YEOMAN SERVICE
e
X
'^" / '" / ""
YEOMAN SERVICE
BEING THE DIARY OF THE WIFE OF
AN IMPERIAL YEOMANRY OFFICER
DURING THE BOER WAR
BY
THE LADY MAUD ROLLESTON
M
WITH TWO PORTRAITS
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
1901
Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &* Co.
At the Ballantyne Press
TO
LANCE
334020
PREFACE
THIS book consists of gleanings from the diary
I kept all the time I was in South Africa,
without any intention of giving it to the
world. That I have done so is only owing
to the fact that so many people, who have
read my private diary, or heard bits taken
from it, have remarked that so much that
they read there was quite new to them, and
"just what one does not see in the papers,'
that I have been persuaded to publish it. If
it is egotistical, I beg my readers to remember
that it is a diary of my every-day life. That
that life, though sad in so many ways, was
so far a happy one is due undoubtedly to
the great kindness I received from so many
strangers in a strange country. And if this
little book should ever travel across the sea
to that southern land where I passed the
vii
viii PREFACE
most exciting and interesting months of my
life, will the friends 1 made there (whose
hands I sometimes only grasped in passing)
remember that I never forget them, and that
as my mind travels back, as it so often does,
to many dark hours there, I recall their kind
words, and still kinder faces, as the stars in
the firmament of my darkest night.
April 1901.
CONTENTS
PAGE
CAPE TOWN i
WELLINGTON 52
KIMBERLEY . . . . . . . . 82
THE CONVALESCENT HOME . . . .154
BLOEMFONTEIN .205
KROONSTAD 238
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COMMANDANT PIET DE WET . . . Frontispiece
A GROUP OF CONVALESCENTS . . To face page 176
ERRATA
Pages 41, 116, 1 17, for "Scarborough" read " Scarbrough."
Page 44, lines 12 and 14, /or "Croker " raid "Crocker."
Page 1 88, line 12, insert " white " 6gween " perfect " and <c brilliant.'
YEOMAN SERVICE
CHAPTER I
CAPE TOWN
Thursday, February 22nd, 1900. Six A.M.
found me on deck of the Norham Castle slowly
steaming into Table Bay. I was truly glad I
had roused myself early, for I shall never
forget the loveliness of that view. The enor-
mous outline of Table Mountain, with its
supporters, Devil's Point and the Lion, com-
pletely took me by surprise. The whole range
was perfectly clear and glistened like an opal in
the sunrise, whilst a thin haze drew an extra
veil of enchantment over the scene. All along
the shore, from Sea Point to Maitland, we
detected different camps of more or less im-
portance. The great bay was completely full
of transports, men-of-war, and hundreds of
2 YEOMAN SERVICE
great ships. It looked like another naval re-
view and was really most awe-inspiring.
I found myself next to a Cape Dutch
gentleman (said to be loyal, but I doubt it)
who had come out on the Norham. " Have
you ever seen anything like this before ? " I
asked. "Never," he replied, very much as
if he regretted ever having done so.
I looked round everywhere in vain in search
of the Winifredian, the ship on which Lance
and the regiment had come out, but could
see nothing of her. All the troop-ships have
great painted numbers on their sides, so that
at a long distance you can distinguish the
ship you want. Whilst we were still outside
a tug came alongside with the most welcome
and almost surprising news of the relief of
Kimberley. We were nearly crazy with delight,
for we had had no good news at Madeira, and
the last intelligence in England had been so
very bad that we dreaded we knew not what.
There was also a telegram for Miss Woodgate,
a fellow-passenger, to say that her brother,
General Woodgate, was slightly better; the
first hopeful news she had had since hearing
CAPE TOWN 3
of his severe wound. Every one on board felt
that they had received good news for them-
selves, for they could not fail to sympathise
with the courage and self-forgetfulness she
had shown during the voyage. (I am sorry
to say the General died a month later, but
after she had been some time with him.)
We got into dock about nine o'clock, and
the boat was soon swarmed with black " boys,"
who were dreadfully " whiffy." This was my
first experience of anything approaching a
black population, and the whole time I was
in South Africa I never grew accustomed to
this drawback. The scene from the ship was
very interesting. All the different types of
black and coloured people, and the un-English
appearance of so many English-speaking people,
was very striking. Captain Davenport, A.D.C.
to Sir Alfred Milner, arrived about 10.30 with
letters for me ; one from Lance, 1 saying that
they had arrived on Tuesday and were in the
camp at Maitland, and asking me to go out
there as soon as possible, as he could not get
away to come to me.
1 My husband.
4 YEOMAN SERVICE
Nan l and I drove up with Captain Davenport
to the Mount Nelson Hotel, where I was told
I must consider myself lucky in having one
room with two beds, although I had of course
engaged two. This one, however, was very
nice, with two windows, one looking east, the
other west, so that I could always have air
and light.
I have never seen such a clean hotel, and
I was always most comfortable there and was
treated with the greatest civility. One heard
many complaints, but on running them to
ground, one generally found that the basis
of them was selfishness and a total disregard
of other people wanting beds where the sel-
fish person asked for a sitting-room. After a
late breakfast I left Nan to get the luggage
settled, and drove out in a hansom to Maitland
camp, five miles away.
1 Nurse S. A. Beaver, whom I was fortunately able to per-
suade to come with me as a companion. Bright, pretty, and
good-tempered, she was the very greatest comfort to me all the
time I was in South Africa, and her care and skill as a fully
qualified surgical nurse were invaluable at the Kimberley Con-
valescent Home, and later at Kroonstadt. For her services
there to my wounded husband I owe her a debt of affection and
gratitude which I can never sufficiently express.
CAPE TOWN 5
The Mount Nelson itself stands in the
middle of a charming garden, and is ap-
parently almost built against Table Mountain,
as the side of the mountain is so steep. You
cannot understand what this mountain is to
the town until you see it. It is as Sinai
must have been to Israel an all-pervading
presence. The fearful drawback of it is that
directly it puts its tablecloth on, up comes
the south-east wind, and then one can do
nothing but try, and generally fail, "to keep
one's temper. It is a vile wind, bringing clouds
of red dust, which makes one filthy and hurts
one, as there are many quite good-sized stones
amongst it.
I did not lose my heart to Cape Town, a
great untidy straggling place, full of incon-
gruities, like every other colonial town I sup-
pose. Fine houses side by side with hovels,
horribly untidy open spaces next to lovely
gardens, dilapidated palms beside exquisite
oleanders covered with bloom ; much that is
picturesque, but more that is untidy.
But Cape Town has one remarkably fine
street, Adderley Street. It starts at the edge
6 YEOMAN SERVICE
of the sea, in fact, in a pier, and runs steeply
uphill straight towards Table Mountain. On
each side there are fine houses, in some cases
splendid buildings, the latter including the
Post-Office and Standard Bank.
If you stood in the middle of Adderley
Street and looked upwards, you saw the great
wall of Table Mountain rising out of a cloud
of green trees. If you looked downwards, you
saw the sea and the great harbour with its
crowd of immense troop- ships. That harbour
as it then looked, either from sea or land,
was a sight never to be forgotten, and gave a
more lasting impression of England's power
than anything else could ever do. From the
top of Adderley Street to the Mount Nelson
there is a lovely avenue ; on the left-hand
side are Parliament House and Government
House, and on the right is a beautiful sub-
tropical garden.
To return to my drive to Maitland camp.
Looking back to it after months of varied,
and, to any woman, remarkable experiences,
I still say it was the most interesting because
the most novel day of my life. The whole
CAPE TOWN 7
road was very dusty, and the one thing to mar
the drive was the high wind and the clouds of
stones (!) that flew into one's face. The dust in
Cape Town is so large in quality that most of
the drivers wear spectacles on a windy day.
All the way we met and passed bodies
of troops, infantry, cavalry, and artillery, all
kharki clad, and most of them very dusty, hot,
and tired, as they were nearly in every case
freshly landed. Swarming in every direction
were numbers of Kaffirs of all kinds, mar-
vellously clad in clothes of many colours.
The Kaffir belle in this country adopts a
sun-bonnet of gigantic size as her " costume
de resistance." In most cases these bonnets
are pink or blue, and it is impossible to de-
scribe the quaint appearance of a round black
face surrounded by the fluffiest and deepest
of frills, which did, I confess, lend a great
charm to the flashing black eyes and dazzling
white teeth which these girls all possess.
The road was a good one until one had to
turn off to the camp, when it became nothing
but a sandy track. As soon as we crossed
the railway, we began to go through camp
8 YEOMAN SERVICE
after camp until we arrived at Maitland, which
is given up entirely to the Yeomanry. Before
getting there we began to meet coolies for
the first time, who always seemed delighted to
see one. Many of them saluted me as an
English lady, and I heard afterwards that they
are all delighted to serve an English soldier;
quite different to the Kaffir servants here,
who .are very independent and undependable,
and do not give one the idea of really liking
white people. Most of the Hindoos are
serving in South Africa as syces, and they
have quaint little camps close to the cavalry
quarters, where it was an unfailing delight to
me to watch them cooking, or washing, or
rolling their turbans, &c. They are splendid
men and always satisfying to the artistic eye.
At last my driver stopped me in the middle
of the sandiest of lanes. We had just passed
through a small wood of absolutely unfamiliar
trees, and had come out in the middle of a
large camp, in, I must confess, a considerable
state of disorder. The driver said, "These
are the Yeomanry," and I was quite at a loss
to know what to do next, as I had not yet
CAPE TOWN 9
learned, as I did very soon, to ask my way
from the nearest " Tommy."
I was looking about me rather wildly, when
an officer, a stranger, came up and asked me
what I wanted. I told him Lance and
he bade me get out of the carriage, and I
followed him through a camp to the South
Notts Hussars' tents. He suddenly said,
" Oh, there he is ; now you are all right."
All I saw was another strange officer ; so
I thought No. i was mistaken and turned
round to expostulate, but he had left me. I
thought the best thing to do was to ask my
way from No. 2, so I went up to him, and
when I got quite close I saw it really was
Lance, but so dirty and black I did not
quite recognise him.
Our meeting was a strange contrast to the
parting at Liverpool. There, bitter cold, snow
and sleet, and all the most disagreeable possi-
bilities of an English winter, and yet every-
thing seemed more or less familiar under
that leaden sky. Here, a glaring sun, an
azure sky, clouds of dust, and heat greater
than I had ever experienced.
io YEOMAN SERVICE
The regiment had had a good passage with
the exception of two or three days, but they
lost thirty-three horses altogether, five out of
our own regiment, and one of them, alas !
Lance's sweet little mare "Dearest." Since
landing on Tuesday they had had a very rough
time. The regiment tramped five or six miles
from the dock to Maitland, leading their horses,
arriving after dark, having to picket their
horses and everything to be done in the midst
of a dust-storm. Then they made the horrible
discovery that there was nothing to eat no-
thing of any sort prepared for them. Lance
made a raid on the canteen, and more or less
satisfied his hungry men. They got to sleep
very late, all very tired after the hard work of
pitching tents, picketing horses, &c., &c., in
darkness and dust.
Next morning things were nearly as bad.
No breakfast, dust and wind, tent-pegs coming
out, and general discomfort. The next day,
when I saw them first, they were anything but
comfortable, but I gathered that they were in
paradise compared to what had gone before.
A large tin hut had been built at the top of
CAPE TOWN ii
a camp, where the officers mess. It was cool
and pleasant, and a welcome refuge from the
wind.
The 3rd Battalion was camped on the lower
part of Maitland, the South Notts Hussars on
the upper right, the Sherwood Rangers below
on the opposite side, the Yorkshire Hussars
and the Yorkshire Dragoons opposite the South
Notts Hussars.
We walked across to the camp of the
Australians, a splendid body of men, well
mounted and equipped throughout. On this
my first day in South Africa my first impres-
sion of " Tommy," officer and man, was cheer-
fulness under trying circumstances ; and as
time went on I realised, as the great and
glorious cause why we have so much reason
to be proud of our soldiers, that their courage
begins there and ends nowhere.
Lance came back to the hotel to dinner
with me, and it was delightful driving through
these unaccustomed scenes with him. "Regi-
ments were still pouring in and out, some
landing from their ships and going into camp,
others leaving their camps to go to the front ;
12 YEOMAN SERVICE
most of them splendid, fine fellows. Those
going to the front generally called out to me
good-bye, and one could not help the feeling
that one reminded them of the girls they had
left behind them.
Dinner at the Mount Nelson is a curious
experience in itself. There is a very large
dining saloon dotted over with perhaps a
hundred small tables, most of which are filled
up by officers in kharki uniform. The very
smart ones have blue serge undress coats,
but this is quite the exception. Here and
there are English ladies, generally dressed in
last year's summer frocks, one and all with a
look in their eyes which, thank God, was not
familiar till this war of anxiety borne as
cheerfully as may be, which is after all the
only form of courage at such a time that
Englishwomen can show.
Here and there were tables filled by indi-
viduals difficult to describe because of their
air of irresponsibility. The ladies, as a rule,
wore very full dress, or rather I should say
undress, with many diamonds. The champagne
bottle had a prominent place on all these
CAPE TOWN 13
tables, and it was not until I knew South
Africa much better that I understood these
people were representatives of the class known
as South African millionaires.
The most singular point about this great
room was, I think, the absence of gaiety. One
often saw a meeting between long parted
friends. I myself met in that room men I had
not seen for years, and a meeting out there
means so much more than it does in Old
England. A friend at once seems to take his
place as an old friend ; one thinks of all the
friends and acquaintances one has in common,
and many a kind word is spoken and many a
kind feeling aroused which life in England
does not seem to encourage or give one time to
foster.
The next day Lance was to be very busy, so I
was free to accept an invitation to lunch at
Grooteschur, Mr. Rhodes' house, with Lady
Charles Bentinck. I found her and Mrs. Maxse
at the station in a Cape cart, and I drove up
with them. This was my first experience of
this curious local vehicle. It is a sort of dog-
cart with two wheels, inadequate springs, a
14 YEOMAN SERVICE
comfortable seat for two behind, an uncomfort-
able seat for two in front, half of which lifts up
to admit those sitting behind. There is a large
hood which lifts up in case of rain or sun, with
a window behind which can be covered at will
by a flap of leather. There are always two
horses, and generally a communicative Kaffir
driver. Sometimes they are fairly comfortable,
but if uncomfortable they are cruelly so, being
the most veritable bone-shakers I ever met.
The roads in South Africa are often very seamy,
as owing to the severe rains the ditches run
across as well as beside the road, and one rides
cheerfully along, looking with interest at the
view, until one suddenly shoots up into the air,
and if the hood is up, hits one's head a violent
blow to the extinction of one's hat, and lands
Heaven knows where, with the result of
bruises many and painful, chiefly on one's
arms.
But for the country these carts are un-
doubtedly the best things possible, as they can
and do go anywhere. Round Cape Town the
vegetation is comparatively scanty, but out here
at Rondebosch, four miles away, the trees are
CAPE TOWN 15
magnificent, and the mixture of English trees
with sub-tropical is very striking. You see
palms, bamboos, and cacti everywhere, alongside
oaks as fine as in England. There are beauti-
ful bushes of red, pink, and white oleander all
over the country, but at this season not many
other flowers.
Grooteschur is a beautiful house with lovely
grounds. The latter are quite open to the
public ; any one can go right up to the windows.
There are lovely trees all round the house, and
at the back a beautiful terrace-garden running
up the hill from the house. A mass of brilliant
flowers plumbago (which forms the hedges
all round Cape Town), cannas, bougainvillea,
jessamine, roses, hydrangea, and hundreds of
other lovely flowers.
Above the terrace are park-like grounds and
beautiful fir trees like Scotch firs in clumps,
and the valleys are filled with thick masses of
trees with open spaces filled with hydrangea,
oleanders, pampas grass, &c.
The house itself is very fine, and shows excel-
lent taste. The old house was burned down a
few years ago, but it has been rebuilt, I believe,
1 6 YEOMAN SERVICE
on exactly the same lines, and now represents a
real old Dutch house with old Dutch furniture
of the very best kind. Beautiful simple wood-
work throughout, all teak, black and white
marble floors to the halls, and fine ironwork
to some of the windows. Wood and brass
chandeliers in most of the rooms, all fitted with
electric light. The windows are all shaped in
the old Dutch fashion with curved frames to
the small window panes.
Steps led up to the hall door, on one side of
which there is a narrow window with a little
seat inside, where, in Dutch houses, the lady
sits to be courted by her Dutch admirers. At
the back of the house there is a wide ver-
andah (here called a stoep), with fine old brass
mounted chests, carved chairs, and plants in
tubs. Everything is Dutch as far as possible
where Dutch things are pretty, quaint, or com-
fortable, but when necessary the furniture is
English, and is always in such good taste that
nothing clashes or looks in the least incon-
gruous. All over the house lines of quaint
blue tiles are let into the walls in rather un-
expected places. There is a quantity of beauti-
CAPE TOWN 17
ful blue china all over the house. In fact,
everything is charming ijaside and out. In the
grounds there are a number of wild animals
enclosed, so as to be as nearly free as it is
possible for them to be. Captain Lambton,
who had been badly wounded by a piece of
shell in the knee, was staying at Grooteschur,
and was getting slowly better, but he still
looked very ill and his leg was rather stiff.
Both Lady Edward Cecil and Lady Charles
Bentinck looked pale and tired by their long
anxiety (as both their husbands are shut up
in Mafeking), but they were both wonder-
fully brave and cheerful. They worked very
hard on different committees in Cape Town for
the charities formed to help the refugees and
other sufferers from the war, and they said that
being so busy had helped them not to think. I
was told that they had been quite invaluable,
and worked harder than almost any one else.
The next day Nan and I drove up to the
camp, and she sat in the hansom and did a lot
of odd bits of sewing for the officers and men,
earning, I think, their eternal gratitude. They
left England in such a hurry that in many
1 8 YEOMAN SERVICE
cases their uniforms were anything but " a
fit," and a good and willing needlewoman
was worth her weight in gold.
Colonel Blair's camp was beginning to get
settled, and Captain Seely arrived with the
Hampshire Yeomanry, all beautifully equipped.
They had a large county fund, and simply
bought what they thought was necessary
without consulting any one, and were better
equipped than any regiment I saw in camp.
The dust and discomfort about the camp was
indescribable, and it is marvellous how good-
natured and cheerful both officers and men
were. It is impossible to be tidy, much less
smart, but they looked useful people even
when they were dirty !
We walked over to Colonel Meyrick's camp
(Northumberlands and Shropshires) and in-
spected his delighful trek-waggon. He has the
best camping space at Maitland, as they have
really green grass beneath their feet instead
of sand, and are encircled by a narrow belt
of trees. It will be amusing to see how far
Colonel Meyrick gets his waggon up country,
as all luxuries are being sternly forbidden.
CAPE TOWN 19
February 25. Our wedding day. I drove
out to Maitland, and we went for a lovely
walk this afternoon towards Rondebosch. We
got into a wood away from the dust and
walked under eucalyptus and other trees, of
which I am ashamed to say I never found out
the name, until we got to a fir wood, on the
edge, of which we sat in two Government
wheelbarrows and looked at, I should think,
one of the loveliest views in the world. From
here you look at Table Mountain sideways, as
it were. The outline is no longer stern and
abrupt, as it is from the sea, but gradually
slopes away into the lovely valley behind, but
lovely as the scenery is, man is so much more
interesting out here, that one seems to have
no time to waste on the beauties of nature.
Little clumps of men darted out of the
wood and galloped away in different directions,
many of them staff officers full of importance,
intelligence, and smartness. Here and there a
single rider riding easily on his useful English
horse, followed by his Indian syce with his
curious scissors-like seat and his attention-
to-matter-in-hand manner. Then perhaps a
20 YEOMAN SERYICE
Cape cart filled with trippers from Cape Town
(it was a Sunday). The next a party of
"Tommies" on their feet, joking and laughing
as only the English yokel seems to do.
I was given a lot of commissions for the
regiment to do the next day, so Nan and I
sallied forth early in the morning. It is very,
very hot, and all the more trying when one
compares it to the weather at home three
weeks ago. We hunted up and down Cape
Town for the Military Stores. It is almost
impossible to find any place unless one has
the exact address in this benighted town, for
the people seem absolutely unaware of the
names or business of those living in the very
next house to themselves.
I had also to spend half an hour at the
bank, really rather a wonderful place, filled
with distracted soldiers and phenomenally and
aggravatingly calm clerks. Every one at the
bank was extraordinarily kind and civil and
wonderfully patient, I thought. When I did
succeed in finding the Military Stores, it turned
out to be not a shop, but a sort of storehouse
filled with apparently everything which it could
CAPE TOWN 21
occur to the soul of a soldier to ask for.
All the same we only got some of the things
we wanted for our own particular soldiers,
but as every one just now is asking for the
same thing, one has often to be content with
the nearest thing to it.
I took the proceeds of our shopping up to
the camp in the afternoon and found a great
deal of illness had broken out, many of the
men suffering from bad throats.
The next day our early morning greeting
was the " hooter" blowing away furiously in the
bay. We all got on our hats and went down
to the town as quickly as possible, to hear the
glorious news that Cronje had surrendered to
Lord Eoberts with over 7000 prisoners (after-
wards this number was reduced to 4000).
Cape Town went mad with delight because
this good news, coming so soon after the re-
lief of Kimberley, gives the appearance of a
general change for the better; but what de-
lighted every one more than anything was that
the news came on Majuba day, which the
Boers have kept since our defeat as a holiday,
almost a holy day. The town was full of flags
22 YEOMAN SERVICE
and happy people walking about congratu-
lating everybody else. Lance and I walked
this afternoon in a different direction from
Maitland, over the place where they drill in
the early mornings ; a wide sandy plain with
occasionally big holes in which a horse could
easily be buried. He said he had seen lovely
flowers out there, but I could not walk
sufficiently far to find them growing. We
did, however, come across some beautiful tall
flowers which in the distance looked like
wallflowers, but were quite different when you
got close to them, more like salvias.
The camp gets dustier and more uncomfor-
table every day, and they are none of them
well. I believe there is something wrong
with the water. War finds out a man's weak
points, and it is a great trial of endurance
and temper to bear all the naggling little
bothers when the enemy is miles away. His
near presence makes you feel heroic ; his
absence makes you cross.
On the 28th February I met Lord Cecil
Manners in the hotel, whom I had last seen
at the farewell dinner at Kufford Abbey, when
CAPE TOWN 23
he had apparently no intention of coming
out. One is getting quite accustomed to
these surprises, as one constantly finds the
most unexpected person at one's elbow.
This hotel is an extraordinary compound of
a big scene on Drury Lane stage, Monte Carlo,
and a muddled dream. In the evening after
dinner is the most curious time. One sees
ladies, some very simply dressed in cottons
or muslins, others in handsome demi- toilette
evening dresses ; others (these generally South
African millionairesses) decollates. A very few
men in evening dress ; others in dark serge
uniform, but most of them in kharki uniform in
every state of repair and disrepair. The faces
form a most interesting study. Everybody looks
different to what they do at home in some way.
The young fellows just out, keen, ignorant, only
longing to see life and the battlefield ; others
come down from the front equally keen, but
having seen life have learned the lesson that,
with all its excitement, peace and home re-
main the best things. Some men bear in
their faces an indescribable air of challenge.
On inquiry, one often finds that these men
24 YEOMAN SERVICE
are the unsuccessful ones come down to Cape
Town much against their will ; and for them
one has nothing but pity. I felt very sorry for
the women. They were wonderfully brave,
and filled with a proper pride proud that
they had a man belonging to them ready to
lay down his life for Queen and country; but
when one got the chance of a quiet talk
with them, what bitter universal heartache I
found amongst them !
Lord Cecil Manners came out in company
with the Yeomanry Hospital staff, and in
the evening Colonel Younghusband introduced
Colonel Sloggett to me. He is the military
head of the Yeomanry Hospital, and struck
me as an extraordinarily capable man, which
he ultimately proved himself to be, as there
is no doubt that the remarkable success of our
hospital in South Africa is chiefly due to him.
March ist. This morning we heard the
glorious news of the relief of Ladysmith. The
"hooter" went soon after breakfast, and we all
started off for the town. A little party of us
ran all the way down the avenue as far as
CAPE TOWN 25
Parliament House. On the way a lot of
schoolboys rushed by us, let out on a whole
holiday. Flags were flying everywhere ; people
almost crying with joy and thankfulness. I
would have given a good deal that morning to
have put my head inside a certain home in
England, and seen my sister's face when she
heard that her long bitter anxiety was over, and
that her imprisoned boy was free at last.
On Parliament House stood a bare flagstaff.
From the beginning of the war no circum-
stances of rejoicing had inspired the Govern-
ment to run up the beloved Union Jack, but
to-day the joy was so universal that the popula-
tion of Cape Town would no longer suffer this
disgrace. Somehow or other a small boy was
given access to the staff, and swarmed up it and
hoisted a tiny Union Jack. Such a roar of joy
and delight went up from the assembled thou-
sands, that I fancy from very shame the officials
hoisted a big one which floated there all day.
In the pretty garden in front of Parliament
House there is a fine statue of the Queen,
one of the best, if not the best I have ever
seen ; very like her, noble, commanding, and
26 YEOMAN SERVICE
most gracious in its lines. She holds the
sceptre in one hand and the orb in the other,
and her head is slightly inclined to the left.
Some one climbed up and put a Union Jack in
her left arm. It was run on a stick, so it
floated very beautifully, and made the statue
look quite alive and conscious.
It was a lovely day, and the happiness on
every one's face was .a thing to see. It seemed
to me then that to understand the meaning of
"relief" one must be in the country in which
is the beleaguered town. One does not un-
derstand until one sees "relief" painted on
people's faces ; but I now know that the same
thought lighted the faces of the rejoicing
multitudes in England.
Of course every one out here realises that
Lord Roberts, through the great engagement of
Paardeburg and the relief of Kimberley, had
also relieved Ladysmith. Sir Redvers Buller
could never have done it alone if the Boers had
not been drawn off.
Lance had to come into Cape Town to go to
the Bank, and we went in the afternoon to
Qrooteschur to see Lady Charlie, After tea
CAPE TOWN 27
she, like an angel, sent us out for a walk alone
in the grounds. We went through a lovely
wood with quantities of hydrangeas, oleanders,
bamboos and pampas grass, growing in a clear
valley in the middle of it, so we sat down and
talked for some time. Then we climbed up
the hill and looked at some of Mr. Rhodes'
animals in their big wire yards, but we could
not see many because it was so late that the
gates were locked.
We went and came back on the top of the
electric tram, where it was delightfully cool and
pleasant. We got a splendid view of the Bay,
and all the ships, and we also passed several of
the colonial camps.
Lance stayed to dinner at the hotel, and we
had quite an interesting night. The great
dining - room was full, and by request Mr.
Eudyard Kipling got up and made a charming
short simple speech proposing the Queen's
health and that of the relievers of Ladysmith.
We all stood up, and the band played and we
sang " God save the Queen," and I think we
all felt better. All the evening the band
played national airs, and several times voices
28 YEOMAN SERVICE
joined in with the very familiar tunes. There
was an extraordinary feeling of thankfulness
abroad, but every one was very quiet. It was
as though a doctor had pronounced the crisis
of a fever passed.
The next day I did a lot of odd jobs in the
way of shopping for officers and men. This
takes a long time in Cape Town, for although
the shop people are very civil, they are the
slowest I have ever come across. I took my
commissions up to the camp in the afternoon,
in the course of which we watched a bad buck-
jumper being subdued. Until I came out here
I never realised how many different species of
the genus horse existed in the world all sizes,
all kinds, all shapes ; I was going to say all
colours.
Some of the Cape horses are curiously ugly,
but they seem to prove useful little beasts.
That evening I said good-bye to some friends
going to the front. I find this very trying
under present circumstances. One has to put
on a cheerful face and look satisfied with what
is eminently unsatisfactory so few of the men
are really happy; most of the Yeomanry, at any
CAPE TOWN 29
rate, are risking so much. They have tight
set faces with " duty " written large upon them.
The boys are gay, careless, and proud, and full
of excitement, but the ones who come back
from the front, how different they are ! The
young ones who have been wounded look
young still, and yet, if such a thing is conceiv-
able, as if years had passed since they were
young.
Sunday, March ^th. Lance and I went to
the service at the cathedral this morning. It
is a very ugly church, but a most beautiful
service. There is a very good choir with sweet
voices, and always a short anthem extremely
well sung. The music is not too ambitious,
but is all good. There was a very fine sermon
by Father Powell, S.S.J.E., an ascetic-looking
young man, who preached a splendid sermon
from the text, " Him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out."
On this he based as fine and patriotic a
sermon as I ever wish to hear. He claimed
that this war was a righteous war, a war
fought by brave men in defence of their weaker
30 YEOMAN SERVICE
brethren, and his references to Kimberley
and Ladysmith were very good. There was
nothing boastful about what he said ; it was
all courageous, right-minded, and helpful.
Our service ended with the beautiful hymn :
OUR SOLDIERS
TUNE MELITA.
Hymns Ancient and Modern, No. 370.
I.
King of Nations, Righteous Lord,
Who workest judgment with the sword
Until Thy Kingdom come, when peace
Shall reign on earth and wars shall cease,
Our soldiers bless on land and sea,
Come death, defeat, or victory.
2.
When, prostrate on the battle-plain
Amid the dying and the slain,
Our loved ones lift their hearts to Thee,
Send them Thy heavenly charity :
Our soldiers bless on land and sea,
Come death, defeat, or victory.
CAPE TOWN 31
3-
We pray for those in sore distress
The widow and the fatherless,
As pass the sleepless hours away,
Be Thou their comfort and their stay :
Our mourners bless on land and sea,
Come death, defeat, or victory.
4-
Victor of Death ! 'tis Thy decree
That we should all Thy soldiers be :
Grant us Thy strength to fight and win
The battle over self and sin.
Thy soldiers bless on land and sea,
Come death, defeat,' or victory.
5-
And when all earthly strife is o'er,
And peace shall reign from shore to shore,
Grant us to dwell with Thee above,
To share Thine everlasting Love,
And shout with joy on land and sea
" Come Death Come Life Come Victory ! "
Amen.
32 YEOMAN SERVICE
We both felt much better for going to
church, which personally I cannot say is always
the case. When we got back to the hotel we
met Mr. Sheriffe, who, having leave, had pre-
cipitately bolted from the camp because he
heard rumours that the regiment must be off
at once, and he was afraid he might be stopped
as he had something important to do. In
consequence of this, I drove out with Lance,
which I had not intended, and found that
orders had come that the regiment was to
go early in the morning to Stellenbosch to
shoot, and on from there to Kimberley. I
stayed as late as I could, watching the pre-
parations and feeling very down in my luck.
That evening, as I was having coffee, I was
addressed by a tall man whom I found to be
a relation in the Scots Greys, looking so ill.
