Part 2

British and Dutch salute and exchange the news with lazy mutual tolerance. The British are storekeepers and men of business; the Boers ride in from their farms. They are big, bearded men, loose of limb, shabbily dressed in broad-brimmed hats, corduroy trousers, and brown shoes; they sit their ponies at a rocking-chair canter erect and easy; unkempt, rough, half-savage, their tanned faces and blue eyes express lazy good-nature, sluggish stubbornness, dormant fierceness. They ask the news in soft, lisping Dutch that might be a woman's; but the lazy imperiousness of their bearing stamps them as free men. A people hard to rouse, you say--and as hard, when roused, to subdue.

A loitering Arcady--and then you hear with astonishment that Burghersdorp is famous throughout South Africa as a stronghold of bitter Dutch partisanship. "Rebel Burghersdorp" they call it in the British centres, and Capetown turns anxious ears towards it for the first muttering of insurrection. What history its stagnant annals record is purely anti-British. Its two principal monuments, after the Jubilee fountain, are the tombstone of the founder of the Dopper Church--the Ironsides of South Africa--and a statue with inscribed pedestal complete put up to commemorate the introduction of the Dutch tongue into the Cape Parliament. Malicious comments add that Afrikander patriotism swindled the stone-mason out of £30, and it is certain that one of the gentlemen whose names appear thereon most prominently, now languishes in jail for fraud. Leaving that point for thought, I find that the rest of Burghersdorp's history consists in the fact that the Afrikander Bond was founded here in 1881. And at this moment Burghersdorp is out-Bonding the Bond: the reverend gentleman who edits its Dutch paper and dictates its Dutch policy sluices out weekly vials of wrath upon Hofmeyr and Schreiner for machinating to keep patriot Afrikanders off the oppressing Briton's throat.

I went to see this reverend pastor, who is professor of a school of Dopper theology. He was short, but thick-set, with a short but shaggy grey beard; in deference to his calling, he wore a collar over his grey flannel shirt, but no tie. Nevertheless, he turned out a very charming, courteous old gentleman, well informed, and his political bias was mellowed with an irresistible sense of humour. He took his own side strongly, and allowed that it was most proper for a Briton to be equally strong on his own. And this is more or less what he said:--

"Information? No, I shall not give you any; you are the enemy, you see. Ha, ha! They call me rebel. But I ask you, my friend, is it natural that I--I, Hollander born, Dutch Afrikander since '60--should be as loyal to the British Government as a Britisher should be? No, I say; one can be loyal only to one's own country. I am law-abiding subject of the Queen, and that is all that they can ask of me.

"How will the war go? That it is impossible, quite impossible, to say. The Boer might run away at the first shot and he might fight to the death. All troops are liable to panic; even regular troop; much more than irregular. But I have been on commando many times with Boer, and I cannot think him other than brave man. Fighting is not his business; he wishes always to be back on his farm with his people; but he is brave man.

"I look on this war as the sequel of 1881. I have told them all these years, it is not finish; war must come. Mr Gladstone, whom I look on as greatest British statesman, did wrong in 1881. If he had kept promises and given back country before the war, we would have been grateful; but he only give it after war, and we were not grateful. And English did not feel that they were generous, only giving independence after war, though they had a large army in Natal; they have always wished to recommence.

"The trouble is because the Boer have never had confidence in the English Government, just as you have never had confidence in us. The Boer have no feeling about Cape Colony, but they have about Natal; they were driven out of it, and they think it still their own country. Then you took the diamond-fields from the Free State. You gave the Free State independence only because you did not want trouble of Basuto war; then we beat the Basutos--I myself was there, and it was very hard, and it lasted three years--and then you would not let us take Basutoland. Then came annexation of the Transvaal; up to that I was strong advocate of federation, but after that I was one of founders of the Bond. After that the Afrikander trusted Rhodes--not I, though; I always write I distrust Rhodes--and so came the Jameson raid. Now how could we have confidence after all this in British Government?

"I do not think Transvaal Government have been wise; I have many times told them so. They made great mistake when they let people come in to the mines. I told them, 'This gold will be your ruin; to remain independent you must remain poor.' But when that was done, what could they do? If they gave the franchise, then the Republic is governed by three four men from Johannesburg, and they will govern it for their own pocket. The Transvaal Boer would rather be British colony than Johannesburg Republic.

