From start to finish the Bushmen were accompanied by an earnest Methodist chaplain, whom I met only in Pretoria, the Rev. James Green, who, most fortunately, throughout the whole campaign, was not laid aside for a single day by wounds or sickness; and who, after returning home with this time-expired first contingent of Australian troops, came back in March 1902 with what, we hope, the speedy ending of the war will make their last contingent.
Between Mr Green's two terms of service I was, however, ably assisted by yet another Australian Wesleyan chaplain, the Rev. R. G. Foreman, though he, like so many others, was early invalided home.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER IV
QUICK MARCH TO THE TRANSVAAL
It was with feelings of unfeigned delight that the Guards learned May Day was to witness the beginning of another great move towards Pretoria. We had entered Bloemfontein without expending upon it a single shot; we had been strangely welcomed with smiles and cheers and waving flags and lavish hospitality; but none the less that charming little capital had made us pay dearly for its conquest, and for our six weeks of so-called rest on the sodden veldt around it. Its traders had levied heavy toll on the soldiers' slender pay; and no fabled monster of ancient times ever claimed so sore a tribute of human lives. It was not on the veldt but under it that hundreds of our lads found rest; and hundreds more were soon to share their fate. The victors had become victims, and the vanquished were avenged. Seldom have troops taken possession of any city with such unmixed satisfaction, or departed from it with such unfeigned eagerness.
A Comedy.
My quartermaster friend and myself, unable to start with the Brigade, set out a few hours later, and tarried for the night at a Hollander platelayer's hut. The man spoke little English, and we less Dutch; but he welcomed us to the hospitality of his two-roomed home with a warmth that was overwhelming. His wife, when the war began, was sent away for safety's sake; and married men thus flung back upon their bachelorhood make poor cooks and caterers unless they happen to be soldiers on the trek; but this man, in his excitement at having such guests to entertain, expectorated violently all over the floor on which presently we expected to sleep; fire was soon kindled and coffee made; the quartermaster produced some tinned meat; I produced some tinned fruit; the ganger produced some tinned biscuits—in this campaign we have been saved by tin—and so by this joint-stock arrangement there was provided a feast that hungry royalty need not have disdained. Next our entertainer undertook to amuse his guests, and did it in a fashion never to be forgotten. He produced a box fitted up as a theatre stage—all made out of his own head, he said—and mostly wooden; there were two puppets on the stage, which were made to dance most vigorously by means of cords attached secretly to the ganger's foot, whilst his hands were no less vigorously employed on the concertina which provided the accompanying dance music. This delighted old man was the oddest figure of the three, as the perspiration poured down his grimy face. To light on such a comedy when on the war path would have been enough to make Momus laugh; and when the laugh was spent we swept the floor, for reasons already hinted at, sought refuge in our blankets; and long before breakfast time next morning landed in Karee Camp.
To reach Karee we passed through "The Glen" lying beside the Upper Modder, where a deplorable tragedy had occurred not long before. A remarkably fine-looking sergeant of the Guards went to bathe in what he supposed were the deep waters of the Modder, and dived gleefully into deeps that alas were not deep. Striking the bottom with his head, instantly his neck was dislocated, and when I saw him a few hours after, though he was perfectly conscious and anxiously hopeful, he was paralysed from his shoulders downwards. A married man, his heart, too, was broken over such an undreamed of disaster, and in three weeks he died. The mauser is not the only reaping-machine the great harvester employs in war time. There have been over five hundred "accidental" deaths in the course of this campaign. At the Lower Modder we once arranged to hold a Sunday morning service for the swarms of native drivers in our camp, but in that case also were compelled to prove it is the unexpected that happens. One of the "boys" went to bathe that morning in the suddenly swollen river; he sank; and though search parties were at once sent out, the body was never recovered. So instead of a service we had this sad sensation.
About that same time, and in that same camp, one of my most intimate companions, the quartermaster of the Scots Guards, was one moment laughing and chatting with me in his tent; but the next moment, without the slightest warning, he dropped back on his couch, and that same evening was laid by his sorrowing battalion in a garden-grave. The other quartermaster, who shared with me the ganger's hospitality and laughter, when the campaign was near its close, was found lying on the floor of his tent. He had fallen when no friendly hand was near to help, and had been dead for hours when discovered. My first campaign, and last, has stored my mind with tragic memories; it has filled my heart with tendernesses unfelt before; and perchance has taught me to interpret more truly that "life of lives" foreshadowed in Isaiah's saying: "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."