THE LIBRARY 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Commodore- Byron McCandlBss 
 
 
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 HOW Wli Ki PI THE 
 FLAG I I YING
 
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 [Frontispiece
 
 HOW WE KEPT THE 
 FLAG FLYING 
 
 THE STORY OF THE SIECJE OF LADYSNHTH 
 
 PY 
 
 DONALD MACDONALD 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WARD, LOCK k CO., LIMITED 
 
 NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE
 
 " Thank God we kept the flag flying." — Sir George Whites 
 Speech, Feb. 28, 1900.
 
 L 
 
 lip; 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 In this book I have attempted no specialist's descrip- 
 tion of the sie^c and battles of Ladysmith, but have 
 piven just the every-day imj^rcssions and sensations of an 
 observer to whom war, with all its thrillinjij incidents and 
 vivid colour, was a new and strange experience. It is not 
 so much a history of the siege as a story of the siege 
 written while the events were fresh in the mind. In a 
 calm retrospective view much mi^ht be added, much 
 omitted, but tlie complete military history of Ladysmith 
 may be left to the historian and the expert. Without 
 being consciously in error, I have soui^ht to give the 
 reader some idea of the moods and colour of the time. 
 In the multiplicity of names there may be some confu- 
 sion ; thus I have spoken of the fight at Rictfontein as 
 Tinta Inyoni, and of Wagon Hill as Caesar's Hill, since 
 local opinion always differed as to which was correct 
 With a full appreciation of the patriotism and pride of 
 race which has made Australasia a fighting unit in the 
 British Empire, I dedicate this book to my fellow- 
 countrymen who took part in the South African 
 Campaign. 
 
 Donald Macdonald. 
 
 Melbourtu, Aug. 6, 1900. 

 
 CONTRNTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NEWS or BATTLE 
 
 rtii.m 
 
 The first news— The Hocr invasion— Fight at Dundee-Storm- 
 ing the heights— British artillery 13 
 
 CHAPTER U 
 
 AFTER THE EIGHT 
 
 At Elands Laagte— The cavalry work— The wounded on 
 
 the field— The Boer losses- An international concert 20 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TO THE FRONT 
 
 By rail to Ladysmith— A natural citadel— The fight at Tinta 
 Inyoni — Shelling the Boers- Gloucestcrs in a hot comer 
 —Hospital work— Yule's retreat— The Fighting "Dubs" 
 — An Irishman's story 26 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BOERS CLOSING IN 
 
 The rush from Ladvsmith— The Pcniierful gruns— Long Tom 
 o' Pepworrh's Hill— The ring closing— The river rave-— 
 Echoes of fight -39
 
 viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYSMITH 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The wires cut — Heavy cannon fire — Shell on the nerves — 
 Testing the investment — Early casualties — The luck of 
 the garrison — Realities of siege — The neutral camp . 47 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS 
 
 The agreeable censor— The birthday salute— Shelling the 
 lown — Fighting shadows — The plan that failed — An in- 
 conclusive fight 58 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 SIEGE IMPRESSIONS 
 
 The General's promise — A narrow escape — Spasmodic fire — 
 A reconnaissance — Settling down — A night bombard- 
 ment ^^ 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE LUCK CHANGES 
 
 A disastrous shell — Rumours of sorties — The silent guns — 
 " The March of the Cameron Men "—A doctor's tragic 
 death— A midnight scare— Football under fire—The 
 passion for sport 73 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 
 
 Some narrow escapes— Firing on the Red Cross— The rival 
 " snipers ''—The first woman wounded— A plucky spy— 
 The Liverpools sufi'er 83 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER 
 
 An influx of blacks— More guns in action— Hints of hunger— 
 
 The intelligent horse— Foppish Boers— Casualties . . 94
 
 CONTENTS ix 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 DAYS or GLOOM 
 
 PAGB 
 
 A siege menu — News from Mooi river— Hoi)e dcfcrre<l — 
 Ungrateful athletes— A disastrous d.iy Kur "Auld I..1111,' 
 Sync" — A " dichaid " volunteer \o2 
 
 CHAPTLR XII 
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 
 
 News of Uullcr — Mysterious prepiration* — Biltong — Tht 
 t.iutysmitk l.yrt — A dash for I.on;: Tom — Hlnwini' n[) .i 
 gun — Kxullant volunteers 113 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A SURPRISK ON SURPRISF. HILL 
 
 A ni^ht raid— Di' "■^•"- ^'-issars — A plucky Australian — A 
 Hoer letter ! • of funk — The rush on Surprise 
 
 HiU — Deadly ........... work— A resentful enemy 1:4 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BLACK MONDAY IN I-ADYSMITH 
 
 Hope deferred — The distant pins — Enteric fever — A fjloomy 
 garrison — Bad news from the Tuj^cla — The bombardment 
 increases — A shell amongst the Carbineers ■ '37 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WAR WITHOLTT CLAMOUR 
 
 The Lad ysmith oven — Dodging the shells — Burials after dark 
 — Flies and mosquitoes — Our estimate of the Boer — 
 Sickness and wounds — A threat of assault . . '45 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CHKIST.MAS IN LADVSMITH 
 
 "A Merry Christmas" — The waits — A Christm.as text— A 
 Boer joke — Dead on the veldt — Hospital scenes — New 
 Year greetings — Remarkable wounds — Commandeering 
 supplies 153
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT ^^^^ 
 
 The Boers come on— The rush on Caesar's Hill— Bravery of 
 the Imperial Light Horse — The Manchesters' resistance 
 — A stubborn enemy — The inopportune thunderstorm — 
 Charge of the Devons — A costly fight .... i66 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 
 
 The Gordons' loss— Incidents of the fight— A field of the 
 dead — Greathead of the Guides — The Boer loss— Father 
 and son — A stubborn foe— Why the attack failed . .185 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GUNS ON THE TUGELA 
 
 Distant shell fire — Lyddite on the hills — The garrison under- 
 ground — The town signals — Half rations . . . 202 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 
 
 The folly of inaction — The first battle — A nasty few minutes 
 — The impressive sequel — Conduct of the enemy — The 
 lonely dead — Confusion of fight — How historians disagree 
 — Night and the bayonet 208 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 
 
 Another disappointment — Reduced rations — A distant view — 
 The Boer trek — Camps re-established— Signs of disaster 
 — An exhausted garrison 224 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE HORSE-MEAT ERA 
 
 Eating horse-meat — A black depression — The rush for rations 
 — An expected assault — Bracing up the town — A faltering 
 foe 232
 
 CONTENTS 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 
 
 rKc,\ 
 
 Tobacco famine — Commissariat trials — Cupboard love— Sicpe 
 whist — The hundred days — A cricket me^^^i^^e — Usury in 
 trade — A contrast — Siege prices .241 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A TJMK OF ANXIETY 
 
 Bird-seed porridge — The garrison meat bill — Preparing a 
 welcome — The Gossack post — A black night — The bridge 
 builders — Methodical Dutch gunnery . . . -253 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 NEARING THE END 
 
 A brave young surgeon — The rinkalse — Sir deorge White 
 and the garrison — Guns on the Tugela — ''All "r)inf^\vo]l" 
 — Quarter rations — Correspondents' luck 266 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 
 
 The great trek — How I saw it — A silver snake — A remarkable 
 retreat — Shelling Long Tom — Fine artillery work — 
 Bailer's cavalry in sight — The rush to meet them — 
 "Thank God we kept the flag flyintj" — The fighting 
 chiefs — The fate of the flag ...... 273 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 AFTER THE RELIEF 
 
 A dead Boer — The toys of Umbulwana — Harassing the 
 rear-guard — A deserted camp — Mistaken for Boers — 
 A sailor's welcome 287 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 
 
 In the Dutch trenches — The Union Jack — Boer gun positions 
 — Where lyddite fell — A natural citadel — Gunner and 
 priest — A brave pair — An Entjlishman's experience — 
 Good-bye to Ladysmith 293
 
 now WE 
 KEPT THE ELAG ELYING 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 
 
 The first news — The Boer invasion — Fight at Dundee — Storm- 
 iog the heights — British artillery. 
 
 When the S.S. Australasian left Albany and struck 
 across the Indian Ocean, which is so rapidly becoming 
 a great English lake, war had not been declared. A 
 re-statement of peace terms was being sought, and for 
 over a fortnight wc on board speculated on the chances 
 of peace and war. With head winds and seas for the 
 greater part of the trip, the pace was slow, and instead 
 of landing, as anticipated, on Wednesday, October i8, 
 it was not until the following Saturday at noon that the 
 high blue bluffs to the south of Durban entrance loomed 
 up out of the thick grey haze, and we waited off the 
 entrance with a tropical rain falling in cataracts. Those 
 three lost days made a vast difference to some of us. 
 On that day the second battle between the British and 
 Boers had been fought at Elands Laagte ; on the previous 
 day a brilliant victory had been won by the Imperial 
 troops at Dundee, a name rich in historic traditions to 
 many who fought there. Durban was in a tumult of 
 excitement, for the volunteers of the loyal little colony of
 
 14 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Natal had borne themselves splendidly in the first death- 
 grip with the Boers, and in forty-eight short hours had 
 built an obelisk in their history. The town teemed with 
 refugees from the Transvaal and closer home. The Union 
 steamer that dropped anchor alongside us in the Mozam- 
 bique current was packed with the panic-stricken from 
 Delagoa Bay, and steam tenders, black with passengers, 
 were pouring their living freights into the big white 
 Donald Currie liner that lay close by — all off for Cape 
 Town or England. 
 
 These things told their own story long before the 
 Australasian had dropped anchor, and we waited keenly 
 expectant as a man-of-war's boat from H.M.S. Tartar^ 
 with a spruce, business-like lieutenant in the bows, came 
 alongside on the look-out for contraband of war. " What's 
 the news ? " was shouted impatiently from the deck of 
 the Australasian ; " has there been any fighting ? " The 
 mystery of uncommunicativeness had fallen upon her 
 Majesty's service, and the spruce flag-lieutenant said — 
 nothing. A kindly purser put us out of misery with a 
 bare hint that the Boers had been beaten near Glencoe 
 on the previous day, and there was cheering, broken at 
 intervals, when the crowd on one boat sang " Soldiers of 
 the Queen," and it was caught up and echoed from 
 another. It was sweet tidings, with a dash of bitter in 
 it, for I had just missed it. Oriental-looking Durban, 
 with its hosts of Hindoos and its hundred of rickshaws, 
 drawn by big Zulu boys — who were perhaps fighting the 
 British themselves when last the town saw such excite- 
 ment — was trying its best to meet the strain. The 
 Johannesburg millionaires had first pick of the hotels, 
 and the unfortunate traveller was lucky if he could get a 
 chair for the night, not to mention such a luxury as a 
 shake-down. When a town of 8000 people suddenly 
 takes in 17,000 extra there must be a crush. 
 
 It was known that the Boers had invaded Natal in 
 three columns, the main column, under General Joubert 
 himself, coming by Laing's Nek. Joubert's last message 
 to the burghers had ended with the words, " I want you
 
 NEirS OF BATTLE 
 
 15 
 
 to be prepared for the worst," and at Dundee and Elands 
 I^aai^tc the worst was waiting for them in disaster and 
 death. Though there were many complaints from 
 refugees of injury and insult, this generally occurred 
 with small parties of Boers, who were out of hand for the 
 time, and General Joubcrt, in reproving some of his men 
 for looting, said — " I will not allow robbery or plunder, 
 and forbid any injury to be done to any private 
 person." 
 
 One mistake of the British forces in the earlier wars 
 with the Hocrs was not repeated this cainpaign. As the 
 Boers advanced and the pickets and vedettes came into 
 touch and exchanged shots they found no rooi batjcs. 
 The red coats, which blazed so vividly of old under the 
 African sun, and made such a splendid target for sharp- 
 shooters, had disappeared. Whether English or African, 
 volunteer or regular, the whole of the Imperial troops 
 were in their favourite fighting khaki, the corps dis- 
 tingtiished only by the smallest badges. 
 
 When Sir George White passed through with his Staff, 
 all wore the familiar Stanley cap, and thus only were 
 they distinguishable from the rest of the fighting force. 
 Sir George White's eye brightened when he saw the 
 Gordons, for years ago, when he was winning the V.C., 
 his Afghan and Mutiny medals, and his Caiidahar .star, 
 he was for a time in command of them. Speaking of the 
 Gordons, it is worth noting that very many of the men 
 in South Africa took part in that famous rush on the 
 heights of Dargai, made memorable amongst other things 
 for the slogan of Piper Findlater — 
 
 " When one with his legs shot under. 
 Sat down "mid the fire and thunder, 
 And still, to the world's wide wonder, 
 ' The Cock of the North' he played." 
 
 One thing noticeable in these highly-trained Indian 
 troops was their fine mobility. Little time any of them 
 wasted in Durban. As the transports came down 
 buoyantly on the Madagascar current, they were rushed
 
 1 6 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 alongside the wharves — the armoured trains were in 
 waiting, and the style in which the chargers of the 
 Lancers, Hussars, and Dragoons were swung ^ from 
 ship to truck was a perfect triumph in military- 
 transport. 
 
 At Dundee the Boers had advanced, halted — some say 
 irresolute in their movements, and wishing for touch of 
 the other columns, others that they merely wished to 
 rest their horses after the forced march — and retreated, 
 but before daybreak on Friday morning they backed up 
 their threat of driving the British into the Indian Ocean 
 with a decisive movement. Before dawn a picket heard 
 men approaching quietly. They listened, found that 
 they were talking Dutch, then challenged, and fired. A 
 bare-headed vedette, who had lost his helmet in the 
 brief exchange of bullets, rode in with the intelligence 
 into the streets of Dundee, and the trumpets blared the 
 assembly. The clatter of his horse's hoofs in the early 
 morning, and the impetuous haste of the rider, telling 
 that his mission was one of importance — the first note 
 in the coming struggle for supremacy in South Africa, 
 the revival of the old feud of the days of Blake and 
 Van Tromp. 
 
 The Boers came on with the daylight in strong force, 
 and the first intimation the British had of it was the 
 whiz of shells from the Creuzot and Krupp field guns. 
 From the first their fire work was erratic, and when it 
 came to the artillery duel there was but one in it. It 
 was not the armament, but the man behind the gun. 
 Talana Hill, from which the Boers opened, is a kopje half- 
 a-mile or so to the west of the town of Dundee — for there 
 was something of a new Scotland about this place, with its 
 Bannockburn and Craigieburn farms lying in the hollow. 
 The Boers fired right over the town of Dundee, to pitch 
 their shells into Glencoe camp beyond it, but their 
 range-finding was bad at first. They picked up the 
 range as the light improved, and several shells burst in a 
 clear space in the centre of the camp, while another 
 passed on the ricochet just over the horse-lines of the
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 17 
 
 Natal Carbineers. Then the artillery duel blazed, and 
 the people of Dundee stood dazed in their own streets 
 as the storm of iron passed overhead, battery answering 
 battery from ridi^je to ridf^c, while the whirr of shell was 
 varied by the burr of quail st.irtled from cover by this 
 tremendous din, the echoes of which lingered amongst 
 the ridges. 
 
 In a few minutes the greatest battle in South African 
 history was in progress, and the deidliness of the 
 Imperial field guns was at once evident. The lioer 
 artillerymen were silhouetted on the ridge against the 
 bright sky-line. Soon their movements were more 
 brisk, and little white puffs of smoke amongst them 
 showed where the British shells were bursting. Nothing 
 could withstand this deadly accuracy. The clamour of 
 guns on Dundee ridge died down to a splutter, then to 
 single shots, and the Boer artillery was silenced. They 
 had had their answer. They had boasted of their 
 artillery, and had bombarded the veldt sometimes short 
 of the enemy's position, sometimes far beyond it, often 
 wide, but seldom on it. The only lioer shell which really 
 got close to the British battery after they opened, passed a 
 little overhead. A body of Boer infantry tried to creep 
 up on the right under shelter of some native kraals, but 
 one of the batteries concentrated on the spot, and the 
 enemy were driven back. Soon it was evident that the 
 Boer infantry would make their stand on the summit of 
 Talana Hill, and under cover of a tremendous artillery 
 fire pushed to close range. Preparation was made for 
 the crisis of the fight — the storming of the mountain. 
 
 It looked a desperate enterprise, for though a long 
 plantation covered the approach for some time, the 
 ground beyond was open and clear. General Penn 
 Symons, the British commander, rode up under cover of 
 the plantation, and gave directions for the final attack. 
 It was here that he fell mortally wounded by a shot 
 through the stomach. 
 
 A mass of Boer infantry suddenly concentrated on 
 the right of Talana, but as the mass came together the 
 
 B
 
 1 8 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 British shells were bursting amongst them again, and 
 the terrible shrapnel drove them back. So well had the 
 khaki blended with the surroundings that the British 
 lines appeared to be painfully sparse, and to carry the 
 crest in face of the Mausers of the ever-gathering 
 clusters of Boer riflemen looked sheer suicide. About 
 600 yards from the top of the hill a stone wall ran 
 parallel with the Boer position, and this was the first 
 British objective. Under its cover they halted moment- 
 arily, while ever and again the Boer riflemen rushed to 
 the crest of the hill, only to be driven back by the awful 
 storm of shrapnel. 
 
 It is doubtful whether the best-trained European 
 troops could, with more of heroism, have withstood the 
 torrent of splintering shell that fell upon them. Hour 
 after hour it had found them, till the sweat of the 
 British gunners sizzled on their own gun-barrels, and 
 still the Boers had to be beaten. Hurled back by the 
 artillery, they rushed up to the crest to pour upon the 
 advancing line of infantry the rifle fire in which they 
 still believed themselves unequalled, while the Dublins 
 and the Royal Irish answered with volleys that floated 
 back across the open in a single crash, and must have 
 been terribly demoralizing. There discipline and train- 
 ing told. The fall of many men in succession is bad 
 enough, but when they go down in clusters no nerves 
 can stand the strain. Behind the British fighting line 
 was here and there a patch of brown, showing a khaki- 
 clad soldier lying still. 
 
 For over six hours they had been fighting fiercely — 
 the end seemed yet f:i,r off. The change came with a 
 sudden forward dash of the 69th Battery. Like a flash 
 they had limbered up, and galloping to short range, 
 were in action again before the Boers on the hill-top 
 seemed to realize the nature of the movement. The 
 effect was instantaneous — the Boer exchanges slackened, 
 and, noting the effect, the 13th was also brought up to 
 short range. Silence fell upon them soon for want of a 
 target, but still the snappish bark of the Maxims served
 
 NEWS OF BATTLE 19 
 
 by the Dublins kept on. The last effort by the Boers 
 was on the extreme left, where a group of them made a 
 rush forward to a kopje. The shells of the 13th burst 
 among them once again, and after eight hours' valiant 
 fighting, British soldiers had won the first great battle 
 of tlie campaign.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT 
 
 At Elands Laagte — The cavalry work — The wounded on the 
 field — The Boer losses — An international concert. 
 
 As this book is chiefly the story of a siege, I shall dwell 
 but lightly upon a few incidents of the second fight at 
 Elands Laagte, for the battle has been described in 
 detail by many eye-witnesses, more skilled in war and 
 its detail than an Australian novice, whose experiences 
 of fighting had hitherto been confined to such a small 
 bush affair as the destruction of the Kelly gang of bush- 
 rangers, or a second-hand recital of the revolt of the 
 Ballarat miners at Eureka. 
 
 All night the wounded at Elands Laagte lay upon the 
 field, for the last charge of the Lancers through the 
 demoralized Boer ranks took place in actual darkness — 
 so bad was the light, indeed, that one body of Boers 
 mistook the cavalry for their own men, and the deadly 
 lances were within forty yards of them before they 
 realized their danger. 
 
 While to some extent indifferent to bullet wounds, 
 the Boers have a deadly horror of steel — especially of 
 the lance. Some of them fell upon their knees with 
 uplifted hands, praying for mercy. " I have five children," 
 screamed one of them. " For GoJ's sake, spare me." 
 The Lancer raised his point and passed on, but on turn- 
 ing saw the man he had spared in the act of reaching for 
 
 20
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT ax 
 
 a Mauser rifle. Ho turned back, ran him first through 
 the muscle of the arm, as he souj^'ht to shield himself, 
 and then throufjh the body. "At the last moment, I 
 tried to let off one poor devil who was white with fear," 
 said a Lancer, "but my horse knew his business too well, 
 and the lance-point found." One of the lance thrusts, 
 after passing throU";jh the body of a Boer, pinned him to 
 his own horse's neck. 
 
 Most of the British wounded were brought in during 
 the night, but some of the Gordons, who had fallen just 
 as thev were changing home, had been overlooked. They 
 lay along the rocky ridge, with the rain beating upon 
 them, realizing to the full the horrors of war. 
 
 Boers brought in by the British ambulance expected 
 to be treated fairly, but were for the most part astonished 
 at the solicitude of their captors. Occasionally they 
 presumed upon it, and at Ladysmith Camp some of the 
 slightly wounded had tu be brought to their senses at times 
 at the point of the bayonet. One man from Johannesburg, 
 who had been shot in the stomach, though in agony from 
 his wounds, and drenched with the night rain, pleaded 
 piteously that the ambulance men should not kill him. 
 The poor fellow never realized how mistaken were his 
 notions of British clemency, for he died on his stretcher 
 while being carried into the hospital. Count Zcpplein, 
 a German whose father distinguished himself greatly in 
 the Franco-German war, was lound to be past all aid, 
 for he had been shot in the head, and the bullet wound 
 exposed the brain. 
 
 The dead remained upon the field until Monday, and 
 the story of the fight with the advance of the different 
 regiments of British infantry was sadly told by the 
 bodies, some lying face down, as though peacefully- 
 asleep, others tortured and stiffened into strange atti- 
 tudes, all gruesomely flat and shrunken, amongst the 
 rocks. Near the crest of the hill, and close to the Boer 
 position, the green kilts and brown jackets of the 
 Gordons were lying thickly. Three oflScers and twenty- 
 two men were buried there, and furthest into the medley
 
 22 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of broken guns, dead Boers, and mangled horses, which 
 marked their last stand, lay the body of Major Denne, a 
 big, handsome fellow, who was shot through the body. 
 As the Highlanders approached within fifty yards, the 
 excited Boers stood up, and some even rushed forward 
 to meet them, but the instant the Gordons brought their 
 bayonets to the charge a panic seized the burghers, and 
 they fled. Only a few dead Boers had the mark of the 
 bayonet on them, but further on, where the Lancers 
 came in on their flank, more had died from the thrust 
 than the bullet. Many of them had loaded revolvers, 
 but were so panic-stricken that they made no use of 
 them, and sought only to dodge the lance-points. By 
 Monday the Kaffir bands, whose kraals are scattered all 
 over the veldt, had been looting the dead, and Mr. 
 Brooks, a road superintendent, who with his Kaffir 
 boys buried fifty-six Boers and forty-four British, found 
 the bodies stripped of everything. The Kaffirs had 
 hesitated in some cases about touching the British 
 dead, though they had cut Major Denne's stars from 
 his shoulders. 
 
 He must have been the last man killed before the 
 enemy broke and fled, for none lay nearer the breast- 
 works. With the suicidal chivalry which marked the 
 British officers throughout the fight, he led on his men, 
 disdaining cover, and this policy, brave though it may 
 be, led to the loss of many gallant men in giving the 
 Boers fair targets for their matchless marksmanship. No 
 corps in the British camp at Ladysmith was so bitter 
 against the enemy as the Gordons. It was evident even 
 when they were bringing in the prisoners. One Pretorian 
 sought to carry it off" with a bragging air as they came 
 into Ladysmith, but a big Highlander, with a flitch of 
 bacon under his arm — a queer mixture of the fighter 
 and forager— turned abruptly and struck him back- 
 handed across the face, with a curt " Shet yer moo." 
 The Boer shrunk up and was silent. 
 
 At the point stormed by the Highlanders most of the 
 Boers were shot either through the chest or the lower
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT 23 
 
 part of the body, for even in that hurricane of death 
 these well-disciplined fighters had kept the points of their 
 riHcs low. Their fii^hting was superb, and the Boers 
 admitted it. 
 
 The compliment is the more genuine in that the quality 
 of mercy is not being strained by the Gordons. " I pit 
 me bayonet through one big red-headed chap," said 
 nuggety little Malcolm, of Perthshire, " an' I had to pit 
 my foot ta his chest ta poo'itoot." Nor were the Dublin 
 Fusiliers over-nice with the enemy. Two of them at 
 Dundee found a young Boer lying partly under an old 
 man, who was dead, with a little heap of Mauser shells 
 beside him. " What's the matthor wid ye } " said a big 
 fellow. " I'm shot here," said the burgher, pointing to 
 his right thigh. They searched for the bullet wound and 
 found none. " Why, blasht ye, it's only shammin' ye 
 are," said the Irishman, as he laid him out on the veldt 
 with a heavy right-hander on the chin. 
 
 The tenacity of the Boers in adhering to denials of any 
 great loss was illustrated while Mr. Brooks was still 
 engaged in his sad mortuary task. He met a Dutch 
 doctor on the field, and told him he had just buried 
 twenty-two of his men in one grave and twenty-four in 
 another, and offered to show him the spot. " You have 
 made a mistake," was the reply; "these were not our 
 dead, they were EnglislL We had very few men killed." 
 " He was the first man," said the impulsive Brooks, 
 " who did not try to hit me when I called him a liar." 
 Just then a Kaffir boy came up with ten dead Boers in 
 his wagon. The doctor was obliged to admit that these 
 were burghers, but he was not at all anxious to have 
 proofs as to the identity of the others, by having any of 
 the bodies raised from their shallow graves, though none 
 the less anxious to a'ctain a description of the dead. As 
 the burial party passed along the ridge Mauser rifles were 
 lying everywhere, and the bolts were taken from them 
 and thrown into the river. 
 
 A party of twenty-five, in galloping away for their
 
 24 now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 lives, got separated from the commando and were 
 met by Dr. Rupert Hornabrook, of Adelaide, who told 
 them that the British had won the fight, and that they 
 must accompany him as captives to Elands Laagte 
 railway station, which they did. The medical profession 
 has already won much honour in the campaign. A week 
 before, Dr. Buntine, of Maritzburg, was out with the 
 Carbineers, who had a brush with the Boers, during 
 which Lieutenant Gallwey, son of the Chief Justice of 
 Natal, was taken prisoner. As the Carbineers retreated 
 one of the trooper's horses fell, partly stunning him. 
 Dr. Buntine, who is a Victorian, rode back under fire, and 
 helped him to safety. 
 
 That racial hatred had not died with the second 
 generation of burghers was shown by the fact that most 
 of the Boers who fell at Elands Laagte were young men. 
 The only white-haired man buried was the father of W. 
 Blignaut, a champion South African athlete. The Boers 
 declared that it was the riff-raff of their commandos — the 
 larrikins of Pretoria and Johannesburg — who first broke 
 and fled as the British infantry charged up the ridge, 
 but once they began to run it soon became a rout. 
 
 On the eve of Elands Laagte, some of the Boers spent 
 a merry evening with a number of Englishmen at the 
 railway station. The first seen of them was a patrol of 
 about forty, under Field-Cornet Pienaar, who seized the 
 station and captured a mixed train that was just coming 
 in. They behaved very decently afterwards. While 
 waiting for General Kock, the field-cornet suggested that 
 they might as well have a concert, and he asl:ed an 
 P^nglishman named Ganthorpe to play and sing — both 
 Dutch and English joining in the chorus of " They All 
 Take After Me." " It's a funny world," said the field- 
 cornet. " Here are the Dutch and English at war, and 
 we're all enjoying ourselves together." 
 
 On Friday night there were about 1500 Boers at 
 Elands Laagte, and early on Saturday morning the 
 British made their appearance, and one of the first men
 
 AFTER THE FIGHT 
 
 25 
 
 killed was the sentiinental fieKl-cornet of the international 
 concert. A shower of Lee-Mctford bullets suddenly 
 rattled upon the station buildings, and a party of Boers 
 who were in barrack there rushed out. The field-cornet 
 turned to see whence the shots came, and at that moment 
 a bullet passed through his head.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 TO THE FRONT 
 
 By rail to Ladysmith — A natural citadel — The fight at Tinta 
 Inyoni — Shelling the Boers — Gloucesters in a hot corner — Hos- 
 pital work — Yule's retreat — The Fighting "Dubs" — An Irishman's 
 story. 
 
 While casual and somewhat frenzied accounts of that 
 brilHant httle fight at Elands Laagte (pronounced Elands- 
 lockty) were still coming into Durban, I caught the 
 evening mail train on Monday, and started for the front. 
 Martial law had just been proclaimed in Durban, the 
 military authorities had seized the South African Bank, 
 and the town was simmering with excitement. One 
 could not even buy a Webley revolver without going 
 through a long licensing ceremony before a magistrate, 
 so that in the event of the weapon being found either in 
 the possession of a Zulu boy, a Kaffir, or a Boer the 
 ownership could be traced. Up a narrow-gauge line 
 with sharp curves, on to cool hills covered with the broad 
 wind-frayed fronds of miles of plantains and bananas, 
 broken by occasional patches of mealies, pine-apples, and 
 paw-paws, the Kaffir mail climbed slowly. The quaint 
 little Mozambique monkeys darted through the low oak- 
 like trees, and bigger apes scampered scolding to the 
 shelter of rocky ledges. 
 
 Every country has its characteristic odour, and that ot 
 the colony of Natal, and especially the far-out towns, is 
 
 26
 
 TO THE FRONT 27 
 
 as distinctive, as indescribable, as penetrative, but barely 
 so pleasant, as the characteristic scent of old Murray 
 pine. It be$;an at Durban ; it la«;ted to Ladysmith. The 
 ordinary seats in the Natal trains were converted into 
 sleeping cars by the addition of a ruc^ and pillow. There 
 was not much sleepinf^ though. At every station the 
 excitement burned. Towards morning one was awakened 
 by a storm of groans, a shout of " Ha, you German dogs," 
 and we were in a siding to make way for a special with 
 one hundred and ninety-six Boer prisoners on their way 
 to the Maritzburg Gaol. The captives were cither asleep 
 or pretended sleep, and beyond an occasional sickly 
 smile, took no notice of the hooting. 
 
 Just at daybreak the train ran into Ladysmith, a 
 scattered town, enclosed in an amphitheatre of rocky 
 hills. 
 
 One had hardly set foot on the platform at Ladysmith 
 in the grey of the early morning, before he found that 
 something special was pending. All through the British 
 lines there was a stir. The army mule, in teams of ten, 
 and driven with wonderful skill — and a long whip — by 
 shouting Cape boys, was everywhere mixed up with 
 long trains of long-horned, black, scraggy bullocks 
 clogging the streets. To reduce this chaos to order 
 was the work of the Army Transport Corps — a flesh- 
 wearing, brain-racking problem in organization. This 
 army train seemed to loosen itself to disorder in the 
 early morning, the strange shouting of the Cape boys, 
 Kaffirs, Zulus, and Indians making it a scene utterly 
 opposed to all preconceived notions of a British column 
 waking up to duty — and possibly to death. Later it 
 formed itself slowly into a train, and went through a 
 gap in the hills, out over the rolling veldt — a train miles 
 long it seemed, and so unwieldy that one could under- 
 stand the ease with which a routed enemy's baggage 
 may be cut off and captured by cavalry. 
 
 This stir was the visible sign of probable conflict, and 
 it was not without reason that it was being sent out 
 this burning hot morning. The Boers routed at Elands
 
 28 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Laagte on Saturday had reappeared in greater strength, 
 having been reinforced by another commando at a point 
 at least seven miles nearer Ladysmith. Rietfontein, a 
 farm owned by Mr. Pepworth, a member of the Natal 
 Parliament, had been seized and looted by them on 
 the previous evening, Early that morning an Afrikander 
 lying hid in a reedy spruit had watched one of the Boer 
 commandos taking strong position on the crest of a 
 round scrub-capped hill. As they would have to come 
 into the open approaching Ladysmith, there was little 
 fear of the Boers leaving this position, but the necessity 
 of stirring them up arose from the fact that their left 
 was in touch of the road between Ladysmith and 
 Dundee, along which Yule's column was retreating. 
 
 Horses were at a premium, though Boer mounts and 
 Basuto ponies were obtainable in Ladysmith on the 
 morning after Elands Laagte at prices ranging from a 
 sovereign to a box of cigarettes. For one brief half- 
 hour I was flattered by the hope of getting a pony, 
 owned by a missing officer of Hussars, one of the finest 
 polo-players in the British army, but another ofificer had 
 first call, and he called. There was nothing for it, 
 therefore, but to try Australian legs over the rocky 
 South African veldt on a day that made marching to 
 flaccid muscles anything but a luxury. Earlier in the 
 morning one heard that the fight pending would be 
 greater even than Dundee or Elands Laagte, for the 
 Boers were in greater strength and a stronger position. 
 But Sir George White had concluded that beyond shak- 
 ing the abundant self-confidence of the Boer, giving him 
 another taste of his doom, and weakening his contempt 
 for British soldiers, there was nothing to be gained in 
 driving them from positions which the victors were not 
 desirous to hold, and which could be re-occupied by 
 the enemy on the following day. 
 
 Elands Laagte was a brilliant fight. Even people on 
 the scene had hardly realized how brilliant, but the posi- 
 tion was won only to be abandoned, and where was the 
 good of repeating the assault .-• Unless the Boers came
 
 TO THE FRONT 29 
 
 out into the open they wore only to have another taste 
 of artillery. Sir George White, having found by recon- 
 naissance that the encm)' had taken possession of two 
 green hills, or kopjes, commanding the road, determined 
 to dislodge them. The ciicm\'s position, as it faced us, 
 consisted of a series of five hills. On the extreme right 
 was a grassy hill, without scrub, its flat top inclining 
 slightly towards the British lines, and known as Tinta 
 Inyoni. Next to it, and further away, was a lower hill, 
 gently rounded, while in the forc^ground was a little hill, 
 not more than a hundred feet high, and directly behind 
 it a tableland mountain, the crown of which was fringed 
 round with thick scrub, like a monkish tonsure. It was 
 a tremendously strong position, which could only be 
 carried with great loss of life on the part of the assault- 
 ing column. Between it, and separated by a deep gully, 
 was another high and long hill, end on to us. The 
 British advance was over a slightly rolling grassy veldt, 
 and everything in front looked peaceful and pastoral — 
 not a man in sight upon any of the hills, though a 
 farmer l}'ing in shelter that morning had watched one 
 body of the enemy, and by counting one hundred men 
 and guessing the others in groups of about the same 
 size, had calculated that there were IICK) riflemen in 
 this one position. 
 
 Their front covered several miles, for it is an old 
 fighting plan with the Boers to extend thus, and it had 
 the great advantage, from their point of view, that, even 
 if driven out, it was utterly impossible for cavalry to 
 outflank and punish them with the lance, as at Elands 
 Laagte. The coarse, dry grass crackled with the rustle 
 of hay under the feet of the British infantry, and had 
 something of the scent of a newly-reaped wheat-field. 
 Occasionally from a reedy watercourse a little brown 
 buck, not much larger than a hare, bounded out — three 
 low bounds and then a high one — while small black 
 birds, with long streaming tails, like a bird of paradise, 
 rose, complaining, in front of the column. The scarlet 
 Natal lily spotted the hill-sides, the bright chalice of
 
 so HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the flower a refuge for scores of golden-green beetles. 
 Underfoot large brown spiders were rolling small balls 
 of earth, reminding one something of the circus 
 acrobat and his globe-walking. All the highlands in 
 front of us, from the green hills of the foreground 
 upon which the British assault was directed, to the 
 towering and distant Drachenbergs, were convulsed 
 and torn in every conceivable outline, reminding one of 
 the serrated ruggedness of the Grampians of the Western 
 district, but of nothing else in Australia. Nowhere one 
 of our own conical peaks, or nicely-rounded and timbered 
 ranges; nowhere any of that beautiful blue haze that 
 so softens our mountain distances. 
 
 Suddenly from the green hill on the right, geographic- 
 ally described as "two miles south of Modder's Spruit," 
 came a spluttering crackle of Mausers, but nowhere a 
 sign of smoke. The 19th Hussars, who were feeling 
 the way, were within the danger zone, and for the first 
 time I saw the British soldier under fire. Immediately 
 upon the heels of the rifle fire came the bursts of white 
 smoke along the high central ridge, showing the position 
 of the Boer artillery, and in a few minutes puffs of 
 smoke around about the Hussars and the artillery 
 showed where their shells were bursting. They picked 
 up the range quickly, and the accuracy of their shrapnel 
 fire declared at once that the Free Staters were better 
 gunners than those of the Transvaal who fought at Dundee. 
 
 The British artillery swung their guns into action 
 with the splendid promptitude of the highly-trained 
 Indian troops, but before they could do so three or four 
 of the gun horses were hit, and a couple of gunners 
 wounded. One thick-set Tommy, as he ran past with 
 a couple of brass-capped shells, cried out, " This is the 
 medicine for 'em, Beecham's pills — a 'ole box-full given 
 away," and he affectionately kissed the shell, which the 
 next instant was bursting over the heads of the crouch- 
 ing Boers on the hill-top. As he ran from the limber 
 with the next charge he suddenly said " Oh ! " and fell — 
 the red, white, and blue shell he carried rolling away
 
 TO THE FRONT 31 
 
 d' • slope — the one spot of colour in the f^rccn 
 
 l.i! ^ The Kunni-r was dead with a Mauser bullet 
 
 through his mouth. A few of the earlier shots struck 
 before expl<xlinf^ and threw up columns of red dust, 
 but once the r.in^je was picked up the fire was deadly. 
 All alnn':j the cr.wn <•!' the hill the white puffs showed 
 more thickly, tlic cx^iK >ivi- in the shells making a much 
 denser cloud of smckc than the cordite at the pun's 
 muzzle — a yellowish haze, through which the spirts of 
 flame after a moment showed. 
 
 In about tucr.ty 1:1:- uics the lk)er ^^njns slackened, 
 and then tlic ii 'hi:;;_; l:ric of the infantry was bnupht 
 up, and for a time their volley fire was the dominant 
 note of the fight, though the men themselves, especially 
 when prone, could be scarcely seen against the brown 
 veldt. One or two of the wouniicd whom I saw here 
 had been simply raked by the bullet as they were lying 
 down. One poor fellow of the Devons came strolling 
 out of the din, both hands held hclj)lessly before him. 
 and the front of his brown tunic smeared with blood 
 from the neck down. I asked him where he was hit, 
 and he held out his hands with a Mauser bullct-holc 
 through each palm. *' One were damn bad," he said, 
 "but it were dog's luck to ha' both hit." There was 
 very little crying out from the wounded, some of whom 
 as they drop[)cd gave a sudden gasping respiration, and 
 that was all. Wonderful things happen in battle. 
 Excited men arc hit, and, quite unconscious of it, go on 
 fighting. One incident of this fight was too sur[)rising 
 for fiction — it could only happen in fact. A private of 
 the Natal Mounted Rifles had his horse shot, and the 
 rider cried out, " I'm hit" " Nonsense, man, it's only 
 your horse," said a comrade, and the man, accepting the 
 assurance, went on fighting. He returned to camp with 
 his corps, strolled about the town in the evening, suffered 
 a good deal during the night from what he called 
 spasms, and only next morning found that a Mauser 
 bullet had gone clean through his body. Then he 
 collapsed, and was taken to the hospital.
 
 32 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Occasionally the spitting whistle of a Mauser bullet 
 came to us over the fighting line, but the real ordeal to 
 nerves for the first time strung to the sounds of battle 
 was the whiz of the sharp-edged splinters of shrapnel. 
 One shell burst close to a group of mounted war corre- 
 spondents, whose horses at once lost all sense of self- 
 respect, and plunged wildly. The confusion was 
 emphasized by the fact that the field batteries at the 
 same instant came tearing round to a new range. One 
 correspondent was dismounted, and as he ran to get 
 out of the way he slipped and fell. It looked as though 
 nothing short of a miracle could save him from being 
 crushed to death, but the R.A. are wonderful drivers, 
 and when the guns passed he was safe. Mental Note. — 
 If one finds oneself suddenly in the way of a galloping 
 battery, the better plan is to stand still, and trust to 
 the drivers. 
 
 From the accuracy with which the first of the Boer 
 shells was planted there is very little doubt that, antici- 
 pating an attack that day, they had, either during the 
 night or in the early dawn, carefully measured the 
 ground, and fixed definite range points. Heavy casual- 
 ties in the Gloucester regiment were due to their literally 
 marching into a death-trap — an accident that in broken 
 country so well known to the enemy is likely to be only 
 too frequently repeated before the close of the war, and 
 as a matter of history was sadly repeated in the case of 
 the Gloucesters at Nicholson's Nek. It was after the 
 Boer artillery had been silenced, and while the Royal 
 Artillery field guns were shelling the face of Tinta 
 Inyoni mountain, to cover the British infantry approach, 
 that a company of the Gloucesters, in fighting formation, 
 marched up a steep hill, from which it was thought they 
 would have an advantageous position for rifle fire on the 
 retiring enemy. Suddenly a strong body of Boers, who 
 had been hidden behind the crest of the ridge, fired a 
 slaughtering volley at not more than two hundred yards, 
 and thirty men of the Gloucesters fell either dead or 
 wounded. That one volley accounted mainly for the
 
 TO THE FRONT 33 
 
 six men killed and sixty wounded, which was the sad 
 official record of the brave Gloucester boys, saddest of 
 all being the death of their commanding ofTiccr, Colonel 
 Edward I'ercival Wilford. 
 
 The loss of the Hocrs in killed, if not in wounded, was 
 certainly heavier than ours, for they went down chiefly 
 to shrapnel, which wrc.iks havoc on the human frame 
 harder to heal than the little punctures of the Mauser. 
 So strong was their position at the point where the 
 Gloucestcrs were ambushed, that Sir George White sent 
 the Li-. and King's Royal Rifles with the Natal 
 
 Mount- : > to outflank and carry it, and they did it 
 under a heavy fire. 
 
 It was about noon when the Hoers began to give way 
 on the coveted position next the road, and most of 
 them on their left were screened in their retirement by 
 intervening high ground, but in the centre there was a 
 perfectly open flat. The British shells had fired the 
 grass on the right, and the flames were creeping in 
 between the Boer advanced lines and their base, two of 
 the hills being already burned black. Suddenly, from a 
 little hill that seemed quite incapable of sheltering so 
 many men, about one hundred mounted Boers, the last 
 of the advanced lines, went scampering back to safety. 
 Puflfs of white smoke suddenly appeared here and there 
 amongst the galloping horses, showing where the R.y\. 
 were planting their shrapnel, timed to the bursting with 
 perfect accuracy. It was a moving target, but they were 
 on it all the time. 
 
 The last act in the fight was the long-range shelling 
 of the Boer position, and though a great many of them 
 must have been killed, both then and during the earlier 
 fight, it was impossible to calculate their losses, and 
 Tommy Atkins's estimate of the enemy's loss is ever 
 sanguine as sanguinary. Having accomplished the 
 object upon which they set out, to facilitate the junction 
 of the two columns, the British force retired to Lady- 
 smith. No conception of war is complete until one has 
 watched its painful sequel — the bringing in of the 
 
 c
 
 34 ffOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 wounded and the burial of the dead. The central 
 British field hospital was the Town-hall, Ladysmith, 
 where the Red Cross, the emblem of all that is beautiful 
 and beneficent in warfare, floated from the tower. All 
 round there was the reek of iodoform, and as the first of 
 the wounded were brought in one heard the groans of a 
 Boer, who had had three shots in the thigh, and was 
 having the bullets extracted. There was no other 
 sound as the sisters and white-aproned dressers moved 
 from bed to bed. The wounded were brought in 
 dhoolies or stretchers, hooded over with green canvas, 
 to keep off sun and rain, and suspended from a bamboo 
 pole carried on the shoulders of four black bearers, who, 
 taking short, quick steps, did their work with wonderful 
 gentleness, and scarcely any oscillation of the cot. As 
 the wounded arrived a dapper, thick-set surgeon lifted 
 the hood of each dhoolie, with a cheery, " Well, my lad, 
 what's the matter with you ? " Some explained, others 
 feebly pointed to the locality of the wound, or the card 
 attached by the field ambulance men. One had a bullet 
 through the middle of the foot, and he and others lightly 
 wounded waited their turn, or were carried away to the 
 pavilion hospitals, while the more serious cases were 
 taken first. 
 
 One lingered longest at the Boer hospital, where 
 amongst the eighty wounded, who occupied a line of 
 tents, one got a good idea of the Boer soldier, three 
 wagon-loads of whom, wounded at Elands Laagte, had 
 been coolly sent in to Ladysmith for treatment. The 
 Boer professes a contempt for the British soldier, but 
 has the greatest possible faith in the British surgeon. 
 His ambulance, like most of his army appliances, were 
 commandeered, and two of these were the delivery vans 
 of business firms in Johannesburg. A noticeable point 
 was that a great many of the Boers wounded at Elands 
 Laagte had been shot through the left arm, presumably 
 while they were in the act of aiming. Save in that 
 nearly all wore cord riding breeches, broad felt hats, and 
 black or brown leggings, there was no uniformity in cut
 
 TO THE FRONT 35 
 
 or colour. Some few had soiled hat-bands, the original 
 c.-iloiir of which was barely determinable, and this 
 srcincd to be the only corps or retyimental badpe. 
 " U I'.v are \\ - you?" I ;ic young 
 
 fcl!"\v who stt rr» th" chu! , where a 
 
 sentry of the ' t kept puard. ** Oh, 
 
 pretty well, c -i,,.,. n...; ^ ». i > ...iit^" he answered in 
 perfect Kn.'lish. and from the frcctlom with which they 
 cl' '-w of them had nrctl 
 
 C)t ah Africin Republic 
 
 to make themselves understootl. Most of them were 
 yoT:n'.» fellows, and. save for the wounds, a very slij^ht 
 strcti li of the ima'ination was required to fancy them a 
 caiiVj) of .\ ' " ' hcd. 
 
 1 i.' U-. ic, the lioers 
 
 fi'U.h: bravely, and the retirement of the Dundee column 
 slrcn^L^'lhcned them in the assurance with which they set 
 out, of dancint? in Marit/bur^ in a few days. It was a 
 rc! ■ the ma- ' vas, the Fusi- 
 
 lii :i in the There they 
 
 knew exactly where they would find the foe, and here 
 they looked for him in every spruit and kopje, for they 
 were passinjj through a country infested with the enemy. 
 Once a body of them wr ' '<d marching down a 
 
 valley, and apparently uik .s of the proximity of 
 
 the Hritish column. The ricid puns were promptly 
 taken up a ridge, and, burning with a desire to be at 
 them again, the light-hearted gunners waited for them 
 to come and be killed. Probably their scouts caught a 
 glimpse of the column, for, greatly to the disappointment 
 of the Royal Artillery, nothing more was seen of them. 
 
 I shall never forget the appearance of that column as 
 it came into Ladysmith — the gallant Fusiliers, conspicu- 
 ous by the square green badges on their helmets, having 
 the place of honour as rear-guard. The khaki had 
 changed in colour from a yellowish-brown to dirty red, 
 and upon officers and men alike were brown blotches of 
 mud, where they had thrown themselves upon the miry 
 ground whenever the whistle sounded for the brief five
 
 36 IfOlV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 minutes' rest. " Good luck to you, boys. We're glad 
 to see you safe back," shouted the crowds on the path- 
 ways, and at intervals cheers were given for the fight- 
 ing Fusiliers. " I suppose you can do without work for 
 a day or two," I said to one stalwart, who, with a click 
 of the brogue, answered, " Shoore, we're as fit as fiddles, 
 and whin we get about three pints o' beer in us we're 
 ready to go out again to-morrow." There was no diffi- 
 culty about the first pint, and though, from the point of 
 view of the moralist and teetotaller, it may be a sadden- 
 ing admission, yet the fact is borne in upon one every 
 day, that next to the British flag and the honour of 
 his corps, the thing that stands highest in the estima- 
 tion of Tommy Atkins is beer. You may praise him, 
 and cheer him, but if you wish to find your way straight 
 into his good graces, make it beer. 
 
 The more one heard of Dundee the more fully he 
 realized the gallant part played by the Dublin Fusiliers. 
 They went into action at short notice, some of them 
 having gone out for running exercise a few minutes 
 before the fight began. As they lay in the shelter of 
 the plantation the General said, " That hill must be 
 taken." " The Fusiliers will do it, sir," said Captain 
 Connors, and the Fusiliers did it grandly. A little 
 knot of men got ahead of the main line, racing for first 
 with the Royal Irish, and had they lived to reach the 
 ridge, there must have been Victoria Crosses for some 
 of the Fusiliers. But all save one man, who owed his 
 life, perhaps, to the fact that he missed his foothold and 
 fell, died near the summit. Captain Connors fell as 
 he was leading his men up a slope, so sharp that they 
 had at times to hold on to the grass tussocks. " Go on, 
 boys," he said ; " I'll see you to-morrow." And he 
 will see them, perhaps, on that to-morrow when the 
 Dublins answer the bugle-call for the last parade, for 
 the brave Irish captain died with a bullet through his 
 body on the man-sown slope of Talana. 
 
 A funny account of a tragic affair is that aflforded by 
 a little Irish private of the Fusiliers, authenticated by
 
 TO THE FRONT 37 
 
 his captain, who laui^hs ever)' time the incident is 
 mentioned. " I kem up to a house," he said, with a 
 broad smile on his brown, corrugated face, " and there 
 was a Boer back to me, wid his rifle puslicd through a 
 hole in the stone wall. I brang me rifle to the ready 
 and sez, ' Hello, me man,' and the sick hik uv him ud 
 make an army mule laf. ' Dhrop it,' I sez, 'and turn 
 out your pockets, or I'll blow a hole a-through you.' 
 Gar, an' he dhropped it quick, and the little wee shee 
 slide thing wid the ind o' the bullets pushed into it. 
 ' I've got more cartridges in me overcoat,' he sez ; ' w^ait 
 an' I'll get it.' ' Nivvor mind yer overcoat,' I sez, 
 ' but come wid me,' an' I gev him over to the corporal, 
 an' tuk his horse to ride, an' there was the captain 
 behoind me, laughin' fit to split. I wint into the house, 
 an' there was the owner sittin' quiet, radin' the paper, 
 an' not knowin' there was a sojer near him. ' How dar 
 ye come into my house.'' he sez. 'Nivver moind argyin',' 
 I sez, and I wint rumagin' about, pokin' a clane hand- 
 kerchief into the sleeve o* me tunic, an' fittin' on the 
 pick o' three waterproof coats. Whereivvor I wint he 
 kem walkin' behind sayin', 'Oh, there's nothin' there; 
 there's njthin' there at all.' 'Will you go out the door,' 
 I sez, losin' me temper, ' or will you go in bits up the 
 chimbly } ' Anyways I had no luck. I thricd three 
 overcoats for nothin', and wan o' the Lancers got a 
 hatful o' money in the only wan he went troo. Don't 
 be talkin' about overcoats." It is a pity to have to tell 
 the sequel. The desire for loot was so strong upon the 
 bold Fusilier that next day he was found in an officer's 
 tent, whisky, it was believed, being the object of the 
 raid, and "clink" the sequel. 
 
 A few days later came the sad news of the death of 
 Major-Gcneral Penn Symons, shot through the stomach 
 at Dundee. It was wired through in sympathetic terms 
 by General Joubert, who closed, however, with a note 
 from the string upon which the Boer perpetually harps : 
 " It is a pity so brave a soldier should have lost his life 
 in an ungodly war promoted by capitalists." General
 
 38 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Symons was shot just after leaving the cover of a 
 plantation, when riding with Colonel Dartnell and his 
 staff. He made no attempt to conceal his position, for 
 wherever he rode on the field he was followed by his 
 orderly, carrying a lance and red pennant, and as most 
 of the better class of Boers had good field-glasses, there 
 would be no difficulty in « picking him out. Just as he 
 was being carried off the field, he passed a line of 
 infantry, and said, "Go on, my lads ; you are fine fellows, 
 all of you ; " then to an officer, " Tell General Yule of 
 my wound. Say that it is but slight, and I shall be 
 out again in a day or two." He had declared on seeing 
 the precipitous slope of the Boers' position just before 
 the fight began, " We shall show them now that British 
 soldiers can scale a mountain as steep as Majuba in 
 face of the fiercest Boer fire."
 
 CHAPTKR IV 
 
 THE BOERS CLOSING IN 
 
 The rush from Ladysmith— The Powerful guns— Lon;; Tom o' 
 rcpworth's Hill -The ring closing— The river caves-Lchoes of 
 fii.'ht. 
 
 The cni;a-cmcntof October 30 had, from the military 
 point of vic\v, one good elTcct on ladysmith. It cleared 
 the town of its human refuse— the mass of Hindoos and 
 unattached Kaffirs who form such a very larpc share in 
 the population of Natal, and will one day, I have no 
 doubt, furnish it with its great social and political problem. 
 The Asiatic was prominent in this railway rush. He 
 carried with him as much of this world's goods as he 
 could bundle to-ether. He was wildly e.xcitcd, and the 
 more congested the crowd the more he chattered, and 
 the faster he ran. There were three trains— the carriages 
 filled with white women and children, the open trucks 
 packed thickly with Kaffirs and Hindoos. White men 
 who wished to go, and in many cases were ordered to go, 
 stood back in despair or shame from this shrieking horde, 
 steaming in the hot, thunderous Natal night, for they 
 felt their manhood would have been smirched by flight 
 in such company. The native police rounded up the 
 blacks like sheep, and packed them as sheep are rarely 
 packed, prodding them on with their knobkerries, while 
 the seething mass inside protested in vain. It was a 
 strange sight — on a smaller scale resembling the flight 
 
 39
 
 40 HO IV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 from Johannesburg, where, I am told, some of the miners 
 behaved in a way that will make them a by-word and a 
 shame on the Rand for many a long year to come. 
 They forced themselves into the trucks set apart for 
 women, trampled upon them, thought of nothing but the 
 safety of their own miserable skins, and for such human 
 garbage were brave men in British uniforms wasting 
 their lives by the kloofs and kopjes of Natal, It was a 
 novel sight, and yet a noble one, to see English officers 
 giving drink from their own flasks to some of these 
 miserable refugees at Ladysmith station, who were first 
 dripping in the tropical heat of the oven-like town, then 
 drenched with night rains on the colder uplands. 
 
 Coming back from all this scare and clamour, I passed 
 a little dhoolie-bearer, resting on the kerb and absorbed 
 in playing an English marching air, " The Lincolnshire 
 Poacher," on a mouth harmonicon — calmly self-confident 
 in his association with the soldiers of the Queen, lifted 
 by the magic of discipline and duty from a craven to a 
 man. The white man sometimes does much for the 
 black when he admits him to a companionship of arms, 
 and when the dhoolie-bearer trots after British regiments 
 into the front of fire, the black man does something in 
 return for the white. During the quiet of Tuesday and 
 the armistice of Wednesday the scare grew instead of 
 subsiding. Rumours clashed and congested. The Boers 
 were mounting guns upon many commanding points ; 
 the town would be at their mercy. It was noticed that 
 officers were sending their wives and families down to 
 Maritzburg ; an excusable precaution after all, for no 
 woman except those brave army nurses should have been 
 left in the town ; but it gave fresh impulse to the rush, 
 and on Wednesday night there was again a trying scene 
 at the railway station. Many women were carried in 
 on stretchers, utterly collapsed under the strain, often 
 screaming hysterically. Too often men showed an utter 
 want of thought or sympathy in talking of the possibilities 
 in the presence of women. These were usually the men 
 who wanted the Boer position stormed at once, and
 
 THE JiOEKS CLOSING /A' 41 
 
 wondered why the Ucvons were not allowed to do it 
 when they voluntecreil. in some cases husbands were 
 b, ^icir wives to go. and the wives just as stoutly 
 
 J .. I 11 st.ty by vou. whatever comes, 1 heard 
 
 one oid iady say to her er' 'L " ^"d God's 
 
 will be done.- Few werr lent, and until 
 
 the trains of refu^'ces had started on thor uncertain 
 iournev. with a pilot cn^jine ahead, and all chance of 
 Iravini: tor th.it dav had ^;onc. the scene was on a lesser 
 the one of Waterloo d. ^.Harolds 
 
 . ... nmage. Those wl)o had i aptuous of 
 
 the Boer a month ago now most learcd l.im. In the town 
 on Wcdr- ' 'ht few jMroplc had much to say. 1 hey 
 
 sat in l.u for the most part gloomily rcncct.vc. 
 
 Two more v4un> fro. ^v/ were bemg humedly 
 
 placed in position, a w>th 10 m. shot. The 
 
 Boers who seemed fam.l.ar with our every m<.ve. and 
 had no doubt many spies in the town sent m to say 
 that if lyddite were used there would be reprisals, and 
 the town would be- slullcd. On our side it was rumoured 
 that if the enemy refrained from pitch.nK shells into he 
 town, and fought a fair artillery duel, the terrific lyddite 
 would not be fired. The whole country around looked 
 so calm and peaceful b.forc sundown on Wednesday, 
 November I. th -t it was difficult to believe that war was 
 i.nly in .suspense. Our Naval Reserve were dragging a 
 17 in. Armstrong to a convenient hillock for mounting 
 and the Boers were steadily bracing up their dreaded 
 1 one Tom with further earthworks. They imagined 
 • ' -a little tree to the ri-ht of the gun helped our rangc- 
 u: ucrs.so it was cut away, but the mound of earth made 
 a target quite conspicuous enough. At daybreak on he 
 morning of Thursday. November 2. the thunder of the 
 euns began. As I dressed hurriedly and ran to the crest 
 of the hill ov.tMde the town to watch the big gun duel, a 
 mass of splint, red shell came hurtling over the camp and 
 look the leg off an unfortunate Kaflir who was ^^tanding 
 in the main street. Yet the Boers were not really shell- 
 ing the town, and even then, after two days of the
 
 42 now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 bombardment, I doubt whether they had really tried to 
 plant a single shell amongst the private houses. Before 
 I had reached the crest of the ridge a large portion of 
 the base of a shell fell within a few yards of me. It was 
 really being fired at our 47 in. on the opposite slope, but 
 the ground there was so stony that the plugged shell, 
 instead of burying itself as in the soft alluvial by the 
 river side, broke into splinters that searched the whole 
 face of the hill, and glancing obliquely off the rocks were 
 very dangerous. It was difficult to find cover from such 
 a fire — as difficult almost as with the shrapnel bursting 
 overhead, where the best shelter is a cleft between two 
 rocks, just wide enough for one to tuck himself in. There 
 was no need of instructions to lie close, for one becomes 
 particular both as to his precautions and his company 
 under fire. I heard one officer fuming because Steevens, 
 of the Daily Mail, was riding a dapple grey stallion, very 
 showy and handsome to look at, but a conspicuous mark. 
 A considerate Tommy kindly suggested that my own 
 blue shirt was not exactly the approved fighting colour. 
 The Boers, adepts as they are at taking and keeping 
 cover, had a great many grey horses, and sometimes at 
 a distance it was hard to believe that one was not watch- 
 ing Kaffir cattle — owing to the prevalence of the greys, 
 to which Colonel Price so much objects. 
 
 Our fellows had nothing the best of Thursday 
 morning's duel. The Boers had their Long Tom ; we 
 the 47 in. and the two long-range naval i2-pounders 
 that harassed them so much on Monday. The Boers 
 ignored the smaller guns, and concentrated their fire on 
 our largest. The object of the 12-pounders seemed to be 
 to pitch their shells short and rattle the enemy's gunners 
 with the forward rake of their shell, while the larger gun 
 went pounding straight at it. The firing on both sides 
 was first-rate, the line of the shots being splendid, but 
 the nicest calculation in elevation was required, for any- 
 thing low flew off the face of the hill, while a shell the 
 slightest bit high went down the receding slope behind and 
 burst far in the rear. In this they had the best of us.
 
 " WARE ' LONG TOM ' " 
 How iL-e Kept the Flag Flying.] 
 
 [Page 4Z
 
 THE BOERS CLOSING IN 43 
 
 for while our over-pitched shells were lost, theirs became 
 a menace to the town. Several shells burst right round 
 our 47 in., and three of the naval men were badly hit, 
 two being carried o(T with shattered Ilv's. while a third 
 was mortally hit in the groin. It seemed to me that 
 they were contemptuous at times in exposing them- 
 selves for if they were nearly finished loading, they 
 went on with the work, even thoii;,'h the shell from the 
 enemy's gun was then in air comin': for them. The 
 I^ocrs were more careful, though there was dare-dcvilry 
 on both sides. Once I saw through the glass five lioers 
 in their shirt-sleeves step from cover, and with their 
 hands <,n their h' 'i their shot, but the instant the 
 
 spirt of flcimc c. our gun they disapi>carcd like 
 
 rabbits in a burrow. Counting quickly one could get to 
 twenty from the time the flash of their Long Tom was 
 seen until the shell reached us. By brcakfast-time they 
 had temporarilv sil-nced our best gun. and they wound 
 up with three shells on the outsk rts of the town, where 
 the squat green tents of the volunteer brigade made 
 a tempting mark. Fortunately the shells burrowed 
 there, and did little damage. 
 
 Before noon on Thursday there was the roar ol 
 cannon on three sides of the town. North-west of us 
 was Pepworth's Hill, where Long Tom held sway; 
 north-cast of us, and four miles away, was Umbulwana 
 —a somewhat reduced Mount Macedon— to the top of 
 which the Boers had, in the teeth of incredible diffi- 
 culties dragged a gun. It was a splendid position for 
 shelling both the camp and the town, and from there 
 they opened on us about noon on Thursday. It may 
 seem ftrange that Sir George White had left such com- 
 manding positions to the enemy, but with his lesser 
 force it was quite impossible to occupy them in strength, 
 and lightly held they were certain to be isolated. Ihc 
 trouble was that the mobile Boers moved about so 
 rapidly that many points were threatened in quick 
 succession, and the defensive ring required to be as 
 compact as possible.
 
 44 IfOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Early in the forenoon of Thursday the cannonade to 
 southward became so heavy that it looked as though a 
 serious attack were being made from that direction. 
 Riding out, I found that a body of volunteer mounted 
 rifles had marked down a party of Boers quietly break- 
 fasting in a hollow, and, creeping up, had poured a 
 destructive volley into them. Once again the Boer 
 proved that he is rarely a craven. This party, instead 
 of scattering, ran to their field guns, and got them into 
 action so quickly that the volunteers had to retire, and 
 lose no time about it. For some time from opposing 
 ridges they kept up a duel with our guns, but no great 
 damage v/as done. I saw one Lancer lying on the veldt 
 with a Mauser bullet through the back of his head, 
 and his horse grazing near. He was both alive and 
 lively, and the astonishing thing is the little harm done 
 by a Mauser or Lee-Metford bullet in the upper part of 
 a man's body, unless it happens to touch one or two 
 really vital points. I was under cover that morning 
 with an R.A. gunner, who looked the picture of health 
 and vigour. Yet at Elands Laagte a Mauser bullet had 
 gone into the left of the heart, and passed out under his 
 shoulder-blade. He was barely fit for duty, but had 
 come out of hospital to get off the sick ration. 
 
 To southward of the town the Klip river ran close 
 under the hills, and there, in the soft banks, hundreds 
 of the residents of Ladysmith had dug out caves — a 
 splendid protection from shrapnel, unless fired directly 
 from southward. With so many women and children, 
 it looked at first like a large picnic party, save that 
 every moment squadrons of Lancers, Hussars, and 
 mounted infantry came down to water their horses 
 under cover of dense milk-bloomed syringas. There 
 were other sights and sounds offensive to the Peace 
 Congress. Drivers of the R.A. galloped out with spare 
 horses to supply the place of some of their gun team 
 that had been hit, and — most lamentable proof of the 
 horror and reality of war — a little party of infantry 
 with arms reversed were marching out, and lying upon
 
 THE BOERS CLOSING IN 45 
 
 stretchers, wrapped in the British ensign, were two who 
 would no more waken to the rcicilU. They were shot 
 throu^^h the stomach — where perforations are fatal — and 
 had lingered on for days. " We have many c;iscs of 
 bullet wounds through the lungs," Dr. Hunter said to 
 me. " There is a little hit-morrhagc, but they soon begin 
 to look all right again." One man brought in on 
 Monday had eleven holes in him, five of them exit, 
 l^rave Lieutenant Meiklejohn, of the Gordons, who won 
 the Victoria Cross, was hit in six places. He had two 
 shots through his body and tlirce through his forearm, 
 while the sixth took off one of his fingers. He was the 
 first man up the heights of Dargai, and was well in front 
 at Elands Laagte when he fell. Lightly built, and some- 
 what effeminate-looking, there was nothing of the bravo 
 about him. But men fight in all shapes and sizes. 
 Another of the Gordons who won distinction was 
 Bugler May. There was a time in the hot fight when 
 the ^L1nchesters wavered — not for want of courage, but 
 because someone had by mistake or through excitement 
 sounded the retire, and Tommy Atkins, though he will 
 go anywhere when well led, is not good at retiring. 
 Bugler May saw them falter, so he blew their regimental 
 call, then the " Forward," and finally the " Charge." 
 "You are a brave lad," said the adjutant, who rode up 
 and took his name. 
 
