Blunted Lance

by Max Hennessy

  ‘A la Gravelotte,’ General Goff growled. ‘He must be mad.’

  There were a few brighter men of the same opinion, and Rawlinson, of the Rifles, a tall balding young man, had no doubts about the danger of pushing north. ‘I’d shorten the line, sir,’ he said when asked his views. ‘Hold the Tugela and withdraw from Ladysmith. The position has no flanks and the Boers will simply ride round it.’

  Ian Hamilton, of the Gordons, sensitive, intelligent, and with a withered arm he’d collected at Majuba in 1881 to bear witness to his knowledge of the Boers, held the same view. ‘There’s still too much of the old contempt for them about,’ he said. ‘People are even inclined to be boastful, and that’s bad.’

  Because Baden-Powell, who was at Mafeking in Bech-uanaland, had detachments of mounted infantry, they took the train to Durban, picked up a ship to East London, and headed back to De Aar and up north, following the Orange Free State and Transvaal borders. The sky was still full of heavy storm clouds that took the brightness out of the day, and the surface of the veldt was veined and puddled with water among the rocks. As the train clattered over an iron bridge, the river was in flood, a swirling brown torrent far different from the dusty ditch that had been there when they had last seen it. The earth was flushed with green now and stripes of daisies had appeared alongside the track.

  ‘What the Boers have been waiting for,’ the General observed, staring through the rain-spotted window. ‘Grazing for their ponies.’

  As the train followed the shimmering lines north, they could see groups of bearded men in slouch hats riding shaggy ponies in the direction of Johannesburg and Pretoria. They carried rifles and bandoleers, their saddlebags were bulging, and they had strips of biltong and bags of flour tied to the saddlebow.

  ‘Boer commandos,’ the general said shortly.

  At Kimberley, they found the place under the command of a colonel of the North Lancashires-called Kekewich who was facing the prospect of having to handle Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia and one of the most powerful men in Africa. Rhodes himself called on the General at his hotel and invited him to dine. He was a tall man with a high-pitched voice who seemed petulant and spoiled, and to Dabney, he seemed too used to running a country to wish to be ordered about by a mere colonel.

  ‘I could raise you a whole army of mounted men if I wished,’ he said sharply.

  ‘Better, I trust, sir,’ the General observed dryly, ‘than Dr Jameson’s raiders.’

  It was while they were in Mafeking that they heard the Boers had presented an ultimatum to the British government.

  ‘Points out that voting in the Transvaal’s no business of anybody but the Transvaal,’ Baden-Powell said. ‘Demands arbitration on all points of difference, and insists we remove all reinforcements that have landed since the end of May and that those now on their way here should be turned back. Gives two days’ notice.’

  War was clearly only hours away as they caught the train south. It was not unexpected, and the Outlanders, who had been the cause of so much resentment in the Transvaal, had been fleeing for some time from the Boers’ wrath. The train was crowded with men and women as the exodus became a panic. Every carriage was packed and open trucks had been hitched on the rear, tight-jammed with families heading for the Cape, expecting no comfort in the heat of the day and only bitter cold during the night. As they headed across the veldt the groups of mounted men moving east grew larger, and Dabney was in a state of acute apprehension because he was afraid the line would be cut before they reached safety. The idea of captivity for himself didn’t even occur to him in his concern with the disgrace such an event might bring his father.

  The General remained unperturbed and even settled himself to sleep. ‘Nobody would miss me,’ he said.

  As they steamed into Kimberley, Kekewich met them with confirmation of the news of the ultimatum. ‘The telegraph to Mafeking’s gone dead already,’ he said. ‘There’s been some incident with their armoured train and some of the track’s been torn up. I never thought they’d do it.’

  Five

  Back in Cape Town, they headed straight for the Mount Nelson Hotel where Lady Goff was staying. Lord Ellesmere met them, still looking unwell.

  ‘The Government’s rejected the ultimatum,’ he announced.

  ‘Thought they would.’ The General frowned. ‘There’s only one advantage, Ned. It might just be the making of us. The Germans are becoming too much of a menace in Europe and I’d rather discover our failings here than outside Paris against them.’