"Well, well; it is the law of South Africa that the Boer drive the native north and the English drive the Boer north. But now the Boer can go north no more; two things stop him: the tsetse fly and the fever. So if he must perish, it is his duty--yes, I, minister, say it is his duty--to perish fighting.

"But here in the Colony we have no race hatred. Not between man and man; but when many men get together there is race hatred. If we fight here on this border it is civil war--the same Dutch and English are across the Orange as here in Albert. My son is on commando in Free State; the other day he ride thirteen hours and have no food for two days. I say to him, 'You are Free State burgher; you have the benefit of the country; your wife is Boer girl; it is your duty to fight for it.' I am law-abiding British subject, but I hope my son will not be hurt. You, sir, I wish you good luck--good luck for yourself and your corresponding. Not for your side: that I cannot wish you."

IV.

WILL IT BE CIVIL WAR?[1]

ON THE BORDER OF THE FREE STATE--AN APPEAL TO THE COLONIAL BOERS--THE BEGINNING OF WARLIKE RUMOURS--A COMMERCIAL AND SOCIAL BOYCOTT--THE BOER SECRET SERVICE--THE BASUTOS AND THEIR MOTHER, THE QUEEN--BOER BRUTALITY TO KAFFIRS.

_Oct. 14 (9.55 p.m.)_

The most conspicuous feature of the war on this frontier has hitherto been its absence.

The Free State forces about Bethulie, which is just over the Free State border, and Aliwal North, which is on our side of the frontier, make no sign of an advance. The reason for this is, doubtless, that hostilities here would amount to civil war. There is the same mixed English and Dutch population on each side of the Orange river, united by ties of kinship and friendship. Many law-abiding Dutch burghers here have sons and brothers who are citizens of the Free State, and therefore out with the forces.

In the mean time the English doctor attends patients on the other side of the border, and Boer riflemen ride across to buy goods at the British stores.

The proclamation published yesterday morning forbidding trade with the Republics is thus difficult and impolitic to enforce hereabouts.

Railway and postal communication is now stopped, but the last mail brought a copy of the Bloemfontein 'Express,' with an appeal to the Colonial Boers concluding with the words:--

"We shall continue the war to the bloody end. You will assist us. Our God, who has so often helped us, will not forsake us."

What effect this may have is yet doubtful, but it is certain that any rising of the Colonial Dutch would send the Colonial British into the field in full strength.

Burghersdorp, through which I passed yesterday, is a village of 2000 inhabitants, and, as I have already put on record, the centre of the most disaffected district in the colony. If there be any Dutch rising in sympathy with the Free State it will begin here.

_Later._

And so there's warlike news at last.

A Boer force, reported to be 350 strong, shifted camp to-day to within three miles of the bridge across the Orange river. Well-informed Dutch inhabitants assert that these are to be reinforced, and will march through Aliwal North to-night on their way to attack Stormberg Junction, sixty miles south.

The bridge is defended by two Cape policemen with four others in reserve.

The loyal inhabitants are boiling with indignation, declaring themselves sacrificed, as usual, by the dilatoriness of the Government.

Besides the Boer force near here, there is another, reported to be 450 strong, at Greatheads Drift, forty miles up the river.

The Boers at Bethulie, in the Free State, are believed to be pulling up the railway on their side of the frontier, and to be marching to Norvals Pont, which is the ferry over the Orange river on the way to Colesberg, with the intention of attacking Naauwpoort Junction, on the Capetown-Kimberley line; but as there are no trains now running to Bethulie it is difficult to verify these reports, and, indeed, all reports must be received with caution.

The feeling here between the English and Dutch extends to a commercial and social boycott, and is therefore far more bitter than elsewhere. Several burghers here have sent their sons over the border, and promise that the loyal inhabitants will be "sjambokked" (you remember how to pronounce it?) when the Boer force passes through.

So far things are quiet. The broad, sunny, dusty streets, fringed with small trees and lined with single-storeyed houses, are dotted with strolling inhabitants, both Dutch and natives, engrossed in their ordinary pursuits. The whole thing looks more like Arcady than revolution.