 If the Boer had all the worst of the artillery fire in 
 the first fights, he paid us back in our own coin. From 
 two points of the compass he was pitching shells, and 
 one's nerves were always on the tension with the 
 bursting of shrapnel. The outer camp lines or the 
 masses of army stores near the railway station received 
 most attention, and we were powerless to silence them. 
 Most of our shell were grape or round leaden bullets ; 
 theirs, ring shell or plates of metal, thinly attached, and 
 which flew apart on the explosion, the sharp edges 
 making wounds of the most horrible nature. Some- 
 times when our shrapnel burst directly overhead, the 
 Boer marksman died hardly knowing what hurt him.
 
 46 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Thus they found on Monday a rifleman lying in a little 
 stone enclosure. The barrel of his Mauser was still 
 thrust through the aperture he had made for it, and his 
 cheek lay upon the breech, just as death had found him, 
 ready for another shot A lump of shrapnel, flying 
 downward, had passed through his head. Most of the 
 men mortally hit were found lying backward, sometimes 
 only partly reclining, as though with the first shock of 
 the bullet they had sat up suddenly and never stirred 
 again.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYSMITII 
 
 The wires cut — Heavy cannon fire— Shell on the nerves — Testing 
 the investment — Early casualties — The luck of the garrison — 
 Realities of siege — The neutral camp. 
 
 On November 3 our isolation became complete. 
 The wires were cut on Wednesday morning. No train 
 came through from Maritzburg on Thursday, and pre- 
 sumably the rail to southward was in the hands of the 
 enemy. They had us under their guns then from three 
 points, and nothing that we had been able to mount 
 seemed fit to do more than temporarily silence them. 
 On Friday they pitched many shells right into the 
 heart of the town, with no other idea apparently than 
 that of intimidating and injuring the townspeople, for 
 our guns were not answering at the time. The big gun, 
 a 6 in. Krupp, looked straight down the main street 
 The townspeople could stand at their doors and see 
 the burst of smoke and flame from its muzzle, then 
 wait anxiously for the scream of the shell and the 
 explosion, the dust from which soon rose high over the 
 tops of the houses. Their second gun was so perfectly 
 hidden that few knew its exact location, though its tune 
 was as familiar as the National Anthem. The third 
 gun was to the north-west at Surprise Hill. 
 
 To southward of us they had not then placed a gun 
 to do any mischief, but some of the heaviest fighting 
 
 47
 
 48 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 had taken place in that direction. Although many 
 shells fell in the heart of the town during the early 
 part of the week, it could not be said that the Staats 
 Artillery — who manage the big Boer guns — were actually 
 shelling a town filled with women, children, hospitals, 
 and wounded, but on Friday there could no longer be 
 any doubt of it. From midday until dark — when the 
 fire invariably ceased — they came in at irregular in- 
 tervals. One of the first pitched just outside the Royal, 
 the largest hotel, while the dining-room was full. It 
 exploded in a cottage usually occupied by Mr. Pearse, 
 the Morning Post correspondent, carried out the side of 
 the house, and blew everything to fragments. Splinters 
 of shell flew upward through the windows of the 
 dining-room, which was filled with shattered glass and 
 dust, yet not a man was hurt. This was generally 
 assumed to be a Transvaal welcome to Dr. Jim and 
 some of the Rhodesia people. It was probably known 
 to the Boers also that scores of British officers were 
 accustomed to lunch at the Royal, and they nearly got 
 a bagful. Several houses were destroyed by shell 
 during the afternoon, a number of people wounded, yet 
 not one life lost. It made one wonder whether the 
 destruction wrought by our field guns was, after all, as 
 great as they said, even admitting that our shrapnel was 
 so much better timed than theirs. 
 
 The extraordinary mastery which their guns had 
 secured over us was evidenced when there was a sudden 
 hurried movement of our cavalry, mounted infantry, and 
 flying artillery to southward, to meet a threatened 
 attack of Free State Boers. As our troops hurried out 
 the three guns were shelling them at long range, right 
 over their own camp and town. Fortunately a high 
 ridge close to the road protected them from the two 
 most dangerous guns, while the sweep of the third did 
 not enable it to come nearer than within fifty yards of 
 the column. Our men absolutely marched out through 
 an avenue of bursting shells, which did them no damage. 
 
 Although our common sense told us that the Mauser
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYS.^riTH 49 
 
 bullet was rc.illy the more scarchin;^ .md the more 
 sudden, thouj^h infinitely the more polite messenger of 
 the two, there were not ten j>er cent, of the men in 
 Ladysmith who would not prefer to sit under Mauser 
 rather than shell fire. On the first day, when the shells 
 were few in number, j)cople lau::;;lied — a mechanical, 
 crackling laugh, like the rustle of dry straw, but still 
 a laugh. On the second day there was rather less 
 laughter, and more of smothered swearing. On the 
 third day there was an impressive silence, people 
 answering curtly when spoken to, every one thinking a 
 good deal. It was not a friendly act then to throw an 
 empty bottle or a can amongst the rocks close to where 
 a man stood. He was too proud to make any jirotests, 
 but still his ner\es betrayed him. On the fourth day 
 men had a hunted look, and I never fully realized 
 what a hunted look meant until the bombardment of 
 ladysmith. Most men were morose. It was not so 
 much the Krupp shell that worried them as the waiting 
 for it. The most courteous man in the world became 
 short-tempered then. On the sixth day he was savage, 
 and asked people whether the British soldier had 
 deteriorated, that he didn't go out in the dark and take 
 that cursed Krupp gun ? There were thousands anxious 
 to go, but it would have been a bloody struggle in the 
 night, and the loss of life from the Krupp did not yet 
 justify such heroic action. Hcart's-blood is an ex- 
 pensive tonic for shattered nerves. The women, wl)om 
 one greatly pities, began to have those crows' feet at 
 the corner of the eyes which usually come with old age, 
 and when a fork fell on the floor at luncheon they 
 started and gasped. People were trying themselves 
 pretty highly then. 
 
 Our war balloon was twice struck. The I^rers had 
 realized the futility of shooting at it with artillery when 
 high in the air. So they got the exact position, and 
 poured in their shell as it descended. In return a shell 
 from one of our naval guns fell right on the Krupp, 
 apparently killing or wounding nearly every man work- 
 
 D
 
 so HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 ing it. Instantly their white flag was hoisted, and 
 while they were carrying away their men, we fired no 
 more. It was a doubtful use of the flag, especially as 
 they took advantage of it to get the gun into action 
 again, and the flag had barely disappeared when the 
 flame was again bursting from its muzzle. We had 
 losses at our guns. Poor Lieutenant Egerton, of the 
 Pozverfnl, a gallant young sailor, would persist in 
 standing to his gun on the exposed ridge, though his 
 men were ordered to the shelter-trench whenever the 
 Krupp's smoke was seen. Finally came a shell which, 
 passing through the sand-bags, literally burst at his feet, 
 carrying away both his legs, and though amputation 
 was tried, they could not save him. With Major 
 Taunton and Lieutenant Knapp, of the Carbineers, who 
 were killed in yesterday's fight, he was buried to-day, 
 their only wreaths the little mountain marguerites 
 growing on the rocky hills where they fell. I saw two 
 of the volunteers turn to help a mate who had fallen, 
 when the rattle of the Mausers was like a mowing- 
 machine in the November hayfields, and strangely both 
 of them were hit through the upper part of the left arm. 
 On another occasion a half-dozen Imperial Light Horse 
 patrols simply trotted on to a flat swept by both the 
 rifle and artillery fire of the enemy. We who saw their 
 peril a mile away could do nothing to warn them. The 
 Boers, with that consummate patience which marks 
 them, waited till they were fairly in tlie open, then the 
 hail of nickel and splinter fell upon them. In a few 
 seconds three of them were wounded, one horse was 
 killed, and another was shot through the upper lip with 
 a splinter of shell. Our cavalry and mounted infantry 
 were continually falling into such death-traps. Some- 
 times they were drawn on in a running fight with the 
 idea that they were being opposed by something like 
 their own number, and getting the best of it. Then of 
 a sudden they found the rocks in front of them literally 
 swarming with the enemy, and had to beat a retreat, 
 with the Boers just pumping rifle bullets into the dust
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYSMITH 51 
 
 of the; flying squadron. The enemy can h'c as low as 
 quail in summer time, and rise with equal suddenness. 
 
 Sometimes there was fii^jhting going on all around Lady- 
 smith, the fire covering a circle of about twenty-five miles. 
 They threatened everywhere, yet so far had not come on 
 in force. We drove them back at every point, yet as soon 
 as we retired to camp they re-occupied their ground. 
 Yesterday, when they were retreating from the ridges 
 under stress of our artillery fire at nearly four thousand 
 yards, they reminded me of the big apes one sees bound- 
 ing away from the train on the ridges above the Berca 
 of Durban. I use the simile without contempt — our 
 men in dodging amongst the rocks, no doubt presented 
 to the Boers exactly the same impression. When men 
 arc in riding breeches and short tunics they look long- 
 Hmbcd and short-bodied. We fought on somewhat 
 novel lines at Besters. Under cover of our field guns, 
 the 5th Dragoons, 5th Lancers, and iSth and 19th 
 Hussars were rushed up under shelter of the kopjes 
 in the hope of cutting off the enemy, but though the 
 move often promised to be successful, the Boers were 
 too cute to be cornered. The burgher who had seen his 
 mate run through with a lance, the while he clutched 
 with both hands — a death-grip — at its shaft, saw some- 
 thing that would last him through the campaign. He 
 spread the story in the commandoes, and none of them 
 wanted those big Australian horses — which in substance 
 overshadow alike the thoroughbreds of the English 
 officers and the spare, gaunt Basutos of the Boers — 
 thundering amongst them again. We must have had 
 half-a-dozen batteries in action, and the most deadly, 
 as usual, was the 42nd, the gunners of which did 
 tremendous work at Dundee, and claim to be second to 
 no field battery in the world. The volunteers had an 
 hour's solid fighting on our left flank, and Captain 
 Arnott, one of their most popular officers, was shot 
 through the body just as he was urging his men to take 
 every advantage of cover, and at the same time exposing 
 himself. There were some unpleasantly narrow escapes
 
 52 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 from instant death. Lieutenant Brabant, a volunteer 
 officer, was shot through both cheeks as he was giving 
 orders, yet the Mauser bullet missed his teeth. A trooper 
 named Norman M'Leod had his tunic torn from his 
 back by a large splinter of shell, which just cut a slight 
 furrow across his spine. I can understand now how 
 utterly puzzled the Americans must have been by the 
 hidden fire of the smokeless Mausers from the tree-tops 
 of San Juan. I could see the Boer bullets clipping up 
 the dust all round our men ; yet, in constant searching 
 with the glass, failed exactly to locate them. There was 
 not a whiff of smoke anywhere. Nor is it possible, 
 except in absolutely open country, to estimate the loss 
 on either side in these running fights. In the dusk one 
 hears the faint call of a wounded man amongst the 
 rocks, but he can best estimate the casualties by watch- 
 ing the movements of the ambulance wagons. 
 
 Day by day we marvelled more at our immunity from 
 hurt, though the luck might turn at any moment. Hair- 
 breadth escapes we had by the score, but in proportion 
 to the weight of iron thrown upon us our losses were 
 absurd. Most of the inhabitants of the much-battered 
 town went their way confident that they would die in 
 time of old age and general debility. With good shrapnel 
 the place might have been at once a hell, a hospital, and 
 a charnel-house any time these first ten days. It was on 
 November 4 that the Ladysmith population began for 
 tlie first time seriously to accept the possibility that the 
 Boers might take the town, or at any rate so batter it to 
 pieces that the ruins would be scarcely worth claiming. 
 A meeting of the local council was hurriedly held, and 
 Sir George White was urged to communicate with 
 General Joubert, asking that the wounded in the 
 hospitals, the women and children, as well as civilians 
 generally, should be allowed to leave the town. The 
 General sent on the message with some reluctance, and 
 Joubert, who was found seated under the shade of an ox 
 wagon smoking, promptly replied that he would allow 
 neither man, woman, nor child to go southward by train.
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYSMITH 53 
 
 They might, if they pleased, form a non-combatants' 
 camp some five miles out, for all who had not taken up 
 arms against the South African Republic. A meeting of 
 the townspeople was held to consider the proposal, and, 
 as ottcn happens, one eloquent man carried all before 
 him. It was Archdeacon liarker, a tall, white-haired 
 clergyman, with something of the erect carriage of the 
 soldier in spite of his years. "Our women and ch)ldren 
 shall not go out under a white flag," he said. "They 
 shall stay with the men under the Union Jack, and those 
 who would do them harm may come to them at their 
 peril," There was cheering — cheers for the Queen, for 
 Sir George White, for the army, and for Archdeacon 
 liarker — and there was no more talk that night of white 
 flags or of running away. 
 
 Kut when the cannonade grew fiercer they went out, 
 not women and children only, but men too, though scores 
 of brave women declined to stir. The field hospitals 
 were removed, for the condition of wounded men in that 
 part of the town, where the shells always fell thickest, 
 was not an enviable one. They were taken some miles 
 out, to a spot selected as neutral ground, and there Boer 
 and Briton often met in harmony, for the enemy fre- 
 quently sent in for medicines and surgical equipments, 
 and were never disappointed. When Major Taunton 
 fell dead. Dr. Hornabrook, of Adelaide, sat down beside 
 the body to bring it in later, as he had brought in the 
 body of another plucky young volunteer, Lieutenant 
 Clapham, from the summit of Umbulwana. The ]^oer 
 riflemen took the ridge fifty yards abcve him, and he 
 watched them as they literally threw clips of bullets 
 into the magazines, and pumped them after our gallop- 
 ing troopers, who had been taken by surprise and heavily 
 outnumbered. In the heat of the firing one man called 
 to him from the ridge, " I say, are you shooting down 
 there .<'" " No," said the doctor; " I've nothing to shoot 
 with." " That's all right, old chap," said the Boer apolo- 
 getically. After the firing ceased they came down to 
 him, and chatted about the war and the incidents of the
 
 54 JffOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 day. " What a fool he was to stand up," one of them 
 said, pointing to the body of Major Taunton. Many of 
 them confessed that they were already very tired of fight- 
 ing, and whatever the spirit in which these Roundheads 
 of the veldt had shouldered their rifles and gone abroad 
 to war, they had no delusions as to the end. " We'll be 
 beaten," said one of them ; " no doubt about it, but be- 
 fore we have our last kick we'll blow Johannesburg to 
 bits." As the dusk came on one of them said, " Don't 
 you think you'd better go now ? Some of our pickets 
 may be firing on you in the bad light, and you can't 
 blame them." 
 
 Another remarkable sight seen that week was the 
 loosing upon us of a horde of starving Indian coolies, 
 and their women and children, fugitives from Dundee, 
 whom the Boers would no longer feed. Percy Great- 
 head, of Johannesburg, and others of the Guides, were 
 chosen for the work, in that, besides knowing the locality, 
 they have the gift of tongues, most of them speaking not 
 merely Dutch and English, but Kaffir also. When they 
 went out to take over this horde of miserable wretches 
 from the Dutch envoys, they saw a pitiable spectacle. 
 Children that had been born by the wayside, and were 
 but a few hours old, were being carried along by their 
 fainting mothers until our military authorities, listening 
 in horror to the story told by the Guides, sent ambulances 
 to bring them in. The Guides had another surprise that 
 day. They spoke to the Boers in Dutch, and were sur- 
 prised when one of them replied, " Can't you fellows speak 
 English ? only one of the three of us knows Dutch, and 
 he isn't very good at it." So they talked in English, 
 and it was found that of those three Boers two were 
 Irish, the one a burgher of some years, the other only 
 six months out, while the third was a Frenchman. Be 
 not self-righteous, though, ye Scots and English. I know 
 of one Boer who sent a message to the colonel of the Light 
 Horse asking to be favoured with a description of the 
 uniform of his corps, as he wished to pay them particular 
 attention. His name was M'Nab, which I take to be
 
 ISOLATION OF LADYSMITII 55 
 
 rather more Scottish than Dutch. Tom Loxton and 
 Greathead, of the Guides, had a long talk with the 
 young Irishman I have mentioned, who already regretted 
 joining the Boers. *' Why do you fire on our ambulance.'"' 
 Loxton asked. The Irishman denied they had ever 
 done so. " Why, you've done it three times to-day," 
 Loxton declared. " Well, the truth is," said the other, 
 "that our fellows believe that a great many of their 
 wounded were killed by the Lancers in the charge at 
 Elands Laagte. We had a lot of men killed there." 
 Then he added, significantly, " Dnn't let the others know 
 I told you." 
 
 The Boer guns were never silent on Monday, Novem- 
 ber 5, yet they did little mischief, save amongst the 
 houses on the ridges to westward of the town, which 
 were for the time being the habitation and playground 
 of shrapnel and plugged shell. People suffered a good 
 deal under the bombardment from hunger and thirst. 
 Every shop was closed, every hotel kitchen demoralized, 
 so that those who had not already attached themselves 
 to a military mess took with them just what they could 
 commandeer. In company with Messrs. Greenwood and 
 Mitchell, two of the South African correspondents, I was 
 the joint owner of a can of Californian pears and a 
 bottle of German lager beer — but no corkscrew. How- 
 ever, a rusty screw and a bit of pliant wire made an 
 admirable substitute, and after that day there was no 
 suffering. People got used to it, and took regular meals. 
 There was one admirable feature in the Boer methods of 
 investment. When they sprang a fresh surprise upon us 
 it was never more than two guns a day. Had they got 
 all their guns in position first, and then suddenly com- 
 menced to bombard, it would have been distracting, 
 perhaps deadly, but they began with one gun, and by the 
 time a second was ready we were getting ourselves dis- 
 ciplined and had become expert in she.'l-dodging. Thus 
 it went on, gun by gun, until they graj.ually completed 
 the ring of fire to south and west, leaving fewer rid^jes
 
 56 HOW IVE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 behind which troops could shelter, and thus made ready 
 for an appropriate Dutch celebration of the Prince of 
 Wales's birthday. On the eve of it I saw some really fine 
 artillery work. Coincidently with the placing of their 
 second big gun on Umbulwana, we got our second naval 
 gun in action to the north-west, and the clever way in 
 which the fire of that gun was masked for the whole of 
 Tuesday forenoon was beyond praise. Using cordite, there 
 was only the slightest whiff of light buff smoke hanging 
 low about the grass, while both their big guns belched 
 out a cloud of snow-white smoke, reminding one in bulk 
 of the huge woolpacks that chase each other across our 
 Australian skies on a windy spring day. Our gun never 
 fired except in answer to Dutch Long Tom, and then 
 fired instantly on his flash. It was so promptly done 
 that our shells, driven with greater muzzle velocity, often 
 exploded before theirs, yet we invariably fired at their 
 flash. It was a sharp bit of artillery work, and Long 
 Tom, feeling for this hidden enemy, sometimes dropped 
 his shells into the town, sometimes amongst the ridges, 
 and it was well past mid-day before our gun was at last 
 discovered. Then from three high points they turned 
 on him angrily, and a hail of shells fell upon him. Indeed, 
 it looked as though they had blotted him out, but we 
 learned later that our gun had bucked from its bearings 
 and reared straight up, so that it was some time before 
 it was got into position again. This was our disadvan- 
 tage. We were using naval guns, which had to be set in 
 concrete ; they had guns specially intended for redoubts, 
 and which were readily placed in position. Before our 
 left front gun came to grief on Tuesday, it had a single- 
 handed duel with a big Boer gun mounted on the 
 shoulder of Telegraph Hill, west from the town, in which 
 the shooting was the finest I had yet seen. After a 
 furious exchange the Dutch gun ceased fire, and it was 
 some time later when it again opened by pitching shells 
 into the remnants of the Gloucester camp. Once a shell 
 fell some thirty yards away from the clump of tents.
 
 ISOLATION OF LADY SMITH 57 
 
 The men came out, and strolled down to look at the 
 visitor's marks. \\ hilc tiicy were gathered in a clump 
 around the rent in the earth, a second shell burst right 
 amongst the tents they had left. By such sli;;ht chances 
 were men almost daily saved from certain death, and we 
 appeared to have a monopoly of the good fortune.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS 
 
 The agreeable censor — The birthday sakite — Shellingf the 
 town — Fighting shadows — The plan that failed — An inconclusive 
 fight. 
 
 The guide, philosopher, and perhaps one may say- 
 friend of war correspondents was the press censor — 
 Major Altham of the Engineers, a man who combines 
 the directness of the soldier with the literary sagacity of 
 a sub-editor. He was absolutely merciless with his blue 
 pencil,but accompanied the crucifixion of a cable despatch 
 with such a pleasant and pointed fire of running comment 
 that one could never be offended. There was such 
 perfect candour in his comments, that even those who 
 had argued most eloquently against the excision of some 
 precious item of news came away bearing no ill-will 
 towards the censor. He was most busy and most merci- 
 less in those few uncertain days when the Boers were 
 closing about us, and the wire might be in their hands 
 at any moment ; still more merciless to the enterprising 
 journalist who had arranged with a Kaffir to run the 
 gauntlet of the Dutch sentries. The despatches were 
 then likely to fall into the hands of the enemy, and they 
 were not in cypher. One enjoyed the censor most when 
 criticizing some other fellow's correspondence. Here is 
 a transcript : — 
 
 Censor. — " Can't let you say this, you know." 
 
 58
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS 59 
 
 Correspondent. — " Well, it's of interest to the public." 
 
 Censor. — "We're not considering the public, though; 
 we're considering the enemy." 
 
 Correspondent (with a weary air). — " Oh, very well, 
 strike it out." 
 
 Censor. — " And here again you say, ' Great satisfaction 
 expressed here arrival General Buller. Feeling that siege 
 will not long continue.' That's a reflection on our General. 
 You don't mean to say that we're skulking behind rocks, 
 and that General Buller has only to come here and per- 
 sonally drive the Bucrs away." 
 
 Correspondent. — " No ; but he has an army corps with 
 him." 
 
 Censor. — "Then why don't you say so? Hum! ha! 
 What's this } Question of tactics. Where did you get 
 your knowledge of military strategy .-'" 
 
 Correspondent (triumphantly). — "It's not so much a 
 matter of strategy as of common sense." 
 
 Censor. — " Your conclusions in that vein, don't you 
 know, are admirable, if the premises were correct, but 
 unfortunately they're not. I suppose that doesn't matter, 
 though." 
 
 Correspondent (seeing an opening). — " I shall be very 
 glad, major, if you will amend them where incorrect." 
 
 Censor. — " No doubt ; but then, you see, I'm not acting 
 as correspondent for your paper." 
 
 And so it went on day by day — some swearing, some 
 surly and reflective, others laughing and accepting the 
 inevitable. 
 
 At about dawn on the morning of the Prince of Wales's 
 birthday I dreamed that some one was rolling an empty 
 iron tank down a rocky hill, and awoke to find that the 
 Boer guns were roaring outside, and Boer shells bursting 
 over, around, and in the town. It began with daybreak 
 and ceased with sundown. During that time it is esti- 
 mated that nine hundred shells were fired, and that six 
 hundred of them were Dutch. The estimate may be 
 slightly exaggerated, but the proportion of Boer to British 
 is about correct. And they came from every side. Early
 
 6o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 in the siege one could dodge shells with a fair degree of 
 dexterity, for he knew exactly where the Boer guns were, 
 but on the Prince's birthday it was different ; they came 
 from every side, and one never knew whether they were 
 past him or still coming. Some burst in the streets, 
 some in the houses, some overhead, yet — the marvel of 
 it — no civilian was killed, and the casualties even amongst 
 the soldiers who lined the ridges upon which the Dutch 
 guns rained their shell were not large. A sergeant of 
 the Liverpools, who would persist in exposing himself, 
 though repeatedly warned, was literally torn to bits — and 
 buried in a blanket A man who stood near him was 
 seriously hurt. Two others were killed by Mauser bullets, 
 and the butcher's bill for the day on which the Dutch 
 had set themselves to blow us to perdition was three 
 killed and fifteen wounded. Rarely has there been such 
 a rage of shell with such trifling loss, and the cost of it 
 as an engine of destruction must have been enormous. 
 Our guns, fewer in number, answered them all through 
 the burning day, and our shooting from first to last was 
 superb. There were short periods when the guns roared 
 less furiously than usual, and the shells rioted less omin- 
 ously overhead, and then many of the townsmen crept 
 timidly from their tunnels and went about their business 
 until a shell pitched close to them. " Is Jones's store 
 open ? " I heard one of them ask. " I fancy the door's 
 locked," was the reply, "but you can go in at the window." 
 He was right too, for a shell from Long Tom had gone 
 through the window and taken a considerable portion of 
 the wall with it. But these were trifles. During that 
 day the Boer artillery must have fired every available 
 shell, for on Friday they were silent, and the contrast 
 with the din of the day before was curious. One missed 
 something. Just about noonday, when the bombardment 
 had conveniently slackened, there was a ring of bugles 
 through the heat, and then one heard the tune " God 
 Bless the Prince of Wales." Our guns thundered — 
 twenty-one of them — in a Royal salute, and few Royal 
 salutes have, I dare say, been fired with shell. Then the
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS 6i 
 
 cheering rang from ridge to ridge and regiment to regi- 
 ment, and once again the enem\' must have wondered. 
 Twice during that eventful day word went round that 
 the Boers were coming in. They did in one instance, 
 but soon went back again. It had been noticed from the 
 balloon that in the early morning a number of the enemy 
 — dismounted — always came in and lined a particular 
 ridge, but rarely held it during the night. Under cover 
 of darkness some of the Leiccstcrs and Liverpools took 
 possession of the hill, and when the Dutch came up our 
 men poured several volleys into them before they got 
 back to shelter again. It was a body of "Zarps" — as 
 they are called from the initial letters of the South 
 African Republican Police — and had only come down 
 from Pretoi ia a few days before. Some of them got to 
 the shelter of a donga, and lay there all day safe from 
 rifle fire, but unable to get back to their lines until 
 covered by darkness. Most of the fighting here was at 
 long range — something like one thousand five hundred 
 yards — where the shooting was done mainly by the 
 crack shots, of which there arc a few in every regiment, 
 the Rifle Brigade, it is said, having the best. Now and 
 again they bagged their man. The Manchesters were 
 attacked at Caesar's Hill, but persistent as the Boers 
 were in worrj-ing them, they neither pressed the attack 
 home nor drew the Manchestcrs out. 
 
 The Boer losses must have been heavy, for at night wc 
 could see the lanterns of their ambulance men moving 
 over the field, and during the greater part of Friday, 
 when for a time rain and hail fell in tropical torrents, 
 they were still moving about the veldt, flying the red 
 cross. The Boer wounded, when able to do so, frequently 
 signal to their ambulance by firing their rifles, and they 
 could be heard at intervals all through the night. One 
 of our shells burst near a party of Boers who were off- 
 saddled, and their panic was unmistakable. Those who 
 could do so ran, leaving horses and equijiment behind 
 them, and some of the saddles were brought into Lady- 
 smith by the Kafiirs. Wonderfully keen-eyed these black
 
 62 now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Africans are. They invariably go out with the Guides 
 and pickets to look for the enemy, and long before the 
 sweeping glasses of the white men have helped them, the 
 " Look, boss ! " of the Kaffir tells that he has found the foe. 
 On Saturday afternoon, having lulled every one into 
 expectation of a holiday, the Boer guns opened suddenly 
 on the very centre of the town. There was no mistaking 
 the wantonness of the move. Their ordnance was not 
 turned against ours, or upon the hills under which our 
 infantry lurked day by day — waiting. It was a de- 
 liberate attempt to do as much harm as possible amongst 
 civilians, lulled to a false sense of security. Thick and 
 fast the big one hundred-pounders fell upon us with a 
 roar through the air, and a thunderous explosion. At 
 the Crown Hotel, while we sat at lunch, a huge slice 
 of shell came crashing through the roof of the bar, 
 another banged upon an iron building — yet every one 
 finished his meal. A fortnight ago such a thing would 
 have been impossible. People don't accustom themselves 
 to shell fire all in a day. Sometimes I rubbed my eyes 
 wondering whether I was dreaming, or watching one 
 of Bland Holt's military dramas. And yet there was 
 always at hand some proof of the awful possibilities 
 in this shell fire. A mule was feeding in the lines, 
 and suddenly its heels were in the air. Where is the 
 wretched thing's head ? Gone — blown literally to the 
 four winds by a big shell, which took it ere it had yet 
 exploded. Another mule was plunging entangled in 
 heel and head ropes. Don't look — it has been disem- 
 bowelled. Apart from the big guns, the desultory 
 fighting outside kept one on the qui vive with death 
 and suffering. So many men one knows by sight, or 
 has heard of as brave soldiers, went out in the morning 
 with no other purpose than a reconnaissance, and were 
 brought in by the dhoolie-bearers. It was so with 
 Colonel Gunning when he led his lads to victory. " One 
 more effort, boys, and we are on them," and in that one 
 more effort he sank down, and was dead ere " the boys " 
 who followed could stoop to look in his face.
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS (>i 
 
 To the correspondent, lyinp^ inactive on the veldt, and 
 watching through his glasses a regiment preparing for 
 assault, there was a painful waiting for the first man 
 to fall. If the soldier has all the danger, he has too 
 all the stir of the battle, and giving back shot for shot ; 
 he has also that electric glow ol comradeship which 
 seems to run like a flame through the line when men 
 prepare for battle. The minute they show themselves 
 above the hill-cap a fierce crackle of rifles breaks, and 
 each minute the crash of sound grows denser, until one 
 wonders that men can live in it. And still they go on, 
 and it might be a sham fight at Langwarrin, except that 
 there is no spirting smoke, as from the Martinis. The 
 sound may come from anywhere, the shots from spectres, 
 for all that one sees of it. It is the day of the long- 
 range rifle, and men fight far off and over wide distances, 
 especially in Africa. Then the first man is on the grass, 
 and some cord seems to snap within one — the first 
 tension of waiting is over. Not a man watching but 
 his heart is with that drab band of earth-stained, hard- 
 swearing, beer-drinking British soldiers. Tommy is a 
 hero then, and one has no thought, not even a little 
 touch of sympathy left for the enemy. To see him dart 
 away amongst the rocks or die in his trenches is a fierce 
 satisfaction. It may be inhuman, savagery perhaps, but 
 it is war. 
 
 Sometimes there is a brief minute's respite for the 
 advancing line — a sheltering watercourse, as when "The 
 Dubs " charged up the hill at Dundee. " Close up, men, 
 and rest a minute," said Major English, "and then come 
 on." " Maybe there are some in that timber to front 
 of us, sor," said a rich Irish voice in the line. " So 
 much the worse for them then," replied the officer. 
 " Forward." They sprang from the donga after him, 
 and that awful rattle of Mausers, stilled for the moment, 
 broke again. One cannot help thinking that on the 
 first few strides in the teeth of that shower of Mausers, 
 men ask themselves, " Why am I soldiering ? whatever 
 brought me here to this hell ? " " How did you feel ? "
 
 64 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 I asked a young lieutenant of perhaps twenty-three. " In 
 a miserable funk," he answered candidly, " but I knew 
 I had to go through with it." That is the only grandeur 
 in it — the stern repression of every natural human 
 emotion and weakness ; the full knowledge that it may 
 mean death, but that he must go through with it. I 
 shall never while I live cease to admire the soldier, and, 
 above all, the British officer, though perhaps the officer 
 is much the same all the world over. He has no rifle, 
 no cover. With his useless sword in hand he strides 
 bravely on, pointing the way, a conspicuous target for 
 every sharpshooter on the ridge above him. It is the 
 correct thing to do. It is the caste of the officer as 
 compared with the man — and it is magnificent. 
 
 Watching a hard fight affects different men in different 
 ways, though the same tone of awe and repression runs 
 through every observation. On that Monday, when the 
 Dutch turned their guns on Ladysmith, and we went 
 out to a disastrous fight, I saw the British soldier 
 retiring, and it was not a pleasant sight. He had not 
 been beaten in fight or driven from his position. Two 
 far-separated columns were to act in unison. An un- 
 foreseen mishap had given the one column over to 
 destruction and capture near Nicholson's Nek. The 
 second had been hidden for hours under shelter of the 
 ridges, half-way to the Boer position, waiting for the 
 signal that their comrades had turned the enemy's left 
 ere they sprang forward to the assault, but the envelop- 
 ing wing was at that instant fighting for life miles from 
 where it should have been, and there was nothing for 
 the main force to do but come in out of the storm of 
 shrapnel that was being thrown upon them, and from 
 which even the fire of our own well-served field guns 
 could not shelter them. They came in, swearing a 
 good deal, caring little for formation, not running, but 
 marching in clumps anyhow across an open flat, where 
 Krupp and Mauser burst full upon them. "My God," 
 said a man near me, in a voice which v\^as absolutely 
 one of agony, " they are walking right into it. Why
 
 BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS 65 
 
 don't they go round by the shelter of that ridge ? " 
 Tommy has the genius for assault, but not the stomach 
 even for a tactical necessary retreat. If he got out of 
 hand then for a moment it was not in panic, but in 
 obstinacy. He walked sulkily straight into it. It was 
 no one's fault — the plan was a good plan, but the 
 uncontrollable and the unforeseen spoiled it. You may 
 deem all this emotional — strained, hysterical, if you 
 please — but it is actual war, and in it the cvery-day 
 emotions have no place. Iwery chord in one's being 
 throbs, ever)' sense is thrilled, every emotion is highly 
 wrought. One may be cool under perpetual bombard- 
 ment, though even there " the night comcth when no 
 man knowcth," but to the novice in war the actual 
 movement of men against men is gigantic.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIEGE IMPRESSIONS 
 
 The General's promise — A narrow escape — Spasmodic fire— A 
 reconnaissance — Settling down — A night bombardment. 
 
 One day, while we were spending a quiet afternoon 
 with the Guides in their tunnel, the Commander-in-Chief, 
 Sir George White, with Colonel Ian Hamilton, came 
 down to look at it. The fame of that tunnel has spread 
 through Ladysmith. It goes under the bank and out 
 again, and has little side vaults where one might almost 
 expect to find mummies or some of the relics of the 
 catacombs. The officers laughed, and Sir George, on 
 leaving, significantly observed, " It's a fine tunnel, but 
 you won't need it long — there are three brigades com- 
 ing." We would have wished to question him as to 
 details, but generals commanding are not good under 
 cross-examination. 
 
 Every day the assemblage of civilians by the river 
 tunnel became a more curious study. Single men with 
 a strong sense of self-preservation might be seen 
 hurrying down each morning with a well-filled hamper. 
 One old lady I saw often, and she always brought down 
 with her a green African parrot and a canary. Others 
 sat back well in their tunnels, and with long hand-lines 
 passed the time eel-fishing in the Klip river. On the 
 fourteenth day of the siege the fire became more 
 spasmodic. There was a particularly hot hour of it just 
 
 66
 
 SIEGE IMPRESSIONS 67 
 
 before breakfast perhaps, and then a loner ^nd bh'ssful 
 quiet. The very worst shells next to shrapnel were those 
 which pitched upon the macadamized road. Off that 
 hard surface, as from the rocks on the ridcjes, they flew 
 into a thousand splinters, and their onward sweep was 
 awc-inspirinf^. One would have expected such an effect 
 as a swivel punt j^un fired into a fli)ck of wild duck, but 
 the immunity from injury continued. A picturesque 
 ivy-wreathed building at one of the street corners was 
 commandeered by some members of Sir Georp^e White's 
 Staff, who had as visitors Dr. Jim, Colonel Rhodes, 
 Lord Ava, and others. They had arran^^cd to sit for a 
 photoc^raph before breakfast, and while they were absent 
 a shell from Lone; Tom pp.sscd just below the founda- 
 tions of the buildinj^, and burst in the cellar. The floor 
 of the breakfast-room, where five minutes later they 
 would have sat at table, was blown to fragments. 
 Where there had been a room, there was a chasm 
 choked with splintered timber. When an eminent 
 divine of the town heard of it he s.iid, " Good gracious 1 
 and Olive's violin is packed away in that cellar." Then, 
 as an after-thought, "Was any one hurt?" They 
 followed Colonel Rhodes around with sleuth-like per- 
 sistency, and seemed determined to carry out that death 
 sentence, passed a few years ago in Pretoria, on account 
 of the Jameson raid. So it looked at first sight, when 
 one remembered the family antecedents, but the range 
 of the guns was too long for it to be anything more 
 than coincidence. At lunch time, on the same day, a 
 shell from Umbulwana came through the roof of the 
 Royal Hotel, tore its way throu,;h Colonel Rhodes's 
 bedroom, and burst in the dining-room. Again the 
 wreckage was something to remember, and again, as a 
 matter of course, no one got a scratch. Not so with the 
 lioers. They hoisted the white flag over their Umbul- 
 wana gun — and a wagon climbed the mountain to take 
 away the wounded. The naval men claimed that 
 theoretically both the big guns had surrendered to them 
 in hoisting the white flag during the thickest fire — but
 
 68 IfOJV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the Boers still kept possession of them. One of the last 
 buildings destroyed by the Dutch fire was their own 
 Lutheran Church, but the Dopper Church — to which 
 most of the Boers belong — escaped injury. Not so the 
 other denominational buildings. The Roman Catholic 
 convent and sanatorium, which had a commanding but 
 exposed site, on the crown of the hill overlooking the 
 town, and right in the rear of our naval guns, was shot 
 thro-ugh and through. Every wall had a shell-hole 
 through it, and the devastation inside was terrific. 
 Fortunately it was vacated early in the siege, the sisters 
 going out to the neutral camp to nurse the wounded, 
 when the convent was no longer required as a hospital. 
 There was a chapel attached to the convent. One of 
 the largest of the Dutch shells exploded just as it had 
 pierced the outer wall, and raked the sanctuary from 
 end to end. Scarcely a yard of wall or roof or floor 
 that was not pierced with those diabolical splinters of 
 metal that, fashioned like the teeth of a cog-wheel, flew 
 to pieces on impact. And amid the ruin was a carving 
 of the Saviour on the cross, a statue of the Virgin, a 
 picture of the Crucifixion, with not a chip nor a stain on 
 the marble, not a scratch on the gilding. It was all 
 wonderful. 
 
 The forenoon of November 14 was a day which 
 promised much, but in the end fizzled out rather tamely. 
 On the night before, a veldt farmer, who had sought 
 refuge in the town, got news from his Kafifirs that the 
 Boers would attack that day ; and when before break- 
 fast they opened a heavy fire on the town, apparently as 
 a screen to some ulterior purpose, it looked as though 
 for once rumour and truth were identical terms. Some 
 of our batteries had gone out at daybreak, and when 
 early in the day they opened with crashing salvoes, and 
 one heard in the clear morning air the man in the balloon 
 call, " Fifty yards to the left,'' " A little short," and other 
 such instructions to the gunners, it looked as though 
 they were really coming in at last. Nothing of the sort. 
 Our guns had merely gone out to clear a few square
 
 SIEGE IMPRESSIONS 69 
 
 miles of kopjes to south and westward, which had become 
 a favourite hunting-ground of the Boer sharpshooter. 
 I watched the operation with interest. First a shell short 
 and low, then a couple high, and bursting on the further 
 ridges ; then, pip-pip-pip, the little balls of snow-white 
 smoke showed all over the intervening ground, and broke 
 and spread into a vaporous morning fog. Thus the 
 programme was lepcated over and over again, and for 
 nearly three hours our roaring Armstrongs searched 
 many square miles of country. The Boers never knew 
 where to look for the shells, though, as usual, one had to 
 guess at the execution. I lay alongside an officer of the 
 Highlanders wounded through the left arm, but he 
 steadied his deer-stalking glass on his knee, watched 
 the guns, and with a characteristic Scottish economy of 
 words, declared once that they were " very pretty." Our 
 mounted infantry dodged around meantime as supports 
 to the batteries, but never got a chance. When they 
 were coming in, however, the big Boer guns opened on 
 them with some very good shooting, three separate 
 streams of fire being directed at them across the town. 
 Not a man was touched. A member of the Natal 
 Mounted Rifles as he rode in said to a comrade who had 
 remained in camp, " You missed nothing. It was a 
 wasted day. Let us go and have a sleep." He went to 
 his tent, and as he slept a shell fell upon him and almost 
 severed his head from his body. His friend, reading 
 beside him, saw his legs draw up ever so slightly and 
 that was all. The poor fellow never knew what hurt him, 
 so benignantly and suddenly grim death came to him. 
 He was the first man killed by a shell pitched at random 
 into the town, and they had been shelling us for over a 
 fortnight. The net result of this heavy three hours' 
 artillery fire was nil. It may have shown them that we 
 were alert — it did little more. The intention was, I 
 imagine, to cut off and, if possible, capture a heavy Boer 
 gun that was enfilading us. They were compelled to 
 desert it for a time, but the minute our mounted infantry 
 showed in sight, so fierce a fire of rifles rang along the
 
 70 IfOlV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Boer ridges that to have gone for the gun would have 
 meant heavy loss. On our retirement tlicy came back 
 as usual to their old positions. One or two incidents 
 showed the Boer fighter in a favourable light. One man 
 rode quietly along the slope of the hill, fully exposed 
 and with our shells bursting all around him. He never 
 hurried, and all agreed that he was a brave man. Again, 
 two Boers sat fully exposed on a rock, and never shifted 
 from the shrapnel. Of course, they were seen so plainly 
 only through the glass, and were not under rifle fire. 
 Dr. Hornabrook and Dr. Platts had a narrow escape as 
 they came in with an orderly riding close on their heels. 
 A shell burst right between them, the smoke of it blotted 
 them out, and those of the Staff who saw it said, " They 
 must be killed," Yet when the smoke lifted they were 
 riding quietly on, and not one of the three had a scratch. 
 Indeed, all the fighting here strengthened one's conviction 
 that the more perfect the appliances of war, the greater 
 the range and accuracy of the rifle, the less deadly the 
 fight — assuming always that both sides are about equally 
 armed. 
 
 One thing in the African soldier that impressed me 
 was the physique of the Afrikander volunteers. They 
 are not only exceptionally tall men, but finely built, 
 and the British soldier bears poor comparison with them. 
 Mount them upon such horses as are ridden by the 
 heavy Dragoons and there would be giants soldiering 
 in the land. Yet one of the best and biggest of these 
 corps is known as the Imperial Light Horse. In a 
 hand-to-hand rough-up on a dark night these fellows 
 would be terrors — not perhaps with the bayonet, which 
 they do not use, but certainly with the butt. I men- 
 tioned this in one of the volunteer camps, and pointed 
 to a young giant of 6 ft. 4 in. as an illustration. He was 
 an Australian, born in Castlemaine, an old Scotch 
 College boy, who inquired affectionately after Dr. 
 Morrison, and a brother of Miss Lillian Wheeler, the 
 Australian actress. Another thing that appeals to an 
 Australian is the superb driving of the Cape boys —
 
 SIEGE IMPRESSIONS 71 
 
 generally half-castes, between Dutch and Kaffirs, or 
 Hottentots. One man holds his team often hard-pulling, 
 galloping mules together swinging round corners and 
 down the rough military roads, while a second, standing 
 on the wagon, wields a terrible whip, with which he 
 can flick the leaders of the span just as surely and 
 mercilessly as the polcrs. Sometimes when they appear 
 to have the best of the driver, the other boy turns them 
 with his whip. I have seen them in queer places, always 
 in a hurry, but never a capsize. It is a different kind of 
 driving from that of our Cabbage Tree Neds of the old 
 coaching days, more rough-and-ready, perhaps, but all 
 the same a masterly thing. The bullock teams are 
 worked differently from ours, and the yoke — a strip of 
 green hide round the neck — is even more barbarous. 
 It was adopted in the old trekking days, when in crossing 
 unknown and often unfordable rivers it was sometimes 
 necessary to cut away the yoke hurriedly to save the 
 whole span from drowning. They are driven by Kaffirs, 
 who keep up a continuous yelling, and the leader is not 
 a bullock, but a boy. The loads are small, and by com- 
 parison with our big shorthorns at least 50 per cent, of 
 the power for each bullock is wasted. 
 
 The besieged residents of Ladysmith were so entirely 
 satisfied that Boer artillerymen never worked at night, 
 that they were considerably startled when awakened 
 soon after midnight on November 15 by the roar of 
 artillery. Running out in the rain, they could see the 
 flash of the big guns on Pcpworth's and Umbulwana, 
 while in the quiet of the night the shells seemed to hiss 
 closer than ever overhead. A score of theories were in 
 circulation. They had evidently taken the precaution to 
 train all their guns on the town every evening, for shells 
 were whooping noisily in the street. We had been just 
 as careful to train our guns on theirs before dark, for 
 we answered their fire with remarkable promptitude, 
 and our shells in the distance were an eruption of red 
 flame. The facts apparently were that the Boers were 
 paying us back for our Prince of Wales's birthday salute.
 
 72 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 On the stroke of twelve that morning a rocket soared 
 as a signal, and they fired their salute at us as we had 
 fired at them — with plugged shell and shrapnel. If on 
 our night alarm we had an unpleasant time turning out 
 suddenly into the darkness, how much worse the 
 wretched condition of the Boers standing guard on the 
 exposed hills. Every one has heard of the mobility of 
 the Dutchman, horse, rifle, and biltong, and he is ready 
 for the veldt — to fight or march as occasion may require. 
 It works admirably in fine weather. But think of the 
 plight of those thousands of Boers with no tents, no 
 other protection than waterproofs after forty-eight hours 
 of the drenching grey, ceaseless rain we were then 
 experiencing ! His veldt-schoen — the soft, broad, brown 
 leather boot he usually wears — help him in dry weather 
 to spring from rock to rock like a mountain goat ; help 
 him to creep noiselessly where the clatter of "Tommy's" 
 thick army boot would betray him. When the rain 
 comes the veldt-schoen are reduced to so much sodden 
 pulp — as serviceable on the feet as a wet dishcloth. We 
 under shelter, besieged though we were, could not but 
 pity the poor wretches crouching under bush and wagon, 
 making the most of every scrap of shelter on the bare 
 pitiless veldL
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TIIF. LUCK CHANGES 
 
 A disastrous shell — Rumours of sorties — The silent guns — "The 
 March of the Cameron Men" — A doctor's tragic death — A mid- 
 night scare — Football under fire — The passion lor sport. 
 
 With the first shell fired at us on the morning[ of 
 November i6 the luck changed. It was shrapnel, and 
 burst straight over a group of men standing on the rail- 
 way station. Seven men — four of them white and three 
 coolies — were stricken down by it, one of them, a rail- 
 way guard named Mason, being so fearfully mangled 
 that he died an hour later, and before night he had been 
 buried uncoffined like a soldier. The wounded were 
 taken out to the neutral camp next day, and there we 
 heard little more of them, for communication between 
 the town and camp was slight. The rapidity with 
 which men wounded by rifle bullets recover is marvel- 
 lous. I heard some cheering one day as a man of the 
 Natal Mounted Rifles rode into camp with a new ser- 
 geant's badge on his arm. He was Private Kirk, of the 
 volunteers, when Dundee and Elands Laagte were 
 fought, less than a month before, and was brought in 
 fairly riddled with wounds. He was hit time after time, 
 and went on fighting until the seventh bullet brought 
 him down. Yet he was no sooner patched up and on 
 his legs again than he was back to duty, promoted to 
 the rank of sergeant in recognition of his bravery. 
 
 73
 
 74 ffOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 He and many others of the volunteers were men abso- 
 lutely without fear — some of them old Zulu and Basuto 
 fighters, with the yellow and blue ribbon on their tunics. 
 But in the volunteer casualties were some men really 
 unfortunate. No man came into the field more deter- 
 mined to pay the debt he owed the Boer than Colonel 
 Wools Sampson. He will be remembered as one of the 
 two men who, after sentence had been passed for the 
 Jameson Raid, declined either to pay the fine of ;^2000, 
 or to give the promise as to neutrality in politics, which 
 would have secured his release. It was not a question 
 of cash, but of principle, so he served his term in Pretoria 
 Gaol. Here, in his very first fight, he had his thigh- 
 bone broken by a shot, and his one regret was that it 
 might be his first and last chance to get even with the 
 enemy. Many of those who impulsively joined the 
 volunteers on the declaration of war quite failed to 
 realize the extent of the task they were undertaking, but 
 for the most part they went through with it like men. 
 
 The mystery of mysteries was to fathom Dutch 
 designs in connection with Ladysmith. To reduce the 
 town by famine looked hopeless, and the bolder course 
 of assault they shrank from, as often as they appeared 
 to have worked themselves up to the point of storming. 
 Our shrapnel was, I think, the chief impediment to day- 
 light attack, the bayonet a sufficient reason for not 
 attempting it in the dark. There was one night — that 
 of Wednesday, November 15 — when we hoped that 
 inaction had ended, and the time had come to show 
 the enemy we were not skulking. The whisper went 
 round — as whispers will — that at midnight Umbulwana 
 mountain would be rushed by two battalions of British 
 infantry, and the Boer guns taken at the bayonet 
 point. The night was favourable in one respect — black 
 as ink, and raining as it might have rained when the 
 first navigator, Noah, launched his craft. The spruits 
 were running deep with flood waters, however, the banks 
 and mountain slopes slippery as glass, and the rain so 
 blinding that the attempt was abandoned On the night
 
 THE LUCK CHANGES 75 
 
 before it might have been managed comfortably ; on the 
 night following the valley was flooded with a silvery 
 moonlight that made a surprise attack impossible. The 
 Boers would have picked off our men as easily as in 
 daylight. Sometimes when they had a chance of pick- 
 ing off they made rather a mull of it, and war corre- 
 spondents were greatly pleased when Major Henderson, 
 of the Intelligence Office, benefited by their loose shoot- 
 ing, for he was the most tolerant of all the censors. The 
 major, with some of the Guides and a small escort, were 
 out on a private prowl, and decided to climb to the top 
 of a kopje giving them a good view of the enemy's 
 country. They left their horses at the foot of it, and 
 started to climb, but had not got far when a volley was 
 fired at them at a range of not more than four hundred 
 yards. They ran to their horses, and all the way across 
 the valley were fired upon, yet not a man or horse was 
 hit. It was an exceptional bit of luck though, for the 
 bullets were all around them. Had the Boer retained 
 his traditional skill in marksmanship the first volley must 
 have settled some of them. As the party tore up the 
 opposite slope a young Hussar officer, lying on the 
 crest, and taking stock of everything through his glass, 
 asked, " Why don't you fellows get to cover ? " " What 
 
 the b s do you think we're doing ! " was the un- 
 
 amiable response. On the 17th the enemy began to 
 cultivate a nasty habit of throwing small shells into the 
 street from nowhere in particular, and a gun which 
 apparently made no report. There was a sudden rush 
 of sound, like a locomotive throwing off steam, and 
 people ducked in a vain endeavour to get out of the way 
 of a shell that had already passed them. It was an alert 
 and expeditious shell, which always beat the sound over 
 the distance. With Long Tom — who threw his shell 
 high, like a tennis-player tossing — you heard the report 
 of the gun at the long range some two or three seconds 
 sooner than the howl of the shell ; while with the small, 
 hard-hitting sort, that volley just over the net, there was 
 no warning. The exclamations one heard were conse-
 
 76 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 quently unstudied, abrupt, and more in harmony with 
 the impulses of the primitive man. Our own field guns, 
 except for an occasional foray, had been spelling for the 
 last fortnight, while the gun horses and ammunition 
 mules, revelling in good living, had to be trotted in big 
 circus-rings at dusk every evening to keep them fit for 
 work which might come at any moment. The exercise 
 was necessarily given late in the day, for the Staats 
 artillerymen had a playful trick of dropping a shell 
 into the ring if tried in daylight. The gun teams were 
 always harnessed, ready to go anywhere at a moment's 
 notice. 
 
 Horses and men had both waxed fat under bombard- 
 ment, and the only signs of famine in the land were that 
 the military authorities had put all the Kaffirs on a diet 
 of mealie meal, and commandeered all the liquors in the 
 hotels. Of necessity, therefore, the civil sojourner in 
 Ladysmith had become temperate, and some became cor- 
 respondingly sad. It was the most complete experiment 
 in prohibition yet made in South Africa. Otherwise there 
 was nothing to indicate a camp shut off from the world 
 and threatened with destruction. There were no bands, 
 of course, and no cheerful camp-fires, even on cold 
 nights ; for once, when the 5th Dragoons built one, it 
 was too tempting a mark, and the shells came in and 
 found them. But the tum-tum of the banjo and the 
 drone of the accordion were heard on all sides, save out 
 on the ridges, where still great-coated figures, rigid with 
 cold and drenched with wet, were staring always out 
 through the darkness, listening for the quiet tread of the 
 Boer veldt-schoen, and hearing from their own camp 
 below like a wail in the distance the strains of "The Old 
 Folks at Home." Under such circumstances there is 
 more music and meaning than one usually finds in 
 
 " There's where my heart is turning ever, 
 There's where the old folks stay." 
 
 Rudyard Kipling, as usual, was the first to see it. The 
 banjo is king out here. Where the fore-loper leads the
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 1
 
 THE LUCK ClIAXGES 77 
 
 banjo follows ; it is the music of the veldt, of the transport 
 riders, the Rand miners, and the heretofore unenlisted 
 legion who volunteered a^^ainst the Boer. An incident, 
 in which some discovered also an omen, occurred one 
 da)'. Some soldiers were gathered in the bar of the 
 Crown Hotel listening to a musical-box playing " The 
 March of the Cameron Men," when a shell burst just 
 inside the slates. There was a rush into the open, the 
 bar-room was filled with dust and pungent shcll-sinokc, 
 but through it they could still hear *' The March of the 
 Cameron Men." 
 
 Just about dusk on the evening of the i8th, the 
 mysterious gun, which no one heard, sent two shells 
 hissing into the town, both evidently aimed at the Royal 
 Hotel. Dr. Starke, a visitor from Torquay, England, 
 was standing near the door, talking to Mr. M'Hugh, of 
 the Daily Telegraphy and they turned as the first shell 
 struck the pavement on the opposite side of the street. 
 Within a few seconds another came through the roof, 
 passed through two bedrooms, and went out at the 
 front door, taking poor Dr. Starke just above the knees 
 as he stood sideways. One leg was cut clean off, the 
 other frightfully shattered down to the foot " Catch 
 me," he moaned as he fell forward on his face, his blood 
 absolutely splashing over M'llugh's hands and arms. 
 The correspondent escaped without a scratch, though 
 two others who stood by — one of them a soldier — were 
 hit. Dr. Starke's tragical experience was an illustration 
 of the futility of trying to avoid shells. He was quite a 
 familiar figure in town, and each morning was to be seen, 
 a tall man in a long overcoat, walking placidly down to 
 the river with an angler's basket slung \x\,o\\ his shoulders. 
 In this he carried his luncheon, and his anxiety to get 
 out of danger led to a good deal of banter. He had 
 just returned from the river-bank. "Well, doctor," said 
 a friend, " got back from your daily picnic ? " and before 
 the poor fellow could answer he was cut down. He had 
 had bad luck from the beginning. Unknown to many 
 in the town — and present merely with a tourist's curi-
 
 78 JIOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 osity to witness great events, and a desire to be of use 
 in ambulance work — he was arrested early in the siege 
 on suspicion of being a spy, but several of the corre- 
 spondents were able to vouch for his botia fides. He 
 died on the operating-table an hour after being hit. 
 There were circumstances in the case which made a 
 deep impression. Dr. Starke was a widower, who had 
 left daughters in England, a quiet, quaint man, who went 
 about sometimes with a butterfly-net, sometimes with a 
 fishing-rod ; a man of queer little fads and fancies, who 
 could not move in a community without exciting notice, 
 but always genial and popular. We buried the poor 
 fellow on Sunday afternoon in the little cemetery, where 
 new graves were becoming painfully plentiful. A week 
 before his death the doctor had found a cat mewing 
 pitifully at a deserted home, and made friends with it. 
 He took it every day with him to the river-bank, and 
 had it in his arms when he was killed. 
 
 In the shock that follows upon a tragedy such as 
 this there are bitter things said between clenched teeth. 
 " 'E's a Devonshire man," said one of the Devon regi- 
 ment, " an' I'm Devonshire mesen'. Whoy doan't they 
 let us taake yon gun ? " As casualties from shell fire 
 became more frequent, the exodus to the neutral camp — 
 or Fort Funk, as those who stayed in town scornfully 
 termed it — grew greater. As an artilleryman the Boer 
 became more boorish every day. He knew that the 
 town was under martial law, that the streets were cleared 
 at eleven o'clock, and that an hour later the residents 
 were in bed. So exactly at midnight on Saturday a 
 salvo of shells came bellowing into the thick of us, and 
 if big shells are awesome in daylight, they are simply 
 demoniacal in the stillness of the night. For twenty 
 minutes, j^erhaps, they showered upon us, then, as our 
 guns answered them on the flash, they ceased fire as 
 suddenly as they had begun. It was simply an exhi- 
 bition of pure devilry, and in that light an entire success. 
 Men in their pyjamas thronged the streets, women half- 
 clad, and almost speechless in terror, fled to the shelter
 
 THE LUCK CHANGES 79 
 
 of sand-bagc;[ed cellars and barricades. Fathers were 
 hurrying their families away to the tunnels on the river- 
 bank, where without wraps they crouched shivering until 
 the morning. Having done as much mischief as pos- 
 sible, without hitting anything or any one, the enemy 
 stopped firing, and went home to keep the Sabbath. 
 That became the characteristic of the bombardment — 
 surprise firing in unexpected hours and from unlooked- 
 for places. 
 
 A curious fatality seemed to have followed the leaders 
 of columns in the Natal campaign. First Colonel Moller, 
 of the Hussars, had command of the advanced column. 
 He was cut off from his regiment with twenty or so of 
 his men, surrounded in a farmhouse, bombarded with 
 field guns, and took the less unpleasant course in the 
 option of death or surrender. Colonel Gunning, of the 
 King's Royals, succeeded him, and was killed at the 
 head of his regiment. Death, too, deprived of his com- 
 mand that grand soldier whom all the army loved, 
 Major-General Pcnn Symons. He was succeeded by 
 Major-Gencral Yule, who, just before leaving Dundee, 
 had a shell from Long Tom burst under his horse's 
 nose. Some say he was struck by a splinter in the face, 
 others that the mortification of leaving his tents and 
 baggage behind, coupled with the responsibilities of the 
 forced march, broke him down. Anyhow, it was quiet, 
 slow-speaking Major Murray, and Colonel Dartnell, of 
 the Natal Police, who brought the column through. 
 Then Colonel Carleton took a column to Nicholson's 
 Nek, for a flank movement, fell into the hands of the 
 enemy, and became a prisoner of war at Pretoria. Rather 
 a rapid series of misfortunes for a week's campaigning, 
 even though every day almost had its fight. 
 
 By Sunday, November 19, and after three weeks' 
 siege, the position had become almost intolerable. Fune- 
 rals were more frequent in the afternoon, and as no 
 one could make the plainest deal coffin at less than 
 £\o, the dead were usually buried in a brown Kaffir 
 blanket. There were deaths from enteric fever as well
 
 8o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 as shell, and the grim skeleton stalked so often in the 
 half-deserted streets that many began to lose their 
 fortitude and patience. On this particular Sunday there 
 was an ominous preparation on both sides that caused 
 all to look forward with anxiety to the next few days. 
 After the surprise salvo of Saturday night, there was 
 the usual cessation of hostilities for the next twenty-four 
 hours, and in the Dutch lines that early morning worship 
 which impressed Sir George Colley when, peeping over 
 the rim of Majuba Hill one Sunday morning, he saw 
 the Boer wagons and laagers suddenly lit up on Laing's 
 Nek, and heard, in the clear morning air, the voices of 
 the burghers raised in prayer. All Saturday the Boers 
 had been at work mounting new guns, and Umbulwana 
 promised to be more truculent than ever. A visit to 
 the higher points in the ringed ridge encircling the town, 
 and an endeavour to locate the Boer artillery by the line 
 of flight for their shells, with which we were now pretty 
 familiar, left the impression that some fifteen guns, of 
 varying calibre — from one hundred-pounders downwards 
 — had been placed in position. Just think of it, and say 
 whether the unprogressive Boer had not surprised us as 
 much to-day as in years past, by doing the very thing 
 which those who know him best always predicted he 
 would not do. These siege guns that shut us in were 
 bought to hold the "bottle-neck" on the Transvaal 
 border. What Englishman ever dreamed that they 
 would be brought down here into the heart of hostile 
 Natal, to hold thousands of the best of Britain's soldiers, 
 themselves well equipped with siege guns and flying 
 batteries, inactive almost week after week ? On Sunday 
 there was in Ladysmith the double and contradictory 
 note — the concentration of dhoolies, promising outward 
 and aggressive action ; the other indicating more bur- 
 rowing, a determination to sit faster than ever — a resig- 
 nation to shell fire. On Sunday afternoon the engineer 
 officers were round about the more exposed volunteer 
 camps, and as soon as darkness covered the operation, 
 big fatigue parties, with pick and shovel, were at work,
 
 THE LUCK CHAXGES 8i 
 
 and shcltcr-trcnchcs were being diis^ b)' the Carbineers, 
 the Imperial I-ight Horse, and the Natal Mounted 
 Infantry. It encourac^ed little expectation of early 
 relief, and held out little promise of sorties and cutting- 
 out cxixjditions. 
 
 It was the digging of new shelter-trenches after three 
 weeks' siege th.it bred new anxiety in Ladysmilh, and 
 we, who had dod^'ed from post to pillar for twenty days, 
 taking shelter where we could find it from the thickest 
 of the shell storm and chancing it for the rest, thought 
 the time had come for cave-building, so on Sundiy night 
 we set to work. The walls were of baled hay, four 
 trusses thick, the roof girders were railway sleepers, the 
 roof another la)er of hay, three trusses deep. With its 
 springiness and its density we concluded that we were 
 bomb-proof to anything except Long Tom o' Pepworth's, 
 whose weight coming from such an elevation would 
 probably reduce everything to squash, so that instead of 
 being shot we might be ingloriously smothered. It was 
 recognized tliat precautions against the occasional shell 
 were useless ; but in a heavy bombardment such as th it 
 of the Prince of Wales's birthday, or during these night 
 salvoes, when with the sudden awakening, the rawness 
 of the chill air, the silence which intensifies the roar of 
 the shell, and the quick transfer from it may be soft 
 dreams to hard realities, the ordeal becomes rather 
 more difficult to bear — the possibilities the more 
 discomforting. Yet, to our surprise, the forenoon 
 of Monday, the 20th, found everything mysteriously, 
 inexplicably quiet. What could it mean 1 Were the 
 Boers determined still to waste the time so much more 
 precious to them than to us } The explanation given 
 was an armistice. General Joubcrt having, it was said, 
 all his guns ready, sent in demanding the surrender of 
 Ladysmith, and gave Sir George White a few hours to 
 think over the matter. It needed serious consideration, 
 but the British Commander-in-Chief was a man of quick 
 thought and made up his mind in half-a-minute. Fail- 
 ing surrender, Joubert threatened to lay the town in 
 
 F
 
 82 no IV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 ruins, and the owners of the prospective ruins waited 
 with what patience they could command the fulfilment 
 of the threat Meantime the Carbineers were playing 
 the Imperial Light Horse at cricket — in accordance with 
 the traditions of other campaigns, for whenever British 
 armies are in a really serious fix they bluff it on the 
 national affection for sport. On Friday the Gordons 
 played the Light Horse Association at football, and 
 during the game the envious Boer artillery dropped a 
 shell on the playground. Under cover of the smoke 
 the Gordons sneaked a goal, and the point as to whether 
 such a contingency is covered by the rules of the game 
 was remitted to English sporting authorities. Military 
 sports were arranged to last for three days. For that 
 period we were safe. No earthly power could prevent 
 a British people carrying a sports meeting to the bitter 
 end.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 
 
 Some narrow escapes — Firing on the Red Cross — The rival 
 " snipers " — The first woman wounded — A plucky spy — The Liver- 
 pools suffer. 
 
 The theories of truce and armistice framed to account 
 for the inaction of the Boers during the forenoon of 
 November 20 were shattered when, early in the after- 
 noon, the enemy opened fire on the town. The Dutch 
 artillery evidently sought to drop shells from their 
 biggest gun at intervals of about one hundred yards all 
 along the main street, and the accuracy of their fire was 
 admirable, for when the shells did not actually drop on 
 the road — making a terrific crash on the hard metal — 
 they were very near it. One of the she lis went through 
 the roof of the Church of England, and blew the porch 
 down as it passed out. Another shattered the rail upon 
 which Mr. Oddy, a Yorkshireman, was sitting, going 
 literally within inches of him. Personally, I was close 
 enough to one to suffer slightly from the concussion, 
 although escaping splinters. This one struck the road- 
 way under a large syringa tree, and the explosion 
 seemed to be mainly upward, for the splinters tore a 
 hole straight up through the tree, bringing down a 
 shower of branches. However close a shell might come 
 to a crowd, there was always a rush for the fragments as 
 trophies. 
 
