Part 21

"They showed their gratitude," he says, "by doing all they could to help me, and when I was leaving the country, the old Thathana bain accompanied me as far as Rangoon. We corresponded till his death, and I still hear occasionally from one or other of my Phoonghi friends."

As for his own soldiers, they came fairly to worship him. To them he was not a Lord, or General, or Field Marshal, but just "Bobs" and "Our Bobs." Wellington commanded the respect of his men, but Roberts their love.

"Lord Roberts! Well, he's just a father," is the testimony of one gunner in the South African War. "Often goes around hospital in Bloemfontein, and it's 'Well, my lad, how are you today? Anything I can do for you? Anything you want?'--and never forgets to see that the man has what he asks for. Goes to the hospital train--'Are you comfortable? Are you sure you're comfortable?' Then it's 'Buck up! Buck up!' to those who need it. But when he sees a man dying, it's 'Can I pray with you, my lad?' I've seen him many a time praying, with not a dry eye near--tears in his eyes and ours. He is a lord!"

A favorite story about him relates to an audience with Queen Victoria. The famous veteran was then sixty-eight and for several years had been living in retirement. Now his sovereign asked him to buckle on his sword again, and go to retrieve the fallen British fortunes in South Africa.

"You do not think that you are too old for this arduous task?" asked the Queen. "You are not afraid of your health breaking down?"

"I have kept myself fit," replied the old soldier, "for the past twenty years, in the hope that I might command in such a campaign as this."

The remark, "I have kept myself fit," is a keynote of his life. The puny boy of the long ago was to survive this campaign with flying colors, and to lend his counsel in the Great War of our own time. It was a long life and full of service. In an address to a children's school, when a man of eighty, he summed up his creed by saying:

"In the first place, don't be slack in anything that you are doing. Whether it be work or play, do it with all your might. You will find that this great Empire can only be maintained by the exercise of self-denial, by training, by discipline, and by courage."

IMPORTANT DATES IN ROBERTS'S LIFE

1832. September 30. Frederick Roberts born. 1845. Entered Eton School. 1847. Entered military college at Sandhurst. 1852. Went as second-lieutenant of Bengal Artillery to India. 1857. Fought in the Mutiny, and won Victoria Cross. 1858. Returned to England on leave. 1859. Sent back to India, major. 1875. Quartermaster-general of Army of India. 1885. Commander-in-chief in India. 1891. Created a peer. 1895. Created field marshal. 1900. South African campaign. 1901. Commander-in-chief of British army. 1914. November 14. Died in France.

KITCHENER

THE SOLDIER OF DEEDS--NOT WORDS

When Chinese Gordon lost his life in Khartoum, Egypt, in 1884, because the British relief force reached him two days too late, a young officer accompanying the expedition was getting his first glimpse of a land that was destined to make him famous. "Kitchener of Khartoum" was to become as widely known in a later generation as Chinese Gordon was in his own. Each won his spurs in a foreign land.

Kitchener was then a cavalry officer of thirty-five, and did not seem destined to get much higher in army circles. Yet he had never lost faith in himself. After this first expedition to Egypt, when he was still only a major, he remarked drolly to a fellow officer:

"Never mind, my dear fellow, a few years hence you and I will be generals, and these people who annoy us now (meaning the red-tape departmental clerks) will be looking out of their club windows, with all their teeth falling out of their heads!"

During this same expedition, he spoke of the fact that their commanding officer had missed the key-point, by saying:

"It's the same with everybody. We must stop floundering, or people will forget that Khartoum is our objective and always will be."

Prophetic words for Kitchener of Khartoum.

Who was this strong, stern, silent soldier whose career linked up past wars with the great World War of our own day?

Like Wellington and Roberts, Kitchener came of Irish stock. He was born near Listowel, June 24, 1850, his father, Colonel Henry Kitchener, having bought a considerable estate in the counties of Kerry and Limerick.

Colonel Kitchener had seen a good deal of active service himself, and still more of garrison life. He determined to retire, and after buying some 2,000 acres of land in Ireland, at a bankrupt sale, he built a hunting lodge, called Gunsborough House. This was Herbert Horatio Kitchener's birthplace. Whether the name of the house had anything to do with his warlike career, history does not state. But certain it is, that he was a born soldier--a man of iron almost from his boyhood.

"Yes," said his old nurse, in talking about him only a few years ago, "I know that he is a great man; and they tell me that he has no heart, and that everybody is afraid of him; but they are wrong. He is really one of the most tender-hearted men in the world; and whenever he comes to see me, he is 'my boy' just as he was in the old days in Ireland, when he used to run to me in all his troubles, and fling his arms around me and hug me. Ah, there is nobody left who knows the real Master Herbert as I know him."

As a boy at school, Herbert Kitchener was not very brilliant. Like Wellington, whose mother called him "the fool of the family," Kitchener did too much day-dreaming to make much headway with his studies. His first teacher was a governess, who gave him up in despair. Then he was sent to a private school where he did not do any better.

His father lost his patience. Just before an examination, he made a dire threat.

"Young man," said the Colonel, "if you fail I'll make you toe the mark. I'll send you to a girl's school."

Apparently the threat did not have the desired effect. He flunked and was transferred to the other school. This time he was told that failure meant that he would be taken out of school entirely and apprenticed to a hatter.

The warning had the desired effect. Herbert buckled down to work and not only passed his examinations, but even began to show a decided liking for mathematics--which study was to be of good service in later life.

By this time the family had moved into a more pretentious home, known as the Crotta House. Little is related of his boyhood life there. It was quiet and uneventful. The boy was of reserved nature, preferring to sit quietly in the corner and listen while others did the talking. Yet when drawn out, he could talk well, preferring to reason rather than argue. His chief outdoor sport was swimming. The home was only a few miles inland from the Atlantic coast, and he and his brothers often rode over for a dip.