The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  *

  Goodbye to the regiment: words with Captain Black, and out, alone with Major Allenby, pony-mounted and dressed like any dyed-in-the-wool Boer, into the vast empty spaces along the western boundary of the Orange Free State, with Katharine Gilmour’s locket safety stowed away on his person. It was some sixty miles from Belmont direct to Kimberley. They would be moving ahead of Lord Methuen’s column, keeping clear, as Methuen would not, of action along the way. To this end they would deviate whenever reconnaissance proved the necessity: the sixty miles would grow accordingly, but Allenby expected to be approaching the Kimberley siege lines within three days at most. The ponies, and themselves, he said, would be pushed hard.

  “What’s going to carry us through the Boer lines?” Ogilvie asked soon after they had set out. “We’ll not be able to outflank them, that’s one thing sure!”

  “We’ll pray for luck,” Allenby said. “That, and a little essential instruction, in case we can’t slip through and I’m forced to talk our way into the Boers’ confidence.”

  “Instruction, Major?”

  Allenby nodded, swatted at flies that settled to feed on sweaty bodies. “Instruction on how to be a farmer’s boy! I take it you’ve no Afrikaans?”

  “None.”

  “Then you’ll do no talking! You’re dumb, Ogilvie — a serious speech defect, the result of a recent shock. I say recent, since obviously there’s no time for you to learn the sign language of the mute. Nevertheless, you should have some understanding of the life of the Boer farmer, which is your background, young Piet de Ruis — the crops, the animals and the morality! Otherwise you could betray us by your reactions to what you hear said. I shall be your mentor.”

  And this he was. As they struck out across the sun-drenched plain towards the Modder River, Allenby talked and Ogilvie listened dutifully. Allenby the dragoon was a man of agile and receptive mind, a fast learner. He had seen African service before this, as he told Ogilvie: he had taken part in the Bechuanaland expedition under General Sir Charles Warren, and had served in the Zulu War in 1888. This alone, however, did not explain his detailed knowledge of the Boer: he had clearly done immense and painstaking research into his new, if temporary, character. This alone told Ogilvie how great was the importance of his mission — and even now, Allenby refused to discuss that.

  “Better not,” he said with finality. “It’s a long way to go, to Kimberley!”

  Ogilvie, knowing what he meant, was forced to agree: capture by any Boer raiders en route, or at the siege perimeter, might lead to exposure and questioning, and, as Douglas Haig had suggested, some of the Boer methods of interrogation were known to be far from pretty. So, shielded by ignorance of the wider issues, he concentrated on learning the mechanics of the part he had to play. In addition to instructing him in all the aspects of the farmer’s life in the Transvaal — more properly called the Z.A.R., or South African Republic — Allenby crammed in the political and social background, telling him of the effects of the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand, going back earlier to speak of the Boer movement in the thirties, the movement under Potgeiter and others from Graaf Reinet in Cape Colony to the veld north of the Orange River; of the annexation of the Transvaal by the British government, of the passions aroused, of the Uitlanders who followed the gold. He spoke of the seasons, of the high summer pasturage of the Hooge Veld, of the keen bracing air of the uplands, the hot and sometimes malarious low-lying districts, of soil that was rich and deep, of the plentiful water supply, of the deep gorges and splendid scenery of the Kaap Mountains in the east, of the Magaliesberg range stretching west of Pretoria, of Pretoria’s iron and Pretoria’s diamonds, of the native African tribes who had been dispossessed by the Boer encroachments over the years and who were now reduced to sorry groups of suffering bowed heads, Blacks who had become virtual nonentities in the midst of war; and of many, many other things. He instructed Ogilvie in the ramifications of the fictitious de Ruis family until he was word perfect.

  The first deviation from the route came when they were nearing Graspan, on the railway line fifteen miles north from Belmont.

  “There’s a Boer force holding more kopjes between Graspan and Enslin sidings,” Allenby said. “For my money, it’ll have been reinforced by Prinsloo’s men from Belmont by now. We have to avoid them, so we’ll head west and outflank.”

  “And Lord Methuen?”

  “Oh, I’ve no doubt he’ll engage.”

  “Result, more casualties — ”

  “Quite so!”

