Chapter 2

"You noticed that soldier lying behind the antheap, a hole in his forehead? That man worried us a good deal. _He_ could shoot, the beggar! Well, two of us fixed our rifles on the spot and waited till he raised his head; then we fired. You know the result."

Boys talking, mere boys, who should have been thinking of flowers, music, and love, instead of thus taking a grim delight in the stern lessons of war.

Saying au revoir to my friends, I now rode over to the telegraph office a few miles lower down. The operators were transmitting piles of messages to and from anxious relatives, and were not sorry to see someone who could lend them a hand. The chief of the department happened to be there at the time. He immediately placed me in harness. I wired to my field-cornet at Ladysmith saying I was unavoidably detained, as the phrase goes, and the next few weeks passed quietly by, long hours and hard work, it is true, but on the other hand pleasant companions and a splendid river, with boating and swimming galore.

One morning a score of Theron's scouts passed by, their famous captain at their head. One of them--an old friend--reined in long enough to tell me they were off to lie in wait for a small British patrol, which, a native had told them, daily passed a certain spot suitable for an ambuscade.

In the afternoon the same band returned, several on foot, and carrying someone in a blanket. What was my surprise to find that this was no other than poor Harry C----!

The native had misled them, and the surprise had been the other way about. My friend had received a bullet through the stomach, a wound which appeared necessarily fatal. He was laid down in a tent. Theron bent over him, his eyes filling with compassionate tears. "How now, Harry?"

"Awful pain, captain."

To break the news gently we wired home that he was only slightly wounded. This turned out to have been wiser than we knew, for, to our joy, Harry lingered on, rallied, and finally recovered, a triumph of medical skill.

PLATRAND

In Natal itself the situation was satisfactory, but the course of events elsewhere made the speedy capture of Ladysmith imperative. It was accordingly decided to make an attack on Platrand, or Waggon Hill, as the British call it. If we could gain this hill the town would be at our mercy.

The plan of attack was simple in the extreme. The Free Staters would climb one side, the Transvaalers the other, and Louis Botha himself ride over from Colenso with a reserve of three hundred men.

Our chief determined to view this fight, and agreed to take me along. It had been arranged that the attack should take place on the 6th of January. In the afternoon of the 5th we took the road to Ladysmith, travelling in a light mule-waggon, our horses tied alongside.

Near Nelthorpe a small commando passed us. Knowing very well what errand they were bound upon, we yet thought fit to ask them where they were off to. "Oh, nowhere particular," was the answer. "Out for exercise, that's all." This discretion was most commendable, for in our mixed forces spying must have been easy and frequent.

We pitched tent for the night, and at three the next morning saddled our horses and followed the spoor of the commando. Presently, encountering a Kafir holding half a dozen horses, we asked him where the owners were. He pointed to a hill near by, where we found the gallant Villebois, the kindly Oberst von Braun, and ill-fated von Brusewitz. Little did we think at the time that the latter would meet his death a few weeks later on Spion Kop and the former shortly fall at Boshof!

It was growing light, and we could see, lying on our right, the neutral camp; further away, on Bulwana, our biggest gun, where we knew General Joubert was standing, his wife by his side.

Straight before us lay the key to Ladysmith--Platrand, whence now and again came the sharp rat-tat of the Metford, followed by the Mauser's significant cough.

Through our glasses we espied six helmeted men slowly retreating up the mountain, pausing at every dozen yards to fire a volley at some invisible enemy. Three of them reached the top. The sentries were being driven in.

General Botha now arrived with the reserve force. All dismounted.

"Put your horses out of sight," were his first words to his men, "they will draw the enemy's fire."

Scarcely had he spoken when a shrapnel shell burst overhead, and three horses were lying on their backs, snorting and kicking. Then came another and another. Both went wide. The animals were quickly led behind the hill, and the three wounded put out of their pain.

Taking the best shelter possible, we gazed upon the drama being unfolded before us.

