When night had fallen, the sentries—there were two of them, with loaded rifles and revolvers—passed us in a big kettle in which had been boiled water and, they said, coffee.
One of us sadly asked if they had put in sugar as well, and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, murmured, ‘What good hot water!’ Then we munched away at rusks, of which light and tasteless provender they chucked us in a quantity in the bottom of a sack, and I wondered if the nourishment contained therein would compensate for the energy expended in chewing them. I know I registered a mental vow never to feed my horses on bran alone if ever I got back to India. A few of us had pipes, and there was no difficulty about Boer tobacco; but here, again, one was reminded of bran, for although the colour was not quite the same the taste was nearly identical with what I imagine bran would give if smoked. As it grew late the cold increased, and by 9 o’clock we were shivering. Those of us who had managed to retain their greatcoats were not so badly off, but others, who had nothing but thin khaki tunics, suffered considerably. On representing matters to the sentries, they procured for us a few blankets and empty sacks, and, huddled together, each man endeavoured to sleep to the chatter of his neighbour’s teeth.
The laager next morning showed signs of great activity. A large patrol was about to start in the direction of the British lines, and the two hundred or so composing this body shook hands, every man of them, with half a dozen of their comrades, who, it afterwards turned out, were to form our escort to Pretoria. According to our preconceived ideas of how troops should move out of camp the behaviour of the Boers seemed absurd. No word of command appeared to be given, but in a moment the aspect of the camp that had been full of men lolling about, talking and skylarking, was changed. Horses were saddled, bridled, and mounted in a matter of seconds, the ceremony of hand-shaking gone through, and in less than five minutes from the first impulse which set them getting ready the patrol had disappeared over the skyline. Some were trotting, some cantering, and there was no attempt at formation; but none the less their method, or want of it, was effective, and one could not help being impressed with the individual independence of each man, combined, as it was, with complete unanimity of object in the whole body.
Our turn came next, and we made our little preparations to start. These consisted mostly of buttoning up, and, indeed, there was a charming sense of irresponsibility in having no arrangements to make, no packing to do, no hookums[[10]] to give. For our conveyance was prepared a buck-waggon, with the appearance of which the illustrated papers have made all the world familiar. Twelve mules were stuck in front, the driver cracked his whip, and the caravan was ready. Down the centre of the waggon, on a mattress, and propped about with rolled-up blankets, was placed the wounded Victorian. The rest of us sat round, with our legs dangling over the side. A Kaffir held the reins from a raised seat in front, and two Boers sat alongside of him with loaded rifles on their knees. But they had their backs to the mules and the points of their guns towards poor us. At the tail end of the waggon sat two more Boers, also armed. A fifth Boer, unarmed, barring a whip as long as Chowringhi, marched alongside to curse the mules and pick holes in their hides when the cursing failed.
As we stood ready the Boers near shook hands all round with us, hoped the war would soon be over and we be back in our ain countrees and themselves restored to the bosoms of their families. We moved off with a jolt that made the poor Victorian groan, and they shouted good-byes after us and congratulations that we were going to that wonderful place Pretoria. Soon a rising hid the laager, and around we could see nothing but veldt—not a tree, not a house, not a Boer. And now, we thought, is our chance. We only had to lay hold of our guards by the throats, wrest their rifles away, and so turn the tables completely—a poor return for their hearty kindness, but then we did not cherish the same feelings for Pretoria that they did. These ideas of escape were rippling round cheerfully but guardedly, when our hopes flopped to the ground, for over the skyline came cantering a couple of Boers, and we soon found their business was to trot behind. We might easily overpower the guards in the waggon; but what profit would there be in that if one mounted man galloped for assistance while the other kept watch on our movements? Without the mounted men we might have bagged our guards and got clear away, as no warning of our escape could then have reached the Boer lines for at least twenty-four hours. But it was not to be, and we resigned ourselves to the inevitable.
When there’s nothing to see, almost as much to eat, and the Devil’s own pother to think about, travelling is wearisome. Add to these conditions a place to sit upon as hard as the heart of Pharaoh and the ever-present gun to keep you on it, and travelling becomes well-nigh unendurable.