 83
 
 84 IIOJV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 A new note in the crashing of the Boer guns was 
 discernible that day, indicating a fresh gun in position. 
 We recognized it at once, for we knew the bark of 
 all the others so well that it was impossible for a 
 stranger to join the chorus without betrayal. The 
 Carbineers got the first shell, and exercised the dis- 
 coverer's right of naming it "Jangling Jane." Almost 
 every night the Boers had us out of bed, and on the 
 night of the 2 1st they gave us two hours of it. As 
 a spectacle a bombardment improves at night, whatever 
 other disadvantages it may have. The fiery track of 
 the shell can be followed, and the explosion of the 
 larger ones lights up the whole town for the moment. 
 But people bustled unceremoniously out of bed to seek 
 some safer shelter, grow morose and irritable when the 
 thing is continued night after night, and are not in the 
 mood to enjoy fireworks. It was noticeable that the 
 firing of the Boers was never long continued. It was 
 furious for a while, whether at night or day, but the 
 instant our guns began to answer they ceased firing, 
 and we were always agreeable to let it stand at that. 
 
 On the 22nd we had that rarest of indulgences — a 
 quiet night, and the explanation was that Sir George 
 White had informed General Joubcrt, that if the night 
 shelling were repeated, his answer and next remonstrance 
 would be lyddite in such a form that the Boers would 
 have no difficulty in understanding it. They have a 
 horror of the new explosive, and are as yet apparently 
 unaware that it had several times been fired at them. 
 They made up for it on Monday with a succession of 
 bombs from their two largest guns, aimed apparently 
 at the Town-hall, which stood up a tempting mark in 
 the centre of the town. It had a square tower, with 
 a clock in it, and from the flagstaff the red cross was 
 hanging loosely in the stifling air. It was a deliberate, 
 but may have been a resentful, fire at the Geneva flag — 
 resentful in that the refuge of a neutral hospital being 
 available, the Boers thought the red cross was being 
 used only for the protection of the building. A number
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 85 
 
 of the wound(?d almost convalescent were still in hospital 
 there, and the very fact of their electing to stay may 
 have been taken by the enemy's gunners as a reflection 
 upon their artillery work. At any rate, after four or 
 five shells had passed close to the tower, one from 
 Umbulwana came through the roof of the town clerk's 
 room, and carried out one of the solid stone walls. The 
 room was at once ravaged and emptied, evcrj'tiiing light 
 being blown through the windows into the street. No 
 single shell that had been fired during the siege wrought 
 quite so much havoc as this one. Three wounded men 
 were sheltering under the wall, entirely satisfied as to 
 the safety of their position, when the mass of masonry 
 — cubes of basalt 18 in. square — fell upon them. One 
 man was lightly cut on the side of the face, another on 
 the knee ; the third, who sat on a chair immediately 
 under the rent, had a miraculous escape. The legs of 
 the chair were cut from under him ; the mess-tin, from 
 which he was breakfasting, was punctured ; the man 
 himself had not a scratch, and lost nothing but his 
 appetite. An Indian dhoolic-bearer, standing a little 
 way off, was killed. On the pavement in front was a 
 great red splash — no, not blood — but copying ink, a 
 stone bottle of which had been blown through a 
 window. 
 
 We replied to their fire with a couple of rounds, when, 
 with their matchless impudence, up went the white flag 
 over their gun on Umbulwana. There were gunners 
 there who wished, like Nelson, they could have pleaded 
 a blind eye, and overlooked the flag. But Englishmen 
 differ from Boers in that they have a soldiers record to 
 maintain, so, though the white flag may have been just 
 a bit of insolent humbug, they bowed to it, and were 
 silent. 
 
 One day I watched the King's Royals sniping on the 
 western ridges, and the lessons given by the Afridi.s 
 have made some of our shots as adept in this art as the 
 best of the old game-stalking Boers. Early in the 
 morning the Royals had pushed out a half-dozen of
 
 86 IfOlV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 their crack shots to a hillock a quarter of a mile in 
 advance of the main position, and covered by the rifle 
 fire of the regiment from all risk of attack. Peeping 
 over the stony cap one saw on the left a large farm- 
 house, the headquarters of one of the Boer commandoes. 
 It was a wooden house ; so one of the Royals would 
 take position, and having ascertained the range to a 
 nicety, plug bullet after bullet into it. The angry 
 occupants swarmed out at intervals like ants from a 
 hill, and then the other five marksmen began the 
 sniping. For a couple of hours the Boers were puzzled 
 as to the whereabouts of these mysterious marksmen, 
 for the smokeless powder did not betray them. Some- 
 times the Dutchmen got behind their barricades and 
 began searching the hills about for the hidden foe, then 
 the Royals would glide carefully feet foremost from the 
 little boulders behind which they had crouched to rest, 
 stretch themselves, and clean out their rifles. And 
 while they did it a few others wormed themselves snake- 
 like to the top of the ridge, and went on with the 
 sniping. " I bagged two on 'em," said a Cockney shot 
 — who reminded me of Learoyd of Soldiers Three — ■ 
 as he let the plummet of his pull-through slip down the 
 barrel. The puzzled Boers brought along a Maxim to 
 root out the wasps who so annoyed them ; but, under 
 fire, the Royals went on with the game as coolly as in 
 the forenoon. Their tactics were slightly altered. One 
 of them would push the barrel of his rifle very slowly 
 past the base of his shelter stone, slip a brown night-cap 
 on his head, then slowly push his helmet over the top 
 of the stone, and wait for some one to fire at it. 
 
 The day had been one of hairbreadth escapes. A 
 shell entered a room in which a little child was sleeping, 
 and blew one of the walls of the bedroom out. In the 
 midst of the dust and smoke the parents heard the cry 
 of the little one, and rushing to the room found her 
 absolutely unhurt, while not more than twenty yards 
 away a fragment of the same shell absolutely dis- 
 embowelled a man of the Natal Police. It was one of 
 
 I
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 87 
 
 the most shocking sights I have seen during the siege. 
 At the same house later in the evening two Englishmen 
 called to congratulate the parents on the narrow escape 
 of the child. They were being shown the little one's 
 pet rabbits, when another splinter of shell passed within 
 a couple of feet of them and clove one of the rabbits 
 in twain. A thoughtful Tomm>' took it to his tent for 
 a stew. These things sound extravagant, and like siege 
 talcs, which are not ahva)s reliable, but I speak of what 
 I have seen. 
 
 I was in the lines of the Natal Mounted Rifles during 
 the afternoon, and as we discussed the perils of the day, 
 and made comparisons of what we had heard of other 
 sieges, a man lying on the floor of the tent said, " This 
 must be a good deal worse than the siege of VViddin. I 
 see by this book that the Russians pitched shells into 
 Widdin for two months, and had a nasty trick of sending 
 in about twenty every night, yet the casualties were only 
 twelve killed and twenty-seven wounded." I glanced 
 at the book, and saw that he was quoting from an 
 Australian work. Dr. Charles Ryan's Under the Red 
 Crescent. One man was having a quiet bath on his 
 own verandah, when a shell struck a tree, cannoned off 
 the side of tiie house without exploding, and rolling 
 like a hoop along the verandah, upset the bath-tub and 
 its occupant without injuring either. The rooms I 
 occupied with other correspondents were struck by 
 three separate splinters of shell, the largest of whicli 
 was ominously suggestive of Judgment Day. A South 
 African journalist, who had been as much under fire 
 since Dundee as any man outside the ranks, only lost 
 his nerve when he threw himself down suddenly to avoid 
 a roaring one hundred-pounder, and slightly sprained 
 his shoulder in doing so. The largest of the splinters 
 scalped part of the eaves, glanced off, and struck a wall 
 under which a young fellow was crouching. He picked 
 it up, burned his fingers, and dropped it again. 
 
 From the bottom of his heart one pitied the women
 
 88 7/CrF JVE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 who stayed in Ladysmith, especially those who had 
 young children. They had an absolutely hunted look 
 in their eyes, and their faces were more drawn and 
 haggard with each succeeding day of suspense and 
 anxiety. Many of them aged prematurely before the 
 siege was over, and the worst is, that even when occupying 
 the best shelter available, much persuasion was required 
 to prevent them rushing into the open air whenever a 
 shell burst close to their hiding-place. It was then, too, 
 that men complained most bitterly of the humiliation of 
 British soldiers sitting down placidly to be shelled by an 
 enemy whom they hold in professed contempt. It may 
 be that the issues at stake were too momentous fcr a 
 commander-in-chief to permit himself to be swayed by 
 the impulses of ordinary humanity, and that the in- 
 evitable end was being neared the more rapidly, and 
 with less waste of human life than by the bolder and 
 bloodier method of a bayonet charge after dark. 
 
 The 22nd and 23rd of November were tissue-wearing, 
 nerve-shattering days in Ladysmith. On the night of 
 the 22nd we had heaven's artillery and the Boers' at the 
 same moment, and in the darkness the two combined 
 made a paralyzing din. The night-shooting had done 
 very little damage, though occasional horses were hit. 
 On Friday the first woman was wounded in the siege of 
 Ladysmith. One of the heaviest of the Boer shells 
 struck the thick rubble wall of a cottage in which Mr. 
 Davis, the school-master, lived. It made a huge gap in 
 the wall, and burst as it passed through into the bed- 
 room. Mrs. Davis, who was crouching at the foot of 
 the bed, came staggering out through the rent wall, 
 with both hands to her face and bleeding. She had 
 been grazed by two splinters of shell along the temple 
 and between the chin and mouth — and once again there 
 had been a miraculous escape from death. How even a 
 mouse could have come alive from a room not one foot 
 of which was without its rent was a mystery. It was 
 not well to accept implicitly stories of narrow escapes
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 89 
 
 told by the persons concerned, for some men have at 
 siep^e times a vivid imagination, but of those well 
 authenticated, one of the most remarkable was that of a 
 Natal Mounted Rifleman. He was lyint^ in his tent, 
 stretched himself wearily, and turned over. In the 
 instant that he did so a shell struck the spot he had just 
 vacated, buried itself, and burst. The tent was blown 
 from its fasteninc^s, the pillow on which his head rested, 
 together with his clothes, were tossed into the air, so 
 that his comrades had a fearful glimpse of what they 
 believed to be a body without arms or legs. Then they 
 ran to the spot, and saw the rifleman sitting up, white, 
 but absolutely unharmed, though a splinter had torn his 
 cartridge-bag from his waist-belt. Less fortunate the 
 poor military cook, who, as he bent over his pots, was 
 taken by a shell in the very middle of the back. 
 
 On Friday, the 24th, it was rumoured that there was 
 a Boer spy in Ladysmith — a man named Oscar Meyer. 
 They were on the look-out for him, and he knew it. He 
 went to our horse-lines, picked out a horse and saddle, 
 and quietly rode out of town. As he wore the khaki 
 dress and blue and white puggaree of the Guides, no one 
 suspected him, but his risk was greatest when he reached 
 our furthest outpost. Riding boldly up when challenged, 
 he exclaimed in perfect English that he was one of the 
 Guides, and had been sent out to reconnoitre. " Where's 
 your pass?" the sentrj' asked. "Confound that pass!" 
 said the spy in well-atfected annoyance. " I'm always 
 losing it. It must be in one of my pockets though." 
 He went through the pretence of searching for it, and 
 all the while an apparently restless horse was taking 
 him further away from the sentry. Then suddenly he 
 jammed in his spurs, bent low over his horse's withers, 
 and galloped away at full speed over the veldt straight 
 to the Boer lines. The audacity of the act fairly dazed 
 the sentry. He was so puzzled and uncertain that he 
 never even thought of firing, possibly because no one 
 ordered him to fire, though had the positions been
 
 90 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 reversed the Boer would not have waited for orders, and 
 for a thousand yards that plucky horseman would have 
 run the gauntlet of the Mausers. One cou!d hardly 
 regret a brave man's escape, even though the circum- 
 stances were humiliating. 
 
 On the same day a large mob of the town cattle were 
 grazing just outside our outposts, and within the pro- 
 tection of their rifles. The herd gradually moved 
 further out, since the grass, cleared of stock for a month 
 past, was better there. Suddenly the Dutch artillery 
 away on the right began firing shells into the valley 
 between the cattle and our lines. It looked at first such 
 an aimless fire, but it had its purpose — a rather neat 
 one, too. The bursting shells drove the cattle further 
 out, and when the design was seen it was too late to 
 frustrate it. Six Boers galloped down from the ridge, 
 and started to drive off the stock, and instantly a 
 number of our cavalry dashed out to recover them, but 
 from a force of hidden riflemen they were met by a fire 
 so hot that they came back at full gallop, losing two 
 horses. The Boers had foreseen everything. No doubt 
 they had had covetous eyes on the cattle for some time, 
 though there could have been no pre-arranged plan. 
 The cue came from their own guns on the right, nearly 
 three miles away, and, with the matchless resource that 
 characterizes them, they played up to it instantly. Such 
 men are not baulked by any rule of three. 
 
 There was one corner of Ladysmith defences which, 
 escaping the general line of shell fire, occasionally re- 
 ceived special attention from the Boer gunners. The 
 inner ring of hills came round the town like a horseshoe, 
 with its ends pointing due east, and at the northern end, 
 full under the fire of both Pcpworth's and Umbulwana, 
 was a post held by the Liverpool regiment. For a 
 long time it was blessed with a rare immunity from 
 casualties considering its exposed situation, but early on 
 the morning of the 23rd our field guns were sent there 
 to shell some of the Boer batteries to eastward, and
 
 THE VAGARIES OF SHELL 91 
 
 very smart work they made of it. They crept round 
 quietly, before daybreak, under cover of the horseshoe ; 
 then, dashing into the open, poured in their shrapnel. 
 The enemy had four field guns there, and at no time 
 during the campaign had I seen such a marked differ- 
 ence between Dutch and EngHsh shooting. The Boers 
 fired perhaps forty rounds in all before they were silenced, 
 while from the first our guns were simply finding them 
 at every sl>ot. One saw a clump of unmounted men 
 rush wildly across an open space to the shelter of broken 
 ground — then the shrapnel burst in front of them, and 
 they ran madly back again. They were in a maze of 
 fire, and once again the impression given in the distance 
 was that of a lot of big apes scampering to their rock- 
 holes. No better proof of deadly shooting was needed, 
 for when the Boer runs it is a pretty sure sign that 
 Death, and not merely Danger, is driving him on. 
 Otherwise, he lies as close as a rock-rabbit, especially if 
 the position be a favourable one for his rifle fire. 
 
 The enemy may have thou:;ht that the Livcrpools, 
 who hold the ridge, were responsible for this early 
 morning salute, and they had not long to wait for their 
 revenge. The next evening, just before sundown, they 
 suddenly opened with several guns on the Liverpool's 
 post, and, in a few minutes, eleven shells were dropped 
 into tiie camp — one with disastrous effect. The men 
 had dug a large shelter-trench, and covered it with a 
 broad tent for the sake of the shade. The big shell 
 came through the top of the tent, 9.nd burst in the hole, 
 killing two of the men outright, and wounding eleven 
 others. Every one knew at once that a calamity had 
 occurred, for close upon the explosion of the shell came 
 one united groan of agony, then a deadly silence. One 
 of the wounded only survived a few hours. By Monday, 
 six were dead — a terrible record for this single shell. 
 Our guns opened with an indignant burst, and quickly 
 silenced the Boer fire ; but the mischief had been done. 
 One of our shells blew up the breastwork of their largest
 
 92 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 gun on Umbulwana, but, although this had happened 
 several times during the siege, the stoppage was never 
 more than temporary, and as soon as our guns ceased 
 fire, the Boers were busy building up their walls again. 
 
 It was near the Liverpool's camp, and while the firing 
 was hottest, one day that another honour was added to 
 the many the medical staff have already scored in the 
 Natal campaign. A sergeant-major of the infantry fell 
 badly wounded, and with his legs shot under by a shell. 
 Surgeon-major Jones saw him fall, and coolly walked 
 out through a hail of fire to where the wounded man 
 was lying. He got him to the shelter of a rock, but 
 the poor fellow was so badly hit that he died while the 
 doctor was applying a tourniquet to stop the flow of 
 blood. Having failed in his brave, humane mission, the 
 doctor came back, still under fire. There is more of 
 the heroic in this calm, cold-blooded disregard of death 
 and stern recognition of duty than in half the great 
 deeds which in the stir of action win the Victoria Cross. 
 That night the town rang with the brave surgeon's feat, 
 and the Boers, I feel perfectly sure, were glad they 
 missed him when they knew the facts. Let it not be 
 supposed, though, that when in action a man becomes 
 conspicuous by any act of gallantry, either Boer or 
 Briton makes it light for him. For the time being he 
 is the centre of attraction. The sharpshooters un- 
 consciously pick him out, as a sportsman would a black 
 or yellow rabbit in a drove of browns, without any 
 conscious effort of will. Indeed, the sharpshooter feels 
 his skill in marksmanship challenged by the audacity 
 of the deed, and it is afterwards only, when he has time 
 for reflection and can give free rein to his more generous 
 impulses, that he says in all sincerity, " I'm glad he 
 got away ! he is a brave fellow." A soldier can pay 
 his enemy no greater compliment. Such deeds are 
 fortunately not often overlooked by those whose duty 
 it is to note them officially, but it seemed to me more 
 than once during this campaign that the courtesies of
 
 TJIE VAGARIES OF SHELL 93 
 
 war were incomplete without some means by which 
 either side could, when it thought fit, express its 
 admiration for an adversary. That would be the very 
 essence of chivalry, for surely no honour which the 
 soldier can win would be greater than the voluntary 
 attestation of a generous foe.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 LAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER 
 
 An influx of blacks — More guns in action — Hints of hunger — 
 The intelHgent horse — Foppish Boers — Casualties. 
 
 The Boer was always bringing off surprises. Even 
 if absolutely idle for a day, he picked for his idleness 
 the day upon which much was expected of him. Thus 
 on Saturday, November 25, we had all agreed that 
 he would prepare for the sanctity of his Sabbath by 
 a particularly devilish bombardment of Ladysmith. 
 Yet the hours slipped away, and not a shell came 
 into the town from his big guns, though the lighter 
 ordnance was never long silent. On both sides there 
 were troops constantly in motion, and in the hollows 
 of the hills they occasionally came into view of the field 
 guns, when the temptation to throw a shell at a fair 
 target was too overpowering to be resisted. The side 
 fired at invariably retorted with a couple of rounds at 
 the gun which had taken the initiative, and so there was 
 generally a shell moving somewhere in the vicinity. 
 
 The only people who appeared to be particularly busy 
 on this Saturday were the military messengers bearing 
 white flags between the opposing lines. The Dutch 
 were anxious to hand over to our care some 250 
 coolie refugees, who had probably got through all 
 the fatigue work just then required of them in the Boer 
 camp, and were a drag on the biltong department. 
 
 94
 
 ZAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER 95 
 
 Sir George White was at first firm in refusing the 
 favour, pointing out to Commandant Schalk Berger 
 that he must not regard Ladysmith as the headquarters 
 of the British forces, and that any refugees he wished 
 to pass on must be sent south to Estcourt. Consider- 
 ations both of health and of food made it undesirable 
 that Ladysmith should be made a tip for the waste 
 humanity of Natal ; but eventually humanity prevailed, 
 and we took them in. 
 
 In the early morning sounds which announce a new 
 day's bombardment, there was always a certain amount 
 of repetition. One heard afar the boom of the gun, 
 followed by the humming of the shell. Then a peacock 
 in the town screamed shrilly in the still morning air as 
 the shell exploded, and there was instantly a clatter of 
 Kaffir and coolie tongues, followed by the bray of army 
 mules, jealous that anything should challenge their 
 capacity for discord. Next came a terrific, ear-splitting 
 crash, apparently right over the town, though really on 
 the ridges half-a-mile away, and as surely as there was 
 a white man near he remarked, " That's one of ours." 
 Latterly, Long Tom had been more intermittent in his 
 fire, and decidedly more erratic, encouraging the im- 
 pression that he had been time-served, and would be of 
 little more use to any one. With our 6 in. guns the 
 armourer begins to pay attention to the rifling when 
 100 rounds have been fired, and another jacket is 
 usually fitted to the shell, in addition to the soft copper 
 band which takes the rifling. The Boers had no such 
 contrivance, judging from the whole shells we picked 
 up, and as the big fellow had certainly not fired less 
 than 250 rounds during the campaign — exclusive of 
 his work in driving General Yule's column out of 
 Dundee — his life, we thought, must be very near its end. 
 They put another gun up on an adjacent ridge — one 
 of the unobtrusive sort, which the bluejackets have 
 named " Silent Sue." This made about twenty-five guns 
 of all calibres which the Boers had mounted for the 
 subjection of Ladysmith and its garrison. Yet, in spite
 
 96 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of all this direful throwing and threatening of shells, 
 the town continued frivolous, and voetsak — Dutch for 
 "clear out" — is not yet the word in Ladysmith. On 
 Sunday, the 26th, it used its Sabbath leisure to run off 
 the final events in the Imperial Light Horse sports, and 
 to play a cricket match between the local team and the 
 Gordon Highlanders. Although the Boers are so strict 
 in Simday observance, their religious feelings must not 
 be trifled with, so, when a group of Mohammedan 
 coolies went impudently out on the exposed river-flat on 
 Sunday morning and started to dig a trench, the Boers, 
 after watching them for a time, gave them a sharp 
 moral Christian lesson. A shell dropped almost into 
 the trench, and five others kicked up the dust round 
 about before the agitated coolies, who scattered like 
 plover, got to the shelter of the river-bank. 
 
 A survey of the defences of Ladysmith as they stood 
 then and as they were a month before, showed how 
 greatly the position had been strengthened. When 
 Tinta Inyoni was fought, and the Boers had their first 
 distant view of the town, little stone breastworks, rarely 
 three feet in height, crested the hills, each giving shelter, 
 perhaps, to a corporal's guard. During this month the 
 entrenching tools had never been idle ; every breast- 
 work, thrown together as a mere temporary shelter, had 
 been broadened and built up into a redoubt impervious 
 either to bullet or shrapnel. The navals made the mis- 
 take of assuming at the outset that one bag's length of 
 earth would be a sufficient protection, but the shell that 
 killed their brave Lieutenant Egerton bored its way 
 through that thickness of belting before bursting at the 
 officer's feet. Now the hill forts stood up red and con- 
 spicuous by the hundred, and the Kaffirs called them 
 Nkonjanas, after a kind of swallow, which builds mud 
 nests on the rocks. Every possibility — except always 
 the main one — had, I think, been foreseen, and where 
 roadways had been cleared up to the redoubts the paths 
 were whitened, so that in the event of a hurried rush of 
 reinforcements becoming necessary on a dark night, there
 
 LAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER 97 
 
 was no dangler of men missinp; the way. Riding round 
 the defences, one noticed in the fire-zone between our 
 lines and the Boers an occasional conspicuous white 
 stone. They were not g^eological curiosities, but care- 
 fully marked ranges, known to the men who held the 
 fort on that particular section. 
 
 On Sunday, November 26, we knew that our own 
 commandant, if not the enemy, had fixed a definite 
 limit to the siege. The horses were already on short 
 rations, and fodder was becoming so scarce that grass- 
 hay, originally intended for bedding, was being cut into 
 chaff. Of meat, flour, and meal we had abundance, but 
 the stock of tea, coffee, and cocoa would not last long; 
 and in the substitution of innocuous ginger-beer for that 
 other beer which his soul loveth. Tommy Atkins was 
 already experiencing all the hardships of siege. For a 
 fortnight it had been an intensely sober camp, but not a 
 bit better-tempered on that account After Tommy has 
 broken out himself for a day he is more tolerant of the 
 eccentricities of his horse, and a horse on active service 
 is the curse of life. In saying so, I may forfeit the respect 
 of many Australians — the Man from Snowy River and 
 the rest — who have ridden and sung of the horse until it 
 has become by sheer force of imagination the noblest 
 creature of them all. A month amongst the horse-lines 
 has convinced me that a horse is just a marvel of 
 stupidity, and whether you heel-rope him, knee-halter 
 him, side-line him, or fetter him with ordinary hobbles, 
 his capacity for getting himself injured is enormous. All 
 the night through he rears, kicks, squeals, plunges, and 
 generally worries himself and his owner to death, instead 
 of going to sleep decently and making the best of it. 
 Ordinarily the man owns the horse, but on active service 
 the horse owns the man — body and soul. The little 
 Indian donkeys, which carry water-barrels afield pannier- 
 fashion, are clever on their feet, intelligent, even more 
 adaptable to circumstances than a dog, yet they figure 
 as the emblem of stupidity, while the horse is exalted. 
 When an ammunition mule finds himself entangled in 
 
 G
 
 98 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the harness, he hops along on three legs until his driver 
 is pleased to release him, while a horse under like circum- 
 stances conducts himself as a raving maniac, turning 
 hand-springs and back somersaults, and doing his best to 
 tie the whole team into a knot. All a matter of spirit, 
 protests your horse-lover. Maybe, but coupled with his 
 suicidal freaks in camp it would be described in any 
 other animal than a horse as sheer stupidity. With all 
 their bountiful lack of intelligence, though I was sorry to 
 see seventy of the worst scarecrows in camp led out for 
 execution on Monday morning, for we could no longer 
 afford to waste even straw-chaff and mouldy mealies 
 upon anything out of condition. On the same morning 
 the Boer gunners disposed of a few of considerably 
 greater value. So the people of Ladysmith reluctantly 
 made up their minds to endure yet more shelling and 
 stewing, more thirst, and more flies, which had become a 
 plague and a horror in the town. They smothered them- 
 selves to death in your food, drowned themselves in your 
 tea, even as you raised it to your lips, until your soul 
 revolted at food, and your waistcoat got more slack and 
 baggy with each succeeding day. 
 
 It was November 28, and exactly a month had gone 
 by since the Boers at ten minutes past five on a Monday 
 morning fired their first shell into Ladysmith. Berger — 
 whose Christian name and surname are always used as 
 one, making Schalkberger — had followed his usual 
 policy, a hot burst of fire in the forenoon, then an occa- 
 sional gun through the day, as some careless corps of 
 ours gave the Dutchman his opportunity. The Boers 
 shoot as they trek, generally early and late in the day, 
 and unless there was some pressing need, were silent 
 during the hottest hours. A month under shell fire 
 without a scratch is calculated, you may think, to make 
 men indifferent. Not a bit of it. The actual number of 
 deaths was not great, but every man went out of a 
 morning with a feeling that it might be his turn, and 
 experience had convinced him, too, that ordinary pre- 
 cautions were useless. Death came impartially. Some-
 
 LAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER 
 
 99 
 
 times a man rode gaily into his shell, at others he stood 
 still and patiently waited for it. The best thing was to 
 follow one's inclinations, and take one's chance on the 
 law of averages ; but every one was more or less harassed, 
 even if advantaged by narrow escapes. That morning 
 we narrowly missed another stampede on a large scale. 
 The volunteers, in watering their horses, were instructed 
 to turn them loose for the sake of a run, and the horses, 
 feeling their oats, at once bolted. There was consider- 
 able trouble in rounding them up again, as the Boers, 
 with their usual 'cuteness, were quick to aid the confusion 
 with shell fire. Later in the day we returned the com- 
 pliment by shelling a train of Boer wagons, which were 
 moving from our southern flank in the direction of the 
 railway. An opening in the hill exposed the road at one 
 point, showing, perhaps, a length of nine wagons, and 
 passing through this I counted not less than one hundred 
 and sixty. They had no sooner got through, and were 
 apparently safely screened, than, with a high elevation, 
 we began pitching shells on top of them. It was purely 
 speculative shooting, but its effectiveness was proved 
 when, a few minutes later, the long train hurried through 
 the gap again, returning whence it came. In one thing 
 the captain of H.M.S. Powerful had placed us under 
 lasting obligations. We asked for a particular gun ; he 
 sent two, which, in his opinion, would better suit the 
 circumstances, and, with our small armament, these 
 swivel guns proved invaluable. 
 
 The Boer is a strange mixture of Christian fervour 
 and pure brutality. On the one day he is a stern 
 Sabbatarian ; on the next he will relax sufficiently to 
 schambok an offending Kaffir to death without a qualm. 
 As a fighter, he prefers to see the back rather than the 
 face of his enemy. On three separate occasions during 
 this siege, I have seen British troops drive the Boer 
 from his chosen positions, have heard the command to 
 retire given, and invariably disobeyed at first, for 
 Tommy's invariable rule is to sit down when he is 
 first ordered to retire, and on the repetition of the
 
 loo now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 command to retire slowly, the while swearing. Twice 
 the position had been almost won, and the Boer rifle 
 fire had thinned, but no sooner were British backs turned 
 to them again than the Dutchmen swarmed to their 
 old position with the fury of bees from an upset hive, 
 and their rifle fire is never so destructive as then. 
 
 Some of the Boer officers were evidently anxious to 
 make a good impression when they met members of our 
 Staff, to discuss some point which had arisen during the 
 siege. Germans were almost invariably entrusted with 
 the task. On Saturday a big handsome chap, believed 
 to be Erasmus, commandant of the Staats Artillery, 
 was one of the envoys, and his collar and cuffs shone 
 with a spotless lustre that quite put our officers in the 
 shade. A younger man, who accompanied him, was 
 spruce and foppish, but one little detail noted by the 
 eye of an adjutant gave all the splendour away. The 
 youngster was wearing women's boots. 
 
 I am not at all anxious to make these daily notes of 
 a great siege a mere catalogue of horrors, but a death 
 from shell fire which took place one day was so fascin- 
 atingly horrible that, even at the risk of being " bluggy," 
 I must mention it. A coolie was bending over his 
 pot of dall when a 15 lb. shell struck him fairly in the 
 centre of the face. His head was not shattered — the 
 forehead, chin, and ears were intact and perfect — but 
 there was nothing but a clean-cut hole in between. 
 He just raised his hands a foot or so, and was dead. 
 
 The unexpected always happens in war — it happened 
 yesterday. A mounted rifleman sat quietly on his horse 
 under a ridge, absolutely sheltered from every Boer 
 position. Theoretically, it was impossible to reach him 
 with a bullet, but suddenly he exclaimed " Ah ! " and 
 reeled in his saddle. They opened his shirt, and found 
 the tiny familiar puncture of the Mauser. The only 
 possible explanation was that a dropping shot, fired at 
 random, perhaps two thousand five hundred yards away, 
 had just cleared the top of the ridge, and, by a bitter 
 freak of fate, had found that one man dozing in his
 
 LAST DAYS OF NOVEMBER loi 
 
 saddle. On the following day another dozing rifleman, 
 lying at the foot of a tree in the volunteer camp, woke 
 suddenly to the fact that half his own rifle barrel and 
 the upper part of the tree had disappeared before a 
 shell. " These Boers are c^etting very careless with their 
 shooting," the sufiercr said. " If they don't mind they'll 
 be hittiniJ some one."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 DAYS OF GLOOM 
 
 A siege menu — News from Mooi river — Hope deferred — Un- 
 grateful athletes — A disastrous day — For " Auld Lang Syne " — 
 A " die-hard " volunteer. 
 
 Some may be interested in knowing exactly how 
 men live in siege time. Thus far no one had been 
 reduced to horseflesh or rats, as was the case in Paris, 
 the worst that had happened being biscuit and " bully 
 beef." Some of the correspondents, myself amongst 
 them, were so fortunate as to be refused accommodation 
 at a leading hotel, which was already overcrowded. It 
 was soon shot through with shells, and since closed, 
 while a couple of poor fellows, who thought themselves 
 fortunate in getting there, were in their graves, oblivious 
 to shell and all earthly turmoil. We found at the little 
 Crown a Lancashire host and hostess, and a table which 
 was at once the pride and wonder of Ladysmith. 
 How does this read for the third Sunday of an un- 
 looked-for siege, with all supplies cut off? — 
 
 Menu. Dinner — Onion soup, breast of mutton and 
 onion sauce, roast chicken, roast veal, roast leg of mutton, 
 roast round of beef, potatoes, beans, apricot pie, currant 
 sandwich, cheese, with a bottle of Barsac to wash it down. 
 What though the Barsac be a Cape wine that would 
 defy all the wine judges in Australia to class it, and 
 
 I02
 
 DAYS OF GLOOM 103 
 
 the mutton invariably Anj^ora goat, it was yet both 
 passable wine and very excellent goat. Heaven send I 
 may eat nothing less palatable. What wonder then 
 that we favoured ones of the Crown could say, " Grieve 
 not for us, dear friends ; we are bearing up bravely. 
 We are quite happy. A time of want may come, but 
 we are quite ready for it." Yet with all the good living, 
 it was a singular coincidence that after a month of siege 
 several of us went on the scales, and found that the loss 
 in weight ranged from 14 lbs. to 21 lbs. per man. From 
 this I infer that men do not readily fatten under shell 
 fire, however tenderly treated. 
 
 A month had passed since the siege of Ladysmith 
 was made complete by the cutting of rail and telegraph 
 at half-past three on a Thursday afternoon. The relief 
 which seemed on the point of being hourly given kept 
 off strangely, and people in Ladysmith would accept 
 the news of succour as authoritative only when they saw 
 the troops marching through the town. Every one was 
 in high spirits when, early in the week, the following 
 bulletin was issued from headquarters : — " The enemy 
 has been defeated at Mooi river by portion of the 
 column advancing from the south for the relief of 
 Ladysmith, and has retreated on the Tugela river. 
 General Clery's force occupied Frere (about twenty-four 
 miles away) on Monday, 26th inst." Every night there- 
 after was one of alarms and excursions. Troops were 
 ordered to be ready to march with three days' rations ; 
 others were told early in the morning to get what sleep 
 they could during the day — a sufficient hint that they 
 might be wanted at night — yet before morning every 
 such movement was countermanded, and the men went 
 quietly back to bed again. 
 
 The Staff did not, of course, take war correspondents 
 into their confidence as to their reasons for altering the 
 plan of action, but it was assumed that the cloud 
 message from Colenso had something to do with it, 
 while a still more sensational reason for abandoning the 
 coup was soon afloat. A man had been caught that
 
 I04 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 same night in the very act of lamp-signalling our move- 
 ments to the enemy. A change of sentries had just 
 taken place, and the soldier fresh on duty is at the out- 
 set always more alert and suspicious than the tired-out 
 sentinel he relieves. This man saw something suspicious 
 on his front, so crept up, and having satisfied himself that 
 a traitor was at work, shot him through the shoulder. 
 That the message reached the enemy there could be 
 little doubt, for early next morning our outposts saw 
 the Boers in strong force leaving an ambush from which 
 they would have had our troops at their mercy had the 
 Light Horse tried to break through this pass to join 
 General Clery. 
 
 The traitor turned out to be a Cape boy named 
 Ventor, who had been attached as a mule-driver to the 
 lOth Mounted Battery of artillery. The significance 
 of the connection at once excited suspicion. It was the 
 mules of the loth Battery which stampeded at Nichol- 
 son's Nek when Colonel Carleton's column was cut off 
 and the Gloucester regiment taken. 
 
 There were rumours that the balloon had sighted the 
 advance guard of the relief column, eight miles to the 
 south of Umbulwana, but one found it difficult to recon- 
 cile such a statement with the fact that the Boers ^till 
 held all their gun positions. When on Saturday we 
 could see them at work dismantling Long Tom on 
 Pepworth's Hill, many declared, " This is the beginning 
 of the end. They know our troops are moving up 
 from Estcourt ; they know that the two columns will 
 effect a junction, and that it will then be too late to get 
 their guns away, so they are taking time by the fore- 
 lock." On Sunday we saw men busy excavating on the 
 shoulder of Lombard's Kop, but never guessed that a 
 new position was being made for Long Tom, and 
 that, so far from preparing for flight, the Dutch were 
 bringing down more guns from Pretoria, intent only 
 upon making the bombardment of Ladysmith still more 
 severe. 
 
 Racial hatred is a deeper thing in Africa than an
 
 DAYS OF GLOOM 105 
 
 outsider can realize. Let me give an example. On 
 the night the Elands Laagte prisoners were sent away 
 south, my friend Greenwood, of the Johannesburg 
 Star, pointed out an athletic-looking Boer in one of 
 the ambulance wagons, and said, " I'm blessed if it 
 isn't Phil Blignaut So he went out after all." This 
 Boer, who was wounded in the shoulder, was one of the 
 finest athletes in South Africa — a man in whom the 
 sporting residents of Johannesburg had long taken an 
 interest. Both at Grahamstown and Johannesburg he 
 had twice won all the South African amateur champion- 
 ships from S80 yards down to 100 yards, and a finer 
 all-round runner has seldom been seen in any country. 
 His brother Piet — better known as P. J. Blignaut — was 
 also a magnificent runner, and there was so little to 
 choose between them that, S'>me years ago, the people 
 of Johannesburg subscribed the expenses for sending 
 both of them to England to run for the amateur 
 championships. Though they won scores of events in 
 England, they were not successful in the champion- 
 ships. Quite lately a thousand pounds was again raised 
 in Johannesburg by public subscription, and Phil 
 Blignaut was sent home a second time, accompanied 
 by Harry Morkel, a champion hurdle-racer, and Mike 
 Griebenow, a cyclist. 
 
 All four of them were men who mixed much with the 
 Uitlanders, showed little interest in political disturb- 
 ances, and held that high piace in public re^^ard which 
 successful athletes do in a sporting community. If any 
 Dutchmen in the Transvaal could be well disposed to the 
 Uitlander it should have been these men, yet three of 
 the four — the two Blignauts and Griebenow — were 
 amongst the first in the field, and Morkel was probably 
 fighting for the Dutch also. 
 
 Phil Blignaut was shot through the shoulder and cap- 
 tured at Elands Laagte, his father was found amongst 
 the dead on the same field, and his brother, Piet Blig- 
 naut, was shot under remarkable circumstances. He 
 was lying wounded on the field as the Gordons drove
 
 io6 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 home with the bayonet, turned on his side, drew his 
 revolver, and fired at an officer of the Highlanders, who 
 had just passed him. A private of the Gordons, who 
 saw the act, put the nozzle of his Lee-Metford against 
 Piet Blignaut's temple and blew out his brains. So died 
 a great athlete, who, forgetting the many kindnesses 
 shown him, had fought against the Uitlanders to the 
 last with such animosity as might be expected from a 
 dervish of Omdurman, but is, fortunately, rare in this 
 war. On the other side there was no feeling. Amongst 
 the Guides, who saw Phil Blignaut taken away a prisoner, 
 were many of his warmest friends, and I heard nothing 
 from them but expressions of regret They were amazed 
 that his brother should have fought so bitterly, but 
 respected both men far more for fighting with their 
 countrymen over a lost cause than if they had shirked 
 it and stayed at home. 
 
 On the 30th the Boer gunners threw, perhaps, a hun- 
 dred shells into the town, and the last round of the day 
 proved most disastrous. Earlier in the week, as I have 
 already stated, they shelled the Town-hall, which was 
 still being used as a hospital, and struck it more than 
 once. Sir George White, it is believed, wrote to General 
 Berger, pointing out this flagrant violation of the usages 
 of civilized war, and for a little time the protest v/as 
 respected. On the 30th shots began to drop all round 
 the hospital again, and the enemy's gunners were clearly 
 experimenting for the range. One shell burst just in 
 front of it, the next passed through the roof of the 
 hospital, and exploded before reaching the floor. Many 
 wounded were lying in the beds, and a poor fellow of 
 the balloon section, who had only come into hospital that 
 day suffering from sore eyes, was killed instantly. The 
 outer casing of the canister shell struck full on the 
 chest as he lay on his back, smashing it in. Nine other 
 wounded men who were rapidly approaching convales- 
 cence were also hit, but none fatally, though the ordeal 
 of probing, stitching, and dressing had to begin all over 
 again. Nothing that had latterly occurred in connection
 
 DAYS OF GLOOM 107 
 
 with the siege excited so much anger and indignation. 
 Men may lose their dearest chum in action, and call it 
 the fortune of war, but there is something peculiarly 
 pitiable in the condition of a hospital full of suffering 
 men being shelled by an enemy. " It's pure brutality," 
 I heard one of the Carbineers say, with clenched fists, 
 "and may God Almighty help the first Boer who asks 
 me for quarter." 
 
 The shell which did the damage was a 6 in. fired from 
 Long Tom, in his new position on Lombard's Kop. To 
 those unacquainted with ordnance it may be of interest 
 to explain that during the siege of Ladysmith five types 
 of shell were generally used by the Boers. One of them, 
 common shell, more destructive to buildings than men, 
 was of solid metal some 2 in. thick, having a central 
 cavity of about the same diameter for the explosive. 
 The outer shell of canister, specially designed to be 
 destructive amongst large masses of men, is a thin skin 
 of steel, the interior packed with a shrapnel of a special 
 form. If you can imagine the hub of a bicycle cut into 
 section, with the bearing balls adhering to its outer rim, 
 you have a very fair representation, on a small scale, of 
 the appearance of canister. The holder has, however, a 
 great number of shallow sockets, in which the round 
 leaden balls fit, and are held in place by some composi- 
 tion like resin. On the explosion of the shell every one 
 of these balls detaches itself, and the area of destruction 
 is very great, the wounds, however, being less horrible 
 than from other shrapnel, save when — as in the case just 
 mentioned — the jacket of the shell hits a man. A third 
 type of shrapnel largely used by the Boers in their field- 
 pieces and siege guns of lighter calibre is segment, or 
 ring shell, the fragments of which I have described as 
 somewhat resembling the cogs of a metal wheel, which 
 had flown off under an extreme strain. Then there is 
 the little Vickers-Maxim shell, only a pound in weight, 
 and a slightly larger shell from a new French gun, which 
 they brought into action late in the siege. 
 
 On December i we were again keenly on the look-
 
 io8 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 out for the relieving column, for on the night before they 
 had been signalling us from the south by flash-light, and 
 from the Gordons' camp all the messages were taken 
 without difficulty. Whether the enemy realized that 
 their opportunities for shelling Ladysmith were nearing 
 an end or not, they opened on us heavily early on Friday 
 morning, picking the exposed southern end of the town, 
 as usual, for the first few shells, and then searching it 
 systematically from end to end. Before breakfast their 
 shell fire had killed four men. Two of the Gordons 
 were frightfully torn while standing in their own lines, 
 and a Cape boy of the artillery had both legs shot from 
 under him a few minutes later. At the other end of the 
 town a trooper of the Natal Mounted Rifles and his 
 horse went down before a perfect smother of shell. A 
 large splinter entered just under the unfortunate young 
 fellow's right arm, and part of it protruded from beneath 
 the left arm. The horse was raked from end to end, 
 and absolutely smashed to pulp. No more demoralizing 
 instance of the effect of their heavy shrapnel could be 
 given. Of late we had certainly paid for our immunity 
 during the earlier half of the siege, and not a day passed 
 witliout some deaths. 
 
 For its best shelter during this trying time, Ladysmith 
 was indebted to Australia. Standing on a point above 
 the town one noticed squares of trees that far overtop 
 the camel thorn, syringa, umtola, and carob bean which 
 grow locally. They were Australian gums, most of 
 them filled with the swinging-cot nests of the weaver 
 bird, and sheltering also hundreds of the volunteer tents. 
 They had helped to improve the health of the town also, 
 though it is something of a fever bed, and in common 
 with hundreds of others I had suffered with a kind of 
 fever, which made anything like active exertion almost 
 impossible. One longed to be up in the clear air of the 
 higher veldt again, even though it meant exposure, cold 
 nights, and long day marches. 
 
 This civilized, long-settled Africa is still a country of 
 plagues, and were it not that the farmer gets his land, as
 
 £>Ay'S OF GLOOM 109 
 
 a rule, for ten shillings an acre, has no clearing to do, 
 and pretty well escapes taxation, farming in Natal would 
 be impossible. In addition to the horse sickness, most 
 of his cattle are infected with pleuro-pneumonia, and 
 occasionally swept clean away by rinderpest ; his sheep 
 are afflicted with blue tongue, and his fowls have some 
 other horrible disease, so that the flocks of Angora goats 
 which ranc:e the rocky hills seem to be the only really 
 healthy stock. Thus it is that in the heart of a farming 
 and pastoral district studded with agricultural societies 
 and show-grounds, one finds Australian butter, meat, 
 honey, cheese, and bread on the tables, side by side with 
 Californian fruits, English hams, and other imported food 
 products. Mealies are the staple crop, and their yields 
 would be laughed at by our maize growers on the Snowy 
 River. 
 
 Saturday, December 2, came. For a week the relief 
 column had been in touch of us almost, but it came no 
 nearer. Amid all our tribulations the Scottish portion 
 of the besieged garris(jn did not forget St. Andrew's 
 night. At the Royal Hotel, temporarily rc-occupied for 
 the occasion, there was " a braw Scotch necht " of a 
 unique, even an abnormal character. It is probably the 
 only great Scottish gathering recorded at which not a 
 drop of whisky was obtainable. The toasts were drunk 
 in brandy, in champagne while it lasted, in Cape Drachin- 
 stein, and in Ladysmith ginger-beer, but in Scotia's 
 drink — not once. It was otherwise in the Gordons' lines, 
 where for"Auld Lang Syne" the officers of the regiment, 
 with Colonel Dick-Cunyngham in the chair, entertained 
 their old Colonel, Sir George White. The pipers marched 
 round the table, played Highland airs, and there was 
 much enthusiasm. The prevailing tone was that of the 
 Scotch orator, who on a festive occasion began with, 
 " The man who would attempt to talk sense at a time 
 like this would be a fool." A good many were surprised, 
 though, at one assertion made by the Commander-in- 
 Chief during the evening. " In spite of appearances,"
 
 I TO HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 said Sir George White, " I do not believe that the enemy 
 have deliberately fired a single gun at our hospital in the 
 Town-hall." " I don't agree with you, sir," said Captain 
 Lambton, of the Powerful, with the freedom of opinion 
 which prevails at social gatherings on St. Andrew's 
 nights, and a storm of approval showed that very few 
 acquiesced in the favourable view of the commanding 
 officer. The evidence that the Boers deliberately fired 
 upon the one building which with its tower stands up so 
 defiantly in the centre of the town was so strong that 
 they must either admit the odium or confess themselves 
 shockingly poor gunners. 
 
 Men who have attended both sides say that, whatever 
 may be their respective merits in action, the British 
 soldier showed more fortitude than the Boer when 
 wounded. Many men of both sides had after a late 
 action to lie all night untended on the veldt, and by 
 morning the Dutch had invariably quite broken down, 
 while Tommy, even when hard hit, bears up wonderfully. 
 Young Crickmore, of the Natal Mounted Rifles, was a 
 marvel of physical endurance. A boy of nineteen, he 
 had hurried up from the Cape on the outbreak of hos- 
 tilities to join his corps, and one morning he was riding 
 up the street for a packet of cigarettes. The shell that 
 killed him absolutely tore away one of his lungs, and his 
 internal injuries were otherwise so frightful that, accord- 
 ing to medical science, he should have been killed in- 
 stantly ; but he lived for hours, saw many of his com- 
 rades, laughingly expressed the conviction that in spite 
 of it all he would get through, and then, in the height 
 of good spirits, his head dropped over and he died. 
 After Tinta Inyoni a wounded man walked a mile to 
 avoid falling into the hands of the Dutch, yet was dead 
 before daybreak. 
 
 The expedition with which the doctors work after a 
 fight is marvellous. The chief runs his hands over each 
 wounded man, pulls away the temporary dressin ;s, and, 
 if no extraction or amputation be necessary, calls up one
 
 DAYS OF GLOOM in 
 
 of the young dressers, tells him in a few words what to 
 do, and passes on to the next case. The dresser sets to 
 work quietly, just as quietly the little Indian dhoolie- 
 bearers are at his side, with every instrument and band- 
 age ready to his hand, as though the science of advanced 
 surgery were one of their every-day accomplishments. I 
 saw one of the infantry, who had a large bullet in his 
 arm, beckoned to the operating-table. He had been 
 chatting about the fight, and turned a little white when 
 he saw the instruments. A mere whiff of chloroform was 
 given him, and in a few minutes the operating surgeon 
 was handing the big bullet over to the sufferer, with, 
 "Keep that, my lad, to show to your family." The 
 soldier stared at him, shook his head to dispel the fumes 
 of ether, then, putting his good hand in his pocket, 
 pulled out three sovereigns and some silver. " Thank 
 God they didn't get that," he said, as he straightened 
 himself up and went his way. Close by there was a 
 little German prisoner crying. He had been wounded 
 three times in the right arm, evidently with Maxim fire, 
 but was quite convinced that the snub-nosed Cockney 
 who kept guard over him was responsible for his mis- 
 fortunes. " He shot me," he whimpered, pointing to the 
 stolid guard. " I didn't want to fight ; I have no grudge 
 against the English ; but I was a burgher, and I had to 
 go," It is always the same cry, — duty, not inclination. 
 
 I met a Melbourne man, a Captain Clarke, who had a 
 nerve-trying experience some few nights ago. He was 
 on outpost duty on a very dark night, and got separated 
 from his men. Finding himself at one of the railway 
 bridges, he met several Kaffirs, who assured him that 
 mounted Boers were close up to him. Captain Clarke, 
 who had lived much of his life in the saddle, was more 
 disposed to trust to his horse than to the scared Kaffirs, 
 and when he saw his charger suddenly raise his head 
 and prick his ears forward he knew there was something 
 in it. Soon he heard the clatter of hoofs in the scrub 
 near him, but dared not fire lest they should be his own
 
 112 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 men ; so there was nothing for it but to wait quietly and 
 take his chance, holding his horse by the nose in the 
 meantime to prevent him neighing. Repeatedly during 
 the siege the horses were the first at night to warn our 
 outposts that the Boers were on the move. In this respect 
 their keen sense of smell and hearing, if not their inteUi- 
 gence, has proved valuable.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 
 
 News of Duller — Mysterious preparations — Biltong — The Lady- 
 smith Lyre — A dash for Long Tom — Blowing up a gun — Exultant 
 volunteers. 
 
 A WEEK had gone by since the reh'ef column — or the 
 reinforcements, as the military authorities preferred to 
 call them — entered Frere. For days we spoke to them 
 by heliograph, and from the round shoulder of a hill 
 away to the south the sun instrument winked at us 
 through the haze. On Sunday it was never idle, and 
 the communication was so complete that the General 
 decided that next day each war correspondent should 
 be allowed to send thirty words by heliograph to his 
 paper — all the official messages, including particulars of 
 the casualties, having by that time got through — but, to 
 the mortification of all, when our morning shell woke us 
 a little after five on Monday there was a dead grey sky 
 and light rains. The chance had gone for a time. Then 
 came the news from an unquestionable source that 
 General Buller was in Maritzburg, and that, so far from 
 being a lone little band cast away in the wilderness, we 
 had become the centre of interest. Coincident with this 
 came also the gratifying news that Lord Methuen had 
 three times beaten the Boers over Kimbcrlcy way. It 
 had been a gloomy garrison that rushed for shelter when 
 
 113 H
 
 114 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the first shell came that Monday morning, but by break- 
 fast-time every one was in splendid spirits, and the most 
 truculent of the civilians wanted to go up on the ridges 
 and shoot something. The full text of this message, 
 which sent the spirits of the depressed garrison bubbling 
 up like the mercury in a Christmas barometer, was as 
 follows : — "Sir Redvers Buller was at Maritzburg on the 
 29th ult. Sir George White has much pleasure in 
 publishing the following extract from a despatch of that 
 date received this morning by runner — ' Methuen is at 
 Modder river en route for Kimberley, having defeated 
 the enemy in three battles, in the last of which they 
 were 8000 strong, and entrenched, under command of 
 Cronje. Adverting to affairs in Europe, no chance of 
 intervention.' " 
 
 During that week the movements of our own troops 
 had been most puzzling. All day they were lying perdu, 
 ready only to resist a Boer advance on the town if it 
 were attempted, and replying only at rare intervals to 
 their ever-roaring artillery. But as soon as the darkness 
 covered our movements the whole force was astir, and 
 the different corps mustered silently at given stations, 
 all in flying order. This really means fighting order, 
 with saddles stripped of blankets and all the impedimenta 
 that men carry on the march. There is nothing in war 
 so impressive as these night movements. The order had 
 been given that all lic^hts should be out on the ringing 
 of the town bell at half-past eight — this with the double 
 object of not confusing the flash-light signalling, and 
 giving the enemy no guide as to the movements of the 
 troops. 
 
 The inference from these nightly parades of the troops 
 was that Sir George White anticipated two possibilities, 
 and was equally ready for both, viz. a desperate mid- 
 night rush by the enemy to get possession of Ladysmith 
 before relief came, or an equally sudden effort by General 
 Clery to effect a junction. The streets were literally 
 lined with men, the cavalry and mounted infantry sitting 
 on the ground at their horses' heads. It was a remark-
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 115 
 
 able bit of quiet organization — nothing seen but the 
 flicker of a match as a soldier lit his pipe ; nothing heard 
 but the occasional clank of a bit, the stamp of a hoof, 
 the flutter of bat wings, or the calling of a veldt plover 
 high in the air. Thus they waited until midnight, and 
 then began to move back to their lines again. The 
 horses were too well-behaved even to neigh, and we who 
 watched everything spoke to each other in whispers, 
 without quite knowing why we did it. It was the 
 natural consequence of the silent, stealthy preparation, 
 the self-contained, subdued power which might at any 
 moment flame out into death, destruction, and the soul- 
 suppressing din of a night conflict. At no time, I think, 
 are the soldier's nerves so tried as when thus waiting in 
 the darkness for the unknown. 
 
 That day, for the first time, I tasted the biltong of 
 which you have heard so much as furnishing the Boer 
 fighter with his chief food supplies when on a campaign. 
 It looks leathery and uninviting, but, if well made, is 
 palatable, and even dainty, while its nourishing qualities 
 are declared to be exceptionally high. It is not, as some 
 may imagine, just a strip of sun-dried beef, but requires 
 some skill in the cutting up. Commencing at the hock, 
 they strip the meat away in natural rolls from the haunch, 
 rarely using the knife ; dry it in the sun during the day, 
 and roll it at night in a green hide. It hardens so that, 
 uncooked, it is best cut in thin layers with a carpenter's 
 spokeshave ; but these layers make a perfect sandwich, 
 and biltong made from the bluebuck especially is a great 
 delicacy. The settlers of Natal when out on a game 
 hunt invariably equip themselves with biltong, and I 
 have met few who are not fond of it. With biltong, 
 coffee, and flour, the Boer is not badly supplied, and 
 Tommy Atkins, with his biscuit, tinned beef, and no 
 beer, has by no means the best of the comparison. 
 
 The local paper. The Ladysmith Lyre, had reached its 
 third issue. It was brought out by war correspondents 
 temporarily out of employment. The editor explained 
 that all truthful news would be found under the heading,
 
 ii6 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 "Fact" — beneath which was a blank space. Here are some 
 extracts, with explanatory notes where necessary: — 
 
 LEADING ARTICLE. 
 
 THE SITUATION. 
 The situation is unchanged. 
 
 NEWS. 
 
 We are informed that the colony of Natal is safe. Then " God 
 Save the Queen." 
 
 Whisky is selling at 35^. a bottle. The Army Service Corps 
 are waiting until the price is £2 before disposing of the 11,000 
 bottles in stock. 
 
 The remarkable nature of the rumours circulating in 
 Ladysmith for five weeks was fairly reflected in the 
 following extracts from 
 
 THE DIARY OF A CITIZEN. 
 
 Nov. 9. — Tremendous battle to-day. Enormous victory. 
 Enemy^s losses prodigious. Fifth Lancers galloped two Maxims 
 up to Limit Hill, and then trotted back. Boers followed, when up 
 jumped Liverpool regiment and shot 600. Boer cavalry charged 
 up Observation Hill, tripped over wire ; then up jumped 60th Rifles 
 and shot 600. Dublin Fusiliers drew enemy across Leicester Post, 
 when up jumped Leicester regiment and shot 600. Gordon High- 
 landers surrounded 600 Boers, when up rode Sir George and all 
 surrendered. 
 
 Nov. 14. — General French has twice been seen in Ladysmith, 
 disguised as a Kaffir. His force is entrenched behind Balvvan. 
 Hurrah ! 
 
 Nov. 20. — H.M.S. Powerful r2Ln 'jLgrov.nA in attempting to come 
 up Klip river. Feared total loss. 
 
 Nov. 21. — Hear on good authority that gunner of Long Tom is 
 Dreyfus. 
 
 Nov. 22. — Dreyfus rumour confirmed. 
 
 Nov. 26. — Boers broke Sabbath, firing on our bathing parties. 
 Believed so infuriated by sight of people washing that they quite 
 forgot it was Sunday.
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 117 
 
 NEW SONGS. 
 
 (Sung by the Leading Vocalists.) 
 
 "Oft in the Stilly Night," 
 Boer Artillery Chorus. 
 
 " Oh that We Two were Maying,'' 
 Sung by Sir G. F. White and Sir C. F. Clery. 
 
 "Over the Hills and Far Away," 
 Relief Column Chorus. 
 
 "They're after me, they're after me, 
 To capture me is every one's desire ; 
 They're after me, they're after me, 
 I'm the individual they require." 
 By Colonel Rhodes. 
 
 Note, — I have mentioned the remarkable persistency 
 with which the Boer shells followed Colonel Rhodes, 
 however frequently he changed his residence. 
 
 SKILL COMPETITION. 
 
 A bottle of anchovies— useless to owner on account of prevailing 
 whisky famine — will be awarded to sender of first opened solu- 
 tion of this competition : — " Name date of relief of Ladysmith." 
 Generals and inhabitants of Ladysmith who say "Ja" instead of 
 "Yes" will be disqualified as possessing exceptional sources of in- 
 formation. Send answers, with small bottle of beer enclosed, to 
 Puzzle editor. 
 
 THEATRICAL. 
 
 The amateur theatrical club have for the last five weeks been 
 rehearsing " Patience." Their next productions will include " The 
 Case of Rebellious Susan" and "The Liars." 
 
 WHERE TO SPEND A HAPPY DAY. 
 
 To the Ladies of Pretoria. — Messrs. Kook and Son beg to 
 announce a personally conducted tour, Saturday to Monday, to 
 witness the siege of Ladysmith. Full view of the enemy guaranteed. 
 Tea and shrimps (direct from Durban) on the train. Four-in-hand 
 ox waggon direct from Modder Spruit to Bulwan. Fare 15^'. return. 
 One guinea if Long Tom is in action. 
 
 This was the explanatory note to one of Maude's 
 cartoons, showing the women and children of Pretoria
 
 ti8 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 pouring out of the train, while Joubert invited them to 
 try three shots at the Ladysmith Town-hall from Long 
 Tom for a penny. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGMENT. 
 
 General Joubert has acknowledged with thanks the receipt of a 
 railway engine. 
 
 The point of this lay in the fact that some little time 
 ago the expedient of sending an engine full speed up 
 the line with the intention of wrecking a Boer transport 
 or ammunition train, and perhaps blocking their com- 
 munications, was hit upon. An engine was specially 
 stripped for the purpose at the Ladysmith railway 
 station ; the driver took it out a bit, then opened the 
 valves to full speed ahead, and jumped off. It was a 
 plan full of dramatic and sensational possibilities, but it 
 failed badly. The Boers had not torn up the line, but 
 had thoughtfully widened the gauge, so, long before their 
 terminal station, Modder Spruit, was reached the engine 
 ran off the line and fizzled itself cold on the veldt. 
 
 The days dragged their weary length along with no 
 change for the better in the position. With Macbeth, 
 the tired citizen of Ladysmith cried, '* To-morrow, and 
 to-morrow, and to-morrow creeps on this petty pace," 
 but finally came a feat which cheered our drooping 
 spirits, and won in a single act a reputation for the 
 volunteers of Natal. On Thursday, December 7, just 
 at dusk. Long Tom — who, as I have already said, had 
 been shifted from Pepworth's Hill, on the north, to the 
 shoulder of Lombard's Kop, on the north-east — fired his 
 good-night last shell into the town, and it burst in a 
 building next to our quarters, which the military authori- 
 ties had only that day commandeered for a post-office. 
 The fragments proved of greater value as mementoes 
 than we then imagined, for it was the last shell from the 
 throat of a gun which for weeks had held the people of 
 Ladysmith in terror. It was nearly ten o'clock on Thurs- 
 day night when the volunteers — some of whom were 
 already in bed — were ordered to turn out in forage caps
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 119 
 
 and light boots, armed with rifles and revolvers only, and 
 without their horses. Every one knew that something 
 interesting was afoot, for General Hunter, the chief of 
 Staff, was there wearing his sword, and evidently out for 
 business ; while fifteen of the Guides, led by Major 
 Henderson, were also ready. 
 
 Very quietly a force of four hundred volunteers was 
 got together, the men being told that excessive quietness 
 was the first thing required of them. They had repeat- 
 edly asked to be allowed to take one of the Boer guns, 
 so Sir George White was giving them their chance with 
 one of the finest fighting men of the empire as a leader. 
 A small party of Engineers were also in attendance, 
 confirming the impression that the destruction of a gun 
 was the object of the night expedition. They waited 
 until the moon went down, then had a fine starlight 
 night. 
 
 Halting occasionally for a few minutes to let the 
 Guides feci the way, they found themselves at a quarter 
 to two o'clock in the morning within fifty yards of the foot 
 of Lombard's Kop, yet so silent was the march that the 
 Boer pickets, then within revolver shot of them, had not 
 been alarmed, and those in the front of the column could 
 hardly hear the tramp of the eight hundred feet behind 
 them, though the front rank was not more than fifty 
 yards away. In a brief halt General Hunter explained 
 what was intended ; one hundred of the Imperial Light 
 Horse and one hundred of the Carbineers would creep 
 up the mountain and take the Boer guns, while as many 
 more of the Border Mounted went round on either side 
 of the hill to protect the assaulting party from a flank 
 attack. The Engineers, with gun-cotton and appliances 
 for breaking up artillery, were close upon the heels of 
 the stormers. They crept on, amazed that tliere should 
 be no outposts, when, apparently fifty yards behind our 
 men, who w^re creeping up the steep hill on hands and 
 knees, came a hoarse challenge, " Wis kom dar .'"' In the 
 dark we had passed the Boer sentry without noticing 
 him, and it is just possible that he had been dreaming
 
 120 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 in the warm sultry night. " Wis kom dar ? Wis kom 
 dar ? " He was getting impatient, and roared out his 
 challenge again and again, and our fellows sat still on 
 the slope above him for a minute, laughing to themselves, 
 and made no answer. "Wis kom dar?" This time 
 there was an unquestionable note of alarm in the Boer 
 challenge, and an English voice said, '* Hit that fellow in 
 the stomach with the butt of a rifle, and shut his mouth." 
 
 The Boer knew now who was coming there. " Zoo 
 waar as Dod hier is hulle," he yelled in Transvaal Dutch, 
 which in English means, " God's truth, they are really 
 here." His next remark indicated a very natural desire 
 to get out of the district, for after firing his rifle he called 
 to his after-rider, " Bring my peart," or " Bring my horse." 
 That was the last we heard of the vigilant sentry, who 
 had let the enemy past him first and challenged after- 
 wards. A second rifle was heard further up the ridge, 
 and a shrill, squeaky Dutch voice shouted, " Martinas, 
 Carl, der rooinek, der rooinek." A couple of volleys 
 were fired, most of the bullets going over the heads of 
 our men, one of whom shouted, " What ho, she bumps ! " 
 The red necks were clambering up the hill like cats, 
 quite prepared for a desperate fight at the summit. 
 
 " Stick to me, Guides," General Hunter shouted, and 
 " Take a breath," he called at intervals, but the Guides 
 noticed that Kitchener's fighting general was going on 
 all the time without taking a breath, and they went 
 after him, with a cheer that rang all round the hillside. 
 Colonel Edwards, of the volunteers, shouted, " Now then, 
 boys, fix bayonets, and give them the steel." There was 
 not a bayonet in the whole party, for the volunteers, 
 who are all mounted infantry, did not carry them, but 
 there were Dutchmen up there who understood English, 
 and they waited for nothing more, but went clattering, 
 tumbling, and stumbling down the other side of the 
 mountain. It was all over in less than five minutes 
 from the first challenge, and as Major Henderson jumped 
 up beside Long Tom, who was pointing apparently at 
 the stars, and loaded and laid to a range of 8000 yards,
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 121 
 
 not a Boer was in sight. Away behind the mountains 
 we could see two camp fires shining brightly, but though 
 Umbulwana, with its big guns, rose a black mass not 
 more than half-a-mile away, not a shot was fired from 
 these, and every one regretted that both guns were not 
 being taken. The riflemen ran on to the opposite crest 
 of the mountain, and fired volleys down the slope to 
 keep off any of the enemy who might be coming up a." 
 supports. 
 
 It was a lesson in military expedition then to see the 
 Engineers going to work at gun destruction. Some of 
 them whipped out the breech-block ; others ran a charge 
 of gun-cotton half-way down, plugged the muzzle and 
 the breech, after first chipping away part of the screw, 
 so that it could not be used again. Then they ran a 
 necklace of gun-cotton around the outside of the barrel, 
 and all was ready for Long Tom's funeral. 
 