The attack was now in full swing. The grating British volleys, the ceaseless mill of independent firing, the sharp flash of the British guns, the fierce whirr of our French shells, the deep boom of Long Tom resounding through the valleys. Who can describe it all?

Yet hardly a single combatant could be discerned. Attacked and attackers alike were invisible. One soldier only stood in plain view on the crest of the hill, signalling with a flag. Our men reached the crest, and the soldier disappeared. Whether in response to his signals or not, reinforcements presently reached the hill.

In long, thin lines of yellow they ran across the plateau to the crest, hoping to drive the Boers back the way they had come. As it approached the line grew thinner and thinner, until there was nothing of it left. And so on, for hour after hour, the yellow lines of gallant men flung themselves into the open, only to fall beneath the raging fire poured upon them from the sternly held mountain crest.

Down the hill our wounded dribbled, thirsty men, pale men, men covered with blood and weeping with rage. How grim must be the fire they have just passed through! One man is brought down lying across a horse. His face hangs in strips, shattered by a dum-dum bullet. Thank goodness, some of ours are using buckshot to-day!

A Boer mounts on a waggon.

"Who will take in ammunition?"

No response.

I turn to my chief. "Do you advise me to try?"

"I cannot; you must decide for yourself."

Throwing a sack of cartridges over my horse's back, I set off. No sooner in the open, than whizz, whizz, went the bullets past my ear. The pony stopped, confused. I struck the spurs into his flanks, and on we flew, the rapid motion, the novelty of the affair, and the continual whistle of the bullets producing in me a peculiar feeling of exaltation.

Then the sack tumbled off. I sprang down, hooked the bridle to a tree, rushed back for the bag, and started forward again. The firing now became so severe that I raced for a clump of trees, hoping to find temporary shelter there. Some of our men were here, lying behind the slender tree-trunks and taking a shot at the enemy now and then.

"Absolutely impossible to live in the open," they said. "Better wait awhile and see how things go."

I laid myself down under the trees and listened to the bullets as they sang through the branches.

The very heavens vibrated as the roar of artillery grew ever fiercer, and the loud echoes rolled along from hill to hill and died away in an awful whisper that shook the grass-tops like an autumn wind.

What were those lines of Bret Harte's about the humming of the battle bees?... I could not remember.

My eyelids grew heavy and presently I was fast asleep.

"Wake up! They're coming round to cut us off. We must clear!" And away went my friend.

Knowing their horses would soon out-distance my heavily laden pony, and trusting to get away unobserved, I took his bridle and led him away. For about twenty yards all went well. Then suddenly there broke loose over us the thickest storm of lead I ever wish to experience. Whether it was a Maxim or not I could not say, but it seemed to me as if the whole British army was bent on my destruction. Like raindrops on a dusty road the bullets struck around me. The pony snorted, shivered, and sometimes stood stock still. I jerked the bridle savagely and struggled on, without the slightest hope of escaping, and thinking what a cruel shame it was that I should be shot at like a deer. Finally the shelter of a dry watercourse was reached. Following this for some distance, I encountered another party of our men, to whom I handed my charge, too shaken to repeat the experiment. The firing now slackened off, and I returned to my chief, full of mortification over my failure.

It was evident the hill would not be taken that afternoon, so we returned to our tent, intending to come back the next morning. Late that evening, however, Colonel Villebois passed and told us our forces had been withdrawn, General Botha being ordered to Colenso, where Buller had made a feint attack to help Ladysmith.

Our struggle was therefore a failure, but it had not been made in vain, since it proved once again that we also could storm a fortified hill, and fight a losing fight--the hardest fight of all.

SPION KOP

Something peculiar began to be observed about the British camp at Chieveley. The naval guns still flashed by day, the searchlight still signalled to Ladysmith of nights, the tents still glistened in the sun, but the soldiers, where were they?

