In the Ranks of the C.I.V.

by Erskine Childers

The "cook-house" is still the source of rumours, which are wonderfully varied. There is much vague talk now of General Clements and a brigade being connected somehow with our operations. But we know as little of the game we are playing as pawns on the chessboard. Our tea is strong, milkless, and sugarless, but I always go to sleep the instant I lie down, even if I am restless with the cold later.

July 3.—Reveillé at 4.30. Our section, under Lieutenant Bailey, started at once for a steep kopje looming dimly about three miles away. The right section, with the Major and Captain, left us and went to another one. We had a tough job getting our guns and waggons up.

(8 A.M.)—Just opening fire now. A Boer gun is searching the valley on our left, but they can't see the limbers and waggons.

(8.30.)—The Boers seem to have some special dislike to our waggon. They have just placed two shells, one fifty yards in front of it, and the other fifty yards behind; one of them burst on impact, the other didn't. The progress of a shell sounds far off like the hum of a mosquito, rising as it nears to a hoarse screech, and then "plump." We mind them very little now. There is great competition for the fragments, as "curios." It is cold, grey, and sunless today. Last night there was heavy rain, and our blankets are wet still. It seems the Boers are firing a Krupp at 7000 yards; our guns are only sighted up to 5000 yards, but we have managed to reach them by sinking the trail in the ground, and other devices.

(12.30 P.M.)—A long halt here, with nothing doing. The Boer gun has ceased to fire, and we call it "silenced," possibly with truth, but the causes of silence are never quite certain. As far as I can make out, it was on the extreme left of their position, while our main attack is threatening their centre. It is raining hard, but we have made a roaring fire of what is the chief fuel in this country, dry cow-dung, and have made cocoa in our mess-tins, from a tin sent me a month ago; also soup, out of the scrapings of Maconochie tins.

—. What seemed likely to be a dull day turned out very exciting. About two a staff officer came up with orders, and we marched down from our kopje and attacked another one[A] (which I made out to be their centre), taking up several positions in quick succession. The Boers had a gun on the kopje, which we dislodged, and the infantry took the position. (About 2.30 it began to rain again and poured all the afternoon in cold, slashing torrents.) We finally went up the kopje ourselves, over a shocking bit of rocky ground near the top, fired on the retreating Boers from there, and then came down on the other side. Soon afterwards came an old story. It was about five, and had cleared up. A staff officer had said that there were no Boers anywhere near now, and that we were to march on and bivouac. We and the Munsters and some Yeomanry were marching down a valley, whose flanks were supposed to have been scouted, the infantry in column of companies, that is, in close formation, and all in apparent security. Suddenly a storm of rifle-fire broke out from a ridge on our right front and showed us we were ambushed. The Munsters were nearest to the ridge, about 600 yards, I should say. We were a bit further off. I heard a sort of hoarse murmur go up from the close mass of infantry, and saw it boil, so to speak, and spread out. Our section checked for a moment, in a sort of bewilderment (my waggon was close behind our gun at the time), but the next, and almost without orders, guns were unlimbered and whisked round, a waggon unhooked, teams trotting away, and shrapnel bursting over the top of the ridge in quick succession. All this time the air was full of a sound like the moaning of wind from the bullets flying across the valley, but strange to say, not a man of us was hit. Some of them were explosive bullets. The whole thing was soon over. Our guns peppered their quickest, and it was a treat to see the shrapnel bursting clean and true along the ridge. The infantry extended and lay down; some Yeomanry made a flank move, and that episode was over. It might have been serious, though. If they had held their fire undiscovered for ten minutes longer we might have been badly cut up, for we were steadily nearing the spur which they occupied. It is right to say, though, that our Lieutenant, having doubts about the safety of the place, had shortly before sent forward ground-scouts, of whom Williams was one, who would possibly have been able to warn us in time. Needless to say, it was not our duty to scout for the column.

[[Footnote A:] The name of this kopje was Barking Kop, I believe, and we have since always applied it generally to the fighting on this day.]

