Part 8 (1/2)
He was toying with a spray of wild jasmine, as if its perfume brought back vague memories of home. I learned that he had been wounded at Elandslaagte and again on Waggon Hill. Then came Intombi and malaria. He had only been discharged from hospital that morning. His appet.i.te was not quite equal to the horseflesh test, so he had gone without food. I took him to my room and gave him such things as a scanty store could furnish, with the last dram of whisky for a stimulant, and I never felt more thankful than at that moment for the health and strength that give an appet.i.te robust enough for any fare.
_February 5._--Just now one could not be wakened by a more welcome sound than the boom of Buller's guns. It stirred the hazy stillness at dawn this morning like sweet music. It grew louder and apparently nearer as the morning advanced, until in imagination one could mark the positions of individual batteries pounding away opposite Colenso and Skiet's drift. At last the roar died away in sullen growls, giving us the hope that a position had been gained.
_February 6._--Again at daybreak we hear the guns of our relieving force at work in a vigorous cannonade away to the south-west, where Skiet's Drift lies. They quicken at times to twenty shots a minute, the field batteries chiming in faintly between the rounds of heavier artillery.
From Observation Hill we can see the enemy's Creusot on a notched ridge by Doom Kloof replying. Soon after seven o'clock a lyddite sh.e.l.l bursts there. Its red glare is followed by flame that does not come from lyddite. Above this darts a black dense cloud speckled with solid fragments that shoot into the air like bombs. Before we have time to think that a magazine has been blown up a double report, merging into a low rumble, reaches our ears. Something has happened to the Boer battery, and the big gun there remains silent. Buller's artillery continues firing, more slowly but steadily, at the rate of eight shots a minute, and rifle fire can be heard rolling nearer all the afternoon.
Boers are reported to be inspanning their teams and collecting cattle on the plains. The distance is dulled by mists, and the Drakensberg peaks are only dimly visible, but there are clouds of dust winding that way, and we know that the Boer waggons are trekking on the off-chance that a general retirement may be forced upon them. Is this hundredth day of siege to be the last, or shall we wake to-morrow to hear that the Boer laagers are back again, and the relieving force once more south of the Tugela?
_February 7._--Sir Redvers Buller evidently finds that the new key of the road to Ladysmith fits no better than the old, and we begin to doubt whether he will be able to force the lock yet. Skiet's Drift is a difficult way, leading through a bushy country scarred with dongas and commanded by successive ridges, of which the Boers, with their great mobility and rapidity of concentration, know how to make the most. They still hold Monger's Hill, and their big gun has opened again from the notched ridge by Doom Kloof. Buller's guns are hammering at these positions, but apparently with little effect, for to every salvo from them the big Creusot makes reply. Nor is there any sign now of a Boer movement towards the rear. On the contrary, they have a new camp, possibly of hospital tents, where Long Valley merges into Doom Kloof, and almost within range of our naval guns if we had them mounted on Waggon Hill.
While the fight rages near Tugela heights we are left in comparative peace here. ”Puffing Billy” has not opened to-day, and his twin brother of Telegraph Hill has been silent many days. Probably he was taken away to reinforce the artillery now opposing General Buller's advance. If relief does not come soon we shall have something worse than privation to dread, for scurvy has broken out at Intombi camp, where medical comforts are scarce, having been frittered away by the negligence or dishonesty of hospital attendants, over whom n.o.body seems to exercise proper control. The mismanagement of affairs there and the whole system of hospital administration at Ladysmith will have to be investigated after the siege. At noon to-day we had hopes that the Boer right flank was being hard pressed. That is the only practicable way in, but the effort has apparently not been pushed far. The heliograph has begun to blink out a long message, and that is always a bad sign.
_February 8._--Small things a.s.sume an importance altogether out of proportion just now, and one worries about a last pipe of tobacco when issues of vital moment to us are being fought out ten miles off. I have come to the end of mine, and there is no more to be got for love or money. A ton of Kaffir leaf has just been requisitioned from coolies, who were selling it at twelve s.h.i.+llings the pound to soldiers, and who have now to accept a twelfth of that price. There are thus thirty-six thousand ounces for distribution, but even that quant.i.ty will not last long. n.o.body would have the heart to take any of it from soldiers who have been reduced for weeks past to smoking dried sun-flower leaves and even tea-leaves. Six shots were fired from Bulwaan battery this afternoon after a silence of nearly two days. We generally accept such sudden outbursts as indicating that something has gone wrong with our enemies elsewhere, but we can see no signs of hurried movement among them, and though General Buller's guns have been active half the day they sound no nearer. A long message was heliographed through just before sunset, and rumours of ill news are whispered about with bated breath by people who wish to establish a reputation for early knowledge, but at the risk of being charged before a court-martial with the dissemination of news calculated to cause despondency. We had a case of that kind the other day when Foss, the champion swimmer of South Africa, was rightly convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for deprecating the skill of our generals in conversation with soldiers. Tommy may hold his own opinions on that point, but he resents hearing them expressed for him through a pro-Boer mouthpiece, and this man may consider himself lucky to escape summary chastis.e.m.e.nt as a preliminary to the durance vile which is intended to be a wholesome warning for others of like tendency.