  “And so little gained.”

  Allenby looked at him hard. “The Boers are across the direct route for Kimberley, and Kimberley has to be relieved. That means mopping-up along the way, does it not, Ogilvie?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s … just that my regiment was due for posting home — that’s all.”

  “They’re soldiers, Ogilvie. They understand.”

  “They still die.”

  “Don’t I know it! And I’m as sorry as you. But there have been so many misconstructions, so many misunderstandings … you know, I was never one of those who thought this would be an easy war or a short one. It’ll not be either — but you may be instrumental, if you’re lucky, in making it less long and less painful than it might otherwise be. So, while we’re outflanking the Boers at Graspan, Ogilvie, let’s continue with your education — but let’s also keep our eyes and ears alert at the same time!”

  They moved west and, riding their ponies down behind low hills, moved apparently unobserved. Soon after this the day began to grow dark; they were well past the Graspan and Enslin sidings when Major Allenby called a halt. “We’ll sleep for an hour or two,” he said. “We’ve made good progress and the ponies need rest even if we don’t. But one of us must stay awake while the other sleeps.”

  The ponies were tethered to heavy boulders on the hillside and Allenby opened up a pack of iron rations. Ogilvie did likewise; and Allenby produced a flask of whisky, from which each took a draught, and then another. Weariness, the weariness of the saddle, flowed out of Ogilvie; the temporary warmth of the whisky kept out the night air’s chill. In his turn, he slept; and in his turn he kept watch, keeping on the move unless he should fall asleep, flinging his arms about his body as the cold encroached. The brooding silence of the plain, of the hills behind the sleeping Allenby, the silence that rustled with small sounds, sounds of night animals that crept and scurried and slithered, sounds, distant ones, of the larger inhabitants going about their nightly businesses. A moon coming up now, to spread cold silver like a cloth upon the ground.

  In that moonlight the sudden and brief silhouette on the top of the hill behind: a man, a mounted man. Very brief — the disappearance took place almost simultaneously with the advent. Ogilvie rubbed his eyes, keeping dead still in all other respects. Nothing …

  Imagination? The lonely empty spaces working their magic on him?

  He thought, on the whole, not: he had seen so many similar sights in the Afghan hills, along the high, remote summits of the Khyber Pass. Cunningham had said this would be a different sort of war: true enough — but not all that different!

  He bent, and woke Allenby. The Major’s reaction was instantaneous and quiet: “What is it, Ogilvie?”

  “A man on the hilltop, a mounted man.”

  “Where is he now?”•

  “Vanished. I think he’s gone back, down the other side.”

  “Lie low, then. Let’s hope he doesn’t spot the ponies if he comes back.”

  “Or hasn’t already.”

  There was a flash of teeth in the moonlight, a grin. “That, too!” They waited, scarcely breathing in case they should miss a sound. Ogilvie felt a looseness in his bowels: the first test could be at hand and he felt unready for it. Dumbness sounded easy to simulate: the practice might well be harder. Sometimes a man made a spontaneous reaction, without thinking.

  Then they heard a movement, a horse’s hooves, coming from their right. Allenby lifted his body a
little, and stared along the track. “He’s skirted the hill, I think. We’re asleep, Ogilvie. Both of us.”

  He lay back on the hillside, curling his body in the lee of a boulder. Ogilvie copied his example, tried to appear relaxed in sleep, but was conscious of the hard tautness of his body, poised to spring into action if necessary. The sounds, the clopping horse-sounds, grew louder — then stopped. There was the distinct snick of a rifle bolt, and then a slower resumption of the hoofbeats. The rider would have seen the tethered ponies now. Once again, the sound stopped and a man’s rough voice called out in Afrikaans.

  “Who’s there, who is it?”

  Allenby and Ogilvie lay still, silent.

  “Answer, damn you, answer!”

  Allenby whispered, “We wake now — convincingly!” He sat up, called back, also in Afrikaans: “Tell us first who you are, friend — if you are a friend.”

  There was a pause. They heard the horse moving forward, slowly. Then they saw the animal and its rider in the moonlight: a tall man by the look of his torso, with a wide-brimmed hat. The man said, “I am from Commandant Prinsloo’s commando. And you?”