Marching somewhere up the river. Buller meant to try his luck once more. More than one of our present leaders had in former days fought by Buller's side against the Zulus. They knew him tenacious, able; no mere theorist. It was here in Natal, under their eyes, that he had gained his Victoria Cross--the same priceless bit of bronze that young Roberts had just died to win; and they felt that to ward off his second blow would ask all our energy and cost many useful lives.

The commandoes on our side of the river were extended to keep pace with the enemy's movements on the other. The distance between the different laagers lengthened considerably, and a speedy and certain method of communication soon became a necessity. To obtain this use was made of the vibrator, an instrument so sensitive that the most faulty line will carry sufficient electricity to work it. Having received orders to accompany the construction party, I said good-bye to my comfortable quarters, and found myself in the veld once again.

While the two waggons loaded with wire, etc., went on by road we struck across country, myself on horseback, a vibrator strapped to the saddle, the others on foot. Half a dozen Kafirs accompanied us, carrying rolls of "cable," wire about the thickness of the lead in a pencil and covered with gutta percha. A wooden "saddle" holding one roll of wire was strapped on the back of one of the natives, one end of the wire joined up to the instrument in the office; the native marched forward, the wire unrolling as he went, and the other boys placing stones upon it here and there in order to prevent its being dragged about by cattle. In this manner we went forward, establishing an office at every laager on the way, with the result that every commando was always fully informed as to the situation of all the others, and the enemy's every movement immediately known to the entire forces, enabling reinforcements to be sent anywhere at any time.

This system was an easy one to learn, and it has been said that some of our generals became so fond of it that the slightest movement of the enemy was the signal for a request for reinforcements. This is, no doubt, a frivolous exaggeration.

The first day of laying the cable we had gone about fifteen miles, when communication with the office suddenly ceased. Telling the others to go on, I turned back and carefully tested the line, eventually finding the fault at sundown. Reporting my whereabouts to the office, I was ordered to follow the working party as rapidly as possible, the chief adding that it was especially desired to have communication the same night with the Standerton laager, where the others would have arrived by this time. I therefore pushed on, following the wire. It was pretty dark when I reached the foot of a mountain. Right across the cable led me--rather a difficult matter tracing it in the dark--but at last an open plain on the other side was reached; a few miles further I found one of our men stretched out in the grass by the side of the cable.

"Where's the Standerton laager?"

"This is where it was. Shifted yesterday; don't know where to. Others gone to find out. Got a blanket?"

I had not. We had no idea where the waggons were. We lay down to shiver, not to sleep, for the intense cold made the latter impossible and the former obligatory. In the middle of the night we moved round to the other side of the antheap, thinking it _must_ be warmer there. But it wasn't.

At sunrise the others returned, saying that the Standerton laager had moved much higher up, and that the Johannesburg laager was the next on the list. They accordingly marched in that direction, laying the cable as they went, past precipices and over mountain gorges. I followed on, testing and repairing, very tedious work in the burning sun. Fortunately I was able to buy a little fresh milk from a native, which refreshed me immensely. The waggons were still missing, so we had very little food.

At midnight the cable led me up a high hill, so steep that the pony almost fell over backwards as I led him up the face of it. Right on the top lived an old native, who, hearing the barking of his dogs, rushed out armed with an assegai, ready to defend his eyrie against all comers. I persuaded him to take me straight to the Johannesburg laager, where a good night's rest made all right again.

The next morning communication was established with headquarters, and I had the pleasure of eating a decent breakfast with Ben Viljoen, then commandant, now general, whose acquaintance I had made during the Swaziland expedition.

A fiery politician and a reckless writer, his pet aversions were Hollanders and Englishmen, and it was hard to say which he detested the most. Brave and straightforward, he was most popular amongst his men, but the official, non-fighting, salary-pocketing element bore him no love. General in charge of these positions was kind-hearted, energetic Tobias Smuts, of Ermelo.

