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Authors: Giles Foden

1999 - Ladysmith (7 page)

BOOK: 1999 - Ladysmith
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Although he had difficulty following the man’s logic, the Biographer was impressed with his passion, and it struck him that the Indian would make a good photographic subject.

“Do you mind if I take your picture?” he asked. “I’m a cameraman, you see, the representative of the Mutoscope and Biograph Company. I have my pocket machine here with me.”

“I would happily oblige you,” said the Indian gentleman, doing up his shirt buttons. “But in most instances I believe photography to be the handmaiden of pride, and an enemy of humility.”

The Biographer was put out by this refusal. “You’ll be facing fiercer enemies than the camera if you join Buller’s army,” he said.

“A bullet, sir, is not the worst fate a man can suffer. Nor is a beating. I myself have been badly boxed and beaten by whites enraged against my political activities—kicked and pelted with stones by a great crowd. But I bore my bruises with humility and did not prosecute my assailants, in spite of Mr Chamberlain cabling the Natal authorities and asking them to do so.”

“Really?” queried the Biographer, disbelieving that the Secretary of State for the Colonies would take an interest in the activities of an Indian advocate in far-flung Natal. “Is that true?”

“Why should I lie to you?”

“No, of course, you wouldn’t. Anyway, I suppose I must climb into my vehicle.”

His companion looked at the Zulu, crouched between the traces of the rickshaw, and sniffed. “I do not like those things.”

“A man’s got to get about. Well, I’ll look out for you at the front. What’s your name, by the way?”

The Indian had taken off his glasses and was cleaning the lenses with a cotton handkerchief.

“Gandhi,” he said. “Mohandas K. Gandhi.”

Seven

“This place where I am now at has been christened Green Horse Valley,” wrote Tom Barnes from Ladysmith, in his first letter home since arriving. And then he stopped. He never knew what to say to Lizzie, his younger sister. Anyway, it was uncomfortable writing on the ground, and his calves were itching where dust had found its way between the folds of his puttees. He had borrowed Bob’s drum, propping it between his legs and using the skin to lean on. As he sat there, his pencil poised, he could hear Bob himself—seated nearby on a biscuit box in the opening of the bell tent—sucking on the briar that was poking out through his whiskers. The company drummer and Tom’s best friend, Bob Ashmead was engrossed in a magazine.

“What you reading?” asked Tom, pushing a finger down between the khaki bands to scratch his leg.

Bob grunted in reply, let out a puff of smoke, and then held the magazine up to show its title:
Band of Hope, incorporating Sunday Scholar’s Friend
. Two shields on either side of the curly-leafed, Arcadian legend, the one saying ‘Get wisdom, get understanding’, the other ‘For wisdom is better than rubies’.

“Didn’t have you down as a Bible basher.”

“My mother sends them,” Bob explained gruffly. “Haven’t got anything else. It’s pious rot most of it, but there’s news too…”

With mock solemnity, he read out an item. “Last month, a London publican, residing in the highly favoured parish of Islington, was charged at Marylebone Police Court with nearly killing his own daughter of nineteen years of age. The man (although a kind father when sober) had got tipsy on ale at his own public house…”

“Ale…” murmured Tom, dreamily.

“Me too. I’m as thirsty as a Derby winner. Let’s go to the hotel next time we’re off duty.”

Tom thought about the girl there, the one with the unusual short hair. “I’m on. If they’ll let us. Bloody beer will have run out if this lasts much longer. You’ll have to sub me even so; if I get that bastard who took my belt I swear I’ll shoot him. God, I hope we get out of here soon!”

“Use the Mauser, then it’ll be like a Boer did it.”

They both looked at it where it lay in the opening of the tent—the pistol they’d taken off a Boer corpse.

“How long do you think we’ll be here?” asked Tom.

“It’ll be over in a tick, believe me. They’re just a bunch of farmers.”

“So am I, if you’ll excuse me. Anyway, they can shoot better than us. You saw how sharp that sniper was the other day?”

“Mmm,” said Bob, and then they stopped talking. Neither wanted to remember the sight of Private Mouncer falling from his horse, hit by a bullet in the throat. Tom shivered. He had seen Mouncer in hospital. The nurses said the poor fellow would never be able to speak again. What a thing. Tom thought he would rather be dead.

