Camp Fire Yarns of the Lost Legion

by G. Hamilton-Browne

On leaving the service—as he was over head and ears in debt to the Jew sharks, who in those days battened on the follies of young officers—troth! they do it still, when not more lucratively employed in the art of bogus company promoting, and other congenial pursuits—his people thought a tour du monde would be a salutary exercise for him, and that if he could pick out some salubrious spot about half-way round, and make a permanent camp there, why, so much the better for them. So Mad Conway landed in South Africa some time in the fifties. Now what he originally intended to do there I don’t know, and I don’t think he knew himself; but he certainly wandered all over the country, taking a hand wherever the chance occurred in any Kafir fighting that might be going on, and putting in his spare time big-game hunting and exploring.

In both these congenial occupations he quickly gained the reputation of being a man utterly devoid of fear, while the wild and fantastic pranks he would play when he happened to be in a town made him an object of wonder and astonishment to both the phlegmatic Boers and the lazy Portuguese, some of them even causing his own more up-to-date and reckless countrymen to open their eyes. During this period of his existence he accompanied two successive expeditions that were organised for the purpose of searching the lower reaches and delta of the Zambesi for a gold-laden dhow that the Portuguese had sunk in the early part of the century, so as to prevent her capture by an English cruiser. On both these occasions Conway was the only European who survived the attacks of fever and wild beasts, and although, on the second trip, they actually located the dhow, still, before they could clear the drifted sand from off her his last surviving mate died. Conway always declared that, notwithstanding the awful hardships he had undergone, he would have stuck to the job, lone handed, and would have scooped the jack pot himself, but the dop (common Boer-made peach-brandy) cask gave out, and as that and quinine were his sole diet, he had to chuck the contract before he could touch the geldt. Darned bad luck, he called it, especially as the long war waged by the Zambesi natives against the Portuguese, at that time breaking out, prevented him from having another try for the plunder. Reaching Delagoa Bay, thanks to the kindness of the officers of one of H.M. cruisers, he wandered up to the Transvaal, and took a turn on the early goldfields. Doing no good, he drifted away to the Free State, where, as aforementioned, he earned the name of Vrei Stadt Conway by his feats of reckless daring. Let me recount one of them.

During one of the numerous unsuccessful attacks made on the impregnable mountain Thaba Bosigo, the principal stronghold of the great Basuto chief Moshesh, a gallant Dutchman was wounded and captured by the natives. This poor chap, having been duly tortured, was crucified on the very summit of the mountain. Moshesh at once declared that the poor remains were to be regarded as his standard, and at the same time sent an insolent message to the Boers, stating the fact, and challenging them to come and pull it down. This brutal and contemptuous message deeply enraged the Boers, and was all the more galling as the poor fellow’s remains hung in full view of the Dutch laagers. Something must be done at once; so the farmers’ war council determined to recover the body, and called for volunteers to do so. These being forthcoming, the attempt was made, but the party, after fighting its way about half the distance up the mountain, having suffered heavy loss, halted. They caved in, declared the undertaking to be impossible, and point-blank refused to make any further effort. This sensible determination, or pusillanimity—call it which you like, but remember a Boer is no coward—did not coincide with Conway’s temperament, he being one of the leaders. He had declared he would bring that crucified corpse down, or would bust in the attempt, and if his men refused to come any further, why, he and his Hottentot arter-rider would go on alone; and, faith! the two of them went. Troth, I forgot to tell you before that his mother was Irish, and when the best of English hunting blood is crossed with the best of Irish fighting blood it is deuced hard to stop the owner when on the warpath. Well, subjected to a feu d’enfer, these two beauties scaled the almost perpendicular cliffs, and reached the cross, which they pulled down, and removed from it the battered remains. They then turned to descend the mountain, only to find their one path down it blocked by a strong party of the enemy, who had allowed them to do so much, to make sure of capturing them alive, and then the following morning there would be three crosses on the mountain instead of one.

