On the Heels of De Wet

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It would be an artist, indeed, who could analyse and adequately
describe the feelings of a man parading for his first night-attack.
The magnitude or insignificance of the enterprise is immaterial. The
feelings of the young soldiers from the New Cavalry Brigade as they
paraded with the hard-bitten swashbucklers, Rimington's Tigers, were
identical with those of the army advancing across the desert to the
assault at Tel-el-Kebir; of Wauchope's Highland Brigade blundering to
disaster in the slush and bushes before Magersfontein; and Hunter
Weston's handful of mounted sappers, who so boldly penetrated into the
heart of the enemy's line to destroy the railway north of
Bloemfontein. A night-attack must of necessity always be a delicate
operation. Shrouded in the mystery of darkness, men know that their
safety and the success of the enterprise is dependent upon the
sagacity and coolness of one or, at the most, two men. They must be
momentarily prepared to meet the unexpected. The smallest failure or
miscarriage--the merest chance--may lead to irretrievable disaster.
Men who can face death without flinching in the light of day often
quail at the thought of it in the darkness. The mental tension is such
that once men have been overwhelmed during a night attack, like the
beaten ram of the arena, it must be weeks, even months, before they
can be trusted to face a similar situation. No man who has ever taken
part in night operations will forget his first sensations. The
recurring misgivings bred of intense excitement. The misty
hallucinations, outcome of abnormal tension. The awful stillness of
the night. The muffled sounds of moving men, exaggerated by the
painful silence of the surroundings. You long--with a yearning which
can only be felt, not described--that something may happen to break
the overpowering monotony of this prelude to success or disaster. Some
outlet to your pent-up feelings. If only some one would shout, or the
enemy surprise you, or--thank God! relief has come,--it has begun to
rain!

As the little column of adventurers from the New Cavalry Brigade
trudged on in ghostly silence, great drops of icy rain began to
fall--harbingers of a coming storm. A shudder of satisfaction passed
through the ranks, from the "Robber" leading the forlorn-hope, with
the Intelligence officer and the leader of the Tigers beside him, to
little Meadows and his troop of the 20th Dragoons in rear. Then,
preceded by a brief ten minutes of inky darkness, the storm broke. It
does not rain in South Africa--water is voided from above in solid
sheets. A wall of beating rain pours down, obliterating the landscape
by day, intensifying the darkness by night. The column came to a halt;
the horses, unable to face the downpour, in spite of bridle, bit, and
spur, swing round their tails to meet it. And before a collar can be
turned or a coat adjusted every man in the column is drenched to the
skin. For ten minutes perhaps the deluge lasts, then fades away as
rapidly as it came. And as one by one the misty features of veldt
reappear, you can hear the passing rainstorm receding from you, still
churning the veldt surface into sticky pulp. The officers re-form the
column, and the journey is continued. But though the respite has been
short, it has been valuable; local inconvenience acts as a sedative to
the nerves. Besides, there is less silence. The track that was parched
and spongy has now become soft and slippery. Horses flounder and
slide. Wet mackintoshes swish against the animals' flanks, and hoofs
are raised with a rinsing, sucking sound. But there is man's work
afoot. As the rain-mists sufficiently clear, the "Robber" is able to
take his bearings. The head of the column has now reached the foot of
a long low-lying ridge. The end cannot be seen; but the "Robber"
explains that the farm where the Boers should be lies in a small cup
at the foot of the farther end of this ridge. The column has already
reached the place where it will be advisable to leave the horses. If
they are taken farther along, the Boer picket, which is probably
stationed on the ridge, may be disturbed. Now, even if a horse should
neigh, it would be mistaken for one of the many brood-mares belonging
to the farm. The march has been admirably timed; it still wants two
hours to daybreak. It will take fully half this time to work along the
ridge, overpower the picket if there is one, and surround the farm.