The only sign of movement is that eight young Boers, theological students of the Dopper or strict Lutheran college here, left last night for the Free State for active service.

The Boers across the Orange river so far make no sign of raiding. Many have sent their wives and families here into Aliwal North, on our side of the border, in imitation, perhaps, of President Steyn, whose wife at this moment is staying with her sister at King William's Town, in the Cape Colony.

Many British farmers, of whom there are a couple of hundred in this district, refuse to believe that the Free State will take the offensive on this border, considering that such aggression would be impious, and that the Free State will restrict itself to defending its own frontier, or the Transvaal, if invaded, in fulfilment of the terms of the offensive and defensive alliance.

Nevertheless there is, of course, very acute tension between the Dutch and English here. No Boers are to be seen talking to Englishmen. The Boers are very close as to their feelings and intentions, which those who know them interpret as a bad sign, because, as a rule, they are inclined to irresponsible garrulity. A point in which Dutch feeling here tells is that every Dutch man, woman, or child is more or less of a Boer secret service agent, revealing our movements and concealing those of the Boers.

If there be any rising it may be expected by November 9, when the Boers hold their "wappenschouwing," or rifle contest--the local Bisley, in fact--which every man for miles around attends armed. Also the Afrikander Bond Congress is to be held next month; but probably the leaders will do their best to keep the people together.

The Transvaal agents are naturally doing their utmost to provoke rebellion. A lieutenant of their police is known to be hiding hereabouts, and a warrant is out for his arrest. All depends, say the experts, on the results of the first few weeks of fighting.

The attitude of the natives causes some uneasiness. Every Basuto employed on the line here has returned to his tribe, one saying: "Be sure we shall not harm our mother the Queen."

Many Transkei Kaffirs also have passed through here, owing to the closing of the mines. Sixty-six crammed truckloads of them came by one train. They had been treated with great brutality by the Boers, having been flogged to the station and robbed of their wages.

[Footnote 1: This chapter has been deliberately included in this volume notwithstanding its obviously fragmentary nature. The swift picture which it gives of flying events is the excuse for this decision.]

V.

LOYAL ALIWAL: A TRAGI-COMEDY.

THE CAPE POLICE--A GARRISON OF SIX MEN--MERRY-GO-ROUNDS AND NAPHTHA FLARES--A CLAMANT WANT OF FIFTY MEN--WHERE ARE THE TROOPS?--"IT'LL BE JUST THE SAME AS IT WAS IN '81."

ALIWAL NORTH, _Oct. 15._

"Halt! Who goes there?" The trim figure, black in the moonlight, in breeches and putties, with a broad-brimmed hat looped up at the side, brought up his carbine and barred the entrance to the bridge. Twenty yards beyond a second trim black figure with a carbine stamped to and fro over the planking. They were of the Cape Police, and there were four more of them somewhere in reserve; across the bridge was the Orange Free State; behind us was the little frontier town of Aliwal North, and these were its sole garrison.

The river shone silver under its high banks. Beyond it, in the enemy's country, the veldt too was silvered over with moonlight and was blotted inkily with shadow from the kopjes. Three miles to the right, over a rise and down in a dip, they said there lay the Rouxville commando of 350 men. That night they were to receive 700 or 800 more from Smithfield, and thereon would ride through Aliwal on their way to eat up the British half-battalion at Stormberg. On our side of the bridge slouched a score of Boers--waiting, they said, to join and conduct their kinsmen. In the very middle of these twirled a battered merry-go-round--an island of garish naphtha light in the silver, a jarr of wheeze and squeak in the swishing of trees and river. Up the hill, through the town, in the bar of the ultra-English hotel, proceeded this dialogue.

_A fat man_ (_thunderously, nursing a Lee-Metford sporting rifle_). Well, you've yourselves to blame. I've done my best. With fifty men I'd have held this place against a thousand Boers, and not ten men'd join.

_A thin-faced man_ (_piping_). We haven't got the rifles. Every Dutchman's armed, and how many rifles will you find among the English?

