On the Heels of De Wet
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The Intelligence Officer >> On the Heels of De Wet
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"Very likely. Here, Mr Intelligence, just you get on your horse and
gallop up to the main body. Tell Colonel Washington that I want to
send an officer on to the advance squadron, now twenty-five miles in
front of us: would he be so kind as to send one back to me. Don't
waste time!"
Down the steep hillside, threading through the rumbling mule-trollies,
with their teams zigzagging in the throes of a heavy drift, and their
groups of chattering drivers, whose black polished faces are aglow
with negroid bonhomie. "_Aihu, Aihu. Bom-Bom. Scellum_[13] Oom Paul.
_Scellum_ President Steyn." Then a crack from the great 12-foot
whip-thong, sounding like a well-timed volley. At the bottom of the
incline a small spruit. There on the bank stands Willem the Zulu. A
dilapidated coaching-beaver on his head. A square foot of bronzed
chest showing between the white facings of an open infantry tunic. His
nether limbs encased in a pair of dragoon overalls, with vivid green
patches on the knees. Was there ever such a picture of savage good
nature and childishness as the giant Willem swung the great bamboo
haft of his whip above his head, and chided or exhorted his team
straining in the drift! "Come up, Buller," to a favourite ass.
"Kruger, you _scellum_," to a refractory lead, while the great thong
cracked like a pistol as the leather hissed between the culprit's ears
without touching a hair on its hide.
Splash through the drift. "D--n it, sir, can't you let a horse water
in peace." And as you feel the springy Karoo beneath your animal's
stride, you catch the lament of some officer whom you have hustled in
the drift.
That first gallop in the morning! Although we who have been out here
for months may hate the very mention of the veldt, yet if we live to
go home we shall live to regret that we ever left it. We may curse its
boundless wastes--curse that endless rise which so often has lain
between our tired bodies and the evening bivouac; but the curses will
die over the rail of an ocean steamer and with the fading lights of
Cape Town, while the memory of the exhilarating air, the freedom, the
stirring adventure lurking in every dip and donga of that wind-swept,
sun-dried, war-racked expanse of steppe, will live with us for ever.
Who can forget those autumn mornings, when the horse, influenced by
the same exhilaration as his rider, races across the spongy soil;
playfully shies at a half-hidden ant-heap; with cat-like agility
avoids the dangerous bear-earth; when all seems strong, and young, and
full of life; when war is forgotten, until the rocket-bird falls
slanting across your path, and its plaintive note calls back to your
memory the whine of the Mauser bullet! Yes, it is good to be a
soldier. The chances are heavy; but, all told, it is worth it.
"Where the devil are you galloping to? Don't you know that you
shouldn't approach mounted troops at that pace?"
You feel inclined to tell the cavalry colonel, fresh from the Curragh,
that we had left all that behind eighteen months ago. But discipline
rules experience, and automatically the respectful hand is up to the
helmet-peak.
"The general's compliments, sir. He wishes to send an officer on at
once with a message to Major Twine. Will you kindly detail one of
your officers. He is to come back with me to the general at once."
"Oh, you are from the general, are you? Here, Sturt," turning to his
adjutant, "send Mr Meadows back with this officer to the general. And
you, sir, don't you in future come galloping up like that into my
regiment."
"Very good, sir."
* * * * *
"Now, Mr Intelligence, I don't want you here any more. You have got to
find out something about this road. I shall expect you to know all
about those farms by this evening. So get along with your robbers. You
can call yourself an egg-and-milk patrol, if you like. I should like
some eggs for breakfast. Unless we strike Burghers, I halt at the
first convenient water after eleven--from eleven until two. Go and
find that water, and don't get shot."
Back again to the front. By throwing a circle the main body is
avoided, and ten minutes' canter brings you to the advance-guard. To
the brain of the advance-guard would have been perhaps a more truthful
statement, for the subaltern commanding the leading troop is riding
alone along the post-cart road. His men are but dots strung out on
either flank like buoys in the Hoogly. The subaltern himself is full
of importance, grievances, and map-study.
_Subaltern._ "Why haven't you given me a guide?"
_Intelligence Officer._ "There is only one road, and that is as clear
as a pikestaff."
_Sub._ "It is the principle that I go on."
_I. O._ "Well, continue to go on it. You are doing all right."
_Sub._ "That is not the point. I ought to have a guide and an
interpreter. This is not the only road in the whole bally country, I
presume?"
_I. O._ "Well, here we are. There are five of us. You only have to
command us. That's what we are here for."
The subaltern with evident disapproval took stock of the Intelligence
officer and his following--the Tiger and three nondescript black boys.