"Dismount--Number threes take over the horses." The word is passed
from man to man in whispers. There is some little noise. Exaggerated
by the situation, it sounds a babel. Can any enemy within a mile have
failed to hear it? A rifle-butt hits against a stone. A horse, either
pulled by the bit or terrified at some night-horror, backs and
plunges, and disturbs the whole section. A smothered curse, as in the
_melee_ some man's foot is trampled. Surely such a noise would wake
the dead! No; the men fall in at the foot of the hill. They are told
to lie down and wait. The horror of that waiting! There is a sound on
the side of the hill. A boulder has been shifted. The men clutch
their rifles, the click of a pistol cocking is clearly audible. Then a
form looms up. The "Robber" signals silence. The figure is
approaching. It is only the Kaffir scout, who had been sent on in
advance to locate, if possible, the picket. He comes up and hangs his
head upon his hand. He has found the picket, and this is his way of
demonstrating that the two Boers comprising it are asleep.

Harvey of Rimington's takes command. He issues his orders, first to
his own men, then to the whole. They are simple: "Fix bayonets. I will
take the Kaffir with me. When I hold up both my hands, the left
section of fours will follow me. You know what to do; mind, not a shot
is to be fired. The force will advance up the hill extended to two
paces, and halt as soon as it reaches the summit. If we are discovered
by more than the picket, Rimington's will rally on me, the 20th on
their own officer. Remember, your line of retreat must be to the
horses."

Then the advance began. Slowly the men toiled up. It seemed impossible
to make the ascent in silence. Men must trip in darkness over rough
ground--tripping men with rifles in their hands make what appears to
be a fearful clatter. By hypothesis it would seem impossible to
surprise even a sleeping picket. But you have only to be on picket
duty once to realise how full the night is of deceptive noises. In
reality the advance was made with praiseworthy silence. Just as the
top was reached, the Kaffir plucked Harvey's arm. His veldt-bred eyes
could see that which was still obscured from the white man. "Near,
near!" he whispered in the captain's ear. Harvey raised both his hands
above his head. Silently, but with the agility of cats, the four lean
Colonials followed him. Six paces on, and under the shelter of a rock
appear the forms of two men, asleep, and rolled in their blankets. It
is not necessary to describe what followed. A leap forward by four
lithe figures with shortened arms, a sinuous flash of steel, a
sickening thud and gurgle, one choking wail, and all was over, and two
farmer-soldiers had paid the extreme penalty for the betrayal of the
trust their comrades had placed in them!

Five minutes for breathing-space. Then the little line was reformed
diagonally along the table-top of the ridge. Half the game had been
won. It now remained to complete the _coup_. If the unexpected did not
happen, there was no reason why the farmhouse should not be surrounded
by daybreak. But in war it is the unexpected which does happen. Slowly
the thirty men worked along the plateau towards the point of the
ridge. Two-thirds had been traversed, when suddenly two figures
appeared against the eastern sky.

"Reliefs for the picket,--d----n!" muttered the Rimington captain, and
as the truth flashed upon him came the challenge in Dutch--

"_Wie dar?_"

"Follow me, Rimington's!" and the nearest men joined their captain in
a dash to reach the men. But it was too late. Up came the Mausers. Two
wild shots, and the relief had turned and was rushing down the hill
towards the farm. If it had been day, all might have yet been saved by
pace. But in night operations you cannot take these risks, especially
when only one man in the force knows the exact position of the
objective. Harvey rallied his men on the ridge, and even before he
could place them in position, Mausers were popping from below,
disclosing the kraals and outhouses of the farm.

"We must stop up here till daybreak. They will be gone before that.
Well, there will be no surprise of Hertzog at Houwater to-day, all
through a turn of rank bad luck!" and the Rimington captain commenced
to fill his pipe, for his long abstinence from tobacco-smoke by reason
of the night-march had been his particular grievance since the column
had left Britstown.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Hertzog.

VI.

A POOR SCENT.

"There will be no surprise of Hertzog at Houwater to-day."

The Rimington captain had summed up the results consequent upon the
night-attack with considerable accuracy, and as his party, in
obedience to orders, worked down the banks of the Ongers River
covering the right of the combined advance upon Houwater, there was
abundance of evidence to show that Hertzog and Company had little
intention of becoming enmeshed by the ponderous strategy set in motion
against them. Nor was the weather favourable. The storm which had
preceded the night-attack was one of those lowly pitched
thunder-clouds which, caught in a craterlike valley enclosed by
kopjes, revolved in a circle until it had spent itself. It took some
hours of morning sun before it was finally dissolved. Consequently
when the advance-guard of the force which was formed by the New
Cavalry Brigade topped the great sloping glacis, inclining for all the
world like an under-feature of the Sussex Downs, into the stagnant
morass which is Houwater's most prominent feature, the last Boers were
disappearing into the labyrinth of Minie Kloof beyond. But there was
just sufficient excitement to take the cold and stiffness, bred of a
miserable march, out of the bones of the men. The pom-pom unlimbered
above the drift, and spent, at an impossible range, a belt of its tiny
bombs. A spare dozen of Rimingtons, who had pushed farther forward
than the rest, lightened their bandoliers by a few cartridges, and
then, unmolested, the miniature British army marched into possession
of its _point d'appui_.