_Fat man_ (_shooting home bolt of Lee-Metford_). And who's fault's that? I've left my property in the Free State, and odds are I shall lose every penny I've got--what part? all over--and come here on to British soil, and what do I find? With fifty men I'd hold this place--

_Thin-faced man._ They'll be here to-night, old De Wet says, and they're to come here and sjambok the Englishmen who've been talking too much. That's what comes of being loyal!

_Fat man._ Loyal! With fifty men--

_Brown-faced, grey-haired man_ (_smoking deep-bowled pipe in corner_). No, you wouldn't.

_Fat man_ (_playing with sights of Lee-Metford_). What! Not keep the bridge with fifty men--

_Brown-faced, grey-haired man._ And they'd cross by the old drift, and be on every side of you in ten minutes.

_Fat man_ (_grounding Lee-Metford_). Ah! Well--h'm!

_Thick-set man._ But we're safe enough. Has not the Government sent us a garrison? Six policemen! Six policemen, gentlemen, and the Boers are at Pieter's farrm, and they'll be here to-night and sjambok--

_Thin-faced man._ Where are the troops? Where are the volunteers? Where are the--

_Brown-faced, grey-haired man._ There are no troops, and the better for you. The strength of Aliwal is in its weakness. (_To fat man_.) Put that gun away.

_Thin-faced man, thick-set man, and general chorus._ Yes, put it away.

_Thin-faced man._ But I want to know why the Boers are armed and we aren't? Why does our Government--

_Brown-faced man._ Are you accustomed to shoot?

_Thin-faced man_ (_faintly_). No.

_Fat man_ (_returning from putting away Lee-Metford_). But where do you come from?

_Brown-faced man._ Free State, same as you do. Lived there five-and-twenty years.

_Thin-faced man._ Any trouble in getting away?

_Brown-faced man._ No. Field-cornet was a good old fellow and an old friend of mine, and he gave me the hint--

_Thin-faced man._ Not much like ours! Why, there's a lady staying here that's friendly with his daughters, and she went out to see them the other day, and the old man said they'd stop here and sjam--

_Fat man._ Gentlemen, drinks all round! Here's success to the British arms!

_All._ Success to the British arms!

_Thick-set man._ And may the British Government not desert us again!

_Fat man._ I'll take a shade of odds about it. They will. I've no trust in Chamberlain. It'll be just the same as it was in '81. A few reverses and you'll find they'll begin to talk about terms. I know them. Every loyal man in South Africa knows them. (_General murmur of assent._)

_Hotel-keeper._ Gentlemen, drinks all round! Here's success to the British arms!

_All._ Success to the British arms!

_Thick-set man._ And where are the British arms? Where's the Army Corps? Has a man of that Army Corps left England? Shilly-shally, as usual. South Africa's no place for an Englishman to live in. Armoured train blown up, Mafeking cut off, Kimberley in danger, and General Butler--what? Oh yes--General Buller leaves England to-day. Why didna they send the Army Corps out three months ago?

_Brown-faced man._ It's six thousand miles--

_Thick-set man._ Why didna they send them just after the Bloemfontein conference, before the Boers were ready? British Gov--

_Brown-faced man._ They've had three rifles a man with ammunition since 1896.

_I_ (_timidly_). Well, then, if the Army Corps had left three months ago, wouldn't the Boers have declared war three months ago too?

_All except brown-faced man_ (_loudly_). No!

_Brown-faced man_ (_quietly_). Yes. Gentlemen, bedtime! As Brand used to say, "Al zal rijt komen!"

_All_ (_fervently_). Al zal rijt komen! Success to the British arms! Good night!

(All go to bed. In the night somebody on the Boer side--or elsewhere--goes out shooting, or looses off his rifle on general grounds; two loyalists and a refugee spring up and grasp their revolvers. In the morning everybody wakes up unsjamboked. The hotel-keeper takes me out to numerous points whence Pieter's farm can be reconnoitred: there is not a single tent to be seen, and no sign of a single Boer.)

It is a shame to smile at them. They are really very, very loyal, and they are excellent fellows and most desirable colonists. Aliwal is a nest of green on the yellow veldt, speckless, well-furnished, with Maréchal Niel roses growing over trellises, and a scheme to dam the Orange river for water-supply, and electric light. They were quite unprotected, and their position was certainly humiliating.