  Cape Town had been filling up for some time with wives and girl friends who were finding more excitement there than in a dozen London seasons, and the Mount Nelson was already so crowded with wealthy Outlanders who had refugeed from the Transvaal and the Orange Free State it had been dubbed The Helots’ Rest.

  General Goff loathed it and stared round hostilely. ‘These buggers,’ he observed, ‘seem to think the blasted war’s a circus got up for their special benefit.’

  As Dabney had expected, his mother showed not the slightest inclination to bolt for home. She kissed her husband and son and announced her intention of helping the war effort just where she was.

  ‘They’ll need help with the wounded,’ she said.

  Almost at once there was news of Boer burghers heading for the front. It caused a certain amount of ribald merriment among the younger officers, because they were known to carry umbrellas and parasols against the sun, and their only military insignia was on their slouch hats which were adorned with the colours of their flags or miniature photographs of President Kruger.

  The General’s guess about them waiting until the weather broke had been right, however, because they were moving south in downpours which brought on the much-needed grass for their ponies. A police post was the first to fall to them and within a few days they were heading towards Dundee where Symons waited. Almost immediately news arrived that Symons had been killed and White was about to be besieged in Ladysmith.

  As Dabney waited with his father on the quayside for the Dunottar Castle, which was bringing Redvers Buller and his staff from England, to dock, he noticed that the old man’s face was grave and for the first time it occurred to him that his father didn’t like war.

  With the loom of Table Mountain behind him, shutting off the rest of Africa like a stone curtain, the General didn’t seem to be looking forward to the meeting with Buller. The rest of Cape Town was wild with war fever, however, which wasn’t in the slightest tempered by the latest news from Natal. The city was gay with flags and bunting, and Adderley Street and the route from the docks were lined with dense crowds.

  Dabney knew Buller well. He had stayed more than once at Braxby and he looked stolid and robust with his round red Devonshire farmer’s face and large stature. He seemed worried and uncertain and Dabney noticed that his big frame had been allowed to run to fat. Despite what was said about him, despite the confidence that everybody had in him, he didn’t have the look of a commander-in-chief.

  ‘Hello, Coll,’ he said as he shook hands with the General. ‘They told me there have been three battles and that Penn Symons is dead.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s right.’

  Buller looked gloomy. ‘South Africa living up to its record as the grave of military reputations,’ he said.

  They drove in an open landau through the hysterical crowds, to see Milner at Government House. Buller shook hands gravely with all the officials lined up to meet him, faintly irritable at the fuss and impatient to get on with the job. Milner, his face pale, handed him the coded telegrams from Natal giving further details of the disasters. He seemed to be terrified of a rising among the Afrikaners of the Cape. He had always believed that the Boers could be frightened into accepting everything he asked of them and now that they hadn’t he seemed afraid of losing the war. General Goff didn’t feel much sympathy for him. It was Milner’s
war and he ought to be able to bear the consequences.

  ‘It would be disastrous if the diamond mines were lost,’ Milner said. ‘Rhodes, too, because he’s in Kimberley. We’ve just had another message from him. He says the place is on the verge of surrendering.’

  ‘Rhodes may be a brilliant financier,’ General Goff said, ‘but as a soldier he’s about as useful as a hysterical nanny.’

  ‘We can’t let the diamond fields go.’

  ‘Are you suggesting then that we should let Ladysmith go?’

  Milner hummed and hahed. ‘We’re in a tight spot,’ he said bitterly. ‘I think we’ll have to break up the army corps.’

  Buller listened quietly, his heavy face expressionless, but when Milner moved to other matters and turned to his advisers, he drew General Goff aside. ‘Now, Coll,’ he said. ‘Let’s hear some sense. What’s happened?’

  Standing with Ellesmere and the members of Buller’s staff, holding a glass of Cape wine and a biscuit spread with pâté, Dabney tried to catch their words.

  ‘White was flanked,’ his father said.