_Sub._ "Have you been here before?"
_I. O._ "Never."
_Sub._ "Have your boys?"
_I. O._ "I cannot say. They speak no known language!"
_Sub._ "Great Heavens! I call it murder to send us out like this."
A dragoon sergeant galloped in from the right flank.
_Sergeant_ (_in great state of excitement_). "Please, sir, mounted men
have just crossed our front."
_Sub._ "Which way?--how many were there?"
_Sergeant._ "About five thousand, sir!"
_Sub._ "Great Caesar's ghost! Five thousand!--did you count them,
sergeant?"
_Sergeant._ "No, sir; nobody saw them, sir: it was only their tracks.
There are so many they are all over the place, so I think that there
must be about four or five thousand!"
_I. O._ "I'll send my men to look at them!"
_Sub._ "Yes, do. I'll go too; but I will first send a note back to the
column."
_I. O._ "I wouldn't do that yet. It may only be a herd of springbok!"
The subaltern did not disguise his look of scorn at this reflection.
But John the Kaffir, with the aid of the Tiger, announced that the
tracks in question had been made on the previous day by Major Twine's
squadron--perhaps eighty strong. So much for circumstantial evidence.
But this is nothing. It is not fair to judge new troops on their first
day on the veldt. If that sergeant is alive to-day, you might stake
such credit at the bank as you possess that he would not only give you
the correct number to within five of the group which made the spoor,
but would also give a fair description of the nature of the party and
the pace at which they had travelled. Such is experience.
At eleven o'clock, except that the ridge of hill had been left behind,
it seemed that no impression had been made upon the great waste of
Karoo in front of us. But the road led down into a pretty little glen,
formed by the shelving banks of a tiny river. In the early days some
wandering Voortrekker had chanced upon the fascinating spot, had
marked down the crystal stream and fertile grazing. Here he had
out-spanned his team, drawn fine with days of trekking, and his
bivouac had grown into a permanent abode. Here he had lived and died,
and no doubt his great-grandchild now owned the pretty little
homestead where the column was to make its midday halt. All Dutch
homesteads are the same, yet there are not two alike, which is a
paradox in which every one who has trekked across the veldt will
agree. There are the same kraals and cattle-runs. The home plantation
surrounded with stone walls. The same outhouses and forage-lofts. The
artesian well, with its fluttering windmill. The dam with dirty water,
the little low-roofed dumpy dwelling, washed white, half-swing doors,
low stoep, and trellis front. It is in their topographical
surroundings only that they differ. The one will stand bleak and
exposed upon a dreary plain, the other will nestle coyly behind a
grove of pointed gum-trees in some kloof or gully. Chance and nature
alone decide if in structure and setting they please the eye. Man is
indifferent. A house is to shield him from the elements, not to
improve the landscape or impress the passer-by.
Although the Intelligence officer knew little about the science of his
new office, yet he had common-sense, which is a soldier's most
valuable attribute, and he knew better after eighteen months of war
than to ride haphazard into a farm-house, even though the farm-house
was in Cape Colony. He borrowed two men from the advance-guard, and,
with the aid of the Tiger and his boys, reconnoitred the environs
before he sent back to the general to tell him that he had found an
ideal spot for the midday halt. Then as the advance-guard occupied the
nearest eminences, he handed his horse over to one of the boys and
walked up to the stoep of the farm-house. The farmer and his _frau_
stood on the verandah to welcome him, and, as is their wont, their
family of girls of all ages crowded in the open door behind their
parents to gain a view of the Kharkis. Just as the inevitable
hand-shake had taken place, up cantered the Tiger.
"Here we are, sir. These are the kind of people we have to deal with,"
and he produced two gaudily framed pictures--President Kruger and
President Steyn. "Our worthy host made a miscalculation this morning,
for I found a Kaffir girl hiding these in the bushes."
"What do you mean?"
"Don't you see, sir, yesterday morning a commando was here. Then our
loyal friend had these two pictures hanging up in his parlour. Last
evening the squadron of 20th Dragoons passed through. Uncle here saw
them coming, so he hid away Oom Paul and Steyn and put the Queen and
the Prince of Wales on the wall. After the squadron had gone he
expected his commando back again, so up go the Presidents. We came
along first, so there had to be another transformation-scene, which I
have partially disturbed. I'll bet my bottom dollar that their Royal
Highnesses are now adorning the parlour." (Sinking his voice.) "It's a
very fair weather-cock, sir; we are not a hundred miles from a pretty
strong commando. It must be under some influential leader, or we
shouldn't have this little burlesque."
