by Fred Stenson
“Hutton offered him command of the supply depot here at Kroonstad.”
“What then?”
“Herchmer said he wanted a medical board.”
Morden stopped and looked at Frank for some sign that he understood what a medical board was. Frank figured it was a board to decide whether someone was sick.
“The board found him medically unfit, as Herchmer knew it would.”
“So why ask for it?”
“Because it means he doesn’t have to take the depot job. He can go home.”
Morden did not speak for a time. Frank was about to go when Fred started up again about other events of the day. Major Howe, who had an infected eye, was leaving too. Archie Macdonnell had been promoted to major in Howe’s place. Lieutenant Moodie was made captain to fill Macdonnell’s old rank.
“Good promotions,” said Morden.
That seemed like the end. Fred threw the last bit of his tea away and put his mess tin in the sack. Frank had come here thinking he’d tell Fred how much he’d started to hate the war. Even when he let himself be picked for Bothaville, it was just to get some fresh air—though he had unexpectedly liked the feeling of returning in triumph.
In the end, he said none of it, but Morden spoke exactly as though he had.
“Everybody’s sick of the war now,” he said. “I am too. We’re chasing an enemy who’s lost his fight. That’s what today’s about. Not Herchmer. Sacking him won’t make any difference.”
“You’re disappointed, then.”
“Of course I am. I’d hoped for more.”
“Do you hate them?” Frank asked. “The Boers?”
Morden smiled. “Not much. I said that in a letter to a relative in Ontario and got an earful back. He used to be in the army, and he said I felt the way I did because I wasn’t at Colenso or Spion Kop and lacked the imagination to put myself there.”
Morden stared at his horse.
“But I’ll fight them like I hate them,” he said. “If I get a chance.”
When the setting sun was close to the horizon, the officers blew their whistles as the signal to start. The horses were sluggish. The oxen needed the whip to pull. False starts, shouting; misunderstood orders. Everyone knew the Boers were far away, so what did it matter how smoothly or swiftly or quietly the night march began?
Major Howe came by to say his farewells. He wished them luck, and did not mention Colonel Herchmer. Reg Redpath was staying behind too and was very disappointed. Every time someone asked him why, Reg had to say the word rupture. The word itself made him wince. He got the injury running into an anthill at night. There were more men in the sick tent who were being left, some of whom might never be well.
Besides the sick tent, the only thing left standing on the empty ground of their camp was Colonel Herchmer’s tent. All around it, newspapers and discarded letters shifted like living things. The colonel’s tent sucked in and breathed out. An empty camp stool stood under the awning.
They walked their horses by it like mourners past a coffin. They were silent until Gil Snaddon said, “They didn’t even leave him a horse or a servant.”
Frank knew Snaddon well by now. He came from a hard-luck horse outfit south of Calgary and would never have a servant in his life. But no one laughed at the irony. It did seem shabby to leave the colonel inside his tent and alone. No horse. No flunky. No thanks.
Riding away, Frank knew why the others were moved by Herchmer’s fate. It was unlucky to treat your commander badly, and in most men’s minds, the war was about luck. Whether a shell landed beside you or on you. Whether a white flag meant neutrality or ambush. Whether a fever bug jumped down your throat or somebody else’s.
But Frank had to risk that bad luck, because Herchmer had killed the pale horses. Herchmer’d had no mercy then, and Frank had none now.
The Doornkop
On their journey to the Vaal River, Frank wondered if the Boers hadn’t done some of this on purpose. He supposed they would not give up country if they could help it, but, given that they could not help it, there was power in retreat. By seeming always to be within Curly Hutton’s grasp, they could make the brigade general run wherever and however fast they wanted. Ever since the Vet River, Curly had believed he could catch the Boers and cut them off. On the way to the Vaal, he was at it again, pressing General Roberts to let him “make a dash.”
For five merciless days, Frank’s squadron did dash. As they approached the Vaal, the pace was frantic, and halfway through May 24, Fred Morden excitedly told Frank why. It was the Queen’s birthday. Curly’s brigade was racing French’s cavalry to see who could cross the Vaal first and enter the Transvaal Republic on the Queen’s birthday.