He was invalided down from the front, quite
done up by the terrible march to Kimberley.
He and his men were for five days practically
without food ; only a few biscuits which they
had in their pockets. They had had no real
rest either, only slipping off their horses and
lying down in their cloaks, and this in order
CAPE TOWN 33
to rest the horses, not the men. All the
cavalry fared the same except the loth Hussars,
who happened to have a little chocolate with
them, and so were not quite so hungry.
When the Scots Greys got to Kimberley
they thought they would have some dinner
and rest, but at three in the morning they
were roused to go to drive the Boers away
from some point. Then came a terrible fight,
apparently the worst they had had, and they
lost many men. He saw three friends fall
quite near him. I cannot write his account ;
I wish I could. It was terrible ; I never
before so realised the sufferings of a soldier.
What all men tell me they find so trying
when they are under fire is never knowing
whence the firing comes. They know no
cause, only see or feel the effect.
In the afternoon of the 6th March, Nan
and I drove out to the Portland Hospital to
see one of our officers. This was my first visit
to a field-hospital, and of course a glimpse of
one under the most favourable circumstances.
This hospital consisted entirely of tents, and
the men looked so happy and comfortable in
34 YEOMAN SERVICE
them. As they are all double they are wonder-
fully cool. During the day the tent walls
are raised on the side away from the sun, so
that every tent is both warm and cool. Every-
thing at the Portland was beautifully clean, and
there were plenty of nurses and orderlies. Our
patient expressed himself as being in clover, but,
poor man, he looked as if he wanted care. So
many men at Maitland have had bad throats.
He had an exceptionally bad one, and on
the top of it got a touch of the sun. Some
one had dosed him with quinine on a high
temperature, with the result that he is in
hospital.
Lady Henry Bentinck was flitting about the
Portland Hospital like a guardian angel.
Many of the men told me, both here and
whenever I met them in hospital afterwards,
that it made them feel better only to see her
come into the tents. She always wore pretty
clothes, not in the least unsuitable, but simply
cheerful, and not in any way suggestive of sick-
ness or a hospital, except for the well-earned
Ked Cross on her arm.
The Portland Hospital stands in a charming
CAPE TOWN 35
open space, surrounded by trees with lovely
mountains in the near foreground. The air
is delicious, but not bracing. Adjoining this
hospital is a Government one, No. 3, much
larger and of course less luxurious. The
attendance at the Portland Hospital, as I said
before, was very good, but at No. 3 the men
were perforce obliged to look after themselves
a good deal. All those who were able to
get out of bed had to make their own beds,
keep their own tents tidy, &c., &c. At first
this sounds rather a hardship, but on the
whole I came to the conclusion it was a good
thing, for it gave the men something to do and
something to think about besides their own
complaints. In some cases it was exception-
ally hard, as, for instance, with a man I went
to see there, Mr. Hunt, one of our gentlemen
troopers, who was very tall. He had had a
bad blow on his knee, which had gathered,
and he was suffering a great deal of pain.
In this case to make your bed was more
trouble than it seemed worth ; but still I
repeat the principle was not a bad one.
I made inquiries before I left No. 3 for any
36 YEOMAN SERVICE
man of the Oxfordshire Light Infantry, 1 and
they promised to look them out before I
came again.
We walked to Rondebosch Station through a
most lovely pine wood, passed a pretty little
chapel and an ideal churchyard, with, alas !
many new graves. I got up the next morning
at six o'clock and went with Sir Charles
Hunter, then inspector of musketry, to Stellen-
bosch. We bought a quantity of grapes very
cheap at the station to take up. to the men.
There are vineyards and fruit orchards all
round there, and the fruit is good and plenti-
ful, but the season is getting over now. We
drove four miles to the camp in a Cape cart,
and found the regiment encamped on the side
of a hill in a much better place than Maitland ;
dusty, it is true, but not nearly so bad as that
had been. The regiment was to try its shoot-
ing, one company at a time, and we were much
interested in the test, because this was abso-
lutely the first time that the South Notts
Hussars had been tried, owing to the rifle
butts at Nottingham having been under water
1 My brother's regiment.
CAPE TOWN 37
when the regiments were assembling. Lance
was rather anxious, but, to his and their satis-
faction, his men, if anything, shot better than
any, the result, we hoped, of him and his
officers having taken a good deal of trouble in
teaching them how to practise sighting and
handling their weapons on the voyage out.
I had luncheon with the officers in their
tent, a funny meal in a small marquee. Each
squadron has its own tables, and as they are
all different heights and sizes, the level is a
queer one when they are put together to make
one large table. We had a very good Irish
stew, I know, but I do not remember what else.
Afterwards we walked to the little station near,
which is used for the remount camp, where
Captain Pennell Elmhirst is in command. We
found a fallen tree in the shade and sat on
it for some time until we were driven away
by the dust created by about fifty mule waggons
with ten mules each, every waggon driven by
two black boys, one holding the reins of the
mules on the left and the other on the right.
There was generally a third boy, who held
and cracked an enormous whip with a lash at
38 YEOMAIST SERVICE
least ten yards long. It was most exciting
to watch the performance. Each waggon had
to go through a fairly narrow gate on to the
railway line, through another gate on the
other side, and turn sharply to the left to
go to the remount camp. It was possible to
drive straight on up the hill, and this the
mules generally were anxious to do ; hence
much effort on the part of the drivers, much
cracking of whips, and language which I feel
sure it was a mercy I could not understand.
The noises the Kaffir drivers make to their
mules are most extraordinary chjee tehee
chiaa sort of sneezes. The whole had to
be seen and heard to be believed, and was
really well worth watching. To see those long
teams vanish in the clouds of dust made one
think of Elijah's chariot with a difference.
After this show had ended we joined Sir
Charles Hunter, and found another patch of
shade near the railway station to sit down
in. Lance had a numnah he had retrieved
en route, and I was composing myself to
sit on it on a railway bank when a tall
coolie who stood near dramatically tore off
CAPE TOWN 39
his turban, which resolved itself into a long
red chuddah scarf. This he insisted on
spreading on the ground for us all to sit on,
whilst he stood by with black elf-locks
floating in the wind and sun. What made
it still more dramatic was that it was all
done in solemn silence, without a smile, but
with most appropriate action. He was ap-
parently quite happy serving an English-
man.
The camp at Stellenbosch is in a lovely
district looking over the blue mountains, and
but for the all-pervading African dust would
be a charming place. At that time Stellen-
bosch was not so notorious as it has become
since. During the later course of the war,
when an officer proved unsatisfactory, he was
sent down from the front to Cape Town,
and work was generally found for him at
Stellenbosch, where there were stores and
camps gradually collected of all kinds. He
was henceforth described as a man who had
been " Stellenbosched."
I was very tired when I got back to Cape
Town, but was soon set up by a delicious bath,
40 YEOMAN SERVICE
and dinner, after which I saw Lord Cecil
Manners, who was off to Naauwpoort as the
Times correspondent.
On Sunday, March 1 1 , I went out again
to Grooteschur. A number of people came
in, but I stayed until they had all gone away,
and then we went all over the house again.
Each time I see it I think it more charming.
It is so reposeful ; nothing jars, but everything
gives the eye a rest, and when you look at
each detail you find it very good and worth
further study. I was thrilled by the account
Lady Charles Bentinck gave me of hers and
Lady Edward Cecil's experiences ; but I am
afraid of being indiscreet, so do not give them
here. I think one cannot sufficiently admire
these two women. They are an example to
every other of their sex. They are so cheerful
and courageous, and it is only their faces that
tell of their long anxiety. They go into Cape
Town every morning and help to see to the
feeding and comfort of four thousand refugees,
and Lady Charles has besides a little home
for the better class of refugees, which is under
a matron and has especial care. All the food
CAPE TOWN 41
has to be measured and doled out, and they
have been doing this now for months.
The next day I was very busy. With
considerable difficulty Lord Scarborough had
succeeded in engaging a beautiful black cook
for the regiment, and he was to have per-
sonally conducted him this day to Paarl.
However, in the morning he was too unwell
to go, so sent me a note asking me if I would
become his (the cook's) chaperone, and on no
account to lose sight of the man, for fear he
should be inveigled away by some other regiment
which offered bribes too tempting to refuse.
Sir Charles Hunter told me of a perfect train
which left Cape Town at nine A.M. When I
got to the station, I found this train had
been taken off, but having the charge of the
black cook and some important letters, I felt
I must try to go ; so I started on my first
round of worrying officials. Cape Town
station is a large place, but it seemed the
size of the world itself on a hot morning.
Most of the ordinary officials were taken
off, and the station was in charge of the
military; so I had to find the R.S.O. (railway
42 YEOMAN SERVICE
staff officer) who was extremely kind, and
ultimately gave me leave to go in a troop
train with the 7th Dragoon Guards, and to
get back in the best way I could, possibly
by luggage train. As I was uncertain about
getting back at all that night, I thought it
better to leave Nan behind, as I could put
up anywhere with Lance to look after me,
while she might have been in an awkward posi-
tion. The train started about eleven o'clock,
and I sat in a first-class carriage and watched
a number of ladies and gentlemen giving
the men fruit, milk, and newspapers. It
seems there is a committee in Cape Town
who did this for every troop train, and a most
excellent work it is, as the men always have
a very long and a tedious journey before
them. Looking back, I cannot help feeling
amused at remembering how sby I was that
day, a shyness which wore off in the days
to come so absolutely that I cannot help
wondering if I became too bold.
When I got to Paarl station, Freddy Bailey
met me with the bad news that Lance was not
at all well and could not come himself to meet
CArE TOWN 43
me. I drove out to the camp in a Cape
cart over a perfectly awful road, and as the
cart did not yield in the least to the in-
numerable holes, I was bumped about till I
was nearly silly. On the way I passed my
first dead horse, a sight which was to be-
come only too common. The regiment was
bivouacked in the open in a quite lovely
place surrounded by fir trees and wild and
most picturesque mountains. The railway
ran close by on one side, and there was a
delicious river to bathe in. Lance looked
very unwell and said he felt very bad. I
think it was the effects of the sun and
the long ride. I proudly handed over the
cook, Mr. Solomon, who was received with
acclamation. Lance and I sat in the shade
under some fir trees until I had to go.
It was interesting to see the camp so
absolutely in the rough ; the horses of the
different squadrons picketed together, camp
tables put together under some trees to form
the mess-room, and a few camp chairs here
and there, the simplest of camp fires, and
nothing else practically but their accoutre-
44 YEOMAN SERVICE
ments. When the time came for me to return
to Cape Town, Mr. Crocker took me to the
station. The luggage train was in a siding
and did not after all start for an hour. We
interviewed the guard, and he promised to
look after me, but said we should not get in
till rather late.
The station-master brought two chairs out
on the platform, where we sat and talked until
the train was ready to start. Just as I was
walking to the guard's van, three Dutchmen
got into it. Mr. Croker asked the guard if
they were going too, and he said, " Yes, to a
place nearly as far as Cape Town." Mr. Croker
was quite frightened and thought I ought not
to go, but I thought it would be very amusing,
as I had an English guard to look after me, and
besides the Boers are always polite to ladies.
Paarl is in the very middle of the most rebel
part of Cape Colony, so much so that I was
told it would not do for me to stay in the
village unless Lance was with me. Whether
this was true or not, the most anti-English
feeling prevailed about there and the people
had no hesitation in showing it.
CAPE TOWN 45
As the train went by the camp, Lance
was standing by himself and waved his hand
to me, and a very little farther on all the
other officers were at dinner at the tables
under the trees, and they pleased me very
much by giving me a cheer as I went by.
The Dutchmen, who from the beginning were
most civil and obliging, at once giving me
the only comfortable seat in the carriage, and
expressing anxiety that I should not be too
hot or too cold or in a draught, then turned
to me and asked me who these men were.
I replied, "That is my husband's regiment,"
and they said, "But what soldiers are these?
we have not seen any quite like them." I
replied, "They are Yeomanry," at which they
were much interested, and they asked me many
questions about them : who the Yeomanry
were ; why they came out ; what did they gain
by coming out ; was it because all our regular
troops were exhausted ; what was England's
opinion about the war ; had we really any more
troops to send ; was Mr. Chamberlain an honest
man ; was he a popular man in England ; what
was thought of Mr. Rhodes ; was it not true
46 YEOMAN SERVICE
that the war was all to please him. I replied
as well as I could that the Yeomanry in Eng-
land were taken from the class to which the
Dutch farmer himself practically belongs, that
their officers were taken from the men of better
wealth and position in the particular district
from which each regiment of the Yeomanry
was recruited ; that they always existed in
England, though they were hitherto supposed
to be only used for home defence, but that on
this occasion the Government had called upon
them to go on foreign service because they
were all good riders and thoroughly accustomed
to riding across country; that they gain ab-
solutely nothing by coming out ; on the contrary,
that most of them gave up a great deal ; that
our troops in England were by no means ex-
hausted.
They looked very incredulous at this, so I
said, " I will give you some figures that I
am quite sure of. My husband commands a
regiment of Yeomanry over 400 strong, and
only about sixty of them have come out to this
war, the others remaining in England, which
without absolute necessity it was impossible
CAPE TOWN 47
for them to leave. My brother commands an
infantry regiment over 1000 strong, and he had
brought 600 out to this war." These figures I
told them I was sure about, and if this was the
case in regiments that I knew well, I also knew
it was the case in other regiments with the
details of which I was not so intimately ac-
quainted. As to the war being popular in
England, there never had been a more undesired
war, but directly Mr. Kruger sent his ultimatum
to England, it was the firm resolve of every Eng-
lishman and Englishwoman from the moment
of receiving it not to leave a stone unturned
to make the Boers understand they had made a
great mistake.
They asked me if it was not true that we
were very unprepared for war. I said, "We
were for a war at that distance from Eng-
land," and they asked me why. I replied,
" Because no one in England ever supposed
for a minute that an unimportant country
like the Transvaal would ever dream of such
impertinence as declaring war against a great
country like England," and I felt very happy
when I saw how blue they looked at this.
48 YEOMAN SERVICE
They asked me if I thought we meant to
carry on the war whatever happened, and I
replied, "Most certainly; that so much of
our best blood had been spilled in a way
we could not help feeling was not necessary,
that we should never be satisfied until we
were avenged and completely conquerors/'
The oldest man of the three shook his head
and said, " It is true ; it was madness ; it
should never have been." The two young
men argued in Dutch after this for a little
while, and they asked me some less interest-
ing questions. They spoke English extremely
well, and no people could have been more
civil. I do not think I was rude, as I felt
it was only right to answer straightly when
one had the chance. The guard told me
afterwards that they were three notoriously
rebel farmers, and they themselves told me
that although they were none of them fight-
ing, every male relation they had was in the
field against us, and that all their sympathies
were with their own folk.
When I got within about two miles of
Cape Town station, the guard advised me
CAPE TOWN 49
to get out at a crossing, near which he
thought I should be able to get a hansom,
because he said it might be three hours
before we got into Cape Town, and it was
then past eleven o'clock. So I jumped out
with my parasol and camera, and found
myself somewhere in Cape Town, but I had
not a notion where. I walked on, and at
last came to the tram-lines, and then I knew
in which direction to go. Two or three
hansoms passed me, but I had a thick gauze
veil on, and I could not see if they had any
one in them or not ; at any rate, they did not
stop in answer to my signal.
I passed many " Tommies " walking two
and three together and a good many Kaffir
men and women. I was really very tired,
so at last I made up my mind to ask a
"Tommy" to try and get me a hansom. I
went up to two young fellows who were
very civil to me. One of them went off and
got me a hansom in a very short time, and I
got up to the Mount Nelson about a quarter to
twelve. I was very glad of my bed that night,
for a luggage-train guard's van does joggle.
50 YEOMAN SERVICE
Nan and I went the next afternoon out
again to No. 3 Hospital, where I have been
several times since my first visit. I had
hitherto been unable to get any list of the
Oxfordshire men in hospital, but to-day I
found they really had got one for me. It is
most hopelessly difficult work, really like look-
ing for a needle in a bundle of hay, to hunt
for any individual man in one of the large
field-hospitals. For one thing, each marquee
covers such an enormous piece of ground with
its guy ropes and stays, that it takes a long
time to walk from one tent to another. The
officials try to properly enter each man in an
official register when he comes into hospital,
but it seemed to me that they hardly ever, for
some reason, put down which tent they were
in, and I ultimately found the best thing to
do was to get hold of some convalescent
patient, and get him to find the man one
wanted, as the hospital orderlies have really
not the time. I had a most interesting talk
with these men this day, and what they said
about my brother made me very proud and
happy. I now heard for the first time what a
CAPE TOWN 51
narrow escape he had had at Paardeberg
bullet through his helmet and one of the stars
shot off his shoulder-strap.
I had a long talk with Lord Basil Black-
wood after dinner, and heard about his going
into Ladysmith the day of the relief and
finding his brother Lord Ava's grave. It
seemed so difficult to realise that such a thing
could be.
54 YEOMAN SERVICE
The next day I saw my first ambulance
train, which came through about 9.30. Cap-
tain Robertson, the R.S.O., asked Nan and
me if we would like to meet it. It was
beautifully arranged spring beds on each side
of the carriages, one above the other, with
as little woodwork as possible, so as to allow
a free current of air ; everything very clean
and fresh. Three or four nice army nurses
with blue dresses, white aprons, and caps,
and short red capes on their shoulders.
Most of the patients who were up were in
pyjamas, and they looked very white and thin,
poor fellows ! There is a lady living at
Wellington, a Miss Cairncross, who has done
a wonderful work there during the whole of
the war. She meets every ambulance train
coming down with wounded or sick, and
gives them fresh milk, flowers or fruit, and
the nurses and patients say it is the greatest
boon and blessing. She spent her own
money as long as it lasted, and then asked
her neighbours to help her. She was there
this day, and one could see by the welcome
the nurses gave her how much they looked
WELLINGTON 55
forward to seeing her. I ventured to make
her a little speech of appreciation, and her
reply was, her kind eyes filling with tears,
" I have done so little ; I wanted to go to
Mafeking, but my people would not let me."
I could only think I do not know what I
said that she had done very much, all she
could, and I could thank her from my heart
because I had so many dear ones out there,
some of whom might possibly fall into her
kind hands.
I heard there were nine wounded officers
on board, so I went to see if there were
any Oxfordshire men amongst them. There
were none, but one young man sitting close
to the door said, " There are Yeomanry here,
are there not ? " I said " Yes/' He asked,
" Are the South Notts Hussars anywhere
about?" Then I asked who he was, and
he turned out to be Mr. Percy Bailey of
the 1 2th Lancers, a brother of one of our
gentlemen troopers, who had just been badly
wounded. Then a voice from a top bunk
asked, "Is Charlie Trotter out?" (one of our
Yeomanry officers who had not been able to
56 YEOMAN SERVICE
come out, though most anxious to do so).
This was Mr. Jack Hamilton, a son of Lord
Hamilton of Dalzell and Mrs. Trotter's brother.
He died some months later of enteric at
Kroonstad. Directly I realised Mr. Percy
Bailey's presence, I flew off to send for Freddy
Bailey, but he could not get up in time, and
just missed his brother, much to the regret
of all of us. I stayed and talked to them
until the last minute, and this was a lesson
to me never to lose an opportunity of speaking
to sick men, as one never knew who they
might be, and what welcome news from home
one might not be able to give them.
After this Nan and I hurried off to the Court-
house at Wellington. Wellington itself is a
remarkably pretty small town, surrounded by
picturesque mountains and well wooded with
fine eucalyptus trees; its broad streets, with
their deep ditches, in many cases full of run-
ning water, its avenues of fine trees and
comfortable houses made it a very charming
place. The Court-house was in one of the
principal streets, in which were in reality many
shops, but so hidden behind the trees that
WELLINGTON 57
anything more unlike a High Street in an
English country town it would be difficult to
imagine. We drove up in a Cape cart, and
found Captain Kobertson waiting to take us
in. Outside were a number of horses tied
up to the posts and rails, which in South
Africa are to be found outside most public
buildings. The reins are slipped over the
horse's head, twisted round the iron pegs, and
there he is a prisoner until wanted. We made
our way, following Captain Robertson, through
a crowd of Cape Dutch or Boers, who looked
anything but pleased to see us. I should
have felt very disinclined to take the good
seats which were offered to Nan and me,
being, as we were, the only women in court,
had I not felt that it was an experience I
might never have the chance of again. The
room was not very large ; it was like a
Nonconformist chapel at home a sort of
pulpit in which sat the magistrate, a long
table in front, at which were the counsel for
plaintiff and defendant, the prisoner himself,
and sundry witnesses. A witness-box was
on our immediate right, and in this we saw
56 YEOMAN SERVICE
come out, though most anxious to do so).
This was Mr. Jack Hamilton, a son of Lord
Hamilton of Dalzell and Mrs. Trotter's brother.
He died some months later of enteric at
Kroonstad. Directly I realised Mr. Percy
Bailey's presence, I flew off to send for Freddy
Bailey, but he could not get up in time, and
just missed his brother, much to the regret
of all of us. I stayed and talked to them
until the last minute, and this was a lesson
to me never to lose an opportunity of speaking
to sick men, as one never knew who they
might be, and what welcome news from home
one might not be able to give them.
After this Nan and I hurried off to the Court-
house at Wellington. Wellington itself is a
remarkably pretty small town, surrounded by
picturesque mountains and well wooded with
fine eucalyptus trees; its broad streets, with
their deep ditches, in many cases full of run-
ning water, its avenues of fine trees and
comfortable houses made it a very charming
place. The Court-house was in one of the
principal streets, in which were in reality many
shops, but so hidden behind the trees that
WELLINGTON 57
anything more unlike a High Street in an
English country town it would be difficult to
imagine. We drove up in a Cape cart, and
found Captain Robertson waiting to take us
in. Outside were a number of horses tied
up to the posts and rails, which in South
Africa are to be found outside most public
buildings. The reins are slipped over the
horse's head, twisted round the iron pegs, and
there he is a prisoner until wanted. We made
our way, following Captain Robertson, through
a crowd of Cape Dutch or Boers, who looked
anything but pleased to see us. I should
have felt very disinclined to take the good
seats which were offered to Nan and me,
being, as we were, the only women in court,
had I not felt that it was an experience I
might never have the chance of again. The
room was not very large ; it was like a
Nonconformist chapel at home a sort of
pulpit in which sat the magistrate, a long
table in front, at which were the counsel for
plaintiff and defendant, the prisoner himself,
and sundry witnesses. A witness-box was
on our immediate right, and in this we saw
58 YEOMAN SERVICE
the English witnesses heckled and treated
with what I can only call contempt. At the
back of the court were a number of Boers,
representing the principal men in the district.
This was the first time I had ever seen any
of them together, and I can only say that
honestly I much disliked their aspect. As
far as physique is concerned, they are fine
men, but their countenances are singularly
deficient in nobility; the eyes are generally
small and dark, and very close together; the
nose is short and insignificant ; the drooping
moustache, which usually conceals the upper
lip, shows the lower one to be large and
sensual, and whether or no the chin is hid-
den by a beard, the face is, to my thinking,
nearly always distinctly animal. If you look
a man straight in the face, he can hardly
ever meet your eye the glance is shifty, and
reminds one irresistibly of a visit to the
Zoological Gardens at home. The magistrate
was a Mr. Van der Poul, a pro-Bonder. He
gave, I thought, a reasonably fair verdict on the
evidence, but it was impossible to sympathise
with the man Siljee. The offence of which
WELLINGTON 59
he was accused was that he tried to force
his way on to the station platform when a
troop train was in. No one is allowed there
at that time without a special permit, as the
stations are all under martial law. The soldier
on guard, as in duty bound, stopped him, and
Siljee struck him a violent blow on the face
and another on the body.
Wellington itself is, luckily for Siljee, not
under martial law, as is De Aar, not so much
farther up the line. If it had been, he would
have rendered himself liable to be shot. As it
was, he got off with a fine of 6. It was
interesting to watch the prisoner's face while
the evidence was being given. He was never
still for a moment and perspired freely, and was
exceedingly meek in his manner ; but directly
the sentence was passed he shook himself like
a dog and became cheeky at once. It must be
remembered that this man Siljee was con-
stantly referred to during the trial as one of the
leading men of the district. He had red hair,
light blue eyes, and a weak foolish face, and in
no way impressed one favourably. I looked
round the room vainly in search of one open
60 YEOMAN SERVICE
face, but could find none except those of
Englishmen, or at any rate Britons. The
counsel who defended Siljee was, I was told,
once a clerk to Mr. Cecil Rhodes, by whose
assistance and advice he became a rich man,
but with the accession of wealth he turned
against his patron, and is now an avowed anti-
Briton. He had undoubtedly the gift of
speech, and incited to disloyalty, so that one
longed to be up and at him. The whole case
lay in a nutshell ; the assault was not denied,
and it just depended upon whether the magi-
strate took a severe or lenient view of the case.
Personally, I thought he was openly sympa-
thetic with the Boers, but Siljee was evidently
in terror until he was sentenced to a 6 fine,
with the alternative of a month's imprisonment.
His counsel immediately appealed, with I
know not what result, though I sincerely hope
he did not get off.
When Nan and I got back, feeling alto-
gether rather cross and disgusted, we found
Mr. Royle sitting in the verandah, looking
very ill and queer. I asked him if he would
not like to lie down, and soon got him a
WELLINGTON 61
room, where he was most thankful to go to bed
as his head ached so badly. Nan washed and
did him up comfortably, and he stayed the
night there ; but this was the beginning of
quite a little hospital which we had at Well-
ington, as so many were quite knocked up
by the sun and heat, and they had sufficiently
bad attacks of dysentery to need nursing
and care.
Colonel Meyrick's regiment of Yeomanry,
the Northumberlands and Shropshires, were
also here, and we had several of them on
our hands, and we were both very glad to
be able to be of use. We had great diffi-
culty in getting milk for the invalids, and I
had to go about Wellington begging, borrow-
ing, and stealing. In the course of our pere-
grinations I made friends with many of the
residents, and it made one's blood boil to know
what they have had to put up with during the
last twelvemonths. One nice little English-
woman, who came out here to be married three
years ago, told me that for a long time when
her husband left in the early morning to go to
his work she dare not leave the house to go
62 YEOMAN SERVICE
into the town for fear of insult or the risk of
finding her house dismantled on her return.
The Dutch farmers thought nothing of cracking
their whips at an Englishwoman and her child
as they passed her by on the road, and if the
whip by chance raised a weal, they were none
the less pleased.
On the 1 8th, I watched for the first time
a train-load of horses and men being sent
off up the country. It took about six hours
to get the 1 20 men with their horses and
luggage on board, and proved very hot and
tiring work. Some of the animals take it very
philosophically, stepping up into the uncom-
fortable truck as if it were a luxurious stable
at home, but others appear to anticipate with
horror the miserable journey they are sure to
have, and give as much trouble as possible
before they are induced to embark.
An officer of Colonel Meyrick's regiment
came to me on the morning of the igth and
told me that two of their officers were very bad
with dysentery, and that they had no medicine
or anything for them, and asked if Nan and
I would undertake to look after them. Of
WELLINGTON 63
course we were only too glad and proud to
be of use, and from that time until we left
Wellington Nan was as busy as she could
be, as the kind little landlady had her hands
more than full in cooking and providing for
the mess for forty officers. In the evening
Lance and I went for a walk to a shoemaker's
mill about half-a-mile from Wellington such
a pretty place with a couple of dammed up
ponds surrounded by beautiful trees, many
of them magnificent willows full of weaver-
birds' nests. They hung in twin bunches
far out of reach over the water. Behind and
beyond were some of the biggest eucalyptus
trees we had ever seen in South Africa. I
longed to see this place in summer, for it
must have been lovely.
An order came the next day that Colonel
Meyrick's battalion was to go to Matjesfontein.
There was much rejoicing at first amongst
them, as they and we all thought it was
Magersfontein near Kimberley, to which they
were to be sent, and there was considerable
annoyance when they found it was only about
100 miles farther north. More invalids came
64 YEOMAN SERVICE
on our hands to-day, and although Nan and I
were packed and ready to go back to Cape
Town, Lance thought we had better remain,
as there were so many sick men still requiring
care. The next day he was appointed Station
Stan Officer. The work is hard and keeps you
tied to the station, but it is interesting at first,
as you have access to many private papers, and
know all the movements of all the troops
and passengers up and down the line. He
tried a new plan for getting horses entrained
which proved most successful, as they got off
in half the time they generally do. I made
the acquaintance of Mr. Coton, a large em-
ployer of black labour in Wellington. He
is a loyalist and owns a great deal of land
about there, and is very good to his black
boys, who are devoted to him. He is, I
suppose in consequence, detested by the
Dutch, who are seldom or never good to
their servants. We went to his house, and
were most kindly promised a lot more milk
for our sick men. I found all the residents
most liberal and very easy to get on with,
and most sympathetic with one's curiosity,
WELLINGTON 65
answering any questions one felt inclined to ask.
The duty the men have to do here is very severe.
It comprises pickets all along the line, guard-
ing the many bridges, at which a strong guard
is required or they would be blown up.
The place where our men are encamped is
a great arid sandy plain, with such heat
that I find it difficult to describe. I only
once went down in the middle of the day,
and then I had to walk with my eyes
shut, notwithstanding my enormous sun-um-
brella, for I simply could not bear the glare
of the sun. On the morning of the 22nd
March, Nan and I went to an extraordinary
little entertainment and bazaar given by the
Kaffirs in aid of their own church. It was
held in two fair-sized rooms, and there were
about eight or ten tables all covered with
things to eat, great cakes and buns and
fruit, and quantities of paper flowers. The
Kaffirs were all dressed in the gayest of
muslins and cottons, with the exception of
some of the old people, who wore respectable
black with white caps and aprons like an old
wife at home. They all seemed to talk at
E
66 YEOMAN SERVICE
once and were as cheerful and bright as pos-
sible, and it was difficult to realise that one was
there only because war was going on.
The regiment was due to go to Kim-
berley on the 23rd, so Nan and I left Wel-
lington about ii A.M., and arrived at Cape
Town about 1.30 in a violent south-easter
amidst clouds of dust. When I came out
from England I had expected to join the
Yeomanry Hospital, but on arrival at Cape
Town I found that many other ladies had
precisely the same intention. Of course I at
once realised that where one woman might
be welcome, many would be an encumbrance.
I was therefore not surprised to find a
letter on my return to the Mount Nelson
from Colonel Sloggett, saying that only Lady
Chesham and Mrs. Fripp were to be allowed
to go. Of course I was very disappointed,
but he wrote most kindly, and as I could
not anyhow have gone just then, I made
up my mind to hope for the best.
