CHAPTER XI
FROM PRETORIA TO BELFAST
On reaching Pretoria, almost unopposed, our Guardsmen jumped to the hasty and quite unjustifiable conclusion that the campaign was closing, and that in the course of about another fortnight some of us would be on our homeward way. They forgot that after a candle has burned down into its socket it may still flare and flicker wearisomely long before it finally goes out. War lights just such a candle, and no extinguisher has yet been patented for the instant quenching of its flame just when our personal convenience chances to clamour for such quenching. Indeed, the "flare and flicker" period sometimes proves, where war is concerned, scarcely less prolonged, and much more harassing, than the period of the full-fed flame. So Norman William found after the battle of Hastings. So Cromwell proved when the fight at Worcester was over. So the Americans discovered when they had captured Manila. Our occupation of Bloemfontein by no means made us instant masters of the whole Free State, and our presence in Pretoria we had yet to learn was not at all the same thing as the undisputed possession of the entire Transvaal. Indeed, the period that actually interposed between the two, proved the longest "fortnight" ever recorded.
Lord Milner's explanation.
How that came about, however, is made quite clear by the following extract from the High Commissioner's despatches:—
If it had been possible for us to screen those portions of the conquered territory, which were fast returning to peaceful pursuits, from the incursions of the enemy still in the field, a great deal of what is now most deplorable in the condition of South Africa would never have been experienced. The vast extent of the country, the necessity of concentrating our forces for the long advance, first to Pretoria and then to Koomati Poort, resulted in the country already occupied being left open to raids, constantly growing in audacity, and fed by small successes, on the part of a few bold and skilful guerilla leaders who had nailed their colours to the mast.
The reappearance of these disturbers of the peace, first in the south-east of the Orange River Colony, then in the south-west of the Transvaal, and finally in every portion of the conquered territory, placed those of the inhabitants who wanted to settle down in a position of great difficulty. Instead of being made prisoners of war, they had been allowed to remain on their farms on taking the oath of neutrality, and many of them were really anxious to keep it. But they had not the strength of mind, nor from want of education, a sufficient appreciation of the sacredness of the obligation which they had undertaken, to resist the pressure of their old companions in arms when these reappeared among them appealing to their patriotism and to their fears. In a few weeks or months the very men whom we had spared and treated with exceptional leniency were up in arms again, justifying their breach of faith in many cases by the extraordinary argument that we had not preserved them from the temptation to commit it.
The Boer way of saying "Bosh".
Early in the long halt near Pretoria, at Silverton Camp, the Guards' Brigade was formally assembled to hear read a telegram from H.R.H. The Prince of Wales, congratulating them on the practical termination of the war; whereupon as though by positive prearrangement the Boers plumped a protesting shell in startlingly close proximity to where our cheering ranks not long before had stood. It was the Boer way of saying "bosh" to our ill-timed boast that the war was over.
Botha and his irreconcilables were at this time occupying a formidable position, with a frontage of fifteen miles, near Pienaar's Poort, where the Delagoa line runs through a gap in the hills, fifteen miles east of Pretoria; and this position Lord Roberts found it essential to attack with 17,000 men and seventy guns on Monday, June 11th, that is just a week after the neighbouring capital had surrendered. The fighting extended over three days; French attacking on our left, Hamilton on our right, and Pole Carew in the centre keenly watching the development of these flanking movements. In the course of this stubborn contest the invisible Boers did for one brief while become visible, as they galloped into the open in hope of capturing the Q Battery, which had already won for itself renown by redeeming Sanna's Post from complete disaster. Then it was Hamilton ordered the memorable cavalry charge of the 12th Lancers, which saved the guns, and scattered the Boers, but cost us the life of its gallant and God-fearing Colonel Lord Airlie, who before the war greatly helped me in my work at Aldershot. The death of such a man made the battle of Diamond Hill a mournfully memorable one; for Lord Airlie combined in his own martial character the hardness of the diamond with its lustrous pureness; and his last words just before the fatal bullet pierced his heart, were said to be a characteristic rebuke of an excited and perhaps profane sergeant: "Pray, moderate your language!" Wholesome advice, none too often given, and much too seldom heeded!