That night, the Mounted Rifles and Royal Canadian Dragoons were bivouacked on the Orange Free State side. Some of French’s cavalry had floundered across and, thus, had won. For this victory, they had outraced their supply wagons, tired their horses, and now sat cold and exhausted in a dark camp. Frank did not tell Ovide about the Queen’s birthday. He was already angry about the Basuto’s sore foot and still inclined to hold Frank to blame.
Though Frank feared all big rivers, crossing the Vaal was more tedious than dangerous. Hutton’s brigade went by the old ford or drift called Viljeon. It took all day, and allowed Frank to see the immensity of which he was part. Wherever he looked along the river, parts of the army were crossing. Like an old-time buffalo crossing, they almost plugged the river with their wagons and bodies.
Also at Viljeon’s Drift was another handsome blown-up railway bridge. As for standing on the soil of the rebel Transvaal for the first time, Frank felt nothing.
For two more days, they travelled north. They saw huge heaps of coal-mine slag and shack towns like anthills where the black miners lived. Occasionally, the Boers set up shop on a ridge and fired on them, but, after a little skirmish, would retire and let them continue.
Then they came to the valley of the Klip River, beyond which a blue ridge hung across the north horizon. That six-thousand-foot plateau was the high veld, the third plateau of their climb from the sea. Black stubs along it were iron chimneys for the Rand gold mines. From one, a tail of smoke was rising. Johannesburg was somewhere beyond.
The returning scouts confirmed that the Boers intended to fight. They were dug in across the ridge. By the time Hutton’s brigade came to the valley’s south approach, the British artillery was in play. The duel was on.
From the smoke tufts on both sides of the fight, Frank could see that the Boer guns outranged the British ones. There was always plenty in the newspapers about field guns, and the Boers had Creusots called Long Cecil and Long Tom that could lob an eighty-eight-pound shell eleven thousand yards. To counter Long Cecil and Long Tom, the British had stripped guns from their navy ships, what they called “cow guns” because of the number of oxen it took to pull them. But even the cow guns had a shorter range and smaller shell than the Boers’ longest weapons.
The Mounted Rifles had not been at the valley long when they got their orders to cross it. In the marshy middle was an intact bridge. The Canadians and some Aussies were to ride down, cross it, and take the low hills on the other side. The hills were grey and lumpish, and dwarfed by the blue ridge beyond them.
Frank studied the bridge. If the Boers had been getting ready here all week, and the bridge was still there, it had to mean that they wanted the British to use it. Before he could think more, the Mounted Rifles were given the signal to go. They swept down the slope and onto the valley’s wet bottom. The Boer gunners had to see them but held fire. Ovide was beside Frank on the Boer gelding. He had left the Basuto behind.
The riders bunched at the bridge. Frank could hear the hooves of the first horses clattering the planks ahead. He imagined dynamite picking up the centre and horses and men flying. Then, it was his and Dunny’s turn and the muscles in his neck and shoulders seized tight. Dunny did not like the look of the bridge either but he forced her on.
When the bridge did not ex
plode, Frank turned to the notion that the Boer guns were aimed at the far end. It was true. While still on the bridge, Frank heard shell blasts and saw plumes of muck over the horses’ ears.
Each rider jumped to the far shore with spurs digging. Each tried to design an unpredictable path across the wet plain that stretched to the hills. Frank went at it like it was a race. Put his rein hands on Dunny’s neck and surged his fists. Around him, men were quirting like jockeys. Some, in fear, spurred until the blood ran. A race, but Frank made sure not to win it. He and Ovide tucked in behind the leaders and stayed there.
Fred Morden was ahead, where Frank expected him to be. When Frank saw Morden drop his reins and jerk upright, he thought he was shot, but Morden was unslinging his Lee-Enfield. He raised the rifle and popped off ten at the hill’s rim.
The treed fringe at the bottom of the hills seemed very far and then came up fast. Before he reached it, Frank saw a Mounted Rifle fall from his horse in a loose heap. It was Corporal Stevens. Two riders near him pulled up, jumped off, and slung the wounded man across his saddle.
