Part 3 (2/2)
practice at keeping, I see a confusion got into the dates. You didn't know anything about the date or the day of the week. Existence was just a dateless alternation of light and darkness, of saddle-up and off-saddle, of cossack-post, of thinking about water--and of yearning with every fibre of one's being for the ineffable boon of a long sleep.
It will be seen that the key to the advance over the Namib Desert was the Swakop River. The water-holes of the Swakop River are very singular; they form the nucleus of a kind of settlement (even if it be only a couple of small huts) right in the dry river bed. At Kaltenhausen, to take but one example, there is a splendid shooting-lodge slapbang in the centre of the river; it has a fine courtyard walled and railed in. It seemed extraordinary. At these water-holes you suddenly leave the stony sand of the desert and come on to finest soft sand. It is quite pleasant at night, but day tells another story. Just after sunrise a wind starts blowing down the river valley and raises this superfine, mineralised sand. To lie exposed to this for a day is an awful experience; the fine dust will penetrate anywhere. I am sure it must lead to positive blindness in time.
I mentioned the water-holes of the Swakop River for the particular reason that their situation in most cases adds immensely to the merit of the Northern Army's great trek. The trek-road from Swakopmund follows the river only in a broad sense; the Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb water-holes are really three to four and five miles from the road and the camping grounds. That is to say, the columns, after a twenty mile trek in the sand and sun had another quarter of the distance to go--_to water_. And to water usually means across the yard to the troughs, so to speak. We shall remember the water-holes of South-West Africa. There is many a fellow now back in civilisation who can recall vividly the tramp over stony, loose gravel through those great echoing rocks down to the water-holes at Haigamkhab, Husab and Gawieb. Hour after hour the processions of weary riders pa.s.sed each other in a cloud of dust that rose five hundred yards and filled the choking canyon. The invariable question from him going wearily to water to him coming refreshed and smothered in water-bottles and with a livelier horse from it: ”Is it far, boy?” And the stereotyped answer of encouragement was as always: ”No, no; just round the corner.” All these water-holes are almost duplicates of each other. I suppose not the echo of a bird now hurts their pristine and awful quietude.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A Beauty Spot pa.s.sed during the last Trek]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Last Phase. Conference at Omaruru. German Staff lunching]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The General receives his Bodyguard at a Garden Party after return]
The marvellous series of changes as one advances const.i.tutes the most striking feature of the advance to Windhuk from the coast. By rail it is not so striking; but taking the marching route via the Swakop River water-holes--Swakopmund, Nonidas, Haigamkhab, Husab, Riet, Salem, Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis), Otjimbingwe, Windhuk--the changes in the country and the stages that show them are as palpable as if marked by a system of parallel walls. I have never seen this feature of the veld so marked elsewhere in South Africa.
Swakopmund is the limit in the down-grade--deep sand; brak water; a treacherous, dreary climate, with visitations of furnace-heat desert winds; a huge cemetery; moths and flies. From Nonidas to Haigamkhab and Husab the sand lightens and hardens, the atmosphere improves, rocks, barren kopjes begin to appear; the little water you get is fairly good.
Riet comes; the barren kopjes are more frequent; the atmosphere, hot in the day, is beautiful by night; the water is perfect. Salem is a duplicate Riet; a small settlement in the river bed; but the water is more plentiful, the vegetation more profuse. Then comes the great trek to Tsaobis.
It does not look far on the map; it is a huge stretch nevertheless. For the first three hours it was Riet-Salem country with extensions and additions. Vast gorges, black and brown kopjes, boulders, sand stretches, clumps of bush, minute trees. And then, on Thursday the 29th of April (memory holds the date like a vice), we saw gra.s.s. It was gra.s.s. It was undoubtedly gra.s.s--the kind of gra.s.s that gave one the feeling that this particular veld, like a man prematurely bald through worry or riotous living, had been trying some hair restorer with ludicrous results--gra.s.s whitish, feeble, attenuated, that to be seen at all wanted an eye levelled along the ground.
