Looking Back

by Sir Seymour John Fortescue

I had one or two more trips over to Simon’s Bay to report on the 4·7 guns that were being fitted out there as a battery of mobile siege guns, to be used in the field, and manned by the Naval Brigade.

Another little suburban trip I made was to Stellenbosch. (The name later became, used as a verb, a polite form of speech for denoting the fact that some unfortunate official had proved incompetent, and had to be got rid of.) When I went there it boasted of a large remount establishment, the animals being mostly Argentine cobs and Cape ponies. I succeeded in getting hold of two very useful ones, the Cape pony in particular turning out to be a treasure. I had accompanied Lord Kitchener and some of his Staff, who were, I expect, inspecting the establishment from the point of view of transport.

Altogether we were just about two months at Cape Town, and very weary we all were of the place and right glad when the orders came at last to go to the front! The pleasantest incidents in the life there was the constant meeting of all sorts of old friends, who generally turned up for dinner at Groote-Schurr, which, at that time, had been lent by Mr. Cecil Rhodes to Lady Edward Cecil and Lady Charles Bentinck, who were very busy at war work in the town close at hand. Then every day fresh arrivals turned up from England; my cousin, Lady Bagot, (then Mrs. Joycelyn Bagot), and Lady Henry Bentinck had come out to look after the Portland Hospital; the present Lord Derby, then Lord Stanley, arrived on the scene as Press Censor,—and all one’s friends that came down from the front, either wounded or for a few days’ leave, generally turned up at Groote-Schurr, where open house was kept by Cecil Rhodes for his temporary tenants and their friends.

The only other work we Aides-de-Camp had was to cipher and decipher the telegrams that poured in all day, which were not finally disposed of until nearly midnight, and two of us were generally on duty with the Chief when he was inspecting or going for a constitutional ride in the cool of the evening.

But on the 6th of February our stay at Cape Town came to an end, and the Headquarter Staff left by train for the Modder, and then events succeeded each other pretty quickly. On the 11th Lord Roberts’ flank march began. As concerned the Headquarter Staff, we moved first to Ramdam, and by the 15th were at Jacobsdaal, where we received the good news that French had relieved Kimberley. On the 17th, Cronje was held up at Paardeberg, and on the 19th Lord Roberts and his Staff arrived there.

I am not going into details about the action at Paardeberg. After what we have experienced lately, I suppose no soldier, nowadays, would do otherwise than agree that it would have been worth while, even at the expense of a considerable quantity of casualties, to have bundled Cronje out of his laager without further delay. Even if a good many men might have been sacrificed in such an assault, they would have been few compared to those who perished later of the germs of typhoid probably picked up during that ten days’ wait at Paardeberg. The river being full of dead animals, the water the men were drinking was poisonous. Now, the British soldier is a thirsty animal (and, indeed, as far as the infantryman is concerned, he has every right to be, when, as in Africa, he was carrying a heavy kit under a burning sun and enveloped in clouds of dust). The result was that the men were, more than probably, absorbing typhoid germs during the whole of their stay there.

When the Headquarter Staff arrived there on the 19th there were rumours of an immediate surrender. There must have been further parleys of which I knew nothing, for a few days later I was sent under a white flag to the Boers’ laager with a letter addressed to the Boer Commandant. After I had crossed the drift held by the Boers, I was received by them with perfect civility, and duly delivered my letter, to which, apparently, there was no answer, as I did not bring one back, but I remember well the difficulty I had in getting my horse to cross and recross, so piled up was the river at this fording-place with dead and putrefying animals. A very few days later, on February 27th, I was riding in the same direction again, this time to accompany one of the Generals on the Headquarter Staff, Prettyman by name, who was sent out by the Chief to bring Cronje in. I suppose it was on the strength of this casual acquaintance that Cronje, after his surrender, very much to my disgust, elected to annex my own particular shelter in the Camp, for the use of himself and his old wife, who was the living image of the late Dan Leno when made up for the Christmas pantomime; but it was only for a short time, as he and his 4000 fellow-prisoners were sent down to the Cape next day, most of them en route for St. Helena.

The next day we had the news of the relief of Ladysmith, on the anniversary of our defeat at Majuba Hill, with all the disgraceful memories of the peace that had been patched up after it. Now at last the disgrace had been wiped out. Well might the Boers say that, after Paardeberg and Ladysmith, we had robbed them even of their Majuba Day.

We were soon on the move after Cronje’s surrender, and by the 12th of March had occupied Bloemfontein. We met with but few difficulties on the road, the only serious trouble being to keep supplies going, and ensure a sufficiency of water. There was one not inconsiderable action on the way, which was fought at Dreifontein, and I was lucky enough to see rather more of it than usual. I had been sent on to select some quarters for the Chief, if there happened to be any available, and had succeeded in finding quite a decent farm, for the moment occupied by our wounded, which would answer the purpose; so my job being completed, and the rest of the Headquarter Staff being many hours behind, I went on with some of my friends among the special correspondents to watch the fighting. I remember that Mr. Gwynne (then, I think, the special correspondent of Reuter, now the well-known editor of the Morning Post) and I settled ourselves down on the top of a very comfortable little kopje, at a convenient distance on the flank of our advance, and watched some of the infantry of the Sixth Division take the Boer position. The Boers were holding a line of kopjes within easy view from where we were ensconced, and were keeping up a hot fire on our advancing troops—who were attacking in the most orthodox way in short rushes, and making use of all the cover available. When our troops had fought their way close up to the Boer line we distinctly saw a Boer show himself on the sky-line with his arms up in an obvious attitude of surrender. The attacking force, thinking that it was all over, at once showed themselves, and were received by a heavy volley at close range, which killed and wounded a number of them; the rest, without a pause, rushed on, and in a few minutes the position was captured. As always, the British soldier showed the greatest magnanimity, and instead of bayoneting the Boers, as they had a perfect right to do for what certainly appeared to be a distinct act of treachery, they contented themselves with making prisoners of all those who had not succeeded in bolting off on their ponies. The little action at Dreifontein was a very considerable success, and might have been an important one, were it not that, as usual, the underfed and overworked cavalry horses were so exhausted that a pursuit was rendered impossible.