Part 31

Brigadier. "Hullo, here's a man who has seen his own ghost. We shall have some news now. Who are you?"

Trooper. "Please, sir, I belong to Mr Crauford's patrol--it has been annihilated!"

B. (soothingly). "Now dismount, and tell us all about it. What do you belong to!"

T. (dismounting). "Mount Nelson Light Horse, sir."

B. "I thought so; now let us have the story."

T. "Well, sir, there was Mr Crauford, and Sergeant Mullins, and----"

B. "Never mind their names. How many men had Mr Crauford with him?"

T. "About six, sir; and I am the only one left alive to tell the tale!"

B. "How truly awful! and if you don't get on with it your tale will outlast all of us as well. (Roughly) Now, throw it out,--what happened?"

T. "Well, sir, you see that farm over there (pointing to low seam of grey hills about four miles distant on our left flank, at the bottom of which nestled a homestead), we were riding up to it quiet-like, when suddenly, as we were passing a kraal, up jumps about fifty Boers and calls us to ''ands up.' We wouldn't ''ands up,' and they shot us down to a man, and----!"

B. "Wait--how did you get away from the general battue?"

T. "I don't exactly know, sir; I kind of found myself galloping for all I was worth, and the bullets just 'umming that thick and awful, that I kept on asking myself the whole way home 'ow it was I managed to escape!"

B. "You may go. Stop! where's your rifle?"

T. (for the first time realising that he had not got a rifle). "I must have dropped it, sir, in the scrimmage--it was awful 'ot, sir!"

B. (brutally). "Off you go; you ought to be ashamed to talk to honest men. (Then turning to the brigade-major.) Look here, Baker, though I don't believe the man's story in toto, or would believe any man who in panic had thrown his rifle away, yet something has happened, and either our men on the left have fallen in with the party of Boers who crossed our trail this morning, or we have let slip the whole 'bag of tricks,' and De Wet is through us. Just you take another squadron of the Mount Nelsons and see what has happened on the left. You can also take the pom-pom. Unless the enemy are in strength don't stay out there long, as I shall probably move on before you are back. Anyway I shall leave a signal-station on the hill above us!"

Brigade-Major. "Very good, sir."

B. "Wait a moment. As the rain-storm has dished my original plans, I shall probably, as soon as I hear from Fauresmith, send half my force direct to the Kalabas bridge, and take the rest to support the Mount Nelson squadrons. But I can make no definite statement until I have some idea of De Wet's force. Gad! I wish I knew where Plumer might be at this moment, or whether there is any one behind De Wet. Without information or maps, this is an uphill game!"...

In half an hour the brigade-major's little command was within a thousand yards of Liebenbergspan farm. Here they met five woe-begone men tramping wearily towards them. They were Crauford's patrol, stripped of most of their clothing, and desired by the Boers to make their way back to their column with all compliments of the season. The subaltern was very dejected, for he was a boy of the right spirit; and it is a strain upon one's dignity as an officer to be turned loose on the veldt with only a flannel shirt as a dress, and a pair of putties tied round the feet in the place of boots. It was not his fault: he had sent on a man to reconnoitre the farm. This man was our friend who had come in in the morning. As he failed to search the kraal, the Boers had let him past, and had waited for the main body of the patrol, which they had "held up" at short range. The scout, who had passed through them, heard the shouts of "Hands up!" and galloping for dear life, had been able to get clear and pitch the brigadier his terror-bred fable. Apart from taking their clothes, the Boers had treated the prisoners well. They were a party of fifteen men, very poorly clad but well mounted, under a commandant of the name of Theron. Crauford, who was a young English Africander, had, while a prisoner, made good use of his time. His captors did not realise that he understood Dutch, and he had gleaned from their conversation that they were, as the brigadier had anticipated, part of De Wet's screen. They were very much upset at the size of the British column, and had not been prepared for its presence so close to De Wet's line of advance. But as they discussed it among themselves they considered that De Wet would be in front of the column, proving that they had no knowledge of the two squadrons detached during the night. All this was such valuable information that Baker dismounted a man and sent Crauford back to the brigadier as fast as he could gallop. He himself kept on, as Theron's party was still in occupation of the farm.