I went out in the afternoon of the 24th to
see Mr. Bullough's yacht the Rhouma, and was
delighted with her. She is a fine steam-yacht
WELLINGTON 67
about 800 tons, very roomy and with plenty
of headroom. Mr. Bullough is a Scotchman,
with an island, all, I believe, his own property
on the west coast of Scotland. He had his
yacht fitted out at Cape Town with a large
wooden house one ward on the upper deck,
which holds twenty beds. It has windows
all round, and is delightfully light and airy.
The men generally come from the hospital
as soon as they are sufficiently convalescent
to be moved. Some of those I saw were
still very ill, but they all make rapid strides
when they once get there. Mr. Bullough
puts up the officers in the charming cabins
which are there in other parts of the ship.
His is a most splendid and generous work.
I never saw people more happy than all
these guests were on board his hospitable
boat.
On Sunday evening after dinner we were
sitting on the stoep when I noticed a glow
in the sky. It turned out to be a fire, and
we all sallied forth to see if we could make
out where it was. I had on a cloak, and,
fortunately, fairly thick patent-leather shoes,
68 YEOMAN SERVICE
but no hat, and Mr. Bullough and Mr. Tris-
tram, who were with me, were equally without
hats. Another lady who was with us had on
a lovely blue silk dress, no cloak, and a white
fur- boa. As we went down the avenue we
thought the fire from the square must be at
Government House. Somehow our party got
separated, and Mr. Bullough, Mr. Tristram, and
I went by a short cut to Plein Street, where
we found the fire was at a place called the
Little Dustpan, a short arcade full of shops.
The inspector to whom we applied let us
through the crowd, and for some strange
reason for there was hardly any one else
allowed us to go down the road till we were
exactly opposite the fire. We looked down
the arcade into a fiery furnace. Most of the
glare was above the houses when we arrived,
and at the end of the arcade, but the fire
got worse and worse every minute. There
were only two engines and a very small supply
of water, and gradually the flames crept nearer
until the great plate - glass windows of the
house opposite to us were full of flames. The
furniture which filled the windows withered
WELLINGTON 69
up ; the fire rushed out through the bursting
glass and licked up the front of the house.
It was horrible and terrifying, although we
were in no danger. I had said to Mr.
Bullough on my way down, "I love a fire,"
and I felt ashamed of myself when I saw the
horror of it so much closer than I had ever
done before, and the havoc and destruction
it wrought. Shop after shop caught fire, and
the firemen on the parapets of the houses
and inside, doing their best to combat the
flames, seemed in frightful peril. We could
see no promise of an end when we were
obliged to go away, because there was great
danger from the electric wires running down
the end of the street for the use of the
electric cars, which were beginning to break.
I was very loth to go, although it was a dread-
ful sight. I never realised the cruelty and
destruction of fire so absolutely before. Of
course no lives except those of the firemen
were in danger, as nobody was in any of
the houses, and one was more able to look
at it simply as a spectacle, but I could not
help thinking how dreadful it would have
70 YEOMAN SERVICE
been if any living person had been inside
how hopeless to escape those cruel eating
flames. The only amusing thing about the
whole affair was to see soldiers, officers, and
men commandeered to help the firemen. As
the former were all dressed in their best to
dine at the Mount Nelson, they were not very
pleased, as no one possesses a very extensive
wardrobe out here. Many of them came up
to me and asked me to take charge of gloves,
watches, sticks, &c., which I was to hand over
to the office at the hotel. As most of these
men were quite unknown to me, I felt much
flattered at their confidence. My last thought
when I went to bed was a selfish one, namely,
that I was very glad the Mount Nelson stood
so alone outside the town.
We finished our packing on Monday, having
to buy another box to contain all the things
which had followed us from England. Our
last day in Cape Town was passed in paying
bills, visiting the bank, and making our adieux
to many friends.
We left Cape Town about nine o'clock, but
did not turn in till after we passed Wellington
WELLINGTON 71
about 11.30, as I wanted to leave a box of eau
de Cologne for Miss Cairncross, who wanted
some for the sick. Nan and I looked at the
pillows and sheets provided for our comfort, and
said to each other, " No, thank you," and turned
into beds made of our own wraps. We had a
compartment to ourselves, which was a great
comfort. On the morning of the 27th we
breakfasted at Matjesfontein, and saw some of
Colonel Meyrick's regiment having breakfast at
the station. They are getting very tired of
being there and are keen to go to the front.
We travelled the whole of that day through
the Karroo, a desert at this time of year. Just
a few bushes and stunted plants here and there,
with picturesque mountains or kopjes in the
distance, and very occasionally close to the line.
We passed over hundreds of dry watercourses
and the beds of great rivers, but the absence of
water is most distressing to the eye, and the
sight of dry places where water should be
only accentuated a sense of desolation that I
have never experienced before. Many parts of
Norway are far more barren and colourless than
this Karroo, but there one is sure ere long to
72 YEOMAN SERVICE
come upon some lovely little stream or great
river or placid lake hidden amongst the
mountains. Here there is nothing but dry
desolation and kharki-coloured mud. It is like
a face without eyes. In effect the sun literally
offends one it is so hot and pitiless, and
everything looks thirsty and dirty. Every one
says nothing will be made of South Africa
unless immense irrigation works are undertaken
all over the country. If the rain which falls
so heavily at certain seasons was only stored,
then the country would be fertile and fresh and
life endurable to the settler everywhere. The
beautiful ranges of mountains bounding and
running through the Karroo are all bare and
dry ; not a sign of a stream or waterfall, and of
course there are no trees, only just a few planted
near some farm, which is truly an oasis in a
desert, for one only passes one in many miles.
There are Kaffir settlements here and there,
with at least a dozen children all the same
size to each house. They wear rags or
no clothes at all ; such funny little black
imps. All the Kaffirs when they have their
best clothes on are very smart, but their
WELLINGTON 73
old clothes are very old indeed. The Govern-
ment has had to lay water on, I suppose
by making wells to supply the innumerable
camps along the line, and at most of the
stations there are taps of very good water.
The line the whole way up is guarded by
soldiers. Every bridge has its picket of two
or three men. Think what that means when
De Aar is at least 500 miles from Cape Town.
It was quite sad to see the poor fellows be-
longing to the camps standing near the line
begging for newspapers. We passed one dread-
fully desolate place which had the cheerful
name of Blood River. Here there was nothing
but brown earth, hardly anything green to be
seen. There were about forty men there then,
and I asked one of them how long he had been
there. He replied, "A fortnight; but the
people before us were here for four months.
God preserve us from that ! " We had dinner
at Victoria Road, having passed Beaufort-west
on the way, which is quite a nice town, with a
church spire and plenty of houses, and a large
camp, for it is very rebel.
Victoria Road is a wayside station, with, I
74 YEOMAN SERVICE
fancy, only a few houses, but it was too dark
to see clearly. In the refreshment room there
was a magnificent collection of deers' heads,
and I longed to have some one to tell me what
they all were. We turned in at 10.30, and I
woke up about 2 A.M. on March 28th. We
were at De Aar, and had been, and were,
shunted about there for hours, leaving about
5 A.M., in daylight, so that we could see what
a great military station it is tents, camps, and
stores in every direction for miles around.
The conductor brought us some tea, and we
got up to dress early, as we knew there would
be so much to see all that day. The first
thing we discovered was that some one had
walked off with our only box in the middle of
the night. It had my name printed on it in
"life-size" characters, so there was no excuse.
It contained my camera, field-glasses, &c.,
and, in my distress, as the conductor in whose
charge we had left it did not appear to be on
the train, I appealed to an officer who was in
the next compartment of the same corridor.
He was most kind, and wired back to De
Aar for me at the first opportunity, and after
WELLINGTON 75
that showed us all the points of interest upon
the line. The troops had manoeuvred all over
this ground, though no big battle had been
fought there, but one began to see the kind of
country our men had to tackle, and how
terrible it was when we were the attacking
party.
At Orange River we all breakfasted about
10.30, and I discovered that our travelling
companion was Colonel Lugard, R.A. He
left us at Orange River, but not before he
had seen that we were properly attended to
and had had a fairly good breakfast. Our
passes had to be "vised" here for the first
time. Nan and I stood on the little platform
at the end of the carriage most of the day,
because from thence one could see both sides
of the line, which the C.I.V. were guarding
very closely. There were large pickets at all
the bridges. One soon began to see traces of
fighting in the trenches and fortified hills, and
at last we reached Belmont, with its many
trenches and a new graveyard near the station.
The battlefield was an immense plain sprinkled
over with red ant-hills. A C.I.V. officer on
76 YEOMAN SERVICE
board very kindly explained to us how the
battle had gone, and it was quite easy to follow
and understand. The line had been destroyed
from here to Kimberley, and henceforth we
saw all the way broken wire fences, here and
there repaired, and very crooked telegraph
posts, some having been broken right off and
stuck in again anyhow.
We passed close to Enslin and Graspan,
and in one place quite close to the line we
saw the road which the Boers had cut up a
large kopje in order to be able to drag one
of their big guns to the top. There seemed
to be trenches at the foot of every kopje,
and one was filled with wonderment that any
troops could be found brave enough to attack
such a place under a heavy fire. The Boers
must have been in nearly all cases quite
safe, whilst it made one feel perfectly sick to
look at the open spaces our splendid fellows
had to cross. A deep trench a little above
the foot of the kopje, and another at the top
with generally a big gun or two, was the
usual style of the Boer fortifications. The
ground was very flat as far as Modder River,
WELLINGTON 77
where the station is on the north side. The
railway bridge had been blown up by the
Boers, but was nearly renewed, and would
be ready for use in a few days. I was after-
wards told that General Cronje was frightfully
disgusted when he saw the Modder River
bridge all but replaced, and he told some one
that had they known that the English would
be able to make a deviation, which they did
in less than three days, by which our troops
were able to cross quite easily, they would
not have given themselves the trouble of
blowing it up.
As it was not yet finished, I was quite
glad they had blown it up, because we, train
and all, went at full speed very much faster
than on any other occasion on this rail-
way, toboganning down a steep cutting across
the river. They had made a temporary
bridge on half wood, half stone piers, and
after sharply crossing this, we swung at a
fair pace up the other side through another
cutting. All this was quite smartly done,
but the engine had evidently completely ex-
hausted itself, for it stood at the top of the
78 YEOMAN SERVICE
cutting puffing and snorting for some time,
and afterwards we went slower than ever ;
not that we minded as long as there was day-
light, for we began almost at once to cross the
battlefield of Magersfontein with its terrible
associations, but first we stopped at the station
of Modder River, which is not a cheerful
place. It is surrounded by red sand, with
hardly a scrap of vegetation of any kind left.
There used to be a watering-place here to
which the Kimberley people came for holidays
and outings, but all the good houses have been
pulled down except one little inn and store.
We have a large garrison there, although it is
so frightfully unhealthy and very, very hot.
The place is a hotbed of enteric, and there is
a very large hospital. All the men one saw
there looked so weary and exhausted, but it
is an important place, and it was necessary
to keep a large force there to guard the great
iron bridge over the river. The river was still,
they said, in an awful state. The Boers threw
bodies of men, horses, and bullocks into it both
there and higher up, and their remains still
constantly floated down. The water looked
WELLINGTON 79
innocent enough, and no wonder the men were
tempted to drink it in this land of thirst, with
the fatal result of fever.
From here we seemed to enter the valley of
the shadow of death, although one saw nothing
very horrible, only a few dead horses lying
scattered about ; but Magersfontein will always
recall the saddest possible thoughts. A long low
kopje, with its intersecting entrenchments, can
be seen very plainly from the railway, and one
can easily understand why this place became
such a scene of slaughter. It is said that it was
useless to have attacked such a place without
the aid of stronger artillery and plenty of
mounted men, though, to render these latter
useless, some people say the ground was
covered with fences of barbed wire a foot high.
Others say this was not the case. Perhaps the
truth is that it was so here and there.
A gentleman got into the train at Merton, a
little station beyond Modder, who had just
been to the battlefield and had come back
with a lot of trophies a small tin Boer box
full of bits of shell and numbers of other
things. He gave Nan and me each a piece,
8o YEOMAN SERVICE
and was most kind and obliging, and promised
when we got to Kimberley to find out where
Lance was stationed for me, which he did.
His name is Fitz-Gerald, and he is agent for
a Life Assurance Office in South Africa.
Rooms had been taken for me at the Queen's
Hotel. When I got there, I found they were
impossible. One was a very tiny room with
the smallest of beds, and the other a large one
on the ground floor with swinging doors, with-
out locks, which opened on to a stoep in the
street. The hotel seemed, and was, quite full
of men, some of them very rough looking, who
sat smoking and drinking just outside. I was
afraid of this room for myself, and would
certainly not put Nan there, and it would not
have been much better if we had occupied it
together. Opposite the little room upstairs
was a door, and I said to the waiter, " Whose
is that room?" He replied, "The gentleman
is away for a day or two." " Do you think he
would mind changing?" I asked. The waiter
shrugged his shoulders, and I went to consult the
manager, who civilly refused, because, he said,
the gentleman had paid for his room, &c., &c.
WELLINGTON 81
I asked him to allow me to assume the respon-
sibility and to put his things into the down-
stairs room, and to leave me to explain it to
him when he returned. I was perfectly aware
that I was taking a liberty, but as an Eng-
lishwoman I ventured a good deal where an
English gentleman was concerned. As events
turned out, I was quite justified in my imper-
tinence, for no one could have been kinder
than he was when he returned, and my effron-
tery proved the foundation of a very pleasant
friendship, as he constantly came to see us
on his flying visits during the time I was in
Kimberley, giving me scraps of intelligence
and descriptions such as I heard from no one
else a thing he was well able to do, for he
was the Times correspondent.
CHAPTER. Ill
KIMBEELEY
WE were very glad to have supper that
evening, though very late, and the manager,
who was most kind, came and talked to us,
and told us interesting things about his and
the hotel's experiences during the siege A
big shell had exploded in a large storeroom at
the back of the hotel and covered everything
with jam. Nan and I were more than glad
to get into real beds after two nights in the
train, although it was so hot we hardly knew
how to breathe, and we were nearly eaten
up by mosquitoes. We had now got into
the region of flies, which are much worse
than usual this year, I suppose on account of
the dead animals about. I got a note from
Lance, who had not been able to wait to
meet me, as the train was so late, asking me
to go out the next morning to Carter's Eidge.
82
KIMBERLEY 83
Accordingly, next morning Nan and I started
off; it was a most perfect day, and we had a
lovely drive. We went about four miles through
the Karroo, which is ; much prettier and more
wooded here, and was covered with flowers
all different to home ones. I did not see
one exactly like an English field-flower,
though some were nearly akin. There were
many great convolvulus-like flowers, and others
like anemones. The camp at Carter's Ridge
is on a plain surrounded on the south
and east by kopjes which the Boers had
entrenched to besiege Kimberley. In fact,
there were trenches close to the camp,
and the regimental cooks were using some
of the cooking implements the Boers had
left there. On the way we passed close to
the place where Colonel Scott Turner of the
Kimberley Light Horse was killed. He was a
splendid fellow and a great loss to Kimber-
ley ; and near by, too, is the place where the
Boers murdered the eighteen wounded found
under a tree historic ground truly, but I
fear it made one's angry passions rise.
On our way back to Kimberley we went
84 YEOMAN SERVICE
to Carter's farm and interviewed Carter him-
self. He is a tall, good-looking elderly man,
with fuzzy grey hair and beard. I do not
know that it is so, but he gave me the idea
of being prematurely grey, possibly aged by
his worries and anxieties. He had had a
large dairy, first-rate artesian wells, valuable
bulls and cows, stallions and brood mares,
and a comfortable home in every sense of
the word. Now all was gone. Early in the
war the Boers had wrecked the farm and
took away all the valuables, killing most of
the animals. They pulled down doors and
ceilings, and pulled up floors for firewood.
The roof soon fell in, making the house a
wreck ; for what did not fall in they smashed
up, only in this case leaving the walls fairly
intact, as they wished to use the house as a
fort from which to besiege Kimberley. The
Kimberley people turned the Boers out of
it and used it themselves as a fort, and it
was further knocked about by them. When
we saw the farm, Carter and his brother
and sons were trying to build it up again
and to restore some sort of order out of
KIMBERLEY 85
absolute chaos, but it seemed a hopeless task.
He was very bitter, and shrugged his shoulders
when we said something about getting com-
pensation for all he had suffered. There had
been some difficulty in getting milk for the
invalids at the camp at Carter's Ridge. Lance
asked him if he could supply some.
" Milk ! " he said with great scorn ; " you do
not want it from me ; you are getting it from
a rebel."
Lance asked what he meant, and found
that the milk they had been having was
being supplied by a rebel farmer on the other
side of Kimberley, who during the siege had
worked his hardest to help the Boers to be-
siege the town, but as soon as it was relieved
had brought in his arms and pretended to be
loyal.
"Look at him," said Carter; "cannot you
see for yourselves. His farm is standing as
good as ever ; mine is a ruin. Cannot English-
men read a plain tale ? "
Lance was very indignant and promised to
see to it, but Carter was thoroughly dis-
gusted, as it seemed to me most of the loyal
86 YEOMAN SERVICE
residents were. They thought that Lord
Roberts' circular gave encouragement to the
rebels and only discouragement to the loyalists,
who believed that they were simply left to the
mercy of their bitter enemies. Farms were
still looted within fifty miles of Kimberley,
and it seemed well known there that some
of the men who were by way of having laid
down their arms were amongst the robbers.
Lance did his best to reassure Carter by ex-
plaining the object of Lord Roberts' circular
and other things, and I think he did succeed
in comforting him a little. When we found
him, he was a thoroughly disgusted man, and
we tried to metaphorically pat him on the
back, and make him see we thought him a
thoroughly fine fellow. Such ruin as we saw
this day makes one understand what the
whole country will be like at the end of the
war if it goes on much longer, but of course
one's sympathies go to those who are not to
blame ; not to people who have only brought
such sad results upon themselves by their
criminal folly and conceit.
When we left Carter we drove to Lennox
KIMBERLEY 87
Street, the military headquarters in Kimberley.
It is a funny, untidy little back street, with
pepper-trees growing down both sides of it.
The headquarters are a row of untidy bung-
alows. There are nearly always horses tied
up to the posts outside, and during the work-
ing hours of the day a great deal of business
going on. Lance called for orders, and found
he had to go with his squadron to Boshof
the next day in charge of a large convoy.
He found his guides there, and received all
his orders. We then went back to the hotel,
and collected another pair of horses to go in
search of the Army Service Corps camp, which
was in exactly the opposite direction to
Carter's Ridge. It was getting late, and
there was a most lovely sunset, and I drove
back with Lance beyond Carter's farm, and
dropped him there, and came back to the
hotel by the light of the stars.
I drove out to meet him the next morning
before six, and met the South Notts Hussars on
their way out. The dew was sparkling on
the flowers and bushes, and everything looked
fresh and lovely. Our regiment had a very
88 YEOMAN SERVICE
useful and business-like appearance in their
marching order, and with all their baggage,
&c. I was so glad to see them like this, as
I might not get a chance again. Lance said
I could drive with them as far as the boundary
of the Orange Free State, so I went back
and had breakfast, and then tried to catch
them up again ; but my driver mistook the
direction, and for some time we went along
the wrong road. A stern chase is prover-
bially a long chase, but we caught them up
at last, halting just over the border.
The boundary of the Orange Free State is
here marked by a dilapidated wire fence, and
close to it there used to stand a hut, to
which if any one stealing diamonds in Kim-
berley could succeed in escaping, he got
away scot-free and unmolested. On this occa-
sion, however, there was something different
to think about, and Lance halted the men,
and made them a speech, telling them that
the boundary they saw before them was that
of the Orange Free State ; that they were the
first squadron of British Yeomanry who had
ever marched, bag and baggage, into the in-
KIMBERLEY 89
terior of an enemy's country, and that before
they left South Africa that country would be
part of the dominions of the Queen finish-
ing by calling on the officers to draw swords,
and on the squadron to give three cheers for
the Queen.
The cheers rang through the light air ; we
watched the men as they marched away, and
then Nan and I returned to Kimberley under
a most grilling sun, but I had time to look
about me and take in the extraordinary
aspects of the place. I did not feel as if I
could enjoy anything much, as, for the first
time, Lance and I had parted not knowing
when or where we should meet again.
We passed close to the Dutoitspan Mine,
two immense holes hundreds of feet deep, the
walls of which were grey earth with occasional
blue patches here and there. The holes were
partially filled with the brightest green water
an extraordinary colour which had accumu-
lated during the siege because they had no
coal to use the pumping apparatus. In the
bright sunshine the farthest wall of the hole
looked almost black, and in one place a great
9 o YEOMAN SERVICE
rock rose up from the bottom of the pit, which,
as you looked down upon it, seemed compara-
tively small, but was in reality several hundred
feet high. It is a most extraordinary place,
and I should like to see a picture of it done by
some clever artist. It is one of the places
which make one feel and there are many of
them in South Africa that had Dante known
them they would have figured in his " Inferno."
Soon after we passed one of the great grey
banks of mine refuse, which in a short time
becomes quite hard, almost as hard as rock.
In this Mr. Rhodes had had a number of
shelters cut by the De Beers workmen during
the siege for the use of the poor people living
round here. They are holes or tunnels of
about 12 to 1 6 feet deep by 6 feet high and
3 feet broad ; some are deeper, but this is
about the average measurement. There were
perhaps thirty of them, into which hun-
dreds of women and children had to huddle
during those dreadful days, when the shelling
went on constantly in the hours of daylight.
They rigged up tents and awnings outside,
and I believe many of the people slept there.
KIMBEKLEY 91
We looked into a good many of them, and
were very glad our lines had not been cast in
those places.
Although I was made as comfortable at
the hotel as was possible, I found the want
of privacy extremely disagreeable, so I was
very glad to hear of some rooms, which I
went to see and promptly engaged, and
they formed my home for some considerable
time. Nan and I had two tiny bedrooms
in the next house to the one we boarded in ;
they opened on to a wide stoep, and here
we used to sit most of the day writing our
letters and receiving our visitors, and as there
were reed-screens hanging from the roof of
the verandah, we were quite sheltered from
the road. Mrs. Smith's house and the one we
slept in, which belonged to a Mrs. Rutherford,
were two bungalows of about seven rooms
each. The plan of most of these houses is
much the same the door is in the middle,
opening into a short passage, with the best
sitting-room on one side, the best bedroom on
the other; the kitchens at the back and the
rest of the rooms filling up all the corners,
92 YEOMAN SERVICE
They stand quite close to the road, with small
gardens in front. Mrs. Smith's was a particu-
larly pretty one, always full of bright flowers.
There is a little yard at the back, and when
you once live in one of these houses, you
come to the conclusion that land must be
nearly as valuable by the square inch out
here as in London, for the rents are very high,
and yet the houses and gardens are remarkably
small. Mrs. Smith told me that the origin
of this is, that when the first settlers came
they built a collection of shanties or put up
tents quite close together, so that the land
allotted to each owner would naturally be very
small, as everybody wanted to be near the
mine they were working at. It was most in-
teresting to me to live in a boarding-house
in this way. My fellow-boarders were all
Colonists, and most kind and attentive to me,
and of course I was able to hear stories of life
and experiences, which they were kind enough
to tell me, that I should never have had the
chance of hearing in any other way.
There were still many traces of the siege to
be seen in Kimberley. In the principal street ?
KIMBERLEY 93
the Dutoitspan Koad, there was one large
house, formerly belonging to a shoemaker,
which is entirely gutted. A little farther on, at
a photographer's, a shell had gone through two
walls and caused great havoc. In many parts
of the town you come across walls of houses or
gardens made of corrugated iron, which have
been riddled by the explosion of a shell. A
good many people seem to have been killed in
the town during the siege ; and one perfectly
horrible story was told us of a girl who was
combing out her very long hair when a shell
struck her on the back, killing her instantly,
and driving her hair right through her body.
The house where it happened was shown to us.
In a good many of the better class houses
portions of the stoeps had been enclosed,
and shelters made of sacks filled with earth
piled up, and completely covering in some
corner of the stoep. In some other gardens,
holes had been dug in the ground, and the
sacks of earth laid over pieces of corrugated
iron, forming an underground house. These
must have been extraordinarily stuffy, but
probably more efficient. I never heard that
94 YEOMAN SERVICE
any of the shelters above ground were put
to the proof.
When I first went to Kimberley there were
hardly any troops there at all, as the Loyal
North Lancashires left soon after I arrived, and
were not replaced by any considerable body of
troops for some days. The Kimberley people
became justly alarmed, as almost directly the
town was left in this unguarded condition
the Boers took to riding into the place in
considerable numbers, sometimes fully armed.
I myself encountered about a dozen of them
one day riding across the outskirts of the town.
They had rifles and loaded bandoleers, and it
seemed to me extraordinary that they should
dare to appear like this, and soon after I heard
that pickets had been placed round the town,
and nobody likely to be an enemy allowed to
come in in this way.
Before very long an immense number of
troops appeared in Kimberley for the relief
of Mafeking, so we were spared any further
anxiety, but at one time there was some talk
of calling out the Town Guard again.
On Sunday, April ist, we went to church
KIMBERLEY 95
at St. Cyprians, where the vicar is Archdeacon
Holbeck. The church is an iron one, of con-
siderable size, and still bore marks of the
siege in a large hole made by a shell in the
iron wall close to the west window, with
various signs of damage in the interior. After
church, Major Burchell, the P.M.O., whose
acquaintance I had fortunately made, took
Nan and me to the Drill Hall and Masonic
Hall hospitals, and introduced us to the
nurses at both. They were all very cordial
and nice, and Nan found an old friend in
one, Nurse Corbishley, who is a dear. These
two hospitals each contain sixty patients,
all enteric cases. The Drill Hall is one very
large room, holding all the sixty beds, and
is very airy, as it has doors on three sides,
and windows all round the top. It is hung
with flags and made as bright as possible.
The Masonic Hall consists of three rooms
with about twenty-five or thirty patients in
the largest room, and one convalescent
ward ; but when I first saw these hospi-
tals, they were entirely filled by men as ill
as they could be. The nurses at both
96 YEOMAN SERVICE
had extraordinarily bad quarters. At the
Drill Hall three of them lived in a room
divided in half by screens ; the beds were
on one side, and on the other all the nurses,
five I think, had their meals. The other
two nurses slept in a room on the other
side of the Drill Hall. What horrified me
about this arrangement was, that the nurses
lived entirely, eating, drinking and sleeping,
in the midst of the fever a most undesirable
arrangement, and, as it appeared to me, abso-
lutely unnecessary. Any one who has visited
an enteric hospital knows the faint overpower-
ing smell which is so distinctive of the fever,
and which I found clung to my clothes long
after I had left the hospital. What must
it have been to people in health, living in
the middle of all this? The orderlies were
far better off, as they slept in tents outside.
When we got to Kimberley, there was no
military general hospital there, and the nurses
who were then nursing had been doing so
with few exceptions ever since the beginning
of the siege. I shall have more to say about
them by-and-by.
KIMBERLEY 97
I had a wire about this time from my
brother, the first direct communication I
have had from him since leaving England.
The very trying part of being out in this
country is the total absence of news of
any one in any other part of it. He could
get a telegram to me, because he is a field-
officer, 1 but I should have much difficulty in
getting one to him, as the wires are entirely
monopolised by the military officials, and any
telegram one wishes to send anywhere must
have a pass from a military officer. There
is one daily paper in Kimberley, the Diamond
Fields Advertiser, but all the news in it is so
sternly censored, and very necessarily so, that
one really knows nothing until one gets one's
month-old paper from England. That evening
Nan and I had a long walk with Mrs. Smith,
the proprietress of the boarding-house where
we were staying. A violent thunderstorm was
going on, my first experience of anything of
the kind in South Africa, and a lively ex-
perience it was too ; the lightning so vivid and
the thunder so continuous and long-enduring.
1 In the Oxfordshire Light Infantry.
G
98 YEOMAN SERVICE
A propos to this, Mrs. Smith remarked
that she thought the storms used to be far
more violent in this part of the country than
they are now. She said, as is quite true,
that people are apt to think everything worse
that they experience for the first time, as cus-
tom undoubtedly breeds indifference to most
evils, but she maintained that there was cer-
tainly nothing like the loss of life in the
storms now that there used to be when she
and her husband were settlers on the first
diamond fields on a river not very far north
of Kimberley. The name of the river has
entirely escaped my memory, but it is the place
where diamonds were first found. There was
an immense rush of people there, as in our
own day to Klondyke, and the diamonds were
very soon worked out. The storms then were
frightful, she said, and of daily occurrence.
Almost every day some one or something
near the camp was struck, and the accidents
culminated in a fearful disaster. One evening
they saw some Kaffirs going by their tent,
and one said to the other, " Oh ! there goes
So-and-so's Kaffirs, late as usual." (These
KIMBERLEY 99
men worked for a hard master.) There were
a dozen or fourteen of them, and the storm
had then begun, but it got fiercer and fiercer,
more and more terrible, until the whole camp,
and the tent in which they were sitting
huddled up together and very frightened,
seemed filled with fire. They had lit all the
candles they had, in the hopes of diminishing
the apparent strength of the lightning, but
their feeble glimmer seemed to be entirely
extinguished. Suddenly there came a terrific
peal and clash, with the most terrible lightning,
and they all thought their last day had come.
When there was a little pause in the storm,
some of the men went to see what damage
had been done, but, much to their surprise,
could find none until they got to the bell
tent where these Kaffirs lived. They looked
inside, and found the whole fourteen dead.
Mrs. Smith said that day after day such
storms went on. Although at first she had
not minded them in the least, in the end
her nerve entirely deserted her, and she felt
she simply could not live in a tent any
longer ; so her husband built her a nice brick
ioo YEOMAN SERVICE
house, and almost immediately they had got
into it the diggings began to fail, and they
had to move to Kimberley, then called the
New Rush, where she had lived ever since.
She has travelled a great deal about the
country, and seen much that is most interest-
ing, and she has the inestimable gift of making
her stories picturesque. I only wish I could
transfer them to paper as she tells them.
The weather was very hot here now, so
much heat seems to come out of the ground,
that although one always wears a shady hat
and uses a large sun-umbrella, one's face is very
much burned, and feels quite dry and harsh.
I never attempted to wear gloves on ordinary
days, and a veil never. One never sees a
really fresh complexion on the face of a
Colonial child. Some of the children are very
pretty, but they are never pink and white,
nor has their hair the child-like gloss that
you see on the little people at home. On
the whole, one saw very few children about
white children, that is to say there were
any number of little black imps. Occasionally
I used to watch these black children at their
KIMBERLEY 101
games, and it is most extraordinary to see
them dancing. The boys, when quite small,
execute amongst themselves regular war-dances,
with the peculiar cries and wriggles of the
body that one used to see amongst the grown-
up Kaffirs in their war-dances at Earl's Court ;
and the girls, little and big, have extraordinary
dances of their own. One felt that they all
meant something, and I longed to have some
one to interpret them to me, but I never came
across a white person who seemed to have
noticed this or was able to explain it.