The farmer smiled benignly and pressed his hospitality upon the
troops. Nor had the Tiger been mistaken. There, sure enough, upon the
walls of the sitting-room reposed coloured portraits of the late Queen
and King Edward, while, as the Intelligence officer stepped into the
room, a strapping daughter sat down to the piano and played the first
bars of the National Anthem. Poor subterfuge, since the damsel had
overlooked the Free State favour pinned upon her breast!
"Eggs--butter? Yes, they had both; they would only be too glad--would
not the general take food with them?"
_Click-clock! Click-clock!_[14]
The main body had just come in, the gunners were watering their
horses, the Dragoons taking out their bits. The gunners knew what it
meant, and the little major, who for some reason had undone his
gaiter, shouted, without changing his attitude, the only necessary
order, "Hook in!" To the Dragoons the muffled reports meant nothing.
For all they knew or cared at the moment that hollow echoing rhythm
might have been a housewife beating carpets. But the General, the
Intelligence officer, and the Tiger knew.
_Click-clock, click-clock!_
Here came the news. A heavy dragoon, sweating from every pore, his
face portraying the satisfaction of a man first shot over, came
galloping in. He handed to the general a slip of paper from the
subaltern in command of the advance-guard:--
"11.55. Enemy firing on my left flanking patrol--about fifty mounted
men advancing towards me. I am on a rise 500 yards to the south-west
of the farmhouse."
"That is a good boy," said the brigadier musingly, as he swung round
on his heel and took in the topography of our position at a glance. "A
very clear report. Here! you tell the officer commanding the pom-pom
to take his gun up on to that rise. And you" (turning to another of
his staff), "tell Colonel Washington to send a squadron with the
pom-pom! Wait, don't be in a hurry; hear me out, please. Tell him that
the squadron is to extend, take the rise at a gallop--dismount just
before it reaches the top. Now you may go."
Then turning to the chief of the staff, "Have you got a match? Thanks.
Now, tell Freddy[15] to send two of his guns on to that rise south of
the dam. Send a troop with him. I will be here with the rest to await
developments!"
"Order given, sir!" and the Intelligence officer touched his cap.
"Good. Now you go with the pom-pom. I shall be here; let me know
developments. Get along. Don't argue!"
Already the pom-pom is trotting out of the farmhouse enclosure and the
squadron of Dragoons extending on the plain beyond. The faces of the
gunners are as impassive as if they were about to gallop past at a
review. They have been doing this sort of thing for months; it has no
novelty for them. But with the Dragoons it is different. This is their
first engagement; you can see it in the countenances of the men
nearest you. The excitement which whitens men's cheeks and makes every
action angular and awkward.
"Second Squadron 20th Dragoon Guards--Gallop!"
"Pom-pom--Gallop!" comes the echo.
The Boers must be close up, for the advance-guard is falling back.
They are coming back for all they are worth. It will be a race between
us and the enemy for the possession of the ridge; please Providence
that we may be there first, for of a truth he who loses will pay the
stake. The officers realise this, and sitting down to their work they
make the pace. The wild line careering behind them suits itself to
their lead; instinctively in its excitement and inexperience it closes
inwards. Only 200 yards more. The sky-line is clear and defined. No
heads have appeared as yet. One hundred yards! Now we are under the
rise, the horses feel the hill--a few seconds and we shall know who
has won the race. "Steady, men, steady!" Up goes the squadron leader's
arm. "Halt! Dismount!" A chaotic second as the frenzied line reins in.
"'Number Threes.' Where are the 'Number Threes'?"--"Way for the
pom-pom." The straining team crashes through the line. The dismounted
troopers follow their officers up the slope. A moment of suspense--and
a long-drawn breath. We are first. There are the Boers dismounting a
hundred yards away. "Action front, the pom-pom." "Down men,
down!"--come the hoarse orders, and a ripple of fire crackles along
the summit of the rise. "Let them have the whole belt."
_Pom-pom-pom-pom-pom-pom!_ The little gun reels and quivers as it
belches forth its stream of spiteful bombs. For a moment the Boers
return the fire. Then they rush for their horses, and in as many
seconds as it takes to light a cigarette are galloping _ventre a
terre_ across the plain in an ever-extending fan. The merciless lead
pursues them. The Dragoons spring to their feet to facilitate rapidity
of fire, while the pom-pom churns the dry dust of the veldt into
little whirlwinds among the flying horsemen. Five hundred yards away
stands a kopje. In three minutes the last of the Boers have placed it
between them and the British fire--except for the three or four that
lie motionless upon the plain.
