Book: Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899 1900)

A >> A. G. Hales >> Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899 1900)




So to my tale. It was the 1st of May. We had the Boers hard pressed in
Thaba Nchu in a run of kopjes that reached in almost unbroken sequence
farther than a man's eye might reach. The flying French was with us,
chafing like a leashed greyhound because he could not sweep all before him
with one impetuous rush. Rundle, too, was here, with his haughty, handsome
face, as keen as French, but with a better grip on his feelings. Six
thousand of the foe, under Louis Botha, cool, crafty, long-headed,
resourceful, have held the kopjes. Again and again we manoeuvred to trap
them, but no wolf in winter is more wary than Botha, no weasels more
watchful than the men he commanded. When we advanced they fell back, when
we fell back they advanced, until the merest tyro in the art of war could
see that a frontal attack, unless made in almost hopeless positions, was
impossible. So Hamilton swept round their right flank, ten miles north of
Thaba Nchu, and gave them a taste of his skill and daring, whilst Rundle
held their main body here at Thaba Nchu. Rundle made a feint on their
centre in strong force, and they closed in from both flanks to resist him.
Then he drew off, as if fearing the issue. This drew the Boers in, and they
pounded our camp with shells until one wondered whether the German-made
rubbish they used would last them much longer. Then we threatened their
left flank quickly and sharply, giving Hamilton time to strike on their
right; and he struck without erring, whipping the enemy at every point he
touched, driving them out of their positions, and holding them firmly
himself, so threatening their rear and the immense herds of sheep and oxen
they have with them, making a footing for the British to move on and cut
Botha off from his base at Kroonstad.

Whether he will now stand his ground and fight or make a break for the main
army of the Boers is hard to calculate, for the Boer generally does just
what no one expects he will attempt to do. It was during Hamilton's
flanking effort that the Gordons vindicated their character for courage.
Captain Towse, a brave, courteous soldier and gentleman, whom I had had the
pleasure of meeting at Graspan, and whose guest I had been on several
occasions, was the hero of the hour. He is a fine figure of a man, well set
up, good-looking, strong, active. He was, I think, about the only soldier I
have seen who could wear an eye-glass and not lose by it. In age he looked
about forty. I remember snapping a "photo" of him as he was "tidying up"
the grave of gallant young Huddart, an Australian "middy," who lay buried
on the veldt; but the Boers collected that portrait from me later on, worse
luck. On this fateful day Captain Towse, with about fifty of the Gordons,
got isolated from the main body of British troops, and the Boers, with that
marvellous dexterity for which they are fast becoming famous, sized up the
position, and determined upon a capture. They little dreamt of the nature
of the lion they had snared in their toils. With fully two hundred and
fifty men they closed in on the little band of kilted men, and in
triumphant tones called upon them to throw down their arms and surrender.
It was a picture to warm an artist's heart. On all sides rose the bleak,
black kopjes, ridge on ridge, as inhospitable as a watch-dog's growl. On
one hand the little band of Highlanders, the picturesque colours of their
clan showing in kilt and stocking, perfect in all their appointments, but
nowhere so absolutely flawless as in their leadership. Under such leaders
as he who held them there so calm and steady their forbears had hurled back
the chivalry of France, and had tamed the Muscovite pride, and they were
soon to prove themselves men worthy of their captain.

On the other side rose the superior numbers of the Boers. A wild and motley
crew they looked compared with the gem of Britain's army. Boys stood side
by side with old men, lads braced themselves shoulder to shoulder with men
in their manhood's prime, ragged beards fell on still more ragged shirt
fronts. But there were manly hearts behind those ragged garments, hearts
that beat high with love of home and country, hearts that seldom quailed in
the hour of peril. Their rifles lay in hands steady and strong. The Boer
was face to face with the Briton; the numbers lay on the side of the Boer,
but the bayonet was with the Briton.

