“Aoril 17, Schwartzkopje.— … We have been here for some few days, and look as if we might stay another week. The tents have come from Boshof, thank goodness! as living and sleeping at night in a continual drizzle and an occasional downpour is enough to give any one the ‘blues’; and a rainier place than this I never did see. It beats Edinburgh hollow.
“We had a service on Good Friday and on Easter Day, but I couldn’t go to the Good Friday one as I had to go on a ‘fatigue ’ with four others to bury a dead horse about a mile distant from the camp. A pleasant occupation for Good Friday morning! It had been dead and lying in the sun for about five days. Need I say more? We stood at a respectful distance, and took it in turns to rush in with pick or shovel and excavate a hole close by the carcase. Two minutes was about the longest time a man could stay near it. Having dug his grave, we seized hold of his four feet and heaved him into it with a will, and then we shovelled the earth over him. . . .
“Another thing I should like you very much to send is the strongest steel spoon you can find. I bought one at Boshof, but it was a rotten one and broke in about three days. I tried to get along without the handle for some time, but at last threw it away in disgust. A spoon is about as essential as a knife out here.
“By the way, if you could get a knife with a tin-opener in it, it would be twice as valuable as an ordinary one here. A Pearson arrived yesterday: any magazine like that, or Black and White, or III. London Hews, are, of course, more than welcome. They are read through and through by the whole troop.
“A great piece of luck! My camera was picked up that day by a trooper in the squadron behind us, which happened to be the 39th. I am going across to their lines to get it to-night “We are waiting for Lora Roberts to advance, I think: you see we are his left flank under Methuen.”
While we were at this camp, a three-days’ reconnoitring expedition was made, in which I did not take part “We 30 are left here because we were out on picket away from the camp all night, and when we got back, about 5.30, they were all gone.” The party returned on the third day, after a very wet and uncomfortable march, having encountered a few snipers, but there was no real fighting.
A few days after this we heard rumours of a large force of Boers who were closing in upon us, presumably with the intention of trying to get between us and Boshof. Lord Methuen decided to withdraw into Boshof; the order came very suddenly; we struck tents and prepared to decamp in a great hurry. The suddenness of our departure came home rather forcibly to myself. We struck tents in the early morning, but did not expect to start till the afternoon. I and a few others were sent out into the bush veldt some distance from the camp to guard some cattle and prevent their straying. We had with us bully beef and biscuit for the mid-day meal, and we were to remain there till some Kaffirs were sent to drive back the cattle. The Kaffirs came about 12, and, thinking I had plenty of time, I threw my horse’s reins over a bough, and, after loosening his girth and putting on his nosebag, I prepared to have lunch and a smoke before starting back to camp. I had just comfortably settled and was gazing fondly at the slab of corned beef reposing on the white biscuit before making the first incision, when a comrade came cantering up. “Aren’t you coming?” he said. “Why?” said I, “there’s no hurry, is there ? ” “ Do you want to be taken prisoner?” “No,” I said. “ Well,” said he, “you will be if you stay here much longer, because the column has been gone some time and the Boers are coming.”
I bolted half the corned beef, pulled my steed together, and made all speed in the direction of the camp, arriving about a minute after my companion. The camp was deserted, and only a few empty tins and smouldering fires showed where the large force had been that morning. After going hard along the road for about a mile, I caught up the convoy, and, hearing that the 38th were scouting on the right flank, I soon rejoined them.
We had been going on quietly for about a mile, in widely extended order, when the sound of three or four heavy reports at regular intervals burst upon our ears from the direction of our right rear. It was the first time we ever heard the pom-pom (Vickers-Maxim 1-lb. quick-firing gun), and we did not know what it was. We were soon to become familiar with it The noise reverberated and echoed among the kopjes, and now we began to hear Mauser fire as well. As no shells or bullets came over our heads, we concluded that scouts behind us were being attacked. We halted, and listened for a minute, and I was then told to go back to the main body and report the firing to Captain G_____.
My old horse, tired out as he was with his morning’s work and subsequent gallop, was hardly the one that one would have expected to be selected for such a duty; and after he had gone about half the distance, he became covered with a lather of perspiration, and showed signs of complete exhaustion, so that I could hardly urge him to a canter. However, we got back to the road, and I gave my report to Captain G_____. This was of course unnecessary, as the captain, and indeed the whole column, must have heard the firing as well as we. I then had to hold three officers’ horses, whose owners had dismounted to look through their telescopes. By the time they had finished the firing was slacker, but there were still sounds of fighting coming from the right flank.