 The gun had been beautifully set on a traverse of 
 solid masonry. It was mounted on huge iron wheels, 
 and a little railway-line had been laid down to run it up 
 to the firing position. Over it was a thick bomb-proof 
 arch, and huge stacks of shells lay round about ready 
 for use. The gun had been stripped by our men of 
 everything that could be carried away as trophies, even 
 the heavy breech-block being brought down. Close 
 by were a howitzer and a field gun, which were soon 
 smashed to pieces, while a Maxim, which had not been 
 fired, so precipitate had been the flight of the defenders, 
 was brought away by the Engineers. Occasionally a 
 Mauser bullet came in amongst the men, but they were 
 few and far between, and within from twenty to thirty 
 minutes of reaching the top, the Engineers, who reminded 
 one all the time of a horde of cats clambering on a roof- 
 top, announced that they were ready. The firing 
 apparatus was attached, and the key pressed. There 
 was a dull roar from the charge, not nearly so loud 
 though as one would have expected, though the whole 
 mountain flamed up with a flash of light. For a minute 
 there v.'as a fear that the gun-cotton had not done its
 
 122 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 work, but on the Engineers going back, they found that 
 the barrel had been rent asunder, and part of the muzzle 
 torn away. Long Tom would shoot no more. Com- 
 bustion of the bowels had placed the poor fellow beyond 
 all aid. 
 
 The word to retire was given, and nearly every man 
 brought away some souvenir of the fight. One had the 
 tangent-scale of the gun, another the sights, a third the 
 rammer; some had biltong, some tinned beef; even a 
 tin of baking-powder was amongst the trophies. One 
 of the Boers had left without his trousers, in the pockets 
 of which was £^ los. in Dutch money. Another had 
 thrown away his waterproof coat, which fitted the finder 
 exactly. Back to cover at the foot of the mountain, and 
 the night still dark, we had time to count the cost of this 
 brilliant little rush, which every one had expected would 
 prove difficult. We had looked for such unpleasant 
 entanglements as barbed wire, and the Guides carried 
 wire-cutters, but there were no impediments of any 
 kind. 
 
 Major Henderson, the smiling Intelligence ofiicer, for 
 whom all correspondents had so warm a regard, had 
 been twice hit. A shot had almost torn away his thumb, 
 and a couple of slugs had cut their way through the 
 flesh of his thigh, just above the knee. He had been hit 
 at the first volley — the slugs evidently fired from a fowl- 
 ing-piece — yet he never halted, but was the first man on 
 the gun, while afterwards he marched back to camp 
 without the help of the friendly arms so freely offered 
 him. Godson, of the Guides, had also been hit in the 
 thigh with slugs and loupers — the latter a large buck- 
 shot, something like swan-drops — so that the Boers must 
 have equipped themselves freely with shot-guns, as likely 
 to be the most useful in stopping a night rush. 
 
 It was found afterwards that the Boers had used as 
 loupers the hard steel bicycle-balls looted from the 
 Johannesburg cycle-shops. Godson still has some of 
 them in his leg, and is probably the only man in the 
 British Empire going about on ball-bearings.
 
 A NIGHT SORTIE 123 
 
 Private Nichol, of the Light Horse, a sturdy giant, 
 6 ft. 6 in. in height, was badly hit, one shot passing 
 through his arm and two through the right side of his 
 chest, just under the shoulder. Private Williamson, 
 another comparative giant, was shot in the thigh, and 
 Private Pattison in the right arm. A bullet ricochet- 
 ting from a rock had hit him just above the wrist, 
 and torn the flesh away almost up to the elbow. Lilly- 
 white, of the Guides, was grazed across the knuckles, 
 and Corporal Hume, of the Carbineers, had a furrow cut 
 in his cheek with a Mauser bullet. This was the 
 casualty list, and Nichol was the only one so badly hurt 
 that he had to be left where he fell, in care of his 
 surgeon, until the ambulance came. 
 
 There was tremendous cheering when the volunteers 
 came back to camp, and that morning at breakfast, in 
 the officers' mess- tent of the I.L.H., Long Tom's 
 breech-block was the centre-piece, and held a bunch of 
 flowers. General Hunter, before leaving, complimented 
 the volunteers warmly, both on their silent march and 
 plucky rush, and said he had no wish to lead better men 
 — a compliment which, coming from the source it did, 
 was the more greatly valued. Later in the day Sir 
 George White repeated the congratulations.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A SURPRISE ON SURPRISE HILL 
 
 A night raid — Dilatory Hussars — A plucky Australian — A Boer 
 letter — Physiology of funk — The rush on Surprise Hill — Deadly 
 bayonet work — A resentful enemy. 
 
 On Friday, December 8, the people of Ladysmith 
 overslept themselves. There was no Long Tom to wake 
 them with its morning shell, and when Long Tom had 
 set himself to wake the residents there was nothing half- 
 hearted in his way of doing it ; no one turned over 
 drowsily and asked for another half-hour. It seldom 
 happened though that we had any little success in the 
 siege without its counterbalancing failure. This took 
 the shape of reconnaissance by the Hussars. The idea 
 in sending them out was to create a diversion towards 
 the north-west, while to north-east at Lombard's Kop 
 the volunteers carried out their task of destroying the 
 big gun. The cavalry burned some Kaffir kraals in that 
 direction, and, as instructed, made a considerable flare, 
 but repeated the mistake which has so often been made 
 in this campaign, of so long delaying their return that 
 they had to come back in daylight under a heavy fire, 
 for if there is one thing in which the Boer excels in war 
 it is the feat of promptly following up and peppering a 
 retiring enemy. Where upon a determined advance not 
 a man is to be seen, they appear as if by magic the 
 minute the foe turns his back, and rarely is their fire so 
 
 124
 
 A SURPRISE ON SURPRISE HILL 125 
 
 hot as then. They pour it in as fast as they can load 
 and fire, and their haste to make the most of an oppor- 
 tunity, which involves no risk to themselves, is the one 
 fault in their method. It proved the salvation of our 
 men upon more than one occasion. 
 
 From the Convent ridge at half-past four in the morn- 
 ing we could sec a body of horsemen coming leisurely 
 in from Pcpworth's towards the town. As the Boers 
 opened on them witli every arm available, the 100- 
 poundcr on the top of Buhvan, the lesser siege guns, 
 field guns. Pom-poms and rifles, the blare of sound 
 was imposing. All along the western Boer ridge it 
 equalled the crash of a general engagement. Then, too, 
 the enemy got some idea of what our naval guns could 
 do if fairly put to it. The pivot gun had hitherto con- 
 fined itself to silencing their fire when it became at all 
 heavy, or to dropping a couple of shots at dusk on a 
 spring, where the Boers came late to water their horses. 
 It commanded every hill within a radius of eight miles 
 of Ladysmith, and now poured its shots upon the Buhvan 
 gun so fast that the gunners dared not work it, and were 
 silent. Two others searched the length of Pepworth's 
 Hill, where, judging from the sound, their machine guns 
 were stationed. A battery of our field guns searched 
 the low ridge on which the Boer rifles crackled. 
 
 Under cover of this fire the Hussars made their dash 
 for home in three separate squadrons. No sooner were 
 they in the open, having to cover an even stretch of grass, 
 than the rifles burst tempestuously, and the sun being 
 up we could see the Mausers flicking the dust all around 
 them, while an occasional shell fell dangerously close. 
 It was a long-range fire, but it was none the less remark- 
 able that the squadron got across without leaving a man 
 on the green grass, which the field-glasses on our ridge 
 were searching anxiously. The cavalry had the shelter 
 of a donga for some distance ; then more open ground, 
 where the Boer fire was even heavier. Here there were 
 several men down, and every one drew a long breath 
 when the last of them was in. That last man, in this
 
 126 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 case, rode alone quite half-a-mile behind the others, and 
 galloped his hardest, drawing at one stage of his run the 
 fire of almost every Boer rifle within range. Yet he 
 lived and finished his ride, though the dust from the 
 bullets hung like a low rising fog upon the veldt. The 
 instant he had dropped behind the hills the fire ceased. 
 On our ambulance going out they found two of the 
 Hussars dead and quite a dozen wounded. The Boers 
 on that side evidently knew of the loss of their guns that 
 morning, and were burning for vengeance. Red crosses 
 and white flags commanded no respect then. They fired 
 on the ambulance as soon as it appeared, and shot one 
 of the leading mules. 
 
 Dr. Hornabrook, riding out to attend to the wounded, 
 stirred up the fire again, and the bullets were dropping 
 all round him. He waved his white handkerchief, the 
 signal the doctors generally adopt, for the white arm- 
 band with the Geneva cross is invisible at the distance. 
 The waving of the handkerchief only appeared to ex- 
 asperate them, and as the fire grew hotter the doctor got 
 back to cover. Out of this affair the Hussars came with 
 a loss of three killed and about a dozen wounded, but it 
 was an entirely unnecessary and aimless sacrifice, as 
 there was nothing to prevent mounted men getting back 
 to camp before daylight. The carelessness of our men 
 in this respect is a complete mystery to the Boer. 
 While Dr. Davis was waiting beside some wounded men 
 that day a few Boers came down to him and chatted 
 about the fight. " Why do your men always let us 
 catch them in daylight .'' " one man said. " It is very 
 foolish ; cannot the English horses march home in the 
 dark?" 
 
 When the volunteers carried the gun position at 
 Lombard's Kop on Friday morning, and the Boers 
 went down the back of the mountain, some of them 
 shouting in falsetto notes that were almost a scream, 
 there was some curious loot taken on the mountain-top. 
 One of the Free State burghers had evidently just 
 written a letter to his sister and left it behind. It was
 
 A SUKFUISE ON SURPRISE HILL 127 
 
 addressed, strancjcly enoupjh, to Balaclava Farm, and a 
 translation of that part of the letter dealing with the 
 war shows that however the jicople of Pretoria may be 
 gulled by the imaginative accounts of the siege published 
 by the Diggers' News, some of those in the commandoes 
 have no delusions about it. The writer, \\ essel Groen- 
 wold, gave his address as Head Laager, Ladysmith, care 
 of Major Erasmus. He says — 
 
 " It is one month and seven days since we besieged 
 Ladysmith, and don't know what will happen further. 
 The English we see every day walking about the town, 
 and we bombard the town every day with our cannon. 
 They have erected plenty of breastworks outside the 
 towiL It is ver\' dangerous to take the town. Near 
 the town they have two naval guns from which we 
 receive very heavy fire, which we cannot stand. I think 
 there will be much blood spilt before they surrender, 
 as Mr. Englishman fights hard and well, and our burghers 
 are a bit frightened." 
 
 That hint as to the feeling of the enemy tallied with 
 what we have heard from other sources. 
 
 The list of narrow escapes continued always to be 
 more amazing than the actual casualties. Yesterday 
 Mr. King, the district superintendent of public works, 
 had two shells bursting simultaneously, one close in 
 front of his horse's head, the other at its tail. Those 
 who saw it waited very anxiously for the smoke to clear 
 away, but neither horse nor rider had a scratch — thouf^h 
 the concussion was so severe that Mr. King was ill for 
 an hour altenvards. On the same day a small shell 
 ricochetted from a higher ridge and rolled down the 
 road like a hoop, close upon his horse's heels. A few 
 days ago a party of ladies were walking down the 
 Crown Hotel garden to a large apple tree, on which the 
 red-cheeked Margarets were just ripening. They stayed 
 for a minute to talk to the gardener, and that minute 
 just saved them, for they were within twenty yards of 
 the tree when a 15 lb. shell struck it just below the 
 branches. It was a very old tree, umbrageous and
 
 128 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 gnarled, but the butt was snapped clean, the top of the 
 tree thrown some distance away, and even then the 
 shell did not burst until it had buried itself in the earth. 
 The ladies had no difficulty in picking apples. A man 
 in one of the Carbineer tents was taken out for dead, 
 a shell having pitched close to his head as he slept. 
 He suffered only from concussion. A still more won- 
 derful escape occurred in the same camp. This time 
 the shell pitched at the man's feet as he faced the gun. 
 The explosion tore away his clothes, burned his chest 
 with the flame of the powder, and plugged his nostrils 
 with earth. In an hour he was walking about all right. 
 From November i the casualties amongst the military 
 forces in Ladysmith, taken from the official list, were 
 23 killed and about 180 wounded, while with civilians 
 and Kaffirs the death-list for a srx-weeks' siege reached 
 less than 40. 
 
 On Sunday, December 10, the Boers fired a number 
 of heavy shells into the town, this being the first 
 Sunday during the siege on which they had seriously 
 bombarded. It must, therefore, have been a matter 
 of urgency. In the dusk of the morning there was a 
 heavy fire of rifles and Maxims on the top of Bulwan, 
 the result of a little ruse on our part. It was known 
 that the Boers had concentrated a lot of riflemen on 
 the mountain in anticipation of another attempt on our 
 part to take a gun. It was thought that if our pickets 
 went close up in the darkness, fired a few volleys at the 
 crest of the hill, and then promptly retired, the enemy, 
 confused by the darkness, which they hate, would 
 probably fire into each other. Their firing was certainly 
 furious, but whether the anticipated effect followed we 
 could not say. Next day the fantastic crowd of Dutch 
 prisoners and suspected spies imprisoned in the Boer 
 church sang " God Save the Queen," but from the 
 remarks of the corporal's guard they would have been 
 rather more respected had they sung the Boer anthem. 
 Tommy admires stubbornness in an enemy, and has a 
 distaste for "rats," which will, I think, become so
 
 A SUJ^FJ^ISE ON SUJiPJ^ISE HILL 129 
 
 plentiful as to be almost a plague two months 
 hence. 
 
 Students of human nature had an excellent opportunity 
 in Ladysmith of studying the physiology of funk, the 
 lesson being presented in many and peculiar phases. 
 There were members of the volunteer corps — and the 
 volunteers won a name for daring in all that they have 
 been permitted to undertake — wiio had never accom- 
 panied their corps into action. They simply lost their 
 nerve, and were quite incapable of fighting. They 
 were pitied rather than despised. Their colonel took 
 them aside, and appealed to them to pull themselves 
 together and act like men, but not the example of their 
 comrades round about them, nor their own shame, nor 
 their desire to overcome their fears was of the least use. 
 They were for the time being incapable of fighting, and 
 pitiful as such an exhibition may be, none felt it so 
 much as the men themselves. There were others who 
 funked shell, and nothing else. They had the nerve 
 to do anything required of them with the rifle, but a 
 shell found the weak spot in their moral armament. 
 Neither ridicule nor argument could prevent them 
 ducking when a shell passed over, however high in air, 
 though with all the corps it was a question of honour 
 when on parade to pay no attention to a shell, however 
 close it fell. Early in the siege an old major, whose 
 fighting record is beyond question, was lecturing his 
 men on the folly of ducking to shell. " When you hear 
 it, men, it's actually past, so that ducking your heads 
 is quite useless." Just then came a hissing shell from 
 "Silent Sue" close over the major's head. He ducked. 
 The men laughed, and the major observed, "Ah, well, 
 I suppose it's just human nature." An enemy rather 
 more feared than shell was amongst us in typhoid fever. 
 The outbreak was due no doubt to the impossibility of 
 enforcing anything like sanitary observances upon the 
 hordes of Kaffirs and coolies camped about the hills. 
 Cases were pouring in daily, and no one was more 
 anxious for the appearance of the relief column than
 
 130 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the doctors, who were seriously alarmed for the health 
 of the town. 
 
 Having so brilliantly, and with trivial loss, taken the 
 gun on the formidable position at Lombard's Kop, our 
 men burned for further enterprises of the same dashing 
 character. As the Boers were certain to be on the alert 
 after their first humiliation, it was decided to let Saturday 
 and Sunday pass without any further effort, but on 
 Sunday night men were moving about with an air of 
 studied secrecy so plainly written on their faces that 
 even the novice in military movements knew some 
 further enterprise was afoot. Surprise Hill, due west of 
 Ladysmith, was appropriately the point aimed at. It had 
 been so named because there the second gun placed in 
 position by the Boers early in the siege opened fire 
 upon us one morning before even our outposts had an 
 idea that it was being placed in position. At ten o'clock 
 on Sunday night the first move was made, and as the 
 storming party was picked from the Rifle Brigade, 
 which held a high point on that side of the town known 
 as King's Post, the preliminaries were carried through 
 with even greater secrecy than usual, and the Boer 
 spies in the town had no chance of sending or signalling 
 a warning to their friends. 
 
 This time the attacking force consisted solely of 
 regulars, five companies of the Rifle Brigade — the big- 
 gest lot of men in the Natal column — being led out 
 by Thornhill and Ashby, of the Guides, who, both 
 being residents, know every foot of the country. The 
 same plan that proved so successful at Lombard's Kop 
 was again adopted, 200 men making the direct attack 
 while 150 were thrown out on either wing to check any 
 attempt at outflanking, and in this the retaliatory effort 
 of the enemy was exactly anticipated. Moving out slowly 
 and reconnoitring every few yards, it was two o'clock 
 in the morning before the battalion arrived at the foot 
 of the hill, and halted not more than a hundred yards 
 from the summit. Running obliquely up the hill was 
 a wash-out by storm waters, and this sheltered them
 
 A SURPRISE ON SURPRISE HILL 131 
 
 for another fifty yards at least, when Colonel Metcalfe, 
 who was in command, gave the word to move on still 
 stealthily, each man passing the order in a whisper to 
 his left-hand support. 
 
 Still not a challenge, and ever>'thing round about as 
 still as death. They were within ten yards of the crest, 
 when those directly in front of the redoubt were seen to 
 throw themselves flat on the ground. '1 hrough the faint 
 light they had caught sight of the 6 in. gun, drawn 
 out of its pit right forward to the brow of the hill, the 
 muzzle depressed and pointing straight down at them. 
 For a second or two the men in front crouched in 
 momentary expectation of being blown to eternity 
 almost from the gun's mouth. But there was no sound 
 of men about it, and the position flashed instantly across 
 the minds of the British infantry. The Boers had 
 brought their gun forward from the redoubt in expecta- 
 tion of just such a surprise movement as was then being 
 made, yet kept so poor a watch that we were upon 
 them before they knew it. Our men could no longer 
 control themselves. As a unit the assaulting column 
 sprang forward. A man started up out of the gloom 
 with a low exclamation of surprise, and the next instant 
 there was that dull lunge of the bayonet as the first 
 man on the crest drove it through the breast of the 
 Boer sentinel. " Oh, God ! " the poor wretch screamed 
 in Dutch as he fell writhing on the ground, clutching 
 with both hands at the weapon that had transfixed him. 
 Before the man who killed him could withdraw his 
 weapon a second Boer, standing further back, sprang 
 up and shot him, and Briton and Boer, the first two 
 victims of this dramatic night fight, lay side by side 
 dead. A sweeping cut from an officer's sword almost 
 decapitated the second burgher, and in an instant the 
 men of the Rifle Brigade leaped into the redoubt. 
 
 Some twenty men of the Staats Artillery, the squad 
 who worked the gun, were sleeping there and they had 
 no time to use either rifle or revolver — they woke only 
 to die. There was a confused shouting and screaming,
 
 132 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 a few appeals for that mercy which could not be given, 
 for unpoetical Tommy Atkins is a very demon of death 
 when with bayonet fixed he gets amongst the enemy at 
 night. He may himself be overwhelmed by numbers in 
 the next instant, for there is necessarily great uncer- 
 tainty as to what may follow, so there is no time for 
 making prisoners. The dismounted Boers behind the 
 gun fired two hurried volleys, which did little damage, 
 and then fled, the clatter of their veldt-schoen being 
 heard down the stony slope. Most of our men ran 
 forward one hundred and fifty yards and fired after the 
 retreating Boers, and when the section of Engineers 
 and Royal Artillery, who followed up the storming 
 party to destroy the gun, jumped into the redoubt they 
 actually stumbled over the dead and dying artillerymen, 
 nearly all of whom were lying on the gun-floor. Every- 
 thing was ready for action ; there even the gunners 
 had slept in their clothes ; but the national torpidity of 
 their sentinels had betrayed them. Their magazine was 
 open, and four of the large brass cases which hold the 
 charge for the howitzers lay in a leather case close to 
 the breech of the gun. Charges of gun-cotton were 
 quickly placed both in the gun and the magazine, but at 
 the first attempt only the magazine blew up, the fuse 
 laid to the gun having proved defective. On the explo- 
 sion there was a roar of cheering from our infantry, 
 echoed by a triumphant shout from the enemy, who 
 thought the magazine had accidentally blown up, with 
 our men all about it. 
 
 No less than twenty-five minutes of valuable time 
 were lost in preparing another fuse to the gun, and 
 this gave the enemy a chance to recover their senses for 
 their favourite style of fighting — rifle fire on retiring 
 troops. In a few minutes a large body were working 
 round the mountain on both sides, assuming that, on 
 the first explosion, our men would retreat. When the 
 gun blew up they had almost outflanked us, and, sudden 
 and successful as had been our assault, it looked as 
 though our retreat might be cut off at any moment,
 
 A SURPRISE ON SURPRISE HIIL 133 
 
 and a heavy toll taken for the sph'ntered gun and the 
 dead men we had left upon the summit of Surprise Hill. 
 
 " Straight through them with the bayonet," was 
 Colonel Metcalfe's order, and the men rushed back, with 
 a cross-fire already opening on them, though, in the 
 darkness, the Boers fired high, and most of their bullets 
 went harmlessly overhead. The fire became heavy, 
 and men were falling out, though as the bulk of fire 
 was still overhead, it is just possible that the enemy 
 fired into each other ns well as into our men. One of 
 the first who fell there was a sergeant of Rifles, upon 
 whose breast were four medal ribbons ; and what a 
 satire on the triumphs and trophies of war these scraps 
 of silk appeared when, a couple of hours later, the man 
 who had won and worn them with such pride was 
 brought in dead. Another man was killed by his own 
 weapon. Some of the Boers, in their eagerness, came 
 down the hill, and, as our line brought their bayonets to 
 the charge, this poor fellow stumbled over a rock and 
 fell upon his own steel. A comrade stopped to help 
 him and withdrew the bayonet, but he breathed brokenly 
 once or twice, and with these few respirations had gone. 
 Even then it seemed that we might get back with a 
 loss of not more than five men killed, but, in the con- 
 fusion which always attends a night attack, our men 
 and the enemy got mixed up on one flank, and some 
 murderous work at short range followed. 
 
 Before the attack, as I have already said, one hundred 
 and fifty men had been sent out on either flank to meet 
 the enemy should they rally upon our retreat, and attempt 
 to outflank. Both parties worked rather wide, so that 
 the two lots of Boers who first cut round the shoulder of 
 the hill passed between our wings and the mountain 
 without being seen. It was a third body of the enemy 
 hurrying up to reinforce that came directly upon our 
 right wing. Although the light was growing fast, they 
 were within thirty yards when they opened with a volley, 
 and so confident were our infantry that the clatter ahead 
 was that of their own men returning from the gun, that
 
 134 JiOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 they shouted to them, " Don't fire ; it's A Company." 
 They were soon undeceived. A second volley was 
 fired, and the Boers, shouting to each other to kill the 
 "verdomed rooinek," came surging on. That was their 
 mistake ; better had they stood off and kept silent, but, 
 confident in their superior numbers, they thought they 
 had the British at their mercy. 
 
 In those first two volleys several of our men fell, 
 including Lieutenant Everton mortally, and Captain 
 Pavcy seriously wounded ; but, before a third could be 
 fired, the British infantry were amongst them with the 
 bayonet, fighting in the old style, as under Wellington, 
 Raglan, and Lord Clyde. The whole situation changed 
 again like magic. Guided by the spurts of flame from 
 the Boer rifles, Captain Gough — whose conduct was 
 highly praised — shouted " Follow me, lads," and went 
 straight at them, shooting the first man he encountered 
 with his revolver. The Boers were once more surprised, 
 dazed, demoralized, and again the revolver, which might 
 have served them at close quarters, was never drawn. 
 On one side it was lunge and thrust, on the other 
 scream and scuttle, but they were so dazed by the 
 suddenness of the move that they showed anything but 
 their usual promptitude in getting away. Some of the 
 Dutch shrieked like women, and nearly fifty of them 
 were left lying amongst the rocks after that short, grim 
 fight. One officer of Rifles counted twenty-three dead 
 Boers in a donga, and all had fallen to the bayonet. 
 Having scattered them our men drew off without further 
 loss, and, for a time, knowing only our own casualties, 
 it was generally assumed that we had paid rather dearly 
 for our success. Eleven of the Rifle Brigade had been 
 killed and 43 wounded, while 6 of our men were taken 
 prisoners — 60 men of the 200 who an hour earlier went 
 up Surprise Hill out of action. The missing men were 
 captured while helping wounded comrades off the field 
 — a thing which, according to military usage, they had 
 no right to undertake, and the Boers were fully justified 
 in holding them prisoners.
 
 A SURFIilSE ON SURPRISE HILL 135 
 
 The Boers were determined that we should learn as 
 little as possible as to their actual loss, and sternly 
 ordered our ambulance wagons to halt until they had 
 first removed their own dead and wounded. They even 
 marked their determination in the matter by firing a few 
 shots. But when the bayonet is the weapon used there 
 are means of guessing at the enemy's loss. On the 
 inspection of our bayonets after the fight 96 were 
 found smeared with blood, and some of them may 
 have been used more than once. Those red blades were 
 a horrible proof of what the Boers had suffered. Later 
 on they admitted a loss of 28 killed and 23 wounded, 
 but in those little professional confidences which the 
 surgeons exchange in the field, their doctors told ours 
 that the loss was really heavier, and the call upon their 
 services more severe than on any other occasion since 
 the opening of the campaign. Little wonder, then, that 
 when Major Duff, from our camp, had occasion to meet 
 General Schalk Berger, a couple of hours later, to ask 
 why he had detained the first surgeons we sent on to 
 the field, he found the Boer commander dazed with the 
 magnitude of the loss, and much more curt in his 
 negotiations than usual. The whole thing had been 
 done so silently that the enemy were unable to realize 
 that so many of their men had fallen, accustomed as 
 they are to judging the fatalities solely by weight of 
 rifle fire. If anything could be humorous on so grim 
 and bloody an occasion it was the remark of Colonel 
 Erasmus, commander of the Staats Artillery, to one of 
 our surgeons. " Who is going to pay for these guns ? " 
 It was very brave, Erasmus thought, for our men to 
 have taken their guns, but what a pity to have destroyed 
 them, and he said it with the almost paternal concern of 
 the bombardier for his beloved guns. They took especi- 
 ally to heart the destruction of the long gun on 
 Lombard's Kop, their very best. It was such a beautiful 
 gun, Erasmus declared, and they had, in a spirit of 
 satire, named it " The Franchise," so that any Uitlander 
 who wanted the franchise could get it for nothing.
 
 136 I/O IV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 "And we got it for nothing," observed the doctor, 
 " which makes the allegory complete." 
 
 The astonishing point of all others is that after their 
 first experience the Boer should have been caught 
 napping. As a fighter he has his limitations, and one of 
 them is disinclination to, or complete unfitness for sentry- 
 go. On the other side, our supports had almost failed. 
 The British regular, unlike the Natal volunteer, has no 
 bump of locality, and but for the Boers blundering upon 
 our infantry as they did, we might have had on a lesser 
 scale a repetition of the disaster at Nicholson's Nek. 
 
 All the Mauser rifles brought away from Surprise Hill 
 that morning had their rangers marked in metres, and it 
 is thought that the Boers read them as yards — hence 
 their erratic shooting on occasions. All their lives they 
 have been accustomed to rifles sighted for yards, and 
 the Boer is not a man to readily accept innovations. 
 
 The Gordons were extremely an.xious to have their 
 turn at a night attack, and aspired to nothing less than 
 the taking of the big gun on Umbulwana mountain, but 
 Sir George White was disinclined to waste more life in 
 the temporary occupation of positions which could only 
 be held by the enemy a little longer.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BLACK MONDAY IN LADYSMITH 
 
 Hope deferred — The distant guns — Enteric fever — A gloomy 
 garrison — Bad news from the Tugela — The bombardment 
 increases — A shell amongst the Carbineers. 
 
 Still that hope deferred which maketh the heart sick, 
 and, still worse, is provocative of indigestion. It was 
 three mornings since we first heard the cannon of the 
 relief column — "the deep thunder peal on peal afar" — and 
 this morning (December 15) we heard the same distant 
 rumble, no nearer, no further off. At daylight it was 
 constant as the beat of a drum ; at noon we heard it in 
 fainter bursts. There was heavy fighting down there on 
 the Tugela river, and we were out of it. Interlarded 
 with the distant cannon came Rumour with tales more 
 or less roseate, taunting us with tidings of victory in 
 which we have no share. That first far-away roar, the 
 Kaffir runners said, was the heavy English guns shelling 
 the Boers out of their picked positions on the western 
 bank of the river. They stood miles off, said the black 
 scouts, and threw their great shells without the Boers 
 being able to reach them in reply. The need for relief 
 became more urgent daily. We had only five days' 
 supply of fresh beef, even on half-rations, 8000 lb. being 
 the ration daily, instead of 20,000 lb. in the earlier part 
 of the siege. The butchers were no longer allowed to 
 supply their customers with meat. Every one must 
 
 137
 
 138 now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 draw his ration. The herds of Angora goats that 
 whitened the hills before the Boers came had almost 
 disappeared, but fortunately the bread, cheese, bacon, 
 and pickles were still plentiful. Quaker oats was our 
 sheet-anchor. 
 
 The bombardment continued intermittently, though 
 at times severe. In the cool hours of the morning they 
 did their best or worst, and, taking it at its worst, one 
 might still hope to live to a ripe old age in Ladysmith, 
 though accidents were possible even in a Dutch bom- 
 bardment. The Boer artilleryman — that is, the son of 
 the soil, as apart from the Staats artilleryman, usually an 
 alien — has methods which our Queenscliff gunners would 
 consider singular. I watched them from King's Post on 
 Wednesday through a first-rate glass. The gunners 
 came up on horseback, went through their work, and 
 retired, perhaps a quarter of a mile to the rear, leaving 
 one man to fire the gun. He had a fast horse and a 
 long lanyard — about two hundred yards I should say, 
 for he went quite that distance back before the gun was 
 fired, then galloped off hurriedly to join the rest. They 
 stayed under shelter for a time, and if our guns did not 
 reply came slowly back again to the redoubt. Caution 
 ever marked the guarded way of the Dutch artillery, and 
 it was very hard on those of their gunners who had to 
 stay on the hill-tops, having no horses. Our naval men 
 had been kind to them latterly. When Bulwan opened 
 on the town the Powerfuls no longer fired at the Dutch 
 guns, but pitched their shells right over the mountains, 
 to where the burgher in his laager was masticating his 
 morning biltong. They always know when they have 
 reached the spot, for the Dutch guns at once ceased 
 firing, in the hope that ours may follow their example. 
 We had generally a couple more shells to spare for that 
 particular elevation. The slackness in the Boer fire was, 
 no doubt, due to the fact that most of their guns had 
 been hurried southward, to face a more aggressive enemy. 
 The conduct of the residents had become correspondingly 
 callous. No one paid any attention to the shells until
 
 BLACK MONDAY IN LADYSMITH 139 
 
 one pitched remarkably close to them, when they started 
 hurriedly for shelter. The consequence was often a 
 careful shutting of the stable door after the horse has 
 been stolen. 
 
 To be careful of oneself for days during a bombard- 
 ment is easy enough ; it is even easier when the siege 
 stretches into weeks, fo one has shocking samples of the 
 sort of thing he does nc>. vish to become ; but when the 
 weeks stretch into montha one goes quite away to the 
 other extreme, and, as I have said, nothing short of the 
 bursting of an adjacent shell, and the ominous fusillade 
 of its shrapnel upon the iron roofs, turns one's mind to 
 the first law of nature. It is the general experience. 
 Those who were a little bit afraid at first became quite 
 indifferent ; others, who were very much afraid began to 
 regard themselves as, upon the whole, rather brave. 
 Life would have been tolerable did its bare necessaries 
 not so egotistically pose as its luxuries. 
 
 The Natal Mercury told us that we of the three 
 beleaguered cities — Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafe- 
 king — were heroes. We were. Any man who could 
 face the flies of Ladysmith for a month, and its mos- 
 quitoes at night, was a hero. Our courage was being 
 tried, however, by something more distressing than Boer 
 shells, for the camp reeked of dysentery and enteric. No 
 fewer than fifty of the Light Horse were invalided, and, 
 in face of this new danger, faces wore a greater gravity 
 than the Dutch siege train had ever been able to stamp 
 upon them. There was a train-load out to Intombi every 
 morning, and the condition of those who had sought 
 refuge there was truly miserable — sickness, gloom, stag- 
 nation, and sometimes next door to starvation. Enteric 
 is just typhoid under another name — though Drs. Buntine 
 and Hornabrook say that they have adopted local usage, 
 for the mention of typhoid generally kills the patient 
 through fear, though most of them are confident of being 
 able to grapple with enteric. Other diseases, attracted 
 by congenial surroundings, had come and established 
 themselves, and the one thing from which we were
 
 I40 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 sinsjularly free was delirium tremens. The stagnation 
 was killing. One sometimes got a ride out in the cool 
 of the evening, though at midday even a single horseman 
 appearing on the table-land for a breath of fresh air drew 
 the fire of one or other of the Boer guns. It was a 
 distinction in a way to secure the undivided attention of 
 a 6 in. Krupp gun and ten artillerymen, but even with 
 an egotist it adds little to the pleasure of a ride. The 
 balloon had not been up for days, we had only one fill 
 of gas left, and reserved it for an emergency. A shell 
 fired by the relief column fell within four and a half 
 miles of one of our hill camps. So near and yet so far. 
 
 Saturday, December i6, was the anniversary of the 
 declaration of Transvaal independence — the last pro- 
 bably they shall celebrate as a self-governing people. 
 They celebrated it by opening on us with twenty-one 
 guns, thus repaying in kind our Prince of Wales's birthday 
 salute. Their salvoes were more deadly than usual, two 
 men being killed, and another severely wounded. A 
 gunner of the R.A. was hit fairly in the middle of the 
 back with a large shell, and fearfully mutilated. Major 
 Valentine, a young officer who had won his brevet 
 rank rapidly owing to the many fatalities amongst the 
 officers in his brigade, was about to saddle his horse, 
 when a shell came through the stable and cut off the 
 animal's head as cleanly as though it had been done with 
 a butcher's cleaver. Every day less attention is paid to 
 fatalities from shell — every one being so sick of the 
 situation that there was room for no other sentiment 
 than selfishness. Two months ago a few rifle-shots 
 would have sent every correspondent to his saddle in 
 anticipation of a fight ; now we paid scarcely any atten- 
 tion to it. Men engaged in a game of whist were rarely 
 so distracted either by bomb or Mauser that they failed 
 to return their partner's lead or overlooked his demand 
 for trumps. Some one would languidly remark, *' Rifle 
 fire at Caesar's Camp," and the game continued. 
 
 Declaration Day of the Dutch closed in eclipse liter- 
 ally, for that night there was a total eclipse of the moon,
 
 BLACK MONDAY IN LADYSMITII 141 
 
 which we regarded as emblematical of the eclipse of 
 Boer independence. Just then they had less reason for 
 thinking so. They knew what we learned for the first 
 time on Sunday, December 17, that Sir Redvers Buller 
 had had a reverse on the Tugela — " failed to make good 
 his footing," as the official account curtly and enigmatic- 
 ally put it. Correspondents, who had been wagering as 
 to whether Buller's advance guard would be sighted at 
 noon or not until sundown, were invited to the intelli- 
 gence office to hear this chilling news first, and it struck 
 them like a bombshell. Later the town was placarded 
 with the dispiriting announcement, to anticipate the 
 more sensational accounts of the fight which were sure 
 to reach us from the Boers vid Intombi Camp. Public 
 feeling, like a barometer in hurricane weather, had been 
 always moving for the last week. With the far sound 
 of the cannon came hope deepening to expectation as 
 the sounds of the battle died away. Then came doubt, 
 and with this last announcement of failure utter despond- 
 ency, which found no reflection, however, in the helio- 
 graph press messages sent away that day. By request, 
 correspondents ceased to dwell upon the fever and sick- 
 ness with which the town reeked, though that morning we 
 knew that in the 19th Hussars alone there were ninety- 
 six men down with enteric, and the fever season was 
 not due until the middle of January, and on through 
 February, when it is usually at its worst. What wonder, 
 then, that on this Sunday a great despondency fell upon 
 the town, affecting different men in different ways. 
 Then we realized that strategy rather than audacity had 
 brought the Boer out of his own level country, where the 
 superior British artillery and our long-range volley firing 
 would have smothered him. His position on the Tugela 
 was almost unassailable. His front was covered by the 
 river, beyond which for miles lay an open valley, across 
 which the British must come without a particle of cover. 
 On the enemy's side of the river the hills rose abruptly 
 from the water, the reverse slope so sharp that shrapnel, 
 to be effective, had to burst with the nicest accuracy,
 
 142 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 otherwise it was lost in the valley beyond. One such 
 hill would have gained tactical prominence were it the 
 only one in a province, but when you reflect that such 
 ridges, each of them a natural fortress, were packed over 
 the whole eighteen miles between Colenso and Lady- 
 smith, just as though some Titanic ploughman in ages 
 long gone by had turned up the sods, you may realize 
 the tremendous difficulties an invading force had to 
 encounter, even where the number and excellence of 
 British troops would, under ordinary circumstances, have 
 given them the right of way. 
 
 Monday, December i8, — only a week till Christmas 
 Day, and no expectation of getting out. Fired with 
 their success on the Tugela, the Boers had been at us 
 since dawn with a cannonade more murderous than any- 
 thing previously experienced, though they had not, I 
 should say, more than half-a-dozen guns in position 
 firing from west, east, and south. But they had tested 
 every range exactly. They knew their own gun errors, 
 and their first shot from Bulwan on Monday morning 
 was one of the most disastrous we had in camp. The 
 Carbineers had just returned from outpost duty, and 
 off-saddled. A party of them were on stables when the 
 first shell from Bulwan came at them with its threaten- 
 ing scream. It struck a horse fairly on the quarter, 
 otherwise it might have been less disastrous. The shock 
 was sufficient to burst the shell — one of those thin skins 
 of steel, loaded with large-sized bullets — and it flew, 
 spreading forward. The rising smoke revealed a dozen 
 men and horses on the ground, some writhing in agony, 
 some still in death, and from the poisonous shell fumes 
 rose the awful groans of men shockingly mutilated. 
 Troopers Buxton and Miller, of Maritzburg, lay dead. 
 Close to them was Craig Smith, the dashing full-back 
 footballer, of Dundee, his body partly across that of his 
 youthful townsman, Elliott — a cadet who at the age of 
 sixteen had died a soldier's death. Poor little chap ! his 
 comrades had tried often to shield him, keeping him in 
 camp upon one pretext or another when they went to
 
 BLACK MONDAY IN LADYSMITH 143 
 
 fight, though all their generous deceit had proved vain. 
 Nicholson, another private.lay close by.his right leg hang- 
 ing by a tendon, a piece of the thigh-bone blown yards 
 away. Five other men were badly wounded. A three- 
 legged horse was plunging amongst the tents. Eleven 
 others, dead and mutilated, made the place a horrid 
 shambles. This was the shocking sight that met us in 
 the Carbineer lines, a camp that had been fully exposed, 
 and every rood of which had been seamed with shell, 
 yet with slight loss to the corps until this devastating 
 bomb came amongst them. The escapes were, as usual, 
 wonderful. Craig, a trooper who affected the baggy 
 riding-cords of the British officer, had three bullet-holes 
 in them, yet was not scratched ; another had a box on 
 which he sat blown from beneath him. The base of the 
 shell — the only heavy bit of metal in it — ricochetted 
 across the river three hundred yards away, and killed a 
 sapper who, having just come off duty, was lying down 
 to rest. Only four rounds were fired by their big gun 
 that morning, and one of them, pitching near the river, 
 killed four of a fatigue-party of Kaffirs and their white 
 overseer, while, at the other end of the town, a Kaffir 
 woman was blown to pieces. The Blauwbank gun to 
 southward also pitched a shell amongst the Manchesters, 
 killing one man and badly wounding another — a bad 
 butcher's bill for half-an-hour's shelling. The South 
 African is like the Australian in many things. I heard 
 one of them say, " There's poor Auld Robin Gray killed." 
 Looking in that direction I saw a grey horse, a crack 
 hurdle-racer, well known on South African courses. 
 Even in that viclee of dead and dying men there was a 
 regret to spare for a racehorse. 
 
 It needed only sucli a disaster as this of the Car- 
 bineers to deepen for all in Ladysmith the natural 
 gloom of the situation. For the rest of the day men 
 moved about silently and alone, saying little, thinking 
 much. It was the day of light living and deep thinking, 
 for everything in the shape of luxuries had long since 
 disappeared, even in the best-kept houses, and the town
 
 144 IfOJV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 was on army half-rations, and having, for the time being, 
 something the worst of the comparison with Tommy 
 Atkins. In the fits of moody abstraction that came 
 upon us, memory, Hke a magician, opened up her 
 treasure-box to show us all the joys of life we had so 
 lightly valued — the treasures made sacred by time and 
 distance and contrast with the harshness of our environ- 
 ment. It would be harder still a week hence — on Christ- 
 mas morning. Even those things that were but the 
 commonplace of life came to us, took possession of us, 
 stayed with us. At the close of one of the burning days, 
 a Melbourne doctor dropped in for a chat, and after we 
 had been silent for a while asked, " How would you like 
 to be taking a header off the springboard at St. Kilda 
 now .? " " Or riding out to Keilor on the bicycle," I 
 suggested, " for a quiet tea at Hassed's in the evening? " 
 " Or sitting in the Melbourne pavilion, watching Bruce 
 and Trumble bat } " And so we went on, putting our- 
 selves upon the rack for pleasant torture.
 
 [ 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 WAR WITHOUT GLAMOUR 
 
 The Ladysmith oven— Dodjjing the shells— Burials after dark 
 — Flies and mosquitoes — Our estimate of the Boer— Sickness and 
 wounds— A threat of assault. 
 
 Taking it in all and all, Monday, December i8, 
 was a day that the besieged of Ladysmith will not 
 soon forget. It was 104° in the shade, a temper- 
 ature which in South Africa makes our 110° seem a 
 pleasant summer day by comparison. The iron roofs 
 become an oven, and on the slightest exertion in the 
 clammy dead air tiie perspiration streams from one. It 
 was quite trying enough without the 3CXD rounds of shell 
 that the Boers flung into us. They fired perhaps twenty 
 shells at a time, then rested from their labours, and 
 began again, a plan always likely to be destructive, for 
 people, finding a lull in the firing, venture out in the 
 open, and are caught. The fire appeared to be directed 
 largely on Sir George White's quarters and the ordnance 
 stores at the foot of the western ridge, once well pro- 
 tected from their gun on Pepworth's, but now fully 
 exposed to the fire from Bui wan Range. A shell 
 passed through the roof of Colonel Ward's quarters, 
 bursting in a bedroom in which Colonel Ian Hamilton 
 and Major Ludlow were lying down. A large splinter 
 of shell struck the bed on which the major was sleeping 
 without injuring him. A much narrower escape was 
 
 145 K
 
 146 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 that of a civilian named Marchant. He was sleeping in 
 his room when a shell came through the window, passed 
 between his feet, carried out the end of the bed, and 
 burst beneath the floor. There was not a foot of that 
 room which was not shot-torn ; the floor was mostly 
 sticking to the ceiling, yet its occupant came out unhurt 
 — came out at the window, bringing the sash with him, 
 as the door was blocked with d/bris. A colour-sergeant 
 of the Leicesters had just finished with a squad of men, 
 and sat down in the shade of a rock, Avhen a shell 
 struck the rock on the opposite side, the shock throwing 
 him head-over-heels. The sergeant got up, dusting his 
 tunic, and making observations picked up in the ranks 
 long ago, but which had fallen into disuse since he got 
 his stripes. 
 
 The melancholy sequel to this day of shell was the 
 burial of the dead. There was little delay, for the 
 graves were always ready, seven and eight at a time 
 waiting for the sleepers, and the white crosses grew 
 thicker every day in "the haven under the hill," where 
 so many of the Ladysmith garrison are waiting for the 
 reveille. The honours of war are sparse. No gun- 
 carriage, no coffin, no band playing the " Dead March," 
 and no last volley over the soldier's grave. We waited 
 until the darkness to bury our dead, and then the men, 
 who at sunrise were flushed with all the aspirations of 
 war and of life, were taken away on a field-stretcher, 
 wrapped in the brown blanket which is at once a coffin 
 and a shroud, the one scrap of military circumstance 
 being the little knot of marching men with reversed 
 arms. So the burying parties came to the cemetery 
 with the stealth of body-snatchers. There was a service, 
 doubly impressive as read by the faint gleam of the 
 dark lantern, and with the dimly-seen men in khaki 
 gathered about the grave, and as they made way for 
 another funeral. It was the burial of Sir John Moore on 
 the ramparts of Corunna over and over again. One 
 burial party was coming down from the hill just before 
 dusk when a shell came straight at them. For a
 
 IVAJi WITHOUT GLAMOUR 147 
 
 second it seemed that they would be slaughtered, but 
 they dropped the body, fell flat upon their faces, and 
 the shell, just clearing them, swept its desolating course 
 beyond. They rose, picked up their dead comrade, and, 
 swearing with that fervency which only the soldier knows 
 when deeply moved, went on their sad errand. You 
 saw all this, and came home worn down in body and 
 spirits by the strain and the heat, too tired to talk, too 
 hot to sleep, too apathetic to eat, and with nothing to 
 drink. And back to you like a mockery, like the 
 whisper of doom, came that Shakespearian expression 
 of despair, "To-morrow — and to-morrow — and to- 
 morrow." Lastly, the mosquitoes took you to their 
 keeping until daylight, when the flies carried on the 
 work, and a sick and sleepless man cursed from the 
 very depth of his soul all who would appeal from God's 
 high gift of reason and justice to Satan's remedy of the 
 sword. And came to one then, as a lightning flash, the 
 thought that even in our greatest, most inspiring victories, 
 when the bubble of enthusiasm, for the brief moment 
 ere it burst, was glorious in the sunshine, the other side 
 were suffering and dying. When we have inoculated 
 some great fighting general with the virus to kill 
 personal ambition, we shall have created the humani- 
 tarian of the age — a most eloquent preacher against the 
 multitudinous horrors of war. 
 
 Hot as was their fire on Monday, we never replied to it. 
 Two of our guns had been moved in anticipation of the 
 relief column coming in from the south-westaboutSunday, 
 but in this we had been premature, so had to move back 
 again. The result was that all our guns were down, and 
 we had to suffer their three hundred rounds without 
 effective protest. For the first time, too, one of our 
 howitzers was hit. A Boer shell struck it obliquely on 
 the muzzle, fortunately without quite destroying it, and 
 during the night the armourers were hard at work 
 getting it into fighting trim again. The Boer gunnery 
 was very effective that day. Thirty rounds were fired 
 at one of the howitzers, and there was not a bad shot
 
 148 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 amongst them. Finding the most dreaded of the naval 
 guns silent, they sought to smother it up with weight of 
 iron, and quite one hundred rounds must have been fired 
 at it — one of the Boer 6-inchers being busy all day, 
 and the scream of its shell splinters flying off the rocky 
 hill had become a characteristic note in the siege of 
 Ladysmith. The day's experience sufficed to show how 
 badly we should have fared without the help of the 
 naval artillery from the Pozverful. To use a current 
 siege phrase, we should have been " blocked out." 
 
 For the balance of the week preceding Christmas the 
 firing, both near and far away, was generally heavy ; 
 but still the distant conflict came no closer, though kind 
 rumour was again busy granting us victories. The best 
 that our Intelligence Department could give us was that 
 the news was a little more cheering — a very, little, I 
 should say, or it would surely have been made public, 
 for the benefit of a town that was dying of despair and 
 stagnation, and for which good news would have been 
 the best tonic. Then it was rumoured that Buller had 
 carried the Tugela heights by a night attack, and 
 bayoneted the Boers in their own trenches, so that, this 
 position won, succour was measurably closer. And, oh ! 
 the pressing need for it. On every side death, sickness, 
 and despondency. It was not enough that Nature 
 seemed to have designed this Natal to be one great 
 battle-ground for the game of manslaughter, but she 
 must needs throw pestilence into the scale against us. 
 And, as though both were insufficient, we must give our- 
 selves opportunities for dramatic dying, as we had done 
 more than once in the sorties about Ladysmith, as we 
 did in the fatal fight of Lombard's Kop early in the 
 siege, as our artillery are said to have done in this blind 
 advance at the Tugela, as we went on doing, in spite of 
 warning or experience, until we learned the bitter 
 lesson that in nothing that he did of his own choice 
 was the Dutchman to be undervalued. It was exasper- 
 ating to find our men persistently making targets of 
 themselves. They were slowly grasping the fact that
 
 jrA/^ WITHOUT GLAMOUR 149 
 
 modern warfare with a civilized nation is something 
 utterly different from the tribal fights of India and the 
 fanatical charges of North African warriors, to which we 
 have been so long accustomed. 
 
 In Natal war was divested of absolutely everything 
 that once lent it meretricious glamour — no bright 
 uniforms, no inspiring bands playing men into battle, 
 no flags, no glitter or smoke or circumstance of any 
 kind, but just plain primeval killing, without redemption, 
 and with every advantage taken that international law 
 allows. The loss in artistic effect was prodigious. The 
 war artist had to presuppose, the war correspondent 
 to imagine, much. But tradition was still strong in 
 Tommy Atkins, and in most of the younger men who 
 commanded him. He wanted to go out and wipe this 
 half-civilian horde from the face of the earth in the fine 
 old way ; and thus far the wiping had been effectually 
 done only at night, and even then it is impossible on a 
 large scale. For it is a desperate resolve at best to turn 
 a lot of men loose in the darkness, with the difficulty of 
 keeping touch of each other, or being kept in hand at 
 all, and to find perhaps when the affair is over that the 
 bloodiest fighting has been between men of the same 
 side. Were it not so, our best plan for the balance of 
 the Natal campaign would have been to sleep all day 
 and fight all night. The only bit of colour in the 
 uniforms of the Natal Field Force thus far had been 
 the dark kilts of the Gordon Highlanders. Even that 
 was now abandoned as undesirably conspicuous, and, 
 pending the receipt of khaki kilts, with perhaps just a 
 glimmer of the Gordon tartan, the men wore khaki 
 aprons. 
 
 That you may have some notion of the awfulness 
 of life in Ladysmith at that season of peace on earth 
 and goodwill towards men, let me give you one day of 
 the incidents that converted this town by the Klip 
 river from a jewel set in the midst of the veldt into 
 a den of horrors. On Friday morning the train to 
 Intombi Spruit (invalid camp) took away fifty men
 
 I50 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 stricken with dysentery or enteric, and brought back 
 nine dead. That was about the average in illness, if 
 not in deaths. That morning, before breakfast, the 
 remnants of the Gloucester regiment had joined the 
 Devons on the exposed north-eastern ridge of the 
 defence. The Boer gunners saw a group of them fully 
 exposed, and planted their big canister shell with 
 murderous accuracy. It went through them as a 
 reaping-machine through ripe wheat, and in the swathe 
 of mortality upon the ground were six men quite dead, 
 five others so fearfully hurt that their wounds could 
 not be looked upon as otherwise than mortal, and five 
 more less severely wounded. It was a horrible holo- 
 caust for the one bomb. At another point a number of 
 officers of the 5th Lancers were talking together, when 
 a shell fell almost on them. They were all hit, Colonel 
 Fawcett having one of his fingers shot off, and two 
 shrapnel bullets through his legs. Major King was 
 also severely hit, and the others more lightly. Latterly, 
 it was noticed that their shrapnel had been bursting 
 better than formerly, though still too high to be very 
 effective. This is one respect in which we quite outshine 
 the Boer, the perfect timing of our shrapnel, which 
 invariably bursts twenty feet or so above the point aimed 
 at. A curious example of the effects of shell fire was 
 seen in the artillery camp a few days ago. A number 
 of mules were feeding near a gun, when a Dutch shell 
 cut the heads off five of them, without greatly damaging 
 the rest of the carcase. That was sheer waste. When 
 cattle were thus ruthlessly cut down we had a reasonable 
 chance of fresh meat next day to relieve the monotony 
 of canned meats, but mule — it came not yet, though 
 running a neck-and-neck race with the relief column. 
 Even then our transport cattle — the gaunt, black, high- 
 shouldered, light-flanked South African bullocks — were 
 being slaughtered. The supervision of food supplies 
 became every day more rigid. People who had treasured 
 secret milk supplies, and passed on bottles of it to their 
 neighbours, were ordered to bring their cattle to the
 
 JfA/? WITHOUT GLAMOUR 151 
 
 show-p^rounds for milkinp. so that all mipht share 
 equally in the luxury, or that, at any rate, those sick of 
 enteric should have first call upon the supply available. 
 
 For the few days preceding Christma-s our guns had 
 been so silent that the Boers, presuming our ammunition 
 exhausted, showed themselves for the first time in the 
 open. First their gunners came boldly outside the 
 redoubt to watch the result of their shots; next, a little 
 knot of riflemen clustered just below the gun, and, with 
 continued immunity, others joined them, until there 
 were quite fifty of them assembled half-way down the 
 slope of Bulwan. When a well-placed shell carried 
 away part of the tower of the Town-hall, which had so 
 long been a prominent target for their guns, the Dutch 
 on the mountain side swung their hats, and that was 
 the psychological moment for the men at our 47 in. 
 guns. The Hoers saw the smoke, and scrambled wildly 
 for cover, but our guns have a much greater muzzle 
 velocity than theirs, and the shell burst right amongst 
 them, causing havoc, as one might easily see. They 
 brought six wounded iren into hospital at Intombi 
 Camp, and stated that five others had been killed. 
 They were very fierce with their return fire for some 
 time afterwards, and a bit nettled, no doubt, that, with 
 ammunition still to spare, we should have ignored their 
 fire for days. It was no fault of the military authorities, 
 though, that we were comjiellcd to economize ammuni- 
 tion. Two 6 in. guns, with a thousand rounds of shell for 
 each, and a thousand extra for each of the 47 guns, were 
 on the trucks at Durban, but the railway authorities 
 failed to get them away, though they were ready two 
 days before the line closed. With that extra armament 
 Ladysmith might still have been besieged, but its 
 bombardment would have been rendered much more 
 difficult. On the evening of December 22, the Boers 
 made their first attempt to approach our guns — a half- 
 hearted advance under cover of darkness against one 
 of the 47 redoubts, which a few volleys checked. As 
 they swung away they menaced other points in the ring
 
 152 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of defence, but never for a moment probably contem- 
 plated carrying the assault home. It is not their game, 
 though the fact that they had already held so much of 
 this colony of Natal for two months against an English 
 force, which at one time would have been thought sufficient 
 to carry the campaign to its climax, disposes for all 
 time, I hope, of the foolish impression that the Dutch 
 are not fighting men. Though the Boers were slow to 
 come on, our sentries rarely relaxed their vigilance. 
 Tommy's shot, too, came so promptly on the heels of 
 his challenge that the usual formula when one was 
 challenged at night was to shout " Friend ! " with un- 
 mistakable earnestness, and get down flat on your face, 
 to be ready for every emergency.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN LAIjVSMITH 
 
 "A MciT>' Christmas"— The waits — A Christmas text — A I^oer 
 joke — Dead on the veldt — Hospital scenes — New Year g^rectings — 
 Remarkable wounds— Commandeering supplies. 
 
 Christmas Day I And what a satire the season's 
 compliments sounded. Tcace on earth, f:^oodwill towards 
 men I Even as the thought occurred to one, overhead 
 with a scream went the 6 in. shells from Bulwan, for 
 they were earlier at work than usual, "A Merry Christ- 
 mas, old man ; where did that last one drop } " So we 
 mixed up the season's greetings with inquiries as to 
 shell. Had it been only the shells we should have 
 spent the day merrily enough, but the death's-head at 
 evcr\^ feast was the knowledge of the awful amount of 
 sickness that was cutting some of the corps down to 
 mere skeletons. The squadrons of the Light Horse 
 were usually composed of 75 men each. The largest 
 they could then parade was only 40 strong, and at 
 Saturday's parade one of the squadrons mustered 12 
 men — the rest were in hospital. Yet on Christmas Eve 
 we had the waits, who borrowed a harmonium from 
 the Dutch church, and made all Englishmen miserable 
 with the recollections of Christmas Eve at home, so 
 utterly different from this one. The Natal Mounted Rifles 
 made us laugh when we felt least inclined for laughing, 
 with their amusing burlesque of a cavalry band, cvcry- 
 
 153
 
 154 J^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 thing improvised. The drums swung across the withers 
 of the gaudiest horse in camp were a pair of empty- 
 carbolic oil drums. The cymbals were the ends of a 
 kerosene tin, the triangles the work of the local black- 
 smith, and the only instruments that by any stretch of 
 imagination could be called musical were the tin whistles. 
 The uniform of the band was weird, mostly gauze and 
 tinsel, and from an Oriental or a Kaffir point of view 
 the drum-major was a magnificent spectacle, his baton 
 surmounted by a boy's tin top. The amazing thing was 
 the really good music that with constant rehearsal the 
 N.M.R. had got from this queer jumble of makeshift 
 instruments. At a little distance one mistook it for a 
 real drum-and-fife band. The Boers no doubt still found 
 promise of victory or consolation in defeat from the 
 Scriptural texts, in the choice of which they are adept ; 
 but looking at the psalm for this Christmas Eve, 
 . Sunday, December 24, and remembering the composite 
 character of the Dutch army, there appeared to be 
 something singularly appropriate to our situation in 
 Ladysmith — 
 
 "All nations compassed me round about, but in the 
 Name of the Lord will I destroy them. 
 
 " They kept me in on every side, they kept me in, 
 I say, on every side ; but in the Name of the Lord will I 
 destroy them." 
 
 The difficulties in celebrating Christmas are best 
 indicated by a few quotations from the prices at the 
 Christmas market : Ducks, a guinea a pair ; fowls, a 
 guinea; eggs, 12s. 6d. a dozen ; 28 potatoes for 30i". ; a 
 water-melon, 6s. 6d. ; Australian butter, 6s. 6d. per lb. ; 
 apples, (^s. 3^. a packet; cigarettes, 4J. a packet; sar- 
 dines, 2s. gd. per box ; tomatoes, ^s. 6d. per plate ; brandy, 
 £y per bottle ; whisky, £^ per bottle ; Cape port, £1 
 per bottle. The youngsters were not forgotten, Major 
 " Karri " Davies, of Johannesburg, and Colonel Dartnell 
 issuing invitations to a Christmas tree, or, rather, four of 
 them, labelled respectively Great Britain, South Africa, 
 Australia, and Canada, and each represented by a typical
 
 CHRISTMAS IN LADYSMITH 155 
 
 tree — Australia by a gum, Canada by a fir, and South 
 Africa by a Kaffir thorn. A big trooper of the Lifjht 
 Horse was splendidly got upas Santa Claus, and the 
 wonder was where all the children came from. For 
 months we had lost sight of them ; now every burrow 
 of the river-bank poured them forth, starched and radiant 
 as though such a thing as a siege had never been. 
 
 The mention of Colonel Dirlnell reminds mc that wc 
 had in the chief of the Natal Police a fine officer, 
 whose services were not used to the extent that they 
 might have been. He was with Lord Wolsclcy in the 
 27th during the Crimean War, and has a fine fighting 
 record. On that famous retreat from Dundee his military 
 knowledge, coupled with his knowledge of Natal, proved 
 invaluable, and when most of the officers of the column 
 — with the exception, perhaps, of Major Murray — had, 
 in the expressive lan^^uage of the men of Natal, " gone 
 in," Colonel Dartnell, with the assistance of the Guides, 
 brought the column through by a circuitous route, and, 
 helped by opportune fogs and rain, completely baffled 
 the Free State Boers, who, the day before Elands Laagte, 
 told the prisoners they had taken that there would be a 
 big fight next day, and that the Dundee column must 
 be captured or utterly destroyed. 
 
 As I have said, the Boers bombarded us before break- 
 fast and again in the cool of the evening, but, though 
 one of the Natal Police had a sensational escape, there 
 was no one killed on Christmas Day. This man was 
 shaving, when a ninety-pounder passed between the 
 mirror <ind his face. The shock of the passing shot left 
 him grovelling on his face on the ground — as I have 
 seen a beaten pugilist after the knock-out — and for an 
 hour the poor chap could only sit with his head in his 
 hands, and, in reply to questions, murmur, " Not hurt ; 
 not hurt." On the morning of Boxing Day we again 
 heard the distant cannon on the Tugela, and the only 
 fear amongst the troops of Ladysmith now was that the 
 great battle for which we had so long waited might be 
 fought down there, and we should have no share, save
 
 156 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 listening to its distant echo. The hope was that the 
 Boers might be rolled back upon us beaten, and that our 
 cavalry, for what they were worth, might get amongst 
 them. It was for that they had been pinching and 
 saving in the horse lines, killing every useless animal 
 with a merciless severity, so that the sparse forage 
 could be used to the best advantage. 
 
 Although humour is not the strong point of the Boer, 
 he had his grim joke at our expense during Christmas 
 week. A common shell was dug out, upon which a 
 Dutch artilleryman, with some knowledge of English, 
 and the social observances of the time, had cut the 
 message, "Compliments of the season." A wooden 
 plug had been substituted for the fuse, and the shell was 
 stuffed with plum-pudding. It was a characteristic 
 Dutch pleasantry, for the practical joke is the Boer's 
 ideal in fun. On Christmas Eve a dare-devil vedette 
 crept down in the dark quite close to the Manchesters' 
 ridge, emptied his clip of bullets into them, and called 
 out, " A Merry Christmas, rooineks." Our men tried to 
 cut him off, but he was too clever. Our acknowledg- 
 ment of the plum-pudding courtesy was barbarous in 
 the extreme. The vedettes had brought in word that 
 every evening, at dark, a number of Boers were accus- 
 tomed to come round to the end of the Bulwan, and 
 camp for the night in the dense grove of Kaffir thorn at 
 its foot, directly under their own guns. The object was 
 the double one of getting better shelter from the frequent 
 thunderstorms, and massing men in a convenient place 
 to resist a possible night attack on their guns. They 
 left early each morning, before firing commenced, but 
 Captain Lambton, of the Powerful, asked permission to 
 give them a few shells on the morning of the 28th, and 
 as soon as there was enough light to lay a gun on the 
 thorn plot the Navals opened with a swift and sudden 
 storm of metal. There had been heavy rain during the 
 night, the air was clear, and the moon still luminous, 
 when the crash of our guns brought the people of Lady- 
 smith tumbling out of bed in the fond hope that the
 
 CIIKISTMAS JX LADY SMI HI 157 
 
 relief column, so often in their minds, was at Icnj^'th 
 within their field of vision, for the echo of the few guns 
 rolling, ringing, crashing down the valley made the din 
 of a general engagement. Those at Intombi Spruit, 
 who were close en»Ki.;h to see the result of the fire, say- 
 that it must have b( en disastrous. They saw one man 
 — the first riser in the Boer camp — walk out into the 
 open, and stretch his arms. He hoard our shot, and 
 turned to look at the redoubt above him, thr-n realized 
 that it was coming his way, and tried to dart for shelter, 
 lie was too late, and when they saw him last, as the 
 shell burst, he was whirling through the air. Four shots 
 were fired in about twenty seconds, a proof of what the 
 Pou'trful guns could do with ammunition plentiful, and 
 then it was all over, and a crowd of Hoers were hurriedly 
 siiddiing up and flying ruund the shoulder of the moun- 
 tain. After all it only squared a bloody debt standing over 
 from the day before. The Liverpools had had so little 
 respite in their exposed position that a few days earlier 
 the Devons took their trenches on Helpmakaar ridge 
 nearest to the Bulwan guns. The officers of the regiment 
 were sitting in their traverse on Wednesday morning, 
 when a Dutch shell just cleared the edge, killed Captain 
 Dalziel, who was seated at a camp table writing a letter 
 home, and wounded nine other ofiicers, two of them 
 severely. Poor Dalzicl's body was a shocking si)ectacle, 
 for the shell took his head clean off, and his brains were 
 literally blown in the faces of his comrades. All through 
 Wednesday night there was the crackle of rifle fire, very 
 heavy at one time upon the Devons' post, though what 
 they could see to fire at just then was a mystery, for the 
 rain was falling in tropical flakes, and six feet away it was 
 impossible to distinguish any one in the dense blackness. 
 These wet nights in the trenches were very trying to both 
 sides, trying also to the poor Kaffirs and coolies, who went 
 out in hundreds to cut grass under cover of the darkness, 
 and so eke out our short supply of forage. Though every 
 scrap of grass was eaten away round about the town, 
 there was a splendid crop, that had been growing un-
 
 158 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 touched for months, in the belt of debatable ground 
 between the Boer outposts and our own. A few nights 
 before, Lord Cardigan, going out with the grass-cutters, 
 lost his way in the darkness, and at dawn found himself 
 much nearer to the Boer lines than our own. He would 
 probably have been shot in trying to get back, and 
 wisely determined to lie by in a donga all day, and 
 reach his own lines on the following night. His friends, 
 who assumed that he had been captured by the enemy, 
 were immensely pleased to see him back again. 
 
