It is no fun fighting for you people at home, because you don't know when to clap. The English papers' account of Prinsloo's surrender have just come in. By Jupiter, for all the notice you take of it, it might be the capture of a Boer picket and a dozen men. Here have we been marching and fighting and freezing and sweating and climbing up great Alpine mountains in the snow for weeks, and captured 4000 great ugly live Boers and all their guns and baggage, and by the god of war, you hardly take the trouble to say thank you. This sort of thing will just suit Hunter, because his idea of bliss is to do the work and run the risk, and then somehow to evade the praise. But he ought not to be allowed to evade it. It is true we had no war correspondents with us, but I should have thought the bare facts would have spoken for themselves. It was the first thing of the war and our one really big score off the Boers. However, I shall not discuss it any more. I am disgusted with you. Mafeking day is about your form.
LETTER XXIV
FIGHTING AND FARM-BURNING
Frankfort, November 23, 1900.
Frankfort is one of our small garrison towns. It exists in a perpetual state of siege, like Heilbron, Lindley, Ladybrand, Winberg, Bethlehem, and a dozen others in this neighbourhood; in fact, like all the towns held by us not on the railway. At intervals of a month or two a column comes along bringing supplies and news from the outside world; mails, papers, parcels, clothes and kit, great quantities of regular rations, ammunition, &c., &c. You can imagine how eagerly the little garrison, stranded for months in this aching desolation, looks for the column's coming. Then arise other questions. Sometimes a part of the garrison is relieved and receives orders to join the column, while some of the troops forming the column are left behind in their place. Of course every one in the town is longing to get away, and every one in the column is dreading having to stay, and there is an interval of ghastly expectation while contradictory rumours go hurtling from village to camp and back again; and men look at each other like cannibals, every one hoping the doom will fall on some one else. We in our corps are spared all this anxiety, and can lie on our backs and look on and condole with the unlucky ones. We never get left anywhere.
For the last few weeks we have been cruising about over the veldt from one little British fort to another with our huge fleet of waggons, doling out supplies. During this time we have been fighting more or less, I think, every day. Perhaps you would hardly call it fighting; long-range sniping the greater part of it. Out of our 250 mounted men we have had some half-dozen casualties only, and we have accounted for a dozen or so of the enemy and a few prisoners. They have the advantage of their intimate knowledge of the country. We have the advantage of a pompom and two 15-pounders. These are invaluable in keeping the Boers at a respectful distance. It is rather satisfactory to plump some shrapnel on to a group of waiting, watching Boers three miles off, who are just concocting in their sinful hearts some scheme for getting a shot at you; or to lay a necklace of exploding pompom shells among some rocks where you guess they are hiding. "There, my boys, take that, and I hope you enjoy it," I feel inclined to say. You will understand that the side that has no guns at this game is apt to look rather silly. Rimington has initiated an entirely new use for guns. They are used now with the Scouts. Instead of remaining with the column, where they would never be of the slightest use, he takes them right out to the limits of his flankers or advance or rear guard, or wherever there is most need of them. So that when these scattered skirmishers get engaged, as they are constantly doing, instead of having to extricate themselves as they best can from an awkward corner, and being followed up and hampered and pressed as they keep up with the column, they know that in about two minutes they will hear the voice of one of the 15-pounders or the indignant pompom speaking on their behalf, and that the pressure will be immediately relieved. I am sure that the use made of these guns has saved us a number of casualties, besides inflicting loss on the enemy. It isn't very orthodox, I fancy, and I have noticed officers of the column rather stare sometimes at the sight of these volatile guns of ours careering away in the distance, but with the Colonel this is only another reason for using them so. At the same time the pertinacity of these Dutchmen is really remarkable, and the instant the guns limber up, on they come, darting round corners and creeping upon us with a zeal that never seems to diminish.
The work falls chiefly on front and rear guards, but perhaps mainly on the rear, as the difficulty of retiring is usually greater than advancing; i.e., if the advance guard gets pressed, all they have to do is to sit tight and the natural advance of the column will bring them up supports. But when the rear guard gets engaged, the advance of the main column tends to leave it stranded; it is bound to keep on retiring to avoid this, and retiring under fire is a difficult and dangerous job. The Boers, who have an instinctive knowledge how to make themselves most disagreeable, of course know all about this susceptibility of a rearguard, and there are always sure to be a number of them sniffing about in that direction. "Where are you to-day?" "Rearguard." "Oh! Good-bye, then!" was the farewell given to a rearguard officer this morning.
On the other hand, the advance is of course the most exciting. You make a dash for a kopje, probably uncertain if it is held or not. The clucking of the old Mausers at long range warns you that it is, and a few bullets kick the dust up. The squadron swing to the right to flank the kopje, and the fire gets hotter and the whistle of bullets sharper and closer. Suddenly the welcome report of a gun, followed by a second one, sounds behind you, and next instant the rush of the quick-coming shells is heard overhead. Then the squadron goes headlong for the kopje. The ponies tear along, mad with excitement, their hoofs thundering on the hard ground. The men grip their loaded carbines with their right hands; not one that won't be first if he can. There go the shells! There is a little shout of approval; one bursts right among the rocks on the top of the kopje in a puff of white smoke; the other half-way down, raising a great cloud of dust. The Mauser fire ceases as if by magic, and the next instant the racing squadron has reached the rise. Down jump the riders and clamber up over the stones. Yonder the enemy go, bundling along a rough track not 500 yards away, half seen through whirling dust. The men fling themselves down, some tearing a handful of cartridges from their bandoliers to have handy, and settle their carbines on the rocks. Crack! goes the first shot, and at the sound, as at a signal, the covey of fleeing Boers shakes out and scatters over the veldt. The fire quickens rapidly as the carbines come into action. Every Boer as he rides off, you can see through the glasses, is pursued and attended by little dust tufts that tell where the bullets strike. Surely they can't be going to get off scot-free. "Take your time, men; now do take your time," insists our captain. "A thousand yards, and aim well ahead!" And now at last it is seen with glee that something is the matter with the man on the white horse. Horse is it, or man? Both apparently. The man seems to be lying on his horse's neck, and the horse has lapsed into a walk. Instantly two of his comrades have turned to him. One begins thrashing the horse with his rifle into a canter. The other seems to be holding the rider in the saddle. Every carbine is on to them. Another Boer jumps off and lies down, and the report of his rifle reaches us at the same instant that a bullet whistles overhead. No one attends to him. Every man is blazing away at the little slow moving group of three, a good mark even at this distance. But it is not to be; though the dust spots are all round them, hit them we can't; and at last as they move away in the distance, the last reluctant shot is fired, and we give it up. On this particular occasion we capture one of the Boers a little further on hidden in a farm garden, his horse having been shot, though we did not notice it. This accounts for two anyway, which is about what we expect, and we proceed good-naturedly to help the farm people out with some of their furniture before burning the house down.
I am writing this lying on my back in our tiny tent. Outside the sun is blazing. Across the river, on the edge of the hill, our picket, under the lee of a kraal wall, is shooting at intervals. It sounds as if some one in the distance were chopping wood. The Colonel and Driscoll are standing just outside watching through their glasses. They can make out Boer scouts on the horizon, but no one pays much attention.