Lord, it was hot. Above the two of them, the sun was beating down, enforcing quietness on the camp as effectively as a sergeant-major: all that could be heard was the occasional neigh of horses and sounds of men chatting in muted tones in front of their tents. The heat merely added to the nervous torpor that had settled over Green Horse Valley since the last action. It was all waiting, waiting, waiting. But the net was closing in. The telegraph wires had been cut, and the bombardment proper was expected to begin tomorrow. In some ways he wished it would: given the deadlock of force on either side, at least it would represent some kind of progress. But he knew that wasn’t true really: he had been under shellfire in India, and it wasn’t pleasant. And the Maharaja had not had such powerful and accurate guns as these Boers were understood to have.

He heard a splash and looked over to where Lieutenant Norris was sitting in a tin bath, scrubbing his neck. His hat, wide-brimmed in the Boer style—probably pinched off a dead one, thought Barnes—was still on his head and the skin of his back was white as the milk that Lizzie used to carry in each morning at home, in the big tin pail. Better do that letter, he thought. For he was on picket duty that evening, and wanted to get some kip beforehand. He set his pencil to the paper:

 

LETTER

We have had serious reverses at Dundee and Nichol-son’s Nek, and three battles said to be victories for British arms—Talana Hill, Elandslaagte and Riet-fontein—but I am not so sure. At Nicholson’s Nek, nearly a thousand of ‘our boys’ were taken prisoner and are now going under escort to Pretoria, the Boer capital. All British forces in the area have made a desperate, mud-covered retreat to Ladysmith, where I am now shut up with General White. The Boers have about twenty thousand within striking distance, so it is not a happy business, although very exciting. They say that General Buller has eighty thousand men on their way to save us from Cape Town. The town is all talk of when he will arrive—and of when we might come under Boer shell. But don’t worry, I will keep my head in one piece, and if I get a knock, put it all back together again!

The command of D Squadron has gone to Captain Mappin, who is reasonable, and Major St John Gore has assumed command of the regiment as a whole—Colonel Baden-Powell being in command at Mafek-ing, which the Boers are also thought to be investing. We are very crowded here in camp.

Before our confinement, I went out on a few patrols, joining in a chase after some cattle and sheep and a Boer laager. We captured some hundreds of sheep on one and drove them into town, your humble having to walk as I fell off my horse—necessit. a third remount on return—and having some new boots on I blistered my feet very badly on the way back and had to go into hospital which prevented me joining in some of the later actions. I lost myself on the veld for a while and only rejoined my unit after a trying time in which I got on the wrong side of a bog in the company of some lads from the Leicesters.

It turned out that Johnny Boer was waiting for us to get bogged, so that he could have us at his mercy. The bullets came much too close to be comfortable. So we lay down in the reeds and returned the salute, and by covering one another’s retreat, we got clear of the bog.

Thank God.

In the emergency hospital (the Town Hall) I discovered a relative of ours. Mrs Frinton, she was a Miss Parker, the same family as our cousins, and her father once kept the White Lion at Southam. She knew Mrs Oram and her brothers well. She herself is a widow, her husband having died of a snake-bite some years ago. I have also seen an Irish girl at the Royal Hotel whom I rather like the look of. I hope to meet with her soon. I have made a new chum as well, a gunner from the Naval Brigade called Foster. A seaman in the veld, I hear you ask? The reason is that they rushed up a detachment of naval guns from Durban (I think they came off HMS
Terrible
, or
Powerful
, or
Tartar
, or something like that) at the start of the war, on account of our lack of artillery here in Ladysmith. Anyway, this Foster, a bearded bluejacket, has his eye on the sister of my girl.

On another patrol we came upon an abandoned Boer farmhouse and burnt the whole lot to the ground. We had a jolly time in it before it was burned, there was a splendid piano and a pile of music mostly in Dutch. The whole lot was burnt of course. It was very hot that day and we were deceived in our water supply. The stream where we should have halted had run dry.