Major Burchell, P.M.O., took us to see the
Canadian nurses. Eight ladies came from
Canada to nurse in this country ; four are
here and four are at Bloemfontein. They
are very nice girls, and I saw a good deal
of them afterwards. He asked me to be
kind to them, as they were such complete
strangers out here. I told him he had come
to quite the right person, as I have naturally
such strong Canadian sympathies. Colonel
Ryerson, a distant Canadian cousin of my
own, whose acquaintance at that time I had
not made, though I had the pleasure of
102 YEOMAN SERVICE
doing so afterwards, is one of the heads of
the Eed Cross Ambulance Society, and ever
since the beginning of the war has been
travelling all over the country attending to
his invaluable business. He saw to it that
these four ladies had proper quarters, and he
took for them a little house close to the
Drill Hall and Masonic Hall, where they
were nursing the enteric patients. They
were only a hundred yards or so from either
hospital, and personally I consider that the
military and medical authorities are much to
blame that the same consideration was not
shown to all the other nurses who nursed
at those hospitals. The expense could only
have been trifling, and the benefit to the
nurses simply untold. Any woman nursing in
a war is perfectly aware that she has, as it
were, to take her life in her hand, and she
is quite prepared to do so. This was shown
by the way the nurses nursed out there with-
out a word of complaint, although I know how
much they suffered.
When I first went to Kimberley, I found
an occupation ready for me, which was to
KIMBEKLEY 103
try and make things a little easier for these
splendid women. I could do very little for
them, but I tried to make them understand
that I would befriend them in any way I
could, and they were all always so friendly
and nice to me that I think they appreciated
this. If I had not found more definite work to
do, I should have tried to make a little nurses'
home in Kimberley, but as events turned out,
I was asked to do something quite different,
and I felt I had no choice but to obey ; not
that I had any wish to do otherwise.
When I arrived in Kimberley there were
about seven hospitals all quite full. The
Civil Hospital, which is a permanent in-
stitution, was nearly full of civilians and
could only take in patients in private rooms.
One ward was given up to officers, which
held, I think, sixteen beds, and a few
severely wounded soldiers in other wards,
but they afterwards opened a large ward
outside which had been closed for some
time from want of means. Of course the
Government paid for all soldiers nursed in
the Civil Hospital, but the officers in private
104 YEOMAN SERVICE
wards had to pay themselves for the luxury
of privacy. Then there was Nazareth House,
a large convent which took in about fifty
soldiers suffering from anything except enteric
fever; the Drill Hall and Masonic Hall, en-
tirely for enteric ; the Presbyterian Schools
and St. Mary's Hall, also for enteric, and a
large school, the most suitable building of
all, which was for some mysterious reason
closed soon after I got there, ceasing to be a
hospital and returning to its original duty.
I have never been able to understand why
this school was closed, except that the people
of Kimberley objected to their children's
education being interrupted. This was the
only reason which was ever given me, and
I can hardly believe that the Kimberley
people, from what I saw of them, could really
have been so ungrateful as to wish that men
should lie as they did on the bare ground,
crowded in hot stuffy tents, when they might
have had the blessing of an airy building.
I know that the teachers in the school would
willingly have resigned their salaries if they
could have seen the soldiers made more
KIMBERLEY 105
comfortable, for they told me so themselves.
I have seen enough in South Africa to know
how exceedingly difficult it is for the
military and medical authorities to please
every one ; I only blame them for trying to
achieve the impossible. On the high ground
outside Kimberley, near the reservoir, was a
convalescent home known as Newton Camp.
This had a very small medical and hospital
staff, suitable, I think, for a hundred men. I
do not like to commit myself to numbers,
but it became so crowded whilst I was in
Kimberley, and the men were so miserably
uncomfortable in it, that it is impossible to
speak too strongly of the want of accommoda-
tion for the sick in Kimberley at that time.
The medical officers, with only one or two
exceptions, worked themselves to death in
their endeavour to meet the rush of sick
men during the next few months, but it was
impossible for them to cope with it until
No. 1 1 General Hospital was established out-
side Kimberley. This was not until the
second week in May, entirely owing, I think,
to the people of Kimberley making difficulties
106 YEOMAN SERVICE
about a suitable site for the hospital. I
longed to be an autocrat and to seize upon
the most suitable place I knew, as this long
delay was maddening when one knew what
the men were suffering. Colonel O'Connell,
who was in charge of No. 1 1 General
Hospital, was perfectly furious at the delay.
He had everything ready, but could not
get on.
One afternoon Nan and I and Major
Burchell had a very interesting talk with
Major Pollock, chiefly about the battlefield
at Magersfontein, which Major Burchell had
visited the day after the battle. He described
the high, close, barbed wire fence which the
Highlanders came upon close to the trenches,
and which prevented them getting over in
face of that deadly fire. I have heard that
some mistake was made in approaching the
kopje, and in the darkness it was thought
that this fence was more to the left, but
in the early dawn they came upon it, an
unsurmountable obstacle, with guns and rifles
so near pouring in a terrible fire. Notwith-
standing this, two Highlanders did get through,
KIMBERLEY 107
and were found the next day riddled with
shot through and through, lying in the
trenches inside. How they got over Major
Burchell could not understand. He said the
battlefield was a most awful sight ; one never
to be forgotten. Major Pollock very kindly
took a letter to Lance for me. One is always
glad out here to get a messenger of any kind,
as the posts across country are most un-
certain. The next morning I had a visit
from Colonel Kekewich, which gave me much
pleasure. I thought it was exceedingly nice
of him to come, as he was leaving this after-
noon and consequently was very busy. He
could stay a very short time, so I could not
ask him any of the questions I was longing
to do about the siege. I am very glad to
have spent the months I did in Kimberley,
and especially to have gone there so soon
after the siege, because it always seems to
me that too little has been said in praise of
this most capable commander. I do not
mean by Lord Roberts, but by the world in
general.
I may as well say here, what I gathered
io8 YEOMAN SERVICE
from people who were living in Kimberley
during the siege, and whom I met at different
times in those few months after it : they
were one and all full of Mr. Rhodes' kind-
ness, consideration, and generosity. There
is no doubt that he took the greatest care
and trouble about its defence ; but one cannot
lose sight of the fact that his best interests
were involved in so doing not that that in
the least doos away with all the kindness
he showed to the suffering people, but I
gathered that the inhabitants attribute much,
if not most, of their essential comfort and
safety to the stringent laws which Colonel
Kekewieh made there, often in the faee of
considerable opposition. He ordered the
public-houses to be closed except for two
hours in the middle of the day, and insist ml
on fair prices being asked by tradesmen for
all necessaries, so that the people were not
ruined by siege prices.
Many of the women told me that in the early
part of the siege they were much frightened
by visits after dark from Kaffirs who came to
beg, and if refused charity at once threatened,
KIMBERLEY 109
and in some cases robbed them. It must
be remembered that all the white men were
employed at the fortifications, sleeping there,
and only very occasionally visiting their
homes. Consequently the Kaffirs found the
women practically defenceless. When Colonel
Krkrwich found this out, he had the Kaffir
location moved from its situation near the water-
works outside the town to the racecourse,
where the Kaffirs were perfectly safe, as owing
to a dip in the ground, or something of that
kind, shells did not fall there; and every
Kaffir was compelled to be out of the town
before sunset, unless he had a special pass
from some white person of position. The
women united in saying that this was the
jjvatest boon, and yet I believe Colonel
Kekewich was a good deal bothered about
it. I think this is quite true, as I heard
it from so many people in Kimberley, but
of course I know nothing about it on Colonel
Kekewich's authority. At any rate, I may
say this, that all the time I was in Kimberley,
although I made the acquaintance of numbers
of people of varying positions, views, and
no YEOMAN SERVICE
opinions, I heard nothing of Colonel Kekewich
but expressions of praise and gratitude.
That same day I paid my first visit to the
Kimberley Civil Hospital. It is a very large
long building, of one storey only, with a wide
stoep running all along the front and up the
two sides. There are several large wards in
the main building, and many smaller ones
and some private rooms, and outside there are
several other wards ; the whole, I should think,
but I would not be certain as to the numbers,
able to accommodate perhaps four hundred
people. It stands on high ground with a
large garden in front of it and plenty of open
space at the back, and is therefore as cool
and airy as possible. There is a beautiful
little chapel, which was built by the friends
of Sister Henrietta, a former matron, now
living at St. Michael's Home, of whom I
shall have much to say hereafter.
The next day we heard the bad news of
the capture of a R.H.A. Battery and eight
guns. It was all very vaguely described, and
we only knew that it happened very near
Thaba Nchu, but this was really the Sanna's
KIMBERLEY 1 1 1
Post disaster. We were all very much de-
pressed by it, as things had begun to look
so much brighter.
That night Nan and I went with Captain
Quentrell and Mr. De Lasalle, two of our
fellow-boarders, to a large mass meeting in
the Market Square on the settlement after
the war. At this distance of time it seems
rather " previous." The speaking was excellent,
much above the average I thought, probably
because the speakers were so much in earnest.
They were in favour of annexation and were
very convincing. The Mayor, Captain Penfold,
and Advocate Sampson made excellent speeches.
The front of the Town Hall was brightly illu-
minated and there was a great crowd. The
people all seemed very quiet, and yet enthu-
siastic, as if the subject was, as no doubt was
the case, of absorbing interest to them.
I drove down that afternoon to Kenilworth,
the De Beers Estate, where the gardens are in
which Mr. Rhodes employed the Kaffirs during
the siege planting avenues. There is one fine
pergola a mile long, and the vineyards and
market-gardens are immense. Before one gets
H2 YEOMAN SERVICE
to the gardens there are several long rows of
houses under large eucalyptus trees, where the
employees of the De Beers work. It is a most
charming place, the only really green spot
all the year round in the neighbourhood of
Kimberley. One great difficulty about getting
here is that the distances are very great,
as Kimberley is a most straggling town, and
one hesitates about driving very much, when
the minimum price for a Cape cart is 75. 6d.
an hour. My one extravagance while I lived
in Kimberley was this, and I used to try to
have a drive almost every day, very often
taking some of the nurses with me. We gener-
ally used to go in the evening after tea, and as
I felt the need of fresh air so much myself,
I was sure they must do so far more when one
considered the atmosphere they lived in.
On the 4th, I took Mrs. Smith for a drive,
and we went first to Newton Camp and the
reservoir, and examined the forts there. It
was at the reservoir that the Loyal North Lan-
cashires, Colonel Kekewich's regiment, were
encamped. It is a large enclosure surrounded
by a high corrugated iron fence, and from its
KIMBERLEY 113
position on the flat top of the highest ground
within Kimberley, it was one of the strongest
forts, but it looks a very feeble thing. Of
course, it was shelled more than any other
position by the Boers ; and the Kaffir location,
which was quite close to it, was in a most
dangerous position, so that Colonel Kekewich
may have had another reason for moving it as
well as the one I gave before. The reservoir
is still surrounded by the embrasures where
the guns stood, and the reservoir itself is said
to be full of shells. After this we drove down
to the racecourse to see the Kaffir location.
I must try to describe it, but I really hardly
know how to begin; it is such an extra-
ordinary place. At first there appeared to be
rows upon rows of tin and rag heaps, so
hideously untidy as to be quite offensive.
When you get close to them you see that
they are rows of a kind of hut. It seems the
Kaffirs make a sort of bower of sticks and bits
of wire, which they steal or pick up anywhere,
and over this they peg together old sacks, bits
of rag, and bits of tin. The effect is so ugly as
to be quite horrible, and it is not in the least
H
ii 4 YEOMAN SERVICE
picturesque. One felt a mud hole would be
far preferable, and that the primitive earth-
dwellers must have been a much superior
race. The smell about the place was quite
indescribable.
I had asked the P.M.O. if there was any-
thing that I could get for the hospitals, and
he told me they had everything they wanted,
and I am sure he believed they had ; but of
course Nan's eagle and experienced eye was
not easily deceived, and she said that the
nurses had told her that heaps of things were
wanted. So I went to the Masonic Hall and
asked the head sister there, who said, " Oh
if you could get us some pillow-cases." I
went off and bought sixty, one for each bed,
and carried them back to her; and the nurses
were too funny they fell upon them and very
nearly quarrelled seriously about them, until
they found out there was one for each patient.
At first I used to take flowers to the hospital,
but they were frightfully expensive in Kim-
berley, and faded so soon that I rather grudged
the money when I found other things were
wanted quite as much. The next day I went
KIMBERLEY 115
to the Drill Hall, and the sister there com-
plained bitterly that I had taken some pillow-
cases to the Masonic Hall and had not brought
any to her ; so I promised I would bring them
some, and over this a rather funny and yet
touching little incident occurred. I could only
get ready-made pillow-cases with frills on them,
and I was rather afraid they would tickle the
men's faces, so Mr. Hazell, at whose shop I
got them, told me they could easily be torn off,
and to prove how simply this was done he
suited the action to the word. Nan and I
carried off the remainder, and the sisters
laughed at the idea of the frills mattering in
the least. The following Sunday, when I went
to the hospital, all the patients were in bed
with frilled pillow-cases, looking so clean and
smart, and when I came in I was received
with smiles by those of the poor fellows who
had a smile left in them ; but a sister told
me that a most amusing thing had happened
that the man to whose lot the pillow-case
had fallen whose frill had been torn off had
complained bitterly, calling out, "Look here,
sister! some one's torn off my frill," and I
n6 YEOMAN SERVICE
had to go and console him and explain to
him how it was.
On Friday the 6th I saw in the morning's
D.F.A. (Diamond Fields Advertiser) that the
Yeomanry had been engaged near Boshof. I
was rather worried about it, as I saw that
some were killed and wounded, but no names
were given ; so I took my courage in both
hands and went to Lennox Street to try to
see Captain Ross, the chief staff officer. I
sent in my card, and he saw me directly
and was most kind and sympathetic. I felt
very stupid and troublesome and apologised
for bothering him, because they all seemed
so busy, and he said, "Don't apologise
it is quite natural you should be anxious ;
I will telegraph to ask for you at once." I
begged him to ask if Lord Scarborough
was all right, as well as Lance, as then I
should be able to ease another wife's mind,
for Lady Scarborough was in Cape Town. I
thought it was so good of him. That evening
I heard that Mr. Williams of the Sherwood
Rangers had been killed, and I spent altogether
a horribly anxious day. We also heard that
KIMBERLEY 117
the mail-steamer the Mexican had sunk with
all the mails, and as I had written a heavy mail
last week I was much annoyed. The first thing
the next morning, Captain Ross sent me a tele-
gram to say that Lance and Lord Scarborough
were all right ; so I telegraphed to Lady Scar-
borough at once and felt happy again.
As the Mexican had gone down and I
thought mamma would not get any letters, I
decided to send a telegram to her, so that she
should not worry, and thus kill two birds with
one stone, in case she was alarmed by the
engagement at Boshof. My telegram was
only four words, but told her all that was
necessary. I was very proud of this, but
with telegrams at four shillings a word one
has to be clever! Before church on Sunday
Nan and I drove out to meet the Boer
prisoners being brought in from Boshof. We
only saw them in the distance and afterwards
met the escort, and amongst it Mr. Molloy.
I heard from him that the wounded were to
be brought in in the evening, and Nan and
I hunted everywhere for them unsuccess-
fully. As I was coming home very disap-
n8 YEOMAN SERVICE
pointed about this, I met a gentleman riding.
I thought he was a Yeoman, but he was
really a Kimberley Light Horse officer. I
asked him if he knew where they would be,
and he said he would find out. He sent me
a note later on to say that he found the men
were all to be taken to Nazareth House.
That evening I heard that Sister Bell,
one of the sisters who had been nursing at
Modder Eiver, had just died of enteric. There
were four sisters nursing there and ten order-
lies. Two of the sisters died ; one was fright-
fully ill but had not died when I left, and
out of the ten orderlies, I believe I am right
in saying that seven died. The water there
was frightfully bad, and one of the sisters told
me herself, "We were so frightfully thirsty,
and we simply had not time to boil it." Of
course the water was poisoned by the Boers
throwing both men and horses into the river.
Late in the evening I got a very long
and interesting letter from Lance with an
account of Thursday's battle. He had been
under fire for the first time, and had come
safely through it, thank God! Early in the
KIMBERLEY 119
day they took a prisoner, who, to their sur-
prise, proved to be a Frenchman. He excused
himself to Lance, when he asked him what
he was doing there, by saying, " C'est mon
premier commando, monsieur ! " to which
Lance promptly replied, "Et votre dernier
aussi, mon ami!" at which the man gave a
grin. It turned out at the end of the day
that the enemy they were lighting were nearly
all of this nation. It was in this action that
General de Villebois-Mareuil was killed by a
Lee-Metford bullet. Many months afterwards
we met the Comte de Breda, his aide-de-camp,
who was beside him at the time, and he said
that the General had just turned round to
take something out of his pocket when a
bullet hit him under the arm, going right
through his body and instantly killing him.
All the Frenchmen that were not killed were
taken prisoners and sent to St. Helena, from
whence some of them were allowed to return
to their country on parole after seven months'
imprisonment. There were some Russians
amongst them, one being Prince Bagration,
but the majority were French, and one could not
120 YEOMAN SERVICE
help thinking "qu'allaient ils faire dans cette
galfere?" The Boers treated these Frenchmen
very badly and were very jealous of them.
We lost in this engagement Mr. Williams
of our own battalion, Mr. Cecil Boyle of
the Oxfordshire Yeomanry, and Mr. Patrick
Campbell, husband of the actress, also a
Yeoman; and young David Turner of our
regiment was also wounded. Lance also gave
me an account of the funeral of General
de Villebois, who was buried the day after
the battle, with the full military honours of
a General. The Comte de Breda made a
fine funeral oration in French over his grave,
which ended with "Au revoir, mon g^ndral."
He then thanked Lord Methuen for allowing
all the French prisoners, about thirty, to be
present, saying it was the act of a great and
generous nation ; after which Lord Methuen
stepped across the grave and shook hands with
him before he was taken back to prison
with the others. It was a beautiful evening
with a lovely sunset, and the bugles of the
regiment sounded the last post. The cere-
mony was altogether unique and curious.
KIMBERLEY 121
The sisters sent me a message the evening
before, April the 9th, to say that Sister Bell's
funeral would take place this morning at 8.15,
and Nan and I went. We both felt it would
be some small tribute to show our gratitude
to and appreciation of the noble women
who are giving their services, and too often
their lives, to preserve those of the men
so dear to Englishwomen. The procession
passed the house, so we joined it there.
It consisted of an ambulance waggon, inside
which was the coffin, with a red cross painted
outside and a Union Jack thrown over it.
Behind came about six Cape carts, containing
twelve or more nurses, and a number of doctors
and orderlies walking ; all very simple, but
very touching. The cemetery gives one a great
shock. It is some way outside the town, and
is a large enclosure surrounded by a wide
hedge of cacti. There are many trees growing
inside it, and plants and rose-bushes about,
but the absence of grass made it strangely un-
like God's-acres at home. What shocks one
most are the rows of open graves waiting to be
filled, as we knew they were being day by day
122 YEOMAN SERVICE
only too rapidly. Then there were many little
graves of children who had died during the
siege in fact, the cemetery is nearly full : I
believe it was comparatively empty before this
war. Until I went to this funeral I did not
realise that the ambulance carts which so often
passed our house were all on their way to the
cemetery, but now we knew it. Nan and I
sometimes counted them, and one day twenty-
two passed. Of course this funeral was excep-
tional in the number of people attending it.
As a rule, only a few orderlies follow the coffin,
but the funerals are always conducted in a very
nice way, without any disrespect or anything to
offend the most sensitive person. Of course
the graves must be dug some time before, as
funerals in this country of necessity take place
so soon after death, but it makes the church-
yard extremely repulsive. Poor Sister Bell had
only been in bed one week, though the fever
had undoubtedly been upon her some time
before, but she would not give in or come
back from Modder Biver.
Some of the nurses used to come to tea with
us nearly every afternoon, when Nan and I
KIMBERLEY 123
made a point of being at home about four o'clock.
People soon found it out, and we very often
had quite cheery little tea-parties. On the
afternoon of the 9th I went for the first time to
Nazareth House, which is a convent of the
Nazareth Sisters, and has been turned into a
hospital. It is the most comfortable in Kim-
berley, with the exception of the Civil Hos-
pital. I made the acquaintance of the
Mother Superior, who is a most charming
person, very pretty and cheerful, and with the
sweetest, kindest ways. She was three years
in the Nazareth Home at Nottingham, so we
felt at home together at once. The convent is
a large place, a two-storey building, and the
wards are all upstairs, and open on to a nice
verandah or stoep, with a lovely view of the
country around. As it stands high, it is in an
exposed position, and a hundred-pound shell
fell just outside the house during the siege, and
the nuns preserved the immense remains as a
trophy. There are no enteric cases in this
hospital, only wounded and men suffering from
lesser forms of sickness, such as dysentery,
intermittent fever, &c. I found here Mr.
124 YEOMAN SERVICE
Gerald Strutt, the first Yeoman wounded in
the war, and Mr. Gibbard, both of the Oxford-
shire Yeomanry, young Allcock of the Sher-
wood Rangers, Mr. Cadman of the Yorkshire
Dragoons, and several other men that I knew
or knew about. After this the Yeomen were
nearly always sent to this hospital sooner or
later, and I used to go to Nazareth House
every day. Mr. Strutt had been badly wounded
by a Mauser through the shoulder, and Mr.
Gibbard had been shot through the throat and
had almost entirely lost his voice. There were
three wounded Boers in the ward which they
occupied, one being very badly wounded in the
leg, and they feared his back was also injured.
A few days before this I was talking to
Major Peard, who had succeeded Major Bur-
chell as Principal Medical Officer. He said
something kind about my visits to the hos-
pitals, that they were useful, or something
of that sort, and I said, "I wish there was
something more definite that I could do,"
as Nan and I were quite willing to work if
there was anything for us. He turned round
to me and said, "Start me a Convalescent
KIMBERLEY 125
Home." I was rather startled, because this
seemed a large order, but after a moment's
thought I said, " Well, I think I could manage
it on quite a small scale, although I am not rich.
I think I could take in three or four men,
but" that, I suppose, would be no use." " On
the contrary," he said, " it would be of the
greatest possible service. I have four men
here (Newton Camp) that I should only be
too thankful to send you. They are not
really ill enough to take up the beds wanted
for more serious cases in the hospitals, and
yet they are very seriously out of health, and
require care if they are ever to be any good
again, but I do not know what to do with
them. They require proper food and a
certain amount of nursing, which is what
you could give them in a convalescent home,
but we have not anything of the kind here."
I told him I would do my best, and I set
to work at once to look for a house, but the
houses are so small in Kimberley, at least
the ones that were to let, that I could find
nothing to suit my purpose. I was very
nearly in despair, but I had seen one house
126 YEOMAN SERVICE
that I thought would do if only I could
overcome the objection of the landlord to
letting it for such a purpose. I was a little bit
alarmed about the possible expense, as every-
thing in Kimberley was so very dear then,
but I told Major Peard that if I succeeded
in finding a house I would keep it open as
long as my money lasted, and he said he
would be grateful if it was only for a week.
On the afternoon of April nth, Mr. J. Lay-
cock came in to tea. 1 had been house-hunting
and was very hot and tired. When I told
him the cause, he asked me what on earth
I was house-hunting for, and I told him my
plan. He said, "Why don't you take the
Sanatorium?" a very large house belonging
to Mr. Rhodes, which was empty, I am sorry to
say, all the time I was in Kimberley, for it
would have made a most splendid hospital.
I laughed and said, "For one thing, it is
not to be let, and for another, I am not a
millionaire." He at once said, "Do let me
help you." Of course I was only too de-
lighted, and I expected him to give me at
the outside ^25. You may imagine my
KIMBERLEY 127
delight when the next morning he brought me
a cheque for ,200. Of course I at once be-
came much more ambitious, and wished to take
a larger house or two small ones, and on the
afternoon of the I2th of April I saw Major
Peard again, and he begged me to hurry up
because he had plenty of people ready now
to send, as they were dreadfully uncomfort-
able at Newton Camp. I was very nearly
giving up my scheme, when on April i8th
I heard from Mr. Gardner Williams that I
might have the School of Mines, which is
the property of the De Beers Company. He
took me all over it, and I decided at once
it would do splendidly. The accommodation
that was offered me consisted of a small de-
tached house with a nice wide stoep round
three sides, a drawing-room and dining-room
with folding doors, kitchen, one large bed-
room, bath-room, and four small rooms.
In another building about twenty yards
away were seven rooms containing ten or
eleven beds, and one large sitting-room with
two big tables. The whole place was well
lighted by electric light, and of course I
128 YEOMAN SERVICE
had to get a great many things, glass, china,
linen, and, most important of all, servants.
I was determined to have none but white
ones, and I was told I should not be able to
get them, but I managed to do so in three
days. I was fortunate enough to get a man-
cook, by name Hons. I never discovered his
exact nationality, but I think he was half
English, half German, and he proved a most
invaluable servant. I was also fortunate
enough to secure a nice Scotch girl, Marian
Stevenson, as a parlour-maid ; a black boy
for outside work, and a half-caste girl com-
pleted my household. Neither of the two
black servants was I able to keep. The
half-caste girl was a horrid little minx, and
I got rid of her very soon, and was lucky
enough to get a very nice white girl, a
daughter of most respectable people. She
had never been out before, but made a
capital little servant. Towards the end my
manage became so large that I had to get
another little white girl. It was a funny
little household, but they were all so good-
tempered and good-natured, looking upon the
KIMBERLEY 129
work as work for the soldiers, that I never
had any real trouble with any of them.
We had some difficulty about settling how
the Home was to be filled, and I had to
report myself to the military authorities to
get their consent and approval. Colonel
Chamier being commandant at the time, had
to be interviewed, so I presented myself in
Lennox Street, and he was most kind and
encouraging. He suggested that I should
go round the hospitals and choose the officers
to come to my Home. This I declined to
do, so he laughed and said, " Very well, they
shall be sent to you." Then I asked if I
might be allowed to have Yeomanry troopers.
The gentlemen who had come out as troopers
were especially to be pitied, because in hospital
they were of course never put amongst their
own class; also before leaving England I had
faithfully promised so many parents who had
young sons coming out as troopers, that if
I ever had the chance I would look after
their boys, and now that I was going to have
a hospital of my own, I was most anxious
that its doors should not be closed to them.
I
130 YEOMAN SERVICE
Colonel Chamier was most kind, but said,
"It is quite impossible; you cannot mix
officers and men, you see that yourself."
"But I do not," I replied. "They will all
stay with me in my Home, and if I do not
mind, I do not see how the officers can.
They will all be gentlemen, and nothing but
gentlemen pro tern. I shall not pay any atten-
tion to their rank, only to their age ? " Colonel
Chamier laughed, but still said, " I do not
see how it can be done; it will be contrary
to all regulations;" and I replied, "I do
not want gentlemen 'Tommies/ out of the
regulars, which would, of course, be im-
possible, I can see, but the men I want to
have are men the officers will meet any day
at home in their own or their friends' houses
directly the war is over, and so many of my
friends are out as troopers that I particularly
want to help them." He was still stern, though
a little more doubtful, I hoped, but still he
said, "No." So I said half laughing, half
cross, "Very well then, I won't have the
Home at all." He burst out laughing and
said. " Oh well, I see you mean to have
KIMBERLEY 131
your own way : I only hope I shall not get into
a row about it." I said, "I will engage you
shall not. The whole thing shall be far too
successful and popular ; and if there is any
sign of anything disagreeable, I will give up
the * mixture* at once." I was very pleased
and grateful about this, and I think Colonel
Chamier was most kind, because I suppose a
fuss might have been made about it if any-
body had chosen to be disagreeable.
I have before mentioned Sister Henrietta,
who was the kindest of friends to me all
the time I was in Kimberley. She has been
in South Africa for thirty years, having come
out then as a Protestant Sister of Charity.
Mr. Laycock made us known to each other
when he was in Kimberley, as she and his
people had been neighbours at home. She
has done a most wonderful work out here.
For many years she was Matron of the
Kimberley Hospital, with the foundation of
which she had very much to do. About
eight years ago some disagreement arose, I
do not know what, but I heard it was not
her fault, and the result was she ceased to
132 YEOMAN SERVICE
be Matron there. I fancy it was a great
trouble and disappointment to her, but she
was undismayed. She went to a house not
far from the railway station which is called
St. Michael's Home, and there started a nurs-
ing home, whence she sends nurses all over
South Africa. Her nurses did all the nursing
in Kimberley that was done outside the Civil
Hospital during the siege, and they dis-
played remarkable courage, in many cases
going to their patients through shot and shell
when every one else was taking shelter ; and
after the siege they did all the nursing in
the different fever hospitals until the military
nurses came up, when notice to quit was
given them, somewhat abruptly in some cases.
However it was really all the better for them,
as most of them certainly needed rest.
St. Michael's Home is at the corner of the
De Beers Road, a dusty corner and a noisy
situation, but the house inside is cleanliness
and peace itself. There is a stoep filled with
plants, chiefly ferns, and Sister Henrietta's
own little sitting-room has a window open-
ing into it. In this room there are many
KIMBERLEY 133
pictures on the walls and a good many
much-used books on shelves round the room.
There is a camp bed-sofa covered with cre-
tonne, a writing-table with a large crucifix
above ; these with a few simple chairs com-
plete the furniture of a room full of char-
acter, which I shall remember all my life.
Behind this there is a large lofty room used
as a refectory, and another large sitting-room
opening out of it for the use of the sisters
staying there. We went there for luncheon
one day. There were about ten at table
altogether, the nursing sisters all very quiet
and speaking low, the whole very suggestive
of a convent, especially as Sister Henrietta
and one of the other sisters were dressed like
nuns ; but they all seemed so happy and are
so devoted to Sister Henrietta. The other
sister is Sister Louisa, and she is a sweet
little old lady with a dear kind face, and
there is another old sister who does most of
the maternity work. She rides about on a
tricycle looking very quaint in her blue gown
and cap. What strikes one at once is the
remarkable respect and affection with which
134 YEOMAN SERVICE
everybody in the place speaks of these ladies.
Sister Henrietta is a great student of Dante,
and one day she showed me a large collection
of her own notes on the poet. I could only
glance through them. They seemed so in-
teresting and unusual, that I wished she
could be persuaded to publish them. It was
through Sister Henrietta that I got my servants,
and whenever I was in any trouble I used to
fly to her for help and comfort, and never
came away empty.
