We Tried To
Buy Grass For Our Ponies, And Were Met With Pitying Contempt; We
Tried To Buy Food For Ourselves, And Were Met With Open Scorn.
I
went to the only hotel which was open in the place, and offered large
sums for a cup of tea.
"Put up your money," said the Scotchman in charge, sharply. "What's
the good of your money? Can your horse eat money? Can you eat
money? Very well, then, put it away."
The great dramatic moment after the raising of the siege was the
entrance into Ladysmith of the relieving column. It was a
magnificent, manly, and moving spectacle. You must imagine the dry,
burning heat, the fine, yellow dust, the white glare of the sunshine,
and in the heat and glare and dust the great interminable column of
men in ragged khaki crowding down the main street, twenty-two
thousand strong, cheering and shouting, with the sweat running off
their red faces and cutting little rivulets in the dust that caked
their cheeks. Some of them were so glad that, though in the heaviest
marching order, they leaped up and down and stepped out of line to
dance to the music of the bagpipes. For hours they crowded past,
laughing, joking, and cheering, or staring ahead of them, with lips
wide apart, panting in the heat and choking with the dust, but always
ready to turn again and wave their helmets at Sir George White.
It was a pitiful contrast which the two forces presented. The men of
the garrison were in clean khaki, pipe-clayed and brushed and
polished, but their tunics hung on them as loosely as the flag around
its pole, the skin on their cheek-bones was as tight and as yellow as
the belly of a drum, their teeth protruded through parched, cracked
lips, and hunger, fever, and suffering stared from out their eyes.
They were so ill and so feeble that the mere exercise of standing was
too severe for their endurance, and many of them collapsed, falling
back to the sidewalk, rising to salute only the first troop of each
succeeding regiment. This done, they would again sink back and each
would sit leaning his head against his musket, or with his forehead
resting heavily on his folded arms. In comparison the relieving
column looked like giants as they came in with a swinging swagger,
their uniforms blackened with mud and sweat and bloodstains, their
faces brilliantly crimsoned and blistered and tanned by the dust and
sun. They made a picture of strength and health and aggressiveness.
Perhaps the contrast was strongest when the battalion of the Devons
that had been on foreign service passed the "reserve" battalion which
had come from England. The men of the two battalions had parted five
years before in India, and they met again in Ladysmith, with the men
of one battalion lining the streets, sick, hungry, and yellow, and
the others, who had been fighting six weeks to reach it, marching
toward them, robust, red-faced, and cheering mightily. As they met
they gave a shout of recognition, and the men broke ranks and ran
forward, calling each other by name, embracing, shaking hands, and
punching each other in the back and shoulders. It was a sight that
very few men watched unmoved. Indeed, the whole three hours was one
of the most brutal assaults upon the feelings that it has been my lot
to endure. One felt he had been entirely lifted out of the politics
of the war, and the question of the wrongs of the Boers disappeared
before a simple propostiton of brave men saluting brave men.
Early in the campaign, when his officers had blundered, General White
had dared to write: "I alone am to blame." But in this triumphal
procession twenty-two thousand gentlemen in khaki wiped that line off
the slate, and wrote, "Well done, sir," in its place, as they passed
before him through the town he had defended and saved.
III - THE NIGHT BEFORE THE BATTLE
The Boer "front" was at Brandfort, and, as Lord Roberts was advancing
upon that place, one already saw in the head-lines, "The Battle of
Brandfort." But before our train drew out of Pretoria Station we
learned that the English had just occupied Brandfort, and that the
Boer front had been pushed back to Winburg.
We decided that Brandfort was an impossible position to hold anyway,
and that we had better leave the train at Winburg. We found some
selfish consolation for the Boer repulse, in the fact that it
shortened our railroad journey by one day. The next morning when we
awoke at the Vaal River Station the train despatcher informed us that
during the night the "Rooineks" had taken Winburg, and that the
burghers were gathered at Smaaldel.
We agreed not to go to Winburg, but to stop off at Smaaldel. We also
agreed that Winburg was an impossible position to hold. When at
eleven o'clock the train reached Kroonstad, we learned than Lord
Roberts was in Smaaldel. It was then evident that if our train kept
on and the British army kept on there would be a collision. So we
stopped at Kroonstad. In talking it over we decided that, owing to
its situation, Smaaldel was an impossible position to hold.
The Sand River, which runs about forty miles south of Kroonstad, was
the last place in the Free State at which the burghers could hope to
make a stand, and at the bridge where the railroad spans the river,
and at a drift ten miles lower down, the Boers and Free Staters had
collected to the number of four thousand. Lord Roberts and his
advancing column, which was known to contain thirty-five thousand
men, were a few miles distant from the opposite bank of the Sand
River. There was an equal chance that the English would attempt to
cross at the drift or at the bridge. We thought they would cross at
the drift, and stopped for the night at Ventersburg, a town ten miles
from the river.
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