After burying the dead, and assisting the wounded to Bethany railway station, Mr. Burgess returned to headquarters at Springfontein and gave General Gatacre an account of the disaster. He was then attached to the Royal Berks, as his own regiment was in captivity, and advanced with them through the Orange River Colony.
'I Must Go to the Muster Roll.'
'He notes as he passes along a pathetic little incident. Bugler Longhurst, who was mortally wounded in the fight on April 4, died soon after, and shortly before he passed away he sat up in bed and said to his orderly, "Hush! hush!! give me my uniform. I hear them mustering. There are the drums! I must go to the muster roll. Hush!"—and sinking back he died.
'The advance for a long time was a continuous battle. Even the transport had a warm time of it. On one occasion a forty-pounder shell struck a transport wagon and exploded, cutting off the native driver's leg as he sat upon the box. The poor fellow showed conspicuous courage. "Don't mind me, lads," he shouted, "drive on." They carried him to the operating tent, and he was singing all the way. Shortly after his operation he died.'
'I'm not Afraid, only my Hand Shakes.'
The Sterkstroom column were fighting at last, and bravely they bore themselves. It was not their fault if disaster dogged their steps. No braver men could be found than those under Gatacre's command. And yet they, like the rest, had a great objection to the pom-poms. 'I'm not afraid,' said one lad, when that strange sound began and the shells came rattling around. 'I'm not afraid, only my hand shakes.'
It reminds us of a story told of a certain officer who was going into action for the first time. His legs were shaking so that he could hardly sit his horse. He looked down at them, and with melancholy but decided voice said, 'Ah! you are shaking, are you? You would shake a great deal more if you knew where I was going to take you to-day; so pull yourselves together. Advance!'
We are not told whether the legs so addressed at once stopped shaking, or whether they were taken still shaking into the battle. But this we do know, that the highest type of courage is not incompatible with nervousness, and that the courage that can conquer shaking nerves, and take them all unwilling where they do not want to go, is the courage that can conquer anything. The 'I' that is not afraid even when the 'hand' shakes, is the real man after all, and the man of exquisite nervous temperament may be an even greater hero than the man who does not know fear.
Sir Herbert Chermside had succeeded General Gatacre, who was returning home, and the column was now joining hands with General French, and coming under the superior command of Sir Leslie Rundle. It was stern work every day, and the chaplains, like the rest, were continually under fire. Services could not be held, but night by night the chaplains went the round of the picquets and spoke cheering words to them in their loneliness, and, day by day, in the fight and out of it, they preached Christ from man to man, ministering to the wounded, closing the eyes of the dying and burying the dead, until at last they too reached Bloemfontein and cheered the grand old British flag.