"Now we shall have it!" and the pom-pom captain turns to the squadron
commander. "I advise you to make your men lie down again. I'm going to
man-handle my gun down the slope."
"_Click-clock, click-clock, click-clock!_" go the Mausers. The Boers
are on the top of the kopje. It is to be their turn now. No; there is
a roar behind the farm, then another, and another. Then three little
white cloud-balls open out on the lip of the kopje.
"Good little Freddy!" soliloquises the pom-pom captain as he snaps his
glasses into their case. "He was watching them. I must get my beauty
to the end of this rise, to catch them as they leave."--"Pom-pom,
limber up!"
_Boom-boom-boom._ Three more little puffs of white over the kopje.
_Click-clock_ once, and the brush was over. What was it worth? Four
mangled rebels on the veldt, and one stalwart dragoon, with white
drawn face and sightless eyes turned to the beautiful blue of heaven!
The brigadier cantered up to the rise. A section of Horse Artillery
rumbled up after him. "Look here," he said to the squadron leader,
"you must get your men on to that kopje: they are not worth
pursuing--there are not more than twenty of them. If I were you I
should open out, divide and gallop round both flanks of the kopje;
it's open veldt beyond, and we'll look after you from this ridge. You
won't see any more of them than their tails. Don't pursue beyond 3000
yards. My orders are to go to Britstown, not to wear my horses out
over scallywag snipers!"
* * * * *
"We must push on and get touch with our loose squadron to-night," said
the brigadier, as he and his staff made a hasty midday meal off tinned
sausages and eggs cooked by the terrified women of the farmhouse. "I
wonder what has happened to that poor little subaltern boy that I sent
on this morning. Ah! here's Mr Intelligence direct from the
bloodstained field; now we shall know the damage!"
_Brigadier._ "Any Boer wounded?"
_Intelligence Officer._ "Yes, sir; two, and two killed."
_B._ "Are the wounded talkative?"
_I. O._ "One is too far gone, sir; the other is quite communicative."
_B._ "Well, what has he got to say?"
_I. O._ "He lies about himself. Swears that he is a Free Stater; but
as a matter of fact his name is Pretorius, and he is a son of the
farmer from whose wife we got our guides last night. By the merest
chance we took a photograph of the farmer's two sons out of an album
we found at the farm. And here is one of them wounded to-day. From
his account it appears that a man called Lotter is here with a
commando, and that he and his have just brought off rather a bad
thing. Lotter's commando only joined the rebels returning from
Nieuwjaarsfontein about an hour ago. The rebels knew that our advance
squadron was at this farm last night, and when they saw us here, they
mistook us for Major Twine, and knowing his strength attacked in good
heart."
_B._ "I thought it was something of that kind. Well, we need not eat
our hearts out about Twine. Those swine won't be taking any more
to-day, especially now that they have reason to believe that we are
about. But we won't waste time; we'll go on in half an hour. Send word
round, and then come and have some food!"
* * * * *
As the shadows began to grow long across the level of stunted Karoo we
had placed another ten miles behind us on the road to Britstown. Never
a further sign did we see that day of our enemy. But this is typical
of this free fighting on the open veldt. Your enemy comes upon you
like a dust-devil--he appears, strikes, wins or loses, and then
disappears again as suddenly as he came. You fight your little battle,
bury your dead, shake yourselves, and forget all about the incident.
This, it may be assumed, for the last year has been the nature of the
life which all mounted men have led out here.
Just before the sun set, enshrouded in a curtain of rising mist, we
reached a great ridge of table-land. A particularly wild and forsaken
tract of country.
"We shall have to halt at the first water," said the brigadier. "What
an unholy place to camp in! Well, if there are no Boers it doesn't
matter. It's lucky that we had a turn-up against those fellows to-day.
They will hardly stomach a night-attack with the echo of a pom-pom
chorus still ringing in their ears. Is that a flag?"
The advance-guard were beginning to show like stunted tree-trunks upon
the sky-line on our front. Yes; it was a flag. There was work for the
lumbering dragoon signaller again. Slowly he spelt out the message:
"No enemy have been seen. Ridge is clear. Right flanking patrol had
touch with rear troop of Major Twine's squadron, now moving on
Nieuwjaarsfontein. Lieutenant Meadows, rejoined, reports Major Twine's
squadron seen several bodies of enemy; his squadron has been sniped,
but not seriously engaged. Country very open on far side of ridge.
Good camping-ground and water at foot of ridge."
"Good business!" said the brigadier, turning to his chief of staff.