If it wasn’t for the antics of Brother Boer we should have succumbed to jaundice, occasioned by nausea of the situation, or some other fell disease. But the Boer brother, to beguile the tedium of the way, showed us a thing or two in bullying, in quarrelling, and in shooting—the last named, to our disappointment, not being a consequence of the first two. Hanging on to a projection of our waggon was an attendant to look after the mules, a Kaffir boy about fifteen years old. His face was unadorned with beard, whisker, or moustache. One of the Boers snatched the boy’s cap from him, held him tight by the scruff of the neck, and then chucked the cap into the road. Meanwhile the waggon proceeded, and soon the cap was a dim speck half a mile behind. Then the owner of the cap was loosed off, and away he sped back to his lost property. When he reached it we were a clear mile away. Thereupon the Boers waxed mighty cheerful, and the waggoner, loudly chuckling, whipped up his mules into a fast trot, the little nigger running like a good ’un far in the rear. The going was too bad for continuous trotting, so in two or three miles the boy had overhauled us, and, though very blown, he showed his teeth with pleasure at catching us, apparently bearing no malice for the trick that had been played on him. But his troubles were not over. As he laid hold of the waggon to jump on, a great Boer hand was sprawled in his face and he went down on the road like a thousand of bricks at the unexpected assault. Loud guffaws from the brethren greeted this performance. It was repeated again and again till the poor devil was hopelessly beaten, and unable to continue the game. Then, when allowed to hang on again, he had to put up with brutal horseplay. His ears were pulled, his face contorted into extraordinary shapes, and tufts of wool, bleeding, jerked out of his head. At this point we deemed it our business to interfere, and, appealing to the man who appeared to be in command of our guard, and who spoke English well, we asked if it was usual for the Boers to treat Kaffirs in this way. And if so, we told him, it was high time every Boer in South Africa was shut up in St. Helena. This touched him up, and he ordered the two bullies to drop it. Then ensued a pretty quarrel. Some of us felt sure there were Hindustani words used—and dreadful they sounded in Dutch mouths. We fondly hoped there would be shooting, or at least fisticuffs. But the Boer is like the Bengali—a leviathan in words and a mouse in deeds. Behind a stone his heart is like that which protects him, and in the open his heart becomes just like the atmosphere which affords him no protection.
When cheerfulness was more or less restored somebody espied a herd of buck about a mile away. The keen sight of the Boers is astonishing, and the way they detected the movements of the buck at that distance was a revelation. Some of us could see nothing at all, but the keenest thought they could spot a little bit of colour which the Boers said was a herd of about twenty buck. In a minute three of them were blazing away with their Mausers, but the herd cleared without casualty. Throughout the rest of the way the Boers blazed away without intermission at anything and everything that suggested itself as a target. There certainly was no idea among them then that it would be well to husband ammunition. I see by the papers that their commandants are said to be exhorting the Boers now in the field to save their cartridges for officers, and not to waste any on the Tommies, but at the date of which I am writing they behaved as if their supply of ammunition was inexhaustible.
About midday a halt was called, the niggers did something to the harness, which dropped on the ground, and the mules, freed, were quickly up to their knees in an adjacent dam, and soon after that busily engaged with the veldt grass. Only once a day were they supposed to get a feed of corn, and from all we could hear that day only came round about once a week. In the meantime the Boers had fished out an empty wine case, smashed it up, lighted a fire, and placed a great kettle on top. While that was boiling the carcass of a sheep was produced from a sack, and all and sundry hacked a piece off. When the kettle had boiled and the coffee was made, the fire was heaped up afresh with wood, and every man had his bit of meat on the end of a stick, held it in the flames, where it fizzled and cracked and spurted as merrily as any steak on a grill in London town. There was a dish of salt to dip into when you judged the cooking complete. Our rusk sack was still partially filled, and wasn’t the dam full of water within a few yards of us? ‘What more could the —— Englishman want?’ said Brother Boer, as he lapped up all the coffee! In the newspapers the Boer is made to speak of the verdomde rooinek, but my experience of the Boer is that he prefers Tommy’s pet adjective before all others.
Our rustic repast over, the Kaffirs began to collect the mules. This they did not by running round them, but by sitting still and emitting sounds into the tenor of which God forbid that any civilised human being should inquire. Sufficient to say that they were weird enough to ‘kid’ the mules into leaving their feed and travelling half a mile to the waggon, there to be yoked again in slavery. Thereafter our journey was uneventful until we struck the railway, where we fondly hoped to find a train. But the advance of the British from Bloemfontein had begun, and the Boers, to prevent a sudden descent on the railway within their own lines, had taken the precaution of blowing up every bridge and culvert for many miles inside their own outposts. So we had to traverse six more weary miles, witnessing for diversion the destruction that dynamite can bring upon the handiwork of man. Great iron bridges broken and tossed aside, huge embankments shattered, railway stations annihilated. Cruel signs, but the inevitable consequences of war. At dark we reached Smaldeel, a little station sixty miles north of Bloemfontein, and at that time the southernmost depôt of the Boer forces on the railway. Three days later the British were in possession of Smaldeel and fired on the last Boer train steaming out of the station. But knowing that afterwards did not comfort us a bit when they locked us up that night.