In good company

by Coulson Kernahan

I heard afterwards that the Volunteer Subaltern of Artillery, in speaking at a Distribution of Prizes to members of his corps, the very evening following upon his one and only meeting with the Field-Marshal, made frequent use of such phrases as “When I was talking to Lord Roberts about the matter,” “What I told Lord Roberts ought to be done,” and so on, no doubt to his own satisfaction and possibly with the result that the members of the audience were for the first time made to realise what a very important figure he was in the military world. Later on, however, some one who knew the facts wrote to him suggesting that the book for which the world was literally panting was a work from his pen entitled My Recollections of Lord Roberts, and when the Boer War broke out, a telegram, purporting to come from Lord Roberts, urging the Volunteer Artilleryman to take supreme command in South Africa, was dispatched to him by a playful friend. I have no doubt the young man, who will now be getting elderly, would be the first to laugh at his own youthful self-confidence, and that if this paper should by any chance meet his eye, he will pardon me for thus, and for the first time, telling the tale in print.

Here is an instance of Lord Roberts’ kindness to and interest in younger men. A Territorial Captain—his brother, an officer in the Regular Army, told me the story—was taking part in a Field Day with his battalion in Berkshire. His instructions were that he was to hold a certain line of country at all costs. It so happened that the attack developed in a direction which made it necessary for him hurriedly to advance his men to a flank and away from his reserves, whom he had posted where they were under cover and out of sight of the enemy. The young officer (he was a junior subaltern recently joined) in command of the reserves evidently had very mistaken ideas in regard to discipline. His idea appeared to be that discipline consists in staying where you were originally told to stay, like the “boy on the burning deck” in the poem of Casabianca, until receiving orders to another effect. Needless to say, the very reverse is true. Soldiers to-day are taught clearly to observe events and to act on their own initiative should unexpected developments arise. Seeing that the tide of war was drifting the Firing Line and its supports away from the reserves, the duty of the officer commanding the reserves was, not to remain stodgily where he had originally been placed (to do that would be less obedience to discipline than a breach of discipline), but while keeping the reserves directly in signalling communication with the Firing Line, as well as under cover and out of sight of the enemy, so to alter his own dispositions as to be ready to reinforce and to reinforce quickly when called upon to do so.

This, however, he failed to do, and when his superior officer, finding himself hard pressed, signalled for the reserves, there was no reply.

Unfortunately there was neither a galloper nor a cyclist at hand to carry a message. “If I don’t get my reserves here in half an hour,” he said, “I shall lose the position, and the loss of this position may mean, probably will mean, victory for the enemy all along the line. It shan’t be so if I can help it. Now what can I do?”

Hurriedly but keenly he scanned the rolling Berkshire down around him. Towards the north, on the whity-brown high road that curved outward in a huge half-circle from the point where he was standing, he saw a cloud of dust. “A motor! and coming this way!” he exclaimed. “Follow me, Brown.” (This to a non-commissioned officer.) Stooping low, so as not to offer a target to the enemy, he sprinted northwards in a line which intersected the high road, at the nearest point which the oncoming car must pass.

The motor was almost on him as he reached the road, and leaping into the centre held up his hand. “I beg your pardon, sir,” he said to the occupant, “but I’m in command of troops holding this position. We’re attacked in force, and my reserves are some distance away along the road in the direction you have come, near a copse. I’ve signalled for reinforcements, but they have not kept up their communications. I have neither a galloper nor a cyclist. If I get my reinforcements here in half an hour, I can hold the position. If I don’t, I lose it, and losing it means everything to the enemy. I wonder whether you’d be so very good as to lend me your car for a few minutes to carry a message!” “With the greatest pleasure,” said the occupant. Turning to the chauffeur he said, “You are entirely at this officer’s disposal. I shall walk on, and you can pick me up when he has done with you.” As he spoke he got out of the car, and as he lifted his cap, in response to the young officer’s salute and hasty word of thanks, the latter recognised Field-Marshal Lord Roberts.

A day or two later, the great soldier was celebrating his eightieth birthday, and received a letter from the officer in question. It was to remind Lord Roberts of the incident, to apologise for the liberty the young officer had taken in stopping the car, to thank him warmly for his kindness, and to mention that the reserves had been brought up at the double and in time to save the position. The officer concluded by asking to be allowed to congratulate the Field-Marshal on attaining his eightieth year and to express the hope that the great soldier might be spared to celebrate many similar anniversaries.

A reply came almost by return of post.

Dear Captain ——,

Many thanks for your letter and kind congratulations on my 80th birthday. I was delighted to be of assistance, and am even more delighted to learn the successful result of that assistance. You did the right and only thing in stopping my car. If ever you are this way and disengaged, I hope you will call and give me the pleasure of making the further acquaintance of so good and resourceful a soldier.

Yours truly,
Roberts.

After my first meeting with Lord Roberts at the Vagabond Club, I saw no more of him—except for a mere handshake and “How-do-you-do?” at a military function—for many years. Then I chanced, in April, 1910, to contribute to the London Quarterly Review an article on National Defence. It was addressed specially to Nonconformists, one of the opening paragraphs being as follows: