Two days later I reached the Orange River; and, on the courteous suggestion of Lord Methuen, was attached to the mess of the 3rd Grenadier Guards, as was also my "guide, philosopher and friend" the Rev. T. F. Falkner our Anglican chaplain. Here I left my invaluable helper, Army Scripture Reader Pearce; while, with the Guards' Brigade now made complete by the arrival of the 1st and 2nd Coldstream battalions, I pushed forward to be present at the four battles which followed in startlingly swift succession, and which I have already with sufficient fulness described in "Chaplains in Khaki," viz. Belmont on Nov. 23rd, Graspan on Nov. 25th, Modder River on Nov. 28th, and the Magersfontein defeat on Dec. 11th, for which, however, the next Amajuba Day—Feb. 27th, 1900—brought us ample compensation in the surrender of Cronje and his 4000 veterans, with the ever memorable sequel to that surrender, the occupation of Bloemfontein by the British forces.
A capital little Capital.
It would probably be difficult to find anywhere under the sun a more prosperous and promising little city, or one better governed than Bloemfontein, which the Guards entered on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 13th, 1900. There is not a scrap of cultivated land anywhere around it. It is very literally a child of the veldt; and still clings strangely to its nursing mother. Indeed the veldt is not only round about it on every side, but even asserts its presence in many an unfinished street. You are still on the veldt in the midst of the city; and the characteristic kopje is in full view here, there, and everywhere. On one side of the city is the old fort built by the British more than fifty years ago, and soon after vacated by them, but it is erected of course on a kopje, on one slope of which, part of the city now stands. On the opposite side of the town is a new fort; but that also crowns a kopje. This metropolis of what was then the Orange Free State, thus intensely African in its situation and surroundings, was nevertheless an every way worthy centre of a worthy State.
Many of its public buildings are notably fine, as for instance the Government Offices over which it was my memorable privilege to see the Union Jack unceremoniously hoisted; and the Parliament Hall, on the opposite side of the same road, erected some twelve years ago at a cost of £80,000. The Grey College, which accommodates a hundred boy boarders, is an edifice of which almost any city would be proud; and "The Volk's Hospital," that is "The People's Hospital," is also an altogether admirable institution. From the commencement of the war this was used for the exclusive benefit of sick or wounded Boers and of captured Britishers who were in the same sore plight. Among these I found many English officers, who all bore witness to the kind and skilful treatment they had uniformly received from the hospital authorities; but when the Boer forces hurried away from Bloemfontein they were compelled to leave their sick and wounded behind; with the result that as at Jacobsdal, the English patients at once ceased to be prisoners, while the Boer patients at once became prisoners. So do the wheels of war and fortune go whirling round!
With a white population of under ten thousand all told, a large proportion is of British descent; and presently a positively surprising number of Union Jacks sprang forth from their hiding-places and fluttered merrily all over the town. Everybody was thankful that no bombardment had taken place; but many even of the British residents regarded with sincere regret the final extinction of the independence of this once self-governed and well-governed Republic.
Famished men and famine prices.
The story has now everywhere been told of the soldier lad who, when he caught sight of his first swarm of locusts, wonderingly exclaimed as he noted their peculiar colour, "I'm blest if the butterflies out here haven't put on khaki." Bloemfontein very soon did the same. Khaki of various shades and various degrees of dirtiness saluted me at every point. Khaki men upon khaki men swarmed everywhere. Brigade followed brigade in apparently endless succession; but all clad in the same irrepressible colour, till it became quite depressing. No wonder the townspeople soon took to calling the soldiers "locusts," not merely out of compliment to the gay colour of their costume, but also as aptly descriptive of their apparent countlessness. They seemed like the sands by the seashore, innumerable. They bade fair to swallow up the place.
That last expression, however, suggests yet another point of resemblance. For longer than these men seemed able to remember, the order of the day had been "long marches and short rations." When, therefore, they reached this welcome halting-place they were simply famished; insatiably hungry, they eagerly spent their last coin in buying up whatever provisions had fortunately escaped the commandeering of the Boers. There was no looting, no lawlessness of any kind; and many a civilian gave his last loaf to a starving trooper. There was soon a famine in the place and no train to bring us fresh supplies. All the bakeries of the town were commandeered by the new government for the benefit of the troops; but like the five loaves of the gospel story, "What were they among so many?" I saw the men, like swarms of bees, clustering around the doors and clambering on to the window-sills of these establishments, enjoying apparently the smell of the baking bread, and cherishing the vain hope of being able to purchase a loaf when at last the ovens were emptied.
So too at the grocers' shops, a "tail" was daily formed outside the door, which at intervals was cautiously opened to let in a few at a time of these clamorous customers, who presently retired by the back door, laden more or less with such articles as happened to be still in store; but muttering as they came out "this is like Klondyke," with evident reference not to Klondyke gold, but to Klondyke prices. It was not the traders that needed protection as against the troopers, but the troopers that needed protection as against some of the traders. Even proclamation prices were alarmingly high, as for instance, a shilling for a pound of sugar. Sixpence was the popular price for a cup of tea, often without milk or sugar. The quartermaster whose tent I shared was charged four shillings for a single "whisky and soda," and was informed that if he wanted a bottle of whisky the price would be thirty-five shillings. On such terms tradesmen who, before the war, had laid in large and semi-secret stores now reaped a magnificent harvest. One provision merchant was reported to have thus sold £700 worth of goods before breakfast on a certain Saturday morning, in which case he would perhaps reckon that on that particular date his breakfast had been well earned. It probably meant in part a wholesale army order; but even in that case it would be for cash, and not a case of commandeering after the fashion of the Boers.
A crippled Scandinavian tailor told me that his constant charge, whether to Colonels or Kaffirs, was two shillings an hour; and that he thought his needle served him badly if it did not bring him in £6 a week. About the same time a single-handed but nimble-fingered barber claimed to have made £100 in one week out of the invading British; but his victims declared that his price was a shilling for a shave and two shillings for a clip. At those figures the seemingly impossible comes to pass—if only customers are plentiful enough. Oh for a business in Bloemfontein!