On April nth I went up to Newton Camp
to show Lance's letter to Colonel Meyrick, who
commands the Northumberland and Shropshire
Yeomanry, and he told me that Mr. Buncombe
of the Yorkshire Hussars was in hospital and
asked me to look him up. I found him in
the Civil Hospital, and he told me that Cap-
tain Malcolm of the Argyll and Sutherland
Highlanders was there, and asked me to go
and see him because he was very ill. I
found he was in a private room, a tiny place
at the end of the hospital, and there he had
been ever since the Paardeberg engagement,
where he had been terribly wounded in the
KIMBEKLEY 135
leg. I saw a good deal of him after this,
and it would have done any one good, as it
certainly did me, to see the extraordinary
patience with which he hore his terrible
sufferings. He had eleven operations whilst
I was in Kimberley, and a short time before
I left he was threatened with the entire loss
of his leg, but I am thankful to say that
the doctors decided to send him back to
England first, as he was then quite unfit for
so serious an operation.
A great deal has been said about women like
myself being in South Africa during the war ;
but I think a case like this proves that we
can be of use, for the deadly monotony of
life with the addition of painful suffering
must surely be a little relieved by a visit from
any one bringing news of the outside world.
The nurses who attended upon Captain Mal-
colm were very much attached to him and
greatly admired his endurance and gentleness;
but they had other work to do, and though
they could give him their care, they could
not give him their time. All the months
I was in Kimberley, though I visited the
136 YEOMAN SERVICE
hospitals daily, I never received a cross word
or look from any one. I tried, however, to
be very careful never to visit a patient with-
out being sure that the nurse in charge ap-
proved of my doing so, and I took great
care to make myself scarce immediately a
doctor came in sight, as nothing is more
annoying to busy medical men than to be
obliged to "pass the time of day" with a
woman who has nothing to do with them.
I believe the secret of visiting in hospitals
successfully consists in staying only a short
time anywhere. This may sound a paradox,
as some one may say, "What is the good of
going, then ? " But any one who has been ill
knows that a short visit every day is far more
appreciated by an invalid than a long visit
once a week. The patients used to chaff
me at Kimberley because I contradicted the
next day the news I had given them the
day before ; but we used to have great fun
about it : the amount of canards that were
about served to amuse those in health until
they were contradicted, and I thought the
same rule applied to those who were sick,
KIMBERLEY 137
so that I never troubled to wait until I knew
if a thing were true or not, as long as I could
give them something to think about.
I remember that in Holy Week I had a
slight touch of fever, and I suppose this
gave me a fit of the "blues." Whatever it
was I certainly had them. It is not un-
natural, as, for the first time in my life, I
had come in contact with constant illness
and death, and the intense longing one has
to alleviate so much suffering, especially when
one feels that a great deal of it might be
avoided if such a thing as red 'tape had
never been discovered, gave one an usual fit
of depression. Another thing hurt me, and
it naturally occurred to one at this season of
the Church's year, that it was very sad that
one so very seldom saw a clergyman of any
denomination giving any religious care to
these sorely tried men. The whole time I
was in Kimberley visiting the hospitals day
by day, I only three times came across a clergy-
man of any denomination visiting any hospital.
Of course I could not judge by this alone, but
the nurses also told me how very seldom
138 YEOMAN SERVICE
they came. Perhaps it was this feeling that
on Good Friday put it into my mind to do
what I thought at the time was rather a
stupid little thing: it was to try and give
some of the men some sort of Easter card.
I was fortunate enough to get two hundred
or so pretty little cards painted with English
flowers or English landscapes and each bear-
ing one or two texts or a familiar hymn.
On the way back from early service on
Easter Sunday the rain began to come
down, and it simply poured for the remainder
of the day, and was almost the only really
wet day I remember in South Africa. How-
ever, I put on a thick waterproof over my
muslin dress and started of.
I put all my cards into a tray, and, feel-
ing ridiculously shy, took them round to the
men. I shall never forget the experiences
of that day, and I thanked God from my
heart for having given me the thought. I
spoke to every one of the conscious men
until my cards were exhausted, and when
I got home I found it had taken me seven
hours to do. The men seemed extraordinarily
KIMBERLEY 139
pleased. They turned the cards over and
over, and by degrees I learned to know
that they were looking for a particular flower.
One man said, "You haven't got any
forget-me-nots, Miss, have you?" and I
said
" Oh yes ! I have lots of them. I thought
of the wives and sweethearts at home."
He replied, " Yes, that is what I was
thinking of."
Another man said, " I shall send this home
to my old mother. She will be glad to know
that some one thinks of us this way."
Another lad who was very ill said to me,
"Will you read me the words?" Then I
pointed out to him that the card he had
chosen had "There is a Happy Land" on
the back, and the poor fellow tried to sing
it to himself in a terribly cracked voice that
was heart-breaking to hear, and a day or two
afterwards he died singing it.
The English flowers appealed to all their
hearts, but what I was so glad to find was
that the men were really glad to have just
a word of something that meant religious
140 YEOMAN SERVICE
feeling said to them, and several of them
told me that they had been longing for it in
vain.
You see, in hospitals of this kind you
cannot read to men out of the Bible, as the
men in the next beds may be far too ill
to be disturbed. You can only say a few
words in a low voice, or you would be a
nuisance to somebody, and it is just that that
I think a clergyman ought to do, because he
knows better what to say than we do.
Some of them were very funny and very
fussy about their cards ; and made me promise
to bring a piece of paper the next day to
wrap them up in ; but ever so many of them
had Bibles and Prayer Books, I was so glad
to see, into which they tucked their cards,
and nearly all said they should take care of
them or send them home to some one they
loved.
One man had the fever very badly, and I
asked the nurse if I could speak to him, as
I knew he had been very wildly delirious.
She said, " Oh yes, he is much better to-
day ; " so I went up to him with my tray and
KIMBERLEY 141
asked him if he would like a card. He
looked very ill and rather wild, but he smiled
at me, and most condescendingly looked at
them, and said
" They are very pretty ; you can give me
six." I laughed and said
" Oh no ! I cannot, for I have only got
enough to make one apiece, but will you
choose which you like?"
He was a long time choosing, but finally
made up his mind. I was just preparing
to go and he looked up at me and said
"I do not remember seeing you here
before."
" Oh, haven't you ? " I said. " I have often
seen you, but you have been very ill ; too
ill, I expect, to notice me."
" Oh yes," he said, " I have been very
ill ; you see it is the second time I have had
the fever."
"Keally!" I said. " Where did you have
it the very first time ? "
"At Pretoria," he answered.
" At Pretoria ! " I said very much surprised, for
this was long before our troops entered it.
142 YEOMAN SERVICE
'Yes," he said, and an indescribably
cunning look came over his face, and he
wriggled to the side of the bed to whisper
to me he was too weak to raise himself,
" I'll just tell you how it was," he said. " I
heard as how they were offering a reward
for De Beers's head ; I'm a sharp chap, I am,
and before the others knew about it I just
went and got it."
And he whispered loudly to me, and with
a little pat on the bed said, " I have got
it here; ^"7000 it is."
Poor fellow ! I saw it was time to go, so I
said, " That was clever of you ; now you
must go to sleep," but I went away rather
amused.
Some of the poor fellows were very funny
in their delirium, and very trying to their
fellow-patients. One boy for several days
constantly sat up in bed shouting, "Ping
ping ping schut ping" to imitate the
sound of bullets, which he did most success-
fully, but nothing would keep him quiet.
He was evidently haunted by them. The
difficulty in speaking to so many men as I
KIMBERLEY 143
did that day was to get away from them
because the little home scenes on my
cards seemed to start them talking about
home in a way that nothing else had ever
done.
I never was so tired in my life as I was
that night, because the whole afternoon some-
thing was pulling at one's heart-strings. I
have forgotten to say there is a good story
against myself, that I gave some cards to
some wounded Boers in one of the hospitals,
one of whom took quite a pack of them,
and I really did not like to make him
give them up. He seemed so pleased to
have them, but I felt it was gross weakness
to an enemy, when I would not give them
to a friend.
About this time the army nurses belong-
ing to No. 1 1 Hospital came up to Kimberley,
and were installed in all the town hospitals
except the Civil and Nazareth Home, thus
releasing Sister Henrietta's nurses, most of
whom, after a short period of rest, went
round to Bloemfontein or other parts of the
country.
144 YEOMAN SERVICE
The army nurses look very bright and
cheerful in the wards. They wear blue
cotton dresses, large white aprons with bibs,
a curious cap, which is really a square piece
of muslin folded corner-wise and tied under
the hair behind, making a kind of soft veil.
They also wear a short scarlet cloth cape
with a little rosette in the middle of the
back. This dress was designed by Miss
Florence Nightingale, but I believe in her
day the red cloaks were much longer. Now
they are simply tippets and very ornamental,
and they also wear large silver badges.
Some of the nurses were undoubtedly ex-
traordinarily good, but on the whole I
found that the patients did not like them as
much as private nurses in any part of South
Africa where I went, because by their train-
ing they are taught to leave more of the
work to orderlies. It is the orderly system
in the hospital at the time of war that seems
to me thoroughly rotten. Trained orderlies
are no doubt admirable, but any woman is
by nature a better nurse than the average
man. A good man-nurse is an exception on
KIMBERLEY 145
the one side, a bad woman-nurse an excep-
tion on the other.
I had a great deal of talk with nurses of
every kind whilst I was in South Africa
quite friendly talk in every case and I
always found that they would personally
much prefer to nurse patients entirely them-
selves, doing everything for them as a nurse
would do who was nursing a case at home ;
but of course if they are to do this, many
more nurses would have to be sent out at
the beginning of a war. We all know
that at the beginning of the South African
war hundreds of good nurses volunteered to
go, and were told they were not wanted.
I personally know of over a dozen who were
willing to go for no pay, if their passage and
expenses out there were paid, and who were
thoroughly qualified, experienced nurses, but
they were refused. At present the orderlies
attend to the sick men's food, make their
beds (abominably badly), and do a quantity
of things which women would do far better.
Then the orderlies are not under the nurses
entirely, which they ought to be, and they
K
146 YEOMAN SERVICE
are frightfully rude to them, and a nurse
has no redress, because if she complains to
a doctor, the man is seldom or never dis-
missed on the spot, as he certainly ought
to be. The principle of putting, as was
done so constantly, a convalescent man to
attend upon sick men as an orderly seems
to me quite wrong. There is no period of
sickness when a person is so easily irritated,
so easily tired, and so disinclined for ex-
ertion as the period of convalesence, and yet
that is the time when men out there were
put into hospitals filled with enteric, and
were desired to nurse the patients. Is it
surprising, then, that the mortality amongst
the orderlies in South Africa was great?
The orderlies have often said to me, "Why,
ma'am ! I don't know how to drag myself
about, much less anybody else." I had
hundreds of complaints from sick men in
the different hospitals I visited in South
Africa about orderlies, but only two about
nurses, and both the women the patients
complained about had such evil counte-
nances that I cannot understand anybody
KIMBERLEY 147
sending them out to a work of mercy like
nursing.
It must be borne in mind that the nurses
who went out to the war went out for the
love of the thing, as it were, professedly
with a desire to do good. Half the hospital
orderlies appointed to fill up gaps were
either men who were, as I say, convalescent,
and were given the work to do faute de mieux
by some one, I do not know who, or else
were lazy men who applied for the work
because they thought it easy, and took very
good care to make it so. I wish it clearly to
be understood that there were some splendid
orderlies working in the hospitals in South
Africa men who earned the gratitude and
affection of patients and nurses ; but I think
I am not exaggerating in saying that, as a
rule, they were very bad.
I do not pretend to dictate to any one how
this is to be remedied, but the doctors and
nurses must be able to suggest some remedy.
The doctors, I know, as a rule disapprove
of it, because so many of them told me so.
I also noticed in South Africa that the
148 YEOMAN SERVICE
orderlies would levy a heavy tax on all
stimulants ordered for the patients, and the
doctors told me that this was never the case
with the nurses. If a nurse was given a
bottle of champagne or brandy for the use
of the patients, the doctors felt perfectly
confident that she did not benefit thereby,
but they generally felt unsafe if they were
obliged to leave it with the orderlies.
For instance, at Newton Camp at Kimberley
there were no nurses, only orderlies, far too
few under any circumstances for the number
of sick passing through there, for it was only
a temporary hospital, where the men were
taken until they could be drafted to the
proper ones ; but as the hospitals were often
quite full, the sick men had to be there
sometimes for days. I had many complaints
from sick men up there that they got nothing
but very weak condensed milk to drink. A
lady in Kimberley told me that she would
gladly supply twenty bottles of milk a day,
for the use of Newton Camp. This was
a liberal offer, for sixpence was the market-
price for every bottle of milk. I told Major
KIMBERLEY 149
Peard of it, and his reply was, " Why, my
dear lady, we have any amount of milk ! " I
thought he said 600 bottles a day, but I
think I must have made a mistake. At any
rate, he said there was plenty. I longed to
say, "Then why don't the patients have it?"
But I did not ; not because I was a coward,
but because Major Peard was simply worried
to death and over-worked, and I hated to
bother him. I knew exactly what became
of the milk, for that very day I saw two
orderlies drinking off glasses of milk which
I saw them pour out of a bottle. Now milk
at no time in Kimberley was so plentiful
that the orderlies could have had the right
to do such a thing.
I had a letter from Lance to say that some
wounded were being sent in from Boshof,
and on the 2 1 st I drove out to waylay them
on the road coming in. I knew that amongst
them was a young fellow called Fisher in
the Sherwood Rangers, who had got a
very bad wound in the arm, shattering his
elbow. I had been to the Civil Hospital to
beg for a bed for him, and was fortunate
ISO YEOMAN SERVICE
enough to secure one. Just to show how
irritating red-tape is, I met the convoy about
100 yards on the farther side of the entrance
to the hospital. One of our officers who had
just come up from Cape Town, having been
invalided, was with me, and we implored the
doctor in charge of the convoy to allow
young Fisher to go straight into the hospital,
but he said it was impossible ; he must go to
Newton Camp for that night to report him-
self it was then past seven o'clock. Knowing
the discomforts of Newton Camp, I begged
permission for the boy to go to the hospital,
undertaking to be responsible to the P.M.O. if
the doctor got into any trouble, and of course
having an officer of the regiment with me
seemed to make it all right; but it was of
no avail he had to go to Newton Camp.
The next day I was unfortunately ill and
could not go out, but the day after I went
up to the Civil Hospital and found that
nothing was known of Fisher, so I went on
to Newton Camp, but could not trace him,
as they declared he had been sent away. I
went back to Nazareth House, the only place
KIMBERLEY 1 5 1
besides the Civil Hospital to which wounded
were sent, and could not find him. All this
inquiry took hours. The next morning I
went to Newton Camp again, and was told
he was out, which I did not believe, and so
I got angry and said that I should make a
row about it ; but I had to go home without
doing any real good. I arrived at Newton
Camp the following morning about 9 o'clock,
and was told with triumph by one of the
hospital sergeant - orderlies that Fisher had
been taken to the Masonic Hall.
"What!" I said. "To an enteric hospital ?
Why?"
The man seized hold of his head and said,
" Good Lord ! I have made a mistake.!'
I drove off as quickly as I could to the
Masonic Hall, where I met a doctor, who at
once told me that he had sent the lad to
Nazareth House, as of course he had no
business to be at the Masonic Hall. We
both had a good " swear " together, and I
told him my story, and he agreed that it was
abominable. I then went on to Nazareth
House, and found Fisher looking a perfect
152 YEOMAN SERVICE
wreck, poor lad ! He had been attended at
Boshof by Professor Ogston and was getting
on splendidly. At Newton Camp an orderly
took the bandages off his arm, and left him
for an hour or more awaiting the doctor's
arrival, with nothing to support it, and the
boy fainted twice from the agony.
Of course red-tape in cases of this kind is
necessary, because already it is difficult enough
to trace sick men. Occasionally they arrive
in hospital in such a condition that they can-
not give any account of themselves. Their
identification cards are lost, and sometimes
a man has died without being identified,
through no fault whatever of the hospital
authorities ; but I do think that occasional
risks might have been run without any harm
ensuing.
One rather rough man in hospital had been
in a very grumpy state for some time, and I
had never been able to get a word out of
him, until one day when I was standing
beside his bed talking to a cheery, pleasant
fellow who was rather a favourite of mine.
An end of the blue ribbon I wore round my
KIMBERLEY 153
waist slipped out of the buckle and hung
down in front. At first I did not notice it,
but I saw the cross man, rather red -faced
and rough too, watching me. Presently I
walked away, and as I did so I saw him turn
and look after me with such a strange look
in his face, that I went back to him and
said
" Is anything the matter ? Do you want
something?"
No answer for some time, but at last he
said
" I was only wishin' I had a bit of that
ribbon."
" So you shall," I said, and borrowing a
pair of the sister's scissors, I took a scrap
back to him, wondering what on earth he
wanted it for.
" Do tell me," I said, " why you wanted it."
" My gal wears blue," was his answer.
CHAPTEK IV
THE CONVALESCENT HOME
AT last I got the Convalescent Home opened,
on the first day with one gentleman trooper
only ; four more came the next day, and in a
very short time we were quite filled up.
Lady Gifford, who was nursing at the Civil
Hospital and doing splendid work, very often
brought down to tea one or two of the patients
who were well enough to drive. I did not
receive any patients recovering from enteric,
as we could not run the risk of a relapse,
but the convalescents from enteric often came
to the Home for a little change during a
drive. The rule of our day was early tea
in the bedrooms ; breakfast at 9 ; beef-tea at
1 1 ; luncheon at i ; tea at 4 ; and dinner at
7.30 ; after which bed came whenever they
felt inclined, but never later than 10. I had
brought a large box of books from England,
X 54
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 155
which had been given me by friends in
Nottingham who thought I was going to the
Yeomanry Hospital, but I kept them for use
here, and ultimately gave them away to the
hospital at Kroonstad. We took in the
Diamond Fields Advertiser and several illus-
trated papers, and with the papers I had sent
out from home and magazines we kept our
literature pretty well up to the mark.
The invalids used to sit out on the stoep
after breakfast and all day until dark unless
it got too cold, as it sometimes did. I had
the big fly of one of my tents rigged up at
one end to stop the draught, and there was
a wall at the other. My two camp - beds
came in for use as sofas, and the camp chairs
also ; in fact, everything came in useful.
A great many people used to come and see
us, and we heard most of the news that was
going on, and as I always made a point of
being at home at tea-time, anybody who felt
inclined to come was sure to find a welcome.
Major Baden-Powell dined with us the night
before he started to go to Mafeking with the
relief column, and Major Pollock, the Times
156 YEOMAN SERVICE
correspondent, came to see us the same day.
Many of the staff officers used to drop in at
odd times, and I was only too thankful when
I could find any lady who could come and
amuse us. Lady Gifford's sister, Mrs. Seymour,
and Lady Idina Brassey came up to Kimberley
in May, and they very often used to come to
see us and stay to dinner, and were simply
invaluable. Lady Chesham came up to Kim-
berley with her daughter from the Yeomanry
Hospital at Deelfontein, and Lord Chesham
came in to meet her, and they came twice to
see us, and Lord Chesham was more than
kind about my Yeomanry " Tommies." When
he appeared the five of them who were in
the Home at the time all vanished. I had
told him of my little difficulty about being
allowed to have gentlemen troopers, and he
at once asked for them, and when I told
him that I thought they had run away be-
cause they were afraid of the Brigadier, he
went in search of them with me, bringing
them back to tea, and so made that all
right.
Some of the cases I had were rather anxious
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 157
ones, because men thoroughly run down by
a bad attack of dysentery or jaundice require
so much feeding up, and it was so difficult
to find anything to tempt them. The De
Beers Company sent me almost daily large
baskets of vegetables, but poultry and fish
were at almost prohibitive prices, and with
eggs at 6d. each any housekeeper will sympa-
thise with my difficulties.
The only real pleasure I had in my house-
keeping was to discover that in South Africa
one could order a new joint for dinner, namely,
a hump of beef. It is the hump that grows
on the back of the oxen behind their horns,
and it is beautiful meat, rather like an under-
cut of beef.
We had great difficulties with the flies,
which were simply terrible, and I shall never
forget what the kitchen used to look like
at times, and for this reason one always got
in everything fresh daily. Over the dining-
room table hung three ropes, the middle one
was an electric bell which did not ring, the
two outer ones held the electric light. Some-
times some one generally a new-comer, for
158 YEOMAN SERVICE
they soon found out I could not bear them
to do it would look up at these ropes, and
probably saying, " Oh ! look at the flies," at
the same time would give the rope a shake,
at which a cloud of flies would escape from
the rope with a huge buzzing and a most
disagreeable effect.
A day or two after the Home was opened
I went up to Newton Camp. I knew that a
great many of the men of the 3rd Battalion
had by this time come in sick in different
convoys to Kimberley, and Mr. Cadman and
Mr. Throckmorton, two of my convalescents
who came straight to the Home from Newton
Camp, told me that many of them were up
there, so on this day I went to the camp to
find them. There were between twenty and
thirty of them who were able to walk about,
besides some who were not, and they were
in a most wretched condition. The camp
was then perfectly crowded, and they could
get little or no attention and very little food ;
in fact, they told me that they were starving,
and implored me to help them. They upset
me so by what they said that they made me
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 159
cry. I told them I did not know what I
could do, because I knew what difficulties the
authorities were in, but I promised them I
would do something, and after I had thought
it over I went to Major Peard and asked if
all the men who were fit to do so might be
allowed to come down to the Convalescent
Home every day from two to seven, when I
would give them tea and arrange a club-room
for them. He most kindly complied at once,
although it is quite contrary to the regulations
that men in hospital should be allowed out,
but he said, "If they get drunk I shall have
to stop it." I promised that they would not,
and when I told the men what I had arranged,
I told them what Major Peard had said. They
all exclaimed, " You can trust us," and I
said I knew I could, but they must remember
that I had promised for them. We never
had the smallest difficulty about that, and
for quite six weeks we had on an average
twenty men to tea every day. For this the
large room that I had at the School of Mines
came in quite splendidly. One table was
always laid for tea and the other was covered
160 YEOMAN SERVICE
with books and papers, writing-paper, pens
and ink, and it used to delight me to go in
in the afternoon and see the men hard at
work writing letters home, which I always
posted for them. I had to engage another
servant, as of course this entailed a good deal
of work, and my dear Nan always looked
after the tea for me, as I could only get
away for a few minutes at a time, as a rule,
in the afternoon. From the very beginning
of my little Home I had every help, and I
was going to say blessing, from the authorities,
medical and military, and when I was ill, as
I was towards the end of my stay at Kimberley,
with camp fever, nothing could exceed the
kindness I received from Captain Wanhill,
KA.M.C. who, hard^- worked as he was, at
first came four times a day to see me.
By this time Major Peard had been moved
on to Pretoria and Colonel O'Connel), who
was in charge of No. 1 1 hospital, had taken
his place as P.M.O. I had several letters
from Colonels commanding regiments who
were passing through Kimberley asking me if
I would take in just for a few days some
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 161
officer who had broken down and wanted a
rest, but who was not bad enough to go to
the hospital, and I must say I had the greatest
satisfaction in seeing how soon they picked
up. The only difficulty I ever had with my
convalescents was when they would go out in
the morning and miss their beef-tea. Some-
times one or two of them would do too much
and knock themselves up, but a very little
scolding prevented this happening again, and
I shall remember all my life how good they
were and obedient to discipline, only, I be-
lieve, from a fear of causing me worry.
Before I left England I had collected in
South Nottinghamshire over ^1500 for the
Yeomanry Hospital, and when I arrived at
Kimberley, and found how much might have
been done if I had been in possession of such
a sum as this, I wrote home expressing my
regret that I had not got it with me there, and
in consequence of this I one day received a
telegram from Lady Belper saying that she,
as Chairman of the Committee we had started
in Nottingham in connection with the Yeo-
manry Hospital, had sent me ^99. This was
1 62 YEOMAN SERVICE
perfectly splendid and enabled me to launch
out further ; and then when the regiment heard
that I was having these teas for the men
they sent me two sums of 10. All this I
wanted, because everything was so very ex-
pensive, and it was no good trying to feed
people and get them into a good state of
health unless one gave them good and suffi-
cient food.
On April 3oth Lady Gilford brought a Miss
Bateman and Captain Strange to tea. Miss
Bateman was a nice and pretty little lady
who had come out from England all alone
as the correspondent to the new paper, the
Daily Express. It is an extraordinary
phase of the times to see a young woman,
pretty and unmarried and a lady, come
out absolutely alone to see as much as
possible of a country during a war in order
to record her experiences and observations.
She goes about wherever she can, and she
is very cheerful and pleasant, and was most
popular with us all. I think it says very
much for the chivalry of the times that
this is possible, and that nothing, as she
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 163
told me, in the least unpleasant had ever
happened to her. It was my own experience,
certainly, but then I was much older.
Colonel Healy, who commanded the militia
battalion of the South Wales Borderers, came to
the Home on the 2nd of May. He had been
very ill with dysentery and suffered dread-
fully with neuralgia, but was perfectly splendid
about it. He was a very clever artist and
did a lot of sketches for us, but, like my-
self, did not find the country at all inspiring
to the brush.
Nan and I used to go out every morning
to do our shopping. I do not know what
I should have done without her, as it seems
to me, looking back, that she did nearly every-
thing. She took off my hands all the atten-
tion required in looking after the flowers, the
linen, and the convalescents' rooms, to see
that they had what was necessary to make
them comfortable ; but there really was quite
as much as two of us could do, what with
housekeeping, letters, and entertaining, The
distances in Kimberley being so great, and
the Convalescent Home being quite on the
1 64 YEOMAN SERVICE
outskirts of the town, made one lose a great
deal of time when one had anything to do
outside.
I had a great pleasure on the 5th of May
when I received a telegram from Lance to
say that he was coming in to Kimberley from
Boshof ; and he arrived in the course of the
evening. Colonel Younghusband had, I think,
found an excuse to send him in, as he knew
I was there. Lance's poor mare, Bridget,
which he had brought out from England, was
completely done up. Whether it was the
long ride in the hot sun or what, we never
knew, but he had to leave her behind when
he returned, and after doing everything to try
to save her, I had to give orders to have her
shot. To replace her Lance bought a very
fat chestnut horse. A fat horse is such an
unusual sight in this country that everybody
laughed at her, but she turned out a useful
beast.
At 4.30 on the morning of either the 7th
or 8th of May I woke up suddenly and heard
a dull booming in the distance. Strange
noises do not arouse much interest in Kim-
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 165
berley, because constant dynamite explosions
are going on in the mines and works, but
there was something about this noise that
seemed to me unusual, and I made up my
mind it was guns. I was laughed at the
next day for thinking so, because it was not
supposed there were any guns near enough
to Kimberley for us to hear them ; but a week
or two afterwards an R.A. officer who became
an inmate of the Home told me that they
began the firing at Warrenton at that very
hour and on that very day. Warrenton is
about sixteen miles north of Kimberley, and
of course in the quiet of the night there was
no reason why we should not have heard the
guns. Lance stayed at Kimberley for three
days and was quite surprised to find how many
friends I had made'since he left ; but there is
nothing like a time of war for making friends.
Everybody's heart is open and softened, and
when people say, " What is the good of war ? "
I think God knows that it is good for us;
for some to bear for others to see the
suffering.
On the Qth Nan and I were invited to lunch
1 66 YEOMAN SERVICE
with Colonel Courtney of the Scottish Rifles.
As a rule I never did go out for meals, and
Nan and I decided that we could not both
leave, but as I was obliged to go to Newton
Camp for another reason, I thought I might
do this at the same time. It was a most
lovely day simply grillingly hot. They gave
me the only shady seat, a box under the
shadow of a waggon, and we had a splen-
did picnic luncheon. Colonel Courtney em-
barrassed me by producing some beautiful
champagne, which rather frightened me on
such a sunny hot day, but I drank their
health in a very little, and wished them a
safe journey to the Orange Free State, as
they were off the next day to Boshof. After
luncheon he told his pipers to play, and I
shut my eyes and pretended I was in Scotland.
They left their Adjutant, Captain Henning,
behind as he was ill, and he stayed at my
Home : he had been very much overdone by
all the work he had had to do. After this I
went to see White, a man in the South Notts
Hussars, who had been wounded and had
broken his leg at Swartzkopjefontein. He was
THE -CONVALESCENT HOME 167
in the only bed in the marquee, with his leg
in splints. There were fourteen other men
in the marquee, intended to hold eight, with
him, but all the others were on the ground,
and two men with enteric, looking frightfully
ill, lying close to the bed at White's feet.
There were three other men of our battalion
in the tent, two of them developing enteric.
Nearly all these men were very bad indeed.
I spoke to them all, and one man said to me,
" Don't come near me, ma'am ; I aint fit to
speak to." All I could do was to promise
our men I would get them out of it during
the day, which I did. I got White into a
bed at the Civil Hospital and the two who
had enteric into the Drill Hall. The authori-
ties were so good to me that I could nearly
always get our men taken in, but then some-
body else had to stay out.
On May the 1 1 th we got up very early to
see Messrs. Throckmorton, Strutt, Gibbard,
Seymour, and Cadman off at 7.30 to join their
Yeomanry regiments ; the first three had been
wounded, the last two had been ill. It made
me perfectly miserable to see them go off, as
1 68 YEOMAN SERVICE
I did not think any of them were really fit
for it, but they had picked up splendidly.
Nan had massaged Mr. Strutt until he had
regained the use of his arm, and she had
done the same to Mr. Gibbard with the most
wonderful effect upon his voice ; but it made
me feel exactly as if I were a farmer's wife
feeding chickens to be killed.
On the evening of May 1 1 th the Conva-
lescent Home received an invitation from the
students at the School of Mines to a small
dance they were giving in one of the buildings.
I have forgotten to say that the School of
Mines was built by the De Beers Company to
enable thirty students to learn the arts of
mining and mining engineering under two
professors. At this time only one professor and
ten students were in residence, as well as Mr.
and Mrs. Bayliss, who looked after their crea-
ture comforts. That is the reason I was able
to have part of the School of Mines for my
convalescents, and the house I lived in was
the usual home of Professor Lawn, who had
gone to England with his wife for a holiday.
I did not feel at all inclined to go to dances,
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 169
but the students had been so nice to us all,
and had done everything to make things plea-
sant for the convalescents, that we felt we
should like to go. I asked Miss Bateman to
come with us, and she, Nan, and I, Colonel
Healy, Captain Henning, and Mr. Wise made
up the little party. The room was so prettily
decorated with flags and bright little lamps,
and there were a number of pretty and charm-
ingly dressed young girls. I felt very dowdy,
as I had nothing in the shape of an evening
dress with me, but I danced with several
of the students and had some interesting talks
with them.