All along the hill bottom, men were running, finding each other, arranging their fours. The Beltons had stuck close to Frank and Ovide, and Frank threw his reins to Eddy. The men in Stevens’ four pressed over him, holding down the hurt part as Stevens’ legs galloped in the air.
The Boers were still lobbing shells, even though they sailed harmlessly above. Frank saw one hit without exploding. It dug a furrow and stopped. A dud. The live ones blew but had no one to kill. There was no more crick-crack of rifles. The last view of the kopje’s rim showed men running away, getting a head start for the blue ridge, the real line of fire.
The lieutenants and sergeants were shouting: gathering their troops. No one was keen to leave this shelter. The sergeants told them to holster their Colts and ready their Lee-Enfields, to check that their rifle magazines were full. As for the revolvers, they were to leave the chamber under the hammer empty, so it would not fire if it fell out or the hammer caught on a branch.
Ovide was inspecting the horses. He had seen blood spots on the ground and was making sure they weren’t from the Boer gelding or Dunny.
Leaving the horses with Eddy, the other three started to climb, Frank in the middle of the three. The kopje’s stone was orange, and the slope of squarish rocks was like a stone fort shaken down by earthquake. They bent forward in case the Boer snipers were only pretending to have gone.
When their heads appeared above the top, the Boers cut loose the full orchestra. Shells, pom-poms, shrapnel, Mausers. Up on their blue ridge, the Boers must have loved what they saw: the enemy laid out like a buffet meal.
Frank found a knuckle of rock and cuddled behind it. He looked for Ovide and found him to his right, also in a rocks lee. Pete was scrabbling and cursing to the left. His place in the line had no upright stones, just a low-domed one not much taller than the grass. Pete bayoneted the ground. “Tucking bastards! Fucking bastards!” he yelled.
No one thought of shooting back until the sergeants came yelling. They had not come all this way to lie doggo behind a rock. Watch for a flash and fire at it. Ammunition boxes on their way. Go easy on the water.
For two hours, the barrage did not slacken. Frank fired every now and again, but there was not much to aim at. The sun was above the ridge, streaming into his eyes. Frank noticed Ovide on his back, shoulders leaned against the stone. He was looking back at the river and the valley they had crossed. When he saw Frank was watching him, Ovide pointed south, at something moving there. He swept his arm left to right, and Frank understood that the moving thing was infantry.
In the last few days, Roberts had switched Hamilton’s column from east to west, and now they were headed for the Boers’ right flank. Frank and Ovide and the rest were probably on these hills to keep the Boers on their ridge. If the Boers were able to come down with their guns, Hamilton’s infantry would be within range.
All day long, the pounding kept on. The worst thing was a pom-pom that had their range. Pom-pom was the nickname for a Maxim-Nordenfeldt machine gun that fired a belt of one-pound shells. When a shell from a bigger gun came, you could hear it in advance and duck, but the pom-pom fired continuously. Frank could not help feeling a rising fear as the pom-pom raked toward him, no more than he could help the relief when it had passed. Pete yelled, “It’s like a fucking piano!” Every once in a long while, Pete got something right.
The sun fell down the sky into the ridge’s western taper. Never had they been left on a battlefield this long, and still nothing was said about going back, or about food. At dusk, Davidson came and said to eat their meat paste. Drink a small swallow every hour or two.
Then darkness. The guns slacked off, and it grew quiet. The smoke and dust separated and settled. The moon stood unshaken in its sky. The temperature had started to plummet, and continued toward certain frost. Winter on the high veldt was colder; of this they had been warned.
In each man’s mind was the image of his greatcoat, his blankets and oil sheet, all on the back of his horse. They were meant to spend the night without them. Barely visible, Harry Brindle came to say, “No fires.” Most men yelled some curse or question but the sergeant kept moving.
Frank thought of Eddy Belton, down at the bottom with the horses. He knew Eddy would be full of dread. Asking himself over and over if he was supposed to do something with the coats and blankets, if there was an order he’d missed or misunderstood. He would probably forget to get his own blankets and wrap himself in them; forget to eat.