  “Koos de Ruis from the Transvaal, and his nephew Piet de Ruis.”

  “Whose commando?”

  “Vorlang’s commando in Potchefstroom — where there is no fighting. We’re on our way to help defeat the British at Kimberley — ”

  “Why not Mafeking?”

  “I have a brother outside Kimberley. We are keen to join him, my nephew and I.”

  There was no response, but the horseman rode forward. Soon his features were visible in the moonlight: a hard face, with a pointed, neatly-trimmed beard. When he spoke again he sounded unfriendly. “They must be well supplied with men, in Potchefstroom! Prinsloo will be glad enough to have you with him — that is, if you aren’t running from a fight rather than towards one!”

  Allenby got to his feet, with Ogilvie beside him. As the horse came up to them Allenby said, “We’re not runners, friend. fight with anyone who’ll have me, against the British soldiers. But I have a reason for wishing to reach the siege line round Kimberley, so if it’s all the same — ”

  “What’s the reason, eh?”

  “My brother is there, as I have told you already, with Commandant Wessels.”

  “Wessels needs no more men, to my knowledge. Prinsloo does. A strong British force is advancing from the south. If Prinsloo has to fall back on Kimberley — why, then that’s, when you’ll see your brother! Meantime, I say you’ll come with me, the pair of you.”

  “You’ve no right to press-gang free citizens,” Allenby said coolly, staring up at the horseman’s rock-hard face. “I’ll fight where I please, and no permission from you needed! My aim’s for Kimberley, and that’s where I’m going.” He put a hand on Ogilvie’s shoulder. “Come, Piet, we’ve been brought awake, we’ll be on our way again — ”

  “Hold!” the horseman snapped. Allenby and Ogilvie, who; had already turned towards the tethered ponies, found the Boer’s horse being ridden into them. “You’ll do as I say. Leave the ponies where they are, and walk ahead of my horse. I don’t want any trouble, but if you do, well, then I’m here to give it!”

  “Is that so?” Allenby asked with a laugh. Standing beside the horse now, he said, “One question first, then.”

  “Well, what is it?”

  “This.” He reached up, the palm of his right hand open. “Do you see that hand, friend?”

  “It’s held a gun and fought in the past, friend. Back in eighty-one. It has killed men. Has yours?”

  “Mine has fought, yes.”

  “But killed?”

  “Can’t be sure of that,” the man answered.

  “But I can. Touch your hand against mine. Go on — touch. It’s a soldier’s hand. You called me a coward, a runner.” Ogilvie was watching Major Allenby closely, waiting for some sign as to the next move. He was aware of some curious magnetic power in the Major of Dragoons, something oddly compelling in the man’s eyes as they reflected the cold moonlight. Allenby said again, “Come now, touch hands.”

  Looking uncertain, the horseman brought his right hand away from his rein and touched the fingers lightly against Allenby’s. At once Allenby’s grip closed on the hand like a vice, and he jerked hard. Taken utterly by surprise, the Boer came off his horse in a heap, legs flailing wildly. One of his feet, heavily shod, caught Allenby on the side of the head before the Major could dodge it. Allenby went down, and as he did so the Boer recovered himself with remarkable agility, swinging a rifle-butt at Ogilvie as he leapt to his feet, catching the Scot a heavy blow on the shoulder. Swiftly he aimed the rifle at Allenby; but, when a shot came, it was the Boer who went down, his rifle clattering on the ground.

  Allenby got to his feet, holding his revolver. He bent and examined the Boer.

  “Dead as mutton,” he said. “Well — he asked for it! I didn’t like doing that to him, though.”

  “The hand?”

  “Yes, the hand. An old trick, but it worked, rather to my surprise.” Allenby looked around, seeming to sniff the air. There was something of a wind now, and the night was extremely cold. The racket of the shot had sounded to the two men as though it must wake the whole region; but so far at any rate there were no indications of anyone coming to see what had happened. Allenby put a hand on Ogilvie’s arm. “Away we go, then,” he said. “While the going’s good!”