"Throw up your hands and surrender." The language was English, but the
accent was Dutch; a moment, an awful second of time, the rifle barrels
gleamed coldly towards that little group of men, who stood their ground as
pine trees stand on their mountain sides in bonny Scotland. Then out on the
African air there rang a voice, proud, clear, and high as clarion note:
"Fix bayonets, Gordons!" Like lightning the strong hands gripped the ready
steel; the bayonets went home to the barrel as the lips of lover to lover.
Rifles spoke from the Boer lines, and men reeled a pace from the British
and fell, and lay where they fell. Again that voice with the Scottish burr
on every note: "Charge, Gordons! Charge!" and the dauntless Scotchman
rushed on at the head of his fiery few. The Boer's heart is a brave heart,
and he who calls them cowards lies; but never before had they faced so grim
a charge, never before had they seen a torrent of steel advancing on their
lines in front of a tornado of flesh and blood. On rushed the Scots, on
over fallen comrades, on over rocks and clefts, on to the ranks of the foe,
and onward through them, sweeping them down as I have seen wild horses
sweep through a field of ripening corn. The bayonets hissed as they crashed
through breastbone and backbone. Vainly the Boer clubbed his rifle and
smote back. As well might the wild goat strike with puny hoofs when the
tiger springs. Nothing could stay the fury of that desperate rush. Do you
sneer at the Boers? Then sneer at half the armies of Europe, for never yet
have Scotland's sons been driven back when once they reached a foe to
smite.

How do they charge, these bare-legged sons of Scotia? Go ask the hills of
Afghanistan, and if there be tongues within them they will tell you that
they sweep like hosts from hell. Ask in sneering Paris, and the red records
of Waterloo will give you answer. Ask in St. Petersburg, and from
Sebastopol your answer will come. They thought of the dreary morning hours
of Magersfontein, and they smote the steel downwards through the neck into
the liver. They thought of the row of comrades in the graves beside the
Modder, and they gave the Boers the "haymaker's lift," and tossed the dead
body behind them. They thought of gallant Wauchope riddled with lead, and
they sent the cold steel, with a horrible crash, through skull and brain,
leaving the face a thing to make fiends shudder. They thought of Scotland,
and they sent the wild slogan of their clan ringing along the line until
the British troops, far off along the veldt, hearing it, turned to one
another, saying: "God help the Boers this hour; our Jocks are into 'em with
the bay'nit!"

But when they turned to gather up those who had fallen, then they found
that he whose lion soul had pointed them the crimson path to duty was to
lead them no more. The noble heart that beat so true to honour's highest
notes was not stilled, but a bullet missing the brain had closed his eyes
for ever to God's sunlight, leaving him to go through life in darkness; and
they mourned for him as they had mourned for noble, white-souled Wauchope,
whose prototype he was. They knew that many a long, long year would roll
away before their eyes would rest upon his like again in camp or bloody
field. But it gladdened their stern warrior hearts to know that the last
sight he ever gazed upon was Scotland sweeping on her foes.

And when our noble Queen shall place upon his breast the cross which is the
soldier's diadem, their hearts will throb in unison with his, for their
strong hands on that May Day helped him to win what he is so fat to wear;
and when our Sovereign honours him she honours them, and well they know it.
And when the years have rolled away, and they are old and grey, and spent
with wounds and toil, fit for nothing but to dandle little grand-babes on
their knees, young men and maids will flock around, and pointing out the
veteran to the curious stranger say, with honest pride, "He was with Towse
the day he won the cross."





THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR.

ORANGE RIVER COLONY.


There are hundreds of men lying in unmarked graves in African soil to-day
who ought to be alive and well, others who have been done to death by the
crass ignorance, the appalling stupidity, the damnable conceit which will
brook no teaching. I have seen men die like dogs, men who left comfortable
homes in the old land to go forth to uphold the power and prestige of our
nation's flag. I have seen them gasping out their lives like stricken
sheep, just in the springtide of their manhood, when the glory and the lust
of life should have been strong upon them I have watched the Irish lad with
the down upon his brave boyish face pass with the last deep-drawn quivering
sob over the border line of life, into the shadows of the unsearchable
beyond, a wasted sacrifice upon the grim altar of incapacity. I have seen
the kilted Scottish laddie lie, with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes, waiting
for the whisper of the wings of the Angel of Death. I have seen the death
damp gather on his unlined brow, and watched the grey pallor creep upwards
from throat to temple; until my very soul, wrung with anguish unutterable,
has risen in hot revolt against the crimes of the incapable.