The farm stood at the foot of a low brae. It was only a rise, and as the Boers appeared to take no notice of our approach, not even troubling to efface their presence, the brigade-major determined, under cover of his pom-pom, to gallop over it. Half a squadron on the right, half a squadron on the left. He called up the captain commanding the squadron and gave him his instructions. The man at once began to make difficulties, and suggested a different mode of attack.

Brigade-Major (severely). "I have told you what I want you to do. Kindly go and instruct your troop-leaders. As soon as you are extended, canter, and improve your pace when you get sufficiently near. That knoll on the right and the rise on the left both command the farm, and you will find that the enemy won't stand. Good Heavens! man (as the captain again began to demur), there are only about twenty of them; surely you are not afraid!"

The man did not mean going, neither did his squadron. They dallied over extending, and it was quite a quarter of an hour before they began to move forward. The brigade-major dashed to the head of the right half-squadron and tried to infuse some little enthusiasm into them. But no; it was the very worst squadron of the Mount Nelsons, and when the brigade-major commenced to gallop he found that he was only followed by four men. But this even, added to half a belt from the pom-pom, was sufficient for the Boers: they ran to their horses, which were grazing by the kraal, mounted, and galloped over the rise, without firing a shot. As vultures swoop down upon carrion, so the Mount Nelsons, as soon as it was seen that the rise was clear of the enemy, swarmed down to the looting of the farm. The brigade-major's face was a study when he and the Mount Nelsons' captain met in the verandah. All that he said would not add to the artistic sense of this narrative; but he closed his remarks with the following: "If I catch a man of your regiment touching a single article in this farm I will shoot him myself. Get your men back to their positions, sir. They won't fight; I'll be d----d if they shall loot!"

In war situations develop rapidly, and the brigade-major had barely dismissed his now sulking junior, when a silver glitter from above the halting-place of the brigade brought the laconic message, "Return at once without delay." Precisely at the same moment a messenger came dashing down from the rise above the farm, and excitedly reported that a long line of Cape carts was rapidly crossing the left front. The brigade-major started the squadron back at a trot, and stayed behind for a few moments to make an investigation of the new development. It was quite true, six Cape carts and about thirty men were crossing his front from right to left at a good pace. They were a long way off, and even if he had not had peremptory orders to return, it would have been hopeless to have attempted to pursue them with such material as he had in hand.

Brigade-Major (snapping his glasses back into their case). "You may put it down, Mr Intelligence, in that voluminous diary of yours, that our quarry has escaped. They have slipped us. Come along; we must canter on and see what the brigadier has in pickle for us!"

But, as subsequent events were to prove, the brigade-major for once was in error....

We found the brigadier impatiently awaiting us, with half the battery hooked in, and the 20th Dragoons standing to their horses. He did not wait for rest or explanation; but as soon as we cantered in with the pom-pom, gave the order for the column to advance. The mule-convoy had come in in our absence, and it had orders to follow us as best it could.

Brigadier. "Look here, you fellows; I really am sanguine for the first time since I have been engaged in this kind of 'follow your leader.' Just about half an hour after you left, our friend the turkey-expert of last night sent in a red-hot man with a message that he had held up the main body of a Boer commando in a pass just west of Fauresmith. He wasn't in position to stop the advance-guard, which went through with about six Cape carts; but he had since captured the Boer picket on the pass and had turned the main body--consisting of about thirty Cape carts and 400 burghers--back, and when he wrote they were halted in Fauresmith."

Brigade-Major. "We have seen that advance-guard. But is there no other way by which the enemy can get to the Riet: by swinging round between Fauresmith and Jagersfontein, for instance?"

B. "We can't hope that he will stay and wait for us in Fauresmith. Of course there will be a way round; but he may delay, he may try and force his way past the turkey-expert, and then we may be there first. I sent Goven on with the 21st and two guns at once to strike a bee-line for Kalabas bridge--to reck for nothing, only to get there. But we have neither guides nor maps that can give one any idea of the true lie of the country. I could only furnish him with the direction and the ordinary inaccurate sheet-map."