This strategy on the part of the natives would have caused most men to despair, and even the bravest of the brave, if cornered in a like manner, could have only hoped to enjoy a last good fight, and sell his life as dearly as possible. Mad Conway, however, thought otherwise. He had declared he would bring the body down the mountain or bust, and as the Basutos had blocked the only path down which he could carry it, why naturally he could only keep his word by throwing it over the krantz, and then, by following it himself, he would at all events balk the enemy of their anticipated fun, and save himself from the horrors of the torture stick. He and his faithful Tottie boy, therefore, expended their remaining cartridges, and then, bundling the corpse over the edge of the precipice, jumped after it themselves. No one looking at Thaba Bosego would believe the possibility of a man going over the edge of its perpendicular krantzes ever reaching the bottom with a semblance of humanity left, much less that he could survive the awful fall without every bone in his body being broken and life crushed out of him. Yet Mad Conway and his Tottie boy did so, and miraculously reached the foot of the beetling precipice, not only alive, but comparatively unhurt. Then picking up the corpse they carried it, under a hail of bullets, back to the schanze, where the rest of the party awaited them. Now these men must have been blessed with charmed lives, for although their scanty clothing was nearly shot off their bodies they only received a few slight flesh wounds, until they were just reaching the safety zone, when Conway was knocked over with a bullet through his left leg.

Well, now I have given you a glance at the heroic side of this queer card, let me turn the tables and spin you another yarn, so as to give you some idea of the mad pranks he was capable of playing. Here goes.

At one time, during the long protracted struggle between the Free State farmers and the Basutos, Conway was commandant of a small Dutch dorp situated close to the border which, like all other Free State villages, during war-time was laagered. Now Conway’s commando had in their possession an ancient six-pounder ship’s cannon so honeycombed that, had they fired it off, the probability is they would have made a considerable hash of the gun’s crew that served it. Still, it was a real cannon that, when polished up and mounted on a pair of waggon wheels, looked formidable. Well, mad Conway had this piece of antique ordnance in charge, and being in his usual state of impecuniosity, and the said cannon being the only available asset he could lay his hand on, he one fine day determined to raise the gentle breeze of affluence and also to remove a possible danger to himself and men by disposing of the ancient bombard to the enemy, whose paramount chief, Moshesh, was most anxious to obtain artillery at any price, be it ancient or modern. This nefarious idea having been conceived, he at once sent a message over the border to Moshesh offering to sell it for 100 head of prime cattle. Moshesh was delighted. All the preliminaries were arranged: the time and place for the transfer of old scrap iron for live stock was fixed upon, and the transaction was carried out, a small party of Basutos bringing 100 head of splendid oxen across the border, which they handed over, receiving the old carronade in return. Mad Conway, many years afterwards, declared to me that it was only when the cattle were safely in his hands that the shameful wickedness of his act struck him, and he realised that, no matter how worthless the cannon might be, still he was an officer in the service of the Free State, that he had sold their war material to their enemy, and that by doing so he had forfeited his last shred of honour as an English gentleman. In fact his conscience reminded him that he had placed himself on the same low level as Mr Judas Iscariot, so he at once turned-to, like the Hebrew traitor, to purge himself of his shame. Now, my gentle reader, don’t, please, imagine that Conway handed back the cattle, or expended a shilling in buying a rope wherewith to hang himself. No, not by a jugful; for he differed in very many respects from the Hebrew gent and when his qualms of conscience became too poignant for him to bear he turned out his commando, made a tremendous forced march, overtook the gun escort, which he surprised and routed, on their own side of the border, and brought back the old thunderer in triumph.

Now some people may say that Conway had been guilty of decided sharp practice over this gun deal, but he always asserted that if old Moshesh could not keep possession of a purchased article after it had been delivered to him, and he had taken it across the border into his own territory, then he (Moshesh) was the only one to blame, and that he had no cause to grumble. Anyhow, the recapture of the gun reinstated Conway in his own self-respect, and as the sale of the cattle brought him in some £500, I think you will agree with me that he fared much better than the late Judas Iscariot, Esq.