 To those who had their baptism of fire in Lad5''smith 
 for sixty days, no horrors that war can offer will now 
 appal, inventive and original as war is in designing the 
 gruesome. Death from shell is not death alone, but 
 butchery; while most of the dead I saw at Tinta Inyoni 
 and the fight at Lombard's Kop were just sleeping with 
 their faces almost always to the veldt. And if the faces 
 be hidden one is soon accustomed to the brown figures 
 lying so limply and so flat amongst the grass, that but 
 for the gleam of a rifle-barrel or a bayonet or the glitter 
 of the chain epaulettes on the shoulders of a Lancer, one 
 might suppose it a bundle of clothes thrown down care- 
 lessly. But there is often one ghastly distinction between 
 those who die in bed and die in battle, especially where 
 the circumstances do not permit of an early burial. 
 There is no tender hand to close the eyelids or bind 
 with the face-cloths, so that the dead have that blessed 
 aspect of serene sleep. With these poor neglected dead 
 of the battle-field the chin has fallen as the facial muscles 
 relaxed in death, and the mouth and eyes are generally 
 wide open. The vignettes of the dead which photograph 
 themselves most firmly upon the mind are those in which 
 the pose suggests some action of the living. These will 
 stay with us as long, I think, as life and memory last — 
 such a pitiful pathos is blended somehow with their 
 dead helplessness. Twice we found dead Boers sitting 
 in their little hill redoubts, and coming to them from 
 behind, the only conclusion was that they were still alive 
 and waiting for the enemy. I saw the second one on a
 
 CliKISlWfAS IN LADYSMITH 159 
 
 k(»j)jc of Tinta Inyoni. He was silting with his back 
 supported by a rock, and in the aperture of the httle 
 breastwork in front of liim rested the muzzle of his rifle; 
 on a flat rock handy to his ri^ht hand were the rows of 
 Mauser bullets in clips of five as they are pushed into 
 the magazine. From the rear was no su^j^estion of 
 death, save the black stain of blood upon his left hand ; 
 but from the front the same starin^' eyes and ojx-n 
 mouth that haunt one. and kill every feeling of exulta- 
 tion in the downfall of an enemy. The views of battle 
 arc necessarily distant, but these arc impressions that 
 fix themselves by repetition. You rarely see men fall, 
 that is. infantry. They go down quickly with the sud- 
 denness i)f the shock, and the first sight you have of 
 them is the man left lying upon the grass as the fighting 
 line moves on. Then there is nothing more character- 
 istic in action than the swing of the kilt, with its pendu- 
 lum-like accuracy, as the Highlanders go forward to the 
 assault, never hurrying, never slowing clown, but always 
 with that regular, irresistible, unswerving stride. It is 
 an illusion of the bright sunlight, something corre- 
 sponding to our mid-Australian mirage, which always 
 makes the horses of the retreating Boers appear to be 
 rolling away from us rather than galloping. Where 
 there has been a heavy loss in horses, the poor wounded 
 bnites are ever raising their heads from the ground in 
 pain, and letting them fall back again — an appeal which 
 brings only a merciful revolver bullet to end their 
 sufferings. 
 
 Anything that occurs in actual fight pales, though, 
 beside the sufferings of the hundreds of fever patients in 
 the hospital at Intombi Spruit. Only those who know 
 with what care the patient convalescing from typhoid is 
 fed and nurtured can realize the suffering where every 
 medical comfort is exhausted ; no stimul-^nts, jellies, 
 beef-teas — nothing fitted for the starving sufferer but the 
 smallest ration of tinned milk. Doctors grew despon- 
 dent at times, and almost broke down with the strain of 
 unceasing labour. Scores of men, I am told, died of
 
 i6o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 sheer starvation. It was a hundred times worse than 
 anything- we had suffered from shell ; and is it any 
 wonder that knowing it, feeling it, sympathizing as men 
 must with the sufferings of friends and relatives, they 
 cried out in bitterness of heart, " Why, in God's name, 
 this eternal waiting? Are we to stay here till we rot ? " 
 The plight of the well and able-bodied was bad enough, 
 but insignificant by comparison with the occupants of 
 these overcrowded hospitals, where one doctor had as 
 many as forty patients and forty convalescents to look 
 after. As far as possible the men in camp assisted in 
 fatigue work, seventy of them being employed as order- 
 lies, and assistance was needed, for there was not more 
 than one nurse to every sixty patients. Worse still, the 
 medical chests were getting low, and many of the 
 more valuable drugs already exhausted ; while, owing 
 to the great scarcity of milk, the doctors heroically 
 struggled to coax typhoid patients back to health on a 
 diet of rice or barley-water. Rations had become scarce, 
 and many were unable to obtain more than a little rice 
 and mealie meal for porridge. The ingenious shifts to 
 secure tobacco were amusing only as against the more 
 vital needs. The man with a pipe was fortunate in being 
 able to secure Boer tobacco — the home-grown, home- 
 cured leaf, which the Boers prepare by first soaking it in 
 the juice of peaches, and then working it into rolls. It 
 has a great fascination for smokers, and when once 
 accustomed to it they never again use American 
 tobacco. The hunt for cigars was eternal, and a few 
 death's-head weeds were picked up occasionally in the 
 coolie shops, even the butts of which were broken up and 
 rolled as cigarettes. 
 
 By New Year's Eve it was estimated that since 
 they shut us in they had fired 8000 rounds of shell. 
 That estimate is, I think, a bit over the mark ; still, 
 making the most liberal deduction, it was a lot of iron 
 to have thrown upon one small town. I should say that 
 3000 rounds were fired from the 6 in. guns, or 90-pound- 
 ers, 2000 rounds from the 4 in. howitzers, or 40-pounders,
 
 CHRISTMAS IN LADYSMITII i6i 
 
 nnd 3000 from the 3 in. and smaller ordnance, from 
 which, however, I except the one-pounder Nordcnfelt as 
 not being a siege gun, and used as a rule only upon 
 our outposts or the Dcvt>ns' ridge. Personally, I had 
 wonderful luck. We were in the direct line of the 
 Bulwan guns, and I suppose 1000 rounds of shell have 
 passed directly overhead since the siege began. Some 
 had gone twenty yards over us, some twenty yards to 
 either side — we could muster, i>crhaps, 50 lOO-pounders 
 within a radius of forty yards — \et, save for the rattle of 
 shrapnel on the roots, our bedrooms had not been hit, 
 and the only shell that was short, and might have done 
 mischief, buried itself without bursting. Beyond us to 
 the town ridge every building had been hit, some of them 
 half-a-dozen times, and the whole of the open place 
 strewn with shells. Considering our position in the line 
 of fire, our luck was just phenomenal. On New Year's 
 morning especially the big shells were hissing almost 
 within reach, it seemed, yet we were so familiar with 
 their music that we could resist the impulse to duck 
 after the shot had passed, and that takes long experience 
 or stern self-discipline. We bowed, perhaps, to one or 
 two that morning, just after we had seen an officer's 
 orderly cut in two within twenty yards — for such sights, 
 though familiar, are shocking, and always temporarily 
 unsettling to the nerves. Soon after midnight the firing 
 began — cannon, machine, and rifles — and continued in 
 an intermittent spluttering fashion all night. We had 
 no ears, though, for anything close at hand ; it was the 
 far-away boom, heavier than ever on this early morning 
 of 1900, that interested us. But we had ceased to 
 expect much; we only waited, and in the mean time 
 things were said that I dare not repeat here. It would 
 be high treason. The civilian element in this camp was 
 hard to please. True, as they pointed out, people were 
 dying weekly by scores for want of the common 
 necessaries of life — at any rate, of hospital life — but, on 
 the other hand, we had a military sports meeting. 
 
 L
 
 1 62 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 I must not omit a message sent in by the Boers as a 
 New Year's greeting. It read, " You d — d cowards, why 
 don't you come out of your holes and fight us ? " The 
 obvious reply was the old school-boy invitation, " You 
 come half-way." They found Colonel Frank Rhodes 
 again on New Year's Day, a shot going through his 
 house and killing a servant, who was just preparing 
 breakfast. An officer of the Lancers was sleeping in 
 the house, and the explosion fairly buried him in 
 shattered timber. A door thrown fairly on top of him 
 protected him from the fusillade of brick and splinter. 
 When they pulled the timber off him he was rubbing 
 the dust out of his eyes, quite unhurt. That house was 
 one of the first hit from Pepworth's early in the siege, 
 and on the same day a room occupied by Mr. Pearce, 
 of the Daily News, was also gutted. Here was the 
 coincidence. On New Year's Day Mr. Pearce's room 
 was again wrecked by a 6 in. shell. 
 
 Living in the next room to me was Private Edmonds, 
 a young Englishman, of the Border Mounted Rifles, 
 whose escape from death was one of the miracles of the 
 siege, fruitful as the time and occasion were in hair- 
 breadth ventures. In the very centre of his broad chest 
 is a red indentation, the spot where a Mauser bullet 
 passed through his lungs, A little lower a red mark, 
 the point of entrance for another Mauser bullet, that 
 raked his body, and came out in the thigh without 
 smashing a bone. He lay for days almost pulseless, 
 with ashen-blue swollen lips, and the doctors had already 
 allotted his bed to another wounded man, A severe 
 attack of pleurisy followed the wound in the lungs, and 
 he was almost convalescent, when, in the midst of one of 
 the tremendous thunderstorms so frequent during the 
 Natal summer, the electric current struck the hospital 
 tent, and Edmonds, who was lying with his hand resting 
 on the tent-pole, was again nearly killed by the shock. 
 He got his wounds in the fight at Bester's Farm, which 
 we officially call by that convenient name for failures, 
 
 J
 
 CHRISTMAS IN LADYSMITH 163 
 
 a reconnaissance, but which, inasmuch as both cavalry, 
 artillery, and infantry were in action, and a general 
 officer commanded, was really an engagement. One 
 of the heroes of the campaign I may have mentioned 
 earlier, the bugler boy of the 5th Lancers, who, after 
 sounding the charge at Elands Laagte, drew his revolver, 
 rode into the thick of it on his colonel's flank, and shot 
 three Boers in less than as many minutes. There is no 
 doubt about it, for the colonel saw the feat, while scores 
 of officers each gave the boy a sovereign for his pluck. 
 Prancing down the streets of Ladysmith, he was the 
 envy of every boy in town, and he knew it. 
 
 Time hung heavily on the garrison with the brief 
 excitement of the Christmas and New Year past, and 
 the only variation to the day's duty of lying behind the 
 stone sangars, and ducking to the Dutch shells, was 
 the gruesome task of gravc-dii^ging. That exercise 
 was always with us, for of the garrison of 10,000 fighting 
 men that the Boers shut in here at the end of October, 
 not more than 7000 were efficient. For days we had 
 heard nothing of Buller's guns — not even that faint, far- 
 away roll which at least gave promise of a good time 
 coming — though coming slowly. If in the town there 
 were narrow-minded, nervous people, whose belief in 
 England's might was siiaken, who shall blame them ? If 
 those who, with the blend of the fatalist and the martyred, 
 placed themselves wholly in the keeping of God, and 
 their countrynien, could not at times fathom a plan of 
 action which condemned them to stagnation and death, 
 be not too hard on their transgression, you far-off critics, 
 who slept in peace, and had three wholesome meals a 
 day. Round about them every day they saw despond- 
 ency, mutilation, sickness, pestilence almost, and death, 
 and' these were not things to stiffen the sinews of the 
 weak-kneed or buttress the faith of the heart-sick and 
 smitten. But the relief columns are coming, not one, 
 but many. As our MS. journal, the Bombshell, on one 
 of its rare appearances, satirically parodied —
 
 i64 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 " The columns are coming from near and far, 
 The columns are coming from Helpmakaar, 
 The columns are coming from Frere and Van Renan, 
 But no one on earth knows where they are." 
 
 " What had you for dinner to-day, doctor ? " I asked 
 one of the ambulance staff. "Maize meal and gravy," 
 he answered. They had been served with meat, but it 
 was the tough, sinewy flesh of an old transport ox that 
 had trekked over half Africa, opening up roads for 
 civilization and field guns, and was too awful to tackle 
 in cold blood. The best thing was to chop it and 
 mangle it, and coax as much gravy out of it as possible 
 to help down the unsophisticated meahes, and in doubt- 
 ful kindness to throw the carcase to the dogs. When 
 an officer — and especially a commissariat officer — ended 
 a series of kindly inquiries as to your dietary scale, with 
 the innocent observation, " How are you off for tinned 
 stuff?" the common practice was to lie bluntly, but 
 with some regard, of course, to artistic verisimilitude. 
 "We had a fair stock, but, unfortunately, we've just 
 finished it." To acknowledge the possession of any- 
 thing in the way of preserves was to have it com- 
 mandeered, and if you were in luck to get a little of it 
 back as luxuries. 
 
 No news that filtered through to us during the siege 
 caused more regretful sensation in Ladysmith than the 
 bare announcement by heliograph that Mr. Harry 
 Escombe was dead. The leader of the Opposition in 
 the Natal Assembly, he was by far the strongest man 
 in the colony, and every one looked forward expectantly 
 to his figuring prominently in the discussion of those 
 great national questions which would face the whole of 
 the South African states upon the conclusion of the war. 
 He strove hard to avert war at the outset, having many 
 Dutchmen in his constituency, but when the die was 
 cast his sympathies were clear. He stood in the open 
 at Dundee and watched the fight — the only really con- 
 spicuous man on the field, clothed in a black frock-coat
 
 CIIR/ST.\fAS IN LADYSAflTH 165 
 
 and bclltoppcr — a rare sight there, where the Enghshman 
 had at least done something in emancipating himself 
 from the manacles of dress. One met the Ikiton in 
 all tyi cs — the soldier, the tourist, the adventurer, the 
 speculator, and the pioneer — and more than ever his 
 capacity for colonization was a mystery to me. He is 
 an Englishman, first, last, and always; he talks of home, 
 thinks of home, dreams of home, and all the while is 
 steadily building up the new branch of empire in which 
 he has so little personal interest beyond the winning of 
 fortune. Yet he relaxes guardedly, blends slowly with 
 his new environment, has in his new chum stage especi- 
 ally a distinct insularity which repels the stranger, and 
 yet with all the national aloofness he is a colonizing 
 success. Why .^ Eirst, I think, because England seems 
 to pick always the newest, the most remote, the deadliest 
 of her possessions as the outlet for young, strong men, 
 who find no scope in their own land. Educated mostly 
 in the public schools of England, they have a high sense 
 of national honour and duty, a strong, unobtrusive racial 
 pride, which makes them endure much while saying 
 little ; and, above all, the love of adventure and travel 
 which is foster-mother to colonization. One thing that 
 surprised me was the number of young Englishmen in 
 the volunteer corps of Natal. Eor the most part they 
 had no previous military training, yet they were amongst 
 the most daring, and endured silently the hardships over 
 which men less delicately bred grumbled greatly. One 
 could easily overlook the little English angularities in 
 respect for the grit beneath.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 
 
 The Boers come on — The rush on Caesar's Hill— Bravery of 
 the Imperial Light Horse— The Manchesters' resistance— A 
 stubborn enemy — The inopportune thunderstorm — Charge of the 
 Devons — A costly fight. 
 
 Ever since New Year's Day we had heard persistent 
 rumours that the enemy contemplated some decisive 
 step in the investment of Ladysmith. Generals Joubert 
 and Schalk Berger had gone back to Pretoria to a 
 council of war, and as the sequel, Ladysmith, we were 
 told, was to be taken at any cost. The price had been 
 paid, and the town was held by a British garrison, 
 but there were hours on January 6 when the question 
 of ownership hung suspended in the balance. Monday, 
 January 8, was the date generally named by the Kaffir 
 spies as that upon which the attack might be expected. 
 The truth was that some of the investing forces, and 
 especially the Free State commandoes, were as tired as 
 ourselves of this long siege. " Let us fight or go home," 
 was their appeal. Accordingly a force of picked men 
 was massed to the south-east of the town — 5000 in all, 
 a young Free State Boer who was brought in wounded 
 afterwards declared. The point chosen for assault was 
 known as Caesar's Hill, being the south-eastern end of 
 the horseshoe forming the "outline" of our defences. 
 The range was irregular here, something in the form of 
 
 166
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 167 
 
 a triangle. It was the highest of all the hills surrounding 
 Ladysmith, and the possession of it would have given 
 the enemy such absolute command over the town, not 
 only by artillery, but long-range rifle fire, that Ladysmith 
 would have been tenable only at a heavy cost. In fact, 
 it would have cramped every operation of our troops, 
 and even the ridges still left to us would have been 
 under fire from both sides. In this respect it was 
 absolutely a life and death struggle, and, having deter- 
 mined on a course of action, the Dutch carried it out 
 with a magnificent daring and disregard of consequences 
 worthy the finest trained troops in the world. Once 
 again they did all that men could do, all that it was 
 anticipated they would not do. Every student of Boer 
 traditions, tactics, and character had declared that they 
 would not attack in the open, that above all they were 
 averse to night movements; yet they did both, and did 
 them splendidly, their stealth and bush-craft enabling 
 them to get right up to our pickets unnoticed, while 
 their quickness of resource in an emergency helped them 
 to delude our men with the idea that friends were 
 approaching, and to get the full advantage of a night 
 surprise. They did all but succeed in their attempt, and 
 thus lavished life to no purpose. 
 
 The attacking force was made up largely of Free 
 State Boers, and the Transvaal commandoes, chiefly 
 from Heidelberg and Wakkerstroom. Fortunately for 
 ourselves, we had been steadily bracing up the defences 
 of this particular hill for some days, and, at the very 
 hour the assault was delivered, were placing in position 
 one of the 47 naval guns from the opposite side of 
 the town. The Manchester regiment held possession 
 on the left, their redoubt being one of the prominent 
 landmarks there, though to screen it from artillery fire 
 it was placed some distance back from the brow of the 
 hill up which the enemy delivered their assault. Close 
 to the Manchester post Major Aberdy, of the 42nd 
 Battery, had six field guns in pits, the Naval Brigade 
 had a 12-pounder, and the Natal Navals a /-pounder.
 
 1 68 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 On the extreme right of the position three squadrons of 
 the Imperial Light Horse were in occupation of a point 
 known as Wagon Hill, so called from the curious shape 
 of a tree growing on its crest. In between these two 
 points were scattered at intervals four companies of the 
 King's Royal Rifles. The Light Horse were covering 
 a working party of Highlanders, who were placing the gun 
 in position. All had pickets forward, some little distance 
 on the enemy's side of the hill, the Manchesters lying 
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 u^\ ' " ** ^ Hill "r'-"'" 
 
 f. A. K. R ft® , ,' i5 i., , 
 
 *«^> 
 
 Brifish 
 
 ^ - 
 
 >' 
 
 H. A Banchestsr Regiment 
 
 H. P. Hanoliertar. Pickets 
 
 jr. A ft • • ■ King s Royal Riftea 
 
 I j_ w, Imperial Light Horse 
 
 H. V, Hauol Vohnteen 
 
 F. k, riM ArtiUsry 
 
 --Key 
 
 ROUGH MAP SKETCHED DURING FIGHT, SHOWING POSITION OF OUR TROOPS 
 WHEN THE ENEMY ATTACKED. 
 
 in stone sangars upon its crest. The face of the hill in 
 front of them was steep almost as a wall, and covered 
 with tremendous boulders, piled in such confusion that 
 amongst them men were absolutely safe except from 
 shrapnel bursting directly overhead. Beyond that, and 
 stretching right across the valley to the Boer ridge, the 
 country was covered with Kaffir thorn. Although the 
 Boer attack, which covered a front of over two miles, 
 was very well timed, they got home first at Wagon 
 Hill, upon the extreme right of our position.
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 169 
 
 The night was very dark, and the Imperial Light 
 Horse sentries, hearing a sh'ght rustling in tiie brush in 
 front of them, challenged. The reply, " A friend," came 
 in excellent English, but instantly the enemy opened 
 fire, and the sentry was killed. The noise of the men at 
 work on the 47 gun probably drew the erxmy sooner to 
 that point, for as the pickets came back they followed 
 on, and firing upon the Cossack post at a distance of 
 not more than ten yards, killed five of the men at work 
 there. A working party of Gordons, who were also 
 warned, were captured in a trench, but most of them 
 escaped later in the day and got back to their lines. 
 As the Boers came on. Lieutenant Walker, who had a 
 Hotchkiss, opened fire. They dropped for shelter at 
 every shot, and the delay gave the Light Horse time to 
 hne the inner crest of the hill, the Hotchkiss, after about 
 a dozen rounds, being withdrawn to the redoubt. About 
 twenty Highlanders and King's Royals came to their 
 support, and there on the extreme right of Wagon Hill 
 a grim and deadly fight went on for four hours, the de- 
 fenders being cross-fired at a distance of not more than 
 thirty yards. Quite 500 Boers came to the assault on 
 that side, yet the little band of Britons, lessening every 
 moment, held the post, which was the key of the position, 
 with splendid tenacity. The Light Horse did many 
 fine things in the campaign, but did never more for 
 their country than during those few hours of darkness 
 on the morning of January 6. Briton and Boer lay 
 close fifty yards apart, each keenly on the look-out for 
 his enemy, and after daybreak, wh:n the light increased, 
 the casualties were heaviest. One Dutchman, believed 
 to be Ardendall of Harrismith, carried a particularly 
 deadly rifle. In turn he shot Lord Ava mortally 
 through the temple. Lieutenant Palemon through the 
 spine, killing him instantly, and put a bullet through 
 Captain Fowler's hat. In his eagerness he exposed 
 himself slightly, and one of the Light Horsemen shot 
 him dead through the side. Lord Ava, a fine athletic 
 young fellow, and a son of the Marquis of Dufferin, was
 
 I70 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 acting as galloper to Brigadier-General Ian Hamilton. 
 He carried a sporting magazine rifle, and had just put 
 his head over the rock to fire at a Boer when he was hit. 
 He uttered the one word " Done " and rolled away from 
 the rock. On Sunday his chance seemed hopeless ; on 
 Monday, the 8th, he had a slight pulse, and his 
 splendid constitution would, it was thought, pull him 
 through, but it was only a faint chance. In this four 
 hours' murderous work no fewer than fourteen officers 
 went down, dead or wounded, and at times there was 
 confusion as to the command. In this emergency 
 Lieutenant Digby Jones, of the Engineers, who had been 
 supervising the erection of the gun, went into the fighting 
 line, and as the Boers came into the sangar he shot four 
 of them dead just outside the wall. I saw these men 
 lying where they fell later in the morning, and amongst 
 them were Field-Cornet Viljoen of Harrismith, and 
 Acting-Commandant Van Wyk, two grizzled old Boers, 
 who had come forward with all the impetuosity of youth. 
 Poor Digby Jones did not survive them long, though 
 had he lived he might have won a Victoria Cross. As 
 he went forward with the fighting line later in the day 
 he was shot dead. Shortly after seven o'clock supports 
 of the Gordons and the Devons came up, and the Dutch 
 were driven off that end of the hill, leaving many of 
 their dead behind them to mark their first failure. The 
 fight there was assumed to be over, but in this we 
 underrated both the Boer determination and their 
 resource. They had come to take the position at all 
 cost, and there were yet more of them for the sacrifice. 
 On the extreme left of the position the enemy came 
 forward just as silently, but just as surely. So quietly 
 was the attack made that they were within a few yards 
 of the Manchester pickets when the " Who goes there ? " 
 checked them. " Don't shoot," said a voice in excellent 
 English. " We're the town guard." The answer was so 
 ready that the pickets stood irresolute for an instant. 
 " I don't believe you're the town guard," one of the men 
 said. "How the devil did you get out there.-*" The
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 171 
 
 answer was a yell and a volley, and our poor deluded 
 pickets went down as the lioers came on. They got be- 
 tween the little stone walls where our outposts were 
 lying, some of the Manchesters being shot from behind 
 almost point-blank ere they had awakened to the fact 
 that the enemy were upon them. Those who survived 
 the first rush were driven back on their main position, 
 and it was said unfairly that they had too soon given 
 way. The fact was that they were outnumbered ten to 
 one, and when I roJe along that ridge at daybreak on 
 Sunday, the melancholy proof that the Manchesters had 
 not given up the ground readily was afforded in the 
 number of their dead who lay there. No men could 
 have done more than they did against this sudden 
 overwhelming rush. 
 
 The Boers, however, had won possession of the 
 extreme left of the hill — a high rocky, thorny peak. 
 Their trouble was to hold it. Colonel Royston sent 
 forward detachments of the Border Mounted and Natal 
 Mounted Rifles to the foot of the extreme left of Caesar's 
 Hill, where, covered by the thorn, tiiey kept up a 
 guerilla fire on the Beers above them, while a battery 
 of artillery on the outskirts of the town and firing over 
 their heads, both percussion and shrapnel, searched the 
 hill from crest to foot. Stubbornly as they had held 
 their place against the rifles, the shell fire was too much 
 for them. The biggest rocks were useless against the 
 downward burst and the hail of splinters, which searched 
 every corner, and after the fight no corner of that 
 bloody field was so horrible a spectacle. There were 
 men lying there who apparently had not a whole bone 
 in their bodies. They were literally torn to shreds. On 
 Sunday I saw men who had not yet accustomed them- 
 selves to the carnage of battle turn sick when they came 
 suddenly upon the awful slaughter-pen. The big gun 
 on Bulwan, and two lesser ones, concentrated their fire 
 on this battery, in the effort to silence it, but in vain. 
 When the big gun had almost got their range, our 
 gunners changed position so quickly before the smoke
 
 172 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 had cleared from the Dutch muzzle, that the enemy's 
 artillery went on firing for some time before they 
 discovered that the guns had moved to a new point. 
 Our JRoyal Artillery were right in the open, as they 
 generally are, but very few of them were hit. 
 
 Human nature could not long stand the tremendous 
 fire from the field battery, but until eleven o'clock the 
 gallant Dutchmen held possession of that hill corner. 
 Then they moved round it to their own side of the 
 range, where their retreat was cut off by the Man- 
 chesters and King's Royals, who had worked forward 
 to the Boer side of the hill. Sheltered from our artillery 
 fire amongst the rocks, the rifles could make no impres- 
 sion upon them, and there they lay all day, like rabbits 
 in their burrows, nor could our men go down the hill 
 to take them without subjecting themselves to a heavy 
 fire from the Boers, who were lying behind rocks all the 
 way across the valley, while their reserves held posses- 
 sion of the main ridge. By mid-day the whole of the 
 hill was once more in our possession, and with the 
 defenders reinforced by heavy drafts from the Gordons, 
 the Rifle Brigade, the Devons, the Mounted Infantry, 
 and Dismounted Cavalry, it looked as though the fight 
 would drag itself on till dark, and then fizzle out. 
 
 As soon as the rifle fire slackened the artillery duel 
 began — which is the reverse of the procedure in action — 
 and a more remarkable artillery duel was never fought. 
 It was a geometrical puzzle, such a curiosity in warfare 
 that I went to some pains to get as good a diagram of 
 the fire as possible. The dotted lines represent the 
 Boer gun fire ; the black lines our own. 
 
 Of all calibres, short of machine guns, there were no 
 fewer than sixty in action, ranging from 90-pounders to 
 7-pounders. The big fellow on Bulwan was particularly 
 busy, and fired no fewer than 13^ rounds during the 
 day, yet there was not one of our field guns in action 
 which did not kill at least twice as many men. Their 
 40-pounder shot much more accurately, yet the whole of 
 their guns combined did not kill as many men as the
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 
 
 173 
 
 two field-pieces, the 15-pounder and 7-pounder, which 
 were able to bring a cross fire of shrapnel U[)on our rifle 
 lines on C.xsar's Hill. At about four in the afternoon 
 especially these two burst quite a score of their shells 
 over Wagon Hill, where our men, with their attention 
 concentrated on the Boer lines at right angles, were 
 exposed to the flanking fire, and many of the Gordons 
 got their death messenger then. I saw them next day 
 frightfully torn with the splinters, which showed often 
 on their bare knees, yet not so terrible a spectacle as 
 the Boers I have already mentioned — killed by our 
 shrapnel. 
 
 .J05 
 
 •^-. 
 
 04 
 
 C<xi fin ....... Brflith Urt. 
 
 DIAGRAM Of ARTILLERY FIRE. 
 
 Last of all came the closing epoch of the fight, a 
 gallant effort by an already beaten foe to turn a chance 
 circumstance to their advantage, and take the hill where 
 so many of their dead and wounded were already lying. 
 At about three o'clock black clouds rolled up from the 
 south, and one of the heaviest thunderstorms I have 
 ever witnessed burst over Ladysmith — burst thickest of 
 all upon that hill round which the fight had raged all 
 day. Hail fell in blinding flakes as large as a shilling, 
 and no one can estimate the suffering of the wounded 
 who lay upon the field, many of them too badly hurt to
 
 174 ^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 shield their faces from the lashing fusillade. It was as 
 though an offended heaven were visiting upon men her 
 punishment for the carnage there. Everything was 
 blotted out. At fifty yards figures of men were seen as 
 faint shadows through a fog. The sixty guns were silenced 
 in a moment in the face of heaven's more vivid and 
 deafening artillery. Was there ever such thunder, and 
 lightning that ran in long trickling streams down the 
 black sky .-* The surroundings all combined to make it 
 awe-inspiring. It was not in human nature to face such 
 a storm, but the Boers had it at their backs. It may 
 have been that the God to whom they had so often 
 prayed for aid had come to their help at last — little 
 doubt but that many of them believed it a supernatural 
 intervention that was to give them the victory for which 
 during the fifteen hours they had struggled. Anyhow, in 
 the very climax of the tempest they gathered up their 
 smitten ranks, and came on again to the hill, already 
 drenched with so much of their best fighting blood. 
 We were crouching behind the rocks wherever a ledge 
 gave shelter, when a loud hurrah and a burst of firing 
 told that they were upon us. In an instant the hurri- 
 cane was forgotten. With the hail beating in their 
 faces, our men sprang to their positions, and these 
 indomitable foes were all in an instant engaged in 
 another death-clinch, firing their rifles into each other 
 at short pistol range, wild with excitement and the 
 anticipation of victory. Once again the best men of the 
 Boer army led the way, but all their desperate valour 
 was in vain. For the third time that day the Boer had 
 possession of the hill, but it was only permissive 
 occupancy. Twice the number could not have taken it 
 then. For half-an-hour it was little better than a melee 
 in which, but for the distracting surroundings, the 
 carnage would have been twice as great. Slowly the 
 Boer was forced back. The Devons, fixing bayonets, 
 drove forward, the last of them were pushed over the 
 brow, and as our riflemen lined the crest the Boers 
 trickled back across the valley, still taking full advantage
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 175 
 
 of the matchless cover. Faure Spruit, which at mid-day 
 had been a mere trickle, was now a raging torrent, and 
 as the enemy halted irresolute on its banks, their dark 
 figures loomed up against the white water like giants. 
 So they looked, at least, as seen through the field-glasses, 
 the enlargement of the figures being some optical illusion 
 of the moist atmos;>here. There many of them died. 
 In the water we could see them throw up their arms 
 and fall under our volleys, fired at nearly a thousand 
 yards, and the current swept them away. Then the 
 darkness came, and after seventeen hours' continuous 
 fighting, this heroic effort to take the defences of Lady- 
 smith failed. That it was so nearly successful was due 
 in great measure to the completeness of the surprise. 
 Ten weeks of immunity from anything more serious 
 than snijjing had given our men a false sense of security, 
 and had it not been for their magnificent stubbornness 
 they must have been swept away in the first Boer rush. 
 To the Imperial Light Horse especially immeasurable 
 honour was due — and they paid for it dearly, for that 
 night there were only three unwounded officers in the 
 regiment. 
 
 The crowning episode of the day, the move that more 
 than anything else contributed to the final discomfiture 
 of the Boers, was the charge of the Devons. They had 
 come up late in the afternoon, drawing a heavy fire from 
 the guns on Bulwan as they climbed the hill. They 
 were full of ardour, burning to avenge their fallen com- 
 rades, and were luckily in a good position near Wagon 
 Hill when the Boers came for their last rush. When 
 Colonel Park gave the word " Forward!" his men charged 
 in a line straight up the steep. They had to some extent, 
 however, miscalculated the centre of assault, and when 
 they reached the crest of the ridge found the Boers 
 pouring forward through the river on their extreme right. 
 Their left swung round instantly, and it was in the very 
 act of effecting this movement that a withering fire at 
 short range caught them, and the gallant Uevons went 
 down literally in dozens. They neither halted nor fal-
 
 X76 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 tered, but swept resolutely across the hill, for the close 
 work in which the Briton has always revelled. It was 
 too much for the Boers, and as they came forward at the 
 double the Dutchmen stopped, wavered, and fled, a 
 half-dozen of them only waiting for the coup de grace 
 with the steel. Little wonder that Sir Redvers Buller, 
 an old Devonian, sent his congratulations to the regiment, 
 or that the Queen cabled her admiration of their gallant 
 deed. The Devons had had a singular experience that 
 day. Early in the morning a hundred of them had 
 repulsed an attack by double their number of Boers 
 from the eastward, while on the north thej^ also held 
 the ridge at which the enemy directed their third attack, 
 but which the fire of the 13th Battery checked before 
 the Boers had got within effective range of the rifles. 
 The climax was the charge through the thunderstorm 
 on Wagon Hill. 
 
 I have more than once had reason to admire the 
 British soldier in battle, but never was there such good 
 ground for admiration as in watching him prepare. All 
 the blare and tumult, the death and disaster of actual 
 conflict have no such tense, dramatic, nerve-trying 
 moments as when a regiment is making ready for some 
 great enterprise. The fight is a medley of mixed im- 
 pressions, jostling each other for a moment's existence 
 ere passing away, but the getting ready is unforgetable. 
 Everything is clear-cut and within the sum of human 
 emotions — eternal. So it was with that last grand 
 charge of the Devons, which swept the Boers from their 
 fringe of the little plateau and finished the long seventeen 
 hours' ordeal. The enemy were on one side of the 
 Table, we on the other. A tropical hailstorm howled 
 across it, and beat heavily in our faces, as Colonel Park 
 led his men up the sheltered face of the hill, and halted 
 a moment within five yards of the crest, to make ready. 
 The men knew exactly what they had to do, and the 
 solemnity of a great and tragic undertaking was upon 
 and about them. All the world for them — the too brief 
 past with its consequences, the fast-flying present, and
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT \^^ 
 
 the mysterious beyond — mipjht concentrate in a short 
 desperate dash across a storm-swept African hilltop. It 
 was the sublimity of life — the anticipation of death. 
 The Devons were makinjj ready for it, and h<>\v unready 
 a man might feel at such a moment ! The line of brown 
 riflemen stretched away to the left of us, and it seemed 
 that every trivial action of every man there had become 
 an epic. One noticed most of all the constant moisten- 
 ing of the dry lips, and the frequent raising of the water- 
 bottles for a last hurried mouthful. One man tightened 
 a belt, another brought his cartridges handier to his right 
 hand, though he was not to use thrm. It was something 
 to CISC the strain of waiting. Every little thing fi.xed 
 itself on the mind as a photograph. There was no need 
 of mental elTort to remember. One could not see and 
 forget, and would not, for his patriotism and his pride of 
 kinship, forget if he could. Then the low clinking, 
 quivering sound of the steel which died away from us 
 in a trickle down the ranks as th : bayonets were fixed — 
 and a dry, harsh, artificial laugh, in strong contrast to the 
 quiet of the scene — everything heard easily somehow 
 above the rush and clatter of the storm, and lost only 
 for an instant in the sudden bursts of tiiundcr. A bit of 
 quiet tragedy wcd^^cd into the turmoil of the great play, 
 and all unspeakably solemn and awe-inspiring. One 
 must see to understand it. One may have seen yet can 
 never describe it. The situation was not for ordinary 
 language ; it was Homeric, over-mastering. 
 
 " Now then, Devons, get ready." There was a dry 
 catch in the colonel's voice as he gave the word — and 
 the short sentence was punctuated by the zip-zip of the 
 Mauser bullets, that for a few precious seconds would 
 still be flying overhead. There was a quick panting of 
 the breath, a stiffening: of the lines of the faces, that with 
 so many of them was but the prelude to the rigidity of 
 death. It was waiting for them only a few yards up, 
 and their manhood was being sorely tried. But the 
 Devons squared their shoulders, gripped their rifles — 
 bringing them up with the quick whip of the drill, that was 
 
 M
 
 178 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 too well ground into them to be forgotten even then. A 
 prompt dressing by the left, and, as though eager to get 
 it over, the Devons sprang forward to the word into the 
 double storm of hail and nickel-plated bullets. The 
 killing suspense was over — they were in action at last, 
 one's whole heart went with them, and just for one 
 moment, as they stood fully exposed upon the plateau, 
 it seemed to the watchers that there might be disaster. 
 As I have already told, they had slightly miscalculated 
 the enemy's strongest point, and had to wheel by the 
 left. As they did so the line faltered for a moment. A 
 shiver, a pendulum-like swaying seemed to run down it; 
 that was the history-making moment, when the regiment 
 might either do something that ever afterwards they 
 would try to forget, or that all their countrymen would 
 be proud to remember — the moments in men's lives which, 
 measured by emotion only, stretch out into centuries. 
 It was the moment of a life, too, for the commander of 
 men. His chance had come. 
 
 " Steady, Devons, steady," came the clear ringing 
 call, and then, with one great surging rush, that gathered 
 momentum even as it lost in fallen units, the regiment 
 went on. 
 
 Boldly though they had taken and held that hill, 
 prudence came to the Boer riflemen as these eager 
 bayonets bore down upon them. For a moment they 
 shot the Devons through and through, and then they 
 ran. At that moment not a man amongst our common- 
 place, drinking, swearing Tommies but was exalted, 
 deified — but so many of them were something less of 
 interest on earth than even a common soldier. Where 
 the regiment had gone seventy of its dead and wounded 
 littered the hill-top, but still it was the moment of victory, 
 not of lamentations. It may sound strange to say that 
 the prelude to a battle, like the preface to a book, can 
 be greater than the actual battle or the book. But so it 
 seemed to me. Others might view it differently, but 
 challenge our impressions as we may in the light of 
 riper history, we shall never alter them. They are in-
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 179 
 
 dcHble. Overhaul the plates again and again as we 
 please, it will always be the same picture. 
 
 It was purely a soldiers' fight. There was no time for 
 a concerted plan of action ; every one had to rush for- 
 ward and fij^Mit in his own way, driving back the foe 
 by sheer dogg'xlnes.s. Then the fatalities amongst the 
 officers were as usual exceptional. At one time the 
 Gordons and King's Royals were absolutely leaderlcss, 
 and faltered for want of direction, for "Tommy" with- 
 out a leader is as a rudderless ship. It was impossible 
 for the Hoers in this bad light to have picked out the 
 officers, they simply were the more frequently exposed, 
 and so they sufTcred. When an officer rises to advance 
 with his resolute '* Come on, men," he is the first one seen, 
 and becomes a target for a score of rifles. It is not suf- 
 ficient either that he should lie close and pick his man, 
 he must get some idea of the position, and of the ever- 
 changing phases of the fight, and in doing so he courts 
 disaster. Latterly, the officers had laid aside their 
 swords, and each carried a rifle. Thus two of the leaders 
 came to their death in the last stage of this fight. Major 
 Miller-Wallnutt of the Gordons, and Commandant De 
 Villiers of Harrismith, one of the bravest of the Boer 
 leaders, fired at each other in the same instant. The 
 officer of the Gordons was struck fairly in the temple, the 
 bullet passing out at the back of his head. De Villiers 
 was shot through the chest, and neither lived ten seconds. 
 Major Miller-Wallnutt was a magnificent specimen of 
 the British soldier, standing nearly six feet four inches 
 in height, and with the physique of a giant. He would 
 have succeeded to the command of the regiment had he 
 lived through that fight. For a time the only surgeons 
 on the field were Dr. Hornabrook of the volunteers, and 
 Dr. Wood of the Manchestcrs, and both were wounded 
 while attending fallen men. Dr. Hornabrook had a 
 miraculous escape. As showing the cosmopolitan and 
 confused character of the fight, he had, within a few 
 yards, attended a Natal Mounted Riflemen, a King's 
 Royal, and a Manchester, and went a little way down
 
 i8o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the Boer side of the hill to where one of the Gordons 
 was lying. " Don't come here, sir," the poor fellow said, 
 "they'll knock you over." The young South Australian, 
 ordering his dresser to stay under cover, went down the 
 slope, and as he knelt beside the wounded man, one 
 bullet cut away the star from his shoulder, another 
 passed through the flap of his coat. He bent over 
 slightly and so saved his life, for a bullet cut through his 
 side, just above the hip, making a nasty wound, but for- 
 tunately missing the vital parts. Though his clothing, 
 when I saw it later, was matted with blood, he stayed on 
 attending to the wounded until Major Heslop, his chief, 
 ordered him into camp. Dr. Wood, of the Manchesters, 
 was shot through the arm. " Have a drink of water, old 
 man," said a commiserating soldier to an old Boer, who 
 lay wounded. " I don't want your filthy water," the old 
 man snarled, unrelenting to the last. Amongst the 
 Manchester wounded was Major Thessiger, son of Lord 
 Chelmsford, who led the British troops in the Zulu war. 
 I saw another Australian stripling on the field who 
 had taken a man's part in the fray, for there were many 
 boys on both sides in this bloody feud. This was little 
 Jack Plunkett, a Queensland boy, from Roma, and one 
 of the best horsemen in South Africa. He and another 
 lad — both of the Imperial Light Horse — lay behind the 
 same rock, watching three Boers, who were just as 
 carefully watching them, and shooting even at a finger 
 if it came in sight. Each of the youngsters got his 
 man, the third being killed by a flanking shot. Young 
 Plunkett had come out in a blue jersey, as he was in 
 too great a hurry to find his jacket. One of the first 
 of the Boer wounded brought into our camp was a 
 mere lad, though big and sturdy — young Schultz of 
 Harrismith, who talked freely of the fight. He had 
 seen his father killed just before he himself fell wounded 
 — shot in three places. This boy, with many others 
 who were in this fighting line, had been brought away 
 from Grey's College in Bloemfontein to take the field 
 against the rooineks, for whom, however, he declared
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 
 
 i»i 
 
 he had no personal hatred. The whole of the men in 
 this assault, he said, were Dutch, most of them the old 
 Dopper Boers, whose hatred of Englishmen, bred of 
 ignorance and tradition, will die out only with them- 
 selves. They had held a mcctinL:, had asked to be 
 allowed to take the town, had sung their national songs, 
 and while shaking hands with each other had vowed 
 that if beaten back they would come on again and 
 again until they died, or Ladysmith was taken. This 
 youngster still wore on his hat his Grey College badge — 
 it was his only uniform. His statement was confirmed 
 while they were collecting the dead on Wednesday. 
 Captain Blore, adjutant of the King's Royals, while 
 amongst the thorn, met two Dutchmen, who were also 
 searching for their dead, and they exchanged notes on 
 the fight. " You did well to get on the ridge the second 
 time," said the adjutant. "You did better to hold it," 
 answered the Dutchman. "But you would not have 
 held it if all our men had come on at the right time." 
 One of these Dutchmen signalled to the captain to 
 come to one side, and he did so. "I'm not a Dutchman," 
 said the enemy. " I'm English, and there are hundreds 
 like myself in the Boer lines — English, Scotch, Irish, 
 and German. We had to take the field, or we should 
 have been shot. But they don't trust us. They would 
 have none of us in this assault, but we were to have 
 come up and garrisoned the hill when they had taken 
 it. We shall be glad indeed when the British are in 
 Pretoria." He went on to explain to the captain the 
 Boer method of fighting. "They've done with the 
 Sanger," he said ; " it's played out. The Boer just 
 throws about three rocks together, screens it with a 
 tult of grass or a thorn-bough, and pokes the muzzle 
 of his rifle through. That's better than a sangar. It 
 does not draw the fire." 
 
 One of the Imperial Light Horse, after firing on the 
 Boers, dropped behind a rock, and the enemy, thinking 
 him dead, rushed right over him. Then he fired at 
 them from their rear. There were rumours that some
 
 1 82 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of the Dutch wounded, finding themselves down and 
 badly hit, committed suicide rather than fall into our 
 hands, and two significant circumstances lent colour 
 to an even more ugly suggestion. One of the wounded 
 Imperial Light Horsemen was found dead with a strap 
 drawn tightly round his throat, as though he had been 
 strangled. A dead sergeant of the Highlanders, one 
 of the working party, had neither bayonet nor bullet 
 wound on him, for some of the Boers carried bayonets 
 in this charge, presumably taken from the captured 
 Gloucesters. This man was bruised to a pulp, and had 
 evidently been kicked or beaten to death in a fit of pure 
 savagery. Of such acts of brutal cowardice the great 
 majority of the more enlightened Boers are incapable, 
 but there are a few of the old stubborn stock, the un- 
 speakably bearish Dopper, who will do anything to an 
 Englishman — do it for his own soul's salvation and to 
 the glory of God. It may have been some of these 
 who in their flight took shelter behind a wounded 
 Englishman, so that they could not be fired upon with- 
 out killing him. It may have been yet another of them 
 who shot one of our wounded, and while drinking from 
 his water-bottle was himself killed. For once the usual 
 condition of things was reversed. Ours was the com- 
 posite force in the early hours of Saturday morning. 
 It consisted of police, soldiers, and civilians. Bell, a 
 wagon-driver, and one of the best shots in Africa, left 
 his team, and was fighting for fourteen hours at a stretch. 
 All kinds of weapons were used by the Boers, and the 
 mangled condition of some of our men who fell to the 
 rifle was only explainable on the theory that the explosive 
 bullets kept for game had been freely fired. One of our 
 men was wounded in the arm by an elephant ball, and 
 the youngster whom I have already mentioned as being 
 brought in wounded, had the tops of all his Mauser 
 bullets filed, so that they might spread and wound more 
 seriously. When a boy without much racial animosity 
 could do this, what is to be expected from the old rigid 
 rooinek haters ?
 
 A DESPERATE ASSAULT 183 
 
 All over the crest of the hill one saw the clips of 
 Mauser bullets behind rocks, where the owners had 
 left them wlien they retired in a hurry. When the 
 King's Royals went into action their regimental dog 
 accompanied them as usual. He has never been out 
 of the fighting line, and has never had a scratch. In 
 ridin.; up the hill on Sunday morning I met a little 
 red, three-legged dog coming pottering down. " That's 
 the Hussars' do;^," said a corporal ; "he's always in it 
 when the guns begin to sho 't. He lost his leg in India 
 — it was smashed up so that the doctor had to amputate 
 it." I had another look at the little red mongrel, who 
 was threading his way through the medley of mule- 
 wagons and water-carts. He was at least two miles 
 from camp. 
 
 Boer tr.'cker)' sometimes recoils upon themselves. 
 All Saturday night one poor fellow was calling for 
 help not fifty yards in advance of our outward pickets. 
 They were anxious to help him, too, but feared further 
 trickery, so no one would go forward. But all the 
 wounded suffered greatly in this fight. They lay all day 
 between the contending lines, spent a horrible night, and 
 it was late on Sunday before many of them reached the 
 hospital, some of the ambulances taking eight hours 
 to come from the battle-field, owing to the block on this 
 two miles of rough road. Lieutenant King, wounded 
 early in the fight, was down for some time, and tried to 
 get back for surgical treatment As he staggered weakly 
 along, the poor fellow was shot through the spine and 
 killed. On Sunday morning I saw five Boers lying 
 dead just outside one of our redoubts. They had fought 
 their way right up to the sangar wall, and had fallen 
 there dead in a cluster. The fact of men lying dead 
 together, though, is not always a proof that they fell 
 together. I saw many a bloody trail on the hill-top, 
 which told where a man mortally hit had dragged himself 
 up to another fallen man, as though the companionship 
 of a comrade in misfortune were a comfort to him when 
 he felt the end drawing near. It is an awful death, that
 
 1 84 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of the lonely man on the battle-field — ^the glazing eyes 
 looking for a friend, the twitching fingers feeling for that 
 touch of a hand which comes not until the cold finger 
 of death chills him for ever. 
 
 In the fighting on the left corner of Csesar's Hill there 
 was one tall Dutchman, who exposed himself like a 
 dare-devil, and did it once too often. He sprang upon 
 a rock, waved his rifle over his head, and shouted, " Here 
 we are ! Come on, you dogs ! " Then he pitched slowly 
 forward, face first, as though taking a header from a 
 spring-board, and never stirred again. When they took 
 his body down on Saturday, it had stiffened as he fell, 
 and there were four bullets through him. They had all 
 been watching for him. The crest of that hill was the 
 last place upon God's fair earth for a vaunter. Had a 
 man the capacity to shrink to the dimensions of a mouse, 
 he would have been none too small for the situation. 
 Bitter to the end was another Boer, who, when offered 
 a drink, turned his face away in loathing, and murmured, 
 " I'll meet you again, you wretches."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 AFTER tup: battle 
 
 The Gordons' loss— Incidents of the fi^jht— A field of the dead 
 — Greathcad of the Guides— The Hoer loss— Father and son— A 
 stubborn foe — Why the attack failed. 
 
 The casualties of the day were not limited to those 
 round about Cxsar's Rid^e. Early in the morning, 
 Colonel Dick-Cunyn£;[ham had just ordered out his men 
 to reinforce the defenders, and was walking over the 
 bridge a mile and a half away from the ficjht, when a 
 Mauser bullet, almost spent, passed through his body. 
 The wound was mortal, and to the great sorrow of his 
 regiment, he died a couple of days later. He had been 
 very seriously wounded at Elands Laagte, and only 
 returned to duty during the siege. No regimental com- 
 mander in the British army was better loved than Colonel 
 Dick-Cunyngham. He was a V.C. man — modest, brave 
 as a lion, and as much liked by his brother officers as by 
 his own men. It was cruelly hard luck for a grand 
 fighter to fall to this one chance shot. 
 
 Bullets were flying freely into the town that day, and 
 one of Sir George White's orderlies was hit standing at 
 headquarters. Two Border Mounted men, of very 
 dirterent type, were killed side by side. One was a lad 
 of nineteen, just stepping into life ; the other a grizzled 
 old soldier, Trooper P"ox, once a captain in the Royal 
 Artillery, and who had long since given up soldiering. 
 
 185
 
 1 86 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 The temptation of active service was too strong, and he 
 joined the Border Mounted Rifles as a trooper. There 
 are scores of such cases in Africa, some of them, I am 
 afraid, rather " hard cases." After the first rush our men 
 were thoroughly cool, and never thought of failure. 
 Here is a typical scrap of conversation between a crack 
 shot of the Gordons, who had crept up to the same rock 
 as a Light Horseman. " What ye shootin' at, matey } " 
 asked the Highlander. " At six men in that patch of 
 scrub." " Well, now, see me fetch out ; what's aboot her 
 range? " A Boer lifted his head to fire, and the High- 
 lander grazed him. Then the enemy broke cover over a 
 little bit of open ground, and two were killed before they 
 reached the rocks. All the senior officers of the Light 
 Horse were down at the position they had so gallantly 
 defended. Colonel Edwards being hit in the shoulder 
 and buttock, and Major Doveton very seriously in the 
 shoulder, while Major Karri Davies was shot through 
 the thigh, but went on fighting. At one time, when the 
 Natal Mounted Rifles and a small body of Gordons were 
 firing upon some Boers on the end of Csesar's Hill, one 
 of the enemy called out " Surrender!" " Go to blazes ! " 
 was the curt reply of the Britons, as they went on fight- 
 ing. Indeed, the word surrender had no place in the 
 vocabulary of either side that day. It was " No sur- 
 render!" always. One of the dead Boers was found 
 completely dressed in the uniform of the Manchester 
 regiment. He had probably stripped one of the dead 
 pickets on the slope of the hill, and was killed as soon as 
 he reached the summit, with some plan in his head which 
 he never lived to carry out. Captain Carnegie, of the 
 Gordons, was three times hit, two being severe wounds 
 in the arms, yet, though bleeding freely, he stayed with 
 his men, and led them on," fighting nobly, until the enemy 
 were finally driven off the hill. He knew that most of 
 the officers were down, that his men might be leaderless 
 at any moment, so he stayed. Even at midday the fire 
 was so keen that the medical officers, moving from one
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 187 
 
 wounded man to another, had to worm themselves snake- 
 like alonf^ the veldt. 
 
 On Sunday mornincj that battle-field was a woeful 
 spectacle. Our mortality list at daybreak on Sunday 
 was one hundred and twenty of all ranks killed, and two 
 hundred and fifty wounded, but that terrible waitinc];' for 
 succour had been to the wounded so great a strain that 
 every hour added to the numbers of the dead. One sad 
 illustration will suffice. At midday on Sunday the 
 Imperial Light Horse had lost just twenty men. By 
 sunset on Monday their dead numbered thirty. Four- 
 teen officers were instantly killed, and twenty wounded. 
 Many of the deaths were due to exposure, and a score at 
 least might have been saved had the surgeons been able 
 to get on the field freely immediately after the action. 
 In this sense there were all the drawbacks of savage 
 warfare. Some of the wounded were lying where they 
 fell for twenty-seven hours. Remember the circum- 
 stances, and imagine the horrors of that dreary, deadly 
 waiting. It was pitiful, revolting! In moving amongst 
 the dead one could distinguish between those shot in 
 the early morning and the men killed after the thunder- 
 storm. There was little blood about the former — the 
 rains had washed it out, leaving only a dull brown stain 
 on the uniform. Those killed by the bullet were mostly 
 placid, and there was an infinity of difference between 
 the faces of the men who died with their heads up the 
 slope and those who had fallen head downward. In the 
 latter case the blood had rushed to the head, and the 
 faces were absolutely plum-coloured. At first sight there 
 seemed to be many black men in those ghastly lines of 
 British dead. This was the explanation of it. Other- 
 wise, the faces were perfectly white and waxen. 
 
 Most impressive of all sights was the burial of our dead. 
 The spot chosen for the graves was a little plateau half- 
 way down the defenders' slope of Ca:sar's Hill. The short 
 grass was vividly green after the rains, and dotted with 
 low thorn trees. The spot gave a far view to northward 
 over leagues of rolling veldt right away to the foot of
 
 i88 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the Drachenbergs. It was an ideally peaceful scene — 
 such a spot as one would have chosen for a mountain 
 home — and as the stoical Kaffir boys dug the long, 
 shallow graves in which the dead of each regiment were 
 to lie, there were skylarks trilling blithely just overhead, 
 though higher still the wheeling vultures. The dead, as 
 in life, were shoulder to shoulder, the men of each corps 
 side by side ; here the bare knees of the Highlanders, next 
 the brown putties of the Light Horsemen ; all of them 
 young men, nearly all shaved, except the moustache — • 
 while the Boers were invariably bearded. Most of them 
 had the knees drawn up, and there was something 
 dramatically suggestive in the attitude of the dead arms. 
 Men had died face downward with their arms stretched 
 out. By the graveside they were upon their backs, so 
 that the chin-straps of the helmets might be cut away, 
 the face fully exposed, and the dead identified. Thus 
 the arms came upward, raised in the air, and in very 
 many cases the poise was pathetically life-like. The 
 outspread palms and outstretched arms seemed to ward 
 off something — yet it was only the loose-flung attitude 
 of death. They were buried so, their hands under the 
 brown blanket, the last thing seen above the mould. It 
 was the most impressive note in the whole grim death 
 scene. Then came the friends and comrades of the dead, 
 cutting off a button or a badge as a memento ; last of all 
 the burial service, with the Commander-in-Chief standing 
 bare-headed seeing the last of his brave soldiers. Less 
 than a hundred yards away the camp butchers of the 
 King's Royals were cutting up a beast for dinner — 
 perhaps an artillery horse killed during the fight, for it 
 had come to that. Before this came a private of the 
 Manchesters. " I hear my brother is missing from the 
 King's Royals," he said ; " I hope he's not in this lot." 
 He walked along the row of brown-clad riflemen, who 
 wore the black cross-belts, then sank upon one knee, with 
 his hands over his face. He had found his brother, the 
 most boyish-looking of all that grim group. 1 put my 
 hand upon his shoulder, and offered him the consolation
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 189 
 
 of sympathy, which at its best is weak and insufficient. 
 " He was the youngest of us," the poor chap said. " I 
 always hoped he would go back to the old people ; I 
 myself never shall." I had my own shock a little later. 
 Passing along the foot of the hill, I came upon a single 
 man lying rolled in a brown blanket. The little slij:> of 
 paper pinned to the head attracted me, and I read in 
 pencil the word " Greatiicad." My friend of the Guides 
 — sturdy, handsome Greathead! I lifted the blanket; 
 the face was smeared in blood and looked thinner than 
 in life, but the heavy moustache, that at least was recog- 
 nizable. I came away more sad and sick at heart than 
 ever, and one of the first men I met on returning to town 
 was Greathead himself. This poor fellow at the foot of 
 the hill was his brother, of the Light Horse. 
 
 Next over the hill to the enemy's side of the slope, 
 where the Boer dead were h'ing. Their Red Cross men 
 were dotted amongst the thorn in the valley. Close to 
 me was a wagon, upon which the dead were piled one 
 upon another, anyhow. Twenty-six bodies were still 
 ly^ing on the grass, five wagon-loads had already gone. 
 Across the valley I could see through the glass some 
 sixty others in a row upon the veldt. About ninety 
 of the Dutch dead were taken off the hill they had come 
 to capture. Thirteen of them could not be moved, they 
 were in that pen of death where our shrapnel fell 
 thickest, and, much as we in Ladysmith had seen of the 
 destruction of shell fire during this past ten weeks, we 
 had witnessed nothing quite so appalHng as that. These 
 men could not be removed for burial — they were too 
 shockingly mangled ; so their graves were dug beside 
 them. Many of the Dutch dead at other points were 
 only partially clothed. Some had disrobed themselves 
 in their last agony — all had been searched by the Natal 
 Mounted Police for identification papers, the invariable 
 practice where the Boer dead lie within our lines. The 
 instructions were to keep a record of all the dead, but 
 especially of those men who were resident in Natal and 
 naturalized British subjects. "This is the worst day we
 
 I90 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 have ever had," said one of the Dutch searchers to a 
 surgeon whom he met. The same story was told to the 
 adjutant of the King's Royals, whom I have already 
 mentioned. From the Intombi Spruit camp, which lies 
 parallel with the Boer ridge, and gives a full view of 
 their position, our people saw long lines of wagons 
 taking away the enemy's dead and wounded, and at 
 dusk on Sunday night their search parties were still 
 moving about the valley. Their loss on the main ridge 
 must have been great ; we know what our field-gun 
 shrapnel can do — so does the Boer. When he opened 
 on the town with his heavy guns on Monday morning 
 he laid them first on the artillery camp, and kept them 
 there all day — anxious to pay back in blood the debt he 
 owed the Royal Artillery. I have mentioned the big 
 Boer who stood on a rock, dared us to come on, and was 
 shot there. A sporting Mauser rifle lay partly under 
 him, with the letters H. V. deeply cut in the stock. 
 There was also an envelope, the address partly obliter- 
 ated in blood, but at the foot the words " Heidelberg 
 Laager, Ladysmith, Z. A. R." Thus they had proclaimed 
 the town a part of the South African Republic, and thus 
 tragically they had failed in their brave effort to take 
 possession. Eight hundred killed and wounded was the 
 first estimate, but later the official estimate swelled to 
 one thousand. While we were on the hill the enemy fired 
 once on a burial party — a dozen rounds or so from 
 their Pom-pom — but those were the only shots, and by 
 common consent the search parties on both sides were 
 undisturbed for the rest of the day. 
 
 At two other points that day the Boers made an 
 assault upon our defences, but as the attack was in 
 neither case carried through with anything like the 
 determination shown at Caesar's Hill, these were pre- 
 sumably intended as feints to divert attention from the 
 main assault. At Observation Hill, on the extreme 
 west, where a post of a hundred of the Devons were in 
 possession, some two hundred Boers came forward in the 
 early morning, and got as far as the Free State railway
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 191 
 
 line which runs at the foot of the hill. In doing so they 
 lost eight killed and fourteen wounded, and were finally 
 forced out of the position by the Hotchkiss machine 
 gun. Two of the Devons were killed, and one wounded. 
 What at one time appeared to be a much more imposing 
 move was made on tlie north-east from Lombard's Kop. 
 The enemy came half-way forward to the Liverpools' 
 ridge, and occupied a deep donga. Our 13th Field 
 Battery had been posted to command this position, and 
 as soon as the shrapnel began to drop there the enemy 
 came no further, and in an hour or so were glad to creep 
 out at the top end of the donga, and get back to their 
 lines again. Following upon the attack on Caesar's Hill 
 wc had several anxious nights of heavy rain, during 
 which it was feared that the enemy might again come 
 forward to the assault, but they shirked it, though on 
 Monday, January 8, we could see them massing lK;avily 
 towards the east. 
 
 After the bloody struggle at C.xsar's Hill came a few 
 days' calm — a period never free, however, from illness, 
 apprehension, privation, and anxiety. There were nearly 
 two thousand sick and wounded at Intombi Camp, and 
 all civilians in the town, whose work at the moment was 
 not one of public importance, were required to go out 
 as hospital orderlies and nurses to the sick. There were 
 no caters of idle bread in Lad>smith. Some of the 
 corps had suffered so heavily that they were almost 
 skeleton regiments. The Liverpools had a hundred and 
 seventy men down. The Imperial Light Horse, who 
 took the field with a strong force of young, stalwart, 
 seasoned South Africans, could only put about a hundred 
 men in the field. The enemy, who were well informed 
 as to all that occurred here, counted on this, I under- 
 stand, in their assault on Saturday morning. They 
 know now that British valour is not entirely dependent 
 upon British beer, but thrives fairly well even upon 
 maize meal. The Boers spoke of their loss as a national 
 calamity. The Free Staters were much incensed at the 
 failure of the Transvaal Boers to carry out a precon-
 
 192 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 ceived plan of attack. They were to have assaulted our 
 defences determinedly and in force on the northern side 
 at the same hour that the assault was made on Caesar's 
 Hill. The Transvaal men dallied with the task, were 
 driven back from the one point where they showed in 
 the open, and otherwise only occupied late in the day a 
 donga which proved to be a shell-trap, and which the 
 longer they held it the more men they lost. I have not 
 seen better shooting than our artillery did at that point 
 — and in this arm, it seems to me, alone rests our superi- 
 ority to the Dutch. The Royal Artillery dare every- 
 thing for a good position in the open, and gaining that 
 nothing can stand against them. It was that knowledge, 
 I feel sure, born of bitter experience, which induced the 
 enemy to attack at night. 
 
 One heard every day of new and remarkable experi- 
 ences in the fight at Caesar's Hill. Colour-sergeant 
 Bryce, of the Gordons, died at Intombi Camp three 
 days after the fight, and had no fewer than fourteen 
 bullet-marks on him. One of the Imperial Light Horse 
 had four bullets through his hat, and a fifth grazed his 
 temple and partly stunned him, but he was about in a 
 few days. There was one Boer marksman firing through 
 a narrow slot between two rocks who, it is said, hit no 
 fewer than six of our men, and upon whom four of our 
 crack rifle-shots had finally concentrated their fire ere 
 they killed him. 
 
 On January lo we were indulged with a budget of 
 news by heliograph — the first we had heard of the 
 outside world for some time. We were told of the 
 settlement of the Samoan question, of the settlement 
 of the Alaskan boundary, of Chamberlain's " clean slate " 
 speech, of everything and all the world excepting that 
 little strip of country on the Tugela where our thoughts 
 and anticipations so often centred. Late in the day 
 came General BuUer's congratulations to the garrison 
 on the success of Saturday, flashed by heliograph across 
 the intervening hills, with an assurance of his early 
 advance to the relief of Ladysmith. There was an in-
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 193 
 
 definitcncss as to the time, however, which left much 
 to the imai;in;ition. The one rcassurint; thing was an 
 announcement by the Commander-in-Chief that the 
 rations to the troops would be increased, and it was 
 welcome. They had been " whipping the cat " for weeks, 
 and were sorely in need of a better fighting ration than 
 maize meal — the only difference in the supplies to horse 
 and man being that the meal in the one case was boiled. 
 In the meantime some few of the garrison had rivalled 
 the besieged of Paris in recourse to horseflesh. On 
 Monday a fat, five-year-old horse in the volunteer lines 
 had his head blown off by a Dutch shell, and the carcase 
 was cut into joints and sent to several of the messes. 
 Those who were hungry enough to try it declared that 
 the flesh was much more palatable and 'tender than the 
 fresh beef with which they had lately struggled, and that 
 it tasted like venison. 
 
