March—June, 1900
The Battery landed at Capetown on February 28, and spent a fortnight there, encamped at Green Point, a torrid expanse of sand bordering the sea— a very arduous fortnight for every one concerned. Three days of it were spent principally in disembarking and unpacking the guns and ammunition, the former having been shipped—with an excess of caution perhaps;—in packing-cases.
As soon as our material was in order we began regular drills, and found ourselves very rough at first, though not rougher than was to be expected from a battery of such miscellaneous composition, with horses new to the work. Naturally, it was in driving that we were most backward, the gunners having already made substantial progress in the use of the new gun at St. John’s Wood. It will be convenient here to say a few words about oar guns, noting the principal features which distinguished them from the fifteen-pounder then in use in the regular Field Artillery.
The gun is officially described as the ‘12½ pounder B.L. Q.F.' It is fitted with hydraulic buffers which take the recoil and automatically bring back the gun to the firing position, without any appreciable shifting of the carriage. The breech action is remarkably simple; one motion, of one hand only, is needed to open and close, instead of two hands and three motions as with the fifteen-pounder. The tangent sight is worked by a wheel, and need not be removed when the gun is fired. There is a traversing gear on the carriage as well as an elevating gear; so that traversing by hand-spike is needless. Fixed ammunition is used, and the Krupp fuzes for shrapnel are very simply contrived, and require no safety pins. All these improvements were admirable, and tended to rapidity of fire and simplicity of handling, while the range also (they are sighted to 6,000 yards) was greater than that of the service gun. Also, though we never lacked men, the gun could in fact be worked by fewer than the service gun, five being ample, and two, in an emergency, being sufficient. The chief defects noticed were the weight of the trail and the form of the carriers, which, when loaded with four rounds, were too heavy, and, being of thin steel, too liable to dints which were difficult to repair. Wicker carriers, holding three rounds, would meet this objection. But these were trifles. The main difficulty which beset us was the mere fact that we had a different gun from the standard type, involving a special type of ammunition for our sole use. This no doubt was rather a serious matter, and may have been one of the reasons for our long detention on the lines of communication. In the field, we could never draw on the regular ammunition columns, but had to rely on depots of our own up the line, from which by difficult and often tardy methods we managed to replenish such reserves as we carried in our buck-waggons.
Concurrently with our field training the work of obtaining transport was pushed forward, and eighty-four males were secured, with eighteen Cape boys to drive and look after them. A few remounts were also obtained, giving ns oar first experience of the notorious Argentine pony. We say nothing against the aristocrats of that breed, but the rank and file were some of the most stupid, soulless, and vicious little monsters that ever vexed a soldier’s soul.
As to our next destination, after many baseless reports had run their course, we were finally ordered to move to Stellenbosch, thirty miles up country, there to await further instructions. A two days’ march brought us to that beautiful but ill-omened spot, afterwards to become a by-word for inactivity. Then we spent a week perched on an arid hill, working hard at our drills, our harness, and our horses, and tormented by conflicting rumours, which were crystallised into fact on February 20. The Battery was to be divided into two, and posted at two points on the line of communication in Cape Colony—at Piquetberg Boad and Matjesfontein respectively. It was disappointing news, but there it was, and we made the best of it; said our farewells, entrained in two separate sections on successive nights, and spent two uneventful and bloodless months in that wearisome if necessary duty of ‘guarding the line.’ That was how it turned out. At the time, however, it seemed quite probable that we should have active work to do, for the districts we were posted in were seething with covert treason, and others further north of us with open rebellion. A large concerted plan was in the air to sweep the latter rebels southward to the mountains and drive them to surrender there, but it proved to be either not necessary or not feasible, for it was never carried out.
The right section, then, under Major McMicking, with Lieutenants Lowe and Duncan, Surgeon-Captain Thome, and Veterinary Lieutenant Morgan, proceeded to Matjesfontein, a dreary little station 170 miles from Capetown in the heart of the great Karroo. It was healthy, but in every other respect a most trying and repellent spot to be quartered in, the country around desolate to the last degree, and its boulder-strewn kopjes and valleys exceedingly difficult for artillery. There was no bathing to be got.
The left section, under Captain Budworth, with Lieutenant Bayley, were more happily situated at Piquetberg Road, another station on the same line, but ninety miles further south; an important strategic point, covering as it does the southern outlet of the Tulbagh Pass, where the railway crosses the mountains referred to above. They were encamped with a number of other troops, whose various units were constantly shifting, close to the outlying spurs of the range, on ground which sloped down to a spacious scrub-clothed valley. For South Africa, the place was a Paradise. There were frequent dust-storms, it is true, and occasional deluges of rain; but the country was easy, though not too easy, for artillery. Bathing, that precious solace for a soldier’s dusty and laborious work, was always at hand in the Little Berg River, a mile away; and in every direction there were beautiful and well-watered places, to give variety, interest, and amusement to the route marches which were constantly practised, together with all the other phases of training.
So established, both sections made rapid progress in efficiency. In saying above that we were ‘disappointed’ at being placed on the lines of communication, it was not for a moment implied that we could have done without a period of probation, before being sent to take our place in the fighting line at the front. We did need a probation ; but, on the other hand, we can justly and without a shade of arrogance say that the period enforced on us was, from whatever cause, excessive, and that we reached the standard which afterwards carried us successfully through our campaign long before we were called upon to fight. The point cannot be laboured, for it is the business of every soldier, whoever he may be, to sink his ambitions and do what he is told; it is only one, and not by any means the least, of his trials, to sit inactive (even though he be doing useful service, as we of course were) while others are passing him to the front. It is better, therefore, to be content with recording that we stood the trial well, and, when we eventually had our chance, took it briskly, with unimpaired strength and unshaken spirits.
Like the fruit of Tantalus, our longed-for chance was constantly receding. Hopes were raised, and blighted again, in April, and it was not till May 20 that definite orders came for us to go to Kroonstad. Full of zest and excitement, we entrained and travelled slowly for three days down the line, at last entering the field of war and seeing in hospital trains, entrenched stations, ruined bridges, burnt trucks, and innumerable dead horses, symbols of the progress of our arms.
But we got no further than Bloemfontein. Our exasperation may be imagined when, after many hours stationary in a siding, we were detrained, and, after a frosty bivouac near the station, marched off to the fever-stricken camp outside the city, where 10,000 men were resting —and rotting.
Here we stopped a month, during which Pretoria fell, the Free State was formally annexed, and to us, in our ignorance of the true conditions prevailing, it seemed that the war was practically over, and our enlistment for service in it an ignominious fiasco. The one gleam of hope centred round the name ‘de Wet,’ a name then beginning to be very widely and unpleasantly known.
Meanwhile we made the best of our time, drilling as a complete Battery, for both sections were now reunited under one command. But enteric was rife at this then notorious camp, and we naturally took our share of it, with the resulting depression of spirits. Rumours of a move were continually being falsified, and when, on the afternoon of June 20, a sudden order came to break up camp and go to Kroonstad the same night, not many of us, even then, were very sanguine as to the issue.
Marching out at midnight, we spent the whole night in entraining our guns, horses, mules, waggons, and harness, and at sunrise on the 21st, in a biting frost, screwed our persons into any odd crannies left over in the coal-trucks that formed our train, and so started.