During the night Louis Botha arrived here, accompanied only by his aide and his secretary. He, Smuts, their staffs, all slept in one small tent on the hard ground, and with hardly room enough to turn round in. Truly our chiefs were anything but carpet knights!

For a couple of days my office was under a waggon, then my tent arrived, and soon everything was in full swing. One afternoon I was honoured by a visit from a Hollander Jew and Transvaal journalist, whose articles had more power to sting the Uitlanders than almost anything one could mention on the spur of the moment.

We drank tea together and discussed the probability of our camp being bombarded, standing, as it did, in full view of the hill whereon the British cannon had been dragged a few days before. He had just raised the cup to his lips when a well-known sound was heard--the shriek of an approaching shell. Nearer and louder it came, till finally--bang!--the shell burst not a hundred yards away. A young lineman, who had been listening with all his soul and ever wider stretching eyes, now gave an unearthly yell and almost sprang through the top of the tent, knocking over the unhappy journalist and sending the hot tea streaming down his neck. The youth's exit was somewhat unceremonious.

The office was hastily removed to the high bank of the adjacent stream. Whilst this operation was going on the instrument buzzed out a message ordering me to leave immediately for the Spion Kop office. I at once said au revoir, handing over to my assistant the charge of the office, river bank and all, as well as the task of dodging the shells, which continued to fall around.

Riding along the steep bank for about two hundred yards, I found a footpath leading down one side and up the other. No sooner had I started down this than I heard a loud explosion. It did not sound quite so near, but on gaining the opposite bank I saw floating over the spot just quitted by me a small cloud of smoke, showing that a shell had been fired at me with marvellous accuracy. Then a couple burst near the general's tent, and the laager was immediately shifted behind the hill.

I reached Spion Kop, took charge of the office, and was kept so busy that for a week there was no time to have a decent wash.

The hill next ours was daily bombarded with the utmost enthusiasm, shells falling there at the rate of fully sixty a minute, while we escaped with only an occasional bomb. Looking down upon the plain before us, we could see the British regiments drilling on the bank of the river, about two thousand yards away, probably to draw our fire, but in vain was the net spread.

The ground of operations was somewhat extensive. For some days the enemy's infantry had been harassing our right wing, attacking every day, and drawing a little nearer every night. Louis Botha was almost continually present at this point, only coming into camp now and then for a few hours' sleep.

One evening his secretary said to me, with genuine emotion, "It has all been in vain! Our men are worn out. They can do no more!"

He was a Hollander, and also a gentleman; that is to say, he was not one of those Hollanders who lived on the fat of the land, and then turned against us in our adversity; rather was he of the rarer stamp of Coster, who glorified his mother country by nobly dying for that of his adoption.

"Cheer up!" I replied. "There are other hills."

"To-morrow will tell," he said, as he bade me good-night.

And the morrow did. In the grey dawn two hatless and bootless young men came stumbling down into the laager.

"The British have taken the hill!"

Startled, we gazed at Spion Kop's top--only five hundred yards away, but invisible, covered by the thick mist as with a veil. The enemy were there, we knew it; they could not see us as yet, but the mist would soon clear away, and then....

Our guns were rapidly trained on the spot, our men placed in position, and we waited.

I ran into the tent to telegraph the news to Colenso. No reply to my hasty call. The wire is cut!

"Go at once," said the chief, "and repair the line."

As I rode off the mist cleared, and a few minutes later the fight had begun. The cable ran about a thousand yards behind our firing line, and as I went along, my eyes fixed on the wire, the noise of the battle sounded in my ears like the roar of a prairie fire. Jagged pieces of shell came whizzing past, shrieking like vampires in their hunt for human flesh.

Searching carefully for the fault, my progress was slow, and it was afternoon when the Johannesburg laager was reached. Here I found a despatch-rider, who said that reinforcements had arrived at Spion Kop early in the morning, that our men had immediately climbed the hill, and that, the issue being very, uncertain, we might have to retreat during the night.

