Part 12 (2/2)

[Footnote 10: _Methodist Times_, May 17, 1900.]

='I Must Go to the Muster Roll.'=

'He notes as he pa.s.ses along a pathetic little incident. Bugler Longhurst, who was mortally wounded in the fight on April 4, died soon after, and shortly before he pa.s.sed away he sat up in bed and said to his orderly, ”Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ give me my uniform. I hear them mustering.

There are the drums! I must go to the muster roll. Hus.h.!.+”--and sinking back he died.

'The advance for a long time was a continuous battle. Even the transport had a warm time of it. On one occasion a forty-pounder sh.e.l.l struck a transport wagon and exploded, cutting off the native driver's leg as he sat upon the box. The poor fellow showed conspicuous courage. ”Don't mind me, lads,” he shouted, ”drive on.” They carried him to the operating tent, and he was singing all the way. Shortly after his operation he died.'

='I'm not Afraid, only my Hand Shakes.'=

The Sterkstroom column were fighting at last, and bravely they bore themselves. It was not their fault if disaster dogged their steps. No braver men could be found than those under Gatacre's command. And yet they, like the rest, had a great objection to the pom-poms. 'I'm not afraid,' said one lad, when that strange sound began and the sh.e.l.ls came rattling around. 'I'm not afraid, only my hand shakes.'

It reminds us of a story told of a certain officer who was going into action for the first time. His legs were shaking so that he could hardly sit his horse. He looked down at them, and with melancholy but decided voice said, 'Ah! you are shaking, are you? You would shake a great deal more if you knew where I was going to take you to-day; so pull yourselves together. Advance!'

We are not told whether the legs so addressed at once stopped shaking, or whether they were taken still shaking into the battle. But this we do know, that the highest type of courage is not incompatible with nervousness, and that the courage that can conquer shaking nerves, and take them all unwilling where they do not want to go, is the courage that can conquer anything. The '_I_' that is not afraid even when the '_hand_' shakes, is the real man after all, and the man of exquisite nervous temperament may be an even greater hero than the man who does not know fear.

Sir Herbert Chermside had succeeded General Gatacre, who was returning home, and the column was now joining hands with General French, and coming under the superior command of Sir Leslie Rundle. It was stern work every day, and the chaplains, like the rest, were continually under fire. Services could not be held, but night by night the chaplains went the round of the picquets and spoke cheering words to them in their loneliness, and, day by day, in the fight and out of it, they preached Christ from man to man, ministering to the wounded, closing the eyes of the dying and burying the dead, until at last they too reached Bloemfontein and cheered the grand old British flag.

Chapter XI

BLOEMFONTEIN

'Look, father, the sky is English,' said a little girl as they drove home to Bloemfontein in the glowing sunset.

'English, my dear,' said her father, 'what do you mean?'

'Why,' replied the little one, 'it is all red, white, and blue.'

And in truth, red, white, and blue was everywhere. The inhabitants of Bloemfontein must have exhausted the stock of every shop. They must have ransacked old stores, and patched together material never intended for bunting. Wherever you looked, there were the English colours. No wonder to the imagination of the little one even the sun was greeting the victorious English, and painting the western sky red, white, and blue.

We cannot, of course, suppose that all these people who greeted the victorious British army enthusiastically were really so enthusiastic as they appeared. But 'nothing succeeds like success,' and those who had cursed us yesterday, blessed us to-day.

=The Advantages of Bloemfontein.=

It is a matter for thankfulness that the town was spared the horrors of a bombardment. It was far too beautiful to destroy. Of late years, as money had poured into the treasury, much had been expended upon public buildings. The Parliament Hall, for instance, had been erected at a cost of 80,000. The Grey College was a building of which any city might be proud. The Post Office was quite up to the average of some large provincial town in this country, and several other imposing buildings proved that the capital of the Orange Free State, though small, was 'no mean city.'

It was literally a town on the veldt. The veldt was around it everywhere. It showed up now and then in the town where it was least expected, as though to a.s.sert its independence and remind the dwellers in the city that their fathers were its children.

Wonderfully healthy is this little city. Situated high above sea level, with a climate so bracing and life-giving that the phthisis bacillus can hardly live in it, it seemed to our soldiers, after their long march across the veldt, a veritable City of Refuge. Alas! how soon it was to be turned into a charnel house!

=The March to Bloemfontein.=

It was to this oasis in the South African desert that Lord Roberts marched his troops after the surrender of Cronje. It had been a terrible march from the Modder River, and its severity was maintained to the end. The difficulty of transport was great, and sickness was beginning to tell upon the troops. The river water, rendered poisonous by the bodies of men and cattle from Cronje's camp, and the horrible filth of his laager, were responsible for what followed. The men for the most part kept up until the march was over. They had determined to reach Bloemfontein at all costs, and many of them in all probability lost their lives through that determination. They ought to have given up long before they did, but struggled on until, rendered weak by their prolonged exertions, they had no strength to fight the disease which had fastened upon them.

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