'Hold the fort,'
and he had not long to hold it by himself. Before he had finished the hymn other soldiers had gathered courage, and he had a crowd of two or three hundred round him, and at the close of the service there were many earnest requests to come again.
Thus night by night, in the tent and in the open air, Christ was preached. Perhaps, however, the most blessed of all the services were the meetings of Christian soldiers upon the veldt. Here and there among Mr. Burgess's letters one chances on such passages as this:—
'At 7.30 p.m. eight of us went a little distance from the tents into the veldt, and read the fifteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel together, and knelt down on the grass, and had a happy time in prayer. The lads got back to their tents in time for the first post, when the roll is called.'
Such records as these give us a glimpse of the Christian soldier's life at once beautiful and pathetic. Such intercourse must have been of the sweetest character; and, far away from home and friends, they drew very near to God.
For weeks from this time Mr. Burgess's letters are full of stories of conversion. Now a corporal that he chats with at the close of a hard day's work, now the trumpeter of the regiment, now several together at the close of an open-air service. Thus all workers rejoiced together in ever continued success, and the greatest joy of all—the joy of harvest—was theirs.
But the time of inactivity was over. For weeks reinforcements had been gathering, and the chaplains' work had covered a larger area. It was now time to strike their tents and march. But this unfortunate column was unfortunate still. With the memory of the disaster to the Northumberland Fusiliers at Stormberg still in their minds they marched forward, only to meet with fresh disaster at Reddersburg.
The Disaster at Reddersburg.
Perhaps the best account of that disaster is given by the Rev. W.C. Burgess in a letter to the Rev. E.P. Lowry; and as it gives a vivid picture of a chaplain's work under exceedingly difficult circumstances, we venture to quote at some length from the Methodist Times:—
'On Thursday, March 29, four companies of the Royal Irish Rifles were under orders to go by march route to De Wet's Dorp, and to leave one company behind at Helvetia, which is midway between the two townships. We reached this place on the Friday, leaving Captain Murphy in charge, and the remaining three companies, under command of Captain McWhinnie, reached De Wet's Dorp on the Sunday morning at nine o'clock. We marched through the town and took up a position on the surrounding hills, when all at once we heard firing in the distance, and our mounted infantry were soon engaging the enemy's scouts. About sunset we were reinforced by about 150 of the Northumberland Fusiliers and Royal Irish Rifles Mounted Infantry. Our men bivouacked for the night along the ridges, and I slept with them. About three o'clock on Monday morning our officer commanding received the order to retire upon Reddersburg. At dawn we marched out in the pouring rain. We bivouacked that night on or near a Mr. Kelly's farm, about fifteen miles from De Wet's Dorp. At two o'clock the next morning—Tuesday, April 3, 1900—a man, of the name of Murray, of the Cape Mounted Rifles, brought despatches, informing us that the enemy were in considerable numbers in the direction of Thaba 'Nchu, on the Modder River, and were likely to threaten our advance.