My first real action was at Elandslaagte (a Boer name said as, Elands-lockty), where our infantry and artillery triumphed and we mopped up after together with the 5
th
Lancers. The pigstickers, as we call them. Some shells fell among us beforehand, but we took it well. On the way in a funny thing happened, a pointer bitch, prob. a Boer gun dog, attaching herself to us and taking a great deal of interest in the shell-holes as they came. She didn’t like the vapours much as they came out of the hole, drawing her nose away sharply, but still looked in every one. She even followed us back into town, but I don’t know where she is gone now. I was surprised how these shell-bursts do not kill everything near around, often just going directly into the ground with a thud. Once the explosion has died down, the melinite vapours start to emerge from the hole—as if from the bowl of a pipe, only smelling much worse!

To get through at Johnny Boer we had to cut the wire on either side of the railway line, which Captain Mapping did. The ground was bad, but Boer ponies are no match for our horses at close quarters (though the enemy are often better riders and their mounts have much more stamina) and we overhauled those trying to escape and gave them the points of our swords or speared them with lances, as the case may be. It is quite hard charging over a mile in near darkness, flashes of guns and rifles going off all the while. That night we bivvied at the railway station, making fires with coal from the mines and eating tinned meat and biscuits.

The following morning, we found ourselves next to a farmhouse in which a Boer woman was hiding. When we got to her, she was crouched in a shed with her arms round a goose. Seeing us approach, she buried her head in its feathers and started crying. As we surrounded her, she kept repeating something in Dutch. An African scout who spoke the language said what she was saying was: “Leave me my man-goose! Do not take my man-goose! Do not hurt my man-goose!” We had to take her in of course, but we let her keep the goose. As she was a farmer, I felt sorry for her, but they have plenty of our fellows in Pretoria, so there. Although they have released some injured and let them come to the hospital.

After we had taken the Boer woman and her goose into captivity, in a shower of rain we went over the ground we had charged, searching for wounded; but the ambulances had done a good job, as we found only disembowelled ponies, wagons, and dead oxen, one with its head blown clean off. There were also, still alive, riderless ponies and some Africans wandering about sadly. We took them all back to town and also the breech-blocks of two guns we had captured. We got a bit of personal loot as well, my friend Bob and I, including a Mauser and bandolier, some ostrich feathers and a jackal-skin rug, the last two of which I intend to send to you, assuming you have no need of a pistol!

And that is more or less it, as I must lay my weary head before night sentry duty. I had a letter from Arthur and a parcel, but no sign of the note money you sent me, worst luck. I had my belt stolen with £8 in it the day I came back from hospital, with three others also losing theirs with more or less in it.

Tell Ma and Pa and brother Arthur I am all right, except for the fact of being shut up here. It’s not so bad, until it rains, which oddly brings on my toothache. Otherwise, I am in good health and feel honoured to have seen—before the siege began—something of a grand country. It is the blooming season here (diff. to home of course) and the blossoms on the trees look splendid. The flowers growing on the veld also put most of our garden flowers in the shade. The corn here has just got well into ear and until the siege began we were cutting it all off.

I suppose you are prepared for Winter at home now. I wonder how the ferreting will prosper. I suppose Arthur will lessen the rabbits as usual. Is he as ardent a sportsman as ever? I myself should like a bit of shooting out here of the animal, rather than human, kind. There is, or was until we became townbound, lots of game of all descriptions. On the way up here we saw thousands of deer and springbuck running along in front of us and in the distance they looked like a lot of mounted men, which gave us a scare. I haven’t seen any rabbits like English ones. They are like a cross between a rabbit and a hare. Everything here is different like that: it makes you feel that the world is a much bigger place than Radford Semele, I can tell you.

I hope Aunt is keeping well and yourself and all the rest at Radford. Shall write again soon, if I have time. It is uncomfortable writing while sitting on the ground. You try it.

 

Your loving brother,

Tom

 

PS: My remount is a handsome colt, whom I have named Bashful in honour of Perry. Did he get himself a girl before coming away? No news of him, sadly, but expect he will be here to rescue me soon.

Eight

M
uhle Maseku had no illusions about being rescued.
Ilanga
, the sun, had risen seven times since he had been brought into the Boer camp with his injured leg. He was a big man, and it had taken three of the Boers’ servants to carry him. They were Xhosa, and at night in the black quarters as he lay there on his pallet, he had listened to horses’ hooves, the noise of sticks being broken: their click-click language. Now it was morning, and they had gone out to work, and still he lay there, immobile, powerless.

BOOK: 1999 - Ladysmith
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