And indeed the garrison and civilians of Ladysmith, who now began to feel the sharp pinch of hunger, had need to silence any whose voices might be raised to rob them of their attenuated hopes. No official statement had yet been made on the subject, but it was already becoming evident that they had yet a time of painful waiting before relief could come. To the hundred days which they had trusted might complete the period of their trial a score were to be added before their sufferings could be forgotten in the joy of deliverance.
CHAPTER XII
AFTER ONE HUNDRED DAYS
Boer paean of victory--Rations cut down--Sausage without mystery--The ”helio” moves east--Sick and dying at Intombi--Famine prices at market--Laughter quits the camps--A kindly thing by the enemy--Good news at last--Heroes in tatters--The distant tide of battle--Pulse-like throb of rifles--Two sons for the Empire--British infantry on Monte Cristo--Boer ambulances moving north--”'Ave you 'eard the noos?”--Rations increased--Bulwaan strikes his tents--”With a rifle and a red cross”--Buller ”going strong”--Cronje's surrender--A sorry celebration--”A beaten army in full retreat”--”Puffing Billy” dismantled--General Buller's message--Relief at hand.
Sir Redvers Buller's third attempt to force his way through to Ladysmith failed on 8th February, when he withdrew his forces from Vaalkranz to the south side of the Tugela. Their success was announced by the Boers about Ladysmith in their own way. At half-past two on the morning of 9th February, night was rent by the sudden glare of a search-light from Bulwaan, and soon came the scream of sh.e.l.ls hurtling over the town. It was the Boer paean of victory, and it sent the people hurrying to their underground refuges, to which the unco' guid had given the name of ”funk-holes,” but did no damage. Its purport was half-divined by the defenders. The news was still said to be good, but there were head-shakings, and even the stoutest optimism found itself unequal to the strain when it was announced that rations were to be cut down. If things were going well, ”Why, in the name of success,”
asks Mr. Pea.r.s.e in his notes for 9th February, ”should our universal provider, Colonel Ward, take this occasion to reduce rations? We are now down to 1 lb. of meat, including horse, four ounces of mealie meal, four ounces of bread, with a sausage ration daily 'as far as possible.' Sausages may be mysteries elsewhere, but we know them here to be horse-flesh, highly spiced, and nothing more. Bread is a brown, 'c.l.i.tty' mixture of mealie meal, starch, and the unknown. Vegetables we have none, except a so-called wild spinach that overgrew every neglected garden, and could be had for the taking until people discovered how precious it was. Tea is doled out at the rate of one-sixth of an ounce to each adult daily, or in lieu thereof, coffee mixed with mealie meal.”
February 10 was the day which had been looked forward to as the one on which relief would arrive. It did not come, and though the messages flashed over the hills from the beleaguered town at the time were full of an heroic cheerfulness, the disappointment was hard to bear. For with rations reduced, with disease harvesting for death where fire and steel had failed, the defenders were now face to face with the grimmer realities of war. Yet hope was never absent, and never at any time did the stern determination to bid the enemy defiance to the last flicker or grow fainter. Mr.
Pea.r.s.e's diary for this period gives many details of the highest interest of the position in the town, and suggests the sufferings, while it does justice to the splendid spirit of the garrison:--
_February 10._--Heliograph signals have been twinkling spasmodically, but their language is written in a sealed book. We only know that these ”helios” come not from kopjes this side of Tugela, nor from the former signal-station south of Potgieter's and Skiet's Drifts, as they did a few days ago, but from hills near Weenen, as in the months before Buller crossed the Tugela, thus indicating a retrograde movement. It may be a hopeful sign of communication with some flanking column away eastward, and therefore kept secret, but we have our doubts. Depression sets in again, and, as always happens when there is bad news or dread of it, the death-rate at Intombi Hospital camp has gone up to fifteen in a single day. Since the date of investment four hundred and eighty patients have died there from all causes. It does not seem a large proportion out of the eighteen thousand under treatment from time to time, but it is very high in view of the fact that we have only had thirty-six soldiers and civilians in all killed by the thousands of sh.e.l.ls that have been hurled at us in fifteen weeks.