You who have only seen the British soldier at his worst, that is, when
he is buttoned into a tunic little removed in design from a
strait-waistcoat, or when the freedom of the man has been subordinated
to the lick-and-spittle polish of the dummy,--you who glory in
tin-casing for your Horse Guards, and would hoot the Guardsman bold
enough to affect a woollen muffler,--would have opened your eyes with
amazement if you could have sat on the slopes of the Houwater drift
with the staff of the New Cavalry Brigade and watched the arrival of
the co-operating columns to their common camping-ground. First came
two squadrons of Scarlet Lancers, forming the nucleus of somebody's
mobile column. No one would have accused them of being Lancers if they
had met them suddenly on the veldt. Helmets they had none. How much
time and money and thought has been spent over the service headgear
for our men! We have seen it adapted for this climate; altered to suit
that; a peak here, a bandage there. But Thomas is the best judge of
the helmet in which he prefers to campaign, and you may rest assured
that he will choose the most comfortable, if not the most suitable.
The Scarlet Lancers had been separated from their helmets for many
months. In fact, the manner in which the gay cavalry man rids himself
of his legitimate headgear and provides himself with a substitute
rather smacks of the supernatural: for instance, our own 20th Dragoon
Guards had not been in the country more than ten days, yet there was
barely a helmet to be seen amongst them. Substitutes had been found
somewhere. The more worn and disreputable the substitute the happier
the owner, despite the fact that all his past glories centred round a
shining helmet or jaunty lancer cap, irresistible in plume and polish.
But it was a great spectacle to see the survival of the fittest
squadrons of the Scarlet Lancers filing past. There are half a dozen
Cavalry Regiments against whom no one could throw a stone--the 9th and
16th Lancers are of these. But it would be invidious to particularise
too much.

"Who the h--ll are these fellows?--are they tame Boers?" chirped a
subaltern from the 20th, who for the day was galloper to the
brigadier.

A bearded ruffian, whose only costume was a flannel shirt and a pair
of seedy check trousers, but whose eye was as keen as a hawk's, and
whose shining "matchlock" had seventeen notches[24] along its stock,
caught the subaltern's query.

"Yuss," came the answer, "we are tame Boers, the very tamest. My pal
'ere is President Kroojer, this 'ere's Botter, and hi am De--e--Wet!"

Cheery fellows; after fifteen months of war there was little about
self-preservation that you could have taught them. Lean, sinewy, and
bearded kind--they represented the English fighting man at his best.
And well might the inexperienced have asked if they were Boers. Lance
and pennon were gone. Barely a tunic or regimental button remained to
the two squadrons. Their collective headgear would have disgraced a
Kaffir location, and their boots were mostly the raw-hide imitations
of the country. But they were men. Rags and dirt could not conceal
that fact. Theirs was not the dirt of sloth and sluggard. The
essentials were bright and clean. There was not a man of the 150
attempting to represent two service squadrons who had not at some
period balanced his life against his proficiency with the rifle, and
who had not realised that on service his firelock was the soldier's
best and staunchest friend. Nor were the officers easy to distinguish
from the men. A shade cleaner, perhaps; but they, too, were
rough-bearded, hard bitten by long exposure and responsibility. How
different from the exquisites of popular fancy! Gone the beauties of
effeminate adornment. Gone the studied insolence of puppyhood--that
arrogance of bearing traditional with the British officer in times of
peace. These were the men who had been eyes and ears to French's
magnificent cavalry, who had ridden unflinchingly to the relief of
Kimberley, who had more than held their own against fearsome odds at
Diamond Hill. Did you hear that boy give an order? It was a man who
spoke, and a man of resolution and understanding, yet judged by a
standard in years he should still be a Sandhurst cadet.

