“The Boers are simply senseless idiots to go on destroying their country.”
What would he have said of the Irish of twenty years later?
After his return from South Africa I was much amused by the account he gave us of receiving the O.M. medal from King Edward, who was ill at the time. When he arrived at Buckingham Palace he was taken to the King’s bedroom, but kept waiting behind a large screen at the entrance in company with Queen Alexandra, who kept exclaiming, “This is most extraordinary!” At last they were admitted to the royal presence, when the King drew out the order from under his pillow. The recipient had evidently been kept waiting while somebody went to fetch it.
I have other recollections of Lord Kitchener at Osterley, though I cannot exactly date them. One Sunday some of us had been to church, and on our return found George Peel extended in a garden chair, looking positively white with anxiety. He confided to us that Kitchener and M. Jusserand of the French Embassy had been marching up and down near the Lake at the bottom of the garden violently discussing Egypt and Fashoda, and he was afraid lest the Englishman should throw the Frenchman into the Lake—which, considering their respective sizes, would not have been difficult. They certainly parted friends, and Kitchener mentions in one of his letters: “I saw Jusserand in Paris, but he said nothing to me about his engagement. I must write to him.”
KITCHENER AND MRS. BOTHA
Another meeting which took place at one of our garden parties was with Mrs. Louis Botha. I was walking with the General when I saw her coming down the steps from the house. He and I went forward to meet her, and it was really touching to see the evident pleasure with which she responded to the warm greetings of her husband’s former opponent. She, like her husband, knew the generous nature of the man.
Lord Kitchener certainly knew what he wanted even in little things, but even he could not always get it.
Just when he was appointed to the Mediterranean Command (which I am sure that he had no intention of taking up) he came down to see us one afternoon, and amused himself by sorting our Chinese from our Japanese china, the latter kind being in his eyes “no good.” Tired of this, he suddenly said, “Now, let us go into the garden and pick strawberries.” “But,” said I, “there are no strawberries growing out-of-doors in May.” “Oh,” he exclaimed, “I thought when we came to Osterley we always picked strawberries.” Fortunately I had some hot-house ones ready at tea.
At King Edward’s Durbar at Delhi Lord Kitchener’s camp adjoined that of the Governor of Bombay, Lord Northcote, with whom we were staying. He arrived a day or two after we did, came over to see us, and took me back to inspect the arrangements of his camp, including the beautiful plate with which he had been presented. He was extremely happy, and most anxious to make me avow the superiority of his establishment to ours, which I would not admit. At last in triumph he showed me a fender-seat and said, “Anyhow, Lady Northcote has not a fender-seat.” But I finally crushed him with, “No, but we have a billiard-table!”
I must allow that there was a general suspicion that all would not go smoothly between two such master minds as his and the Viceroy’s. Those are high politics with which I would not deal beyond saying that the impression of most people who know India is that the power ultimately given to the Commander-in-Chief was well as long as Lord Kitchener held it, but too much for a weaker successor in a day of world-upheaval.