One of them told me that he had been
fighting, but he had come back to the
School of Mines from the Colonial corps he
had joined, because as he said, " You see
my father thinks it is a very serious thing
for a fellow of my age to neglect his edu-
cation."
I said, " How old are you ? " He said he
was twenty-two.
I remarked, " I wonder where your country
would be if all the fathers at home thought as
1 70 YEOMAN SERVICE
your father does out here," and I strongly
advise him to go back and fight.
It seems to me there is a good deal too
much of this feeling amongst the Colonials. I
am sure there was in Kimberley and it annoyed
me. They seemed to think it was the business
of English soldiers to fight for them, and I do
not think they realised in the least what an
enormous sacrifice was made by the hundreds
of men who had left England as volunteers
to do their fighting for them. Of course there
are splendid Colonial regiments who did their
duty nobly, but they were fighting for their
own hearthstone, as one might say, and it
made my blood boil to hear of a Colonial father
keeping a son who wanted to fight at school,
when I had just given a send-off to young
Gerald Strutt, a lad of nineteen, whose father
had bid him God-speed to go out and fight
as a Yeomanry trooper.
Mr. Wise, one of the Munster Fusileers,
went away on the I3th of May. He was to
go out to Boshof in a " puffing-billy," namely,
in a truck attached to a traction engine. The
depot for these was quite close to the Con-
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 171
valescent Home, and long trains of them used
to go by the house very often. It seemed too
ridiculous that a man who had been as ill as
he was and he had required great care all
the time he was in the Home should suddenly
be packed off to go a thirty-mile "drive" in
a thing of this kind. I was not at all surprised
to hear, not so very long afterwards, that he
had been invalided home.
On the i4th Mr. Wade and Mr. Miller, two
Royal Artillery officers, came to the Home,
both recovering from jaundice and still rather
bad. On the following day I had a visit from
Major Carr, R.A.M.C. He is a sort of A.D.C.
to Colonel O'Connell, the P.M.O. It was an
official visit, and he asked to see my arrange-
ments, which I was delighted to show him.
Then he said, "I suppose you have no record
of whom you have had here." " Oh yes, I
have," I replied, and produced my book with
all its entries. He was delighted, as he said
it was the first record he had found in any
hospital in Kimberley ; but he left me proper
forms to fill up for the future, with dates of
arrival, diseases, &c. He then asked me if
i;2 YEOMAN SERVICE
we. had had a doctor appointed to visit us,
and I said, "No, although I had asked for
one ; but that there had appeared to be some
difficulty about it, and I did not at all appre-
ciate the responsibility of having a number
of sick men in my house, and if any of them
got worse, not knowing for what doctor to
send ; " he now appointed Captain Wanhill,
who came every day, and we were all right
for the future.
Colonel O'Connell had a great deal to con-
tend with, and had been very much vexed at
all the obstacles that had been put in his
way before he got No. 1 1 started. He had
once got part of his camp set up, when the
people in Kimberley objected to the situation,
and it all had to be taken down again and
moved miles away. In the meantime our
soldiers died.
I used to be called every morning at seven
o'clock in order that I might have a little time
to myself before the beginning of the day, and
I always read the paper, which did not take
very long, as there could be so little news
in it; but about this time I was amazed to
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 173
see one morning a telegram which purported
to say that the Mafeking relief column had
arrived at Taungs. This column began to
leave Kimberley about the 28th or 2Qth of
April, and the whole thing was extraordi-
narily well managed. People living in Kim-
berley never realised that a large body of
troops, forming a considerable column, was
being formed there, and was also leaving it.
The secrecy was very well kept up. After
this I was told all about it as a secret by a
friend, and I was therefore enormously sur-
prised when I saw this telegram in the paper,
as I knew the idea was to prevent the Boers,
if possible, knowing the whereabouts of the
column. Major Sawyer, the press censor,
came to tea with us that afternoon, and I
said something to him about the column
being at Taungs. He looked very much sur-
prised and annoyed, and it turned out that
the three papers left at our house were about
the only ones of the issue that he had not
stopped. He was extremely angry with the
D.F.A. (Diamond Fields Advertiser) for putting
this telegram in, which had never been censored,
i; 4 YEOMAN SERVICE
and after this our only daily paper contained
even less news than before.
On the 1 7th Sir Frederick Frankland and
Mr. Bagshawe came to the Home. They both
know South Africa well, as they have spent
several years here, and it was most interesting
to hear them talking about the country. Sir
Frederick had been ill, and Mr. Bagshawe
had been terribly wounded at Drontfield
during the relief of Kimbeiiey, the bullet
going in about the middle of his chest and
out behind the right shoulder, smashing it
and taking in with it one of the hooks off
his collar and a large piece of kharki. It was
a terrible wound, and he had been three
months in hospital. He was a trooper in
Roberta's Horse. I was told that when he
was brought into the hospital with some
other wounded he said to the doctors, "At-
tend to the others first, I am only slightly
hit/' which they did whilst he sat in a chair.
Suddenly he fainted dead away, and they
then found out what an awful wound he had.
The doctors said they had seldom seen such
courage, as he must have been suffering acutely.
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 175
About May 18 rumours began to circulate
in Kimberley that the relief of Mafeking had
been effected. There had been great anxiety
in the town, as by this time most of the
facts as to the composition of the column had
leaked out, and there were so many friends
of people in the town amongst the relievers,
that they longed for news, not only because
of the general joy that the relief of Mafe-
king would give, but also on account of their
private anxiety. On Saturday, May 19, we
heard for certain that Mafeking was relieved,
but it is amusing to relate that the official an-
nouncement w T as not made until the follow-
ing Monday, the 2ist. However, Nan and
I heard of it in the town on such good
authority that I went to ask at the Club,
and found it was quite true, so we went off
and bought some Union Jacks and I got two
bottles of champagne for dinner. When we
got back to the Home, we found the con-
valescents busy decorating it. They too had
got some flags, and in an hour or so the
house looked very gay.
We all felt we ought to do something to
1 76 YEOMAN SERVICE
celebrate this great occasion, and so we all
decided to go to the Theatre, except Major
Fox and Mr. Le Marchant, who were not well
enough. Lady Gifford dined and went too,
and we had a great night. At dinner I gave
the Queen's health, General Baden - Powell,
and Mafeking, which was drunk with accla-
mation ; then Colonel Healy proposed my
health, and Captain Bellamy gave " Our
absent host," which pleased and touched me
very much. When the curtain drew up at
the Theatre there was a band on the stage,
and we all sang "God save the Queen"
and cheered for Baden-Powell and made a
good deal of noise. The Theatre was quite
crammed, but we soon settled down and the
company acted excellently rather a stupid
play called "The Bookmaker," but we all
enjoyed it, as we were in the humour to
enjoy anything. It took four Cape carts to
take us to the theatre, and each Cape cart
flew a Union Jack. There was a great
crowd in the streets, illuminations on the
Town -Hall and flags everywhere, but the
excitement was very quiet, if I may so
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 177
express it, as every one seemed too thankful
to be uproarious. About this time the
same company gave a performance in aid of
"The Absent - Minded Beggar" fund, and
Mr. Eudyard Kipling sent twelve copies
signed by himself, to be sold by auction.
One of these was bought by Captain Davis
for 10, and he most kindly presented it to
me, and I look upon it as one of my most
interesting relics of the war. The total sale
realised ^70, I think.
The following Sunday Mr. Kenworthy, who
belonged to the Red Cross Society, came to
luncheon, and sent me afterwards a lot of
things for use by the sick in the Home and
elsewhere. The next day the students at the
School of Mines, having a whole holiday
(which the town kept to celebrate the relief
of Mafeking speeches, dinners, &c.), took all
our photographs. I am glad to have the
group as an interesting memento, but an
uglier and more broken-down set of people
it would be difficult to find than we appear
as here depicted. However, it was not as-
tonishing if I looked ill, because I felt so
M
1 78 YEOMAN SERVICE
bad after luncheon that I had to go to bed,
and as I ached all over I thought I had
influenza. I was ill nearly all that week,
with intervals of bed, and the following
Saturday Captain Wanhill said I had camp
fever; but I soon got over it, though once
I did feel very frightened for fear I was in
for bad enteric, of which this was a slight
form.
On May 25 Miss Kosamond Kolleston,
Lance's cousin, who had come out as a
nurse at the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at
Deelfontein, came up to stay with me for
a few days. On the way she picked out
a young man in the train who was in
Kitchener's Horse. He was in dreadful
pain with toothache and had a badly
swollen face. She offered to bring him
down to me, as she thought we could tell
him of a dentist. They arrived rather late
at the Home, and the poor boy looked so
bad, that I promised him a bed for the
night after he had had his tooth out. Mr.
Bagshawe took him off to look for a dentist,
but they had all left work and could not be
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 179
traced, so he had to come back with his
tooth still in. We fed him on bread - and-
milk, and sent him to bed like a naughty
boy, but I was very sorry for him. They
both remained with us till the following
Monday, when each had to return to duty.
I was very sorry not to be able to take
Rose about myself, as I was not well
enough, but it seemed to me that the con-
valescents and other friends showed her
more sights than I had ever realised there
were to be seen in the whole of Kimberley.
About this time a quite unusual thing oc-
curred ; I had visits from four ladies from
England in one day. Mrs. Burn and Mrs.
Baird, whose husbands both commanded
Yeomanry regiments, called one morning,
and Mrs. Harry McCalmont and Mrs. Barry
in the afternoon. They all went away the
next day, which I was very sorry for, as
they would have been worth their weight in
gold to cheer us up in the Home. On the
evening of the 29th, Nan and I, Mr. Wade,
and Mr. Bagshawe went for a long drive
towards Wesselton, a direction I had never
i8o YEOMAN SERVICE
been in before. It was really most delicious,
as there was a touch of freshness in the air
and the light was lovely. Wesselton is an
Indian village of very picturesque mud houses,
and the people are all Asiatics in all sorts
of quaint dresses. The sun was low, the
light just that becoming one which gives
everything a touch of mystery, and the people
were sitting and standing outside their houses,
forming lovely groups of colour. We drove
as far as the open veldt, quite away from
the dust, and turned our backs on the " blue-
ground" rough heaps of the Diamond City.
Those artificial hills, that at first sight seemed
rather fascinating in their angular forms round
the town, become only a little eyesore after a
short residence there, impeding as they do
the open view of the surrounding country,
the breadth and vastness of which, to my
mind, is almost the only fascination of the
African veldt.
On the 24th we had heard that Lord
Hoberts's army had crossed the Vaal, appa-
rently without much fighting, and on the 3ist
we heard the flag was hoisted in Johannes-
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 181
burg; but there was very little excitement
about it. Lord Roberts was going on so
fast that everything seemed a foregone con-
clusion.
Mr. Kenworthy came to dinner on the ist,
and brought me a quantity of wine, spirits,
and stores from the Red Cross Society, of
which he is one of the managers. He was
on his way up to Mafeking, taking all
sorts of things likely to be useful there,
and was only waiting for the line to be
opened to go on. He is one of the men of
whom there seemed to be many out here,
young fellows, who, from no fault of their
own, but simply from want of health in some
way or another, are unable to fight for their
country. They are devoting their lives and
their best energies to helping those who can,
and they do work hard, too, and bear all
kinds of hardships. I hope some notice will
be taken after the war of these people, who
" likewise serve," although they may appear
"only to stand and wait."
About half a mile from the Convalescent
Home stands the Conning Tower, a small
1 82 YEOMAN SERVICE
covered-in gallery built on the top of one
of the highest shafts in Kimberley. From
thence it was possible to overlook the whole
of the town and the country around for
miles, and during the siege Colonel Kekewich
spent most of his time up there. Mr. Carey,
Captain Powell, and I had started to go out
for an ordinary drive, but as we passed the
Conning Tower something prompted us to
wish to go up it. To get there you go
through the yard and into the engine-room,
out of which opens a narrow staircase 'about
two feet wide, with a slight hand-rail on
each side, which goes perfectly straight
ahead into the sky apparently. It is, I
should think, 200 feet high. I started to go
up, but found that my head, which is usually
a good one for precipices, was still weak, I
suppose from the fever, and I beat a hasty
retreat with the horrible feeling that I was
almost afraid to go down even the few steps
I had gone up. I said I would wait for
Captain Powell and Mr. Carey, who went on.
I was waiting about down below look-
ing at the engines, when I got into conversa-
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 183
tion with one of the workmen, who asked
me if I would like to look down the mouth
of the shaft into the works, and we went
down a funny little slanting passage into an
underground room which was very hot and
stuffy and full of steam. I asked where the
steam came from, and the reply was, " Oh !
it is always there ; it is mostly dynamite
and Kaffirs." There was a considerable drip
from the ceiling as well. Just then Captain
Powell and Mr. Carey appeared, and two or
three more people belonging to the works who
knew me, and asked; me if I would like to
go down the diamond mine. We were quite
ready to do so, and were told to step into
the cage, the floor of which was a large
puddle of water with two rails across it. I
had to stand on tip-toe on the rails and lean
against the wall, and then we went down I
believe 900 feet. I turned my skirt up over
my shoulders as I had a tidy dress on, not
at all designed for going down a mine, and
one man put a coat over my shoulders. It
was extraordinarily hot as well as damp.
Down we went very fast, finally arriving at
1 84 YEOMAN SERVICE
a vaulted room with passages branching off
in several directions, and a group of Kaffirs
sitting in various dresses and curious attitudes
waiting to go up. It was all well lighted
with electric light, but it was very strange
and grey and cold looking, but very hot
feeling.
We did not go farther, as there is nothing
much to see, and I was haunted by a horrible
story I had heard, that when the inhabitants
of Kimberley accepted Mr. Rhodes' s offer to
take refuge in the mine from the hundred-
pound shells which were then being freely
fired at the town, they preferred, after a few
hours' sojourn below, the possibility of being
killed above to the certainty of being eaten
by " bugs " below.
The "blue ground" in which the diamonds
are found is dug or blasted out and put into
trucks which are sent above-ground, where
it is spread out in big lumps on a great field.
There is one which is thirty acres in extent.
There it is left for a year or more to dry, and
is the most valuable field in the world, as
the thirty acres are said to be worth thirty
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 185
millions. This great field, which one passes
on the way to Kenilworth, is surrounded by
a very high fencing of barbed wire. There
are sentries round it, and an electric search-
light plays on it at night, so that it is impos-
sible for any one to steal even one small
lump of earth, and it gives one a curious
feeling in driving past to think that such vast
sums of money are concealed in this very
unpleasant-looking field. We went several
times to the De Beers works. The Company
was kind enough to give me orders to take
my convalescents there, and it always made
an interesting and not too tiring expedition
for them.
Iron trucks are filled from the field with
blocks of " blue ground," as the soil containing
the diamonds is called. These are wheeled
right into the works, which are surrounded
by a high wall with sentries outside. The
greatest precautions are taken to ensure that
no diamonds are stolen. All the Kaffirs that
work inside the works above-ground are
convicts, and they are searched daily, and
the Kaffirs (not convicts) who work under-
1 86 YEOMAN SERVICE
ground are engaged for four, six, or twelve
months at a very high rate of pay, but are
never allowed to leave the compound where
they live except to go under-ground to their
work, until their time is up. The works them-
selves are very interesting. There are rows
of great machines which pulsate all the time,
and are therefore called pulsators. The object
of this is, I believe, to force the diamond to
separate itself from the "blue ground." In
the beginning the lumps of earth are com-
paratively large, but they go through an
immense number of different pulsators, with
water running over them all the time, the
dust in each case becoming finer and finer,
until at last the diamond disappears, and re-
appears mysteriously in another building, on
the top of a series of sloping trays, each covered
with a kind of grease that adheres to the
diamond and prevents it slipping away. The
diamonds are taken off one or other of these
trays, and then put into a common tin can,
which is carried into the office, where it is
upset on to an iron table surrounded by an
iron railing, at which two men sit sorting,
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 187
as it were, the sheep from the goats. That
is to say, the diamonds and the crystals or
other quasi-precious stones garnets, for in--
stance which are also found in the " blue
ground " ; the larger diamonds are put in one
cup, the smaller in another, and that is about
all the distinction that is made at first be-
tween stones worth a few pounds and others
worth thousands. The whole affair strikes
one as an extremely rough process for deal-
ing with anything so precious as a diamond,
and yet the officials assured us that a diamond
was never lost. The ground is gone over many
times, going through many different hands,
and as theft is impossible except amongst
people who are above suspicion, the loss of
a diamond is practically an impossibility. Of
course to this is to be added the fact that it is
next to an impossibility in the existing state
of the law to sell a diamond in the rough,
unless one has a pass proving that one has
acquired it honestly. The trade of an I.D.B.
(Illicit Diamond Buyer), which has been the
foundation of the fortunes of so many people
of wealth in the present day, is now so risky
1 88 YEOMAN SERVICE
as to be practically non-existent. We were
taken into the office, where the diamonds are
kept in great safes, and were shown some
lovely ones. Many of them looked like big
pieces of sugar-candy, and when perfect they
are nearly all octahedrons.
Many of the diamonds were a lovely pale
yellow, which I admired very much, but their
value is to my mind extraordinarily small
compared to that of a white diamond. This
is mostly a matter of fashion, although un-
doubtedly a very perfect brilliant is more
brilliant than any yellow diamond could be ;
but I fancy that if some beautiful women
were to start the fashion of a tiara or riviere
of these yellow diamonds, she would not only
find them exceedingly becoming to herself,
but they would instantly become the rage.
I think it was Sarah Bernhardt who said that
no woman who respected herself ought to
wear diamonds ; and in a way it is true, be-
cause, except to a very young woman, the
remarkable brilliancy of these lovely stones
undoubtedly detracts from the brightness of
the eyes and complexion. I should like to
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 189
say in parenthesis that I have no interest in
yellow diamonds. We were all given a few
tiny garnets as a memento of our visit to
the mines.
On Sunday, June 3, I was invited to bring
all my party to the De Beers compound, where
the Kaffirs who work for the De Beers Com-
pany are practically imprisoned during the
period for which the Company engages them.
The men are exceedingly well paid and ex-
tremely well taken care of. The compound is
a large enclosure with small low houses all the
way round, which contain their sleeping bunks,
stores where they can buy food at low prices,
a very comfortable hospital with three large
wards, a good surgery and operating room, and
a large chapel. In one part of the yard there
is a great tank with a verandah all round it
where the men can bathe. The manager, Mr.
Manley, had got up a little performance for us
of his Kaffir Choir, who sang extremely well,
the men, like most black people, having very
sweet voices. Then some of the men who
were Zulus appeared in full war-dress, or rather
undress. Thev executed a wonderful dance
190 YEOMAN SERVICE
with howls and scowls and most extraordinary
gestures and attitudes. On first going into the
compound, I had admired a curious pipe with
twisted brass stem and inlaid bowl, and inquired
if I could purchase it. Almost immediately it
was given to me, and I was not allowed to pay
for it, so although I saw many things that I
should have dearly liked to buy, I restrained
my admiration from the fear of seeming greedy ;
but whilst I was watching this dance, feeling
very pompous as I sat in the only chair, sur-
rounded by quantities of people, I was asked
if I did not admire a belt of red, white,
and blue beads which one man was wearing
round his waist. I said " Yes " without
much thought. To my horror, at the end of
the dance the man advanced and with a flash-
ing smile and rolling eye bowed low, undid
his belt and presented it to me (it was nearly
the only thing he had on). I did not for a
minute know what to do, as I would almost
rather have done anything in the world than
touch the thing, all warm as it was ; but the
manager told me he had got it for me, so
I smiled gravely and as gratefully as I could,
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 191
and felt thankful that for once in my life in
Kimberley I was wearing gloves.
Some of these Zulus were very fine men, and
they looked splendid, stalking about in their
many-coloured blankets, but it is rather start-
ling when, as happened more than once to me,
a beautifully draped man takes the opportunity
when he is walking towards you of wrapping
himself closer in his blanket, because to do
this he has to open his arms wide, disclosing
a very scantily garbed brown figure within.
The Kaffirs all feel the cold very much, and
they walk and sit with their hands crossed
over their chest, drawing the blankets under
their chins, so this arm-and-eye-opening action
is necessary to draw their blankets tight, and
is very startling, to say the least of it. The
groups of the men in the compound were
wonderfully picturesque. Some were cooking
mealie cakes, some making coffee, others play-
ing musical instruments which were very like
ghigelleras, only with the addition of small
copper bowls beneath the wood. Others were
playing football, and all looked cheerful and
healthy and happy. We saw one curious old
1 92 YEOMAN SERVICE
man who is said to be 115. The De Beers
Company have given him a little house of his
own to live in, and I believe he never intends
to go away. Of course there are no women
in the compound. The men all seem quite
devoted to the manager, who is, one can see,
very kind and thoughtful with them. We
were quite sorry to leave and go home.
There is much that is very attractive about
these Kaffirs, and they are so good-natured
and cheerful, and seem to be always smiling,
but they are sometimes very startling in their
ways. I used generally to write my letters
for the mail after the convalescents had gone
to bed, and one night about 12.30 I was
sitting in the drawing-room with of course
the electric light turned on, when some one
knocked at one of the windows. I was rather
frightened, as I was quite alone, every one else
having gone to bed. I asked who was there
in as steady a voice as I could command, but
could only make out indistinct murmurs, so
I went round to the hall door. The electric
light had not been turned out on the stoep,
and I could see through the window that
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 193
there was a Kaffir outside with a large parcel.
I opened the door and asked him what he
wanted, and he informed me that this was a
parcel from the grocer's. I told him to be off,
and not to bring parcels to the house at such
an hour, to which he replied, "Yes, missus,
very sorry, missus, not do so no more."
Another night, just as I was getting into
bed, I went to close one of my windows, when
I saw a black face with a brilliant smile grin-
ning at me through the same window. This
was past one o'clock and he also had come
to deliver a parcel. I promptly turned off
the light and told him to put it down any-
where. I suppose these are customs of the
country, but they are distinctly alarming in
their unexpectedness.
Another evening about this time we went
for a drive past the cemetery, and on our left
we noticed that there were troops on the top
of one of the great banks of blue-ground
refuse surrounding the woodwork of two
shafts. We thought it would be interesting
to see what these men were doing, so we
climbed up to the top, and found about
N
i 9 4 YEOMAN SERVICE
twenty men guarding quite a strong little
fort which had been used during the siege of
Kimberley, and was now again garrisoned ; a
step which was, I fancy, very necessary, as the
Boers were very unsettled in these parts.
The fortifications were generally made of
large sacks filled with earth neatly piled, and
I should think it would be impossible to find
anything more ready-made in the shape of a
fort than these great piles of refuse. They
reminded me in shape very much of the piles
of refuse in a coal country, but in this case
they almost directly become quite solid, which
does not happen with coal refuse, I think, for
some years. All round Kimberley there are
these natural forts, and in such a great
straggling place as it is, they must have been
very useful, though it must have taken a great
number of men to guard them successfully.
On Monday, June 4, we heard a great
deal of news from Major Sawyer : our
troops were in Pretoria ; our prisoners re-
leased ; Commandant Botha and many Boer
prisoners taken ; and Kruger had retired to
Lydenburg. We felt so glad and happy and
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 195
thought that the war must soon be at an end.
On June 5 Miss Bateman arrived and my
Home was quite full. We had a very cheery
dinner, and afterwards we were all talking in
the drawing-room when Marion came into
the room and gave me a telegram. I read it
and walked quietly out of the room, which
I think was behaving very well, as it was to
tell me that Lance was wounded. It was
signed " Lance Lindley," and at first I thought
it must have been sent by a man called Lind-
ley in the regiment, as I did not know that
such a place was in existence, but since then
it has become more or less famous from the
amount of fighting that has gone on there.
I soon pulled myself together and made up
my mind at once to go straight up to the
Club to try and find Major Sawyer. Having
changed my dress, I went back to the draw-
ing-room in my hat and jacket. They all
looked at me with great astonishment, and I
was a little taken aback, because I thought
Nan would have told them my bad news ;
but when I had done so, I received the
utmost sympathy and, as always, the greatest
196 YEOMAN SERVICE
kindness from them all. Mr. Le Marchant and
Mr. Bagshawe insisted on coming up with us,
and I think they would all have done so, if it
had been of the slightest use. We walked till
we got a Cape cart, and when we got to the
Club we found that a great dinner was going
on, under the presidency of Sir Charles Par-
sons, to celebrate the relief of Mafeking.
Major Sawyer and Captain Davis came out at
once and were more than kind and sympa-
thetic. Major Sawyer ran up to Sir Charles
Parsons to ask his advice, and when he came
back again said that Sir Charles wished me to
have a special pass and to go round to Lance
the next day. Then they showed me where
Lindley was, and I found that I should have to
go past Bloemfontein, up to Kroonstad, and that
Lindley was then about forty miles eastward.
I was amazed to hear that Lance was there,
and could not understand it, for my last letter
had been from Bothaville, forty-five miles west
of Kroonstad, when the regiment expected to
cross the Vaal into the Transvaal, and Lindley
was about a hundred miles away eastward.
Major Sawyer and Captain Davis said they
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 197
would arrange everything for me, so we started
for home. Our driver suddenly developed signs
of drink, and although he had driven us to the
Club all right, on being told to go to the School
of Mines, he insisted on driving in exactly the
opposite direction, and finally nearly upset us.
However,, we ultimately got home all right,
but we wasted some precious time. We had a
funny little supper of cake, wine, and biscuits,
Major Sawyer and Captain Davis both turning
up. Looking back, it seems to me all very
queer and nightmare-like. I could not help
saying things that made them laugh, and yet
I never felt less like laughing in my life.
At last we began to pack, and very soon got
the things sorted out, Miss Bateman and Nan
doing most of the packing whilst I gave direc-
tions. I had to implore the convalescents to
go to bed, or they would have stayed up all
night to help us. When the packing was
done, I set to work to write letters, partly
adieux to friends in Kimberley, and partly on
business. I gave Major Sawyer over-night a
letter to take to Mrs. Seymour to ask if she
and Lady Idina Brassey would take over the
] 9 8 YEOMAN SERVICE
Home, and finish it out with the convalescents
who were already there, and a few others I
had already asked to come from the hospital.
Mrs. Seymour arrived at seven o'clock the
next morning, and to my intense relief most
kindly undertook to do so. I managed to lie
down for an hour, but of course could not
sleep, as there was still so much to think of
and settle. A visit to the Bank with Mrs.
Seymour in the morning to introduce her to
the manager, and give her a blank cheque ;
money to draw to pay our fares, and a
letter of credit to obtain money if necessary
when I got into strange lands ; the servants to
settle with ; and innumerable other things to
think about, filled up very easily the fourteen
hours I had at my disposal after I got the bad
news.
I felt very sad at leaving the Home, although
I then had a vague hope that I might return
to it, bringing my wounded soldier with me,
but it seemed a dreadful thing to leave these
men who had got accustomed to us in the
hands of comparative strangers. I never can feel
grateful and thankful enough to Mrs. Seymour
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 199
for the splendid way in which she stepped into
the breach, especially as her friend, Lady Idina
Brassey, collapsed the very next day with enteric
fever.
My train started at eleven o'clock, and they
all came to see me off*, and also a good many
other people who had got wind of my departure.
There had been some talk the night before of
an officer who was going round to Bloemfontein
taking me in charge and looking after me, and
when I got to the station a gentleman came up
to me and said, " I am so sorry to hear about
Rolleston." I felt just a little surprised, as the
people there generally called him " Colonel," as
he was a stranger to them, and I only gave him
a very passing glance whilst I told him all I
knew. Suddenly something struck me and I
looked at him again, and it flashed upon me
that it was Lord Charles Bentinck who had
come down the night before from Mafeking
after his long imprisonment there. I was so
glad to see him ; it seemed so good, amongst
all those comparative strangers, to see some
one from home who knew and cared for Lance.
I suppose it was that I was so very tired that
200 YEOMAN SERVICE
I felt so desolate when I left Kimberley, but
I think also that it is impossible to receive
so much kindness and consideration from
absolute strangers as I was fortunate enough
to encounter in Kimberley, without loving
a place and feeling sorry to leave it, espe-
cially as I was unable to say good-bye to the
many kind friends I had made whilst I lived
there.
The only change in the line coming down
from what we had met with going up to
Kimberley was that we passed over the
renewed Modder Eiver bridge, instead of
the deviation, as we had done before. The
bridge had been repaired in less than three
months ; good work indeed, as it is a long
one. We got to De Aar at eleven o'clock
at night, and had to turn out and wait there
for three hours. Nan and I were sitting
guarding our luggage when a gentleman
came up to us, who afterwards told me he
was Major Wood in charge of remounts at
East London. He asked us if we would
have some coffee, for which we were indeed
grateful. He had a friend with him, and
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 201
they both looked after us splendidly, treating
us to our coffee and arranging all about a
carriage for us on to Bloemfontein. They
could not get us a sleeping carriage, but
they got us a first-class to ourselves, and we
pulled out our blankets and managed to go to
bed very fairly comfortably.
This is the sort of kindness I met with over
and over again whilst out there. It must never
be lost sight of, when thinking of two women
travelling alone, that all the stations are
under military management, and that there
are no railway officials, properly speaking,
from whom one has a right to ask help, and
that one is entirely dependent on the kind-
ness and civility of officers and men, which
I personally found never failing. After De
Aar we were in an enemy's country, and
one soon knows it too, as all the stations
are devoid of their usual officials, who, being
Boers, have retired elsawhere, probably on
commando, and one is dependent upon a
casual " Tommy" for anything one may want.
One gets it all right, only it needs training
to ask for it ! Major Sawyer had told me
202 YEOMAN SERVICE
to ask at all the principal stations for news
of Lance, as he promised to send them on
if any came after I left.
The country round here was rather greener
than by the other line, and one occasionally
passed a really nice-looking farm, but the
want of trees was what struck one more
than anything. There is no question that
they will grow well enough in this country
because those planted round the farms flour-
ished exceedingly. In Cape Colony there
are quite considerable woods planted round
the towns, and in the neighbourhood of
many of the farms, but here in "Boerland"
trees are very few and far between, and this
made the country most monotonous in as-
pect.
It was very interesting going over the
new bridge at Norval's Pont. One saw the
deviation and remains of the old bridge
just below in the Orange River, which is
very fine just there, with plenty of trees,
some very fine ones, along the banks, and
picturesque hills all around. I think it is
the prettiest place in point of scenery, apart
THE CONVALESCENT HOME 203
from greenery, I have seen up-country. I
liked Paarl and Wellington chiefly on ac-
count of the trees, but Norval's Pont would
be fine even without any.
It was the destruction of this very fine
bridge that delayed Lord Koberts for so long
on his forward march. I was told that all
the stores at first had to be swung across
by a sort of rope bridge, and it is marvellous
how the engineers have repaired the iron
bridge so rapidly, for the piers were de-
stroyed. The deviations for the rolling stock
had to be made four miles long, the one
near the bridge being only for passengers
and horses.