It was nearly dark now, a burning farm ahead making a hot glow in the sky, and we moved off to join the rest of the column with its unwieldy baggage-train and convoy, and all camped together, after the usual tedious ride to water horses at a muddy pool. They had had a very hard day and had done well, but were very tired. On days like this they often get no water till evening. A feed is ordered when a free interval seems likely, but the chances are that it is snatched off, and their bits thrust in again, half-way through. When we got in and rejoined our right section, all were full of a serious mishap to the 38th Field Battery, with which they had been acting on the left flank. Both were in action in adjoining fields, when a party of Boers crept up unseen and got within fifty yards of the 38th guns, shooting down men and horses. The 38th behaved splendidly, but all their officers were killed or wounded, a number of gunners, and many horses. Two guns were for a time in the hands of the Boers, who, I believe, removed the tangent sights. It appears that the M.I. escort of the Battery, owing, I suppose, to some misunderstanding, retreated. The situation was saved by Captain Budworth, of our Battery, who collected and brought up some mounted infantry, whether Yeomanry or Bushmen I am not clear about. They beat the Boers off, and our teams helped to take the guns out of action. We came off all right, with only one gunner slightly wounded.

I was desperately hungry, and only coffee was issued, but later a sheep's carcase turned up from somewhere, and I secured a leg, and Williams some chops, which we promptly laid as they were on one of the niggers' wood fires and ate in our fingers ravenously. The leg I also cooked and kept for to-day (I am writing on the morning of the 4th), and it is hanging on my saddle. I was rather sleepless last night, owing to cramp from a drenched blanket, and got up about midnight and walked over to the remains of one of our niggers' fires. Crouching over the embers I found a bearded figure, which hoarsely denounced me for coming to its fire. I explained that it was our fire, but that he was welcome, and settled down to thaw. It turned out to be a sergeant of the 38th Battery. I asked something, and he began a long rambling soliloquy about things in general, in a thick voice, with his beard almost in the fire, scarcely aware of my presence. I can't reproduce it faithfully, because of the language, but it dealt with the war, which he thought would end next February, and the difference between Boer and British methods, and how our cavalry go along, heels down, toes in, arms close to side, eyes front, all according to regulation, keeping distance regardless of ground, while the Boer cares nothing as long as he gets there and does his work. He finished with the gloomy prophecy that if we didn't join Clements to-morrow we should never "get out of this." Not knowing who or where Clements was, I asked him about the affair of that day, and produced a growling storm of expletives; then he muttered something about the Victoria Cross and driving a team out of action, asked the way to his lines, to which I carefully directed him, and drifted off in the opposite direction.

By the way, this General Clements seems to be a myth, and the talk now is of Rundle and Ian Hamilton, who are supposed to be getting round De Wet from other quarters, while we drive him up this way into their arms. It is said we are going to Bethlehem. I forgot an important event of the evening in the arrival of a bag of mails, parcels only, brought by a convoy from Kroonstadt, which has just come in. To my delight I got one with a shirt and socks (which I at once put on over the others), cigarettes (a long exhausted luxury), Liebig, precious for evening soup, and chocolate, almost too good to eat for fear of getting discontented. We are on half rations of biscuit, which means three, and a tin of Maconochie each, a supply about enough to whet your appetite for one meal in a life like this, but it has to last the day of about seventeen hours. The ration is issued the night before, to eat as we please, and, of course, there is coffee soon after reveillé, and tea in the evening. There is a cupful of porridge also with the coffee, paid for by deduction from our pay, so that one starts in good fettle. I don't know why the whole column shouldn't get fresh meat every day, for the country is teeming with cattle, which are collected and driven along with the column in huge herds. Many of the farmhouses are smoking ruins, the enemy, after annexation, being rebels according to law, and not belligerents; but it seems to me that such a policy is to use a legal fiction for an oppressive end, for it is quite clear that this part of the Orange River Colony has never been conquered.[A]