What actually happened I never found out Some of the Yorkshire Yeomanry got cut up, and a troop of our squadron were under fire for a short time, but none of them were hit The Yorkshiremen had English horses, many of which bolted incontinently when left in charge of the No. 3’s, the riders having dismounted to fight on foot and the veldt was dotted with riderless horses galloping in all directions. The 3rd Yeomanry here established the reputation (which, unfortunately for them, they sustained throughout the whole campaign) of being “cut up” on every possible occasion.
We arrived in Boshof just as it was getting dusk, and made straight for our old camping ground, where we again pitched our tents.
On May 1st we had “revally” at four, and, saddling up in the dark, started out to escort Colonel St. Quentin (of the Remount Department, an old chap, with a grey beard, who was said to be the best judge of horseflesh in the colony) out 8 miles towards Kimberley to a place called Frankfort. We had also with us five traction engines (steam transport). We got back that night Part of No. 3 went out as night picket. Captain G_____ paraded the company, paid us a few compliments, and then said he was obliged to go home on account of family troubles.
The next day we spent restfully in camp, and the horses were out grazing all day. On 3rd May we again had “revally ” at 4, and were out all day on a kopje some miles from camp as a guard to some cattle.
On the 5th up at 4 again, and paraded to go out and join a force that had been sent out the day before on a reconnaissance to Swartzkopje. We found that the Boers had all cleared off from that delightful spot.
“May 4, 1900. Boshof.— .. I went with E. to see L. the other day. He is doing wonderfully well, and looks as ‘fit’ as ever. His life was saved by a cartridge in his bandolier, worn across his chest. The bullet came straight for his heart, but hit the cartridge, and glanced off to the left through his lung, and came out under the arm. The cartridge which warded it off is battered and twisted up into all sorts of shapes. …
“This is what our work has been, and is. We have orders read out overnight, so that we know what we are going to do next day. What we often do is that when we are split up into small parties of seven or eight, we start off at 5 in the morning, one man taking a large tin of bully beef on his saddle.
“We ride round every kopje to see if we can see any man or horse. Every man we meet (always niggers) we question, and if his answers are not satisfactory we take him prisoner. Once I thought we were going to have it hot. I saw two men crouching down on the sky-line on top of a kopje, some way off. I immediately rode up and told the sergeant, and we halted and examined the place with our glasses. Nothing could be seen. We got about 80 yards apart, and surrounded the kopje. I was expecting to hear a Mauser sing out every minute, but nothing happened, and then two men were sent up to see who they were. They took them prisoners, and brought them down; they were two Kaffirs, who had been watching our movements most carefully.
“There are little farmsteads scattered about at distances of 4, 5, or 6 miles, and we surround each as we come to it, cautiously, but we always find the same thing—either deserted, or with the wife and children there, but never a farmer; he is always away fighting—against us, of course. We halt at mid-day at one of these farms, and make ourselves comfortable. We can always buy (if we have money) milk, fowls, and often turkeys from the Kaffirs, and we commandeer all kinds of vegetables. Then we resume our prowling round, starting hares and rabbits every minute, which the dogs (three always accompany us) chase but never manage to catch! We are using our glasses all the time, and stop to look at every speck on the horizon that looks suspicious. We come back to Boshof when it begins to get dark.
“Another day the whole squadron will go out on picket duty, i.e., occupying a kopje about 3 miles or so from the camp, and stopping there all day, doing absolutely nothing except being on the look-out in your turn. We make fires, cook cocoa, read, sleep, or do anything we like, and that’s the time for writing letters, and reading them too. The last time we did that we thought we were going to have a fight on the way back. It was dusk (there is no twilight here), and suddenly a lot of mounted men appeared, about 500 yards away, under some bushes on our right. Then there was a flash, and one of them fired a shot G. at once gave the order to get open formation, and we trotted quietly on. Meanwhile they rode towards us, and when they got close they turned out to be No. 2 troop, and their lieutenant had been potting at rabbits with his revolver, but he got a good blowing-up from G. We were within an ace of dismounting and putting a volley into them.
“We often have to escort convoys as far as Frankfort, half-way to Kimberley, and that isn't half bad fun.”