There are very large hospitals at nearly
all the stations between Norval's Pont and
Bloemfontein : some of them were full, others
had only commenced working and were not
yet complete. It is always saddening to
notice, as one passes these great hospitals,
the little cemetery at some distance so sadly
full, and filled, one knows, in such a short
time. There was one very large convales-
cent hospital in course of erection at Spring-
204 YEOMAN SERVICE
fontein, which was to accommodate, I believe,
two thousand people.
From Naauwpoort I telegraphed to Lord
Valentia, who I was told was at Bloern-
fontein, to ask him if he would be so kind
as to meet me. I had telegraphed to my
brother when I left Kimberley, but it was
extremely unlikely that he was still at
Bloemfontein, and as I heard we should
arrive there very late, and I had no idea
where to go, I thought I had better try
to secure some friend to help me. At
Edenburg, Major Eden and a Captain Blois
(I think) were very kind, and insisted on
telegraphing for rooms for me at the Masonic
Hotel, as they told me that the Central
Hotel, which is really the best, was then
kept by a Dutchman or German (he left
soon after), and as he was inclined to be
very uncivil to Englishmen, it might be rather
unpleasant there for Englishwomen.
CHAPTER V
BLOEMFONTEIN
I GOT to Bloemfontein about eleven o'clock
and Sir Charles Hunter met me. He was
in charge of Yeomanry affairs there, and had
opened my telegram, as Lord Valentia had
gone to Pretoria. He walked up with Nan
and me to the Masonic Hotel, and on the
way Sir Charles told me that there was fight-
ing north all up the line, and he very much
doubted the authorities allowing me to go
on. I had had no news of Lance since
leaving Kimberley and the anxiety was horrible
to bear, but fortunately I was so tired that
nothing would keep me awake. Nan and I
were having a little supper before we went
to bed, when Lady Henry Bentinck came in.
She had heard from Sir Charles Hunter that
I was coming, and, late as it was, came
down to see me. Never was anybody more
205
206 YEOMAN SERVICE
welcome, and it was cheering to see any one
so charming as she always is.
The Masonic Hotel is a funny little inn
with a courtyard at the back. On the left-
hand side are two storeys of bedrooms, and
there are two other rows of bedrooms on the
ground floor. Nan and I had two tiny little
rooms opening on to a balcony which one
reached by a steep wooden staircase. Outside
my room was a basket-sofa on the balcony,
and here Nan and I made our sitting-room,
putting our Jaeger blankets and some cushions
we had with us on the sofa, and here I
entertained my visitors all the time I was
at Bloemfontein. It used to get very cold
at night, and as one could not make dinner
last longer than eight o'clock, we used to
have to go to bed to keep ourselves warm.
The little hotel was quite full of officers
passing through the town, and the dining-
room with its small tables was a tiny replica
of the great room at Cape Town. But here
everything was very different ; for one thing,
when I got to Bloemfontein food was still
very scarce, and one never attempted to order
BLOEMFONTEIN 207
anything, being only too thankful for what
one could get. Then the officers very often
came clanking in in full marching order,
snatching a hasty meal before they went off
on duty, and one realised one was at last " at
the front." Then every day a table would
' be filled by some nurses just staying in
Bloemfontein, perhaps only for a meal, or
possibly for a night or two before they went
on to join some hospital farther north.
Whilst I was in Bloemfontein eight or ten
nurses belonging to the Scottish Hospital at
Kroonstad arrived, and as the line was cut,
they as well as I were compelled to abide
patiently in the Masonic Hotel. It was a
very fortunate thing for me that this was
so, because when I got up to Kroonstad
they were the greatest help and comfort
to me.
On the morning of Friday, June 8th, I
made my way to the head-quarters, arriving
there about eleven o'clock, when I was told
that if I came back at twelve I should see
General Kelly-Kenny. I was fortunate enough
to know him slightly, having met him at
208 YEOMAN SERVICE
Aldershot in December, when I was there
to see my brother off with his regiment. He
was exceedingly kind, but he told me it
would be impossible for me to get on to
Kroonstad at present, as the line was cut at
Roik Spruit and there was considerable fight-
ing going on. I thought he looked very
worried, and no wonder, for it is a very
serious thing for a General when the line of
communication with the main force is cut.
He spoke to me most kindly about my brother,
and gave me something cheerful to think about
in the middle of all my worry. I was glad to
hear from Colonel Benson, Chief of the Staff,
that Arthur's camp had been such a pattern
one that the General used to take people
out to look at it, and that his men were
so well cared for that they had a compara-
tively clean bill of health. I was glad to
hear that he had carried his undoubted genius
for dodges and plans to the seat of war with
such excellent effect.
After leaving the head-quarters I went to
the P.M.O.'s office to see if he could give
me any advice, but I found there was nothing
BLOEMFONTEIN 209
to be done. Lady Henry Bentinck came to
tea and to hear if I had had any news. I
thought she was looking very delicate and
fagged out, which is no wonder considering
the very hard work she had been doing.
Two of the D.C.O.'s (Duke of Cambridge's
Own), who had been invalided at Bloemfontein,
and whom I had met previously, also came
to tea. They were full of the tales of the
capture of the D.C.O.'s and Irish Yeomanry.
Every one was talking about it, and the story
in Bloemfontein was, that when they were
taken the Boers nearly stripped them and
turned them out on the veldt. No one knew
what had become of them, and every one was
anxious. I little knew at the time how much
all this concerned me. The following morning
Lady Airlie and Miss Eoberts brought me
down a telegram from my brother, which had
been sent to the Residency for me. He therein
informed me that he was at Kroonstad.
During the day I wrote my name in Lady
Roberts's book, as I was told it was the proper
thing to do. The Residency, where she was
living, was lately President Steyn's house,
210 YEOMAN SERVICE
and is a fine building, much the finest house
of the kind I have seen out here, and there
are beautiful trees about it. There are many
fine buildings scattered about in Bloemfontein,
but the whole place was so dreadfully untidy,
considerably more so, I imagine, than it could
possibly be in times of peace, that one could
not do the town justice. The great blemish
on the place, from a sanitary point of view,
is that there is running right through the
middle of it a river-bed which was nearly
dry when I was there. It was littered up
with all manner of rubbish, and is practically
the main drain of the town. I personally
thought the air at Bloemfontein most op-
pressive, and as I was there in the winter
I could only argue that in summer it must
be nearly unbearable. There are many fine
trees about the town, but I did not see any
gardens equal in promise to those I saw in
Kimberley. The Raad-Zaal, one of the finest
buildings, was turned into an enteric hospital,
and north and west of the town was a long
chain of immense camp hospitals, absolutely
full of sick.
BLOEMFONTEIN 2 1 1
In the afternoon of the 9th Nan and I paid
a visit to St. Michael's Home. Although I
had had no introduction to the Reverend
Mother, I was anxious to make her acquaint-
ance, as I had so often heard Sister Henrietta
speak of her at Kimberley. The Home here
is quite large, just like a convent, only it
has no enclosing walls. There is a wide
arcade round two sides of the house instead
of the ordinary stoep. It has arches which
give the house quite a Continental look,
very different from the usual wooden balcony
one generally sees, and very much cooler.
The Reverend Mother's room is a small
dark one down two steps on the right of
the hall. She received us very kindly, and
presently asked me if my husband was re-
lated to the Nottinghamshire Rollestons, as
her brother had told her in a recent letter
that Mr. Rolleston, the Master of the Rufford
Hounds, had come out with the Nottingham-
shire Yeomanry. When I said he was my
husband, she told me that she was a sister
of Mr. Harcourt-Vernon of Grove. I suppose
it is impossible to explain to any one who
212 YEOMAN SERVICE
has not gone through it what it is, when one
is in a strange country and in great trouble,
to come suddenly and quite unawares upon a
friend of friends at home. Everything strange
seems swept away and one feels almost inti-
mate at once. After some talk about the
many friends we had in common, she told
me that there was a son of our friend Sir
Henry Blake ill with enteric in the hospital
attached to the Home, so I went to see him,
and found him looking very ill indeed, but
most cheerful. He had come out with the
D.C.O.'s, but I think I may say that he was
more fortunate in being taken ill than if he
had remained sound to be taken prisoner.
We had a long chat, and I think it cheered
him to see some one who knew so many of
his people. The ward he was in was a great
big room, packed more closely than any other
ward I had seen in South Africa, with beds
full of enteric patients, but as it was very
lofty, they were all doing well. Attached to
this Home there was a small cottage hospital
for officers, but I never had time to visit it.
From the Home Nan and I went on to
BLOEMFONTEIN 213
the "Damen" School to look up the Canadian
Sisters. Three of those who had been at
Kimberley had moved on here a short time
before. They were very surprised to see us,
and we were sorry to find that Sister Home
was only just beginning to recover from an
attack of enteric, and had been very ill.
As Nan and I were walking along the
road that day we heard a voice we knew
speaking to some one just behind us. I turned
round and recognised Mr. FitzGerald, who
had been so kind to us on our journey up to
Kimberley, and early the following morning
he sent up his card and asked to see me.
On going down, I found that he had brought
a barber called Caplin, a Boer, to see me.
This man had been at Lindley the Monday
before and had shaved Lance ! He could
tell me really very little about him, although
I asked him many questions. He said he
had shaved so many gentleman that day that
it was difficult to remember much about each,
but he said Lance spoke cheerfully, though
he thought he was very badly wounded, as
he was so much bandaged up ; but there was
214 YEOMAN SERVICE
no doubt that he had seen him, for he had
written his name down in his note-book, be-
cause Lance had been obliged to overpay
him as he had no change, and Caplin had
promised to work it out by shaving him if
he ever came to Bloemfontein. I cannot
exactly explain why, but my conversation with
this man made me more anxious, I think,
perhaps, because I saw that he felt sorry for
me, and I had the feeling that he was keep-
ing something back.
Nan and I went to church at eleven o'clock.
The church was a very fine one and the service
was beautiful. I stayed for the second service
with Lady Airlie. It was a choral service and
comforted me very much. I walked afterwards
with her as far as the Residency, and she
was so kind and so sympathetic, telling me
how her husband had been wounded too. He
had been with her at Bloemfontein, and had
just gone back to the front. She was
quite brave, bright, and cheerful, and did
me no end of good. Sir Charles Hunter
came in that day, as he did nearly every day,
to find out if I had any news, and also to
BLOEMFONTEIN 215
tell me anything he could that he thought
would cheer me. I received a telegram the
following morning from Colonel Ryerson say-
ing Lance was wounded in the arm and side a
fractured arm, but doing well. I was dread-
fully upset to hear he was wounded in the
side too, but as they said he was doing well
I thought I ought to wire home, which I
did, as I knew how many were there waiting
anxiously for news. As Colonel Ryerson said
in his telegram he hoped to see me soon, I
thought I might hear something more definite
before long. I paid my daily visit to the head-
quarters to find out if there was any more
chance of my getting on, but there was none,
as the line had again been cut farther north.
I drove in the afternoon to the Portland
Hospital, which was encamped about two
miles outside the town, close to one of
the largest general hospitals. I had heard,
to my great regret, that Captain Davenport,
A.D.C. to Sir Alfred Milner, was laid up
there with enteric. I found him not very
seriously ill, but quite bad enough for any-
thing. He had been up to Pretoria with
216 YEOMAN SERVICE
despatches for Lord Roberts, and had brought
down some from him with letters also for
Lady Roberts. After delivering these he col-
lapsed and had to go to hospital. The Port-
land Hospital was here just as it was at
Rondebosch, beautifully arranged and com-
fortable. Everything here, even illness, strikes
one as being so much more serious than it was
at Cape Town. Of course the consciousness
of living in an enemy's country, of hearing
day by day news of fighting, and, alas ! too
often disaster, depresses one and makes one
feel fall of dread, but Bloemfontein at that
time was a most sad place. What it must
have been a month earlier when there were
so many deaths daily I shuddered to think.
On the 1 2th, much to Nan's and my plea-
sure, we met Mr. Bagshawe, who had been
in my Home at Kimberley. He had arrived
the night before, and of course he came to
tea with us, and we heard how things had
gone since we left. Mr. Grylls, who had
also been in the Home, turned up that day
with some parcels for us, and told us, what
I was so sorry to hear, that Lady Idina
BLOEMFONTEIN 217
Brassey had enteric. When I came home
that day to luncheon, I found an orderly
waiting with a peremptory note from the
Provost - Marshal, Captain Hitchcock, asking
me by whose permission I had come to
Bloemfontein, and desiring me to send him
my pass at once. No one had asked to see
my pass since I had come to Bloemfontein,
I suppose because Sir Charles Hunter had
met me, but as I had a special one from
Sir Charles Parsons, I was determined not
to part with the precious document ; so I
desired the orderly to tell the Provost -
Marshal that I would myself bring it in
the afternoon, and I went up to the office
about three o'clock.
The English Government have taken over
the Boer Government offices, and this very
large building appeared to be a series of offices
in possession of the military. I was shown
into a large, light, very hot, in fact rather
stuffy room, with books round two sides of it.
It was divided off by large writing-tables
almost into different rooms, and a number of
anxious-looking Boers were under process of
218 YEOMAN SERVICE
examination, and there were several officers
and officials about. It was all rather alarm-
ing after the little rooms which I had got
to know so well at Kimberley. However, I
remained as cool and dignified as I could,
and sat quietly in the chair which was
placed for me, as Captain Hitchcock was
not there. I was quite amused at watching
the examination that was going one. Most
of the Dutch people were trying to get passes
to leave, and as far as I could make out
they were generally unsuccessful. Presently
Captain Hitchcock arrived and asked me my
business, so I answered, " I believe you wish
to see my pass, so I have brought it."
Curiously enough, I had been so busy and
anxious that until that day when he sent
for it I had not myself read it, but on the
journey from Kimberley to Bloemfontein,
when it was necessary to show it I had
handed it to the different railway staff
officers without looking at it. I had noticed
all the journey through that they were
rather extra fussy and kind, but I now
found that Sir Charles Parsons had given
BLOEMFONTEIN 219
me a special pass as well as the ordinary
necessary one, requesting that I should re-
ceive every attention and assistance, &c.
Captain Hitchcock read it, then jumped up
very indignantly and said, " You should
have sent this pass up here before, Lady
Maud, or shown it at the station. I had
no idea you were here or had this, and I
ought to have known." I replied that I was
sorry ; that no one had asked to see it,
and that as General Kelly-Kenny knew I
was here, I supposed it was all right, and
that he was doing all he could to send me
on. Captain Hitchcock was most kind to
me after this. He promised to do all he
could to help me, and kept his word. That
evening I met Lady Airlie going to the
Residency and walked a little way with her.
She was in such good spirits then, and went
into the house to hear within an hour that
Lord Airlie was killed.
On the 1 3th I had a note from the Provost-
Marshal saying that he was afraid there was no
chance of my getting up to Kroonstad, as all
passes north were stopped on account of the
220 YEOMAN SERVICE
condition of the line, shortness of supplies, &c.
My only course, he said, would be to apply to
the Chief of the Staff, namely, Lord Kitchener.
I cogitated this advice well ; it was rather
a case of "bearding the lion," but I felt it
could do no harm, and it might do good, to
ask his leave, as I felt sure that if it was
possible he would let me go ; so I composed
the following telegram, of which I was, I
think, justly proud, though it did cost me
7s. 6d. : "Lady Maud Rolleston to Lord
Kitchener, Kroonstad. My husband, Captain
Rolleston, Imperial Yeomanry is severely
wounded at Lindley. I shall be very grate-
ful if you will allow me and the surgical
nurse with me to proceed to Kroonstad,
and if possible to Lindley. I have sufficient
food and drink for us both for a consider-
able time, and have secured accommodation
at Kroonstad, and shall therefore be no
strain on your resources. My husband has
wired asking me to join him."
I was dreadfully shocked to hear that
morning that Lord Airlie and Charlie Caven-
dish, Lord Chesham's eldest son, had been
BLOEMFONTEIN 221
killed in a fight near Pretoria. I never
felt so sorry for any one as I did for Lady
Airlie ; perhaps my own anxiety made me
realise her position all the more acutely.
We heard later that the line was cut again
south of Kroonstad, so it seemed hopeless
to even wish to get up now. About this
time I managed to arrange to be driven
through to Lindley in a Cape cart with
horses. I was to go as the daughter of a
Boer farmer who had secured a pass. It
was 100 miles, and we were to do it in
three days. I only confided my plan to
one Englishman, and he ultimately put me
off by telling me that I might hear of my
cart and horses being taken by the Boers
and myself left plantee on the veldt, and
I should certainly have been robbed of all
my stores ; besides, there was the great risk
that I might not find Lance at Lindley when
I got there, so I gave this plan up.
That evening Nan and I went for a good
long drive with Mr. Bagshawe right round
one of the hills south of Bloemfontein. We
got a good idea of the town and surround-
222 YEOMAN SERVICE
ing country and a splendid view right across
the veldt to Thaba Nchu, but I was not at
all attracted by the scenery.
On the 1 4th we had very anxious news.
We heard that the line had been badly cut
and blown up between this and Kroonstad,
and that fighting was going on all round
there. It was very trying, as I had the
double anxiety of knowing that my husband
was wounded and that my brother and his
regiment were in the thick of all this. I
found it hard to be brave, as one had
nothing definite as an occupation. One felt
the change after our busy daily life at Kim-
berley, but we managed to tire ourselves out
pretty well every night with one thing and
another. Of course, if there had been any
chance that I should have stayed long at
Bloemfontein, I could easily have got some-
thing to do, but it was no use taking up
any definite work when one might have to
leave it at any moment. As it was, we
never unpacked our boxes and could have
started at any time.
I again went to see Mr. Blake, and on our
BLOEMFONTEIN 223
way back Nan and I met, to our surprise,
Miss Ethel Webb and her sister, Lady
Chermside. They had not heard that Lance
was wounded, and were very sorry and sym-
pathetic. I found that they were all living
at a house called " Kotorua," behind the hill
round which we had driven the night before.
It was three miles away from Bloemfontein
and very lonely, but still they were out of
the way of the fever, and it was a charming
house when you got there. I was not at all
well that day, so Nan and I went for a little
drive, as I thought it would pick me up,
and we met Mr. Bagshawe just off to the
Glen with a detachment of mounted men of
the most mixed description. It was splendid
to see him handling his rifle, and we con-
gratulated Nan greatly on her handiwork, as
there was no doubt that the course of mas-
sage that she had given him had greatly
helped to make him sound again.
It was weary work bothering people, which
one was obliged to do or one might be for-
gotten, but on the I5th I heard that the line
was repaired and No. 4 hospital train was
224 YEOMAN SERVICE
coming down with some of the wounded from
Lindley on here, and that it was believed that
Lance was amongst them. I had to go off
to the P.M.O. to obtain leave for Nan and
me to travel down on the train with Lance,
if the surgeon in charge would take us. All
this was late in the afternoon, and we had
to pack up and get down to the station at
10.30. One of the very kindest friends I
found in Bloemfontein was Captain Alleyne,
who was then K.S.O. I used to go and bother
him every day, and although he was always
frightfully busy, he was more kind and con-
siderate than words can say or than I can
ever forget.
When we got to the station, Nan and I
were told to hide in the ticket-office, because
Lord Kitchener was on Board No. 4, and no
one was to be allowed on the platform except
the officials. We peeped out round the corner,
and I had a back view of the great General
leaving the station the first time I had ever
seen him and I was shocked to notice that
he stooped very much. One had always heard
how very upright in k figure he was, and I think
BLOEMFONTEIN 225
this brought home to me more than anything
how severe the work he has done out here
must have been for it to have had this effect
upon him in these few months. When he
had disappeared, Captain Alleyne sent for us
on to the platform, and directly I saw him he
said, " He is not here," and introduced Colonel
Ryerson to me, who began to say something
nice. I was so sick with disappointment that
I could not speak for a moment. However,
I soon recovered, and Colonel Ryerson told
me he had good news of Lance's progress for
me, but that he had been very seriously
wounded, the bullet going so near his spine
that for three days his legs were nearly com-
pletely paralysed, and that he was regaining
the use of them, and was really going on
well, but he had not seen him. This news
of paralysis horrified me, as I could imagine
nothing more terrible to a man of his mental
and bodily activity than permanent disable-
ment. I went back to bed a very miserable
woman.
The following morning I met Colonel Benson,
who said I could have my pass, and I had had
226 YEOMAN SERVICE
a note the night before from the Provost-
Marshal to say he thought it was all right. I
ultimately received at Kroonstad a telegram
from Lord Kitchener which should have
reached me sooner, saying that I had his per-
mission to go up, but that I was to arrange
with General Kelly-Kenny. To this day I do
not know whom I should specially thank for
being allowed to go on my way rejoicing, but
I do know that from all these gentlemen I
received kindness which has left an impression
that will never be effaced as long as I live.
I went to the Provost-Marshal and got my
pass ; went to the General's head-quarters to
get it checked, and then I had to go to the
station to see how I was to get on, as no
passenger trains were going up. During this
week I received about 20 from England,
most of which had been subscribed by my
poorer neighbours at home to help me with
a convalescent home and to do any good I
could for suffering " Tommies." I received
altogether the next few weeks from friends
at home about ^70, and as Colonel Ryerson
told me that soldiers of all kinds were suffer-
BLOEMFONTEIN 227
ing terribly from cold and want of warm
clothes, I got all I could in Bloemfontein.
When I first arrived there, there was hardly
anything to be got, as the shops were very
nearly empty ; but one day I went to purchase
some trifle at a large linen-draper's shop and
saw a man standing on the counter hanging
the most lovely " sweaters " on a rail above.
I flew to him and said, "What are those?' 1
and he said, "Sweaters; they have just come
in." So I said, " Don't hang them up : I'll
take them all." There were about forty-eight
of them, and it filled my soul with joy to
become the possessor of such lovely warm
things. I also found socks, warm shirts,
pants, and some warm gloves. These made
up two good boxes full. I also invested a
little money in some tinned food, which
came in most usefully afterwards. I had
brought a certain amount with me from Kim-
berley, but I now found that food and every
luxury was so scarce that it was as well to
buy it up wherever one met with it, which I
did, paying rather famine prices, of course.
It was very amusing to be in Bloemfontein
228 YEOMAN SERVICE
when Lord Kitchener arrived, and reminded
me of nothing in the world so much as of
being in a village school which is awaiting
the periodical visit of the Inspector. Such a
bustle and running about, and everybody so
busy seeing that everything was in exactly its
right place, because, as more than ane officer
told me, " He sees everything, you know."
Sir Charles Hunter came to see me that even-
ing, and told me with great glee that his
"scratch pack" of soldiers of different corps
that he had horsed on remounts had acquitted
themselves splendidly near Smaldeel. They
had walked their horses (few of them rode
well enough to trot) out towards the Boer
position, and their appearance was so terrific
that the Boers instantly evacuated it.
I could have got up this day to Kroonstad
by travelling in the guard's van of a luggage
train, but my experience in this luxurious
conveyance from the Paarl to Cape Town
convinced me that after three nights and
days spent in nothing else, I should be abso-
lutely worthless on my arrival at Kroonstad ;
so as I heard that a Red Cross train was
BLOEMFONTEIN 229
due at any time and would go north not
later than Monday, I decided that Nan and
I, being after all only women, had better
wait for that. On Sunday morning it simply
poured with rain as it only can in South
Africa, I think; so I did not go to church,
but it cleared up about 12.30, and we walked
down to the station to see if we could get
news of the train. On the way I met
Captain Alleyne, who told me that No. 4
would be in in the afternoon and that a
Mrs. Wilkinson was in a train at the station.
Her husband was second in command of the
Sherwood Foresters Derbyshire Militia, which
had just been badly cut up at Eoodeval
Station in a surprise attack, and many of
them taken prisoners.
I had heard from Lady Chermside that
Colonel Wilkinson had been badly wounded,
and that she was very anxious about Mrs.
Wilkinson ; so I asked Captain Alleyne if I
could go and look her up, as he said she
was all alone. He seemed very glad that I
should do so, so we all went down to her
train, which had been shunted, and we found
230 YEOMAN SERVICE
her all by herself in a sleeping carriage. 1
shall never forget how lonely and miserable
she looked, and I was so glad that she re-
cognised me, and we remembered that we
had once met at home. I had great diffi-
culty in persuading her to come off and
lunch with me, as she was afraid to leave
the station for fear her train should go
without her, but I managed to make her
see that Captain Alleyne would not dare to
let a train, in which it was possible for me
to travel, go north without me, and that she
was quite safe if she remained with me. I
was able to convince her of this by assur-
ing her that I had worried Captain Alleyne
so much that he would certainly take the
first opportunity of getting rid of me !
After luncheon we went to the head-quarters
to see if they knew anything about Colonel
Wilkinson, but they did not, so we went
on to the big Grey's Hospital to see Mrs.
Goldmann, who was a friend of Mrs. Wilkin-
son, and who was nursing there. We then
went on to the Free State Hotel, as she
hoped to see Major Watson, Lord Kitchener's
BLOEMFONTEIN 231
A.D.C., but he was out, and we sat on the
stoep out of the pouring rain and talked
to Colonel Templer, balloonist, and several
other officers. Looking back to this time,
it seems like the strangest of dreams. We
were all so anxious ; the news one heard day
by day was all of fighting and death, it
seemed, and we were all frightfully anxious,
and yet we were quite cheerful. Our clothes
were all very shabby and our hearts very
sore, but our manners were beautiful.
Mrs. Wilkinson, Captain Nathan, and I
had an awful walk that night in search of
No. 4 Hospital Train to a siding which we
were told was quite close by the station,
but which turned out to be about two miles
away. Captain Nathan had a lantern, and
we wandered down lines and muddy lanes
across nullahs a foot deep in mud, and it
got darker and darker every minute, until,
by the time we arrived at the train, it was
literally pitch dark, and then Dr. Stewart,
whom we had come to see, was not on board.
I had on a long waterproof coat, and I
felt it was an absolute impossibility that I
232 YEOMAN SERVICE
could walk back two miles in it, and I
was fortunate enough to find a good-natured
orderly who got a lantern and carried my
coat back for me. Mrs. Wilkinson had to
go back to the station for her luggage, and
as I had promised to dine with Colonel
Kyerson and was already very late, I decided
to go straight to the hotel by a shorter way
with the orderly.
Quite suddenly we realised that we were
completely lost. There were no street lamps
in Bloemfontein at that time ? and at night
those rectangular roads looked stupidly alike.
At last we got to a ray of light which came
from a distant house, and I decided to wait
there until some one came who knew the
way. Presently we saw two kharki - clad
figures, and when we asked them if they knew
where the Masonic Hotel was, they offered to
personally conduct us, at which I was
most glad. My boots were caked with mud,
and what made progress still more difficult
was that the deep ditches on each side of
the road were simply rivers of water. At
last I stopped on the brink of one of these
BLOEMFONTEIN 233
which was too wide for me to jump, and I
was very loath to wade through it, as wet
clothes in an hotel where no fire is acces-
sible are a most horrible nuisance. Our
unknown friends spoke broad Scotch, and
like most Scotchmen soon made up their
minds. I was seized by an arm on each
side and jumped across before I knew where
I was, but I had two splendid bruises on
each arm for a week or two afterwards.
These two young men turned out to be
orderlies waiting at Bloemfontein to go up
to the Scottish Hospital at Kroonstad. All
these orderlies were medical students from
different hospitals in Scotland, and splendid
fellows they were, doing their work right
well and setting an example of what an
orderly should be to many another who did
not know the rudiments of his duty.
On Monday, June i8th, Mrs. Wilkinson,
Colonel Eyerson, Nan, and I left Bloemfontein
in No. 4 Eed Cross Hospital train at twelve
o'clock. Dr. Stewart, who married the Duke
of Norfolk's sister, Lady Philippa Howard, was
in command of the train, and he had two nurses
234 YEOMAN SERVICE
and about eight orderlies as well. The train
seemed very comfortable, but he intended to
make several improvements in it the next time
he went to Cape Town, and to add another
carriage, as at that time it only took ninety
patients.
It was unfortunate that we started so late, as
we missed seeing by daylight some part of the
line where fighting had been going on so re-
cently. But all along this line fighting was
going on still, and it was quite possible we
might be fired at or stopped at any moment,
as ours was the first train to go through. We
arrived at De Wet River, where the bridge had
been destroyed, and there was a very wide de-
viation. All this we saw before dark. The
station was in a state of suppressed excitement,
as an attack was quite possible that night.
As we approached the station I saw some
unmistakable Yeomen riding in, and as I was
quite in the dark as to where our regiment was,
I implored Colonel Ryerson or Dr. Stewart to
call out and ask who these were, but they were
shy or something and did not answer. It was
too dark to recognise anybody, but as we got
BLOEMFONTEIN 235
close to the station I saw four men on horse-
back ; one seemed familiar, and I said so to
Nan, so I called out myself to the nearest man,
who was a sergeant, to ask him who these
Yeomen were. Not his but another voice
called out, "Is that Lady Maud?" I replied,
asking who it was, and it was Mr. Frank Fitz-
herbert, whom I had last seen at Cape Town.
He rode along as far as he could close to the
carriage and told me he had had a most ex-
citing week. He is in a Militia regiment, and
they had been in the thick of the fighting
about there. The others were much amused
at the way I found friends everywhere, and
Colonel Eyerson declared that when I died
"Yeoman" would be found written on my
heart. I thought it extremely probable.
It was really very exciting going down the
long deviations in those long trains. There
is an engine at the end as well as the head
of each train. Going down, it acts as a drag
and prevents the train passing too quickly
down the incline. Going up, it pushes the
train and one feels no single engine could
manage the job. The train serpentines along
236 YEOMAN SERVICE
over apparently the flimsiest bridges, round
very sharp corners, up and down astonishingly
steep hills, things which it would appear to
be impossible for the ordinary locomotive to
do. Several times one passed the remains of
a magnificent railway bridge which had been
wantonly ruined by these destructive Boers,
and one realised what a " sell" it must have
been to them to find our engineers so easily
circumventing the difficulty and impossibility
of creating a new bridge in time for the im-
mediate progress of the troops by making
these marvellous deviations. 1 woke up as
we passed Zand Biver in the middle of the
night and as it was splendid moonlight, I saw
it all beautifully. Our train passed just under-
neath one of the fallen girders. Zand River
Bridge had been one of the finest on the line,
as it was very high and the deviation here had
to be a very long one.
I had a very bad night because at Brandfort
we heard that Colonel Wilkinson was dead.
Of course it was decided not to say anything
to Mrs. Wilkinson until we were absolutely
certain, but I felt so unhappy for her that I
BLOEMFONTEIN 237
could not sleep. However, when we arrived
at Kroonstad at seven o'clock the following
morning, we heard that he was in hospital
there, and although very ill, she was able to
take him south that very day, because, when
Dr. Stewart found that the line was still im-
passable from Kroonstad to Pretoria, he de-
cided to return south at once. The line had
been very seriously damaged at Rhenoster
Road, where the Derby Militia were so badly
cut up.