 Five days after the battle of Caesar's Hill the Dutch 
 were still searching for their dead. Some of them were 
 found as far down as the Tugela — carried away by the 
 flood waters of the swollen spruit. Some were being 
 picked up every day amongst the clefts of the huge 
 rocks approaching Ca:sar's Hill, which hid them so well 
 both in life and death. On Thursday their officers com- 
 plained that their search parties were being fired on from 
 Ca-sar's Camp, but once their object was known they 
 were no longer molested. Our Lancers found a great 
 many of them in an overlooked donga some days after 
 the fight. They found also one man who lay on his 
 face partly behind a rock. His attitude was that of a 
 sharpshooter lying forward to fire, and in that position 
 nearly fifty bullets had been fired through his body after 
 death, our men, on catching a glimpse of him, imagining 
 him to be alive. Five hundred rounds of ball cartridge 
 were lying ready to his right hand. 
 
 One of the sad phases of this war on the Boer side was 
 the number from one family killed — father and sons had 
 taken the field in company, had gone into battle together, 
 and were found dead together. I saw one such
 
 194 ^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 case on Caesar's Hill the morning after the fight. Two 
 Boers were there killed by shrapnel. Both had been hit 
 in the body, and there was no mistaking the likeness 
 between the two faces — the similarity of the reddish- 
 brown hair — they were father and son. Not far from 
 them lay a stalwart, handsome Boer with fair, curling 
 hair. His blue eyes, wide open and staring at the blue 
 sky, seemed strangely alive. Young Schultz, who died 
 in hospital three days after the fight, saw his father 
 killed before he fell. When John Smith, the British 
 soldier, falls in action there are a thousand John Smiths 
 ready to fill the gap in the ranks. When Jan Schmidt, 
 the Boer farmer, falls there is no other to take his place, 
 but all through the Dutch possessions there are relatives 
 to mourn his loss, and so does the blow reach further 
 with the Boer than with the Briton. 
 
 From Intombi Camp the approach of the Boers towards 
 Caesar's Hill was noted in the early daylight while the 
 attention of its defenders was concentrated on the firing 
 at the other end of the position, where the attack had 
 developed earlier. With mixed emotions, our sick and 
 wounded saw the enemy halt at a crest in a donga 200 
 yards from the British lines, and gather their forces for 
 the final move, and they would have given much to have 
 sent a warning cry over the veldt to their comrades. 
 Next they saw the figures silhouetted clearly against the 
 sky-line, and the tension eased only with the splutter of 
 the defending rifles and the occasional toppling over of 
 a Boer rifleman. On this point of the hill a new gun, 
 the Colt automatic, a machine gun, smaller and more 
 portable than the Maxim, and without the encumbrance 
 of a water-jacket, did great execution, sweeping the 
 whole crest of the ridge once the Boers had gained a 
 footing there. It is an American invention, proved to 
 be very deadly in the late war with Spain, and was 
 brought out to Natal purely as a speculation. One of 
 the men connected with it is said to be a well-known 
 socialist leader, whose projects for levelling the masses 
 have evidently taken a new turn. The company sent
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 195 
 
 out an expert, who was eagerly waiting a chance to try 
 the weapon under new conditions, and this is surely 
 the most up-to-date development of the commercial 
 traveller. On Sunday morninj:^ that soldierly bagman 
 was calmly refilling his feeding belt. 
 
 One ren.arkable feature of modern warfare with the 
 small-bore rifle is the erratic course taken by the bullet. 
 It has frequently turned out that where a man appeared 
 to have been hit by several bullets the wounds were all 
 from a single shot. I know of one case where the 
 bullet struck a man in the back of the head, passed 
 through his ear, entered the shoulder, passed out again, 
 entered the thigli finally, and lodged near the knee. It 
 seems an impossible course for a single shot to follow, even 
 though partly accounted for by the fact that the man was 
 lying down when hit. There were scores of such instances. 
 Our death list for Ceesar's Hill had, a week after the 
 conflict, been brought very nearly to 150, and with their 
 shrapnel wounds the mortality amongst the Dutch 
 wounded must have been proportionately greater. 
 When, on the day after the fight, six of the Dutch 
 wagons on their way to the base halted near Intombi, 
 Major Bruce and some of his medical officers humanely 
 went forward and volunteered their services. They were 
 not needed, however — each wagon was a mortuary 
 stacked with dead. 
 
 Four days after the fight poor Lord Ava died of his 
 wounds, and on the following day amongst the victims 
 of enteric was Mr. Robert Mitchell, a Scottish and South 
 African journalist, who had been acting with Mr. Maxwell 
 as representative of the London Standard. It became 
 a question then whether enteric, if given a little while 
 longer, would not kill more men than the Dutch shell, 
 though were it not for the defective fuses, which caused 
 Joubert such consternation just before the war began, 
 the mortality, both amongst soldiers and civilians, would 
 have been enormous. 
 
 One pair of eyes can never see the whole of a fight, 
 nor one memory keep every impression. Fresh vignettes
 
 196 BOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of battle, lost for the moment in some new and over- 
 powering impression, came back to one every day. 
 
 The Dutch fought bravely on Caesar's Hill, as bravely 
 as men could fight, but they were the flower of Joubert's 
 army, and had volunteered for what they knew to be a 
 desperate task. There was no need of corroboration 
 upon that point from the wounded prisoners. To those 
 who know the Dutch, the dead upon the hill told the 
 whole story. An infallible sign of the superior classes 
 amongst the Boers is the wearing of elastic-side boots, 
 and those men who died nearest the British lines all 
 wore them. I saw three in one group, De Villiers, 
 their valiant leader, was one — a finely-built man, with 
 crisp black curling hair, and a brown, weather-tanned 
 face that suggested my own ideal of Longfellow's 
 Village Blacksmith, Near him lay a man with a decidedly 
 English face, and the trimmed, pointed beard of our 
 naval officers. There was a third whose face I could 
 not see. He had fallen face downward, as most men 
 fall when shot dead with a bullet on level ground, and — 
 another invariable mark of those killed in battle — had 
 his arms and legs drawn up in a dying contraction. 
 All three wore elastic-side boots ; but such boots were 
 far less common amongst those who had fallen some 
 distance away from the British position — that is to say, 
 the men who had come forward a certain distance, then 
 taken cover, and fought there in Boer fashion until the 
 Lee-Metford bullet found its billet. Some of these 
 looked pitiably destitute in death. The soles were worn 
 off their boots ; some of them were actually wearing 
 women's underlinen. It looked anything but a prosperous 
 and conquering army, and in face of it every emotion of 
 racial animosity died away, and there was only a great 
 pity that such things should be — an appeal not to valour, 
 but to humanity. 
 
 The cause of failure with the Boers was that too few 
 of them — in proportion to the number who started — had 
 the courage to persevere to the bitter end. Had they 
 done so, one trembles now to think of the possibilities,
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 197 
 
 though I firmly believe that Ian Hamilton would have 
 squandered British blood and given his own life reck- 
 lessly rather tiian have yielded the position. No ; there 
 is no disguising the fact that even though at the last 
 stages of the day the lioer supports came well within 
 hitting distance of our lines, in the earlier part of it 
 their assaulting columns were badly supported, even 
 shamefully abandoned by their more timorous country- 
 men. There is, to my mind, too, one default in the 
 official account of that gallant fight which history will 
 require to make good. The Queen cabled her admira- 
 tion of the Devons. In that message a word for the 
 Imperial Light Horse might well have been included, 
 without in the slightest degree lessening the compliment 
 paid to the Regulars. It was a corps d'dlite, none being 
 taken but smart young fellows, who were both good 
 shots and accomplished horsemen. Many of them were 
 young Englishmen, barely yet acclimatized, and few, on 
 joining, anticipated the thrilling experiences through 
 which they were to pass. They typified the fighting 
 spirit of the nation as apart from the trained and 
 disciplined soldier, and on Wagon Hill their conduct 
 was worthy the best traditions of a warrior race. It will 
 never, in Africa at any rate, be forgotten. In the 
 fiercest corner of that fiercest fight, when vastly out- 
 numbered, they stood their ground, and died like men 
 and heroes. What more could men or heroes do } 
 There was one of them, Gorton of Maritzburg, who fell 
 wounded between the contending lines. As he lay 
 bleeding another bullet hit him. He raised his hand- 
 kerchief as a signal for help. It only drew a hotter fire 
 upon him, and four times more the bullets found him. 
 Still he was alive. He lived through the burning heat 
 of the day, the storm that followed, and still through 
 the dismal night, but man could not bear such a strain, 
 and four days later he died. Some of the Imperial 
 Light Horse dkl try to help their wounded comrades, 
 and their loyalty cost them their lives. Young Tucker, 
 son of a Johannesburg stockbroker, crept forward to
 
 198 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 where one of his friends lay, and, in the act of binding 
 up his wounds, was shot through the heart. Their 
 capacity for sticking in hot corners was indirectly 
 recognized. They were at once equipped with bayonets 
 and revolvers — the only mounted corps in Natal who 
 carried them. Better still, the brigadier commanding in 
 the fight wrote the following letter — 
 
 " To the Officer in charge of the Imperial Light Horse, 
 — I write these lines just to let you and your brave 
 fellows know that in my despatch it will be made quite 
 clear that the I. L. H. were second to none. No one 
 realizes more clearly than I do that they were the back- 
 bone of the defence during that long day's fighting. 
 Please make it known to the men that to have been 
 associated with them I have always felt to be the highest 
 privilege and honour." Brigadier-General Brocklehurst, 
 commanding the cavalry brigade to which they were 
 attached, also wrote — " I'm very proud that the I. L. H. 
 belong to my brigade." A high testimionial from true- 
 born fighting men. 
 
 The more I saw of our two young Australian doctors, 
 the greater my pride in my countrymen. In the hottest 
 of the fight at Wagon Hill, Dr. Buntine, exposed to a 
 cross fire, sat down calmly, and performed the delicate 
 operation of tracheotomy upon a wounded officer who 
 had been shot through the throat. His conduct was 
 everywhere the theme of admiration. Hornabrook, 
 much against his will, was sent on duty to Intombi, and 
 his friends were glad that, for a time at any rate, he was 
 unable to expose himself to the risks of bullet and shell. 
 
 On the night of the 15th we correspondents buried 
 our poor colleague Mitchell, of the Standaj^d, skulking 
 to the grave by moonlight, as though on some shameful 
 errand. It was the usual way. Alongside us some 
 soldiers were burying a comrade, and very few minutes 
 elapsed before the blare of the bugles told that the 
 interment was over. There was little waste of time on 
 ceremony, for burials had become a matter of routine. 
 But wherever the dead were taken through the streets
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 199 
 
 every soldier turned and lifted his hand in salute ; every 
 civilian uncovered his head. In the short range of bed- 
 rooms, one of which I occupied, there were three men 
 down with enteric, and disease simply stalked brazenly 
 through the streets of the town. To arrest its progress 
 was hopeless. We could only wait and hope for General 
 Buller's coming, and the chance to get away from the 
 pesthouse into a purer atmosphere. If waiting be ever 
 weary work, how trebly weary under these dismal cir- 
 cumstances. *' A breath of unadulteratc air, a glimpse 
 of a green pasture." How we longed for both, after the 
 stench of that plague-smitten town and the eternal brown 
 of the prison hills. At an earlier period of the siege we 
 wondered always what the enemy expected to achieve 
 by sitting down upon their seven hills and potting us at 
 long range with their cannon. It was such a hopeless 
 thing, with the relief column coming on from the coast. 
 We laughed then at the bombardment, but the humour 
 soon faded from the situation. We forgot that sword 
 and pestilence could be just as much twin destroyers in 
 this enlightened age as in the days "when the germ theory 
 of disease was unknown, and realized that the Dutch had 
 an ally in disease far more effective than their inferior 
 shell. Sometimes on one day there were as many as 
 sixteen dead waiting for interment at Intombi. Why 
 should the Boers waste powder when sickness could do 
 that much for them? On January 15 — one month since 
 we had listened to the sound of Buller's guns upon the 
 far Tugela — things were very nearly at their worst with 
 us. Fever, grim and gaunt, stalked the streets, for Lady- 
 smith had a town-hall — or as much of a town-hall as the 
 Boer cannon had left — a coat-of-arms, a common zeal, a 
 mayor, all the requirements of modern municipal civiliza- 
 ation — excepting drainage. They had gutters which, 
 after heavy storms, become fever-beds, stewing and 
 sweltering under the fierce Natal suns, but drainage in 
 its tnie, wholesome sense was unknown. They had 
 methods of sanitation entirely worthy of the people by 
 whom it was mainly carried out — coolies and Kaffirs.
 
 200 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 No cause for wonder, then, that ninety per cent, of the 
 people in Ladysmith were, during this awful three 
 months, down with some form of sickness, or that the 
 doctors, struggling heroically with their work, one day 
 in the field, the next in the hospitals, had thin, worn, 
 haggard faces, with lines of anxiety ever deepening upon 
 them. It made many of them older men. Yet, for 
 humanity's sake, they held up bravely. There were 
 seven of them down with fever in the officers' hospital at 
 Intombi. The Imperial Light Horse, who came in 475 
 strong, paraded less than 150. The Border Mounted, 
 who came with a strength of over 200, mustered 96. 
 The Devons, who marched in 984 strong, had 480 on 
 parade, and the missing ones had gone down in greater 
 numbers to fever than to the bullet. The proportion 
 ran much the same through every corps. And never 
 were poor, famishing, despairing wretches so tormented 
 by illusive rumour as the garrison of Ladysmith. There 
 were relief columns on all sides of us, but they came 
 not — 
 
 " not yet, but he whose ear 
 Thrills to that finer atmosphere " 
 
 might imagine upon every side the faint, very faint 
 boom of guns — but they remained always faint, and 
 were generally but the phantasy of a sick man's brain. 
 The bombardment fell away slightly, but we ceased to 
 notice it — fever had supplanted shell as the universal 
 peril. 
 
 The heart-breaking thing to the physicians was that 
 though they might pull a man safely through the crisis 
 of his illness, they had no chance of building up his 
 strength again. There were no suitable foods for the 
 purpose ; no chance for that careful nursing which, to 
 fever patients, is half the battle. Those to whom money 
 was no object could buy eggs at 20s. a dozen, but these 
 were luxuries far beyond the means of the man in the 
 ranks, hundreds of whom were invalided home unfit for 
 further soldiering and with constitutions hopelessly broken
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE 201 
 
 down. Thus, in the slow stages of convalescence, died 
 G. \V. Stcevcns, one of the best-known of war corre- 
 spondents, holding, as an attractive writer on war, the 
 position that was once so universally accorded to Archi- 
 bald Forbes. Steevens was one of the first men smitten 
 with enteric, but thin, wiry, cool, self-contained as he 
 was by nature, he passed very successfully through the 
 trying stage of the illness, and seemed to be quite out 
 of danger, when some slight indiscretion brought a re- 
 lapse, which, in a few hours, killed him. Next to Bcnnet 
 Burleigh — who, from the strictly newspaper point of 
 view, the capacity to get early and accurate information, 
 had no peer amongst modern war correspondents — 
 Steevens was by far the most able writer in the field. 
 He was through the short Graeco-Turkish campaign, 
 where, like Kinnaird Rose of Brisbane, he made a 
 reputation with his book, With the Conquering Turk. 
 He went to Chitral later, and, last of all, described the 
 downfall of Mahdism as no one else has described it. 
 Then, at the zenith of success, mourned by many com- 
 rades, as by those who wept for him in their English 
 home, died in this wretched, man-eating Ladysmith, an 
 able correspondent. We buried him at midnight, with 
 the Boer search-light from Umbulwana playing inquisi- 
 tively upon his cofifin. On the spot where Colonel 
 Dick-Cunyngham, of the Gordons, fell wounded on the 
 early morning of the battle of Caesar's Hill, the regiment 
 built a cairn bearing this inscription : — 
 
 " On this spot 
 LIEUT.-COLONEL DICK-CUNYNGHAM, V.C, 
 
 Commanding 2nd Gordon Highlanders, 
 
 Was mortally wounded 
 
 On Jan. 6, 1900."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE GUNS ON THE TUGELA 
 
 Distant shell fire — Lyddite on the hills— The garrison under- 
 ground — The town signals — Half rations. 
 
 One point of controversy that had lasted pretty well 
 throughout the siege was settled by the resolute effort 
 of the enemy to break through our defences at Caesar's 
 Hill. Civilians in Ladysmith had always contended 
 that Sir George White was guilty of a tactical blunder 
 in not including both Umbulwana and Lombard's Kop 
 in our ring of defences. No doubt it would have de- 
 prived the Boers of two most commanding points for 
 the bombardment of the town, but the real point was, 
 not whether the hills were worth holding — that was 
 beyond argument — but whether doubling the length of 
 our line of defence (for that is what it meant) would not 
 have left the chain dangerously weak at any point 
 where the enemy chose vigorously to test its strength. 
 Caesar's Hill settled that point beyond all question, and 
 admittedly justified the Commander-in-Chief's disposition 
 of his forces and choice of stations. Had we attempted 
 to hold the two big hills, a Boer assault half as impetu- 
 ous as that of January 6 would have isolated a large 
 portion of our forces, and left the town pretty well at 
 the mercy of the Boers, It was due to the tried soldier, 
 with the gift of looking far ahead, of gauging the task, 
 
 202
 
 THE GUNS ON THE TUGELA 203 
 
 not by his present strenc^th, but by what his strength 
 might be in months to come, that we were still in posses- 
 sion of even such a sorry harbour of refuge. Most of us 
 in Ladysmith had, I think, been a little precipitate in 
 our judgment of the military authorities. We had suf- 
 fered too much personally to be calm, unbiassed judges 
 of the situation. In face of daily peril and discomfort, 
 the severely judicial attitude was not easily assumed, 
 and we were apt to be carried away by individual griev- 
 ances. It had been a trying situation, and the Staff, 
 whether fighting men or executive, had risen to it. 
 Upon Sir George White the strain must have been 
 tremendous, for probably only he and General Hunter, 
 his Chief of Staff, knew that when Bullcr was repulsed at 
 the Tugela it meant two months waiting. And in 
 General Hunter he had just the man to help him to carry 
 the burden. Through it all the great fighter of the 
 Soudan was cool, cheerful, courageous, hiding all trace 
 of anxiety, carrj-ing always that cheerful face which 
 gave strength to his subordinates. 
 
 By the middle of January we knew that the repeated 
 rumours as to the disposal of General Buller's troops on 
 the Tugela had some foundation in fact. Sir Charles 
 Warren, it was said, had moved up the river, and would 
 attempt the crossing at Potgieter's Drift, eighteen miles 
 from Colenso, and the nearest ford that gave suitable pas- 
 sage to an army. The heights were further back from the 
 river than at Colenso, giving us a better chance — once we 
 had shelled them out — to make our footing good. The 
 key of the Dutch position was a high, doubled-pronged 
 mountain, known to the Kaffirs as N'taba N'Yama, or 
 the Black Mountain, the Dutch name being Spion Kop. 
 For some few days after their heliograph, working from 
 the new position, had told us that our countrymen 
 were at Springfield, we waited in hourly expectation of 
 hearing their guns, and we were beginning to despair 
 again, when at dawn on the morning of January 17 the 
 long dull roar came to us, and we knew that the ex- 
 pected battle had begun — the battle that was to bring us
 
 204 HOW V/E KEPT THE EL AG ELYING 
 
 early deliverance, or — well, we hardly liked to think of 
 the alternative. Death from stagnation or imprisonment 
 at Pretoria were both unpleasant. All day the faint 
 roar of the cannon continued, just as we heard it on the 
 Tugela a month before, when we expected so much and 
 realized so little. The sky was overcast, and there was 
 no chance of signalling, but the fact that the guns were 
 going until ten o'clock that night told that no definite 
 stage in the fight had been reached. They were more 
 tardy in beginning next day, and we were in suspense 
 for a while lest again the relieving column might have 
 failed to " make good its footing." Later we heard the 
 Titanic duel raging once again, and no music ever 
 sounded sweeter to ears long dulled to close, but ever 
 sensitive to distant, cannon fire. Pulled down though 
 we were by dysentery and bad diet, fit rather for the 
 hospital than the field, there was that thrilling promise 
 in these far-off guns which made it impossible even for a 
 sick man to stay a-bed. I rode out to Observation Hill, 
 to get a far-away view of the country in the direction of 
 Potgieter's Drift, where there are fewer hills than towards 
 Colenso. Beaten from their main position there, the 
 enemy had but one or two points where they could 
 make a stand. The guiding point was a British war- 
 balloon, its oiled silken skin shining in the sunrise like a 
 new sixpence suspended from the sky. As we watched, 
 a gun flashed from the side of a black hill across the 
 river, and though over twenty miles of rolling veldt lay 
 between, we could see the British shells bursting about 
 the tops of the enemy's hills, huge pillars of red and 
 black smoke — a mixture of South African dust and 
 British lyddite. Occasionally a dense cloud of white 
 smoke, like one of the woolpacks that float across Aus- 
 tralian skies in the early autumn, burst from the top of 
 the nearer hills — the black powder of one of the big 
 Boer guns. On our side of this ridge we could distinctly 
 pick out with the glass two large Boer camps, sheltered 
 from Warren's guns, and hidden even from the war- 
 balloon by the lofty tops of N'taba N'Yama. We were
 
 THE GUNS ON THE TUG EL A 205 
 
 able even at that distance to co-operate with our friends. 
 Observation Hill was a heliograph station, and we could 
 see behind the presumed position of the British lines 
 their heliograph, resembling in the distance a bright 
 brass gong, with yellow prismatic rays thrown across it. 
 We told them of the Boer camps, and a huge laager of 
 some forty wagons — their transport trains in waiting — and 
 saw the sequel later in the afternoon. It was between 
 three and four o'clock that the steady fire ceased for a 
 little; then burst out again in salvoes as yet unequalled. 
 Suddenly we saw the shells bursting, a half-dozen at a 
 time, around about the left camp of the enemy, whence 
 the white tents, or wagon buck-sails — which serve the 
 purpose of tents with the Dutch — soon disappeared. 
 Shells fell amongst the wagons also, and the naval 
 gunners through their powerful glass could see the 
 enemy's ambulance vans at work. It needed nothing of 
 the kind to assure us that the Boers were in a hot 
 corner. Lyddite shells falling as these fell must wreak 
 awful havoc. Before sundown the whole of the left 
 position of the Boer forces at Potgieter's Drift seemed 
 to be deserted, and our sliells were falling on their right 
 only. That was the best night we had spent in Lady- 
 smith for many a week. Unless we had lost faith in the 
 evidence of our own senses, we could not but believe 
 that the relief column had "made good its footing" at 
 Springfield. 
 
 Even the enemy's gunners around Ladysmith appeared 
 to realize that it was the beginning of the end, and that 
 their three months' fun was almost over, for they pounded 
 us with redoubled energy. Best of all, our guns answered 
 them shot for shot, showing that the need for husband- 
 ing ammunition was almost past. It was while we rode 
 back from Observation Hill in the evening that a shell 
 from Bulwan fell, with a demoralizing crash, almost on 
 us. The scream, the concussion, the roar of the explo- 
 sion nearly hurled us from the saddle. My chum 
 Greenwood, helped by an alarmed double somersault 
 from his terrified Basuto pony, was thrown, and then I
 
 2o6 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 realized that the admiration of a true horseman for his 
 horse is something that passeth human understanding. 
 Badly bruised and partly stunned, the correspondent 
 sat up in the dust, and, looking at the offending pony — 
 which stood with spread nostrils, prifcked ears, wide eyes, 
 and quivering flanks — gasped in unmistakable admira- 
 tion, "Isn't he a Httle picture?" "If he were mine," 
 retorted the Central News correspondent, " I'd knock the 
 picture out of its frame with half a brick." 
 
 Shriller than ever in Ladysmith rose the different 
 alarm notes, which told that Bulwan is in eruption. 
 There was no longer any false pride as to taking 
 shelter from Long Tom. The men were commanded to 
 go to earth ; each camp had its own shelters, and its 
 own signalman always on the look-out for the first puff 
 of smoke, between which and the shell there were over 
 twenty seconds to get to cover. From the volunteer 
 camp came the warning in a three-note blare of the 
 bugle. From Helpmakaar ridge, held alternately by the 
 Liverpools and the Devons, there was a shrill whistle, 
 while a Hindoo sentinel perched on one of the railway- 
 station buildings, gave the signal to his countrymen 
 with a high, piping cry of " L-o-o-o-n-g To-o-o-m " — 
 that to Oriental ears sounded like the Mussulman call 
 to prayer. One heard that shrill call quite as far off as 
 the bugle or the whistle. 
 
 The 20th and 21st — two roaring hot African days, on 
 which the 105° in the shade was more trying in Lady- 
 smith basin than 110° in Australia — passed without 
 developments of any decisive character, though the 
 cannon fire was still heavy to the south-west, while the 
 fight appeared to shift still further towards the great 
 chain of mountains cutting off Natal from the Free State 
 and the Transvaal. On Sunday we judged, from the 
 white smoke bursting in puffs along the escarpment of 
 the foot-hills, that our forces had pushed the enemy 
 back from their position at Potgieter's Drift, and, leav- 
 ing their siege guns, were following him up with field 
 artillery. Towards evening on the 20th a squadron of
 
 THE GUNS ON THE TUGELA 207 
 
 British cavalry — presumably an outpost — was seen upon 
 a distant hillside, and it looked alluringly easy then to 
 link hands with our friends across the veldt, but we 
 knew perfectly well that the prelude to that was battle, 
 and it might be heavy slaughter, and the British forces 
 in Ladysmith stood ever prepared to take a share in the 
 conflict. The cavalry and mounted infantry had three 
 days' rations and fodder packed ready to move out at an 
 instant's notice, and they waited the development of 
 what we believed to be a far-reaching plan for cutting off 
 and cornering the Boer army. Information was exceed- 
 ingly meagre ; we had to guess at everything, for it was 
 not a time when generals exercised candour or com- 
 municativeness. Badly as we needed succour, we were 
 content with such a possibility ahead to wait a little 
 longer, and as a germicide to drip carbolic in our drink- 
 ing-water. There was no choice in the matter of diet — 
 bread (rather sodden), biscuit (tremendously hard), 
 canned beef (objectionable only when the cooks made a 
 well-intentioned effort to disguise the fact that it was 
 tinned stuff), and tea without milk or sugar. Half 
 rations of each. Occasionally transport oxen were 
 killed to save them from starvation, and then fresh meat 
 was served out. Human teeth were powerless to make 
 an impression upon thews that had done transport work 
 through the whole length of Africa, and with soldiers 
 and civilians the universal plan was to boil this meat for 
 hours, and use the soup only. We mixed with it for 
 vegetables a variety of wild spinach, the only objection 
 to which was its tenacity in holding to its native sands. 
 A few fortunate ones had the softer tendrils of pumpkin 
 vines for vegetables, but the veldt is singularly destitute 
 of any native plant that can be so used. Neither nettle 
 nor marsh-mallow seems to have penetrated to this part 
 of Natal. The result of it all was hollow cheeks, sunken 
 eyes, and flapping waistcoats. Men had ceased to fit 
 their clothes, and the garrison was the flabbiest, shabbi- 
 est, and sorriest lot of human beings ever gathered 
 together.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 
 
 The folly of inaction — The first battle — A nasty few minutes — 
 The impressive sequel — Conduct of the enemy — The lonely dead 
 — Confusion of fight — How historians disagree — Night and the 
 bayonet. 
 
 The one thing brought home to all of us in Lady- 
 smith while we waited for the end was the suicide of 
 inaction. We rose early and rode early ere yet the Boer 
 gunners were about to make horse exercise on the outer 
 veldt at all perilous. To talk, to write, to play a game 
 of whist, anything were better than to sit still and think 
 and ponder over dour possibilities. Just as it became 
 necessary to prevent, by a fine, men talking of appetiz- 
 ing dishes between meals, so it was necessary to get 
 others out of themselves, out even into the danger zone, 
 so that they might at least have the melancholy proof 
 that there were hundreds in worse plight than themselves. 
 Sometimes for days there was the monotony more trying 
 than actual peril. Let me take advantage of one such 
 period to try and convey to you some of the emotions 
 of battle with which we are now at least fairly well 
 acquainted. They may sound strange perhaps ; it may 
 be strained and overdrawn, but remember that we speak 
 of war — and that war touches, it seems to me, almost 
 every string in the gamut of human emotions. There 
 may be something that is very nearly hysteria — there 
 
 208
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 209 
 
 can never be indifference. It is but the record of 
 individual impressions, and different men are differently 
 affected. 
 
 I had long been impressed with the idea that the first 
 battle was the great ordeal — that no stone could be too 
 large for cover, no shelter too insignificant. It is not so. 
 Until one has realized something of the effect of fire, he 
 is not in any sense overawed by it, and even then he is 
 apt to magnify the lesser danger and ignore the greater. 
 The Boer artillery fire was, with us, never at any time 
 terrific. It brought to mind, indeed, a homely saying I 
 once heard in the mouth of a Scottish member of the 
 Victorian Parliament — 
 
 " Great cry and little wool, 
 As the devil said when he clipped the bull." 
 
 But to the novice the artillery fire is everything. The 
 roar of shell to those who hear it for the first time is 
 impressive, and there is an overmastering impulse to 
 duck and hide from shells that could not hit one though 
 he stood as high as the loftiest gum tree in Australia, a 
 corresponding tendency to ignore the unobtrusive, imp- 
 like buzz of the Mauser bullet. It takes time to discover 
 and guard against the real danger, and if you have bad 
 luck you may die before you make the discovery. In 
 my first fight I was lying close to one of our batteries, 
 not knowing then the undesirability of such neighbours, 
 and the Boer shells were bursting at intervals round 
 about. A horse plunged in the traces just behind, yet 
 no shell had burst there. A gunner running past with a 
 shell in his hand dropped down suddenly on the veldt, 
 spat blood, quivered, and was still. The shell, painted 
 in red, white, and blue bands, rolled down the slope a 
 bit, and was caught by a stone. The gunner was dead, 
 yet no white puff" — like the bursting of a bag of flour at 
 a lively election meeting — told of shrapnel exploding 
 near enough to be effective. Then I began to grasp the 
 vital fact that noise is not necessarily danger, and that 
 of two evils it is best always to choose the louder and 
 
 o
 
 2IO HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 the least, to be keenly alert for rifle fire, and take the 
 risks of shell. Caution grows with experience, and one 
 has never such an eye for cover as in his very latest fight, 
 though he may have become apathetic in some respects. 
 Apart from obligation, one's own desire to see as much 
 as possible of the greatest game in the world makes him 
 think less of personal risk, while mechanically almost 
 making the most of all advantages in cover. 
 
 If the hour of victory is the hour of exultation, it is 
 the moment of revenge too, and of all that is worst in 
 warfare. The hour of pity and forgiveness is not yet. 
 The dominant note is pure savagery, the overmastering 
 emotion — Destruction. The foe are flying, and the one 
 desire is Kill, Kill, Kill — for this is a flight turned to rout 
 and demoralization. It has ended perhaps with such a 
 charge as those at Dundee, Elands Laagte, and Caesar's 
 Hill. All day men have seen their comrades dying round 
 about them, and, as yet, have not realized the full measure 
 of loss. They arc panting for close quarters, for the wild, 
 indescribable bayonet melee — most of all for revenge. 
 They cannot be turned loose at such a moment and play 
 the saint. Those who have long crouched behind rock 
 and kopje rise as one, and, with every nerve thrilling 
 savagely to the spirit of the wild charge, " like reapers 
 descend to the harvest of death." " Now then, give them 
 hell!" is the wild cry, and God help those whom the 
 British soldier reaches with the bayonet while his dead 
 are yet in sight, and the blood lust shines ensanguined 
 in his eyes. For them is no salvation, save from the 
 Conqueror who is all mercy. There was abundant mercy 
 in the earlier stages of the fight, ere the victor had been 
 mauled and mangled by his enemy. Killing, like increase 
 of appetite, grows upon what it feeds. The difference 
 between the civilized man and the savage is but a veneer 
 — the centuries of civilization, sentiment, and culture 
 seem only a dream in the presence of the primeval 
 emotions. It is the old rugged, untutored man killing in 
 a delirium of anger and exultation. I felt no qualm of 
 pity when I saw the flying Boers tottering against the
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 211 
 
 yellow background of the flooded spruit as our guns and 
 rifles cut them down. We had been long with our dead, 
 had seen them killed, had felt the tension of waiting, the 
 sullen resentment of possible defeat, and then came this 
 maddening, inhuman impulse. Those who have not 
 experienced it will think it unworthy, and it is un- 
 worthy, just because human nature, freed from restraint, 
 is at best a poor, savai;e, uncultured thing, that the years 
 have not greatly bettered. It had one redeeming quality, 
 and only one. It was but for a moment that the curb 
 was off, and passion wholly unrestrained. 
 
 And then — despair, sorrow, repentance. All the 
 savageries that have. come out of the past to take pos- 
 session of us are thrust aside. Reason is reinstated, and 
 the centuries have their own again in the emotions that 
 have justified the creation of man in God's own image. 
 But it comes painfully home to you that the civilization 
 which has possibilities such as this is a poor thing after 
 all — horribly incomplete. If you could but gather to- 
 gether all the eloquent tongues of the world and put 
 them on that death-strewn battle-field at the moment of 
 reaction, when the finer senses thrill responsive to every 
 appeal, what an invective against war would be the con- 
 sequence. There would be a momentary indifference, I 
 fear, as to the laws and customs of nations, as to tyranny 
 and wrong in the abstract. Every other consideration 
 would be swept aside in the one solemn appeal, " In the 
 name of God let there be no more of this." You will be 
 apt to forget, perhaps, that the long cortege of the 
 victims of wrong and error never ends, that the con- 
 sequences, could they be gathered together on the one 
 field, would be more grim and sanguinary even than 
 this. But for the moment this one picture is over- 
 powering, and you are a peace party — without the parish 
 politics. You will feel better — at any rate, more com- 
 posed — when the field has been swept clear, when, to 
 come at last to the chess-board allegory, the fallen pieces 
 — Knight and Pawn — have been put into the box and 
 the game is over. The pity that all that is best in man
 
 212 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 — the courage, patriotism, and duty you have so much 
 admired — should have this for their immediate sequel ! 
 If the emotions that beset one in battle are so unique, so 
 incomparable, so different from everything in every-day 
 life, so, too, the reaction, the depression which comes 
 with the immediate survey of the dead and dying, is the 
 greater, the more universal. Ardour, hostility, revenge 
 — all the poorer passions slink away in the presence of 
 an overmastering pity, and man is again in some measure 
 immortal. Every poor, dead, twisted, battered object on 
 the grass — the mourned of some home, the centre of 
 some one's hopes and heartburnings — is a reproach. 
 What use to tell one then, that if anarchy and confusion 
 are not to reign in the world, this sort of thing must be, 
 and that for the soldier, whatever his individual convic- 
 tions, there can be but one watchword, " In life and 
 death, in right or wrong, first, last, and always — my 
 country " ? No, the moment and the mood are not 
 for philosophy — only for heavenly compassion and 
 sympathy, which is the marrow of life. Soldier and 
 civilian, all, I am convinced, think alike then, though 
 caste and training and tradition may help them in some 
 degree to disguise their true sentiments. For the soldier 
 must not be let ponder upon these things — he must sing 
 his song of triumph while elsewhere they bury his dead, 
 just as they play a lively quick-step on the return from a 
 soldier's funeral. Now and again in the very heart of 
 this unutterable sadness you hear an oath or a blasphemy 
 that, by contrast with the solemnity of the surroundings, 
 appals you. In the presence of those dead faces, some 
 white and waxen, some blue and plethoric, it jars upon 
 you, appals you, hurts you like the cut of a knife. If it 
 were earnest, either the careless exclamation of the 
 moment or the love of coarse expletive, it would be just 
 pure brut?^lity. Happily it is nothing of the kind — only 
 the mask with which men uncultured but powerfully 
 wrought seek to conceal their emotions. It is the weak- 
 ness of most men — above all, the untutored man — that, 
 like the Indian, they would be stoics when they should
 
 nrrnESSiONS of battle 213 
 
 be humans. Lacking the Indian's power of self-com- 
 mand, they go to the brute extreme to hide the poor fact 
 that they are just human beings with human emotions. 
 They cannot well cry, so they swear ; it would be un- 
 manly to pray, so they blaspheme ; but a discerning 
 Providence, be sure, appreciates the situation, and the 
 recording angel, that was kind to the frailties of Uncle 
 Toby, has, in the inexhaustible wells of his pity, yet a 
 few more tears. If Tommy hides his emotions under the 
 coarser mask, his officer has recourse to something almost 
 equally " thin " in caste and convention. 
 
 It is with a strong feeling of resentment that I have at 
 times heard the Boers described as posturing on the 
 battle-field. They have been heartless at times, and it 
 is remembered to them, but never so heartless, so modern, 
 and so artificial as that. When our poor dead fellows 
 at Nicholson's Nek had been gathered together, so that 
 the identification papers might be taken from their 
 tunics, many of the Boers, who a little bit before had 
 been concerned only to kill them, gathered about the 
 open grave, and sang mournfully one of their old Dutch 
 hymns. " A purely theatrical display," said some in 
 whom the race hostilities rankled. " It was done to 
 impress the English with the deep religious feeling of 
 the men against whom they are fighting." I am not a 
 great believer in the genuineness of some of the Boer 
 professions, because their attitude and their actions are 
 much in conflict, but those who credit the ignorant, 
 unlettered farmers of the veldt with such a strange 
 mixture of diplomacy and hypocrisy had themselves no 
 actual experience of the sights and sounds of a battle- 
 field immediately after the fight, or they must have 
 realized the difficulties that beset an actor in such sur- 
 roundings. Nero fiddling over burning Rome is just a 
 simple-minded, whole-hearted musician as compared 
 with those who can play the mountebank over even 
 an enemy's dead. Theatrical it may have sounded to 
 those who have not yet tested by the severe battle 
 standard the suddenness of the variations in the long-
 
 214 ^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 range of human emotion. Amidst the soul-subduing 
 effects of the after battle no man can be theatrical. 
 Then will the most heartless trickster who ever trod 
 life's stage drop the character, and get something 
 near his real self, whatever its value. The greatest 
 artist who ever faced the footlights is no longer an actor 
 in such a setting — only an overstrung, over-awed, re- 
 pentant human being. The dead, set faces, the unclosed 
 eyes, the shrunken fingers, the arms tortured and stiffened 
 in death to such a mute, pathetic attitude of supplication 
 — all these would be an eternal reproach. The thin 
 distinction between Boer and Briton disappears, and the 
 one sorrow is sufficient to embrace them all. If it be so 
 with the enemy's dead, what of our attitude to our own "i 
 There are so many whom you may have met and known, 
 whom you saw last in robust health, and whom you will 
 meet no more. If familiarity breed indifference at all in 
 such a scene, it is an emotion of slow growth, for the 
 chances are that your sixth battle-field will mean many 
 more severed friendships than your first. And yet men 
 can loot in such a scene. Yes, that is so, but not imme- 
 diately, and very often, I think, they are egged on by a 
 false bravado — the desire I have already mentioned to 
 exhibit themselves to the world as men divested of every 
 weakness. I remember on Wagon Hill coming upon a 
 dead and terribly mutilated Boer lying upon a beautiful 
 sporting rifle, just such a souvenir as one would wish to 
 have of a great fight, but not for a whole arsenal could 
 I have lifted that torn body to get it. It was there for 
 hours, until some Tommy, more callous than his fellows, 
 dragged the man away, wiped the rifle clean, and admired 
 his prize. Blink at the fact as one may, loot is inse- 
 parable from battle, and must not be judged by the 
 moral codes of peace. Some are for spoil pure and 
 simple ; some want only a souvenir ; nearly all — if they 
 have the nerve for sudden and startling opportunities — 
 loot in some way. The litter of the battle-field is the 
 unclaimed property for which, as a rule, its owners have 
 no further use. To rob the dead seemed to me at first
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 215 
 
 the meanest act in the whole ranc^e of human capacity, 
 but that feeling blunted after a time, and if one did not 
 actually fall himself, he became very tolerant of the 
 frailties of others. It was a latitude that reached even 
 such sordid things as cash and valuables. 
 
 There was one other aspect of the battle-field that 
 seemed to me always more or less revolting — the bring- 
 ing in of the dead. Those with skill and thought and 
 delicacy are so fully occupied then in attending to the 
 wounded — the men who may yet be saved — that they 
 have no concern for those who are lost for ever. There 
 was something revolting in the calm, deliberate system 
 followed in the collection of the dead. The Cape boys 
 are on the field with their wagons, moving here and 
 there, picking up the bodies, and packing them, not as 
 the decencies of peace would suggest, side by side, and 
 shrouded, but just stacking them roughly in piles, as one 
 sees railway-sleepers in a truck. The bknck man is 
 picking up the white, and bringing him to his grave, 
 though it is so often the other way. Other black men 
 are digging graves, grumbling and sweating over their 
 work in the glare of the tropical noon, casting now and 
 then an apprehensive look at the gradually-extending 
 line of bodies, lest it mean more digging. The officers 
 are, perhaps, rolled in a blanket, and placed apart, 
 though social distinctions seem poor and hollow just then. 
 
 It seems odd to you at first that men who have 
 marched and messed and laughed and campaigned side 
 by side with these should have marched away to their 
 lines, to eat, drink, and sleep, leaving their dead upon 
 the field, and usage in this respect never seemed to 
 divest it wholly of an element of gruesome heartless- 
 ness. But then, as I have said before, the quick-step 
 follows hard upon the dead march, the soldier has not 
 time to mourn and measure out his affection for the 
 dead in the solemn splendour of obsequies. The weep- 
 ing is for the women and children ; the rest for the black 
 boys and the burial parties. Sometimes, indeed, a well- 
 loved leader, who has been at once a father and a com-
 
 2i6 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 mander, is not left there to the double darkness of death 
 and night, but is taken up reverently, placed on a 
 stretcher, and brought in by the regiment. That is 
 always a moving sight. A corps may have passed you, 
 hurrying home ; the men, with the loosened discipline 
 that follows upon some great service in battle, talking 
 freely, some even thus early laughing over its incidents, 
 some, perhaps, boasting cheaply, all eager to forget the 
 spectacle they have left behind them ; all with the air 
 of men returning rather from a picnic than a tragedy. 
 Then, close upon its heels, a contrast. A regiment march- 
 ing with downcast eyes and slow pace, and half-way down 
 the line a pair of muddy ammunition boots showing 
 from the end of a stretcher, carried on the shoulders of 
 four men. They are bringing in their dead. That, 
 however, is a sight rarely seen, and more frequently there 
 was nothing but the Ustlessness of after battle, the 
 reaction which, even when one is but a watcher, seems 
 for a day or two after a fight to drain away the nervous 
 power, and leave him limp and apathetic. The volun- 
 teers, who had not been hardened by drill and usage, 
 and whose losses were usually lighter than in the line 
 regiment, showed more of that reverence for the dead 
 which is the universal and sacred privilege of private 
 life. It was all a sentiment, of course, one's feeling on 
 these points, but it seemed a breach of comradeship to 
 leave those who had fought beside one lying there so 
 lonely on the hillsides. 
 
 " His cot was right-hand cot to mine, 
 Said Files upon parade ; 
 He's sleeping out and far to-night, 
 The colour-sergeant said." 
 
 The popular idea of battle to-day, encouraged and 
 strengthened always by the published descriptions of the 
 fight, is a nice series of chess-board moves, check and 
 counter-check, spread out like a map to the view of the 
 spectator. It may have been so in short-range days, 
 when troops approached each other closely, and the
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 217 
 
 charge with bayonet or lance was the vital stage of 
 combat — the final rout of the vanquished side — the last 
 move that turned defeat into confusion and slaughter. 
 It is not so now. At least, I never found it so, and the 
 fights before and during the siege of Ladysmith were 
 fairly typical. The complete system of intelligence and 
 espionage that the Dutch had established made it 
 essential that the general's plans should be known 
 to as few men as possible. The chess-board part of the 
 great war game, it seemed to me, was all played, or at 
 least developed, afterwards — the more so, perhaps, in 
 that with a mobile enemy like the Boer it is impossible 
 to calculate very far ahead. If he holds, or is supposed 
 to hold a position — plans for its assault and outflanking 
 may be carefully made, but when they are put into 
 execution the Boer, as a rule, is not there. The first 
 development of the plan opens necessarily at so great a 
 distance, that where our slow-moving infantry went out 
 to meet the most agile and alert mounted infantry in the 
 world, our move might be well developed ere we dis- 
 covered that the whole situation on the other side had 
 changed. There was one fight, at least, where the plan 
 of action seemed clear to me, and that was before the 
 siege, when we went out to Tinta Inyoni to push back 
 a second time, as we had once already pushed them back 
 at Elands Laagte, the Free State commandoes who 
 threatened to cut in between us and the column which, 
 with a dazed leader at its head and an active and 
 exasperated enemy in its rear, was struggling through 
 rain and mire on the long retreat from Dundee. There 
 the plan was at least apparent — Lucas Meyer had 
 pushed his rallied burghers in between, and thrust 
 forward to the last point where the conglomerate of hills 
 gave the Boer fighter the kind of cover he so dearly 
 loves. They halted, hesitating before coming out into 
 the open country, developing, Zulu-like, one of the long 
 arms which eventually encompassed Ladysmith and 
 pierced so far into the heart of the land below. It was 
 to prevent them thrusting forward early enough to
 
 2i8 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 harass General Yule's weary soldiers that we went out 
 to push them back. That was all clear enough to the 
 civilian onlooker. We pushed them back, and every 
 move on our side made on the open veldt was manifest 
 and explicable. Of the Boers we saw next to nothing. 
 A rout of black-coated galloping horsemen from a kopje 
 when our shell fire became too hot, disappearing quickly 
 in the smoke of the burning veldt where our shells had 
 set it on fire — that was all. The hills, but for the din, 
 looked smiling and peaceful enough ; there were no 
 hostile riflemen visible anywhere, but we heard from 
 them always. 
 
 Lombard's Kop was quite another affair. We went 
 out wondering in the early morning, speculating as to 
 the chance of its being a demonstration or really a battle. 
 We faced up to fight them at a position stronger and 
 much nearer home than Tinta Inyoni. We went to the 
 assault boldly, were met with equal determination, and 
 faltered, fell, and came back again, pelted the whole way 
 by the shell fire of an exulting foe. To us it all seemed 
 a medley and a confusion ; a repetition of those earlier 
 fights where we had gone up valiantly, taken that which 
 we could never hold, and came back again. This time, 
 though we came back downhearted, broken in spirit, 
 morose, savage, disappointed, we had spent the day, it 
 seemed to us, in a series of disjointed, objectless, suicidal 
 assaults on a well-posted and powerful enemy. Never 
 at any time was there a plan apparent — never once a 
 move that the average onlooker could follow. It looked 
 for all the world the plain tactics of Donnybrook Fair, 
 " wherever you see a head, hit it " — except that heads 
 are seldom seen in a Boer fighting line, and shoulders 
 even less rarely. Artillery lialted under rifle fire to 
 drive out the enemy, who were following us too fast, 
 and as their gun-horses began to drop, they, too, pushed 
 out of range, and so piece by piece we came back 
 again, savage and disappointed. We had pushed no 
 assault home, yet had gone sufficiently far forward to 
 pay some of the penalties of failure and defeat. Corre-
 
 lAfPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 219 
 
 spondents trying to shape that tangled, tumultuous skein 
 into something like a plan of action, so that tliey might 
 send their waiting despatch-riders off with an intelligible 
 account of the progress of the battle, asked each other 
 as they met on the veldt what it all meant — what had 
 we attempted, and how were we succeeding. " We are 
 retreating, that's what it is," said a South African as he 
 galloped in from an outlook which the near presence of 
 an artillery battery firing and retreating suddenly had 
 made no longer tenable. 
 
 " You should know better, sir, than to make such a 
 remark as that within hearing of the soldiers," flamed 
 out an indignant English correspondent, whose white 
 military moustache and tall soldierly figure always led 
 to his being mistaken for a general at least. " I know 
 much better than that," retorted the Afrikander, " but 
 you asked me a question, and I have answered it as far 
 as my ability to gauge the situation goes. If you doubt 
 the truth of what I say, go up into the firing line and 
 have a look for yourself." It was just an illustration of 
 the mood of the moment, when every one was savage and 
 out of temper with every one else, when confusion was the 
 only other emotion. Next an intelligence officer rode 
 up, asking excitedly, "Where are the Boers?" It 
 seemed a foolish question for an intelligence man, con- 
 sidering that their shells had been dropping all round 
 us, but intelligible in that, for one who had not been 
 present in the earlier hours, it was even yet impossible to 
 locate the enemy. Next a mounted officer with, " Have 
 you seen the — th anywhere .-* By Jove, I've lost my 
 regiment." It was not a joke either on his part or mine 
 — very far from it. With troops strewn about the veldt, 
 the brown khaki lost in the brown rock and long grass, 
 it was altogether possible. 
 
 It was late that night when we began to pick up the 
 moves in the mysterious game of which we had been 
 the witnesses. There had been a plan after all — you 
 will have read the cabled account of it, how an outflank- 
 ing movement had been attempted, the troops going
 
 2 20 HO IV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 out secretly in the darkness ; how the secret had been 
 made known, the column surprised, slaughtered, captured 
 at Nicholson's Nek. It all seemed so concise and clear 
 and unfortunate to you. You grasped it in a minute, 
 yet we, who had been a day watching the greater part 
 of the game, and knew nothing of the Nicholson's Nek 
 affair, left the field dispirited and confused, knowing 
 only that we had gone out and come in again ; had 
 seen little, but heard and felt a lot ; that there had been 
 fighting and loss ; and that long after we were home, 
 and fed, and sleeping off the sickening sense of dis- 
 appointment, the ambulance lanterns would be flitting 
 through the darkness over the veldt ; that tired surgeons 
 and dressers would be picking up the wounded — who so 
 rarely called for help — and bringing them to the 
 gathering point, where the smell of chloroform was 
 wafted down on the wings of the night wind. 
 
 Again, in the fight at Besters, it all seemed to us a 
 mystery, a misery, an exasperation. We had tried to 
 •do something; had done it, in part; had pushed the 
 enemy from kopjes which we left vacant, yet they galled 
 us with their fire long before we were out of range 
 again. It may have been different in the open of the 
 western plains, where the long outlook gave some 
 comprehensiveness to the prospect ; with us, where the 
 eternal kopjes shut off half the game, it was rarely 
 otherwise than a mystery. 
 
 I speak, of course, of the onlooker only. There was 
 ever the man who held all the threads of the tangled 
 skein on his fingers, and pulled each in turn — the man 
 with a responsibility so great that in the actual battle — 
 the only place where that sense of responsibility can be 
 wholly realized — one was awed by the possibilities of 
 his every action. The movement of that one piece — 
 the pulling of the one string — may bring darkness and 
 wailing to a hundred homes. Were a leader turned 
 from his purpose by such a spectacle, if he stopped a 
 moment to think of all the possibilities, if he had not 
 been drilled by hard experience into something more of
 
 IMPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 221 
 
 concern for the end than for the means and consequences, 
 he would, it seemed to me, falter in the face of such a 
 dread responsibility, and, faltering, fail. For, as I have 
 said already, you must see men in their death agony 
 round about you to know what it means to send others, 
 it may be fruitlessly, to the same fate. It is one of the 
 reasons why a Kitchener succeeds, and a humanitarian 
 fails. The one with his steeled nerves and sternly- 
 disciplined heart sees only the great end — victory. The 
 God-like humanity of the other — so good a thing in 
 peace — responds to the pitiful cry of the dying, and 
 the death which made him falter comes tenfold thick 
 with failure and retreat. 
 
 You will not wonder, then, that the chronicles of 
 battle disagree. In our camp there was always argu- 
 ment when the thing was over and we exchanged 
 impressions. It was hard to convince a man at all 
 obstinate that events were not exactly as he saw them, 
 because one cannot easily be disloyal to his own eye- 
 sight and his own intelligence when he has been present 
 at a thing so unforgetable as war. There never was a 
 battle, I believe, fully and faithfully described, even 
 where history has been turning over its incidents for 
 half a century. And as it cannot be described, neither 
 can it be illustrated. The camera at its best shows too 
 little ; the pencil — at its worst — too much. Pictures 
 that give the smoke spirting from the enemy's rifle- 
 pits are convenient and excusable, since they help those 
 absent to locate the position. But in actual fight one 
 sees no rifle-smoke. We are hitting at a shadow, it 
 seems — except that the shadow, while immune, has a 
 faculty for hitting back. Even in the worst confusion 
 one knows that the double report or echo means rifles 
 firing towards him, the volume of sound being thus 
 really doubled ; while a shuddering sound that seems to 
 ripple through the air and die away in the distance 
 marks the course of our shells in their flight towards 
 the enemy. Even upon geographical names there will 
 be disagreement. The Dutch have given. one set, the
 
 222 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 English another ; while the original owners, the Kaffirs, 
 multiply the confusion by duplicating the name of a 
 mountain just as it may, seen from either side, present 
 different peculiarities. 
 
 It has always seemed to me that our two chief 
 successes in Natal — the assaults upon Talana Hill and 
 Elands Laagte — were really our costliest ventures. At 
 Dundee we undoubtedly met some of the Johannesburg 
 and Pretoria rabble — poor shots as a rule, who, keeping 
 low behind the rocks for their own protection, as a 
 natural consequence fired high, and most of their bullets 
 went over the heads of the British assaulting columns. 
 It perhaps gave a false value to the bayonet. Men 
 who believed in Britain's traditional arm said, " Well, in 
 spite of long-range rifles and magazines, it is the bayonet 
 still" — and we had to learn that lesson afterwards, both 
 on the Tugela and elsewhere, at terrible cost. I fancy 
 the ultimate conviction will be that, except for rushing 
 a position already shattered almost to inaction by heavy 
 artillery and rifle fire, the bayonet is a weapon only for 
 desperate enterprises and night attacks. At night and 
 against the Boers it is invaluable. Those night attacks 
 seem to appeal to the primitive man in us, and rouse 
 perceptions and emotions that are rarely stimulated by 
 daylight movements, however imposing. There is a 
 savage charm — a romance — in the stealthy night march, 
 which one can feel always, but cannot explain. Were 
 it not for the great difficulty of holding even the best- 
 drilled men together at night we should undoubtedly 
 have made many another sortie under cover of dark- 
 ness, for it is all in favour of the bayonet. But the risk 
 is tremendous. Men find such a difficulty in keeping 
 touch of each other, and one blunderer can cut a column 
 in two and have the two halves by mischance at each 
 other's throats a few minutes afterwards. The leader who 
 affects night movements must always be prepared for 
 calamities, and so it is that they are rarely tried save in 
 sore emergency, and are the more greatly appreciated 
 when successful. Could we have sent out, as on the
 
 nfPRESSIONS OF BATTLE 223 
 
 Cossack posts, colonials with some bushcraft, and each 
 with a Kaffir at his elbow, even the Hoers mi,2;ht have 
 been harassed to death almost by continual sorties, but 
 there were not enough men of the stamp to be implicitly 
 trusted, and poor Tommy's capacity for losing himself 
 at night is abnormal.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 
 
 Another disappointment — Reduced rations — A distant view — 
 The Boer trek — Camps re-established — Signs of disaster — An 
 exhausted garrison. 
 
 Seven days had gone since the roar of General 
 Buller's cannon, mellowed by distance, first came to us 
 from the Tugela. Seven days of eager expectation 
 and anxious waiting. On January 23, in spite of the 
 diplomatic assurance that relief was "within measur- 
 able distance," it sounded and looked no nearer. The 
 pessimistic were losing heart and declaring their con- 
 viction that we had no men on the north bank of the 
 river, and that the Boer could just as philosophically 
 face British shell fire at 8000 and 9000 yards as the 
 British in Ladysmith had for more than three months 
 stood Boer cannon fire at the same distance. Mean- 
 while the artisans at the barrack store kept up the 
 supply of little white crosses for graves. There were 
 twenty of them drying in the sun as I passed one day, 
 and they would all be needed within hours. That was 
 one of the hardest, most disappointing phases of the 
 siege — the calm, cold-blooded preparation for the death 
 of those who at the moment were alive, full of hope for 
 the future, of fond concern for loved ones upon whom 
 they had looked their last Our loss from shell in 
 
 224
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 225 
 
 Ladysmith was not so great as formerly, partly because 
 a larger proportion of their big ones failed to burst on 
 concussion. One of these was, however, responsible, in 
 an unlooked-for way, for the death of two of our brave 
 bluejackets. The shell had conie into the possession of 
 a clergyman, who, wishing to keep it as a trophy of the 
 siege, arranged with these two men to draw the charge. 
 While they were at work it exploded, killing one 
 instantly, and so mutilating the other that his recovery 
 was hopeless. Such a mishap was inevitable, for men 
 with no experience in the work, and without the bronze 
 tools required for it, had been drawing the explosives 
 from shells for weeks, and the only wonder was that 
 disaster had not come sooner. The accident took jjlace 
 near the ordnance stores, and sliowed how quick the 
 Boer gunners were in noting the fact and drawing 
 shrewd inferences. Knowing that the smoke of the 
 explosion had not come from a shell fired by them, they 
 were justified in assuming that some accident had 
 occurred at the ordnance depot, and that the smoke 
 fixed the locality of the magazines. During that and 
 the following days they dropped shell after shell on the 
 spot, their expedition in picking up the range, and 
 accuracy in keeping it, being both admirable. A big 
 Australian gum tree growing there suffered a good deal, 
 three shells striking it. 
 
 On the eighth day the firing from the Tugela was 
 the heaviest we had yet heard. It was an almost 
 continuous roar. Occasionally 1 timed it at thirty 
 rounds per minute, and it went on for nearly six hours 
 without a break. When the lyddite shells burst nearly 
 twenty miles off the effect was unique. Save that the 
 flash of the explosion was always visible through the 
 hazy distance, it looked ior some two seconds as though 
 a brown stone house had suddenly sprung up on the 
 crest of the mountain, so solid and dense was the body 
 of earth thrown up. Seeing this terrific bombardment 
 continue with more or lcs.~, intensity for over a week, 
 we could not but realize that the enemy were holding 
 
 P
 
 226 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 their position valiantly, and against heavy odds in 
 artillery. Three months ago we would as soon have 
 expected the red-legged partridges out in the veldt to 
 hold their ground against that fire. If they could face it for 
 a week, why not for a month .-' Thus the more timorous 
 argued, and with our past experiences we could not but 
 admit that familiarity, even with shell fire, bred, if not 
 contempt, at least a large measure of indifference. On 
 the 24th the last of our maize went through the mill, 
 which meant that at most there was only six or seven 
 days' supply in hand. Even the strong face of Colonel 
 Ward, the chief of commissariat, ordnance, and trans- 
 port, had lines of anxiety more clearly marked, though 
 personally he was free of all reproach. No department 
 had done such wonders with limited means — none of 
 our army chiefs came out of Ladysmith with a better 
 record than Colonel Ward. The cheerful courage with 
 which many of our officers faced the situation amazed 
 me. I talked with a surgeon who had the whole of his 
 day occupied with patients, though himself worn down 
 and in bad health. Inability to eat tinned meat had 
 reduced him to maize-meal porridge three times a day 
 since Christmas. 
 
 Upon the heels of that week of bombardment followed 
 a succession of anxious, indefinite days, and there was 
 a certainty of the month of January running out, not 
 only without affording us succour, but without giving 
 us any definite idea as to the state of affairs down on 
 the Tugela. Never before had rumour been so busy or 
 so contradictory, and what we could see of the Boers' 
 movements rather complicated the situation than helped 
 to a solution. For example, after the heavy shelling 
 of the 24th, we saw late that afternoon what we assumed 
 to be the Boer army in full retreat. Nothing could be 
 more convincing. There were hundreds of wagons, 
 heavily convoyed, thousands of cattle being driven — it 
 was the great trek without a doubt moving back over 
 the veldt towards X'^an Rcenan's Pass. 
 
 That the enemy had been shelled out of the heights
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 
 
 227 
 
 overlooking Potgieter's Drift seemed too great a certainty 
 for argument. 
 
 On this memorable Wednesday, when a cannon fire — 
 the heaviest, perhaps, that had been recorded for years 
 in modern warfare — fell upon N'taba N'Yama mountain 
 (Spion Kop), we saw the lyddite shells, or what we 
 assumed from the i eddish hue of the smoke and the 
 great volume of the explosion to be our lyddite shells, 
 bursting first on that point of the mountain marked 
 by the figure I. Then it spread gradually along the 
 whole extent of the mountain facing the Tugela river, 
 
 
 y.?. 
 
 '^^ 
 
 -s-fc 
 
 &:, 
 
 Boer Laog3rXZ2-^%'^ 
 
 % 
 
 LADYiiGTH 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 across which our troops had to come, and reaching the 
 point marked 3, the angle of the mountain followed it 
 up as far as 6. Thus the whole extent of the range 
 had been searched and scorched with our artillery 
 fire, and when just before sundown we saw the Boers 
 retreating on the line marked in the rough plan, the 
 reasonable conclusion was that they had been shelled 
 out and were retiring northward on their base, to take 
 up, perhaps, a new position on the Biggarsberg, their 
 next stepping-stone towards the border. It all seemed 
 so clear and convincing that every one was in the best 
 of spirits, and it looked only a question of hours when
 
 2 28 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 a clear road of communication would be open between 
 Ladysmith and our friends on N'Taba N'Yama. On 
 Thursday morning, the light being unsuitable for helio- 
 graph communication, we heard from Kafifir deserters 
 from the Boer camp that the British had carried N'Taba 
 N'Yama by assault at five o'clock on Wednesday after- 
 noon, and v/ere in possession of the whole mountain. 
 The exodus, as we could see it in the distance, looked 
 indeed like the hurried retreat of a beaten army. There 
 were wagons. Cape carts, and every conceivable kind 
 of conveyance, all hurrying in one direction. What 
 troubled us, and caused the confusion which reigned 
 for days afterwards in Ladysmith, was that on Thursday 
 and Friday the Boers appeared to be trekking back 
 again to their old positions, and the laager was re- 
 established. If Sir George White and his Staff knew 
 anything definite as to the situation, they were mute on 
 the point. No intelligence was posted in the town, 
 though it was rumoured that the news was satisfactory. 
 All Thursday the guns were silent. On Friday we saw 
 two huge explosions at the point on the range marked 
 6, and it looked as though redoubts there had been 
 blown up. 
 
 The unsatisfactory point was the return of the Boer 
 wagons, though by Saturday, the 27th, the explanation 
 of even that puzzle was ready in the assertion that an 
 armistice had followed the fight, and that the Boer 
 wagons trekking backward and forward were taking 
 away their dead and wounded. There was a further 
 rumour that Lord Dundonald — with a flying column — 
 had made a circuit and established himself in a com- 
 manding position near Van Reenan's Pass, thus cutting 
 off the enemy's retreat by that most convenient of roads 
 to the Free State. It was repeated over and over again 
 with quite remarkable persistency, yet never from a 
 source that could be regarded as at all trustworthy. 
 With ever-dwindling supplies, ever-increasing hospitals, 
 and with the graves at Intombi numbering over three 
 hundred, not to mention the space that was being so
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 229 
 
 rapidly filled in the town cemetery, it was not difficult to 
 realize that in the latter days of January the beleaguered 
 garrison of Ladysmith was racked by many doubts and 
 anxieties. Morning after morning the war correspond- 
 ents, with horses saddled and packed for a journey, 
 mustered at daylight at Observation Mill, and searched 
 the veUt with their field-i^lasses in the hope of some 
 active develojiment. The Boers behind us on Surprise 
 and Telegraph Hill got wind of the muster of onlookers, 
 and dropped shrapnel and rifle-bullets over the brow, so 
 that it became necessary for each to get his own shelter- 
 stone, and even then the possibilities of a cross-fire were 
 always a bit distr icting. One morning Mr. Pcarse (of 
 the Daily News) had calmly taken up his position on 
 the side of a rock which left him open to the shrapnel 
 On his attention being drawn to the fact, he remarked 
 that he didn't mind their artillery, but was careful about 
 the rifles. Thej^ had already hit his particular rock three 
 times that morning, and the bullet-marks were there to 
 show it. It was all long-range sniping, it had been going 
 on continuously at this point for three months, and both 
 sides were clever at it. 
 
 On Sunday, January 28, came the full explanation ot 
 the puzzle that we distant onlookers had sought to 
 unravel — a heart-sickening solution to those residents of 
 Ladysmith who had been so long living chiefly on hope 
 We knew how valiantly Brigadier-General Woodgato 
 had led his troops to the storming of Spion Kop, 
 which shot up like a tower beside the longer mountain, 
 and heard with amazed unbelief that the position so 
 dearly bought had again fallen into the hands of tha 
 enemy. Would blunders never end upon the Tugela ? 
 Would British officers never learn that they were fighting, 
 not simple rustics, but men of matchless resource and 
 cunning — men with a natural gift for tactics, ever ready, 
 as at Amajuba or Tugela heights, to take advantage of 
 a strategical mistake. We learned, too, how heavy had 
 been the loss on both sides in that fierce four days' 
 fighting on the river ridges, and it was but a partial
 
 230 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 consolation to know that seven of the Dutch guns had 
 been put out of action. 
 
