Mr. Lowry at Magersfontein.
Such was the man whom General Wauchope chose for his companion on that fateful day. Rumour says that the General had a presentiment that he would be killed, and certainly he asked Mr. Robertson to keep near him, perhaps longing for Christian society at the last. What really happened, perhaps we shall never know with any degree of certainty. All seems to have been confusion. Perhaps the best and most connected account that has come to us is from the pen of the Rev. E.P. Lowry, who was present during the battle. We quote from the Methodist Times:—
'Our second Sunday on the Modder River commenced so peacefully that we were actually able to carry out in detail the various arrangements for voluntary parade services in different parts of this wide camp. Just a little this side of the great railway bridge, that lies shattered by dynamite, is an excellent day-school building, which Messrs. Huskisson and Darroll, of the South African General Mission, succeeded in requisitioning for the purposes of a Soldiers' Home, and excellent work is being done in it, though necessarily on a small scale. Here, at seven o'clock in the morning, my first service was held and was gracious in its influence as well as cheering, by reason of the numbers present, including not a few whose faces had grown familiar to me in the homeland long, long ago. Amid the stir and strain of actual war we sang of a "day of rest and gladness"; and turned our thoughts to the Saviour who knows each man "by name." I then hurried back to the camp of the Guards' Brigade for a similar service in the open air at eight o'clock; but here a common type of confusion occurred. I had arranged to hold it in front of the Scots Guards' camp, but in one battalion it was announced that it would take place precisely where the Church of England service had just been held, and in another precisely where the Roman Catholic service had just been held. So before my service could begin, the shepherd had to seek his sheep and the sheep their shepherd. Finally, by several instalments, we got together, forming a circle, seated on the sand; and then we gave ourselves to prayer and praise, followed by a brief sacramental service of glad remembrance and renewed consecration. A camp mug and a camp plate placed on the bare sand for table betokened a ritual of more than primitive simplicity; but thus on the eve of battle did a band of godly soldiers give themselves afresh to God in Christ.
'A similar open-air service was fixed for the evening, but never came off. It may have been one of the sad necessities of war time, but was a fact, nevertheless, deeply to be deplored, that at four o'clock on Sunday afternoon our guns, which had been silent for a fortnight, again opened fire and shelled the Boers with lyddite. As I listened to the thunder and the thud of them I could not quite repress a wonder whether that was quite the best possible way of propitiating the God of battle. At eight o'clock, under cover of the darkness, we marched silently out of camp, confident and strong, and bivouacked till midnight just beyond the river. Nearly every other night since we came upon this ground had been brightened by starlight, but on this occasion rain had fallen during the day, and dense darkness covered us at night. So, with my mackintosh wrapped around me, I lay for hours among the troops on the damp ground awaiting the order to resume our midnight march. Soon after one o'clock we were again on the move; but our only light was the tell-tale searchlight from Kimberley, and many a vivid flash of lightning, which only served to make the darkness visible. It was not long, therefore, before the whole brigade hopelessly lost its way, and had to halt by the hour, while the persistent rain drenched almost every man, standing grimly silent, to the skin.
'Precisely at earliest dawn the splendid Highland Brigade appears to have stumbled into a horrible snare, and in such close formation as to render them absolutely helpless against their foes. Instantly their general fell, mortally wounded; for a moment the whole Brigade seemed in a double sense to have lost its head, and, in spite of the fierce and terribly effective fire of our artillery, there followed, not indeed an actual defeat, but none the less a grave disaster, involving further delay in the relief of Kimberley and the loss of over 700 brave men killed and wounded.
War's Terrible Harvest.
'The incoming of the wounded to the hospital camp was the most pitiful sight my life has thus far brought me; but I scarce know which to admire most—the patient endurance of the sufferers or the skilled devotion of the army doctors, whose outspoken hatred of war was still more intensified by the gruesome tasks assigned them.
'That night I slept on the floor of a captured Boer ambulance van, fitted up as a physic shop with shelves fitted with bottles mostly labelled poison. It was for me, even thus sheltered, a bitterly cold night, much more for the scores of wounded who lay all night upon the field of battle. Early next morning I buried two, the first-fruits of a large harvest, and later on learned that among the killed was the Marquis of Winchester, who a fortnight ago invited me to conduct the funeral of his friend, Colonel Stopford. To-day I visited the two graves side by side in the same war-wasted garden, and thought of the tearful Christmas awaiting thousands in the mountains.'