In the evening I heard the Liverpools and Devons were likely to be engaged in some feat of arms before midnight. So I stumbled out in the dark along the Helpmakaar road, where those two fine regiments hold the most exposed positions in camp, and I spent the greater part of the night enjoying the hospitality of two Devon officers in their shell-proof hut. Hour after hour we waited, recalling tales of Indian life and Afridi warfare, or watching the lights in the Boer laagers reflected on a cloudy sky. But except for a hot wind the night was peculiarly quiet, and not a single shell was thrown: only from time to time the sharp double knock of a rifle showed that the outposts on both sides were alert.
November 24, 1899.
Though there was no night attack a peculiar manoeuvre was tried, but without success. On the sixty miles of line between here and Harrismith the Boers have only one engine, and it struck some one how fine it would be to send an empty engine into it at full speed from our side. Accordingly, when the Free State train was seen to arrive at the Boer rail-head some eight miles off, out snorted one of our spare locomotives. Off jumped the driver and stoker, and the new kind of projectile sped away into the dark. It ran for about two miles with success, and then dashed off the rails in going round a curve. And there it remains, the Boers showing their curiosity by prodding it with rifles. Unless it is hopelessly smashed up, the Free State has secured a second engine for the conveyance of its wives and daughters.
It is a military order that all cattle going out to graze on the flats close to the town should be tended by armed and mounted drivers, but no one has taken the trouble to see the order carried out. The Empire in this country means any dodge for making money without work. All work is left to Kaffirs, coolies, or Boers. Two hundred cattle went out this morning beyond the old camp, accompanied only by Kaffir boys, who, like all herdsmen, love to sleep in the shade, or make the woods re-echo Amarylli's. Suddenly the Boers were among them, edging between them and the town, and driving the beasts further and further from defence. The Kaffirs continued to sleep, or were driven with the cattle. Then the Leicester Mounted Infantry came galloping out, and, under heavy rifle fire, gained the point of Star Hill, hoping to head the cattle back. At once all the guns commanding that bit of grassy plain opened on them—"Faith," "Hope," and "Charity"—from Telegraph Hill, the guns on Surprise Hill, and Thornhill Kopje, and the two guns now on Bluebank Ridge. Two horses were killed, and the party, not being numerous enough for their task, came galloping back singly. Meantime the Boers, with their usual resource, had invented a new method of calling the cattle home by planting shells just behind them. The whole enterprise was admirably planned and carried out. We only succeeded in saving thirty or forty out of the drove. The lowest estimate of loss is £3,000, chiefly in transport cattle.
But who knows whether by Christmas we shall not be glad even of a bit of old trek-ox? Probably the Dutch hope to starve us out. At intervals all morning they shelled the cattle near the racecourse, just for the sake of slaughter. To-day also they tried their old game of sending gangs of refugee coolies into the town to devour the rations. Happily, Sir George White turned at that, and sent out a polite note reminding the commandants that we live in a polite age. So in the afternoon the Boers adopted more modern methods. I had been sitting with Colonel Mellor and the other officers of the Liverpools, who live among the rocks close to my cottage, and they had been congratulating themselves on only losing two men by shell and one by enteric since Black Monday, when they helped to cover the retirement with such gallantry and composure. I had scarcely mounted to ride back, when "Puffing Billy" and other guns threw shells right into the midst of the men and rocks and horses. One private fell dead on the spot. Three were mortally wounded. One rolled over and over down the rocks. Several others were badly hurt, and the bombardment became general all over our end of the town.
November 25, 1899.
Almost a blank as far as fighting goes. It is said that General Hunter went out under a flag of truce to protest against the firing upon the hospital. There were no shells to speak of till late afternoon. Among the usual rumours came one that Joubert had been wounded in the mouth at Colenso. The Gordons held their sports near the Iron Bridge, sentries being posted to give the alarm if the Bulwan guns fired. "Any more entries for the United Service mule race? Are you ready? Sentry, are you keeping your eye on that gun?" "Yes, sir." "Very well then, go!" And off the mules went, in any direction but the right, a soldier and a sailor trying vainly to stick on the bare back of each, whilst inextinguishable laughter arose among the gods.
Sunday, November 26, 1899.
Another day of rest. I heard a comment made on the subject by one of the Devons washing down by the river. Its seriousness and the peculiar humour of the British soldier will excuse it. "Why don't they go on bombardin' of us to-day?" said one. "'Cos it's Sunday, and they're singin' 'ymns," said another. "Well," said the first, "if they do start bombardin' of us, there ain't only one 'ymn I'll sing, an' that's 'Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me 'ide myself in thee.'" It was spoken in the broadest Devon without a smile. The British soldier is a class apart. One of the privates in the Liverpools showed me a diary he is keeping of the war. It is a colourless record of getting up, going to bed, sleeping in the rain with one blanket (a grievance he always mentions, though without complaint), of fighting, cutting brushwood, and building what he calls "sangers and travises." From first to last he makes but one comment, and that is: "There is no peace for the wicked." The Boers were engaged in putting up a new 6 in. gun on the hills beyond Range Post, and the first number of the Ladysmith Lyre was published.
November 27, 1899.