I have knelt by England's fair-faced sons, the child of the cities, the boy
from the fens, the youth from the farm, and watched the shadows creeping
over eyes that mothers loved to look upon. I have seen the wasted fingers,
grown clawlike, plucking aimlessly at the rude blankets as if weaving the
woof of the winding-sheet, and have listened with aching heart to the
aimless babbling of the dying, in which home and friends were blended,
until the tired voice, grown aweary with the weight of utterance, died out
like the crooning of a lisping child, as the soul slipped through the
golden gateway that leads to the glory beyond the grave. I have watched
them pile the earth above the last home of Cambria's sons, the gallant
children of the old Welsh hills. I have seen them laid to sleep, as harvest
hands will lay the sheaves in undulating rows when the summer shower has
passed; and over every shallow grave I have sent a curse for those whose
brutish folly caused the flower of Britain's army to wither in the pride of
their peerless boyhood.

For the men who fall in battle we can flush our tears with pride, and
though our hearts may ache for those we love, yet is there an undercurrent
of hot joy to know they fell as soldiers love to fall, face forward to the
foe. But for those who die, as more than half of Britain's dead have died
in this last war, stricken by pestilence brought about by ignorance and
indolence, we have only sorrow and tears and prayers, blended with hate and
contempt for the triple-dyed dandies and dunces who robbed us of those who
should have been alive to-day to be the bulwark of the Empire, the pride of
the nation, and the joy of many homes.

Why did they die, these strong young soldiers of our Queen? Was it because
their hearts failed them in the presence of hardship and danger? I tell
you, No. The hardships of the campaign only roused them to greater
exertions. Bravely and uncomplainingly they answered every call of duty,
ready by night or day to go anywhere, or do anything, if only they were led
by men worthy of our Queen's commission, worthy of the cloth they wore. Why
did they die? Was it because of poisoned or polluted water, left in their
path by the enemy whom they were fighting? Not so. No, not so. The Boers
left no death-traps in our path. Why did they die? Was it because the
country through which we marched lent itself climatically to the
propagation and dissemination of fever germs? No, England, no! In all the
world there is no finer climate than that in which our gallant soldiers
died like rotting sheep. Wherever else the blame may lie, no truthful man
can lay the blame of those untimely graves upon the climate or the country
of our enemies.

I will tell you why they died, and tell you in language so plain that a
wayfaring man, even though a fool, cannot misunderstand me, for the time
has arrived when the whole Empire should know the truth in all its native
hideousness. Those men were done to death by wanton carelessness upon the
part of men sent out by the British War Office. They were done to death
through criminal neglect of the most simple laws of sanitation. Men were
huddled together in camp after camp; they were allowed to turn the
surrounding veldt and adjacent kopjes into cesspools and excreta camps. In
some camps no latrines were dug, no supervision was exercised. The
so-called Medical Staff looked on, and puffed their cigarettes and talked
under their eye-glasses--the fools, the idle, empty-headed noodles. And
whilst they smoked and talked twaddle, the grim, gaunt Shadow of Death
chuckled in the watches of the night, thinking of the harvest that was to
follow.

Then the careless soldiers passed onward, leaving their camp vacant, and
later came another batch of soldiers. Perhaps the men in charge would be
men of higher mental calibre; they would order latrines to be dug, and all
garbage to be burnt or buried. But by this time the germs of fever were in
the air, the men would sicken and die, just as I have seen them sicken and
die upon a score of mining fields away in the Australian bush; and all for
the want of a little honest care and attention, all for the want of a few
grains of good, wholesome, everyday common sense. Had proper care been
taken in regard to these matters, four-fifths of those who now fill fever
graves in South Africa would be with us, hale and hearty men, to-day.

But, England, you must not complain. "Tommy" is a cheap article; he only
costs a few pence per day, and if he dies there are plenty more ready and
willing to take his place. Don't think of him as a human being. Don't think
of him as some woman's husband and breadwinner. Don't think of him as some
grey-haired widow's son, whose support he has been. Don't think of him as
some foolish girl's heart's idol. But think of him as a part of the
country's revenue. Think of him as "One-and-fourpence a day."

What excuse can or will be made by the authorities for the wholesale murder
of our men I know not. Possibly those high and haughty personages will
sniff contemptuously and decline to give any explanation at all. And you,
who hold the remedy in your own hands, what will you do? Will you at
election times put a stern question to every candidate for the Commons, and
demand a straight and unqualified answer to your questions. Remember this:
You supply the men who do the fighting; the nation at a pinch can do
without a Roberts, a Duller, or a Kitchener, but, as my soul liveth, it
cannot do without "Tommy."