  Buller frowned. ‘Ladysmith’s no place to be invested in,’ he said. ‘It’s in a saucer of land and the Boers can get their guns on to the hills. It’s also damned hot and dusty.’

  ‘It’s none too healthy either. Even less so now, I imagine, with four thousand Boers and eighteen guns within striking distance. They came through every available pass. White told Symons to entrench but it seems he believed he could destroy them as they arrived. He was brought down at Talana Hill.’ General Goff frowned. ‘Everybody’s saying we won the battle, of course, but the Boers did what they usually do and withdrew as soon as their casualties began to mount. I don’t suppose they considered themselves defeated. Ian Hamilton did well and so did John French. The Lancers caught the Boers at Elandslaagte and knocked them about a bit, but Yule, who took over from Symons, had to retreat to Ladysmith. Then White lost the Irish and the Gloucesters at Nicholson’s Nek.’

  ‘Didn’t they fight?’

  Dabney saw his father’s hand move in a gesture of disgust. ‘Usual trouble, it seems,’ he said. ‘The man in command of the brigade just wasn’t up to it.’

  ‘What’s the transport situation?’

  As his father beckoned, Dabney moved nearer with Ellesmere and the others.

  ‘A Director of Railways has been appointed,’ General Goff pointed out. ‘He’s already laid the foundation of a railway administration for the movement of men, horses, mules and supplies. Our objective must be Pretoria.’

  Buller frowned. ‘The idea was to have a converging drive from Cape Town, East London and Port Elizabeth. We’ve got forty-nine thousand men when the army corps arrives. Including eight cavalry regiments – among them yours – eight mounted infantry companies and thirty-two infantry battalions. In London they feel we should use the lot together. It looks different from here. We can’t let these sieges at Kimberley, Mafeking and Ladysmith succeed.’ Buller gestured. ‘I’d expected White to hold Natal for two or three months, but now it seems the whole colony will be overrun if we don’t do something about it. I’m afraid I’m going to have to divide the troops. One half to defend Natal, the other to be pushed up in the west to relieve Kimberley. Methuen can look after that, Clery can look after the centre, and Gatacre after the Orange River front. Intelligence isn’t much help.’

  ‘It never was,’ General Goff said bitterly. ‘And I wouldn’t trust the guides.’

  ‘You’ll also find there’s a shortage of maps, sir,’ Ellesmere said.

  ‘It’s something we’ve tried to rectify,’ General Goff pointed out. ‘The clarity of the atmosphere here doesn’t make up for the lack of information about the lie of the land. We’ll be fighting in the dark and that’s a futile exercise. At Estcourt they have no maps at all.’

  Buller seemed stolidly unmoved, his mind occupied with his problems.

  ‘A Director of Military Intelligence was appointed in 1895,’ he said doggedly.

  ‘With a staff of eighteen officers,’ General Goff snapped. ‘The German Army has a comparable staff of a hundred and fifty.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘You forget my daughter married into a German military family.’

  ‘And that could be an embarrassment,’ Buller said, ‘if their half-witted Emperor drags us into a war.’

  The General acknowledged the fact. ‘On the other hand,’ he said, ‘on more than one occasion it’s had its advantages. Great God and all His pink angels, we knew eight months ago we were likely to be at war before the year was out and we’ve been in this damned country since the beginning of the century!’

  Buller, who had been at the War Office himself during the crucial years, tried to defend the system. ‘Intelligence has no means of drawing maps,’ he said. ‘We tried to buy ’em but the man who was handling it died and nothing was done.’

  ‘Something was,’ General Goff snapppd. ‘My son did it. He found maps in the public library and we had them copied and printed. He also found a thousand copies of a map of the Transvaal, which was being produced here for the Transvaal government. We impounded them as contraband of war.’

  The following week saw the arrival from Ladysmith of French, the cavalry leader, who had been released with his chief of staff, Haig, to lead the cavalry from the south.