The regulars are followed by a squadron of Yeomanry,--the old original
yeomanry, and, 'pon one's honour! it is hard to distinguish them from
the Lancers. They, too, have been a year in the country. It takes all
that to make any mounted regiment, however educated your material. You
may make the men in less, but not the officers, and, all told, the
officers are the essential in every corps. This is illustrative of
another of our mistakes: we have sent back our Volunteers just when
they really became efficient. These very men were under orders for
home. Knowing what we know of the capabilities of young and green
troops in mounted war, we may say with confidence that the authorities
were ill advised when they failed to enforce the clause "until the end
of the war," which was part of these men's undertaking. It has been
the same all through, the exigencies of the service have been
sacrificed to satisfy garrulous impatience on the part of home-abiding
politicians.

The New Cavalry Brigade had been freshly provided with transport. Half
was very excellent mule-transport; the balance was composed of heavy
trek-waggons, with lumbering ox-teams. Futile expedient. The
disadvantages of the one outweighed the advantages of the other. It is
only a matter of weeks since a public outcry was raised--by ignorant
critics it is true--because Paris's convoy was overwhelmed in detail,
that officer having done what every other successful column commander
has done, allowed his ox-waggons to march on ahead of his more mobile
transport, in order not to delay the progress of the column. What
chance of success lies with the officer content to passively hug
ox-waggons instead of pressing on against his mobile foe? None: yet
half the column commanders have been content to parade the country as
escort to drays packed with merchandise. When a man has been found
enterprising enough to leave his ox-transport under escort, and to
form a striking arm with such part of his force as is mobile, you turn
and rend him if the dead-weight which has cramped and curtailed his
action falls into disaster. Thus, in your ignorance, you call for the
professional martyrdom of the only men who have served you honestly
and well. Why don't you strike at the system, which, when it equips
these columns, sends the commanders forth with the millstone of
ox-transport round their necks? Do you imagine that an officer,
possessed of the same dash which in the past has built up the
traditions of our mounted arm, selects to move with heavy transport
from choice? With him it can only be a Hobson's choice. He must take
what he can get or nothing. And having secured what chance will give
him, he must make the most of it or fail. If he takes risks and
succeeds, his luck will have been abnormal. If, taking the risks, he
fails once, he will, in all probability, be sacrificed to the yapping
of the curs who voice the taxpayer, or to the vanity of some less
competent senior. These sweaters give no second chances. If he steers
the middle way, and is sufficiently plausible in the tale he tells, he
may carry on to the end of the war, or the leave season; perhaps even,
if he is sufficiently cautious, he may worm his way into an honours
list. For it is the good, not the bad, that the modern system breaks.

It is one thing for the mounted men of a column to come into camp,
another for the transport. Houwater presented an ideal place for the
bivouac, with its running water, its solitary building--half farm,
half store--at the drift, and its complement of oat-straw. But the
_vlei_[25] from which the place takes its name was the very deuce for
wheeled transport. All is fair in "love and war." This being a creed
very staunchly adhered to by the private soldier when campaigning, the
mess-servants of the staff of the Cavalry Brigade saw fit in the
early morning to steal a span[26] of mules which had strayed from the
protection of their rightful owners. Now the Brigade state _fourgon_
with a span of four mules was a big enterprise, and if treated gently
might have ministered to the comfort of the staff for many months. But
no; the brigadier's servant and the mess-waiter, who was a
high-spirited and intelligent dragoon, sought to vary the _ennui_ of
the march, and to assert their superiority over the Kaffirs in the
matter of stage-driving, by taking the _fourgon_ and its half broken
team full gallop down the incline terminating in Houwater _vlei_. A
playful and exhilarating expedient, which ruined the brigadier's
spring vehicle for ever and a day, and denied the staff many home
comforts for that and some consecutive nights....

