ever known, and I should like you to 
 say how greatly grieved I am at his death.' " 
 
 Some " In Memoriam " verses, very beauti- 
 fully written, for the ' Morning Post,' may 
 however claim a passing attention : — 
 
 " The pages of the Book quickly he turned. 
 He saw the languid Isis in a dr(3am 
 Flow through the flowery meadows, where the ghosts 
 Of them Avhose glorious names are Greece and Home 
 Walked with him. Then the dream must have an end, 
 For London called, and he must go to her, 
 To learn her secrets — why men love her so, 
 Loathing her also. Yet again he learned 
 How God, who cursed us with the need of toil, 
 Relenting, made the very curse a l)(jon. 
 There came a call to wander through the world 
 And watch the ways of men. He saw them die 
 In fiercest fight, the thought of victory 
 Making them drunk like wine; he saw thciii die 
 Wounded and sick, and struggling still to live, 
 To fight again for England, and again , 
 
 Greet those who loved them. Well indeed ho knew 
 How good it is to live, how good to love, 
 How good to watch the wondrous ways of men — 
 How <food to die, if evrr there l)e need. 
 And everywhere dur I'.tigland in his sight 
 Poured out her Itlond aixl gold, to share with all 
 llcr heritage of frtM-dom won of old. 
 Thus quickly did he turn llie pages o'er. 
 
 
m 
 
 m. 
 
 180 KKOM CAPETOVVxN TO LADYSAJlTll. 
 
 And learn the goodness of the gift of life ; 
 And when the Book was ended, glad at hear 
 The lesson learned, and every labour done- 
 Find at the end life's ultimate gift of rest." 
 
 There I leave him. Great-hearted, strong- 
 souled, brave without a hesitation, tender as 
 a child, intolerant of wrong because he was 
 incapable of it, tolerant of every human 
 weakness, slashing controversialist in speech, 
 statesman - like in foresight, finely versed in 
 the wisdom of many literatures, a man of 
 genius scarce aware of his innumerable gifts, 
 but playing them all with splendid skill, w4th 
 full enjoyment of the crowded hours of life, — 
 here was George Steevens. In the face of 
 what might have been — think of it — a boy 
 scarce thirty ! And yet he did much, if his 
 days were so few. " Being made perfect in 
 a little while, he fulfilled long years." 
 
 1/ 
 
 
 I 
 
stronff- 
 ider as 
 tie was 
 human 
 speech, 
 "sed in 
 aan of 
 J gifts, 
 1, with 
 life,— 
 ace of 
 -a boy 
 if his 
 feet in 
 
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SEAT OF WAR IN SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 " From Cape Town to Lidysniith," by G. W. Steevens 
 
 
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