Across the hill’s top, the cold became awful. They had already had freezing nights, but that had been soft frost. This one was freezing solid.
“We’ll freeze to fucking death!” said Pete.
When they could no longer stand it, they stood and marched. Jumped and flapped. Rubbed themselves for the shallow warmth of friction.
Frank was watching Ovide’s rock when his friend stood up. He thought he would limber up or take a piss, but Ovide left. Walked away until his khaki back was absorbed by night. Frank wondered if Ovide was headed down to the horses for his bedding. They had been strictly ordered not to.
Not long after, Ovide returned. He sat behind his stone. When the old cowboy did not say anything, Frank got up and went over.
“Where’d you go?”
“Find Greaseback,” Ovide said.
“Why?”
“‘Cause he’s smart.”
Ovide had told Frank before that he thought Greasy Griesbach was the smartest soldier in the Mounted Rifles. At Van Wyk’s Vlei, Ovide had seen Griesbach take his and Jameson’s horses and occupy an abandoned blacksmith shed, while the rest of them stood drenched. At Brandfort, Greasy had been the first to run and flop behind a coffin stone.
Ovide had gone to see what Greasy was doing about the cold.
“He’s with two other fellas. They’re lying back to front. After a while, Greasy says, ‘Turn!’ and they roll over the other way. Later, the guy in the middle gets up and goes to the outside.”
Frank yelled at Pete to come. Ovide explained it again, and Pete said he guessed so. Spooning, Frank had heard it called, normally practised by man and wife. Ovide and Frank spooned up with Pete in the middle. It was not long before Pete started squirming. His hands seemed to be moving below his belt.
“Christ sake, Pete. This is hardly the time.”
“What?”
“To get friendly with yourself”
“Shut up! I’m putting my water bottle in my pants.”
The others laughed at him, then realized it was wisdom. Ovide and Frank put their bottles in their pants too.
The night had an eternity to go. They turned and switched a hundred times, maybe two hundred. Every once in a while, a Boer sniper would fire down, just to keep them from getting rest. As the quality of dark finally started to change, the three got up and went to tramping and stamping, until a bullet whined off a frost-bristled rock. In the grey light, each blade of grass was in its own
sheath of glass.
Frank looked as far as he could and saw men shaking their water bottles, the nut of ice banging inside. Their curses rang in the frozen morning. Together, Ovide, Frank, and Pete got up on their knees, unearthed their bottles from their trouser fronts, raised them, and drank. Took the swallow their bellies had warmed.
The Boers did not start a full bombardment at first light. Sergeant Brindle brought an order for the Mounted Rifles to go to the foot of the hill. They found Eddy and the horses. Together, they walked to the rally point, to see if there was grub. There was water but nothing to eat.
While they thought about what to do, the miracle of an old trek ox staggered out of the brush. Every man got around the bewildered beast. Someone shot him and the rest pounced on the corpse with their bayonets. Like a starving wolf pack rending an elk. Some fellows gathered grass and twigs and lit fires. The trash burned too quickly to cook anything. They were also too hungry to wait. Finally, every man was wearing himself out, chewing trek ox raw.
Frank and Pete pushed in and got a few strings of red, gave half to Ovide and Eddy to put in their cheeks and suck on.
When the ox skeleton was more or less cleaned, it suddenly blew up. They had heard the pom-pom approaching, and a shell hit the ox smack-on. The barrel of rib staves fired like spears. One flew right between Frank and Pete. They had no time to move before the Boers sent the pom-pom back the other way and hit the rally point again. Frank saw Griesbach and another man try to board Greasy’s horse from opposite sides. Whether by accident or design, Greasy kicked the other right in his face. Frank saw a private named Dore, from Pincher Creek, get wounded. Another was suddenly down and bleeding.
In the panic, two horses jerked free and ran splashing into the plain. The cinch on one was loose, and Frank watched the saddle work down. The dragging bedroll snagged the horse’s legs and it pitched over its own head. The cinch burst. The horse rolled up and ran free.
Everyone who could was swinging onto a horse and milling around. All of Frank’s four were up, looking for someone to give them an order.