"Will you canter up and mark out a camp? It's a great relief to find
that that advance squadron hasn't been scuppered."
A more dismal camping-ground could not have been found. The fair veldt
seemed to have vanished. Instead of a sprinkling of farms, there was
only one human habitation within sight--a miserable edifice of mud and
unbaked bricks belonging to a Boer shepherd of the lowest type. The
dam was a natural depression formed by what appeared to have been the
crater of some long-extinct volcano. The country surrounding it was of
the roughest, and to make the situation more depressing, with sundown
great banks of cloud had gathered in the west. The brigadier might
well be anxious for his small force of raw troops in such a fastness,
and it is easy to appreciate the feeling which prompted him to
personally post the night pickets. But raw troops, raw transport, all
will settle down in time, and an hour after sundown the men were
having their food.
Before the main body moved into camp the Tiger had made a discovery.
He had found a wounded Boer in the shepherd's shanty. A stalwart young
Dutchman, with his right hand horribly shattered by a pom-pom shell.
The youth was in great pain, and, as the Boer so often has proved, was
very communicative under his hurt. He was a Free Stater from
Philippolis, and belonged to Judge Hertzog's commando. He was one of
fifteen scouts sent by Hertzog, under a commandant called Lotter, to
pick up the Richmond rebels and take them down to Graaf Reinet, where
De Wet's invaders had orders to concentrate, before undertaking the
more desperate venture of the invasion. He indorsed the other wounded
man's version of the attack they had made upon us in the morning, and
he also volunteered the information that Brand, Hertzog, and
Pretorius were due to attack Britstown--our destination--this very
evening. This information so far interested the brigadier that he
ordered an officer's patrol from the 20th Dragoon Guards to leave camp
at 3 A.M. and ride right through to Britstown without a halt, so as to
arrive there by nine or ten in the morning. It was important to know
if Britstown had been attacked, since until the concentration took
place on the morrow the garrison there was weak: it was also important
that the general officer commanding the combined movement should know
of the deflection from Hertzog's commando which we had encountered.
Lieutenant Meadows, having proved so successful in avoiding the enemy
in the morning, was again entrusted with the mission, and he was given
Stephanus as his guide.
* * * * *
The gathering clouds did not prove simply a seasonable warning. A
great icy blast swept up the valley, driving a broad belt of stinging
dust before it, and the bivouac was smitten through and through by a
South African dust-storm. Five minutes of fierce gale, with lightning
that momentarily dispelled the night, then a pause--the herald of
coming rain. A few great ice-cold drops smote like hail on the
tarpaulin shelter that served headquarters for a mess-tent. Then
followed five minutes of a deluge such as you in England cannot
conceive. A deluge against which the stoutest oil-skin is as
blotting-paper. A rain which seems also to entice fountains from the
earth beneath you. In ten minutes all is over. The stars are again
demurely winking above you, and all that you know of the storm is that
you see the vast diminishing cloud, revealed in the west by the fading
lightning-flashes, and that you have not a dry possession either in
your kit or on your person.
"Not much fear of sleeping sentries to-night," said the chief of the
staff as we cowered round a fire under the waggon-sail.
"No; and it is just as well: it is on these sleepless nights that
'brother'[16] is fond of showing himself," answered the brigadier. "I
don't like all these Free Staters about. They may be able to stir up
the new crop of rebels into doing something desperate. Raw guerillas,
with a leaven of hard-bitten cases, are always a source of danger. But
I think that we worked our own salvation in the skirmish this morning.
They would hardly believe that we should have such a small force with
so many guns. No; our luck was in to-day, when they discovered us
instead of Twine's squadron. We shall make something out of the 20th.
They are the right stuff: that squadron went for that rise to-day in
splendid style. The Boer cannot stand galloping. I may be a
crank--they believe that I am one at Pretoria--but I am convinced that
I have discovered the true Mounted Infantry formation for the sort of
fighting that we are now experiencing out here. If you find your enemy
in any position that you can gallop over, without riding your horse to
a standstill, go for him in extended order. You will get more results
from an enterprise of this kind than from a week of artillery and
dismounted attack. I hear that D. claims to have originated this
formation. Why, I was practising it with my fellows in Natal before
D. was born, or rather when he was an infant in the knowledge of war.
I am as convinced that I am right as I am that the rifle is the
cavalry-man's arm. It is not for shock tactics that you require to
mount men nowadays: the use of a horse is to get into the best
fire-position in the shortest possible time. The battles of the future
will be decided by rifles and machine-guns, not by lance and sabre.
There's heresy for you; but it's my honest conviction!"
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