The line was still interrupted, although I had repaired several faults. I accordingly rode back to Spion Kop early the next morning. When I entered the laager it was to find that all the waggons had already retreated, and the tents standing deserted. Not quite deserted, for in one of them half a dozen bodies were lying. The enemy had unexpectedly retired during the night, and the entire commando was now on the hill, gazing at the plentiful harvest reaped by our Nordenfeldts. Thither I also went.

British ambulance men were busy collecting corpses. It was a mournful sight; it seemed to me as if war really meant nothing else than butchering men like sheep, quietly, methodically, and without any pomp or circumstance.

"A sad sight!" I remarked to the British chaplain.

"They only did their duty," was his unfeeling reply. Duty! Is it any man's duty to kill and be killed without knowing why? For what did these poor Lancashire lads know or care about the merits of the war?

"What do you think the confounded English have had the cheek to do?" asked a friend. "You know they always keep our wounded as prisoners when they get the chance. Well, this morning their ambulance came here and coolly carted away all their wounded! Louis Botha says they might have asked permission first. I should have turned a Maxim on them!"

We went down to the laager, found the line in order, and wired the news of the victory to Pretoria. I had not been able to get into communication the day before because the chief had taken a hand in the fighting instead of attending to the instrument.

Believing that Warren would make another attempt, this time more to our right, we shifted the office a few miles in that direction and pitched our tent next to a farmhouse, which was being utilised as a hospital.

GLORIOUS WAR

Late that evening I heard someone outside the tent asking where the hospital was. It was my father. We had no idea of meeting each other here, as I had parted from him in Johannesburg before the war began, when he had no intention of going to Natal. He himself had been under the impression that I was still at Ladysmith.

He told me he had come to see my young cousin, Johannes, who had been wounded on Spion Kop the day before. We walked over to the hospital. The wounded lad, a frail boy of fifteen, looked terribly exhausted lying there on the floor, his left arm completely shattered.

"We were two together," he said, "myself and another boy. We crept closer and closer to one of the small sangars, firing into it as we crept, until there was only one Englishman left alive in it. He called out 'Water!' and I ran to give him my flask. When I got close to him he pointed his gun at me and fired. I sprang aside, and the bullet ploughed up my arm. My chum then shot him dead. Our doctor was too busy with the English officers to attend to me, so I fear I shall lose my arm."

Poor child! his fear was only too well founded. His arm was amputated, after which he went to his uncle's farm to recuperate. When the British arrived there he would not surrender, but took his gun and went on commando. Three days later he was brought in, shot through the lungs. That is the last I have been able to hear of him.

A few days after the battle of Spion Kop we moved forward and opened another office on our right wing. The British soon after retired from the vicinity, and this wing was withdrawn. The office remained, however, being utilised by scouts and patrols for the transmission of urgent reports.

One day Oberst von Braun called, accompanied by two Boers. I asked him what had become of his lieutenant.

"Ah, poor von B----!" he said. "The fighting on Spion Kop was almost over, and he had just risen and walked forward a few steps, when a chance bullet crashed into his forehead, and he fell a corpse."

This was the same lieutenant who had caused a great sensation in Germany a few years before by killing an unarmed civilian in a moment of provocation. It may seem a just retribution that he should have met with such a tragic fate, but those who knew him in Natal felt nothing but regret for his loss. Oberst von Braun was taken prisoner a few days after, and the British reported that his mind was unhinged. This did not appear improbable to us, for we knew how much he had been affected by the loss of his companion.

I stayed here for three weeks, without much occupation except wasting ammunition on turtle doves and hoping that the next patrol would not be a British instead of a Boer one.

The deserted houses in the neighbourhood had all been visited in turn by both British and Boer patrols, and between the two enormous damage had been wrought. It must be pointed out, however, that the mischief done by our men was in no way authorised--was, in fact, against express orders, whereas the British now burn our houses to the joyful fiddling of the London _Times_, and with a righteous unction eminently national.