 The first and furthest of the three doors which gave 
 us outlet had been temporarily opened just sufficient to 
 let us see the liberty beyond ere it was slammed-to again. 
 The Boer still held the keys. We could not blind our 
 eyes to the fact that it all counted for delay — and delay 
 in Ladysmith meant death. Though the Staff said little, 
 there were signs significant enough to eyes ever watchful 
 for signals of either hope or despair. We had an issue 
 of fresh bread. It had been baked for the relief column, 
 but was not required. Nearly a fortnight ago each of 
 our Mounted Riflemen had been supplied with 20 lbs. of 
 mealie meal — an emergency ration for man and horse — 
 which they were to carry slung in bags across their 
 saddles. The explanation of course was that they might 
 be required to move out hurriedly to co-operate with the 
 relief column. The forage and rations were called in 
 again — a sufficient proof that for the present the idea of 
 a sortie in any form had been abandoned. The increase 
 in rations, which we once regarded as the most satis- 
 factory proof of speedy succour, did not last long. Every 
 one was back on half supplies, and the disappointment 
 was borne manfully. We had got to the last stocks, 
 the hard biscuit and tinned beef, which, with some coarse 
 and mouldy mealie meal, stood between us and starvation. 
 Of the ten or twelve thousand men who marched in here 
 three months before, all physically as fit as athletes, for 
 they had been specially trained for the campaign, 
 there were not, I should say, a thousand able to do a 
 five miles' march, so that the possibility of co-operation 
 with the relief forces was speedily becoming a thing of 
 the past. The men were for the most part gaunt and 
 gloomy, worn down by want of proper and sufficient 
 provisions and the ceaseless manning of the rifle ridges. 
 There was no need for the Boers to lavish life in desperate 
 ventures. While they held the drifts on the Tugela they 
 had us in the net safe enough, and their two best generals 
 for investment purposes were Enteric and Dysentery.
 
 A TIME OF STAGNATION 231 
 
 Our second failure on the Tugela, after having absolute 
 possession of part of the ridge, again showed how utterly 
 astray were all preconceived notions as to Boer methods 
 of warfare. Again the Dutchman had fought splendidly 
 and successfully in a night attack. After all, why should 
 he not do so .-* Our artillery was admittedly superior to 
 his, therefore he was better served by conditions which 
 limited the fighting to the use of the rifle, and I am 
 inclined to think that his great mobility and natural 
 training fit him to carry out night movements more 
 stealthily and effectually than British troops can do it
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE HORSE- MEAT ERA 
 
 Eating horse-meat — A black depression — The rush for rations— 
 An expected assault — Bracing up the town — A faltering foe. 
 
 Rumour continued for many days to flatter us one 
 hour and depress us the next. The hard fact presented 
 was that save for an occasional shot, sheUing in the 
 distance had practically ceased, though the Boers, 
 judging from the movements of their wagons, still held 
 the right of way, and practically the mountain. Even 
 the elements combined against speedy succour, for a 
 heavy wind sprang up — in this land where winds are 
 extremely rare — and it was all against the use of lyddite, 
 the fumes of which were blown away before they had 
 time to do any mischief Heavy rains, too, were a block 
 to all movements, and made the lot of our poor fellows 
 on the rifle ridges less enviable than ever. Never has 
 the South African expression " Gone in " applied more 
 aptly to a large body of men than to the Ladysmith 
 garrison in these last trying days of January. Horses 
 were being slaughtered daily, with the object of saving 
 as much forage as possible for the gun-horses, which in 
 case of emergency might be our first need, either in 
 forcing a way out, or preventing the enemy in coming 
 in. First 300 were shot, the best of them being made 
 into Bovril — or rather "Chevril" — for the use of hospital 
 patients, while mule-meat was being served out as an 
 
 232
 
 THE HORSE-MEAT ERA 233 
 
 ordinary ration. All through the siege the mules, who 
 could pick a scanty living from the few tough tufts of 
 herbage remaining on the hills, kept in much better 
 condition than the horses. Graves for dead horses and 
 dead men were ever jMwning wide. There were seven- 
 teen waiting as I passed the cemetery one day, and in this 
 deadly environment it was little wonder that the ominous 
 words "Who next .'' " knocked dolefully at the soul. 
 Every pound of provisions in the town had been taken 
 over by the military authorities, who made a house-to- 
 house search, so that every one might share equally in 
 the poor food available. The strain could not continue 
 much longer — the breaking stage was almost reached. It 
 was only a question of a few days, and then — surrender t 
 No ; that word was never mentioned. Those who had 
 still the strength left for the dash might try to cut their 
 way out, leaving the sick, wounded, and starving to the 
 mercy of the enemy — though that would be a sad ending 
 to the dangers and the hardships that the garrison of 
 Ladysmith had so heroically borne. Bread of all kinds 
 had disappeared, and we were living mainly on army 
 biscuits, broken up in tea or coffee, when cither could be 
 got. The biscuit was of brown meal, nourishing, no 
 doubt, but hard as a brick, and to tackle it was to face 
 the problem of assimilating inorganic matter. 
 
 One thing that impressed me strongly all through the 
 siege was that even with shell so largely used against us, 
 amputations were singularly rare in the hospitals, and 
 the great majority of those were undertaken by the 
 regular army surgeons, amongst whom are operators 
 wonderfully skilled. The ordinary surgeons who came 
 in with the volunteers resorted to amputation only as a 
 last resource, and with the help of the Rontgen rays 
 their success in saving limbs, which at first sight seemed 
 hopelessly shattered, was a triumph for the profession. 
 
 By the first day of February we were in the full 
 stress of the siege. Men were given the choice of a full 
 pound of horseflesh to tb.cir three biscuits a day, or half- 
 a-pound of tinned beef, and gradually the majority in
 
 234 ffOW IVE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 favour of the lighter diet became a minority, as we gave 
 up our prejudices and were driven by hunger to the 
 heavier ration. Indeed, we had been eating horse and 
 mule flesh, deftly disguised as ragoilt of beef, a week or 
 so before we knew it. It sounded much better than 
 ragodt of ammunition donkey. As the materials for 
 the ragoClt were exhausted, it came to us in no false 
 guise, but just as plain horse. The cavalry, of which at 
 the outset of the siege we had several crack regiments, 
 were gradually disappearing, the men, armed with rifle 
 and bayonet instead of lance, sword, and carbine, being 
 drafted into the infantry regiments to man the trenches, 
 while the horses that were not reduced utterly to bone 
 and sinew were passed on to the commissariat. Others, 
 too poor for killing yet too valuable to kill, were turned 
 out tethered in pairs and left to forage for themselves — 
 so that stray horses were all over the town and tangled 
 up with tent-ropes. The idea in coupling them was, no 
 doubt, to prevent them straying far, but it was as un- 
 necessary as cruel. All these big walers, even if they 
 fell into the hands of the Boers, could be identified and 
 claimed again, for, apart from the Government brand, 
 there was nothing like them in the Dutch States. As it 
 was, they twisted their couplings in trees and stones, 
 and were found literally starving to death, while it was 
 by no means rare to find a live horse coupled to one 
 either dead or crippled by shell fire. 
 
 The same depression that followed upon General 
 Buller's first failure to carry the Boer position across the 
 Tugela hung like a black cloud over the town, and, 
 judging by the preparations, there was every expect- 
 ation of another Boer assault on Ladysmith. Under 
 cover of darkness new redoubts were built, and the front 
 lined with wire entanglements — preparations which two 
 months before would have been laughed at as absurd 
 precautions on the part of an over-anxious commander. 
 For had we not then quite satisfied ourselves that, what- 
 ever the enemy might attempt, he would never nerve 
 himself to an actual attack on the town ? It was one
 
 THE HORSE-MEAT ERA 235 
 
 of many delusions lovingly nursed this last ten years, to 
 be cast away at last. The climax in stagnation was 
 reached when men had no other aspiration but to lie 
 down all day — no other desire than to be left to their 
 own moody reflections. It was the dangerous stage — 
 upon which fever and death quickly followed, for fever 
 then meant in most cases death. No one had the 
 vitality to fight the disease. Those who were wise 
 crawled, while they had still strength left, to the outer 
 ridges for a breath of air not yet tainted by contact 
 with the town. Twenty horses a day were being killed 
 and made into soup for the soldiers, while the bones 
 were stewed down into a jelly, and clarified with isin- 
 glass for use in the hospitals. Necessity is the mother 
 of invention, and, as pots large enough for the occasion 
 were not obtainable, they adopted instead the iron earth 
 trucks used in railway building. The fires were lighted 
 between the railway metals, and when the contents of 
 each truck had been thoroughly boiled, it was shunted 
 off to make way for another. 
 
 The strictest supervision was exercised in the serving 
 out of the daily rations. Every applicant presented 
 himself at a barrier, and having produced his order, 
 passed on through a gangway, guarded on either side 
 by barbed wire, to the four depots, where each in turn 
 received his little packet of meat, biscuit, sugar, and tea 
 — the supplies of sugar and tea being rarely sufficient 
 for more than one meal. Here there was a daily jumble 
 of the three races, European, Kaffir, and Indian, hustling 
 and clamouring for supplies. Few of us ever expected 
 to be reduced to such shifts for the bare necessaries of 
 life, and the barbed-wire entanglements would seem to 
 indicate that the military authorities looked forward as 
 a possibility to the day when they might have to guard 
 against the rush of a starving people inside the town, 
 as well as the rush of an enemy from the outside. There 
 was no longer even the cheering sound of a gun in the 
 distance, while the enemy, becoming brisk again with
 
 236 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 their bombardment, were busy building further redoubts 
 and rifle breastworks on all sides, as though determined 
 to keep their grip of Ladysmith to the last 
 
 One sij^n that cheered us somewhat, as indicating a 
 limit to Boer artillery resources, was the appearance in 
 the town of a number of the old-fashioned spherical 
 bombs — such as might have been fired from those old 
 Russian cannon, stamped with the double-headed eagles, 
 which flank the entrance to the Victoria Barracks, Mel- 
 bourne. Most of the Boer guns were of the newest and 
 best, for they had the world for their ordnance market, 
 and bought the best that every nation could supply. 
 Those of the better type had presumably been sent to 
 the Tugela to take the place of others disabled by 
 British shell fire, and anything served to make a noise, 
 and keep the Ladysmith garrison quiet with a show of 
 power. There were rumours of another attack on the 
 town, such rumours as the enemy themselves sent in, 
 probably with the hope that they might be accepted, and 
 the garrison remained strictly on the defensive. The 
 industry with which the enemy ran their search-lights 
 every night to illuminate the approaches to their gun 
 positions, and the persistent fire of star shells for the 
 same purpose, indicated rather apprehension of being 
 attacked than premeditated assault from their side. 
 
 One day our Kaffir boy, who had been out grass- 
 cutting, came back agitated. " Zip ! zip ! zip ! " he 
 said, imitating the whiz of the bullet, and pointing to a 
 hole in his old felt hat where a Mauser had gone 
 through. Aleck Macpherson, one of our camp, and a 
 clever South African bushman, had been tantalized for 
 days by some wild duck placidly floating on a clay-pan 
 midway between the Boer and British lines. He crept 
 out one day, bagged three of them, and got away safely. 
 Next day there was a still larger flock on the clay-pan, 
 and our sportsman again determined to take the risks. 
 He had no sooner fired, and so betrayed his position in 
 the long grass, than a perfect storm of Mauser bullets
 
 THE HORSE-MEAT ERA 237 
 
 fell round him, and he had to leave his birds, and run 
 the gauntlet for home. With their usual quick observa- 
 tion, the Boers had noticed Aleck's daring raid on the 
 first day, and put a picket in a clump of wild peach 
 trees to wait for him. The duck were excellent, such a 
 change to the strong, musky horse-flesh — but the birds 
 were not disturbed again. It was almost worth the risk, 
 though, to venture a little away from the hundred and 
 one smells of the town out to the open veldt, where the 
 fragrant mimosa was just blossoming. In the coolness 
 of the dusk a soft breath of wind often brought the scent 
 of it even into the town — and it was divine. There 
 were late lilies too, whose flaming red chalices shone 
 like spots of fire on the hill-sides, and formed floral 
 homes for swarms of golden-green beetles. 
 
 One found rather extra\'agant notions as to the effect 
 of lyddite shell fire. I talked with an old English farmer 
 from the Transvaal, wiiose disappointment with the 
 eff"ect of a week's bombardment was grotesque. " I 
 'eard as they could level mountains," he said. " Well, 
 look at that theer one — not a crack in 'un — why, after 
 they'd bin shcllin' a week I expected we'd 'ave nothin' 
 in the district but arable land." One man was arrested 
 and sent to gaol, " for expressing in public opinions 
 likely to create despondency." The crime was by no 
 means confined to civilians though. An officer in some 
 repute in the artillery declared that everything he had 
 been taught to consider an axiom in connection with 
 artillery work had been upset by his South African 
 experiences. No wonder that the country is the grave 
 of great reputations. The devotion to use and wont 
 dies hard in the army. I saw a man who, in a country 
 teeming with stinging insects, cropped his horse's tail 
 short, and was then obliged to carry another horse's tail 
 every time he rode out, so that he might switch away 
 the flies, and prevent his poor, thin-skinned steed from 
 being perpetually tortured. 
 
 One of the most anxious days spent in Lady-
 
 238 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 smith was Sunday, February 4. We knew that another 
 great meeting of the Boers had taken place, such 
 as that which preceded the determined attack on 
 Wagon Hill, but were ignorant as to what it might 
 portend. Every morning the ring of investment was 
 tested on every side, and unpleasant work it was for the 
 guides and scouts who undertook the duty. Nothing 
 was left to doubt or conjecture. At every point it was 
 necessary to prove the presence of the enemy by draw- 
 ing their fire, and very ingenious were the devices 
 brought into practice. A favourite plan was to ride up 
 to within from 500 to 700 yards of a hill supposed to 
 shelter the enemy's riflemen. Then the mounted men 
 halted for a few seconds, and turned as if to ride home. 
 That trick invariably drew the fire, if it were there to be 
 drawn. The Boers, seeing their anticipated victims, 
 whom they hoped to entice within short range, about to 
 retire, as they thought, opened with every available 
 rifle, and from the crackle our men, while galloping back 
 to cover, were able to judge the enemy's strength at 
 that particular point. On Sunday we knew that the 
 Boers contemplated another night attack on Ladysmith, 
 and had made very elaborate preparations to ensure its 
 success. The warning came, strangely enough, from 
 three points. General Buller heliographed us to be on 
 the alert on Sunday ; the War Office cabled a similar 
 warning all the way from London ; a Basuto chief sent 
 in a messenger, and our own intelligence corroborated 
 each. Every preparation was made to give the enemy 
 the deadliest reception he had yet had from Ladysmith, 
 and at dusk on Sunday evening every available man 
 was in the rifle-pits or strengthening the outer pickets. 
 They had hoped to surprise us by a trick characteristic 
 of the Boer. Having gained possession of a great 
 number of British uniforms, and practised British calls 
 on British bugles, it was their intention to march boldly 
 forward, representing themselves as portion of the relief 
 column, and then with a sudden dash carry the trenches
 
 THE HORSE- MEAT ERA 239 
 
 by surprise. The men were especially warned by a 
 general order to be extremely cautious as to bu^le calls 
 either to " Retire " or " Cease firing." Further, our men 
 were warned to ignore the white flag altogether, unless 
 the Boers threw down their rifles and held both arms 
 in the air. All our rifle positions were ingeniously 
 strengthened, false redoubts being built some little 
 distance out to confuse the attack if made in the dark. 
 Between these sham sangars and the rifle-pits were 
 barbed-wire entanglements, so curved that they presented 
 apparent openings to an attack, but the enemy, rushing 
 through these, would find themselves in the very worst 
 of the maze. If Ladysmith were to be taken that night 
 there would be a bitter toll for it. All night we waited, 
 the men no longer despondent, but all keen and 
 expectant. No attack came. News of our elaborate 
 preparations had possibly reached them, as the in- 
 telligence of their movements reached us, and the 
 responsibility was too great to face. Or it may have 
 been that the bright starlit night was unfavourable. 
 
 There were thousands of the enemy all round us, for 
 in the early morning they were seen hurrying away 
 south, where a tremendous thunder of guns, beginning 
 with the first dawn of day, told of another decisive 
 movement All day that muffled roar of artillery went 
 on, awe-inspiring, unceasing — one salvo blending with 
 another for hours at a stretch, until one would have 
 thought that no ordinary flesh and blood could stand 
 such a cannonade. This time there were no shells 
 bursting on N'taba N'Yama, away to the right. The 
 great volume of sound rolled up to us, not alone from 
 the Tugela heights, but more incessantly, more vocifer- 
 ously, from a point to the right of it, believed to be 
 Keat's Drift, where, on the previous day, it had been 
 rumoured one of our brigades had crossed the river. 
 Listening to that tremendous cannonade, one's mind 
 was carried back again to the day when Oliver Davis — 
 the original, by the bye, of Rider Haggard's hero, Alan
 
 240 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Quartermain — riding in from the Ingogo with news that 
 the Boers were bringing down a big gun, was laughed at 
 for his absurd story. What a vast gap between the 
 anticipated and actual ! The very men who were not 
 expected to get a gun beyond Laing's Nek were engaged 
 in a great artillery duel in the heart of Natal with the 
 finest siege guns that Britain could send afield. It was 
 to the death this time — no one doubted that.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 
 
 Tobacco famine — Commissariat trials — Cupboard love — Siege 
 whist — The hundred days — A cricket message — Usury in trade — 
 A contrast — Siege prices. 
 
 Is there need to dwell at Icnj^th upon these last, long-- 
 drawn-out, stagnant days of February — the last days in 
 Ladysmith for most, the last on earth for far too many ? 
 The same two topics cropped up always with frightful 
 iteration — " Is there any increase in the fever and 
 dysentery?" "What rations shall we have to-morrow?" 
 Men who had been accustomed to "do themselves well" 
 in better days became tiresome on the subject of food, 
 and in our camp we were compelled in self-defence to 
 establish a system of fines against any one who between 
 meals mentioned anything eatable — the fines being 
 heaviest where a man was so inconsiderate as to refer to 
 things which in ordinary life might be considered ordi- 
 nary diet, but were now dishes for Lucullus. To mention 
 something particularly choice which you intended to 
 have on getting out was to provoke rage and execration. 
 The temptation was great, though, when men took a 
 really good appetite to table and brought away the 
 greater part of it after the meal. Yet our wants were 
 very modest. A little more sugar, a little more flour, 
 and we should have been quite happy. My own 
 thoughts, I admit, centred largely upon a bottle of stout; 
 
 241 Q
 
 242 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 yet with a stern resolution I locked the secret in my 
 soul and was silent. None of us had realized before 
 what an important bearing sugar had upon our lives and 
 tempers — and I use the word strictly in the domestic 
 and not the slang sense. Its scarcity was particularly 
 hard upon the little ones, for it would have helped to 
 make many a coarse meal palatable. It was the article 
 we missed most. The adulteration of coffee was a 
 flagrant thing, and under other circumstances would 
 have provoked a prosecution. It was ingenious, cer- 
 tainly, to increase the bulk by mixing it with burned 
 maize meal, but the roasters did their work indifferently, 
 and the stuff had a skewbald look. The coffee seemed 
 to shrink in very shame of plebeian company, while the 
 mealies obtruded themselves unblushingly. The army 
 biscuit, which we once resented, had become a luxury, 
 for by soaking it in water first and then toasting it 
 slightly, it was brought under the control of the poorest 
 set of teeth, and, as you are perhaps aware, recruits are 
 often rejected because their teeth are unfit to cope with 
 the army biscuit in its native state. 
 
 The alternate days were bad days, when we dined 
 lightly and were particularly appreciative of a pipe after- 
 wards, for ordinary plug tobacco was then selling at 
 £7 los. per lb., and with the exhaustion of the rose-leaf 
 crop a very useful blend was found in a mixture of peach • 
 leaves. Many experiments were made to discover, if not 
 a substitute for tobacco, at least something that would 
 eke out the supply, and nothing better was discovered 
 than the peach leaves, that were just showing the first 
 tinge of autumn yellow. Now and again at our worst 
 we were cheered, though, by a pleasant discovery. It 
 was noticed that none but the Indian coolies, whose 
 stores clustered thickly at one end of the tov/n, had 
 tobacco or cigars for sale. There were hidden sources 
 of supply, which these bland, innocent-looking merchants 
 had not yet exhausted, so the provost-sergeant and his 
 posse set themselves tlie difficult task of out-generaling 
 a trading Oriental. The stores were ransacked, while
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 243 
 
 the owners stood by and smiled, and called their own 
 particular gods to witness that everything had been 
 delivered up to their highnesses of the army. "Just slit 
 that canvas ceiling up and shove your head through, 
 corporal," said the provost. The corporal did so, and 
 inside the canvas were heard words that might be a song 
 of joy and triumph, mixed with a condemnation in army 
 service terms of all the coloured races on earth. " Ten 
 bags of rice and two bales of tobacco leaf," was the 
 announcement. Everyone cheered, and they brought an 
 escort to see it safe down to the stores, where big 
 Sergeant-major Dougharty ruled. A four-ounce ration 
 of tobacco per man was announced next day. It looks 
 a trifle, it was really an event. Correspondents draw 
 rations from the military, and two of our four did not 
 smoke, but their consciences, dulled by little use in 
 Ladysmith, enabled them to fill in the requisition. I 
 was deputed to draw the ration, and, without egotism, 
 regarded it as a compliment to Australian character. 
 " There may be a second ration, my boy," the sergeant- 
 major said blithely. " In that case, mayn't I as well 
 take it now, and not be bothering you a second time ? " 
 " You deserve it for your consideration to an over- 
 worked and under-fed army service ; " and I left with an 
 armful of tobacco-leaf It was a happy lot of men who 
 sat round, while Mr. " Arty " Spring, a Natal farmer, and 
 an expert in Boer tobacco, chopped up the leaf — chaffed 
 it would be the better word — damped and sweated it, 
 mixed in a little saltpetre, and then — well, it was good 
 to smoke it, better even to be able to give one's friends a 
 pipe. 
 
 At the worst there was always some pleasant surprise 
 of that kind to temper the monotony and stagnation of 
 waiting. One night some of our pickets ventured out 
 to a mealie-field, and returned with their nose-bags filled 
 with the green mealies, which are such a favourite 
 vegetable through all South Africa. On the second 
 night there was a larger invasion, though the cultiva- 
 tion plot lay almost under the muzzle of Long Tom, and
 
 244 ^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 not a mealie cob was left in its sheath. Men had paid 
 3J-. 6d. each for them in the public market, for with the 
 scarcity of green food scurvy had made its appearance, 
 and threatened to stand in with enteric and dysentery in 
 decimating the garrison. The adventure in maize was 
 just a godsend. On the third night, finding nothing for 
 themselves, the volunteers thought of their horses, and 
 before morning the green-stuff had been bundled and 
 brought away. We could imagine how the Boers on the 
 hill-top must have wondered when at sunrise they found 
 that the mealie-field, which had so long been a vividly 
 green ten-acre square under their eyes, had disappeared. 
 Industry and enterprise in the cultivation of the soil had 
 its reward in another corner of the valley. A man who 
 in the early days of the siege had ploughed under shell 
 fire now reaped his crop, and the military authorities, in 
 recognition of his pluck, paid high prices. We had seen 
 the completion of a harvest, the ploughing, the growth, 
 and the reaping. It seemed a long time looking back, 
 yet one needed some such standard fully to realize the 
 measure of his own patience. Evidence of it came home 
 to us on noting, too, that in the bomb-proof shelters we 
 had built before Christmas, the roots of the trees had 
 sent out suckers, and a young forest, white from the 
 exclusion of sunlight, was springing up, while spiders 
 spun their webs across the entrance. We had long since 
 given up elaborate precautions, and were taking our 
 chance. 
 
 But I have forgotten the bread — no, not quite for- 
 gotten it, for that will never be. It was served alter- 
 nately with the biscuit, and as it was found that the 
 coarse maize meal would not hold together in the baking, 
 they hit upon the pleasant idea of mixing it with starch, 
 for the laundry business had long since been abandoned 
 
 It improved the dough, but not the bread. It caught 
 us at our worst — in the non-resistant stage — and for a 
 time, I feel sure, killed rather more men than the Boer 
 cannon — though that is, after all, paying a rather poor 
 compliment to the soldierly qualities of the bread. Even
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 245 
 
 then committees of supply were able to meet the 
 emergency. They used the bread either as thickening 
 for soup, or, after putting it through a cofice-mill, made 
 it into porridge. The least one could do, indeed, was to 
 give a sorely-tried digestion some assistance. One thing 
 we had in abundance — pepper. I never heard of people 
 so lavish with pepper as our commissariat. They 
 literally "threw it about," or, at least, we did. There 
 was an inclination to throw things about when, on the 
 arrival of the evening rations, one found pepper in the 
 big packet and tea in the small one. We could have 
 spared the pepper — the Boers gave us all we needed. 
 
 In this last fortnight of February we were living almost 
 exclusively on horsetlesh, and men who had sworn that 
 they would starve ere they ate it slowly weakened in their 
 resolves. One of our party, an old Scottish journalist 
 and Natal correspondent, had, like his countrymen of 
 the Gordons, expressed the strongest objections to horse 
 in any form, but at last he said, " Tell me it's beef and 
 send it in. I'm not inquisitive." At about that time we 
 correspondents made the acquaintance of Mr. Olver, a 
 fine old English farmer and Johannesburg miller, who 
 was camped a mile or so outside the town. When we 
 rode out in the cool of the early morning — for a ride 
 was a pleasant and fairly safe thing before sunrise — our 
 horses of one accord turned their heads towards Olver's 
 camp. He had left his home in the Transvaal, bringing 
 his stock and supplies with him, and had trekked into 
 Natal fully equipped for the campaign. He had snow- 
 white mealie meal ; better still, he had milk ; best of all, 
 he had sugar, and we visited him unblushingly at break- 
 fast-time. He was too hearty and hospitable to notice 
 the coincidence or suspect us of cupboard love, yet 
 many people, I fear, would have put some such nasty 
 construction upon it. His friendship was equal to 
 every test. It will be counted unto him for charity and 
 to us for audacity. Sometimes, when he had the carcase 
 of a tender yearling in his pickle-tub, we were even 
 persuaded to lunch with him. Dunn, who had some
 
 246 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 remnants of decency in him, occasionally martyred him- 
 self by staying at home, but always had his revenge in 
 long lectures upon social observances, upon the strange 
 thickness of hide characteristic of men who could wear 
 out a welcome while pretending not to notice it, and 
 such abstract questions. The rest of us were in better 
 mood then to listen to a lecture. Whist was the one 
 relief to the vast monotony and languor of the mid-meal 
 periods. As the cards disappeared the packs were 
 blended until, with the variety of the coloured backs 
 and the dog-eared corners, an experienced and really 
 observant player knew his opponent's hand almost as 
 well as his own — rather better, perhaps, for upon the 
 grimy face one might easily overlook the notice which 
 converted the king of spades into the knave of diamonds. 
 For a novice it saved the trouble of counting and think- 
 ing, and made whist a relaxation instead of a religious 
 ceremony. Men needed to be entertained rather than 
 instructed. The more recent variation of whist known 
 as " bridge " was immensely popular in the volunteer 
 camps. The town had its rare periods of brightness, 
 usually when cannon were heard away to the southward, 
 and I fear we were too selfish to remember always that 
 if it meant Buller it meant battle also — and that away 
 down there upon the river men were dying and bleeding 
 because they sought by such heroism as the situation 
 needed to rescue us. It is ever the same though. War 
 at a distance is a magnificent thing — we realize its 
 horrors only when they come right home to us. The 
 things that really cheered us were the despondent 
 observations of the Boer gunners, which occasionally, 
 by the help of native runners, came home. 
 
 If any one of the besieged of Ladysmith were asked 
 to name those days when the town was actually at its 
 worst, he would pick the period between the hundredth 
 and one hundred and twentieth days — roughly the last 
 three weeks of investment. We had looked forward to 
 the completion of the one hundred days as an epoch ; 
 speculated upon the double possibihty of General Buller
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 247 
 
 making that a day of advance, the Boers one of attack. 
 The enemy were the first astir, and had kept such good 
 count that all who might have otherwise overlooked the 
 three-figure score had a hint of it when, a few minutes 
 after midnight, they fired a half-dozen rounds from their 
 big guns into the town — the only shots we had had after 
 dark for a long time. It may have been intended as a 
 triumphant salvo, in celebration of the fact that for a 
 hundred days they had shut us in ; we, on the other 
 hand, might, if we pleased, regard it as a complimentary 
 salute, in recognition of our having for one hundred days 
 kc[)t them out. But it might have meant, too, more 
 than mere empty brag ; so, in the expectation of some- 
 thing unusual astir, we turned out, with the moon shining 
 brilliantly, and the Dutch search-lights sweeping the town 
 from end to end. Little fear of either side attacking on 
 such a night. Yet Kafllirs creeping through that night 
 had come in contact with bell-wires, thus raising an 
 alarm, and for a time there was promiscuous shooting at 
 rocks, cactus plants, shadows, and things. It was one of 
 the suspense periods, when men were sick in body and 
 mind. For three days there had been heavy fire to the 
 southward, followed, as usual, by a trying silence, broken 
 at long intervals only by the roar of a single gun, easily 
 recognizable now as the familiar note of the Dutch six- 
 inch. During the day a smoky haze, such as we get in 
 the south of Australia about Christmas time, hung over 
 everything. The heights upon and round about which 
 the stern drama of war was in progress were shut out 
 altogether for a week, and our heliographs were useless. 
 Still, where the eye failed the ear was a sure guide in 
 distinguishing between Boer and British fire. Every gun 
 had a double report — the firing, and the bursting of the 
 charge : when the interval between the two was but a 
 few seconds, we knew it for our own gun ; when it was 
 half-a-minute or more, we knew that the long period was 
 covered by a Boer shell travelling away from us towards 
 Buller's forces, and the sound of the bursting shell coming 
 back again over the same ground. Twice before, when
 
 248 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 heavy cannon fire had been followed by deathly silence, 
 it meant the partial failure of our advance on the Tugela 
 — hence the depression and deep anxiety that came in 
 with the hundred days. It was eased somewhat by 
 Kaffir rumours that Buller was still bringing his siege 
 train forward, and we heard that our friends were so 
 fortifying the way as they came, that ground once made 
 good could never be lost again, however many men 
 Joubert and Botha might throw in between the two 
 British columns. "We are making it as impregnable as 
 the Rock of Gibraltar," one volunteer with the relief 
 column wrote to his brother in Ladysmith. " I have a 
 gang of a thousand boys clearing artillery tracks over 
 the hill, and we shall all be on railway repairs the moment 
 the way is clear." Thus was the pessimistic conclusion 
 that no news meant bad news somewhat softened. The 
 faces of our chiefs were watched as racing men watch the 
 barometer on the eve of the Melbourne Cup. A smile 
 from Sir George White or Sir Archibald Hunter put 
 half the town in good heart, while gloom upon either face 
 was the herald of despair. When Sir George patted a 
 child on the head, and said, " You'll soon get some lollies," 
 it was passed round as distinctly promising, and became 
 part of the war news of the day. 
 
 On the one hundred and first day one of the enemy 
 on Bulwan, who was evidently familiar with England's 
 national game, called up the signallers at Caesar's Camp, 
 and flashed the curt message, " loi not out." The Man- 
 chesters were equal to the little pleasantry, and replied, 
 " Ladysmith still batting." Our devotion to sport in the 
 earlier days of the siege puzzled them as it has puzzled 
 many other nations. " What is the use of shelling them ? " 
 said a weary Boer artilleryman. " They just go on 
 playing cricket." It was the Armada and the game of 
 bowls over again. All the cricket had gone, though, 
 with the days when men of Ladysmith had still some 
 heart and muscle left. It was a town full of unwholesome 
 emotions rather than good manly animal British impulses 
 towards sport and recreation, moody apprehensions which
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 249 
 
 struggled for supremacy with patriotism and faith in our 
 destiny. Broadly limned, the fears of the garrison had 
 taken four different phases — first the fear of shell, next 
 the fear of sickness, then the fear of starvation, while 
 about the hundred days the fourth was beginning to 
 shape itself vaguely in the fear of Pretoria. If disaster 
 — otherwise starvation — were to be the end, we knew 
 just how it would come. Some night when the supplies 
 were no longer measured by days, but by hours, the 
 gaunt decimated field column of Natal, the one-time 
 flower of the Indian army, would be got together, and 
 keeping to the open veldt as far as possible, would, after 
 the destruction of its transport and commissariat train, 
 crawl out after dark in the direction of Spion Kop, and 
 try to cut its way through there in preference to a tame 
 surrender. It was characteristic of this remarkable war, 
 that men who were evidently anxious to kill each other, 
 and rarely missed a chance when it offered, had always 
 time and heart for the flippant badinage of every-day 
 life. " How do you like horse- meat .-'" heliographed our 
 friends the enemy from Bulwan. " Fine," was the answer ; 
 "when the horses are finished we're going to eat Boer." 
 Be sure that the old Dopper Dutchman, the receptacle 
 for the sullen racial hatred of two hundred years, had no 
 hand in this. Light humour was not his forte. He was 
 out on the veldt with a single purpose — homicide. Let 
 it not be assumed that even the youngest or most en- 
 lightened of the Dutch spare their guns to exercise their 
 humour on the heliographs. No sooner had we acknow- 
 ledged their cricket message than Long Tom opened on 
 our naval 12-pounder at Caesar's Hill, and his first shot 
 just missed the gun-trail, and threw about half-a-ton of 
 earth over the shell-backs. " They've put on a new 
 bowler," remarked the gunnery lieutenant. 
 
 There was much in the conduct of the people of Lady- 
 smith during these days of death and deprivation worthy 
 of unstinted praise ; a good deal, too, that made one 
 blush at times for the Anglo-Saxon race. The system 
 of irregular private sales by auction, brought into practice
 
 250 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 after the corporation weekly markets had been stopped 
 by the authorities, was a scandal — a disgrace to humanity. 
 Measure, if you can, the soul of a man who, when sick 
 children were crying for food, sick soldiers dying for 
 want of nourishment, and eating blanc-mange made from 
 starch, sweetened with Winslow's soothing syrup, had 
 the hardihood to offer at public auction the luxuries that 
 might have been these poor fellows' salvation. There 
 were infants wanting jam to make their maize-meal 
 porridge wholesome, yet some bright ornaments of the 
 town were selling their spare supplies at exorbitant 
 prices, so that those to whom money was not a con- 
 side-ration might buy and the poorer ones starve. Most 
 of them had some sense of shame, if not reformation, 
 left, since they put their goods on the market under a 
 false name. The huckstering spirit came out in all its 
 undisguised ugliness. Not even a Chinese or a coolie 
 could have more greedily taken advantage of the mis- 
 fortunes of his fellow-men. Some of these fellows would, 
 I believe, have seen the whole garrison in its grave rather 
 than have given up the right of sale over a single dozen 
 of their hoarded eggs. It was one of the infamies of 
 the siege. The remarkable thing was, that a few of these 
 men, far from having a sense of shame over their trans- 
 actions, boasted of them — and, I doubt not, are boasting 
 still of the high prices obtained. 
 
 In fine contrast was the attitude taken by men who 
 were storekeepers and merchants, and, therefore, in 
 some measure justified in selling in the dearest market. 
 It was their business to trade, and they traded in a 
 spirit worthy of their manhood. There was David 
 Sparkes, a merchant of the town, who declined to raise 
 his prices a single farthing because of the siege. But 
 Mr. Sparkes was something more than a storekeeper ; 
 he was a brave and able officer of Carbineers, whose 
 pluck in the field and kindly concern for his men were 
 a model for all officers to follow. And there was Stanley 
 Sutton, of Maritzburg, as keen a man of business ordin- 
 arily as you will find in South Africa. He was an army
 
 THE SIEGE ROUTINE 251 
 
 contractor — sometimes with good reason called army 
 robbers — and one of the fortunate few who had a fair 
 stock of goods in hand. As long as anything remained 
 he supplied it to the soldiers at ordinary canteen prices, 
 and Tommy Atkins had no more resourceful or better 
 friend in Ladysmith. And there was a woman, too, 
 who, when the provost-sergeant went round and seized 
 supplies, had managed to hide away a large stock of 
 luxuries. This was wrong, very wrong ; but there ar.e 
 thrifty housewives with the storing instincts of the 
 squirrel, and this woman might have now the undying 
 admiration of the hucksters had she followed up her 
 success in a business-like fashion. But she fell away 
 from grace altogether, and her last stage was worse than 
 the first. For instead of putting her goods on the 
 market, and making record prices to brag about, she 
 smuggled them out of doors in her old wife's basket, 
 and gave them away to other women who had little 
 ones suffering. Some called her a fool, and some gloried 
 in her folly, and said that she had got more for her 
 goods than even a millionaire could pay. And the 
 poor old soul, with her small ambition, was, I have little 
 doubt, well content. 
 
 The last public sale of any kind was held on February 
 13. The pity is that, for the credit of the town, they 
 were not stopped two months earlier. And though 
 it smacks of usury, the prices at that market are as a 
 curiosity of trade worth quoting : — i lb. tin of Jamieson's 
 jam, 23J-. ; i^lb. tin of jam, 31^".; small tin, local make 
 (with slight traces of sugar), 255-. ; jar of stewed peaches, 
 25J. ; ^Ib. of plug tobacco, \^s.\ ^ lb. do., 16s. \ \\h. 
 of cut Boer tobacco, 43^".; |lb. of rolled leaf, 35J". ; 
 70 Three Castles cigarettes, i is. ; packet of Old Gold 
 cigarettes, lys. 6d. ; 50 common cigars, £g los. ; 100 La 
 Union cigars, ;^ 18 los. ; vegetable marrows, 25^-. each; 
 turnips and carrots, Sj. 6d. per bunch ; mealies (green 
 maize), 3^-. Sd. per cob ; eggs, 40^-. to 45^. per dozen ; 
 tomatoes, 2s. 6d. each. At some of the earlier markets 
 the more striking sales were : — packet of Old Gold
 
 252 HO IV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 cigarettes, 2^s. 6d. ; \ lb. of plug tobacco, £2 ^s. ; \ lb. 
 of Navy Cut tobacco, 60^.; f lb. of sugar, los. ; grapes, 
 13J. 6d. per lb. ; potatoes, ys. <^d. per lb. ; brandy, £j per 
 bottle ; whisky, any brand, £6 per bottle ; rum, £4. los. 
 per bottle ; port wine, £2, per bottle ; champagne, 
 £'i, los. per bottle. These last were comparatively early 
 prices, for after Christmas it was impossible, except 
 upon a doctor's certificate, checked by official inquiry, 
 to get spirits at any price, and then only with an ad- 
 monition from the P. M. O. to dole it out to the patient as 
 though it were liquid gold. If the prices seem prohibitive 
 to an ordinary buyer, what must they have looked to 
 the soldier, who ordinarily gets the best brands of Scotch 
 whisky from his canteen (free of duty, carriage, and 
 middleman's profits) at 2^s. per dozen ? One such case, 
 bought by a young officer early in the siege, brought 
 perhaps the largest profit recorded even in the liquor 
 trade. The poor owner was killed in action, leaving 
 a young widow, for whose benefit the case of whisky 
 was raffled by the commissariat, and it brought i^i20. 
 A London war correspondent won the first prize — six 
 bottles — and that night every friend he had in town 
 called to pay his respects. The winner went into 
 hospital a few days later, suffering from sunstroke, but 
 there was no significance whatever in the sequence of 
 events.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 
 
 Bird-seed porridge — The garrison meat bill — Preparing a 
 welcome — The Cossack post — A black night — The bridge builders 
 — Methodical Dutch gunnery. 
 
 While relief came a long step nearer famine came 
 with even longer strides, and at least one of the military 
 messes were crushing bird seed in a coffee-mill, and 
 using the meal for porridge. Some of the Indian troops, 
 familiar with Oriental methods in cookery, sought to 
 make the mcalie meal palatable by making it into 
 chupatties. All the recognized authorities on cookery 
 begin the recipe, I believe, with " Lard the pan with a 
 piece of butter as large as a walnut." There was no 
 butter, however, and no fat, and when the salad oil was 
 finished, the dough had an obstinate way of sticking, 
 so that pan and fire between them claimed more than 
 their fair share of the pancake. Colza and castor oil 
 were out of the question, so the high-class cookery 
 collapsed, and we got back to the primitive methods 
 of the Australian bush. I called one morning at the 
 Leicester camp, and found the officers at breakfast. 
 Each had a tin platter, a spoon, and a small helping 
 of maize-meal porridge, and they asked me to join them 
 with the air of men who were inviting one to a fried 
 sole and sweetbreads. At the worst, style was never 
 abandoned, and even minced horse was carried off 
 
 253
 
 254 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 with an air. " Kidded 'emselves they was living 'igh," 
 the battalion cooks put it, and this was really one of the 
 fine points of the British army in straits. They never 
 grumbled. They could even joke over their troubles. 
 "Nothing takes the starch out of a man," said a sergeant- 
 major, "like taking starch in" — an allusion to the mixture 
 of starch and maize meal in the bread. At that time, 
 with black, white, and yellow, young and old, there were 
 17,000 souls drawing rations in Ladysmith. 
 
 In speaking of that period it is almost impossible to 
 avoid dwelling much on rations. The actualities of life 
 were food and its character — the possibilities, relief. 
 Our meat was tough, even nauseating, yet the meat bill 
 would have shocked even an Australian householder to- 
 day. It took forty horses a day to supply the garrison 
 with soup and joints, and each of these well-trained gun 
 or cavalry chargers was worth ;^8o to the British army, 
 so that our horse-meat bill ran into ;^3200 per day. 
 Happy, indeed, was the forager who could once in a way 
 capture a horse tongue as a break to the monotony of 
 musk-brown meat. When all other fruit disappeared, 
 we used to keep a sharp look-out for the m'forma, a 
 white berry about as large as a strawberry, and with 
 something of the same flavour. It grows on a low shrub 
 on the tops of the stony kopjes, but the gatherers were 
 many and the laurel-leaved bushes very few. 
 
 In the midst of the scarcity came an unpleasant dis- 
 covery, which led instantly to a further cutting down of 
 rations. Owing to bad soldering, some of the tins of beef 
 and biscuit had become mouldy, and but for the supplies 
 brought by the Indian troops we should have reached 
 the stress of the siege much earlier. When they were 
 landed in Durban the local commissariat laughed and 
 said, "Why bring this stuff all the way from India? It 
 was a waste of time and waste of transport. We have 
 abundance here, and will only have the trouble of re- 
 supplying the Indian regiments." Yet that bit of fore- 
 thought on the part of the Indian contingent just about 
 saved Ladysmith from disaster, as the pressed forage
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 255 
 
 from Rawal Pindi helped to keep at least a few horses 
 alive. To add to our troubles, maize milled during the 
 siege had been stored away too soon, had heated, and 
 was useless. There is nowhere so much general inspec- 
 tion as in the British army, nowhere so little by really 
 expert men, so the thieves of the world continue to 
 thrive in supplying it ; but it was pleasant to learn from 
 the commissariat authorities that Australian supplies 
 were invariably up to the standard, and that in the case 
 of the Queensland meat-preserving companies, they can 
 accept consignments with confidence as being both in 
 weight and quality all that they profess to be, which is 
 not the case with the meats more attractively put up in 
 other parts of the globe. In drink there was no variety 
 whatever — ^just boiled sewage, otherwise Klip river 
 water — and one smiled a bit sadly at times in remember- 
 ing those early rumours that the Boers intended to poison 
 the streams. It was so entirely unnecessary in the case 
 of this stream, which the most virulent chemical could 
 hardly have made more poisonous than it was. In 
 South Africa the impression even yet prevails that when 
 General Warren made his disastrous short cut by Spion 
 Kop heat least succeeded in getting a convoy of wagons 
 with food into Ladysmith. This is, of course, a mistake. 
 Not even a barrowful of food passed through until the 
 siege was raised. 
 
 The siege-worn soldiers, though quite unfitted for 
 fatigue, were never idle. At points where it was thought 
 likely the enemy might upon some dark night creep 
 forward barefoot or upon hands and knees, broken bottles 
 were thickly spread upon the grass after dark. At other 
 points old tins were strewn on the veldt, so that men 
 could not come forward without making a clatter. 
 Every device that the town could afford, either to check 
 a stealthy enemy or give notice of his approach, was 
 tried. Before the fight at Caesar's Hill we had trusted 
 too much to the reputed unwillingness of the Boer 
 either to attack at night or rush a fortified position at 
 any time, but after that we made no mistakes. The
 
 256 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 barbed-wire entanglements were a perfect death-trap, 
 fronting our positions. The man who imagined that the 
 gaps in them were left by a stupid enemy for his con- 
 venience was likely to make the greatest and last mistake 
 of his life, loops being cunningly let in at points where, 
 owing to the contour of the ground, they were not visible 
 from the enemy's lines. It was all very cunning and 
 complete, and the garrison, in spite of its prostration, 
 often prayed that the enemy might come on. There 
 was a late moon just then, and until it rose the hours of 
 darkness were long, and our Cossack posts were pushed 
 right up to the Dutch sangars on every side, so that we 
 should have early information of any movement in force. 
 One night it looked as though the assault would be 
 made under circumstances peculiarly favourable to the 
 garrison. Our pickets had crept close up under the 
 brow of Bulwan to raid a mealie-field. It was just after 
 midnight, with the moon shining brilliantly, when all of 
 a sudden, from every redoubt, sangar, and shelter on the 
 mountain poured out a stream of men. The dark figures 
 came thronging like bees from a hive, until there must 
 have been 2000 creeping quietly down the side of the 
 mountain. Our pickets withdrew under shadow of the 
 thorn bushes, and sent a messenger in haste to warn the 
 Manchesters on Caesar's Hill. But the look-out was 
 perfect. The Manchesters, with their night-glasses, had 
 noted every movement of the enemy, and sent a warning 
 to the pickets, so that their messengers met half-way. 
 They were seen from many other points, and the vigilance, 
 if not the valour, of our men was satisfactorily tested. 
 The enemy came on for a time confidently enough, and 
 the strengthened outposts were getting ready to give 
 them the volley which should be at once a welcome and 
 a warning, when as suddenly as it had developed the 
 threatened attack melted away. There had been all the 
 preparation, but no assault. It may have been that they 
 found crossing the open flat in the moonlight a more 
 serious sacrifice than their leaders had the right to ask 
 of them — anyhow, they faltered, stopped, and went back.
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 257 
 
 Twice within a few weeks they had mustered lieavily to 
 assault the town, and twice at the crucial moment their 
 courage had failed them. The second failure was their 
 last serious threat against I^ad\-sniith. 
 
 I always admired the work done by the Cossack posts, 
 especially towards the close of the siege, when the tension 
 was greatest, and the necessity for keeping touch of the 
 enemy at night of the first importance. One experience 
 is typical of the whole. The work was done by picked 
 men, and would have been still better done by Kathrs 
 could they have been trusted to push the investigation 
 far enough forward. This they will do only when stif- 
 fened by the companionship of a white man. Prompted 
 by curiosity rather than a desire for adventure, we went 
 out once with a Cossack patrol. lie had been told 
 on leaving camp that the sentries had been warned of 
 his coming, but narrowly missed a shot from one of our 
 own men. It was at a point where the river rushed 
 noisily through a rocky gorge, and the roar of the water 
 drowned the voice of the sentry, so that he challenged 
 twice without being heard. Fortunately the Kaffir heard 
 the click of the bolt as a cartridge was pushed from the 
 magazine into the breech preparatory to the last challenge. 
 Passing through the outer line of sentinels the Cossack 
 post crept up close to the Boer trenches — all wearing 
 rubber shoes so that there was no sound on the rocks — 
 and sat there in the darkness listening intently for any 
 sound that might indicate the movement of a large body 
 of the enemy. That was the only thing in which the 
 Cossack posts were interested. They were warned not 
 to use their rifles except in a last extremity, and to avoid 
 raising an alarm unless there was good reason for it. 
 To untrained ears the ordinary night sounds of the veldt 
 would have been confusing — perhaps at times alarming 
 — but the Kaffir boys showed remarkable discrimination, 
 and one marvelled at their readiness in identifying noises 
 which to us had no particular meaning. Some slight 
 sound out of the darkness ahead, and the Kaffir declared 
 it a horse moving amongst the rocks, wandering at liberty, 
 
 R
 
 2S8 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 not being led. A faint gleam of light, gone in an instant 
 like the flicker of a glow-worm in the dusk, was a Dutch- 
 man lighting his pipe. A rustle in the grass told of a 
 prowling meer-cat hunting for a brooding partridge on 
 her nest. Another slight patter amongst the rocks was 
 a pair of reed buck coming down to water. Finally the 
 Kaffir raised his hand, and whispered " Maboon " (Ma- 
 bunu), the native name for the Boer, A couple of men, 
 wearing heavy boots, judging from the clatter, and not 
 the noiseless veldt-schoen, came down to the river-side, 
 dipped some water, and stood for a while talking by the 
 water's edge. The murmur of their voices came indis- 
 tinctly through the night, and a laugh which followed 
 was particularly clear. They had no idea that a Rooinek 
 picket was sitting there in the gloom of the further 
 bank, less than fifty yards away, or there would have 
 been less laughing and more shooting. After a while 
 they went away up the ridge again, and their voices 
 faded away in the distance ; nothing then for an hour 
 or two but the far-away whinny of a horse or the cry of 
 a bird that sounded like a wild goose flying overhead. 
 At the first sign of the, dawn the Cossack post fell quietly 
 back upon its own lines, challenged by an alert sentry 
 as soon as they came within ear-shot. This was the 
 favourable experience of a fine calm night, but when it 
 rained and thundered and the lightning lit up the veldt 
 at intervals as no artificial search-light could have done 
 it, Cossack post was not a duty for which many men 
 hungered. 
 
 I had one experience of the veldt at night which 
 quite satisfied me as to the difficulties of moving men 
 to any point under unfavourable circumstances. I was 
 riding a little way out after dark with some medicines 
 for a friend, who had been suddenly seized with malarial 
 fever, the legacy left to most men who have spent a few 
 years in the miasmic country of Northern Rhodesia. A 
 heavy thunderstorm came on just as I had got clear of 
 the town, and although knowing the paths well, one had 
 need to be careful, since they cut close round the heads
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 259 
 
 of several steep dongas or ravines, where one step too 
 far meant a fall of twenty or thirty feet. It was impos- 
 sible to ride, so, leading the horse, and feeling the way 
 with a long stick, I took a wide curve to clear the 
 dongas, and of course overdid it. The flashes of light- 
 ning were so vivid and so bright that they almost blinded 
 one for the instant, and there was no chance to pick up 
 any familiar landmark ere the night wrapped everything 
 again in an impenetrable blackness. It was impossible 
 to leave the valley without knowing it, and the scope 
 for wandering at large without striking something familiar 
 was not great, yet for an hour I was as hopelessly lost 
 as though in the middle of some unknown expanse of 
 veldt. Finally I had that indefinite sense of being 
 within a few yards of something without quite knowing 
 what, and with the next flash of lightning found that I 
 had wandered into the horse lines of one of the cavalry 
 regiments, and had passed some distance between two 
 lines of horses tethered heel to heel, not more than ten 
 yards apart, without knowing it, and without letting the 
 horse guards know it either. I could, I believe, have 
 cut every horse away without risk of discovery, but that 
 meant nothing. A sentry is just mortal like other men, 
 and the chance of an enemy finding his way by design 
 into these horse lines on such a night was most remote. 
 I did it only through trying to reach another point quite 
 a mile away. Just then, as the rain ceased, the Bulvvan 
 search-light began to play, and this fixed point, coupled 
 with the knowledge that I could only have blundered 
 into one cavalry camp in that part of the valley, gave 
 me the hint as to the right direction. I came out of the 
 horse lines without a challenge, knocked up against a 
 Kaffir, who was herding cattle, even in that terrific storm, 
 and with a good deal of trouble, for he knew little 
 English, and 1 less Zulu, managed to get some further 
 information, though I was satisfied for a long time that 
 this chance child of the night wished to direct me to the 
 Gordons' camp instead of the spot I wanted. Even 
 then, with the storm over, I overshot the place, and
 
 26o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 would have been hopelessly fogged once more, only that 
 I chanced to look over my shoulder just as the Dutch 
 search-light in its sweep rested for an instant on the iron 
 roof of the hut for which I was searching — the only 
 building in the locality. The experience quite satisfied 
 me that thou::^h an enemy might pierce our lines unseen 
 on such a night, the chance of hitting the exact point 
 aimed at was so remote that such shrewd leaders as the 
 Boers were the last men in the world to attempt it. 
 Later, when we were being threatened with attack, and 
 my friends were apprehensive that such nights as this 
 would be chosen for it, I went to bed in full confidence 
 that there would be no other alarm than a false one 
 before daybreak, and so it proved. Sometimes the 
 sentry, when placed upon his post, got turning round, 
 and lost all sense of direction. There was one such 
 instance early in the siege. This man had unconsciously 
 changed his front, and when the relief came out he was 
 so sure that it was the enemy that he challenged once, 
 and then fired. 
 
 The Boers never spared themselves either on the 
 Tugela or about Ladysmith in works necessary for 
 resistance or assault. Their energy found a new outlet 
 in the building of a stone bridge or weir just round the 
 southern shoulder of the Bulwan, where both the river 
 and railway find a way out of the valley through a 
 narrow gorge. It was this same convenient cleft in the 
 ridges that gave us a clear view of the distant crest of 
 Weenan's Hill, and enabled us to communicate with the 
 relief column. All sorts of rumours were quickly afoot 
 as to the intentions of the enemy, and the popular im- 
 pression, the prevalent fear in Ladysmith, was that, in 
 despair of getting us out immediately, either with gun 
 or rifle, they were trying to drown us out by damming 
 back the waters of the Klip river and converting the 
 valley into a lake. The thing was feasible. One had 
 only to study the position from the high points around 
 the town, to realize that the facilities for forming a large 
 artificial lake were exceptional. A single weir of no
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 261 
 
 f^reat len<:^th would effect the purpose, and, indeed, 
 Ladysmith during heavy floods is more or less of a lake, 
 and the residents take to the hills for safety, as rabbits 
 in the Mallee make for the pine ridges when the Murray 
 sends its flood of melted snow out through the back- 
 waters into the wilderness. That was the original mis- 
 take with Ladysmith. It should have been a lake, not 
 a town. It appeared to me, however, that if the Boers 
 really meant to drown us out they had started work 
 rather late in the day. Even an army with all its 
 resources in free labour cannot hold back a lake of five 
 miles in diameter and fifty feet deep with a Partington 
 mop. It needs masonry of the most substantial kind, 
 and watching the Boers at work from the summit of 
 Caesar's Hill, it seemed to me that they were bridge 
 builders only, not weir builders. They had even then 
 begun to see that Buller's persistency might win its way 
 in the end, spite of every discomfiture, and what more 
 likely than that those far-seeing Dutchmen, who leave 
 so little to chance, were just making their own line of 
 retreat secure. The Klip river, fed by the storms of the 
 distant Drachenbergs, comes down occasionally in floods 
 sudden and severe. It was quite a common experience 
 to go to bed at night with the river low, and, without a 
 drop of rain falling in the valley, to find it in heavy flood 
 in the morning. The Boers, be sure, had noted this, 
 and considered all the consequences of finding the drifts 
 impassable when finally forced from the Tugela, and 
 with the only bridge in the locality under our protection. 
 We discovered that from one point on Caesar's Hill we 
 could look down upon the bridge builders through the 
 cleft in the ridge, so a naval 12-pounder was got up 
 there. As soon as work started next morning, we 
 pitched a shell on to them, and the bridge builders went 
 flying to shelter like a rock of frightened partridges. 
 The following night we took one of the 47's to the same 
 position, and thereafter work was casual, though the 
 manner in which they persisted with it showed that they 
 set some store on the undertaking. At first they were
 
 262 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 angry at the interruption — very angry — and for a while 
 their Long Tom devoted himself entirely to the shelling 
 of Caesar's Hill, without, however, doing very much 
 damage. We, on the other hand, were apparently 
 sulkily silent. The fact was that we had no ammuni- 
 tion to waste, and, having got the range, we said in our 
 silence, " When you've built your bridge, just send a 
 convoy over it, and give us a chance." We wanted some 
 better target than fatigue parties, and only gave them a 
 shell when a fair number of them were at work. Thus 
 the game of check and counter-check went on. So 
 much of modern war is purely waste work, the measure- 
 ment of move by move, much of it unseen by the 
 looker-on, until all of a sudden one side develops the 
 mastery in tactics, and a battle has been won ere yet a 
 shot is fired. 
 
 One day word came from Lord Roberts that he had 
 entered the Free State with a large force of artillery, 
 cavalry, and mounted infantry, and he hoped that the 
 operations of the few succeeding days would greatly 
 ease the strain on Ladysmith. The Boers heard of it, 
 too, and two nights later big, handsome Lucas Meyer, 
 with a body of Free Staters, cut away for the Drachen- 
 berg passes. We heard all night the whistle of the 
 trains that took them on to Harrismith. There was a 
 co-incident activity amongst the Boer gunners, the bom- 
 bardment grew somewhat heavier, and we fancied we 
 recognized the note of guns that we had not heard for 
 some time past, and which had, no doubt, been resisting 
 Buller's advance on the Tugela. It was an extraordinary 
 example of Dutch tenacity, that they should thus have 
 been able to detach men and guns from their river fight- 
 ing line and yet hold the ever-increasing relief column 
 in check. There was a workmanlike method about 
 their bombardment just then, quite unlike the attitude of 
 men who believed that their time was limited — a trades- 
 manlike regularity about their working hours, such as 
 might have been expected from men " on a stiddy job." 
 At about ten o'clock every morning we could see them 
 
 I
 
 A TIME OF ANXIETY 263 
 
 stroll over the plateau of Bulwan from their tents under 
 its shoulder. Earlier in the sicp^c they were careful, and 
 the routine was always the same. After their gun- 
 muzzle appeared above the redoubt, the gun's crew 
 passed out to a bomb-proof chamber on the left of it. 
 Then one man walked round the front of the redoubt 
 under the muzzle, and within five seconds the gun was 
 fired. Rut when they realized that we were saving our 
 ammunition and could no longer answer, they stood in 
 line upon the crest of the redoubt to watch the effect of 
 their fire, and they had the range of every prominent 
 building so nicely that they pitched their shells where 
 they pleased — first, three or four rounds through the 
 roofs of the long railway goods-sheds, that sent the 
 chevril boilers swarming out like ants from a hillock ; 
 then a long swing of a mile to the left, and they were 
 plump into the Gordons' camp. Afterwards wc found 
 the resvilts for that gun all nicely tabulated, and showing 
 a record of over 3000 rounds — for it was the identical 
 gun which had first opened on us from Pcpworth's Hill. 
 The result of those 3000 rounds, as far as we could cal- 
 culate it, was seventy men killed ; the general result of 
 the siege, apart from men buried on the battle-fields, was 
 nearly five hundred graves in the cemetery at Intombi 
 Camp — which in years to come will be a sad memorial 
 of the siege — and something less than that number of 
 graves added to the town cemetery in the bend of the 
 Klip river, where some of the pioneers of Ladysmith 
 sleep side by side with its latest victims. 
 
 We had but scant information as to the great game 
 outside in these days, but the anniversary of Majuba 
 was at hand, and we always had faith that the day 
 would not be allowed to pass without startling develop- 
 ments from either or both sides. The runners were 
 less successful than formerly. Many of them, checked 
 at every point, came back with their letters, and the 
 price rose to £\^ per trip. One runner had almost 
 forced his way through from the Tugela with some 600 
 letters for the garrison, when he was fired on, and twice
 
 264 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 wounded, losing his packet of letters. It was generally 
 our experience in Ladysmith to find the rumoured 
 good news of one day entirely counteracted by the 
 official announcements of the next day. The reverse 
 was experienced first on February 17, when a single 
 paragraph in the orders of the day spread dismay 
 through the beleaguered town. Owing to the difficulty 
 of mounting guns on the captured kopjes, General 
 Buller, we are told, had abandoned the idea of pressing 
 the attack on the left, while his force was even yet 
 insufficient to force a way, without terrible loss, through 
 hills heavily defended by the Dutch artillery. Accord- 
 ingly, in the night the whole force had been withdrawn 
 from the neighbourhood of Krantz Kloof, and had 
 retired, with some slight loss from the fire of the Boer 
 lOO-pounders. It looked like another case of breaking 
 the bad news gently — our experience of retirements 
 and retreats had been always so disheartening. To our 
 surprise, next morning opened with an amazing thunder 
 of guns, first, and with long intervals, the long and 
 heavy roll of the Dutch 6 in. guns, then in the afternoon 
 the lower, more constant rumble that could only mean 
 British field batteries in action — the invariable prelude 
 to storming a position. Later still, at sunset, our 
 furthest pickets sent in word that they could hear even 
 the low, deadly rattle of rifles, which always means so 
 much to those who have once heard and noted its 
 effects. Some great movement was afoot. We knew 
 it, and were not surprised when late that night came a 
 flash-light message across the hills telling us that the 
 British had stormed and captured a position of great 
 tactical value known to us as Bloy's Hill, and relief was 
 at length within measurable distance, though there 
 might still be a heavy toll in blood and suffering before 
 that narrow gap was bridged by our brown-coated 
 columns. The confusion of names made it difficult at 
 times to follow Buller's movements exactly. There 
 were generally two sets of Kaffir names for every 
 mountain, the natives to northward christening it from
 
 A rnfE OF ANXIETY 265 
 
 some peculiarity when viewed from that direction, while 
 an entirely different conformation ^ave it quite another 
 name from southward. The early Dutch settlers in 
 Natal had given their own names to particular peaks — 
 Spion Kop, for example — while the Eni^lish settlers, 
 who came after them, exercised the same right, and, to 
 crown all, the military authorities had made confusion 
 worse confounded by adding Gun Ilill, Hussar Ridge, 
 and Lancer Ridge to landmarks already much over- 
 named. Thus there will always be confusion as to the 
 exact order of events on the Tugela. Even in Lady- 
 smith half the garrison spoke of the battle of Tinta 
 Inyoni, while the other half called it Rietfontein.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 NEARING THE END 
 
 A brave young surgeon — The rinkalse — Sir George White 
 and the garrison— Guns on the Tugela — "All going well" — 
 Quarter rations — Correspondents' luck. 
 
 For a few days it seemed that though the mental 
 and bodily stress of the garrison was at its worst, the 
 sickness flattered us. The morning procession to the 
 hospital, the number of ambulance wagons collecting 
 the patients, seemed fewer, and any decrease in sickness 
 meant an increase in cheerfulness, and the capacity for 
 further waiting. But it was only a lull. The wave of 
 sickness rolled back upon us again, and was worse than 
 ever. Poor Buntine, over-worked and worn down, used 
 to come to us of an evening, and sit with his head in his 
 hands for a while, too tired almost to talk. All day he 
 was at work, house to house, hospital to hospital, never 
 letting a patient see the dark side of anything, holding 
 up to his duty magnificently, though physically quite 
 unfit for it. If the fighting side of the British army 
 had brave men in Ladysmith, the medical profession 
 had heroes. Hornabrook, the South Australian, had 
 done his best — done it too thoroughly, and with too 
 little regard for his own troubles. The neglected wound 
 in the side gave him trouble, and just as he had passed 
 that danger safely, a sunstroke laid him low again, and 
 for a time he was delirious. It was sufficient surely, 
 
 266
 
 NEARING THE END 267 
 
 but not the full measure, for no sooner had he survived 
 this than an attack of enteric laid him low again. I 
 went to see him in hospital, where Buntine — whose 
 record in fever cases was unequalled — had made him as 
 comfortable as the over-crowding would permit. The 
 square, determined face, which in this case was so true 
 an index of character, was sadly shrunken, but his eye 
 was bright, his pluck unshaken, and with a smile he said, 
 "Hurry up that relief; I'm waiting for a big bottle 
 of champagne." As the sick were taken out of town to 
 Intombi, a greater number of the convalescents crept 
 back again, glad to escape from that haven of rofuge, 
 and sickness, and death. Poor fellows, they added little 
 to the gaiety of the garrison. Most of them were just 
 living skeletons, with a sallow, unhealthy, parchment- 
 like skin stretched over them, and their semi-vacant 
 clothes hanging in limp folds or flapping in the wind. 
 Most of the convalescent were in the convent, or the 
 private but vacant dwellings on the northern ridge, 
 where, if fully exposed to shell, they had at least fresh 
 air. 
 