  They untethered the ponies from the boulders and went off fast, keeping well to the west and out of the way of Prinsloo’s commandos. As they set off through the night Ogilvie glanced back. The Boer’s horse was gently nuzzling the body of its late rider, and starting a fretful whinnying sound. Ogilvie recalled once again the Regimental Sergeant-Major’s words about this being a different war, fought against men who were totally different from the Pathan marauders along the North-West Frontier. These Boers were, after all, men whose forebears had colonised South Africa: they were fighting for what they and their fathers had built up over the years, fighting for home and family and the right of self-government in a land they had largely made themselves. They were not raiders, they were not murderers …

  Ogilvie shrugged, determined, after that one backward look, to keep such thought from his mind. It was not his business: he had his orders as a soldier to attend to with diligence, and before long he was going to need all his mental resources and all his sense of duty. It would never do, to incur the displeasure of Lord Kitchener! Kitchener of Khartoum, or just plain K, his enmity could be death to any officer’s ambitions.

  By his side Allenby, keeping a close watch on the horizon behind and to their right as they went along, said suddenly, “Not too good an omen — that fracas. Oh, he believed me I think — but I’ve a feeling he wouldn’t have done so for long!”

  “Perhaps he just had a suspicious mind!”

  Allenby grinned. “Perhaps! Mind you, these Boers are very family minded, and it certainly wouldn’t be out of character for a brother and nephew … but I doubt if the same yarn’ll work when we reach the siege lines. You see, being non-existent, he’ll not be there, that brother of mine!”

  “Then what do we say, Major?”

  Allenby said, “My hope is, we’ll get clean through under cover of darkness — they’ve plenty of men there by all accounts, but I’m pretty sure we’ll find an unguarded spot somewhere. You can’t string men out all along the perimeter, in the very nature of things there has to be a concentration of personnel in defensible sectors. But if we don’t achieve a slip-through, my dear fellow, then I’m going to say we became detached from one of Prinsloo’s commandos between Belmont and Kimberley.”

  “Detached — or ran away?”

  Allenby grinned. “Ran away! They do, you know — the Boers. It’s not always cowardice, it’s simple strategy. When the pace gets too hot, they melt — ride off on their ponies, which they always keep handy in a safe spot. You see, they’re so short of manpower, Ogilvie. They have to live to fight another day whe
never they can. There are no men to spare for heroic last stands, which may certainly be heroic, but are generally damn silly and wasteful and seldom achieve any military purpose. So, you see, no one outside Kimberley is going to cold-shoulder us for doing the accepted thing, whatever that man of Prinsloo’s said!”

  Unmolested, but cold and starting to feel extremely hungry in spite of the iron rations, they rode on through deserted, scrubby countryside, flat, uninspiring and utterly desolate as, soon after, the first green-shot streaks of the dawn came across the clear sky of the veld.

  *

  Dust swirled around the two British officers: dust storms were just one of the hazards of the Cape Midland country bordering the high wire fence that closed in the Orange Free State. This time, the dust storm was blowing rather more to the north and east as Allenby and James Ogilvie rode deeper into Griqualand West towards the diamond mines. While the worst of the dust blew, sending particles into ears and eyes and noses, finding its way into every fold of their clothing, they halted: to get lost now would be fatal. The storm past, they moved on again, crossing the Modder River by a drift well to the westward of Magersfontein Hill. After another night, and another long day’s riding, Allenby reined in his pony and reached out to lay a hand on Ogilvie’s bridle.

  “Kimberley,” he said, pointing ahead. “Or at any rate — the first of the diamond workings. Do you see, Ogilvie?”

  “I see something on the horizon … something that looks like a line of kopjes and yet isn’t quite. Rather too regular.”

  “Correct,” Allenby said. “It’s the tops of the debris heaps from the excavations — mine tailings, they call them. Seventy feet high, some of them. They’ve been converted into strongpoints — and they mark the perimeter of the defences. The command post is over that way — d’you see? — on the top of the hauling gear of one of the mines — De Beers’ inclined shaft. There’s always an officer on watch there, and he’s connected by telephone to the perimeter strongpoints. As for kopjes, there aren’t any, which is unlucky for the Boers! All they have for cover is a few low ridges. You’ll see them in due course. We’ve quite a way to go yet.”