CHAPTER VI

       BY RAIL AND ROUTE MARCH TO BLOEMFONTEIN

       Table of Contents

      A week was more than enough in which to exhaust all the charms that A Company could find round about its dusty camp at Maitland. The fragrance from woodland belts of pine and eucalyptus trees soon began to pall; there was little to refresh the eye in that changeless view across unbroken flats, where a grey haze hung morning, noon, and eve, veiling the distant mountains northward; the beauty of Table Mountain, as seen from there, with kloof-fretted steeps towering up to the clouds, is not a joy for ever; and Cape Town shows its least attractive side towards Maitland, which in itself is the embodiment of suburban dreariness, having but two places of entertainment—a swimming bath and an observatory. As admission to the latter can only be gained by a special permit from the Astronomer Royal, Lumsden’s Horse had few opportunities to appreciate the wild dissipation of ascending its quaint old tower, which, indeed, most of them mistook for a dismantled windmill. And the amusements that Cape Town offers to soldiers of less than commissioned rank had few temptations for troopers of Lumsden’s Horse. Mount Nelson, with its gay crowd of fair women and maimed heroes, was to them but a vision of the life that had been. How those dainty damsels would have been shocked to see a trooper in weather-stained khaki and ammunition boots treading the glades and terraced heights of that South African Olympus! But not more shocked than a man of Lumsden’s Horse would have felt at finding himself in such a situation. Ridiculous prejudice, of course, and to be condemned by all right-thinking people in whose opinion the soldier’s uniform is a badge of honour. Yes! but like many other badges it has to be worn with a difference; and nobody knows better than those who have tried the experiment of putting it on that a private soldier’s service kit is not the garb in which one would choose to appear where fashion and beauty congregate. A man may have served through a whole campaign in the lowest ranks, obedient to every command, however humiliating or distasteful, and not have felt the yoke gall him half so sorely as it does when he first realises the social inferiority that it implies. Let us have done with cant and confess at once that a man who puts on the common soldier’s uniform for active service, whether he be Volunteer or Regular, thereby renounces all claims to the rights and privileges of a gentleman. The gay haunts of a city are not for him then, if he cherishes his self-respect, and the troopers of Lumsden’s Horse had that truth impressed upon them long before their week of rest at Cape Town came to an end. They were no more squeamish than others, and their experiences in this direction have been shared by every Yeomanry corps and Volunteer detachment, after the first burst of enthusiasm on their account exhausted itself. Cheerful endurance of these things may be counted not least among the merits of men who gave up much to serve their country in her hour of need, and to ignore them would be to misunderstand the nature of many sacrifices made by the rank-and-file of a regiment like Lumsden’s Horse. In times more propitious they would have appreciated fully all the charms that Cape Town can offer; but, as it was, the parting had no great pang for them, and A Company hailed with unalloyed delight the order for an advance northward into the land of infinite possibilities. There was to be no route marching for that detachment, the Cape Colony lines being comparatively clear of troop traffic; so that the prospect of reaching Bloemfontein by rail without serious interruption seemed almost a certainty. It was on Friday, March 30, that Colonel Lumsden received, direct from headquarters, the welcome intimation that he and his two companies were wanted at the front. Colonel Lumsden naturally felt himself very fortunate in receiving orders by which his corps was chosen for active service while Regular regiments and Yeomanry companies waited impatiently at the base in Cape Town; but Lord Roberts needed mounted troops more than infantry just then. Everybody accepted this as the first real step of the great march on which their hearts were set, and its crowning triumph at Pretoria. They were not to be out of it after all. And we may be sure that they wanted no second call when the warning came for them to get their kits packed and be ready for a start by train the next morning. This was glad news for all except four unfortunate troopers who, much to their sorrow, had to be left in hospital at Cape Town. These were James Lee-Stewart, of whose case Colonel Lumsden wrote a week or so earlier; Knyvitt Boileau, of Tyrhoot; Hubert Noel Shaw, of Palumpur; and John Canute Doyle, of the Transport Detachment. Of others, who were invalids on the voyage, Howard Hickley had quite recovered, and Clayton-Daubeny, pleading hard that he was quite fit to ride and shoot, in spite of a broken collar-bone, got permission to rejoin his section for duty. So keen were the men to be near the fighting line that they have hardly recorded their impressions of the strange country through which they passed; and but for an incidental note here and there, like the opening paragraph of the following letter, we might almost imagine that profound peace reigned throughout the country. Yet the letter was dated only three days after our troops had suffered so heavily at Sanna’s Post. Writing on the morning of April 3, a trooper whose letters were sent to the ‘Englishman’ said:—

      It is wonderful to think that this very afternoon we shall be in Bloemfontein, and may see the great old man whose masterly tactics have so completely turned the tide of war.

      On Friday we heard the line was clear, and this news was quickly followed by a warning to hold ourselves in readiness. Immediately on top came the order to be at the railway station the following day by 1 o’clock. A mighty packing up of kit and piling up of supplies resulted in a successful transference of our goods and chattels to the station by the appointed time, and at 6 o’clock we steamed out of Cape Town in two trains, one following the other. When we left camp ammunition was served out, fifty rounds a man, and the weight of it has not added to our comfort.

      The railway journey has proved very pleasant so far. However, some slight description of how we are packed aboard may be interesting. We heard, with no little misgiving, that we were to be eight in a compartment, for we expected nothing but the ordinary straight-backed wooden carriage, and no chance of lying down at all during the three days to be occupied in journeying to the Free State capital. So it was a pleasant surprise to find first-class corridor carriages comfortably upholstered in leather, with sleeping accommodation in each compartment for four men at a time. There were one or two second-class carriages equally comfortable, with the additional advantage of an extra tier of berths, accommodating six sleepers, one on the floor and one in the passage, and the whole boiling of us slept the sleep of the just the whole night through. Rations consisted of tinned corned beef and biscuits, suspiciously like dog biscuits, but good to eat nevertheless—for people with sharks’ teeth and stomachs of brass. But nearly everywhere we stopped there were coffee-shops, where you paid sixpence for everything, and an ordinary chota hazri sort of meal ran up to about half-a-crown. As we travel up country we find everything very dear, and we wonder Government does not make some effort to arrange that the troops should