In the Ranks of the C.I.V.

by Erskine Childers

At 12.45 we harnessed up and started again. I am writing now at one of the periodical halts, when every one dismounts. A soft, mild sunset is laying changing tints of colour on the veldt, rose, amber, fawn, with deep blue shadows. When I speak of veldt I mean simply grass-land, but not a hint of green in it. The natural colour at this season is buff, with a warm red undertone. When the setting or rising sun catches this the effect is exquisite.

There is a rumour that a Boer patrol has been sighted, and a prisoner captured. I believe there is no doubt that De Wet and his force are between us and Lindley, and will have a shot at this convoy. We were warned that we might be attacked to-night. At dark we bivouacked, and, soon after, our right section, under the Major, whom we parted from at Kroonstadt, marched in. They had been sent out with a relief column to Honing Spruit, where a train had been attacked and the troops in it hard pressed. The Boers cleared off just before the Battery came up, which then had followed and overtaken us. Another bothersome hunt after water for the horses in the dark. All we could find was a stagnant pool, which ought to poison those that drank of it. Some more troops also joined the column. Colonel Brookfield (M.P.) is in command of the whole force.

June 25—(My birthday).—Up at 4.15 A.M. Off at 5.15, as part of the advance guard of the column, the Bushmen and Yeomanry scouting far ahead, and the infantry on either flank in a widely extended line. We all admired the steady regularity of their marching, heavily weighted as they were. Our own gunners also have a good deal of walking to do. "Dismount the detachment" is the order at all up-grades, and at difficult bits of the road. Drivers dismount at every halt, however short, but on the move are always safe in the saddle. We marched over the same undulating land, with occasional drifts and spruits, which are very hard on the horses. The convoy behind looked like a long sinuous serpent. Watered at seven at a farm. Williams was sent out to forage, and bought a sheep for 15s., chickens at 1s. 6d., and a turkey. Gunners were sent out to pillage a maize field. Then we marched on some miles to the top of a steep ridge looking down upon a lower plain, the road crossing a deep ravine at the bottom by a big steel bridge. We took up a commanding position at the top, overlooking the bridge, so as to cover the convoy while it descended and crossed. An attack seems likely,—a curious birthday treat!—4 P.M.—Nothing has happened. An interminable procession of ox and mule-waggons files down the pass; it is a much larger convoy than I thought, and must have received additions since we started. At this rate we shall be ages getting to Lindley.

One no longer wonders at the slowness of an army's movement out here. The standard of speed is the trek-ox, lurching pensively along under his yoke, very exacting about his mealtimes, and with no high notions about supreme efforts, when he has to get his waggon out of a bad drift. He often prefers to die, and while he is making up his ponderous mind he may be blocking up a column, miles in length, of other waggons in single file. We talk of the superior mobility of the Boers; but it puzzles me to know how they got it, for oxen and mules are their standards of speed too, I suppose.

At dark, when all had passed, we followed ourselves down an abominably dangerous road, and over the bridge to camp, which looked and sounded like a big busy town, scintillating with fires and resonant with the yells of black drivers packing their waggons.

June 26—Eight A.M.—We are in action, my waggon at present halted in the rear. We harnessed up at 3.45 this morning, and marched some miles to the top of another hill, overlooking another plain, a crescent of steep kopjes on the left, occupied by Boers. The convoy halted just as a spattering rifle-fire ahead struck on the still morning air (it was just dawn), and the chatter of a Maxim on the left flank. We were all rather silent. A staff-officer galloped up, "Walk,—March," "Trot," rang out to the Battery, and we trotted ahead down the hill, plunged down a villainous spruit, and came up on to the level, under a pretty heavy fire from the kopje on our left. For my part, I was absorbed for these moments in a threatened mishap to my harness, and the dread of disgrace at such an epoch. My off horse had lost flesh in the last few days, and the girth, though buckled up in the last hole, was slightly too loose. We had to gallop up a steep bit of ascent out of the drift, and to my horror, the pack-saddle on him began to slip and turn, so I had to go into action holding on his saddle with my right hand, in a fever of anxiety, and at first oblivious of anything else. Then I noticed the whing of bullets, and dust spots knocked up, and felt the same sort of feeling that one has while waiting to start for a race, only with an added chill and thrill.

The guns unlimbered, and came into action against the kopje, and we and the limbers trotted about 300 yards back, and are waiting there now. A gunner and a driver slightly wounded, and some horses hit. One bullet broke our wheel-driver's whip. Our shrapnel are bursting beautifully over the Boer lines.

(Later.)—We have just taken our waggon up to the firing line, and brought back an empty one with our team.

(Later.)—We have been back to the convoy, and refilled the empty waggon from the reserve, and are back again. The Boers seem to be dislodged from the ridge, and infantry have occupied it. I hear some Boers made for a farm, but we plumped a shell right into it, and they fled. The convoy is now coming on, and crossing the drift with discordant yells. Infantry and mounted infantry pressing on both flanks. Our guns have taken up another position farther on. The Captain asked after the broken whip, and told us we could not have gone into action better. He has been riding about all day on his stumpy little Argentine, radiant and beaming, with his eternal pipe in his mouth!

(Later.)—We marched on a few miles, and bivouacked, while the whole convoy slowly trailed in, and formed up in laager. This operation, and the business of posting the troops for the night, is horribly tedious. It has to be done in the dark, and one is continually mounting and dismounting, and moving on a bit, and making impossible wheels round mules and waggons. Probably we get too small a space allotted, and the horses are all jammed together in the picket-lines, causing a vast loss of temper at unharnessing. After unharnessing and feeding horses, which you have to look sharp about, or you will miss coffee, every one crowds round the cook's fire, and looks with hungry eyes at the pots. Coffee or tea, biscuits and tinned meat, are served out. You are ravenous, as you have lived on chance scraps during the day. Then you make your bed, stretching your blankets behind your harness, standing a saddle on end, and putting a feed-bag behind it for a pillow. Next morning's feeds have first to be made up, and then you sleep like a log, if you can, that is. I generally have to get up at least once, and walk about for the cold. Fellows who are lucky enough to have fuel make small fires (an anthill provides a natural stove), and cook soup, but it's hard to spare the water, which is as precious as gold in this country. Besides, drivers are badly placed for such luxuries; their work is only begun when camp is reached, while gunners can go off and find beds under waggons, etc. It is the same all day, except, of course, in action, when the gunners have all the work. At all halts we have to be watching a pair of horses, which have manifold ways of tormenting one. To begin with, they are always hungry, because they get little oats and no hay. One of mine amuses himself by chewing all leather-work in his reach, especially that on the traces, and has to be incessantly worried out of it. The poor brutes are standing all the time on rich pasture, and try vainly to graze. They are not allowed to, as it involves taking out big bits, undoing wither straps, etc., and you have to be ready to start at a moment's notice. There are thousands of acres of rich pasture all about, vast undeveloped wealth. Farms are very few and far between; mostly dismal-looking stone houses, without a trace of garden or adornment of any sort. There was a load off all our minds this night, for the H.A.C. had at last been in action and under fire. All went well and steadily. My friend Ramsey, the lead-driver of our team, brushed his teeth at the usual intervals. I don't believe anything on earth would interfere with him in this most admirable duty. He does it with miraculous dexterity and rapidity at the oddest moments, saying it rests him!