  ‘Last train out.’ French was so busy talking he didn’t notice Dabney place a glass at his elbow. ‘We were hit by a volley near Pieter’s Station and when we stopped we were all expecting to be greeted by the Boers. In fact we’d reached one of our outposts and we found a 3-inch shell had gone through the second truck. Good job it didn’t hit a wheel or we’d be on our way to Pretoria now.’

  French was a short man whom Dabney knew well because he’d commanded the 19th Lancers’ sister regiment, the 19th Hussars, and had often been seen at the depot at Ripon. Short-legged and burly to the point of appearing to have no neck, he was a fluent and persuasive talker, but from things his father had let drop Dabney knew he was not regarded as an intellectual genius. He was also supposed to have a liking for women, which was why he was said to be sometimes short of money and, though his reputation as a cavalryman was good, he was rumoured to be weak-willed and petulant when he couldn’t have his own way. His chief of staff, the quiet, educated Haig, his looks those of a matinee idol, watched his chief placidly. Dabney had heard that French had borrowed money from him.

  They brought information about Ladysmith which was of help, but sounded pessimistic all the same. White, it seemed, was behaving with a curious mixture of rashness and vacillation.

  ‘They’re keeping the horses to mount counter attacks,’ Haig said. ‘But it seems to me if the siege lasts long enough they’ll end up eating them.’

  By this time, Ladysmith was heavily invested and it was clear that a strong force would have to be sent to relieve it. At Mafeking and Kimberley the Boers appeared quite content to sit and wait and in that area there seemed no great hurry. Then, in November, came news of the destruction of an armoured train from Estcourt and the capture of two officers and fifty-three other ranks, together with the war correspondent of the Morning Post, Winston Churchill.

  ‘Well,’ General Goff said dryly, ‘he always wanted to be noticed.’

  Table Bay was full of ships now as the army corps began to arrive. After weeks of playing ‘House’ and drinking ‘Bombay fizzers’ – mugs of effervescent sarsaparilla brewed in buckets – and beer in such quantities an enemy could have followed the route to the Cape by the floating bottles, they poured down the gangplanks to be stuffed at once into trains and despatched to the fronts.

  ‘War,’ Ellesmere smiled, ‘is about to begin in earnest. The 19th Lancers are due any time.’

  But when the Carlisle Castle, carrying the regiment, arrived alongside in the middle of November, it was found, w
hen the baggage had to be landed, that it was so mixed up in the holds it would take hours to sort it out. Sent down to meet them, Dabney found his brother snarling at a group of bewildered Kaffirs.

  ‘It’s the damned crew’s fault,’ Robert fumed. ‘They shoved everything aboard in the wrong order.’

  The dispute as to whose fault it was grew hotter, with a furious duel developing between the Colonel, Morby-Smith, and Ellesmere.

  ‘The things we wanted first were shipped first,’ Robert snapped as the other two stamped off. ‘Now they’re at the bottom.’

  ‘Packed your pyjamas at the bottom of the bag instead of the top, eh?’ Dabney said cheerfully.

  ‘You can hardly blame the army,’ Robert snorted. ‘We’re not baggage porters.’

  ‘Perhaps we ought to learn to be,’ Dabney said mildly. ‘We might find it useful.’

  They were still trying to sort it out when General Goff appeared. The explanations were hasty and embarrassed and his reaction was exactly the same as his younger son’s. ‘It seems to me,’ he snapped, ‘that it might be a good idea to send one or two officers to the docks in future to see how things are done.’

  The furious rummaging in the ship’s holds had brought the disembarkation to a standstill. The trains to take the troops to Naauwpoort were waiting and whistling in-cessantly, and in the end a regiment of infantry was put aboard instead, grinning all over their faces and jeering and catcalling the cavalry, while the 19th were ordered to march to Sea Point where a tented camp had been set up for them.

  Feeling he must visit his old regiment, General Goff put on his uniform with all his medals to review them.

  ‘And just see you’re pleasant to Robert,’ his wife insisted. ‘He’s your son and he’s married now to Elfrida, so you’ve got to accept it.’

  In fact, Elfrida had surprised them all with her common sense but the General hadn’t yet completely forgiven her for being a Cosgro.