VI.

THE BATTLE OF ELANDSLAAGTE.

FRENCH'S RECONNAISSANCE--AN ARTILLERY DUEL--BEGINNING OF THE ATTACK--RIDGE AFTER RIDGE--A CROWDED HALF-HOUR.

LADYSMITH, _Oct. 22._

From a billow of the rolling veldt we looked back, and black columns were coming up behind us.

Along the road from Ladysmith moved cavalry and guns. Along the railway line to right of it crept trains--one, two, three of them--packed with khaki, bristling with the rifles of infantry. We knew then that we should fight before nightfall.

Major-General French, who commanded, had been out from before daybreak with the Imperial Light Horse and the battery of the Natal Volunteer Artillery reconnoitring towards Elandslaagte. The armoured train--slate-colour plated engine, a slate-colour plated loopholed cattle-truck before and behind, an open truck with a Maxim at the tail of all--puffed along on his right. Elandslaagte is a little village and railway station seventeen miles north-east of Ladysmith, where two days before the Boers had blown up a culvert and captured a train. That cut our direct communication with the force at Dundee. Moreover, it was known that the Free State commandoes were massing to the north-west of Ladysmith and the Transvaalers to attack Dundee again. On all grounds it was desirable to smash the Elandslaagte lot while they were still weak and alone.

The reconnaissance stole forward until it came in sight of the little blue-roofed village and the little red tree-girt station. It was occupied. The Natal battery unlimbered and opened fire. A round or two--and then suddenly came a flash from a kopje two thousand yards beyond the station on the right. The Boer guns! And the next thing was the hissing shriek of a shell--and plump it dropped, just under one of the Natal limbers. By luck it did not burst; but if the Boer ammunition contractor was suspect, it was plain that the Boer artillerist could lay a gun. Plump: plump: they came right into the battery; down went a horse; over went an ammunition-waggon. At that range the Volunteers' little old 7-pounders were pea-shooters; you might as well have spat at the enemy. The guns limbered up and were off. Next came the vicious _phutt!_ of a bursting shell not fifty yards from the armoured train--and the armoured train was puffing back for its life. Everybody went back half-a-dozen miles on the Ladysmith road to Modder Spruit Station.

The men on reconnaissance duty retired, as is their business. They had discovered that the enemy had guns and meant fighting. Lest he should follow, they sent out from Ladysmith, about nine in the morning, half a battalion apiece of the Devonshire and Manchester Regiments by train, and the 42nd Field Battery, with a squadron of the 5th Dragoon Guards, by road. They arrived, and there fell on us the common lot of reconnaissances. We dismounted, loosened girths, ate tinned meat, and wondered what we should do next. We were on a billow of veldt that heaved across the valley: up it ran, road and rail; on the left rose tiers of hills, in front a huge green hill blocked our view, with a tangle of other hills crowding behind to peep over its shoulders. On the right, across the line, were meadows; up from them rose a wall of red-brown kopje; up over that a wall of grass-green veldt; over that was the enemy. We ate and sat and wondered what we should do next. Presently we saw the troopers mounting and the trains getting up steam; we mounted; and scouts, advance-guard, flanking patrols--everybody crept slowly, slowly, cautiously forward. Then, about half-past two, we turned and beheld the columns coming up behind us. The 21st Field Battery, the 5th Lancers, the Natal Mounted Volunteers on the road; the other half of the Devons and half the Gordon Highlanders on the trains--total, with what we had, say something short of 3000 men and eighteen guns. It was battle!

The trains drew up and vomited khaki into the meadow. The mass separated and ordered itself. A line of little dots began to draw across it; a thicker line of dots followed; a continuous line followed them, then other lines, then a mass of khaki topping a dark foundation--the kilts of the Highlanders. From our billow we could not see them move; but the green on the side of the line grew broader, and the green between them and the kopje grew narrower. Now the first dots were at the base--now hardly discernible on the brown hill flanks. Presently the second line of dots was at the base. Then the third line and the second were lost on the brown, and the third--where? There, bold on the sky-line. Away on their right, round the hill, stole the black column of the Imperial Light Horse. The hill was crowned, was turned--but where were the Bo--