LIEUT.-GENERAL FORRESTIER WALKER, K.C.B.
Commanding the Lines of Communication.
Photo by Elliott & Fry, London.
On the whole, well or ill, Tommy was temporarily in clover. The fat of the land was being sent out by fervent admirers at home. Indeed he was getting somewhat inundated with worsted goods which the fair hands of his countrywomen had been devotedly manufacturing. Jack Tar, despite his magnificent work, was not so highly distinguished, at least so he thought, and occasionally vented his disgust into private ears. But, as one of them said, they’d had a treat for Christmas—the treat of a wash! It was bathing under difficulties, however, for one half of the men had to keep guard with loaded rifles while the other half wallowed in water that, in harmony with the general scheme of things in camp, was also of kharki hue!
Tommy at the front was externally scarcely the Tommy of our acquaintance. His bright spick and span exterior was gone. Kharki had sobered him and planed down his individuality. His uniform no longer sat without a crease. It was washed and worn and shrunken from hard and honourable usage, and his carriage was no longer the carriage of Tommy on parade. He seemed to have taken a leaf out of Jack’s book, and the slight slouch became him well. It gave him the air of a workman and an individual, and seemed to point to the fact that there was no longer occasion for him to be judged by appearances. We knew the inner man now. He did his duty grandly, and his splendid courage and perseverance had made him independent of the pomp and panoply of war. In the matter of “grit” they were all alike. But in externals they had curious differences, their characteristics varying considerably according to the regiment to which they belonged. Some were dapper still—the newly arrived ones—with hair clipped to an eighth of an inch for head and half an inch for moustache; others had succumbed to circumstances, and had grown beards of odd sizes and shapes and colours (scumbled in all cases with dust), while the youngsters displayed an unhappy medium, styled by an officer “pieces of unexpected wool,” on promiscuous parts of their faces! Still, when all was said, joviality and “grit” put an identical veneer on them all!
The officers too were transmogrified. They were dressed exactly like the men. Tan brown belts, swords, and revolvers were no longer in evidence. When going off to war, or any other duty at all under arms, each officer arrayed himself in his servant’s belt and equipment—stained with clay paste to the prevalent dust or kharki colour—and took with him his servant’s rifle and one hundred rounds of ammunition. There was a difference without a distinction. The officer carried a field-glass, and this when not in use was concealed in a coat-pocket. Every precaution was now adopted to prevent them from inviting an undue share of attention. The mounted officers had carbines—neat, handy weapons, which slipped into a leather carbine bucket in the saddle, on the other side of which went the very necessary wire-cutters. Barbed wire entanglements were so much a part of the Boer programme—“to cheer you up in crossing the drifts,” some one said—that the cutters became an essential part of warlike gear. A strange innovation this; very small but very full of meaning. The Boers were teaching us a great deal. We were beginning to understand, almost to admire, their curious modes of warfare—their strange ability to “sit tight,” wire themselves in, and yet to fly away! Years ago, when some tactician ventured to say that the war of the future embraced only the question of long-range rifles and wire-entangled trenches, we were inclined to pooh-pooh! Now we were beginning to see wisdom in this stubborn and persistent, and yet skittishly mobile foe! When we looked at our wire nippers and their strong entrenchments we began to formulate the war motto of the future, which resolves itself into five words: “Six legs and a spade!” The sword, the bayonet, the cavalry charge were passing away for ever. Here the dignified charger was ill-matched with the nimble steed of the country, and many officers were only too glad to supplement their English horses with Basuto ponies—to secure four serviceable and sure legs, as the climate and other circumstances contrived to wear out those of their British beasts. Fortunately there was still a plentiful choice in horse-flesh, what with British and Australian and Argentine specimens, but the Basuto ponies were the most knowing and handy for the purposes required. The imported horse, it was discovered, needed a long and probationary period to make him at home on the South African veldt. Like other aristocratical creatures, he was unequal to the hand-to-mouth existence of the African-born animal, who, by habit and instinct, could shift for himself. He was neither knowing nor cautious, having been unaccustomed to ground honeycombed with mole-holes, sluits, and other obstacles, or to the trick of rolling on the veldt and picking up his meals haphazard from the first bush he came across. Hence it became evident that horses in plenty must be forthcoming if we were ever to remedy our deficiencies and make our progress something other than the steam-roller style of progress to which we had been accustomed.
CHAPTER II
MAFEKING
Plucky little Mafeking continued to hold its own, and not merely to hold its own, but to make itself dauntlessly aggressive. Continual sorties took place, and indeed formed part of the routine of daily life. Commandant Cronje now sent in a communication disputing the right of the British to use dynamite in any way in the operations for the defence of the town; but Colonel Baden-Powell was inclined for deeds, not arguments, so Cronje was silenced. The town was enlivened by a great concert, in which the National Anthem was sung with fervour and intense significance. This showed without doubt that Mafeking meant to fight so long as breath should last. In regard to provisions and water, the garrison was getting on well. The art of dodging shells, said one officer, was being carried to a state of great perfection, and the fighting was being conducted in strict accordance with military etiquette, Commandant Cronje always giving due notice of bombardment!
For some time after Colonel Walford’s gallant defence of Cannon Kopje on the 31st October, nothing much occurred. The losses from this attack were more than at first supposed. Captain the Hon. H. Marsham, as we know, was killed, and Captain Pechell, who was hit in the abdomen by a piece of shell, succumbed to his injuries. Sergeant Lloyd, who did splendid service with the Red Cross company, was struck while attending to the wounded, and died. Trooper Nicholas, whose arm was shattered, succumbed owing to shock to the system. A trooper who was hit by a bullet in the collar-bone escaped death miraculously. Fortunately, Lieutenants Brady and Dawson, who were also injured, were getting on well.
Among the marvellous escapes recorded, and these were not a few, was one of a negro who was shot through the brain by a bullet. The projectile passed through one temple and lodged in the other, yet the man still survived, and showed a decided intention to recover. There is an old story of a Jamaica negro who fell from a tree without injury, and when asked how he escaped, he explained his good fortune by saying, “Tank God, me fall on me head!” The invulnerability of the nigger cranium in that case, as in this, had its advantages, and it would be interesting if some of our specialists—say Dr. Horsley—would account for the rough-and-tumble superiority of blacks over whites.
On the 1st of November a lamentable incident occurred. Parslow, the correspondent of the Daily Chronicle, was shot by a member of the garrison. The following is an extract from a letter relating to the sad affair, which was in the possession of the Editor of the Daily Chronicle:—