The convoy (all convoys here, in fact) consists of a long line of waggons, any number, from five to a hundred, or even more, each drawn by a span of trek oxen (i.e., eight couples). The leading pair are guided and dragged forward, when inexperience or apt to stray off the road, by one of the nigger drivers, but if they are old hands they follow the waggon in front of them. The other nigger driver spends his time either sitting on the box in front of the waggon or walking up and down alongside his team. He is armed with an enormously long whip, the stock alone being 10 or 12 feet long, and the lash (which is made of ox-hide) is a good deal longer. The drivers are wonderfully skilful in the use of their whips, and, standing up on the waggon, they are able to pick out any portion of the anatomy of any particular beast in their team which they think is in need of castigation. They can also crack them with a noise so loud that it has been occasionally mistaken for the report of a Mauser rifle. But the whip is not the only stimulus which the niggers are able to employ. During nearly the whole time they are on the march they give vent to the most extraordinary cries, groans, and dismal wails, punctuated every now and then by sudden loud shouts and ejaculations, and appeals to the different beasts by name. One’s inclination, on hearing these sounds for the first time, is to burst into fits of laughter, they, and the grimaces which the niggers indulge in while producing them, seem so irresistibly ludicrous to one unaccustomed to them; but gradually one perceives that there is a “method in their madness”—one set of sounds being used for urging the oxen forward, and another set (of which the chief feature is a prolonged whistle, gradually ascending from a low to a high note) for causing them to slow down a bit, or stop altogether. The oxen are yoked with heavy logs of wood, worn smooth by the constant friction of their necks. The waggons are not in the least like English waggons, being very long and very narrow; they are hardly ever more than 10 or 12 inches deep, but are fitted with strong “outrigging.” In this shallow basin can be piled boxes of provisions and sacks of corn to a great height, the load being usually roped down. Some of the waggons, especially those that are used for sleeping and living in (e.g., those occupied by the Army Service Corps officers), are fitted with large canvas hoods at either end of the waggon. A long line of such waggons, drawn by their teams of oxen, and stretching sometimes for miles along the veldt, is a wonderful sight when viewed from a distance, especially from the top of a kopje.
In dry weather the amount of dust raised by such a convoy on trek is absolutely incredible. It is not like the English dust raised by a motor-car or a stream of four-in-hand coaches bowling along a dusty road, but it is a thick, impalpable, heavy cloud, which hangs motionless in the air long after the cause has passed. It has a peculiar odour, and is so impenetrable that, when raised by a squadron of Yeomanry marching in fours along the road (a formation always employed on night marches, or at any time when it is desirable to concentrate), it prevents one seeing anything but the backs of the four men immediately in front.
“Besides these (the convoys we escort), there may be three or four steam traction engines, with trucks loaded up. On the march, we spread out on either side of the convoy, with our flankers out 1 or 2 miles. At midday we halt, water and feed horses, and then lie down by our saddles, have our grub, and then smoke or sleep. Our fours got broken up, with the exception of Eden and myself; we are the two left-hand men of our troop, and so are always the left flankers.”
The troops were reorganised soon after this, and formed into three fairly strong instead of four very weak ones. The names of the men from right to left of No. 3 troop were (as far as I remember) Saddler-Sergeant Reeves, Corporal Turney, Troopers Randall, Cutler, Shakeshaft, Eden, myself, Ramshay, Mash, Baker, W. Pratt, F. Pratt, Roades, Heenan, Corporal Gray.
“We each bring in grub, firewood, etc., and club together in everything. Another day we are 'inlying picket,’ which simply means that we stay in camp with our horses saddled. We had pay some time ago, but I am run out again; otherwise we are very comfortable in camp. We only get is. 5d. a day, whereas the Colonials have got 5s., and some 10s.
“We heard firing two days ago at Warrenton; and there is a report in camp that our men got out of hand, and when ordered to stop in the middle of the first charge, when the Boers threw down their arms, they rushed in and only left 18 or 20 of the 2000 Boers standing.”
This is a specimen of the exaggerated reports which some worthies took a delight in creating and spreading. They at least helped to relieve the tedium of camp life, and gave us something to talk about
“If it was those poor fellows who have been through all those battles at Modder River, etc., I don’t wonder at it I hear we shall be moving from here soon, but where to I don’t know. It is getting most frightfully cold in the early mornings—absolutely freezing. I should be very glad if you would send me one pair of thick lambswool drawers and a vest of the same stuff, also a pair of mittens, as in two months’ time they tell us there is ice and icicles in the mornings, but as hot as ever in the day.