 It was a favourite mustering point with the towns- 
 people, too, since it gave a far view southward in the 
 direction relief must come. But officers were none too 
 pleased when the populace gathered on their verandahs, 
 and they came out occasionally to protest. " I wish 
 you gentlemen wouldn't stand exposed like that ; you 
 draw fire." One day three of the correspondents were 
 lying in the shade of a stone building, when a large 
 rinkalse, or spitting-snake, glided across from the rocks 
 to the verandah. We began a bombardment, missing 
 the snake, but hitting the house with every round. The 
 door opened suddenly, a surprised face looked out, and 
 a voice began : " I say, don't you know — what the 
 
 deuce is all " Slam ! He had seen the snake with 
 
 a foot of its neck arched, and the cobra-like sacs below 
 the head puffed out to eject the poison. His curiosity as 
 to the row was satisfied. 
 
 One day we were undecided as to whether we should
 
 268 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 take the convent or the next building for our noonday 
 lounge, but as the Dutch gunners had been paying the 
 convent much attention, we decided against it. Half- 
 an-hour later, Father Ford — a man whom nature intended 
 for a soldier, and his parents made a priest — was reading 
 on the verandah, one eye on the book, the other lifting 
 at intervals to a set telescope and Long Tom. As he 
 glanced up he saw the gun-muzzle raised — a tiny black 
 disc above the sandbags of the redoubt. " Come out 
 quickly," he shouted to the naval officer writing in the 
 room behind. " It's coming right at us." They ran down 
 the steps to the shelter of the bluestone foundations. 
 The shell tore a hole in the brick wall, burst in the 
 room where the naval officer sat writing twenty seconds 
 before, and splintered things in the usual way. This 
 illustrated the keenness with which the gun was watched, 
 even at 8200 yards. 
 
 Men wore mostly boots in these days. Officers and 
 men alike wore the heavy, thick-soled ammunition boots; 
 all had lost their calves, and thought it little good in 
 advertising for them. The close-folding, universal putties 
 betrayed only too faithfully the outline of the shrunken 
 shanks, which, in turn, threw into greater contrast the 
 imposing magnitude of the boot below. Where was all 
 the style and superb finish of the British army now .^ 
 Gone, and the greatest exquisite in the service troubled 
 his head not a bit about it. Deeds, not dress, were 
 glory then. It was the day of action, not of appear- 
 ances. I saw one Tommy halt at the town tip and 
 pick up an old boot, examine it, then, taking off his 
 own, the sole of which was held to the upper by string 
 — the derelict of the dust-heap was obviously the better 
 of the two — he put it on, and went his way satisfied. 
 Yet critics outside were asking why the garrison was so 
 inactive, why we did not dash out upon the rear of the 
 enemy, link hands with Jiuller, and so facilitate the 
 relief But we were past the power of working out our 
 own salvation, save by patient waiting. The mission of 
 this town and garrison, quite as much as in the spring
 
 NEARING THE END 269 
 
 of the previous year, was to hold itself out a buffer to 
 the Boer advance, and an impediment to concentration 
 and supply upon the Tugcla, since everythin;^ they 
 needed must be untrucked at Sunday river, and taken 
 a wide circuit in wagons over the veldt. Through all 
 the haze of doubt and difficulties we were beginning to 
 see now with retrospective eye the development of a 
 far-seeing plan — which at one time seemed to be only 
 an inexplicable and unsoldierly inaction. Not even the 
 youngest and most inexperienced civilian amongst us 
 really believed then that he knew more than the General. 
 Sir George White had not taken us into his confidence, 
 but we had had all the assistance of the tacticians and 
 generals of the street corners and the shady mimosa 
 trees, who had brought tactics and the whole art of war 
 down to the irreducible minimum. The man who began 
 all his observations with the words, "If I were the 
 General," abandoned war as a topic, and talked only of 
 victuals. 
 
 The volume of sound from the Tugela all at once 
 grew denser. It had come to us first in occasional 
 bursts — a far-off titanic drum-tap, beating sometimes 
 the reveille, sometimes the last post. Now it was a 
 steady, ceaseless din. All the energies of the relief 
 party, all its resources in artillery fire, were surely being 
 gathered in that great bombardment. In the early 
 morning we woke and listened ; it still came through. 
 We hardly knew what we wished for most, its continu- 
 ance or its cessation. The last must necessarily be the 
 prelude to relief, but the silence of the cannon had so 
 often meant failure and further waiting. Even the 
 sound was deceptive, and varied with the atmospheric 
 conditions. On the second day it seemed nearer, clearer; 
 on the third more distant and irregular. And with 
 every variation in the sound our spirits rose and sank, 
 true as the barometer to the storm. The news from 
 the river was sparse and uncertain, for the Boers had 
 exhausted ingenuity in their endeavours to trap the 
 native runners, and along the river, the route now in-
 
 2 70 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 variably chosen, the Kaffir paths were watched, and the 
 traps multiplied. The bell wires had been doubled — 
 one placed close to the ground, the next at just about 
 the height of a man's head, so that the runner, in keep- 
 ing a sharp look-out for the one was almost certain to 
 strike the other, when an electric bell on one of the 
 kopjes brought the Boer guards swarming down like 
 soldier wasps from their mud houses in the syringa 
 trees. The Kaffir matched cunning with cunning, and 
 was equal to every emergency. From the time they 
 were put through our outer line of pickets and flitted 
 away silently like shadows into the night up to the 
 nearest native kraal, they carried their despatches ; after 
 that and until they were handed over to General Buller's 
 Staff the runner rarely handled them. A Kaffir girl, 
 who day by day passed the Boer camps, calabash on 
 head, on the way to a spring, took the despatches in the 
 empty vessel and planted them by the spring side. 
 Another girl carried them from the spring to the next 
 kraal ; to-day they were in the calabash, to-morrow in 
 the mealie-jar, which the Kaffir women poise so grace- 
 fully on their heads. The runner might be stopped and 
 searched a dozen times — he had no papers on him, was 
 only a vagabond native following his sister to the kraal. 
 The plan was expensive, since so many had to be paid 
 for their labour; but it was effective — that was the main 
 point. I shall never cease to admire those Kaffirs, their 
 quiet daring, their audacity, their fine bush-craft, their 
 sterling honesty, and their matchless physique. 
 
 The news that the runners brought and the heliograph 
 flashed was generally cheery, though the relief contented 
 themselves with a curt "All going well," or "Progress 
 satisfactory." They would not encourage hopes that once 
 again might become only delusions. The biggest, the 
 best news we had was perfect as a prophecy, but as a 
 fact some weeks ahead of the event. " Lord Roberts 
 has entered Bloemfontein, and been received with open 
 arms." There appeared to be verification of it, too, in 
 the news that Lucas Meyer and a large Free State force
 
 NEARING THE END 271 
 
 had been entrained for Harrismith. The meer-cat was 
 having its tail pinched, and was turning round to see 
 about it. Then came the intelHgence that Cronje was 
 surrounded with his army, and must inevitably be cap- 
 tured or destroyed. Everything was shaping well for a 
 great Majuba Day celebration, an anniversary which 
 every one felt would be fraught with consequences to 
 Boer and Briton, reducing to insignificance all that had 
 made the day one of celebration for the Dutch. There 
 had been a Majuba — that no English could ever forget. 
 Once a year the old wound in the breasts of the English 
 was made to rankle even in the very strongholds of the 
 African English — we felt sure now that there would be 
 a Majuba obliteration, a Majuba revenge. Everything 
 pointed to it. And still the cannon fire went on in the 
 distance, but on the fourth morning it seemed fainter 
 and further away. For ninety-six hours its echoes had 
 rolled unceasingly, imposingly amongst the hills. From 
 Caesar's Hill, where whole batteries of field and stalking- 
 glasses were turned south, we saw in the far distance 
 stray squads of brown-coated men upon the kopjes that 
 could only be British soldiers. In the stillness of the 
 night some believed that they could hear the faint 
 crackle of rifle fire, though that might be but a strained 
 expectation playing tricks with the reality. The helio- 
 graph sat upon a nearer hill, and blinked at us with a 
 brighter eye, and General Buller still said, "All going 
 well." 
 
 Then the blow fell. The garrison was on quarter 
 rations. Only a few knew that the discovery that maize 
 hurriedly milled and stored during the siege, in such a 
 manner that it heated and became useless, was the main 
 reason for this last economy. Every failure on the 
 Tugela had been followed by reduced rations in Lady- 
 smith. It came so promptly again upon the cessation 
 of fire that we could draw but one conclusion. That 
 was Ladysmith's best and worst day. To me personally 
 it was the saddest forenoon of all. Two of my friends, 
 Dunn and Greenwood, had gone down with fever and
 
 2 72 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 dysentery, and the cruelty of their luck was only 
 manifest later on. To have endured it for months, and 
 then to miss the grand climax — that was the bitterest 
 trick surely that Fate ever played upon a mortal. That 
 forenoon I begged for brandy and corn-flour and tinned 
 milk for the invalids, and while the suave Baboo 
 at the stores measured it out in ounces, the medical 
 chief said, "You must look upon it as liquid gold. 
 Make it go as far as possible." Later I took an 
 ambulance out to Olver's to bring in Greenwood, not 
 knowing then the sequel to that ninety-six hours of 
 ceaseless shell. It had come in another brief message 
 from General Buller, " I believe the enemy is in full 
 retreat. My cavalry are in pursuit." It was just as well, 
 for in riding out I had the luck to see that which very 
 few in Ladysmith saw, and coming suddenly, hard upon 
 the heels of disappointment, sickness, and despair, the 
 d^nouejnent was the more dramatic.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE ^ND OF THE SIEGE 
 
 The great trek — How I saw it — A silver snake — A remarkable 
 retreat — Shelling Long Tom — Fine artillery work — Buller's cavalry 
 in sight — The rush to meet them — " Thank God we kept the flag 
 flying"— The fighting chiefs — The fate of the flag. 
 
 The relief of Ladysmith came at last with dramatic 
 suddenness. Different men saw it in different aspects, 
 with different eyes. To all of us, though, it stands the 
 personal experience of a lifetime, something that next 
 to the battle scenes we shall never forget. We were at 
 our worst, as I have told already, hoping much, believing 
 much, expecting something, but not anticipating that 
 one short day would see in quick succession despair, the 
 dawn of hope, and the glory of realization. I was 
 standing in Olver's hut, and the open window gave a far 
 view across the town over our ring of entrenchments, 
 over the encompassing lines of the enemy, away in the 
 direction of the Zululand borders, where a gently rising 
 green hill made an abrupt horizon. It is a characteristic 
 of Natal, indeed of all South Africa, that on some days 
 the hills seem very near, on others vague and distant, 
 an atmospheric effect that cannot easily be overlooked. 
 On that day the hill was very near, and suddenly it 
 seemed to me that there was something in the prospect 
 which had not been there before. 
 
 Under the strong and somewhat strange sunshine 
 
 273 s
 
 2 74 -^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 which so often precedes a tropical thunderstorm in the 
 highlands of Natal, it seemed as though a long silver 
 snake were stretched against the green background in 
 ever-extending curves, that had a look of motion in 
 them. As yet only half-curious, half-expectant, I took 
 up a pair of field-glasses, and set them to the long focus. 
 The silver snake of the distance was a line of white-tilted 
 wagons suspiciously uniform in build and cover for 
 Boer transport, but still unmistakably wagons. I could 
 see the tilts sway against the skyline as they dipped over 
 the ridge, but at the foot fresh wagons were continually 
 coming into view — the train was endless. " Look," I 
 said to young Olver, " look there ! What do you make 
 of it .'' " " It's a trek," he said excitedly, " a great trek. 
 They're retreating, they're going at last." Then closer 
 home, right in at the northern shoulder of Lombard's 
 Kop, we saw something less reassuring — a huge laager of 
 wagons visible to us from our high outlook, but just 
 hidden from view of the town by the Boers' rifle ridge, 
 and covering, it appeared, acres. They seemed to be 
 forming a square, just as they were accustomed to form 
 it in older days to throw back the impetuous charges of 
 the Basuto and Zulu warriors. It looked more like fight 
 than flight. It might mean that the Boers were concen- 
 trating suddenly for a last great assault on the town, 
 though it was difficult to see how they could reap any- 
 thing of the fruits of victory even if they gained one, for 
 had they forsaken their works upon the Tugela, Buller's 
 cavalry would be quickly on their heels. Coupled with 
 the silence of cannon to the southward, it meant some- 
 thing of import. " Let us get up to Maiden Castle," I 
 said, a high peak overlooking the veldt on the opposite 
 side, as well as the route over which the enemy's trans- 
 port usually travelled. 
 
 We hurried to the summit, and there was a wonderful 
 sight, the great trek we had so long anticipated. The 
 enemy were in full retreat. For five miles another train 
 of wagons, longer, more dense, more jumbled than the 
 first, for there were blocks and long halts in the line,
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 275 
 
 stretched across, and just as the ice-birds are snow-white 
 on one side of the ship and sky-blue on the other, so the 
 flying enemy on one side of Ladysmith were all black; 
 on the other, as I have said, a f^listcningj white. The 
 realization of the long-expected was so sudden, the 
 suppressed excitement so great, that we could not keep 
 the glasses steady without resting them on a rock. It 
 was the great trek — not wagons only, but riders — 
 galloping black-coated horsemen moving forward in 
 groups of twenty, fifty, a hundred, a continuous living 
 stream of more or less density coming into view round 
 the corner of End Hill, sweeping away in a long curve, 
 and disappearing northward behind Telegraph Hill, in 
 the direction of their railway base. These galloping 
 horsemen were not an escort for the transport train. 
 They went their own way, and went fast. In any other 
 army it would have been the evidence not merely of 
 defeat but demoralization. But we knew the Boer way. 
 When they moved it was anyhow as to disposition, but 
 rapidly and effectively ; that is why pursuit is such a 
 hopeless thing. The one thing, the great thing, was 
 that they were going. It was the flight, not of a com- 
 mando or a column, but an army. Give them their due, 
 too, they were doing it well. Their retreat was as 
 masterly a thing as their desperate clinging to the hills 
 of the Tugela. But, then, the Dutch are born transport 
 riders. They have been at it all their lives, and the 
 best organized military transport in the world cannot 
 keep pace with them. He must fly light who goes in 
 pursuit of the flying Boer. 
 
 Down at the foot of the hill a little picket of the 
 Highlanders sat in a stone fort all unconscious of the 
 great event beyond. We shouted and pointed, so they 
 came up to us, and then — well, there were strathspeys 
 upon the hill-top. " Look yonder ; look yonder, mon ; 
 ain't they rinnin' ! Aye, it's a pity we canna get at 
 them." That was the general feeling. They had locked 
 us in, mocked us, starved us, battered us for months, 
 and, instead of thanking God for our deliverance, we
 
 276 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 were eager only to get at them. It was the opportunity 
 of a campaign. Could we but have rushed out our field 
 batteries and mounted troops, we could have decimated 
 their transport trains ; but our field batteries, the darlings 
 of the R.A., had become slow-going siege trains, our 
 cavalry and mounted infantry were unhorsed. We had 
 eaten them into immobility. The sight was exasperating, 
 maddening. And, as though knowing it, they cut in 
 tauntingly close, nearer than they had ever dared to 
 come in the early days of the siege, when the big walers 
 were still fit for a gallop. Our gunners on the top of 
 Caesar's Hill were sorely tried. They swung round their 
 long-range naval 12-pounders, and a shell pitched at 
 the greatest possible elevation went screaming high over 
 our heads. It was short, miserably short. They tried 
 again and again, but the nearest shell was still some 
 hundreds of yards on this side, and the Boer horsemen, 
 laughing at our impotence no doubt, galloped on, for 
 a great thunderstorm was gathering, and would soon 
 burst. There was always such a storm on our great 
 days. 
 
 We were curious as to Bulwan. The one thing that 
 would have consoled us for the escape of the enemy was 
 the capture of that gun, and how Ladysmith would have 
 prized it as a trophy in the years to come ! It had all 
 been arranged by the gunners of the Powerful. The 
 moment that the relief was assured they were to open 
 on that redoubt with all their available ammunition, and, 
 if possible, prevent the gun from being dismounted. It 
 had fired a single shot early in the forenoon, and was 
 afterwards silent. At that moment something black, 
 like a huge letter A, appeared above the redoubt. We 
 knew in an instant that it was the tripod, to lift the gun 
 from its pit. The Powerfuls saw it too. There was 
 that ear-splitting crash from the Lady Anne redoubt 
 behind Convent Ridge, another roar from the crest of 
 Caesar's Hill, and both the 47's were in action. They 
 picked up the range splendidly. The first shell burst 
 upon the mountain side, close to the summit ; at the
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 277 
 
 second the red earth flew from the front of the redoubt. 
 When the smoke of the third shell, which seemed to 
 burst right on the redoubt, had cleared away, the tripod 
 had disappeared, and we exulted. It was not the time 
 for stoicism and deportment. We yelled, for we had 
 still our voices unimpaired ; we danced as well as our 
 physical exhaustion would permit ; we conducted our- 
 selves as school-boys do on slight incentive, but as 
 staid men are only expected to do under such an over- 
 mastering emotion as war. We shook hands with the 
 Highlanders, were filled with a great sense of satis- 
 faction, and turned to look at the flying Boers, for the 
 tripod over Long Tom was raised no more while the 
 daylight lasted. There was a redoubt on End Hill, 
 and we could see through the glass the figures of men 
 moving about it, but whether there was a gun in it just 
 then was a problem. In the niche between Wagon 
 Hill and Caesar's we had lurking a howitzer, and it 
 opened fire on something it could not see. That, to the 
 uninitiated, is the marvel of howitzer fire. The muzzle 
 looks up the steep hill in front of it. The gun-layers 
 can see nothing beyond a couple of little flags aligned 
 from the crest above, yet how wonderfully they shot. 
 I think it was the third shell that tore a great hole in 
 the right-hand corner of the redoubt, the fifth that made 
 a similar gap further to the left. Through both rents 
 the sky-line showed behind ; the gaps looked large 
 enough to drive a team of oxen through. It may have 
 been — possibly was — useless as to results, for I doubt if 
 there was a gun in position just then, but all the same, 
 it was a magnificent display of marksmanship. It 
 showed, at least, how fortunate were the Staats Artillery 
 in that all our operations had been hampered by the 
 miserable want of ammunition. If we could only have 
 done it earlier ! There was nothing more to see just 
 there and then. The heavens had opened, the hail was 
 beating upon us, and, happy and saturated, we went 
 down through the storm to tell the glad news to our 
 fellow-correspondents, who, with a temperature at 103°,
 
 278 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 were fretting and fuming only that in having stood up 
 all through the siege, they should have gone down on 
 this latest and greatest day, and so missed the climax. 
 They longed for one look, at least, at those Dutchmen 
 flying across the veldt and pelted by the hailstorm, a 
 duty of which we would have been so savagely glad to 
 relieve them. 
 
 I had just got a change of clothes, and we were sitting 
 down to our last dinner of horseflesh, when there was a 
 rush of feet, a shouting in the streets outside, and through 
 the tumult came the one clear cry, " Buller's cavalry are 
 in sight ; they are coming across the flats." Waiting 
 neither for horses nor horse-meat we ran, joining the 
 stream of excited people, who were making for the 
 nearest river drift, in quick intuition that there the in- 
 coming column must cross. There was a little flat 
 beyond the river ; further on a little ridge, and down 
 the side of this came a brown column of trotting horse- 
 men. They had come through the gap by Umbulwana ; 
 had cut across by Intombi Camp, and were almost in 
 the town. The setting sun shone full upon the hill, for 
 the storm had passed, and though they were only brown 
 horsemen like our own, we knew they were not our own 
 — for they had horses, and the full kit of men who had 
 been in action and bivouac, and even those of ours who 
 had horses had not trotted for many a day. It was the 
 relief column — every one knew that. 
 
 Then followed a wonderful scene. One could not be 
 in Ladysmith long without having realized that it was a 
 strangely composite community, but never was the fact 
 brought so vividly home to me as then. All the colours 
 and all the nations of earth seemed blended together in 
 a confused throng, all its tongues raised in one exultant 
 din. It was worth having lived and suffered through 
 the siege for that supreme hour. In the rush to the river 
 were the red fezes of the Malays, for once roused from 
 their Oriental stoicism. Mixed up with them were the 
 parti-coloured turbans of the coolies and dhoolie-bearers, 
 their scant white clothing flapping in the wind over their
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 279 
 
 spindle shanks, bare from the knees. The Zulus and 
 Kaffirs were delirious. They leaped in the air, and sang 
 and shouted, their white teeth and white eyeballs gleam- 
 ing. The hospitals had poured out their sick and 
 wounded ; all rushed to join in the p.xan of welcome. 
 There were soldiers with white and shrunken faces ; men 
 wounded in the legs, who shuffled slowly down the road. 
 One poor young infantry officer had stopped at a deep 
 street channel — he had not strength to step over it. I 
 lifted him to the other side, but it was no trouble, he 
 was light as a child. Two other officers drove down in 
 a pony trap, and the ghastliness of their faces impressed 
 one, even in that time of wild excitement. They were, 
 in plain and painful truth, living skeletons. An old 
 Kaflir woman tottered along the footpath, the tears 
 streaming down her face. "Listen to her; listen to 
 her," said a Natal farmer. " That's good ; isn't it ? " I 
 could hsten, but not understand, so he interpreted. The 
 words the Kaffir woman spoke were really the sentiment 
 of that time of triumph. " The English can conquer 
 cver>'thing but death ; why can't they conquer death 1 " 
 TJiey had conquered it, in defying it to its worst, in 
 lavishing their brave lives upon the slopes, where to go 
 was but to meet death. Had there been terror of death 
 there had never been conquest. 
 
 The riders from the Tugela came down the slopes to 
 the river, and the horsemen from the town had already 
 gathered about them. The men of the relief column 
 emptied their pockets and hav^ersacks, and every man 
 of ours who rode beside them smoked a cigarette or a 
 cigar. They had pushed on and on when they found 
 the Dutch had left the last of their trenches, had got 
 touch with, the enemy in many places, had fired upon 
 them, and got not a single shot in reply. Why not go 
 right in ? There were two rival corps in the column — 
 the Imperial Light Horse and the Carbineers — and it 
 was appropriate that regiments which had comrades in 
 the garrison should be first in. They had raced for 
 precedence at first, but thought better of it as they
 
 28o HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 reached the ridge above Intombi Camp, and saw before 
 them in the sunset the iron roofs of Ladysmith. Then 
 they formed up their detachments side by side, and so 
 came in together, with Dundonald — descendant of an 
 old Scottish fighting family — and Major Mackenzie, one 
 of the bravest of the citizen soldiers of Natal, leading 
 the way — good types of the newer, greater empire which 
 this war had irrevocably solidified. They swung into 
 the main street, marching through a living avenue of 
 cheering men and women, whom they had placed under 
 a life-long obligation, while the little ones were hoisted 
 on shoulders for a look at the long-looked-for relief 
 column. And in the half-light of moon and twilight Sir 
 George White and his Staff galloped round the corner, 
 and the leaders shook hands. 
 
 ' Then the long-pent-up excitement and enthusiasm 
 burst forth in a very tumult of joy, and none who were 
 privileged to see and hear it will ever forget. Men were 
 no longer ashamed of their emotions. They cheered 
 and laughed and even cried, for there was a catch in the 
 voice and tears streaming down many a face, and women, 
 more deeply moved, caught up their little ones and 
 kissed them, and thanked God for their preservation and 
 deliverance. Surely it was the greatest sight, that little 
 gathering of mud-stained, battle-worn riflemen, that the 
 eye of man ever looked upon. So we, who were so 
 deeply concerned, thought it. They had fought by day, 
 slept under rain and storm at night, and not a man of 
 them but had his full reward. And the old Kaffir 
 woman, jostled on the outskirts of the crowd, still 
 mumbled, " The English can conquer everything but 
 death." 
 
 Cheers for the relief column, cheers for Buller, but 
 loudest, longest, and most heartfelt, cheers for Sir George 
 White. There was something of filial affection in the 
 ovation that the garrison gave its General. Long before 
 there had been impatience, sometimes irritation, born of 
 the feeling that it was not right for ten thousand of the 
 pick of Britain's soldiers to sit down there and endure
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 281 
 
 insult and aggression. All that had long since died 
 away, and, repentant that they had, in their ignorance, 
 wronged this grand old soldier, they made it up to him 
 now in the fulness of their hearts, in their hour of 
 succour and exultation. They gathered about him, 
 caught his bridle-rein and stirrup-leathers, hung around 
 his horse, and cheered until the riying rear-guard of the 
 Boer army must have heard them over the ridges. All 
 mark of the superior race, the caste between exotic and 
 aboriginal, was swept away ; they mingled together — 
 black, brown, and yellow, European, Ethiopian, Eurasian 
 — in one exulting throng, and all cheering their General. 
 The bowed back of the old fighter straightened, his 
 sunken cheeks flushed, and his eyes shone. He had 
 borne disappointment after disappointment — a responsi- 
 bility the weight of which few could share, and this, too, 
 was his reward. More than once he tried to speak and 
 failed. Fifty years of soldiering and the subjugation of 
 the weaker man were not equal to that great occasion. 
 Finally he found his voice, and beginning almost in- 
 audibly thanked them for the loyal way they had, civilian 
 and soldier alike, co-operated with him in the defence of 
 the town. Then he struck the keynote that went straight 
 to the hearts of all his people, and roused them to an 
 indescribable enthusiasm. " Thank God we kept the 
 flag flying." Such words, spoken with an intensity of 
 solemn feeling, were as a match to the mine of human 
 emotion, and what a roar rose in the night air, while the 
 Zulus, knowing not that something fit to be immortal 
 had been said, but inflamed by the infectious joy of the 
 multitude, sprang into the air again, and shouted the 
 war-cry that some few there had heard many a year ago, 
 when Cetewayo's impis swept down upon them. "It 
 cut me to the heart," the General went on, "to reduce 
 your rations as I did." Then his voice faltered and 
 failed him, and it seemed for a moment that he would 
 break down altogether. The sympathetic crowd filled 
 in the break, helped him over the crisis with another 
 roar of delight long drawn out, and with the promptness
 
 282 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of the soldier he pulled himself together, and mastered 
 his deep feeling. A smile came over his face, and he 
 saved the situation with a laughing, " I promise you, 
 though, that I'll never do it again." The people laughed 
 and cheered, and gradually melted away. Ladysmith 
 was relieved. 
 
 A word of our three fighting chiefs as I saw them in 
 this their hour of triumph will not be amiss. As for Sir 
 George White, Natal had left its mark upon him as 
 upon so many more. After the storm of enthusiasm 
 attending that long-looked-for relief came reaction. 
 Soldier and civilian alike reaHzed that four months of 
 siege, shell, and starvation had left them for the most 
 part nerveless, strengthless, and utterly undone. For 
 most of those who clung to the insanitary trenches, 
 through daylight and darkness, in storm and sunshine, 
 the war was over — in effect, that fine fighting force was 
 as completely out of action for the time as though 
 Ladysmith had really fallen. It was a pitiable thing 
 that so many went down in the last few days of the 
 siege, some even on the last day. The Headquarters 
 Staff were, however, singularly fortunate, very few of 
 them going through hospital. They had had more than 
 their share in the anxiety and the responsibility of the 
 position, for they alone at times knew how really bad 
 was the outlook upon the Tugela. They were spared, 
 however, the long, harassing days and nights in the 
 trenches, which played such havoc with our combatant 
 officers and linesmen. Sir George White himself had 
 just been able to see the realization of the hopes for 
 which he had planned, v/hen he had to strike his flag to 
 the all-conquering fever — not enteric in this case, but a 
 purely local, unclassed and unidentifiable type, born of 
 siege anxieties, camp stenches, and " short commons." 
 You have seen many portraits of Sir George White, but 
 not one in the least like the grey-faced, worn officer. 
 The General of the studio looks tall, straight, fresh, and 
 springy, but the General of the siege was at least ten 
 years older than any of his pictures — a stooped, patient,
 
 THE END OF THE SIEGE 283 
 
 almost pathetic figfure, stalking, cane in hand, through 
 the streets of Ladysmith. When I first saw Sir George 
 White, in the flush of the double victories of Dundee and 
 Elands Laagte, he seemed to me even then an anxious 
 man, quite unlike the trim, taut soldier of the illustrated 
 papers, and that impression of him was intensified 
 through each successive week of the long-strung ordeal. 
 I have told of the dark spirit of disaffection which at 
 times dwelt in the besieged town, when men, over- 
 wrought with the uncertainty of the situation and re- 
 peated disappointments, complained bitterly of the 
 inaction of their leaders. To have omitted any mention 
 of it would have been just, perhaps, to the men upon 
 whom the responsibility rested, but that disaffection was 
 still an aspect of the siege, and to have ignored it would 
 have meant telling less than the whole truth. It was 
 sufficient that it was suppressed while the Dutch were 
 at the door. The real test of merit lies, however, not in 
 the hastily-formed and petulant impressions of the 
 moment, but in the cool after-survey of the man and the 
 situation made with the fullest knowledge of the facts. 
 There was a time when people in Ladysmith almost 
 pitied Sir George Wliite, and looked forward hopefully 
 to the advent of a stronger man ; but long ere the situa- 
 tion had reached its solution, that feeling had changed 
 to one of unbounded admiration and trust. The things 
 that had seemed so grossly and palpably wrong to the 
 general of the street corners all turned out so right and 
 well-considered. So it is that in spite of the rigour of 
 the time. Sir George White is better loved and more 
 admired by the people of Ladysmith to-day than at any- 
 period of the siege, and every taunt directed against him 
 has recoiled upon those who made it. He has been 
 cheered and feted outside, but none bade him good-bye 
 with such genuine emotion as his besieged garrison, and 
 not a man or woman there but will ever have a kind 
 wish for the General, and an affectionate remembrance 
 of the tall soldier who in plain khaki moved so quietly 
 amongst us.
 
 284 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Ian Hamilton, I am free to confess, always caught and 
 held my fancy more than any man in Ladysmith, as the 
 very beau-ideal of a soldier. One may be prejudiced in 
 a man's favour by personal charm, a personal acquaint- 
 ance, but as I had never spoken to General Hamilton it 
 cannot be that. It was chiefly Caesar's Hill, where he 
 held command during that desperate seventeen hours of 
 fighting. Spare, tall, quiet, smiling as ever, he caught 
 the eye of the people because he had even more medal 
 badges than his chief. They were attracted by the 
 smile, which was that of a woman — we by the quiet, 
 masterful manner of the born soldier, who fights without 
 making a fuss over it, and only begins to impress you 
 afterwards, when you look back in cold blood, and pick 
 up one by one the half-blotted recollections of the 
 combat. The difference between the calm, constant, 
 ever-reliable commander, and the national hero, lies 
 often in one little but picturesque opportunity. Some 
 men miss the dramatic point in action ; some are found 
 out — others are not discovered ; many, like poor Penn 
 Symons, who sleeps in the lee of the little church at 
 Dundee, are discovered too late, when they have fallen 
 victims to a system which has taught men to attempt all 
 that they never should and never could do in South 
 Africa — a system that has made men of all ranks in the 
 British army figure during the campaign in the mixed 
 capacity of soldiers, demi-gods, and fools. 
 
 As in the case of Sir George White, the camera, it 
 seems to me, has never given you the real Sir Archibald 
 Hunter. It makes his face longer and thinner than the 
 one we knew in Ladysmith, but it has succeeded to 
 perfection in conveying that lackadaisical droop of the 
 fair moustache, which always makes " General Archie " 
 look so much more of the beau than the Bayard, but, 
 all the same, ever a fine thoroughbred figure of a man, 
 whether you met him in the ball-room or battle-field. 
 Truth to tell, I believe there is nothing at all of the 
 lady-killer about him. The only woman he is said to 
 worship is a grey-haired old lady up in an Ayrshire
 
 THE EXD OF THE SIEGE 285 
 
 village. Like many of the Kitchener "croud," who 
 affect the Spartan ways of their chief, he has been too 
 much absorbed in war to think of women. Well, he 
 came out springy, and fit as a prize-fighter. 
 
 And what of the flag— the flag that Sir George White 
 in the fulness of his heart thanked God had been kept 
 flying over Ladysmith so long ? It flew no longer. That 
 night the oflicers gathered about the flag-pole, and then 
 in a burst of enthusiasm, and urged by a common 
 impulse, they pulled it down and tore it into shreds, and 
 each pinned a little fragment of it in his buttonhole. 
 These bits of the Union Jack will be heirlooms in 
 English families a hundred years hence, but somehow it 
 seemed to me that it should not have been destroyed, 
 however worthy the motives that led to its partition. 
 When " Long Cecil," the Kimberley gun, was given to 
 Mr. Rhodes, he with exquisite taste said, "The place 
 for that gun is over the grave of the man who made it. 
 Let it be his monument." So it seemed to me that the 
 right place for that flag was in the home of Sir George 
 White in County Antrim, Ireland. Surely no man had 
 a better claim to it 
 
 For some in Ladysmith that night there was reaction 
 and lassitude, from all a deep thankfulness for many 
 things, but most of all, it seemed to me, because they 
 had been able at last to show their General that they 
 knew his worth. " I'm glad of that, I'm glad of that," 
 men said over and over again, and the women nafvely 
 admitted, " I kept up through it all ; I never cried until 
 they cheered Sir George White. Oh, I liked that." 
 And sick men, realizing once again that they were 
 invalids, crept back to bed, well content that they had 
 disobeyed the doctor and risked their lives. And scanty 
 dinners cooled at vacant tables, and the cook, who had 
 done his best for the great occasion, was heartbroken in 
 the knowledge that there were greater men than he in 
 Ladysmith. That night, too, we gathered in the Relief 
 Column camp, and the men, who had given away their 
 rations to others more hungry than themselves, told us
 
 286 IfOlV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 of the long fights upon the Tugela. And we, poor, in- 
 hospitable hosts, having nothing to offer them but our 
 gratitude, they rolled themselves wearily at last in their 
 greatcoats and went supperless to sleep. But they were 
 entirely happy. They had "jumped" the situation and 
 come in. Every half-hour there was the crash of our 
 naval guns, and a shell went shrieking overhead. The 
 night-glasses showed dimly the flicker of lights on Um- 
 bulwana, and we knew that the Dutch were trying to 
 take away their gun. The bursting of the shells made a 
 great flame of light upon the mountain-top, and we 
 hoped that an occasional shot might hamper their work. 
 From the other side of the town the Dutch mortars 
 threw out star shells, which lit up the veldt between the 
 rival positions. They were not easy in their minds, and 
 feared lest we should come out and harass them. Our 
 far-out patrols on that side heard all night the whistle 
 and puff of trains as they were loaded and sent away 
 northward, and early on the first morning of March I 
 went to sleep with the words of that old Kaffir woman 
 still ringing in my ears, " The English can conquer eveiy- 
 tJiing but death — everything but death J "
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 AFTF.R THE RELIEF 
 
 A dead Boer — The toys of Umbulwana — Harassing the rear- 
 guard — A deserted camp — Mistaken for Boers — A sailor's welcome. 
 
 The evacuation by the Boers both of their positions 
 on the Tugela and around Ladysmith was as creditable 
 as their investment of the town and their stern defence 
 of the hills upon and in front of which General Buller 
 lost so many brave men. No Brit sh force of equal 
 magnitude could have got away in the same time, and 
 taken their guns with them, but then the Dutch are 
 born transport riders. They have trekked and trekked 
 all their lives, as many of them will no doubt trek again 
 at the close of this war further into the heart of the 
 African continent. In positions to which they had 
 clung to the last they left everything but their guns. 
 On the morning after the volunteers entered Ladysmith, 
 our first thought was to determine whether the coveted 
 Long Tom, which had done us so much damage from 
 the crest of Bulwan, had really been taken away, and at 
 the first break of day Alick Macpherson, one of the local 
 guides, led a party of men up its steep sides. We crossed 
 without a challenge the mimosa flats, upon which to 
 venture any time this last four months meant death. 
 Not a Boer was to be seen upon the summi-t — the 
 position had been hurriedly and completely evacuated. 
 Within fifty yards of the Dutch gun-pit, and on the 
 
 287
 
 288 IfOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Ladysmith side of the mountain, lay a gruesome relic 
 of hostile occupation in the body of a swart Boer, who 
 must have been dead quite three weeks or a month, yet, 
 partly sheltered by a thorn bush, had lain there unburied, 
 without his comrades on the top being aware of it. His 
 bandolier, stocked with bullet clips, was still over his 
 shoulder, his rusted rifle lay beside him. The black- 
 bearded cheeks were already drying under the hot 
 African sun, the body shrinking deeper into the grass 
 plumes. It gave proof, if any were needed, how rarely 
 the enemy ventured down that side of the mountain, 
 though the continued silence of our big guns should 
 have told them of the scarcity of ammunition. Yet 
 another victim of war we picked up on the mountain 
 side. Close to where one of our 4*7 shells had exploded 
 on the previous evening, when we vainly sought to 
 prevent the enemy getting their big gun away, was a 
 little locust bird, yet alive, but with both its legs and 
 one wing shattered. A splinter of shell had struck the 
 tiny thing, which is not bigger than a quail, and it was 
 probably the last victim of the Ladysmith investment. 
 Nearing the top of that hill, upon which our eyes had 
 so long been covetously turned, eagerness to be first 
 overwhelmed every other consideration, and there was 
 a unanimous rush for the redoubt. It was empty : our 
 night bombardment had been futile ; the gun — for 
 which Ladysmith would have given much as a relic of 
 war — was gone, and everything else had apparently 
 been left. In the magazines were 250 rounds of shell, 
 which a few days later we destroyed. The cases of 
 Mauser ammunition must have reached tons in weight. 
 Even their search-light remained, though the engine 
 was missing. The redoubt was less formidable than it 
 looked in the distance. The top wall of earth was 
 eleven feet thick on the crown, enlarging towards the 
 base. It was heavily faced with rough stone, upon 
 which was the mark of many of our naval shells. The 
 40-pounders had evidently not been heavy enough to 
 do it great damage. Their camps were just as they
 
 THE MEETING OF GENERALS BULLEK AND WHITE. 
 Hou' ue Kept the Flag Flying.] IPage 2SS
 
 AFTER THE RELIEF 289 
 
 had been evacuated, the tents — mostly our tents, and 
 many of them comfortably furnished — still standing. 
 In one buildinf:^ there was a batch of freshly-baked 
 bread — circumstances over which the bakers had no 
 control comixilled them to leave in a hurry. In the 
 store-houses were many bags of rusks, the biscuit the 
 Boer loves with his coffee. In another corner were 
 stacks of biltong, freshly made. There were both 
 variety and plenty in the lioer stores on Bulwan, and 
 they had lived luxuriously while wc starved on our 
 maize meal and horse-meat. There were boxes of fresh 
 butter nicely printed, and newly arrived from the 
 Transvaal. Soon our men had bivouacked, and in the 
 fresh air of early morning wc breakfasted bounteously 
 at the expense of the enemy. The rusks, soaked in 
 coffee, were especially a delicacy. At one of the tents 
 a young calf was fastened. " The cow can't be far off," 
 said our farmer guide ; " I'll collar her." Just then she 
 came up over the brow, and he found he had the best 
 right to her. It was one of his own dairy herd. With 
 all their skill in transport, I cannot even now think that 
 the Boers got their gun away safely, for there were 
 marks at one point of an overturned wagon. It had 
 rained heavily all night, making wagon work difficult, 
 and it may be that the Boers buried the gun, as they 
 did many of those upon the Tugela heights. 
 
 One of the life regrets to every one who had suffered 
 investment in Ladysmith was that we were unable to 
 take a more active part in harassing the enemy in their 
 flight. It was a tantalizing sight, that long train of 
 trekking wagons moving slowly over the veldt, and had 
 our cavalry, mounted infantry, and field artillery been 
 horsed as they were when the enemy first sat down in 
 front of Ladysmith, we might have sallied out, turned the 
 retreat into a rout, and captured their whole baggage 
 train ; but gun-horses and chargers had alike been eaten, 
 and the scarecrow troops were unfit to march five miles 
 had their lives depended on it. Next day we did make 
 an attempt to follow up and harry their rear-guard, but it 
 
 T
 
 290 IfOTV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 was a lame and impotent affair. We shelled them from 
 a few of the hills near the stations, saw the last of their 
 transport trains leaving, saw and heard the explosions 
 which told of railway bridges blown up behind them, 
 and then, as we had so often done before, toiled back 
 into Ladysmith, though the Gordons, for the first time 
 for many a long day, marched with their pipers playing 
 at the head of the column. And in their front rank 
 stepped Kenny M'Leod, who, on the slope of Elands 
 Laagte, rivalled the Findlater feat at Dargai in piping 
 the Highlanders on after he had fallen wounded. It 
 was Kenny's bad luck to have imitated, and not origin- 
 ated, the feat. On the way in one passed many empty 
 military saddles stacked by the roadside. There had 
 been no casualties worth mention, but at every furlong 
 horses had given out, and the saddles were being picked 
 up by the baggage train, while the ambulances were full 
 of men who had fallen from mere exhaustion. The 
 troops as they rested were feeding upon the green corn 
 cobs taken from mealie-fields planted by Dutch sym- 
 pathizers, who had been left unmolested on the farms, 
 and many of whom had added to their inferior farming 
 plant the better implements of their English neighbours. 
 The national impulse to loot at any and every oppor- 
 tunity will in the end have proved their ruin, and cost 
 many of them their farms. 
 
 As we rode up the Newcastle road, down which our 
 troops had retired before the enemy four months before, 
 we were surprised to see under the steep rear of Surprise 
 Hill a Boer camp of about one hundred tents. It was the 
 most western arc in their ring of investment, the nearest 
 point to their base and line of retreat, so that there was 
 no reason why it should have been left standing. The 
 white tents nestling in the mimosa had a live look, so we 
 manoeuvred to cut them off, but these cautious tactics 
 were unnecessary. Like Bui wan, it had been evacuated 
 on the previous day, leaving everything but the gun 
 standing. There again was disorder. Great quantities 
 of new saddlery, clothing, and boots lay upon the grass,
 
 AFTER THE RELIEF 291 
 
 and Tommy in his rags never had a greater justification 
 for loot, and has rarely taken such full advantage of it. 
 Scores of them were scKjn busy jiicking out new suits 
 of khaki, and transferring their corps badges. Others 
 ransacked the tents, and there was something very like 
 a riot when one man unearthed from a box a bottle of 
 old Dop brandy. As one man his comrades rushed 
 him. In the midst of the mcUe, a thought seemed to 
 strike a shrewd-faced Cockney. He disengaged him- 
 self from the tangle, ran to the same tent, and brought 
 forth four other bottles of brandy. Next to spirits, 
 tobacco was the great prize, and there was abundance of 
 it The enemy had lacked nothing round Ladysmith, 
 though we had often heard that they were greatly dissatis- 
 fied with their supplies. The framework of one of our 
 mountain guns taken by the enemy at Nicholson's Nek 
 lay in this captured camp. 
 
 I forgot to mention that an inspection of the Long 
 Tom redoubt on ]?ulwan revealed a circumstance 
 which caused general surprise. The gun-table, with 
 results of the shooting all carefully tabulated, was hang- 
 ing in the redoubt. It showed, beyond doubt, that 
 this ver>' gun was the same which had first opened 
 on us from Pcpworth's Hill in the first days of the 
 siege, and that of the 11,000 rounds of shell fired 
 into the town, some 3000 had come from this one 
 muzzle. We had assumed that the life of the first 
 gun had been long since exhausted, yet here were the 
 tabulated figures for the shooting from Pepworth and 
 Reid's Hill, as the enemy described it, and the date of 
 the transfer to Bui wan clearly marked. It may not 
 have been actual proof, but it was strong presumptive 
 evidence of identification. Thus a heavier butcher's 
 bill than even the seventy lives we had calculated must 
 be allotted the gun, and in missing it we had lost a 
 greater historical trophy than we at the time realized. 
 JNothing that Ladysmith can show the tourist in the 
 future — not even its grim fever record — would have 
 been so great a curiosity as Long Tom.
 
 292 HOJV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 On every side, the morning after the relief, we pushed 
 out scouting parties, and everywhere, save towards their 
 railway base, we had lost touch of the enemy — the 
 retirement had been most complete. One party of 
 Guides, under Major Henderson, pushed southward, 
 on and on, until, in the rising sun, the Tugela river 
 shone beneath them, and in the clear morning the 
 bivouac fires of the army of relief rose through the 
 still atmosphere. Suddenly bang came a 40-pounder 
 shell, almost into them, and as they scattered for shelter 
 three others hustled after it. They were being fired 
 upon by their own comrades in mistake for Boers. 
 Greathead, one of the Guides, galloped forward with his 
 hand up, but the naval gunners who had loosed off at 
 them so suddenly were scarcely apologetic. " Why 
 didn't you keep both hands up .'' " an officer said 
 brusquely. "You may consider yourselves lucky you 
 weren't shot." Even with the knowledge that a couple 
 of hundred rifles in front are bearing on you, and 
 needing only a touch of the trigger finger to bring 
 certain death, it is not easy to gallop over the broken 
 veldt holding both arms in the air. A sailor, who often 
 does strange things in the saddle, might have done it, 
 but to an ordinary South African rider it was difficult. 
 
 The early visit to the deserted Boer camps yielded 
 much that was of interest to the Intelligence Depart- 
 ment — especially the ofificial papers, which, when I left, 
 were still being translated. One of them contained the 
 names of the men forming the different commandoes, 
 and will be invaluable as evidence against the Natal 
 rebels, who may seek to show later that they took no 
 part in the fighting. Another was a sort of circular 
 letter from General Joubert to the field-cornets, and 
 dated from the head laager at Elands Laagte. It com- 
 plained bitterly of the continuous desertions from their 
 ranks, and threatened that unless a stop were put to it 
 the field-cornets would be held personally liable, and 
 dealt with under martial law.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 
 
 In the Dutch trenches— The Union Jack— Boer gun positions — 
 Where lyddite fell— A natural citadel— Gunner and priest— A 
 brave pair — An Englishman's experience — Good-bye to Ladysmith. 
 
 Leaving Ladysmith to recuperate in a more f^cnial 
 climate — for during the four months' siege I had lost 
 three stone and a half in weight — I took the earliest 
 opportunity of riding through the deserted camps from 
 which the enemy had so lately been driven. Everywhere 
 on the Tugela, as in their camps about Ladysmith, was 
 the confusion and sacrifice of hurried flight. One might 
 have spent days there, and read in the camp litter the 
 whole story of occupation and evacuation. The too 
 hurriedly buried dead, with their knees and hands in 
 many cases protruding from the thin covering of red 
 earth. A rough strip of hessian bagging, pinned down 
 with stones, seemed to cover up something of value in 
 one of the sangars. Again it was only the dead — some 
 of them wrapped in the gaudily-coloured blankets which 
 appeal alike to the artistic taste of Boer and Zulu, and 
 which was particularly manifest in the gaudy lining of 
 their waterproof coats. One could locate the wounds 
 of these dead Boers without laying a hand upon them, 
 for the last drops of the life fluid as they well from the 
 wound do not blacken so quickly with exposure to the 
 air as in the first flow, but long after death remain a 
 
 293
 
 294 ^OW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 pale, bright scarlet, so that the position of the wound is 
 nearly always indicated. Many of the faces were swarthy 
 almost as Kaffirs. I saw no women amongst these Boer 
 dead, and think that reports as to women having fought 
 in the trenches are exaggerated. In following the Boer 
 wagon roads I came to many branching paths, which 
 were smooth and hard, but not recently trodden. At 
 the point of departure from the main trail there was 
 always a notice-board, with the following intimation 
 in Dutch: — "Voorboden ter gang volgen der spoor. 
 Aus u blif." The lead-pencil copy of the inscription 
 was afterwards blotted by rain, and may not be quite 
 exact, but a rough translation of it would be, " It is 
 forbidden to go down this path. If you please." I 
 assumed that the track had been mined in anticipation 
 of the British carrying the position, and that Dutchmen 
 were thus warned of the danger. I did not push the 
 investigation further, and it may be that one day some 
 farmer, ploughing the veldt, will discover a Boer mine 
 with the point of his ploughshare. The composite 
 character of the Boer camps was betrayed in the address 
 labels, which had come with provisions from Pretoria. 
 In the first camp I visited the labels were all addressed, 
 " Italian Brigade, Colenso," and it is understood that a 
 good deal of their mining work, such as the blowing up 
 of bridges and railway culverts, was done by Italians. 
 German camps were more numerous. " Come the four 
 corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them," 
 is a quotation that very often occurred to one in traversing 
 the deserted camps of the enemy. Not that the allied 
 nations apparently benefited greatly in trade by the 
 association. The provision tins and boxes invariably 
 bore an English label, and, as a rule, were of the best. 
 What struck me as an amusing incongruity in one camp 
 was a tin with a flaring Union Jack on the side of it, 
 the conspicuous brand of some English confectionery. 
 I fastened it in the fork of a mimosa tree — a visible 
 emblem of the survival of the fittest. The empty 
 cigarette boxes were all of the Derby winner brand,
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 295 
 
 with the picture of a racehorse for a label. In most of 
 the foreign camps empty wine bottles were plentiful, 
 and we, who had travelled all night over the vcklt, 
 sleeping in the open for a few hours at midnight while 
 the oxen were outsjianned, were impressed with the 
 precipitancy of the flight, which had left, in one case, a 
 couple of bottles of St. Julicn claret, with the seals intact. 
 We used them, and some of the Dutch rusks, for an 
 early breakfast on Colcnso heights, where twenty-four 
 hours earlier the article most liberally supplied was 
 lyddite. 
 
 In amongst some tall grey cactus, and confronted by 
 a heavy wall, masked in front by a thatching of coarse 
 grass, I found the first of their gun positions. The gun 
 had been taken away, and was evidently a quick-firer, 
 of about 3 in. calibre. It had never been clearly located 
 by our gunners, for the shell-marks were not more 
 numerous there than on other entrenched portions of 
 the heights, though the ground in rear of the gun 
 position was literally strewn with brass cartridge-shells, 
 branded " Berndorf, 1896." Close by was a pit, that 
 had been occupied by a gun of the same bore, but of 
 greater range, for the brass cartridge-cases were almost 
 twice as long as the others — about 15 in., completing, 
 with the shell attached, a cartridge nearly 2 ft, 6 in. long — 
 the disproportion between length and thickness striking 
 one as something unique in modern artillery ammunition. 
 " L 41 " was the only mark upon the shells. This 
 position had clearly been vacated in a hurry, for there 
 were many cases of ammunition still intact, while other 
 cases — all painted in dull drab, our own army colour 
 for guns and ammuntion wagons — had been opened, 
 and only a few shells used. They were all packed in 
 neat layers, each shell resting on a grooved rack. In 
 like manner I found the station of one of the machine 
 guns, the " Pom-pom " of which all our men in South 
 Africa have so great a dread. At close quarters its 
 sprinklings of bursting shells wreak great havoc, as no 
 two ever pitch in exactly the same spot ; but around
 
 296 HOW WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 Ladysmith, though it was so constantly in action, the 
 distance was always too great to do much damage. 
 There they kept it chiefly for our Kaffir grass-cutters. 
 At Colenso they had pushed this particular gun well 
 forward on the exposed brow of a hill, and it was 
 protected by a heavy stone redoubt. No gun station 
 that I examined on Colenso heights bore so many 
 marks of bombardment. Our shells had burst on it 
 and round about it, so that the whole area was ploughed 
 deep red. Lying close to the walls were the bases of 
 a score or so of our 47 shells. In rear of it were portions 
 of blood-stained clothing cut from wounded men, and 
 there were blood-marks, too, upon blankets and bagging. 
 The Boer gunners had not come out of that sangar 
 unscathed, and no doubt it had in turn wrought havoc 
 amongst our men, for it commanded the level, open flat 
 between the river and the foot-hills across which our 
 stormers came to the attack. In the rear of the gun 
 there were cart-loads of the little brass cartridge-cases, 
 mixed up with the straw envelopes in which they had 
 been packed, but no unused ammunition remained. At 
 the larger of the three gun stations I have mentioned 
 there had been many miss-fires, for there were scores of 
 shells lying about where the dent of the striker on the 
 cap had not been followed by an explosion. 
 
 What impressed me above all else in my hurried 
 morning ride over the just vacated Boer trenches on the 
 Tugela heights was the amazing strength of the position. 
 The mind had room for no other conception — details 
 were blotted out and forgotten. During those long days 
 of waiting, we in Ladysmith had at times been intolerant 
 of the slow progress made for our relief. We were too 
 closely concerned in the issue, too greatly overwrought by 
 the gloom of the surroundings and the uncertainty of 
 the future, to be generous or even just, but in face 
 of the actual position all feelings save that of unbounded 
 admiration for the perseverance of the General and the 
 valour of the troops who had carried that position 
 against the finest sharpshooters in the world were swept
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 297 
 
 away. The besieged had failed utterly to realize the 
 mac^nitude of the task. No wonder that one oi the 
 foreign attaches had declared that no less than one 
 hundred thousand men could carry the position ; that 
 another considered it a task for an army corps ; while 
 the American attache asked quaintly, " Is there no way 
 to get round it, General?" The only path round it — 
 that by Potgieter's Drift — had been tried by General 
 Warren long before, and ended in the black disaster on 
 Spion Kop. In the end we had to face it, and trust to 
 British infantry to find their way where it seemed 
 impossible for men to go and live. How shall I describe 
 that position .-' I know of no familiar landmarks in 
 Australia that exactly illustrate it. Beyond the river for 
 nearly twenty miles towards Maritzburg one sees the 
 Boer sangars seaming the low, smooth ridges, but that 
 was not their country, and they were easily driven out 
 of it as soon as we had mustered a force at all commen- 
 surate to the undertaking. Following up that line of 
 retreat from the southern side, we approach the Tugela 
 over bare undulating flats, with not a scrap of natural 
 cover anywhere. Right opposite the few white-washed 
 mud houses, now rent and roofless, which form the 
 hamlet of Colenso, the conical hills rise abruptly from 
 the river bank. There, right in the centre of the 
 position, is the famous Fort Wylie — a hill seamed from 
 crest to base with gun galleries and rifle trenches. 
 From this central clump the hills retire slightly on either 
 hand, so that a half-mile, sometimes a mile, of flat lies 
 between the river and the high ground. Here was 
 another deadly space to cover, even after the crossing of 
 the broad river, flowing yellow and deep between its low, 
 shelterless banks, had been successfully accomplished. 
 Then, worst of all, the rugged, rocky ascent literally 
 seamed across with walls and trenches. If rifle trenches 
 only, the earthworks were always masked with dry grass, 
 and visible at but a short distance as you approached 
 them. At other points the stone walls stood up grimly, 
 and with no pretence of concealment. An incredible
 
 298 JIOIV WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 amount of work had been put into these entrenchments 
 and fortifications. The whole ten-mile front of the 
 range was crossed with them, and with the enemy using 
 smokeless powder for all but their heavier guns, it was 
 impossible for our men to say which of the trenches 
 were occupied. 
 
 The wagon tracks wriggle down the front of these 
 steep slopes to the drift to ease the descent, and in the 
 alternate curves the trenches were thickest, each body 
 of riflemen enfilading the fire of the lower trench. A 
 simple diagram illustrates the idea. 
 
 It can be conceived that nothing could come up a road 
 so defended, and live to boast of the feat. 
 
 Knowing its strength, men would not attempt it, and 
 extra precautions taken were no doubt due to the fact 
 that it was a sunken road for the most part, and viewed 
 from a distance looked like offering some shelter to an 
 assaulting column — the last shelter they would have 
 needed in this world save the layer of turf above them. 
 The bottoms of the trenches were carpeted with dry 
 grass, and the earth benches upon which the riflemen 
 rested their elbows were also grassed. In many of the 
 trenches a rude shelter had been made with a sheet of 
 corrugated iron. I might dwell upon the difficulties of 
 that tremendous position for hours, and yet fail to impress 
 you with its immeasurable strength. Short of an 
 unscalable wall, it was naturally the strongest fighting 
 line in all Natal, a country, in its western and northern 
 parts especially, simply teeming with ideal battle-grounds 
 for the force whose duty it is to hold and to defend. 
 
 Writing only of those things I have myself seen, I can 
 say little of that long-continued fight upon the Tugela 
 river, and without its vivid colour the story of the siege 
 of Ladysmith can never be complete. There was one 
 incident, however, in the shadow of Monte Cristo that
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 299 
 
 morning which I shall not soon forget, as showing that 
 the grimmest scenes of war — and there is nothing more 
 grimly solemn than a battle-field on the day after a fight 
 — cannot quite obliterate Tommy Atkins' sense of 
 humour. The stretcher-bearers had brought in a Boer, 
 wounded in the right side with a bayonet thrust. Our 
 men had gone up a steep slope, sheltered momentarily 
 by a railway cutting in its side, and galled all the way 
 by a withering fire of rifles. The historic red and white 
 roses of York and Lancaster, and the shamrock of the 
 gallant Enniskillings, went up that hill together, and the 
 blood-mist was in the eyes of our men as they reached 
 the summit, 
 
 "When the red rose was redder than itself, 
 And York's white rose as red as Lancaster's." 
 
 They spared few of the Dutchmen who still clung valor- 
 ously to the trenches. As this particular Boer was being 
 tended, a Cockney soldier passing had a look at him. 
 "Why, I've seen 'im before — that's my mark on him. 
 Is he bad, sir } " " Yes, pretty bad," the dresser said. 
 '* Well, I did it as gently as I could." said the apologetic 
 Cockney, " Fact, it wasn't so much the shovin' of it hin 
 as the drorin' of it hout that 'urt 'im. Then I give 'm a 
 drink out o' my canteen when I was done with 'm. I 
 think it was a bit o' luck for 'im to ha' met me, don't 
 you .'' " 
 
 Considering that seventy British guns of all calibres 
 had so long hurled their iron death upon those hills, 
 and that a great part of it was the lyddite — upon the 
 deadliness of which so much has been said and written 
 — the Boer graves in the glades behind were not so 
 numerous as one would have expected. If these opera- 
 tions can be taken as a fair example of the destructive- 
 ness of lyddite, the power of that explosive has been 
 exaggerated. The Boers say that they can overcome its 
 stifling fumes by a drink of vinegar, and whether that be 
 so or not, I think the anticipations formed from the 
 effects of lyddite upon the closely-packed and exposed
 
 300 HOW WE KEPT THE EL AG ELYING 
 
 masses of the Khalifa's spearmen have not at all been 
 realized with the more tactful Boer. Our field artillery 
 has been described as inaffective, and out of date, but 
 bearing in mind the difficulties of getting batteries into 
 range against the long-reaching Boer siege guns, our 
 field batteries have, through all the hard fighting in 
 Natal, done wonderful work. That they have been 
 disastrously trapped at times was an almost inevitable 
 consequence of the fact that, by comparison with slower- 
 moving field guns of the enemy, they dared too much. 
 Had their guns gone into the open as frequently in the 
 teeth of our 47 guns as we did, when fully exposed to 
 their heavier metal, the result would have been disastrous 
 to the self-esteem of the Staats Artillery. Whether in 
 taking a position or changing it cleverly under fire, the 
 British field batteries have to my mind done wonders, 
 and never shall I forget the coolness of their movements, 
 or the destructiveness of their fire, as shown in the fight 
 on Caesar's Hill a few days after the New Year. The 
 precision of their shrapnel then and on every other 
 occasion where they have had a fair chance has been 
 remarkable, and I feel sure to-day that the Boers have a 
 much greater dread of the shrapnel than of the lauded 
 lyddite. There was one incident of the artillery duel that 
 day which has not been told in its proper place. While 
 a battery was in action one of the gunners was wounded, 
 and a reserve number went forward to take his place. 
 The new man had finished his detail, and crouched with 
 his left arm supporting his head and the elbow resting 
 on his bent knee. The next shell from Long Tom struck 
 the poor fellow just where the knee and elbow met, 
 smashing both joints to a pulp. Hurled across the gun 
 bleeding, dying it seemed, the indomitable gunner, 
 looking to his startled comrades, said, " Lift me off the 
 trail, boys, and get on with your work." A hurried 
 amputation was necessary, and he was being taken to the 
 hospital, with Father Ford, the chaplain of the Imperial 
 Light Horse, sitting in the ambulance beside him, when 
 suddenly the tourniquet burst, and the poor fellow's life-
 
 ON TUG EL A HEIGHTS 301 
 
 blood was pouring from him in spirts which promised a 
 speedy death from loss of blood. Father Ford caught 
 up the ends of the severed arteries between his finger's- 
 end, and held them thus for an hour, until the hospital was 
 reached. Even then it looked so hopeless with a double 
 amputation that the surgeons only glanced at him at 
 first, shook their heads, and passed on to men who had 
 yet got a chance for life. Just then the poor gunner 
 opened his eyes, and gasped, " Hurry up, doctor, please ; 
 she's beginning to hurt a bit." " I'll give him a chance," 
 said the surgeon impulsively ; " he deserves it." So the 
 operator went to work, the resourceful priest still holding 
 the severed arteries, and to-day that gunner, though 
 having only one leg and one arm left, is alive and well. 
 Only one man in a hundred is blessed with such a consti- 
 tution as would have stood the strain of a double ampu- 
 tation. Poor fellow, let us hope that the path through 
 hTe in future may be made easy for the one leg to travel. 
 For a country blighted and blasted by the passage 
 and presence of hostile forces, the condition, of the 
 farmhouses passed between Ladysmith and the Tugela 
 was strangely contradictory. Some were as peaceful 
 and perfect as though the sounds of strife had never 
 echoed anriongst the hills. At many of the farms cocks 
 were crowing cheerily in the morning, the cattle gathering 
 by the milking kraals, smoke rising homelike from the 
 chimneys, and the raealie-fields ripening all around. 
 These were the homes of the Dutch farmers who have 
 settled thickly on that side of Natal, and who knows but 
 in many of them there was mourning for a father or a 
 son who had gone with Louis Botha to the Tugela and 
 had not come back. That blood was thicker than water, 
 patriotism greater than policy, with many of these 
 Dutch farmers, was shown by the number who retired 
 with their flying countrymen, leaving their homes vacant, 
 just as their English neighbours did before them, and 
 thus admitting their complicity in the rebellion. Many 
 of the better class of English farms were used by the 
 Dutch as hospitals, and the fumes of anaesthetics .still
 
 302 now WE KEPT THE FLAG FLYING 
 
 clung about the rooms, in some of which we found 
 wounded men who could not safely be moved, but will 
 be well cared for in our hospitals. Other farmhouses 
 vacated by their English owners had been wrecked and 
 ruined, though in many cases where Englishmen decided 
 to stay on their lands they found the enemy unexpectedly 
 generous, and considering their loose organization, very 
 obedient to the orders of their commandants. I met 
 two young Englishmen, brothers, who had determined 
 to stay at home and take their chances, and the treat- 
 ment accorded them was almost quixotic in its 
 generosity. They were at first offered the alternative of 
 joining the Boer commandoes or going south to their 
 own countrymen, but expressed an equally strong 
 aversion to either fighting against their country or 
 leaving their homes. They were therefore allowed to 
 stay on their farm, with a warning that if found outside 
 its boundaries they would be shot. Most of their cattle 
 were taken, a span of oxen being left them, however, to 
 put in their crops. " As long as the Ladysmith garrison 
 holds out," explained one of the field-cornets, "we do 
 not look upon this part of Natal as conquered territory. 
 Therefore if any of our men molest you, tell them you 
 have General Botha's permission to remain, and will 
 complain to him of any misconduct." That threat was 
 always sufificient. Even the most blustering of the Boers 
 shrank into silence, as though under a discipHne as 
 severe as that of some of the continental armies. By 
 and by the want of meat became to these two English- 
 men a hardship, so they went down, argued the thing 
 out with the commandants, and thereafter were regu- 
 larly supplied with good rations. 
 
 The saddest thing in leaving Ladysmith was the 
 parting with good comrades, who, at the eleventh hour, 
 had gone down with fever. Dunn and Greenwood, two 
 of the correspondents, had the bad luck to be smitten 
 with enteric on the very eve of relief. When I said 
 good-bye to my self-sacrificing fellow-countryman, 
 Hornabrook, in the volunteer hospital, he had been
 
 ON TUGELA HEIGHTS 303 
 
 sadly reduced by illness. Going south to recuperate, I 
 had the good fortune to find comfortable quarters in 
 the suburb of Newlands, a long-settled and picturesque 
 hamlet just outside Cape Town. Pitched right under 
 the shadow of Table Mountain, and in rich soil, it is 
 difficult to realize, but for the multi-coloured peoples 
 who inhabit it, that one is not resting in some old- 
 fashioned English village. There arc magnificent avenues 
 of oaks, tall and far-spreading, which must be over a 
 century old, and beside our younger Australian gums 
 are springing up, and in height, at least, challenging 
 their supremacy. The fruit-shops teem with splendid 
 grapes, melons, and peaches, and a pleasanter spot in 
 which to rest and recruit, after the horrors of the 
 Ladysmith siege, could not well be found in all Africa. 
 The great mountain, with its towering crags, dominates 
 everything, and underneath it are the close-packed 
 orchards, vineyards, and gardens, the flamboyants of the 
 further north vying in colour with the earliest of the 
 chrysanthemums and the porcelain blue of the late 
 water-lilies. But the English oaks are a never-ending 
 source of wonder and admiration, and give some idea of 
 what our own Australian gardens will be in the years to 
 come. 
 
 THE END 
 
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