Through the unjustifiable interference of the British Government, the long war between the Free State farmers and the Basutos was brought to an end in March 1868, so that Mad Conway must needs look out for something else to do. He had gained great kudos in the field, and the Free State Government not only passed a vote of thanks to him, but also determined to add a more substantial token of appreciation, by presenting to him a large farm, the title deeds of which were to be delivered into his hands on the occasion of the last parade of the Bloemfontein burghers, previous to their disbandment. Well, the function was held, President Brand made his speech, and at the end of it Commander Conway’s name was called. The hero of the hour rode to the front, to be welcomed by the plaudits of the men, and the handkerchief-waving of the women. A fine figure of a man, and a superb horseman, Mad Conway looked well as he reined up beside the President, and one would have thought that the bestowal of such an honour would have made even the most reckless dare-devil in the world conduct himself with decorum. Moreover, Mr Brand was perhaps the one man in South Africa who was highly respected, both by Briton and Boer, and had frequently befriended Conway in many ways. But alas! the Fates willed otherwise, for the reckless child of impulse, prompted by Ate or Old Nick, as usual, fell away and behaved in a most shocking manner. I said prompted by either Ate or Old Nick. Well, maybe they were the original instigators, but they used deputies to carry out their designs, for you see Conway had that morning imbibed many klein soupjies, and President Brand was wearing a tall bell-topper hat. Of course you will understand in a moment that a multifarious number of tots might excite a hot-tempered, reckless fellow such as our friend, but it may puzzle you why the hat of a respectable old gentleman should arouse the somnolent devil in Mad Conway. Let me explain.

A tall bell-topper hat was, at that time, and for many years afterwards, an aggression that up-countrymen, be they Boers or Britons, could not stomach, for even in the latter eighties only two men were allowed to wear them in Kimberley—one, as old hands will remember, being Chief Justice Buchanan, and the other Donald McKai, the De Toits Pan market master. No one else, no matter what his status might be, possessed the temerity to appear in public wearing one; for, had he done so, it would have suffered the same fate as the presidential Golgotha did, on the occasion of which I am writing. Yes, bedad! and it did suffer, for Mad Conway had no sooner been given the title deeds of the farm, and had uttered a few words of thanks for the complimentary speech, and the honorarium he had received, than he waved his right arm wildly over his head and brought his fist down flop on the presidential bell-topper, which after emitting a drum-like thud, collapsed over the ears of its portly wearer. Then there was the deuce to pay and no pitch hot. Had anybody else been in Conway’s boots he would have been massacred at once by the infuriated burghers, but seeing it was Conway, and being accustomed to his crazy vagaries, they sat on their horses and stared open-mouthed at the extraordinary spectacle, while the President attempted to struggle out of the ruins of his battered chapeau. In a moment Conway was himself again, was off his horse and assisting the President in getting rid of his encumbrance, at the same time pouring out a volume of excuses, and censuring himself for his confounded clumsiness. These excuses the dear old man accepted, and, in fact, in a few moments was acting as comforter to the brazen scallywag, so that the latter emerged from what might have been a desperate fix with honour and emolument.

Now let me tell you how I fell across this queer character. I think it must have been about the end of the year 1883 that I, who was at that time working as a digger in Bullfontein, received an invitation to dinner from an old brother officer residing at the New Rush, for the purpose of meeting Mad Conway, who had drifted down to the diamond fields from the Transvaal. Of course, like everyone else in South Africa at that time, I had heard heaps of yarns about him, but although we had both served in the same wars we had somehow or other never met; so I joyously accepted the invitation. On my arrival at my friend’s house I was introduced to this noted madcap, who turned out to be a well-dressed, well-groomed, well-set-up man, who, although past middle age, looked as hard as iron and tough as whipcord. The dinner passed off well, myself and others being kept in a roar of laughter by the extraordinary yarns he related, together with the inimitable pantomime with which he illustrated them. Mad Conway had sojourned on the diamond-fields in the earlier days, and had literally been hunted from off them, his exodus being so thoroughly in keeping with the man’s whole career that I think you will pardon me should I digress and recount it. You see, it was in this way. Conway was as usual over head and ears in debt, and one fine morning he heard that writs were out against him for civil imprisonment. This was an indignity that sent him hopping mad, so jumping on to his horse he galloped to the Court House. En route he encountered the bum-bailiff, who, mounted on an old pony, was looking for him, and who was fool enough to try and stop him. Waving a sheaf of blue papers in his hand, he called on Conway to pull up, at the same time turning his nag athwart the road in an attempt to stop him. It was only an attempt, for the next moment the messenger of the Court and his gee-gee were heaped up in the sluit, while his scattered documents were being rapidly torn up by a mob of laughing, cheering diggers. After his successful charge, Conway cantered on to the Court House, through the sacred portals of which he rode his excited and plunging horse. Scattering the limbs of Satan and the grimy scum usually to be found in such establishments to the four winds of heaven. “——” shouted he to the horrified magistrate. “I heard you had been signing some d——d arrest papers against me, so I just dropped in to tell you, you can shove them where the monkey shoved the nuts. So long.”