“I get your letters regularly every week, and you can imagine how eagerly they are seized. The Peterborough paper, too, as regularly as the letters. I got one and the April Pearson yesterday (April 6). Everybody in the tent is clamouring for the latter, but I persist in using it to write my letter on till some one can supply me with something equally good to write upon. No parcels yet: don’t send them by any one else, but by themselves, like the letters. I am sure it is best, as every one else gets their parcels. Chocolate (plain, not cream) I want very badly, and G. might get me a pipe, small, straight, not curved, and plain, and, of course, a knife with a tin-opener. I am using at present a small, single-blade one, which I bought here for 4s. I am sure it would not cost 9d. in England.
“A small cup of cocoa or coffee is 3d., biscuits 1d. each. In fact, all prices are about treble what they are at home.
“… I should like you very much to send out any other papers, especially illustrated ones. ... I am sending home another dozen photos by this post.
“Many happy returns of the day to D. I wish I could send her a present, but except rocks and dust, tinned food, and horses, there does not seem to be much in this country.
“To-day is Sunday : we had church parade as usual. I believe we move on to Hoopstadt in a day or two.”
About a week before we started off on trek once more, the column was reinforced by two regiments of Yeomanry, the 3rd (Yorkshire Dragoons) and the 5th (Shropshires, Worcesters, Northumberlands).
Hearing they had arrived, I at once made my way to the Shropshire lines to look up E. and S. T., both of whom I knew had joined that regiment of I.Y. When I got to their people and asked for them some one said, “Oh, they have gone to look for a man in the Bucks Yeomanry,” so that I knew they had been to try and find me, and that we had each missed the other. So I made my way back and found them talking to the B.’s of the 37th. Neither of them knew me at first They were much interested in hearing that we had been in a fight, and were quite disappointed that I had no bullet holes in my helmet to show them. They both looked very fit and well: their uniform was quite different from ours; they had thick corduroy tunics and breeches, and ordinary Tommy’s helmets, not smart “officers’” helmets like ours—though mine was not very “smart” by this time, I having left the puggaree in the rush from Swartzkopje, so that it looked like a policeman’s helmet the worse for wear. However, as I found afterwards that the sun struck rather too warmly through it when denuded of its puggaree, I manufactured one out of half an old puttie, which I bound round the helmet.
At about this time I sold my puttie leggings (Stohwassers, £2 2s. at the A. & N. Stores five months previously) to the sergeant-major for 6s. and took to putties, as being warmer and more protective to the legs.
I was glad to find that the Shropshires were to be with our column, and hoped they would form part of Methuen’s permanent column; as a matter of fact they did. The 3rd, 5th, and 10th I.Y. were the only mounted men he had with him, with the exception of temporary reinforcements of Colonials, from April, 1900, to June, 1901. Unfortunately the T.’s soon had to leave their corps owing to sickness in both cases, but of this anon.
Extract from Rarnshay's Diary.
May 6th. Reveille at 5.30. On cattle guard all day.
„ 7th. Reveille at 5.30. Church at 9. Horses driven out for day.
„ 8th. Reveille at 4. No. 3 on outpost all day.
„ 9th. Grazed horses.
„ 10th. do.
„ 11th. do. Horses came in suddenly and 20 men saddled up in a hurry and went out. Result nil.—(R. and I were of the party.)
„ 12th. Reveille at 5. Went round with G. and took photos of Boshof.—(That camera again!)
„ 13th. Grazed horses. More troops join.
„ 14th. Church service. Grazed horses. On the evening of the 14th we struck tents
This striking of tents on the camping ground, where one has been for many weeks, is rather a dismal proceeding. However glad one is to leave the place (and we were glad, what with fever and dead horses, and the monotony), one cannot help feeling a pang of regret on seeing all the little white homes of our village collapse simultaneously to the sound of the bugle. Where before there were rows of tidy, cosy little dwellings, with glimpses through the “front doors” of men sitting round inside them, and rifles neatly stacked against the centre poles, is now nothing but “veldt,” with bustling troopers, stuffing the tents into bags, saddling up tneir horses, and getting into their own “clobbers,” while the place where each tent stood is marked by a dreary little circular patch, surrounded by its rain trench, and still littered with the debris belonging to its late occupants.
This time, however, we slept on the ground and started early the next morning.