Each half hour brought its surprise as we moved along, General Botha on his white horse at the head of the column, just visible to the eye through the thick curtain of white dust our horses' feet flung up into the sun glare. We rode in great gorges between kopjes. We crossed dry river courses. We clattered over the hard bosoms of rocks, switchbacked up and down each hour working out of the desert. Trees began to appear--caricatures of trees. Then game spoor was reported. And suddenly, just after noon, rain fell--out of one cloud in a sky otherwise brazenly clear five drops fell. I counted five on my bridle hand.
Rain on the edge of the Namib Desert. It was ludicrous, too bizarre; it was the last straw. We gasped. A deep roar of ironical cheering went up. The Commander-in-Chief looked round and laughed. When we outspanned later the horses made a show of grazing for the first time for five months. The sagacious animals showed plain amazement in their eyes. At Wilhelmsfeste (Tsaobis) the bushveld begins. The water supply of Otjimbingwe is the feature of that rather quaint settlement. One must ever a.s.sociate it with its fine aeromotor pumping the precious fluid for parched man and beast to drink their full after the desert pa.s.sage in the shade of cool palms many years old.
[Ill.u.s.tration: German prisoners of war, imprisoned at Karibib]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Karibib]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. The first troops in Waldau]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The first South African Engineer Corps Staff at Windhuk]
During the great trek alarms regarding mines were most frequent. There were many wonderful escapes. It seems a marvel that the enemy were not more successful than they were with these deadly machines. Suffer casualties we did; but if all the mines that were laid had blown up our casualties would have been formidable indeed. But somehow those mines seemed foreordained not to act. They were discovered by the merest chance; or they failed to go off; or they exploded at the wrong time.
Making for Karibib in the forenoon of the 5th of May, the authorities naturally showed the greatest caution for the safety of General Botha-- though a large body of Union mounted troops had pa.s.sed over the same ground before the Commander-in-Chief, Staff and Bodyguard traversed the road.
In view of the fact that the South African Army was operating against the forces of the same nation that has ravaged and despoiled Belgium, a point should be made here. It must be remembered that the armed forces of the Protectorate simply cleared bag and baggage out of all the important inland towns in the face of Botha's overwhelming advances.
They left wife and child, the old and infirm, every stick of property they could not carry, at our mercy. When we entered Karibib at five in the evening the non-combatant population were moving about the streets, or standing in best bib and tucker at their doors, calmly gazing at the trek-stained hors.e.m.e.n that sought the nearest water tanks. They had not the slightest fear of us. I spoke to a comrade who has seen war aforetime. He said he had never seen a more orderly occupation of a town.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. A quick railway repair after the Germans' usual practice of blowing up railway bridges]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Towards Windhuk. The first train to Windhuk. The South African Engineer Corps Construction Party aboard]
[Ill.u.s.tration: At Windhuk. How we treat the German women. Ten minutes after occupation]
[Ill.u.s.tration: At Windhuk. The Commander-in-Chief addresses his ma.s.sed troops from the Rathaus ]
The conduct of the South African troops should a.s.suredly be noted. The very confidence of these German townspeople that they had nothing to fear from the hated troops of the British Union of South Africa was eloquent. The thing stood out, a piece of bitterest irony in connection with a people whose kindred across the seas were making civilisation shudder at their atrocities afloat and ash.o.r.e. The news of the _Lusitania_ ma.s.sacre on the high seas reached Karibib just after occupation. Did one Teuton in the place have to suffer as a consequence even the insult of a word? No. What would the Germans have done?
General Botha's forces had crossed a desert through which it was the open boast of the enemy that it was strewn with mines and with every well poisoned. Was a single defenceless citizen of Windhuk or Karibib the worse for it after the occupation? Not one. The greater part of General Botha's forces were on a half--a quarter--an eighth rations when they made Karibib, Okahandja, Okasise, Waldau and the capital; they lived until all supplies could come up on less than one biscuit a day, a pinch or two of meal, and fresh meat.
How much looting occurred in these towns?
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