“Ah, Mr Somerton,” he commenced, giving Jack’s hand a hearty shake, and smiling at his evident astonishment, “this is a pleasure! I knew, of course, that you were leaving Chieveley for Lord Roberts’s force, but did not imagine that we should make the sea-trip together. As it is, it will save me the trouble of finding you at the other end. You must know, my young friend, that you have made quite a reputation for yourself as a colonial despatch-carrier and scout, and I have been instructed to make use of your services if you feel so disposed. Are you ready to do something more for us? Of course, we have all heard how you and young Poynter got through from Ladysmith, and I may tell you that it is a service of a similar nature for which we want you now.”
“Certainly, sir,” Jack answered with a flush. “I am prepared to undertake anything in the nature of despatch-carrying or scouting that may be given me, and if Kimberley is the destination for the messages so much the better, for I have friends in there whom I am anxious to meet again.”
“Then, my lad, this is the very job to suit you!” the staff-officer exclaimed. “Shortly put, the service which you are asked to undertake is this—ride to Kimberley and carry a letter and verbal instructions to its commanding officer, and afterwards return to us. There is a big and most important movement afoot. But I will tell you about it later, when we arrive at the Modder River. It is a great satisfaction to hear that we may rely upon you.”
“It’s just the thing I should like,” Jack remarked eagerly. Then, seeing that his new acquaintance did not care, for some reason, to discuss the matter further at that moment, he changed the conversation. Soon they descended to the saloon for breakfast, and from that day until they reached the Modder River below Kimberley they were constantly together.
While they are being swiftly conveyed along the South African coast we will leave them laughing and chatting, and return for a few moments to Old England to view matters there.
At first the news of the reverses at Magersfontein, Stormberg, and Colenso found her like one in a dream. “Was it true,” she asked herself, “that her brave and hitherto invincible troops had been thus hardly dealt with by a horde of men who were little more than uncivilised peasants? Could it be a fact that the Boer forces were far more numerous than had been imagined, and that in guns and ammunition they were so abundantly supplied that our cannon and the shells we fired were swamped and sometimes altogether outranged? Could these facts be true?” It was almost impossible to believe them. But for all that, unpalatable though the truth was, the reality of it all quickly dawned upon the country. The beginning of the war had found our millions resolved as one man to carry it through to a successful issue, and now, instead of weeping over past failures and the ill-luck which had attended their troops, they maintained a dignified silence and watched patiently to see what the Government would do.
The latter instantly ordered out more troops and a supply of more powerful guns, and, in addition, they called upon the ready volunteers and the yeomanry for their aid. And with what result? There was a rush to obey the call to arms. Beneath the calm surface of a business life there lurked in the hearts of our young manhood a passionate desire for active fighting, to throw off the trammels of an office desk and take rifle in place of pen. Men flocked from every part of the country, and those whose age or infirmities prevented their joining in the movement cut asunder their purse strings and poured out their gold.
The city of London, ever foremost in patriotic work, organised and equipped a force of 1400 men and sent them to the front by means of private subscription alone; and all over the country funds were provided to furnish sturdy yeomen for the war.
Then, too, our colonies, not to be outdone, sent other contingents of men, and England, recognising the vastness of the task before her, despatched Lord Roberts of Kandahar—the famous and ever-popular “Bobs”—and Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, two of her finest generals, to the Cape to assume chief command and lighten the labours of General Buller, already sufficiently engaged in the struggle to relieve the invested town of Ladysmith.
While the Imperial Volunteers and the Yeomanry are being equipped and hurried on board transports for Africa, accompanied by an ever-increasing number of big guns, let us once more return to the neighbourhood of the River Tugela and join the gallant and determined men under, the command of General Sir Redvers Buller.