The market's sensitive pulse also shows that there is a suspicion of something wrong. Black tobacco in small quant.i.ties may still be had by those who care to pay forty-five s.h.i.+llings for a half-pound cake of it, as one Sybarite did to-day. A box of fifty inferior cigars sold for 6:10s., a packet of ten Virginia cigarettes for twenty-five s.h.i.+llings, and eggs at forty-eight s.h.i.+llings a dozen. Soldiers who cannot hope to supplement their meagre rations by private purchases at this rate stroll about the streets languid, hungry, silent. There is no laughter among them.
_February 12._--The enemy have done a courteous, kindly thing in allowing Mrs. Doveton, whose husband lies wounded and dying at Intombi, to pa.s.s through their lines. Not only so, but the General placed an ambulance-cart at her disposal, with an escort, from whom she received every mark of respectful sympathy. Yet Major Doveton was well known as one of their most strenuous opponents, a prominent member of the Reform Committee, and a leader who has played his part manfully in every fight where the Imperial Light Horse has been engaged. He was badly wounded among the band of heroes who held Waggon Hill.
_February 13._--Good news at last. It comes by heliograph, telling us that Lord Roberts has entered the Free State with a large force, mainly of mounted troops and artillery, wherewith he hoped to relieve the pressure round Ladysmith in a few days.
This afternoon I paid a visit to Brigadier-General Hamilton in his tent beside the Manchesters on Caesar's Camp. Through all the glorious history of their services in Flanders, the Peninsula, the Crimea, or Afghanistan, men of the gallant 63rd have never done harder work than on breezy Bester's Ridge, where they have furnished outposts and fatigue parties every day for four weary months. Is it any wonder that they are the raggedest, most weather-stained, and most unkempt crowd who ever played the part of soldiers? There is not a whole shoe or a sound garment among them. They are ill-fed and overworked, yet they go to an extra duty cheerfully, knowing that their General has faith in their watchfulness and grit. All honour to them! Like ”the dirty half-hundred”
of Peninsular fame, they have been too busy to have time for was.h.i.+ng and mending.
Kaffirs report that the Free State Boers are all trekking towards Van Reenan's.
This native report, true or false, marked the beginnings of a renewed hope that was not again to suffer defeat, but was now quickly to grow into the substantial expectation and the certainty of relief. Lord Roberts was already across the borders of the Free State, and simultaneously Sir Redvers Buller was preparing for his last attempt to roll back the burghers from the Tugela, and to break down the barrier so long maintained between his army and Ladysmith. His operations during the week following were watched with intense anxiety, but with growing confidence. On 20th February Mr. Pea.r.s.e wrote the following:--
For a whole week daily we have heard the roar of artillery southward and westward along the Tugela, seen Lyddite sh.e.l.ls bursting on Boer positions, and watched the signs of battle, from which we gather hope that slowly but surely Buller's army is drawing nearer to us, though by a different and harder road from the one it tried last. We know that for a whole week on end those troops have been fighting their way against entrenched positions that might baulk the bravest soldiers, and still the roar of battle rolls our way, until between the m.u.f.fled boom of heavy guns we can hear faintly the pulse-like throb of rifle volleys.
Amid all this strain, intent upon vital issues, one hardly takes note of trivialities. Even the daily bombardment seems of little importance, and n.o.body cares how many shots ”Puffing Billy” fired yesterday. For me the strain is tightened by news heliographed this morning that another son has come round from Bulawayo and joined the relieving force as a lieutenant of Thorneycroft's Mounted Infantry. I don't know whether pride or anxiety is paramount when I think of these two boys fighting their way towards me. Both are with Lord Dundonald's Irregular Horse, of which we have heard much from Kaffirs, who tell us that Thorneycroft's Rifles and the ”Sakkabulu boys,” who are now identified as the South African Light Horse, have been in the front of every fight. It may seem egotistical to let this personal note stand, but I take the incident to be an ill.u.s.tration of the spirit that animates English youth at this moment.
On Sat.u.r.day (February 17) the artillery fire sounded far off on the other side of the Tugela. Next morning we could see sh.e.l.ls bursting along the nearer crest of Monte Cristo, and up to eleven o'clock the fierce cannonade was ceaseless. How the action had ended we could only judge by Boer movements. From Observation Hill I saw their ambulance waggons trekking heavy across the plain behind Rifleman's Ridge, then a bigger waggon, uncovered, drawn by a large span of oxen. There may have been a long gun in that waggon, its movements were so slow and c.u.mbersome. Two ambulance waggons pa.s.sed in the opposite direction, light and moving at a gallop.