If you want Army reform, you must commence with the "Press gang"; you must
stand in one solid mass firmly behind those war correspondents who have not
feared to speak out plainly. You must send men to the Commons pledged to
stand behind them also, men who will not flinch and allow themselves to be
flouted by every scion of some ancient house; for if you do not support the
war correspondents of the great newspapers, how are you ever to know the
real truth concerning the doings of our armies in the field? I tell you
that you have not heard one-millionth part of the truth concerning this
South African enterprise, and now you never will know the truth. Had the
abominable practice of censorship been abolished prior to this war, most of
the abuses which have made our Army the laughing stock of Europe would have
been set right by the correspondents, for they would have pointed out the
evils to the public through the medium of their journals, and an indignant
people would have clamoured for reform in a voice which would brook no
denial. As things are at present, the military people during the progress
of the war have their heel upon the necks of the journalists, and the
public are robbed of what is their just right, the right of knowledge of
passing events; only that which suits the censor being allowed to filter
over the wires. Had it been otherwise, hundreds of young widows in Ireland,
Scotland, England, and Wales would be proud and happy wives to-day.

But do not let me rouse your phlegmatic blood, my Britons; sit down, with
your thumbs in your mouths, my masters, and allow a coterie to flout you at
will, whilst the Frenchmen, the Germans, the Russians alternately laugh at
and pity you. Pity you, the sons of the men who chased their fathers half
over Europe at the point of the blood-red bayonet! Have you grown tame,
have you waxed fat and foolish during these long years of peace? Is the
spirit that swept the legions of France through the Pyrenees and carried
the old flag up the heights of Inkerman in the teeth of Russian
chivalry--is it dead, or only sleeping? If it but slumbers, let me cry,
Sleeper, awake, for danger is at the gates! Not the danger due from foreign
foes, but a greater danger--the danger of unjust government, for where evil
is hidden injustice reigns.

Our military friends tell us that censorship of Press work is necessary for
the welfare of the Army. They urge that if we correspondents had a free
hand the enemy might gain valuable information regarding the movements of
our troops. To us who for the greater portion of a year have been at the
front there is grim irony in that assertion. Fancy the Boer scouts wanting
information from us which might filter through London newspapers! That
flimsy, paltry excuse can be dismissed with a contemptuous laugh. That is
not why the military people want our work censored. The real reason is that
their awful blunders, their farcical mistakes, and their criminal
negligence may not reach the British public. Just try for one brief moment
to remember some of the "censored" cables that have been sent home to you
during the war, and then compare it with such a cable as this, which would
have come if the Press men had a free hand:

"Kruger's Valley, Jan. 12.

"The ---- Division, under General ----, arrived at
Kruger's Valley four days ago. No latrines have been
dug ... weather terribly hot, with rain threatening.
This Division moves out in about a week. Its place will
be taken by troops just arrived at Durban from England.
Should we have rain in the meantime half the new draft
will be down with enteric fever before they are here a
week, and the death rate will be simply awful. General ----
and staff will be responsible for those deaths."

The military folk would, doubtless, designate such a telegram "a piece of
d----d impudence."

But the latrines would be dug, the camp would be kept free from foulness,
and the new draft would not die untimely deaths, but would live to fight
the enemies of their country.

Why the camps in South Africa were not models of cleanliness passes my
comprehension. There was no need to harass "Tommy" by setting him to do the
work. Every Division was accompanied by swarms of niggers, who drew from
Government L4 10s. per month and their food. These niggers had a
gentleman's life. They waxed fat, lazy, and cheeky. Four-fifths of them
rode all day on transport wagons, and never earned a fourth of the wages
they drew from a sweetly paternal Government. Why could not those men have
been used in every camp to make things safe and comparatively comfortable
for "Tommy," who had to march all day, with his fighting kit upon his back
march and fight, and not only march and fight, but go on picket and sentry
duty as well? Those niggers ought to have, been turned out to dig and fill
in latrines for our soldiers, they ought to have been compelled to do all
the menial work of the camps; but they never did anything of the sort
"Tommy" was treated for the most part like a Kaffir dog, whilst the saucy
niggers led the lives of fightingcocks, and to-day any ordinary Army
Service nigger thinks himself a better man than "Tommy," and doesn't
hesitate to tell you so. It would be instructive to know the name of the
genius who fixed the scale of nigger wage at L 4 10s. per month, with
rations. Fully half that sum could with ease have been saved the British
taxpayer, and the nigger would have taken it with delight, and jumped at
the chance of getting it. As a matter of fact, the nigger has had a huge
picnic, and has been well paid for attending it. He has never been kept
short of food. He has never had to march until his feet were almost falling
off him. He has not had to fight for the country that fed and clothed him.
Poor "Tommy!"