The soldier, officer or man, who finds himself without a bivouac in
the middle of a camp, experiences for the moment much the same
sensations as a "broke" man in the streets of London. Of the two, the
officer has the worse time. A private soldier will be able to
approach some one or other of the company cooks with the certainty of
a rough welcome. If he is wise he will arrive armed with some stray
piece of driftwood to add to the stock of fuel. Thus will success be
assured, for Thomas of all men is the most unselfish. In the first
instance, if he be a staff officer, he has probably too much to get
done in a short space of time to think about his creature comforts.
Then, if the ordinary channels have failed, he has probably too much
diffidence to propose himself upon the hospitality of his
fellow-comrades. In this manner is the simile of the "broke" man in
midst of London's wealth maintained. Brigadiers, of course, do not
starve; they would not, even if they possessed no _bandobust_[27] of
their own. Some squadron mess claimed the chief of the Cavalry Brigade
for the evening, and, probably, fed him well. But the juniors of his
staff were without home, and it was long past dark before the
Intelligence officer could think of food. His first duties were orders
for the morrow. The officer in supreme command had been weak enough to
have been accompanied by a cable-cart. Lord Wolseley may cavil at
correspondents and call them the curse of modern armies; but we are
constrained to think that if a tired staff-officer were consulted he
would save the cream of condemnatory epithets for the cable-cart,
which makes his night horrible with useless telegrams. The nightmare
of that midnight message, with its probable four pages of closely
written ciphers! Those fine popinjays in starched kerseys and pink
frills, who live in luxury at railway centres, think that it adds to
their dignity if they convert their most trivial messages into cipher.
Little do they consider the poor tired being whom they rob of
hard-earned rest to open out that cipher. It pleases them. They have
nothing to do in the evenings. The codeing of a message to them is of
the nature of an after-dinner game of backgammon. But to the aching
head that has to decode it in the small hours of the morning by the
fitful light of a grease-wallowing dip it is no game, no pastime. The
cable-cart may have its uses; but many a score of worn-out
staff-officers must have blessed the grass fire which has destroyed
the ground-wire in their rear, and thus given them a few hours of
unbroken rest.

After orders and the minutiae of brigade duties came intelligence. The
only building at Houwater Drift is a ramshackle half-way house--a
familiar landmark of the veldt. This _winkel_ was managed by a
half-bred German; the farm inadequately protected from the elements
half-a-dozen greasy Dutch _fraus_ of various ages and a single
decrepit black boy. Here indeed was a fund of information,--such being
the channels through which the British Intelligence usually is worked.
The Divisional Intelligence first took them in hand. Then "A" column,
then "B" column, and lastly our own ranged them before the
witness-table. It would have taken a veritable K.C. to have sorted the
truth from the aggregate of falsehood which had been arrived at by the
time it was our turn. The Intelligence officer had taken possession of
the showrooms of the _winkel_ to serve him as an office. This
Shoolbred of the veldt was but a sordid shelter--walls and counter of
mud; floor, sun-dried cow-dung and sand. Ranged upon the shelves was
a strange medley of merchandise. All edibles had been removed by the
Boers; there only remained what we believe the trade terms hard and
soft goods. A pile of stinking sheep-skins, a few rolls of
questionable longcloth, two packets of candles, some sheep-shears,
gin-traps, and a keg of tar. As the Intelligence officer wearily set
about his business of cross-examination, he was interrupted by the
entrance of the Supply officer. This youth, as has previously been
shown, was possessed of ready resource,--so much so that he annexed
the two sole remaining packets of candles before unburdening his mind.

_Supply Officer_ (_dropping the candles into the deep recess of the
pockets of his "coat-warm-British"_).[28] "Are you aware, old boy,
that we don't get any grub to-night?"

_Intelligence Officer_ (_wearily_). "And why?"

_S. O._ "The reason is quite simple. Those mess-servants have driven
the mess-cart into the _vlei_, and in the _vlei_ it will remain all
night."

_I. O._ "I can't help that. I always said that the general's man was
a fool. He is not only a fool but a d----d fool!"

_S. O._ "Now, look here. You may think that you're a useful feller and
doing a lot of good. But let me tell you that you are going over the
same ground that better men than you have already passed (_pointing to
the winkel-monger_). I have seen, at least, a round dozen of
Intelligence officers examining that man. Well, what the deuce is he
worth to you after that, either as a framer of fact or flinger of
fiction? Try and be useful. We have got to feed to-night. Now, we
can't go round to the messes and cadge for food. Nor shall we see our
mess-cart. (_The Intelligence officer nodded assent._) Then why do you
detain our only chance? Here, Mr Squarehead (_taking the winkel-monger
by the ear_), come and provide food. I have got two fowls and some
potatoes, and you and the _fraus_ between you have got to make a mess
of pottage, and be right quick about it, or you will never see another
sun rise."

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