HOME AGAIN.


I stood where Nelson's Column stands--a stranger, and alone. Alone amidst a
mighty multitude of men and maids. I saw a people drunk with joy. I looked
from face to face, and in each flashing eye, and on each quivering lip, a
nation's heart lay bared to all the world, for England's capital was but
the throbbing pulse of England's Empire. Our nation spoke to the nations
that dwell where the sea foam flies, and woe to them who do not heed the
tale that the city told. There was no sun, the city lay enveloped in
silvery shadows, like some grey lioness that knows her might and is not
quickly stirred to wrath or joy, like meaner things. I looked above, and
saw the monument of him whose peerless genius gave us empire on the seas. I
looked below, and saw, far as my eyes could range, a seething mass of men,
as good, as gallant, and as great of heart as those who fought and fell
beneath his flag, and in my blood I felt the pride of empire stirring, and
knew how great a thing it is to call one's self a Briton.

I looked along that swaying mass of human flesh and blood, and saw the best
that England owns waiting to welcome, with heart-stirring cheers, the
gallant lads whose lion hearts had carried London's name and fame along the
rough-hewn tracks of war. I saw the cream of Britain's chivalry and
Britain's beauty there. Men and women from the countryside, from Ireland
and from Scotland, all eager to pay tribute to the London lads who had so
proudly proved to all the world that it was not for a soldier's pay, not
for the love of gain, but for a nation's glory that they had risked limb
and life beneath an African sun. Then, as I looked, I caught a distant hum
of voices--a far-off sound, such as I have heard amid Pacific isles when
wind and waves were beating upon coral crags, and foam-topped rollers
thrashed the surf into the magic music of the storm-tossed sea. It was the
roar of London's multitudes welcoming home her own; and what a sound it
was! I have heard the music of the guns when our nation spoke in the stern
tones of battle to a nation in arms; I have heard the crash of tempests on
Southern coasts when ships were reeling in the breath of the blast, and
souls to their God were going; I have crouched low in my saddle when the
tornado has swept trees from the forest as a boy brushes flowers with his
footsteps. But never had I heard a sound like that. It was the voice of
millions, it was the great heart-beats of a mighty nation, it was a welcome
and a warning--a welcome to the descendants of the 'prentice lads of Old
London, a warning to the world. I caught the echoes in my hands, I hugged
them to my heart, I let them pour into my brain, and this is the tale they
told: "Sluggish we are, ye people, slow to wake, strong in the strength of
conscious might. Jibe at us, jeer at us, flout us and threaten us; but
beware the day we turn in our strength. We have sent forth a few of our
children, but they were but as a drop in the ocean. All Britain sent two
hundred and fifty thousand strong men to Africa; London, if need be, can
send five hundred thousand more to the uttermost parts of the earth. Aye,
and when they have died, as these would have died if need be, we can open
our hearts and send five hundred thousand more, and yet be strong for our
home fighting." It was a nation speaking to the nations, and that is the
tale it told. Let the nations take heed and beware, for the language was
the language of truth.

I listened; and lo! through the storm of cheering, through the cries of
women and the strong shouting of men in their prime, I caught another
sound, a sound I knew and loved--the sound of marching men. Music hath
charms to stir the blood and make men mad, but there is no music in all the
earth like the trained tread of men who have marched to battle. I knew the
rhythm of that tread; I knew that the "boys" of Old London were coming, and
my nostrils seemed filled with the fumes of fighting. I looked again, and,
saw them, hard faced, clean limbed, close set, as soldiers should be who
have faced the storm and stress of war, as proud a band as Britain ever
had, soldier and citizen both in one, fit to be a nation's bulwark and a
nation's trust; and in the crowd around them there were a thousand thousand
men as good, as game, as gritty, as they, for they were the children of the
people, the men of the shop-counter, the men of the city office, the men of
every artisan craft, the very vitals of London. They had sprung from the
womb of the city, and the city could give birth to a million more if need
be.

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