CHAPTEE VI
KROONSTAD
I WAS fortunate enough to find another friend in
the RS.O. at Kroonstad, Mr. Herbert Sotheby.
One day whilst I was at the Masonic Hall
at Bloemfontein a Mr. Deikl came up to me
and said that he was the proprietor of a
hotel in Kroonstad, and although it had
been turned into a hospital, he had been able
to retain a few rooms, and as he heard that
I was waiting to go up there, if I would let
him know, he would always find me accommo-
dation. This was most kind of him, and
now that I was at Kroonstad I wished to
avail myself of his offer.
Mr. Sotheby told me of some very com-
fortable lodgings where Mrs. Mackeson had
stayed when on her way some time before
to join her wounded husband, but I found
that Nan and I could not possibly manage
there, because one of the nurses at the hospi-
238
KROONSTAD 239
tal lived in the bedroom during the day, so
that we could only have had it during the
night, and I don't quite know what we should
have done with ourselves for the other twelve
hours ; so Mr. Sotheby walked on with us
down to the Kroonstad Hotel. Mr. Deikl soon
appeared, and showed us two rooms, a very
comfortable bedroom and a sitting-room. I
refused to look at Nan whilst I gratefully
accepted them, because I knew what her face
would be like and the disapproval it would
express ; for, as I have said, this hotel was
a hospital, and all round the courtyard on
which our rooms looked out were rooms full
of enteric patients, and the usual smell sympto-
matic of enteric fever prevailed everywhere.
But I did not suppose we should have to
stay there very long, and a shelter we must
have ; and we had certainly run the gantlet
of enteric with impunity so far, although I
had had slight fever at Kimberley.
Colonel Ryerson had left us early at the
station and had gone off in search of my
brother Arthur, who, with his regiment, 1 was,
1 The Oxfordshire.
2 4 o YEOMAN SERVICE
much to my delight, stationed here. From
the hospital Nan, Mr. Sotheby, and I walked
round a corner to General Charles Knox's
head-quarters, as I wanted to find out at once
before I unpacked if I had any chance of
getting out to Lindley. The General, whom
I had also met at Aldershot, told me it was
quite impossible ; the road was so dangerous
that he had to send every convoy out under
heavy escort ; in fact, just at that time none
could go at all, and I must possess my soul in
patience. No runners had been able to get to
and fro, so there was no news of Lance to be
had. The General said he would send for Artie,
and he introduced some of his staff to me
whilst I waited on a seat for my brother to
come. Although it was only about 9.30, I felt
very tired, for we had been on the go for hours.
My brother soon arrived, riding with Colonel
Ryerson. It was simply heavenly to see
him, just real joy for once in this vile country.
We all walked back to the hotel, and Artie
at once said he thought it was unsafe for us
to stay there, and needless to say Nan quite
agreed with him. I said, "But what are we
KROONSTAD 241
to do?" He replied that he would go to the
District Commissioner, Captain De Bertodano,
and ask him to commandeer us a house ; he
would give us one of his soldiers as a bat-
man, and we should be able to manage some-
how. I said, " All right ! " and we walked up
to the Commissioner's office, meeting him on
the way. As soon as he found out what we
wanted, he at once asked us to go to his own
house. I did not know what to say, for it
is a strong order to invade the only refuge
of such a busy man as he, and I explained
that I wanted to be somewhere where I could
receive Lance when he came, as I hoped
the doctors would let Nan and me take charge
of him instead of sending him to a hospital.
The Commissioner said, " He can come
too ; that is all right," and explained that it
would be less trouble to him to receive us
in his house than to look for one with
servants, &c., suitable for me. I was help-
less, and could only most gratefully accept,
so he sent us away with a note to his
servant, and of course I only expected to
be there for a very short time. We found
Q
242 YEOMAN SERVICE
a nice little house with a stoep round two
sides of it ; a drawing-room and a dining-
room, one large bedroom and a smaller one
behind, and a kitchen and another bedroom
behind that. Everything was very dusty, as
everything in South Africa is, and the fol-
lowing day I secured a very nice Kaffir
girl called Annie, who came in every morn-
ing for a few hours to straighten things up
for us. My brother also gave me a soldier
servant, George, and these two with Captain
De Bertodano's man, Coles, formed the house-
hold.
That night General Knox and his two
staff officers, Captain Marescheux, A.D.C.,
and Captain Thomson, C.S.O., came to dinner,
and we heard a great deal about the engage-
ments at Zand River and along the line,
which had all been very sharp ones. General
Knox brought me a letter from Lance, ad-
dressed to Bloemfontein, which had come
in from Lindley by a runner. It was written
with his left hand, and in this he said he
was going on well, but that Lindley was
surrounded by Boers, who were shelling them
KROONSTAD 243
every day. When he wrote he did not know
I was there, but the Commissioner had sent
a letter from me through a black runner, so
he would know in a day or two.
The General asked us to go down the
next day to Zand River with a pilot engine,
and I should have gone, but Nan had a bad
fall overnight, and shook herself so badly
that she was quite unfit, and of course
would not leave her. I walked up to the
station to explain to General Knox about
this, and then walked through the town in
search of the Kaffir girl Annie.
Kroonstad is a straggling untidy place, with
no fine buildings, and a hideous great white
Dutch church, just like the china churches
with coloured glass windows one sees used
for covering night-lights. There are very
few shops, and there was hardly anything
in them. Food of all kinds except meat
was very scarce, and we were more than
lucky to be in the Commissioner's house, for
he was able to get milk, butter, and eggs
all great luxuries there.
The river is the most attractive point about
244 YEOMAN SERVICE
Kroonstad. There is a large dam right across
above the drift (ford), and this makes the
river really full and deep above. There are
also some very fine willows which hang
picturesquely over the stream, and the banks
are steeply shelving, with large bushes and
small trees in considerable numbers, giving
the appearance from the distance of well-
wooded banks, which, on closer acquaint-
ance, resolved themselves mostly into mimosa
bushes and reeds, but the wooded appearance
is most unusual in South Africa.
My brother came down to luncheon, and
afterwards we went for a lovely walk along
the banks of the river. We had to get
through fence after fence of barbed wire,
which had, in most cases, been cut down
somewhere, so was loose enough to squeeze
through. The fences had been made to mark
the gardens which ran from some better-class
houses on the hill right above down to the
river. At last we got to a quite unsurmount-
able high fence, and we were looking at this
and wondering how we should circumvent it,
when an old Boer, who was working at it
KROONSTAD 245
close by with some Kaffirs, came up to us
and asked us what we were doing. Artie told
him that we were trying to get through.
" No," he said veiy rudely, " you must go
back ; there is no way here. I have just
put this up to prevent soldiers going along
here." My brother was of course in uniform,
and he said very quietly, " You have no right
to do so." The Boer replied, "The soldiers
do a great deal of mischief and destroy
everything." Artie said, "You should not
go to war if you don't want soldiers here."
The old man went on to say a number of
rude, grumbling things, which made me feel
very irate, but he saw we did not intend to
go back, so he finally took us up a hill
and showed us a way out through his yard.
As we walked up he said something about
the war not being over yet and things not
yet being settled, and further that the Boers
might still, get the best of it. I was amazed
at my brother's patience, because the old
fellow was so very rude ; but he only laughed,
which was undoubtedly the best thing to
do. The old man was called Wessels, and
246 YEOMAN SERVICE
was a very short time after sent south as a
suspicious character.
I had unpacked all the warm things that
I had brought up to give away, and the
Commissioner told me I might put them
into the drawing-room. General Knox had
been very glad to have a pair of gloves ;
in fact, I think they all were, for the nights
and early mornings were bitterly cold, and
of course such luxuries were quite un-
obtainable. Some one sent me that day
some men of the Yorkshire Light Infantry
for warm clothes ; they were literally in
rags, poor things, and very grateful for
what I had to give them. It used to be
most touching to see the men arrive, look-
ing very down in their luck, and it made
me very happy to send them away with an
armful of warm things, and to see their
gratitude. A great many of the men to
whom I gave clothes whilst I was in
Kroonstad used to come back the following
day, or the same afternoon, to show me that
they had got them on and how comfortable
they were in them.
KROONSTAD 247
After luncheon on the 2ist, Nan and I
went up to the Oxfordshire camp to hear
the band play and have tea with my brother.
His camp really was a picture. It was so
neat and tidy and well arranged that we
said we should really have thought he kept
gardeners and housemaids on purpose to dust
and sweep up. It was quite a pleasure to
go there, if only to see something in this
untidy country that was orderly and decent.
I now saw for myself what I had heard
at Bloemfontein, that his camp was such
a picture that General Kelly-Kenny took
people to see it, and I was not surprised.
He was exceedingly particular about all sani-
tary matters, and at Kroonstad had tapped
a spring and made the men enlarge a hole
that was there already in a nullah. He
had the ground round the spring paved with
bricks and the water ran through the channel
into this hole, and there was then a splendid
great bathing-place, while another channel was
cut to form a place where the men could
wash their clothes on rough tables. There
were always a lot of men down there, as
248 YEOMAN SERVICE
there always would be in the neighbourhood
of water in South Africa, because water out
there means comfort, health, and cleanliness.
Colonel Hickson commanding the Buffs,
Captain Marescheux, and Mr. Baird were
also there, and we had a most cheerful tea,
sitting on tins full of biscuits, drinking out
of tin mugs, and eating the most delicious cake
made by the regimental cooks.
I left rather hastily because we saw a large
convoy coming over the hill from Lindley,
and in the middle of it was a Cape cart
flying a Red Cross flag. As I thought it
was just possible Lance might be in it,
although they all laughed at me, I jumped into
my Cape cart and went off to waylay it. I
found it contained nothing but hospital stores,
and I turned home disappointed and disgusted.
Dr. Crisp, an officer of the Yorkshire Light
Infantry, came to see me that evening, be-
lieving me to be Lady Longford, and raised
my hopes sky-high by giving me a very
glowing account of the progress of my
husband, until I discovered that he was
talking about Lord Longford. I think he
KROONSTAD 249
had heard of Lance, and knew that he was
badly wounded, but that was all.
Writing about our sitting at tea on the
tins of biscuits reminds me that I have for-
gotten to describe the fortified condition of
all the stations that we passed north of Bloem-
fontein. As a rule, they had quite high and
deep walls made of tins or boxes of "bully"
beef; in many cases there was a Maxim gun
or two, with their little noses pointed through
a window made in these boxes. All the
stations had deep entrenchments round them,
and they were in most cases quite tidy little
forts. In several places we passed over nullahs
where the Boers had blown up the small
bridges which cross them, and in most cases
our engineers had replaced these by temporary
bridges made of crossed pieces of wood. I
thought they were most ingenious, but I do
not know how to describe the bridges properly.
Of course they would have been washed away
if much water were to run down the gorge
they traversed, but this was the dry season.
On Friday, June 22, I somehow heard that
Mr. Basil Throckmorton, who had been in
2 so YEOMAN SERVICE
our Convalescent Home, was ill in hospital
here ; so Nan and I paid our first visit here
to No. 3 General Hospital, which we had
already seen at Rondebosch. We found him
with some difficulty, looking very ill, as he
had had a bad fall over a rock in the dark,
and injured himself considerably. We were
all so glad to meet again. Nan and I have
always had a weak place in our hearts for
those first inmates of our Convalescent Home.
I got leave to take him back to the house
for luncheon, and we were able to have a
good talk over everything since he left us ;
and as he had been almost all the time with
the same column as Lance, though in a dif-
ferent regiment, he was able to tell me much
that was most interesting. He had left
Lindley the day after Lance was wounded,
so could not give good news of him, as of
course Lance was very ill at that time, but
he told me one thing that touched me very
much, which was, that on the night of
June ist, when he came upon the South
Notts Hussars 1 camp, he said to them, "Well,
how have you got on?" and he could get
KROONSTAD 251
nothing out of them except "The Colonel's
dead ; " the men were all so down they would
not talk, only told him that Lance had heen
shot so severely he had died. Of course at
that time he had not been brought in, as
he had to lie out after he was shot for
hours until some time after dark, before it
was safe to go and fetch him, as he lay so
near the Boer lines and it was most difficult
to find him. Everything I heard made me
more and more anxious, because now I knew
that they had little or no comfort at Lindley,
practically no food and only a makeshift
hospital; but I tried very hard not to think
about it, as it only made one feel ill and
useless.
Everybody in the place seemed to combine
to give me no time to think of my troubles,
and Major Harries, who was in charge of a
very large remount camp there, asked Nan
and me to go to tea with him that afternoon.
His camp was in the middle of a ring of quite
large eucalyptus trees and was on a cliff just
above the river, so it was quite pretty. He
had such a nice tea ready for us, with a real
252 YEOMAN SERVICE
tablecloth and a real china teapot, milk, and
bread and butter. We were immensely amused
while having our tea by the antics of a Kaffir
cock, who rejoiced in the shortest possible
legs combined with a very ambitious nature,
which made him dissatisfied with any but
the highest possible perch at night on a high
bare tree. He walked round and round this
tree and made funny little rushes at it, flut-
tering his wings, and then walked away pre-
tending he had not wished to fly up that
time. All his wives got up quite easily, and
at last he managed to reach a low bough
from which he could fly to a higher, and so
on until he was satisfied; but what was par-
ticularly funny was that directly he got on
to the tree he crowed with all his might, and
continued to do so on every higher branch
he could attain to until he composed himself
for the night.
That evening I wrote up my diary, which
had got considerably in arrears, and whilst I
was doing so, a very long cipher telegram was
brought in to the Commissioner, which, much
to my delight, he let me help him decipher,
KROONSTAD 253
my first experience of such work, which I
found very interesting, as it is rather fasci-
nating to see the news gradually develop,
and read of guns and men captured or lost.
The next day, Saturday, after luncheon Nan
and I walked down with Artie and Captain
De Bertodano to the drift, where we took a
number of photographs of a very large convoy
crossing on the way to Lindley. There were
about 1600 men altogether, composed of in-
fantry, yeomanry, artillery, and stores, with
their drivers and boys. It was a most pic-
turesque and interesting sight. The drift is
a beautiful spot on a fine day such as this
was, and a very curious one. On the south-
west is a dam, behind which the river Valsch
is quite deep, but below it is the river-bed,
composed of curious flat rocks almost like a
pavement, with the river trickling through the
interstices between the stones. Things are
generally upside down in South Africa, so one
is not surprised that the wettest part of a
river is generally a drift or ford, and this was
the case here. The carts, and horses, and
artillery splashed through this ford, but the
254 YEOMAN SERVICE
infantry and yeomanry walked quite dry-shod
on either side right across the river. The
road runs down to the drift on either side
very sharply and steeply, as the banks are
almost precipitous. The trek-waggons ran
gaily down to the river ; but oh ! the tug-
of-war when the pull up the other side came !
The waggons had each ten yoke of oxen or
twenty mules. In some cases they were very
fine powerful animals, but in others they were
miserable specimens. In one case they were
literally ten yoke of calves! General Knox
was at the drift himself, directing the crossing
of the convoy, which took hours to get over,
and at last he ordered a " puffing-billy " to
come to the rescue to help the trek-waggons
up the hill. The convoy would only be able
to get seven miles from Kroonstad by twelve
o'clock next day.
Whilst I was gaily photographing and enjoy-
ing what was to me a very novel and interesting
scene, the General came up to me and said,
"Would you not like to go with this convoy
to Lindley, Lady Maud?" "Why, of course,"
I replied. "Well, I think you can go," he
KROONSTAD 255
said, " but you need not start until to-morrow
about eleven o'clock. You can easily catch
them up." I was very much astonished, as
both that day and the night before I had
seen a good many of the officers who were
going out with the convoy, and they all ex-
pected a good deal of fighting; in fact, one
gathered that from the strength of the escort.
Before riding off, General Knox told me I
must find my own cart, as he could not help
me there, so I turned round to ask Captain De
Bertodano how I could get a cart to go in, and
found him looking very severe, as he thought
I should have a very rough time of it. I had
a great tussle with him and with Artie, who
was very much afraid that 1 should get into
trouble ; but I was, of course, determined to
go, and had settled in my own mind to leave
Nan at one of the hospitals, as I had no right
to run her into danger, when a message came
from General Knox to say that he was obliged
to retract his permission, as he found it would
not be safe for me to go. I was horribly
disappointed, but it was a great mercy I did
not go, for more than one reason. One was
256 YEOMAN SERVICE
that the convoy had to fight the whole of its
way for four days to Lindley, and two men I
spoke to that day were killed and many others
wounded, so that I should certainly have been
very much in the way, and I might indeed have
cost valuable men's lives, and enough had been
lost out there without that.
I sent out by the convoy a most delightful
box packed with comforts champagne, brandy,
whisky, Brand's beef-tea, and a lot of warm
clothes. Of course I addressed this to Lance,
but said that if he was gone, it was to be used
for any of the sick. I never heard what became
of it.
We heard that night that there had been
severe fighting up the line on Friday at Honing
Spruit, when the Boers attacked the train which
was bringing down some of the just-released
prisoners from Pretoria.
On Sunday, June 24, Nan and I went to
the nine A.M. service at No. 3 Hospital. All
the Oxfordshires were there, and many more
of the troops. They all stood in a square
with the clergyman in the middle, the band
playing the hymns, and the service was all
KROONSTAD 257
very heartfelt and quiet. A message was
brought to Artie after the service that the
General wanted to see him, so I walked
with him to head-quarters and found Lord
Chesham just back from Deelfontein.
Artie, Colonel Hickson, and some other
men came to luncheon, and afterwards Artie
and I walked to the remount camp and
criticised the horses. Some of them were
good, but most of them were very wretched
specimens of horseflesh. The sort of horse
you see in such a place at a time like this
is on a parallel with the outcast child of a
great city. It does not look as if it had
ever known happiness, or care, or good food,
and just as if rest, and lots to eat, and
peace would kill it from sheer astonish-
ment. These horses have no countenances ;
they look all brute. It is very sad, and one
wonders how much is owing to the country
and the war, and how much to the nature
of the beast. They stand in long rows,
picketed, or, as later, tied up to long rows
of posts and rails. Indian syces groom and
look after them, and the poor beasts are all
R
258 YEOMAN SERVICE
kindly treated when they get into the camp ;
but it is the getting there that leaves the
mark upon them. It does not do to think
of the awful sufferings the horses went
through who had to travel long journeys
by rail. They used to go seven or nine of
them in one open truck, heads all one way
looking over the side. If all the horses
were good - tempered and quiet, they got
pretty safely to the end of their journey, but
if one, or, worse still, two or three, were
restless, bad-tempered animals, some of the
horses were sure to get down, with the re-
sult of broken limbs, eyes knocked out, and
every imaginable horror. Sometimes the
horses kicked great holes in the sides of
the truck, and I have myself seen a horse's
broken leg hanging through the side of one
of these. Can one wonder that every one looks
sad, that every one seems years older, and
that patience and gentleness are the virtues
learned by such bitter training in a cruel
war like this? To any one who loves ani-
mals, the sufferings of the beasts out there
were one of the bitterest trials of the war.
KROONSTAD 259
Two Canadian nurses that I had not met
before came down to tea this afternoon
from No. 3 Hospital. I think that all the
Canadian nurses have been a great success
out here. They are such bright, pleasant
women, and the men all speak so highly of
them. They seem gayer and lighter-hearted
than the English nurses, and get more fun
out of their lives in some way. They were
not a bit heartless, only they looked more
on the sunny side of things such a mercy
in a life like this ; and they were certainly
more independent, and not so inclined to be
machines in their obedience to discipline,
as I thought the English nurses were occa-
sionally to excess.
Colonel Rochford, R.H.A., came to dinner.
He was at Honing Spruit on Friday, and
told us all about the engagement. He had
gone up with a party of gunners. Colonel
Bullock, who was taken prisoner after an
obstinate fight at Colenso, having refused to
surrender, was again commanding on this occa-
sion, and now made another gallant fight;
and when again called on to surrender re-
26o YEOMAN SERVICE
fused to do so, and beat the Boers off. but
not until several lives were lost and many
men wounded. Major Hobbs of the West
Yorkshire was between Colonel Bullock and
Colonel Rochford in a trench at the time
he was killed. Colonel Eochford had dined
with us the Thursday before, and this had
all happened in between.
We were sitting almost in the dark over
the fire, for lamp-oil was a luxury and we had
to carefully economise it, and I had just been
thinking over my disappointment at not being
able to get to Lance at Lindley, when Coles
suddenly came into the room and said, as if
he was announcing dinner, "Colonel Rolles-
ton is at the door in an ambulance." The
surprise was so great it made me feel quite
ill. I flew to the door, and the Commissioner
declares I tried to knock him down because
he was in my way. It was very dark, and
we brought out some candles which we put
on the gate-posts, and we could then make
out the great hood of the ambulance cart
with its Red Cross flag flying above. Lance's
voice came from the other side of the cart,
KROONSTAD 261
and I thought it sounded very strange some-
how. He could not get down, so the Com-
missioner simply lifted him out and carried
him into the house and put him on to my
bed. I shall never forget the shock I re-
ceived when I saw him ; he looked so far
more ill than I expected, that I just thought
to myself he has come back to me to die.
I could see from his breathing that something
was wrong with his lungs, but he was most
aggressively cheerful, so much so that, as
I have told him since, it was perfectly
ghastly.
He begged for something to eat, and said
he could eat anything, as it was only food
he wanted to pick him up. Dinner was on
the table, and we gave him some soup and
champagne, and they brought some mutton
with the accompaniment of one of our luxu-
ries pickled onions ; and I have shuddered
many a time since at the thought of giving
a man in his condition pickled onions to eat ;
but it did not make much difference. I wanted
to send at once for the doctor, but he begged
me not to, and I thought it best not to worry
262 YEOMAN SERVICE
him. Mr. Villiers Stuart, of the Irish Yeo-
manry, had also come in with him, and they
had had a terrible drive. The way they had
managed to get away from Lindley was this.
Lance got leave from General Paget to leave
if he could manage it on his own respon-
sibility, and he made friends with a very
kind Boer doctor at Lindley, Dr. Kickover
(I do not know how to spell it), who treated
the English soldiers with the utmost huma-
nity and kindness, far greater than they
received from the English doctor. Dr. Kick-
over lent Lance a Boer ambulance, and said
that if he came in on Sunday, as the Boers
are generally quiet on that day, he might
get through all right ; and so they would
have done had not the two Boer drivers
managed when crossing a deep drift to turn
the cart upside down.
Mr. Villiers Stuart managed very cleverly
to save himself from falling on the top of
Lance, but everything else in the cart did
so, and his servant, Priestman, who also came
in with him, told me that when they picked
him up and found his face covered with
KROONSTAD 263
blood, that he thought to himself, " Well,
the Colonel is done for this time." How-
ever, he was not, and as they were close to
some water he washed his face, and when
they had righted the cart they proceeded on
their way. The six horses had jibbed or
something of the kind, and it never seemed
to occur to these stupid men to jump down
and attempt to right them. We never knew
how much injury this upset caused Lance,
but a drive of forty - five miles over very
rough ground to a man with three broken
ribs, a shot right through his body, in-
cluding his spine and right lung, and an
arm broken by a bullet, was not conducive
to a restoration to health.
A few days before this I had been to the
Grand Hotel, a rather nice two-storeyed house,
which had been turned into the principal
hospital of the town. There were several
men that I knew there, amongst them two
officers in my brother's regiment. I was
sitting on the box at the top of the stairs
waiting to see the Sister in charge, when
a doctor ran up the stairs and asked me
264 YEOMAN SERVICE
if there was anything he could do for me.
I told him I had come to see one of the
officers of the Oxfordshire, and he turned
out to be Major Pike, R.A.M.C., who had
been doctor to the Oxfordshires until quite
a short time ago, when he was taken away
from them and given command of a field
hospital, very much to my brother's regret.
He had spoken to me in the very warmest
terms about him; in fact, he always said
that Major Pike had saved his life, because
on the third of the ten days for which the
engagement at Paardeberg really lasted, a
well-substantiated rumour was prevalent in
the camp that Cronje had surrendered, and
my brother went out with an officer and
two men to look for three of his officers
who were killed on the first day at the
beginning of the battle. They were quite
close to the laager, when they heard a shout
behind them, and saw Major Pike on his
pony beckoning to them to return. They at
once did so, and the Boers promptly opened
fire upon them, but they got back unhurt to
find that it was a bogus report. Of course
KROONSTAD 265
I was very pleased in consequence to make
Major Pike's acquaintance, and he then told
me that if he could be of any assistance to
me about my husband at any time he would
be only too glad.
After a very bad night with Lance, who
was restless and wandering and coughing all
night, I went off in search of Major Pike,
first paying a visit to the Scottish Hospital
to beg the loan of a mattress, which they
most kindly gave me, offering me anything
I wanted besides. Poor Lance was in such
pain that it was impossible to make a bed
soft enough for him to rest on for many
days after. I had such a hunt for Major
Pike. To look for any individual amongst
the legion of camps round a town like
Kroonstad during a war is a difficult thing
to describe to any one, but I found him at
last, or rather his quarters, where I could
leave a message for him, and he turned up
about five minutes after I got back. Then
we found that Lance had got pleurisy badly
added to his other troubles, and I soon
knew that Nan and I had our work cut
266 YEOMAN SERVICE
out for us if we were ever to take my
husband back to England.
Then came an awkward moment. Two
gentlemen came up through the garden to
the door, and I went out to them, and found
they were Colonel Wood, P.M.O., in charge of
No. 3 Hospital, and Major Gray. If I had be
haved properly I ought to have sent for Colonel
Wood first, but I did not know where he was
to be found ; in fact, at that time nothing about
him except that he was P.M.O. I was very
tired and frightened and sick with anxiety,
and just the one thought possessed me,
knowing that I had outraged all the pro-
priety of red tapeism, " Will he be angry
with me and take Lance away to the
hospital?" I was soon ashamed of the
thought, for no one could have been kinder
than Colonel Wood was. He said he had
brought Major Gray to attend upon Lance,
but that as Major Pike had taken him in
hand, and Major Gray was already very
busy, he was only two glad that Lance
should remain in such good hands. All
was peace, and those three gentlemen have
KROONSTAD 267
little idea to this day how grateful I was to
them for their forbearance and gentleness.
For many days after this Lance was very,
very ill, fit for nothing but quiet, care, and
food, and I left him very little alone; but
as my brother had not turned up on the
Monday after Lance arrived, on Tuesday I
went up to fetch him, only to find that he
had been out in pursuit of the enemy the
day before without any great excitement,
and he was immensely surprised to hear
that Lance had arrived. After that he came
down every day, and it always seems a
wonderful thing that we three should have
been together in the middle of the war in
that fortunate way for so many weeks. I
went up to the Scottish Hospital on Thurs-
day to look up Mr. Villiers Stuart, who
had come in from Lindley with Lance. He
was so knocked up with the drive in that cart
that he had been kept in bed ever since.
He belonged to the unfortunate i3th Bat-
talion, Colonel Spragge's Regiment, all of whom,
except those killed or too severely wounded,
had been taken prisoners at Lindley after a
268 YEOMAN SERVICE
hard defence for several days, and it was in
an almost successful attempt to rescue them
that Lance and many of his men had been
wounded and some killed. The D.C.O.'s be-
longed to this regiment and the remaining
squadrons were made up of Irish regiments
of Yeomanry, and Mr. Villiers Stuart be-
longed to one of these. He had been very
severely wounded, and if his heart had been
in the right place (only anatomically) he
would have been killed. It is a curious
phase of this war that the wounds have
proved how often people's principal organs
are misplaced ; in some cases everything
which ought to have been on the right
is on the left, and vice versa. Then the
Mauser bullet is comparatively merciful, so
that many, like Lance, have been shot in
absolutely vital places with comparative im-
punity, who must have been killed had they
been struck by an explosive bullet.
By the 28th June nearly all the warm
things that I had brought up from Bloem-
fontein were exhausted, so I sent 40 more
down to Lady Chermside, and asked her
KROONSTAD 269
to spend it at Bloemfontein on clothes such
as we had bought before, tobacco, and
whisky, all which were badly wanted. I
was also fortunate enough to find a friend
who was coming up from Cape Town to
bring me up some wine, champagne, port,
brandy, tobacco, &c. All these things were
in the very greatest request here, and it
seems so funny, looking back, at some of
the people one gave a bottle of wine to. In
one case a man came to see us who had
lost a near relation quite recently, and he
was very sad and unhappy. I longed to
do something for him, and as at dinner
he drank with such apparent relish a glass
of port wine out of a bottle which Major
Pike had brought me because he thought I
was rather run down, I gave him three of
the bottles which had just come from Cape
Town to take away with him, and I then
saw him smile for the first time for many
days.
Some people are extraordinary unselfish in
the way they bury their own troubles and
try to be cheerful for the sake of others.
270 YEOMAN SERVICE
There was a case in my Convalescent Home
of this. There used to be the greatest
arguments at meals and elsewhere over Spion
Kop, and we none of us found out for many
days that one of the convalescents had lost
his favourite brother there.
It used to be very interesting to hear the
accounts of the different engagements from
men who had been present. Looking back
to my experiences in South Africa, one thing
always strikes me, and that is how often one
heard complaints of leaders, and that never
once did I hear a complaint of followers.
It seems to me that Englishmen as a body
will do anything they are told and do it
well, but it is dreadfully difficult to get any
one to tell them to do anything. Does the
training in the army in the present day in-
culcate self-confidence as the training in the
navy does? It seems to me it does not,
and it also appears a dreadful pity that, in
the manner of fighting in the present day,
the weapons with which the men are armed,
the desire one hears on so many sides to
deprive mounted men of their horses, Lancers
KROONSTAD 271
of their lances, officers of their swords, all
point to depriving the Englishman of his
most valuable quality, the power and wish
to attack. Fifty years hence will there be
a bull-dog Englishman left? Of course it is
a dreadful thing to lose life uselessly, but
surely it were better to sacrifice a few lives
at the beginning of a war, if by so doing
the end of that war were brought nearer,
than to wrap your men up in a principle
of cotton wool which takes them home to
tea when they ought to be pursuing a flying
enemy.
Whilst I was in South Africa I was
thrown much upon my own resources, and
I passed through a very large tract of country,
and spent considerable time close to places
where great battles had been fought. I
have heard those battles fought again and
again every minute of them. When one
first got out to Cape Town one heard
many laments over the loss of life at Paarde-
berg, but the more I mixed with soldiers
up the country, the more I heard the opinion
passed that the victory of Paardeberg was
272 YEOMAN SERVICE
well worth the loss of life, because it re-
lieved Ladysmith and had led to the capture
of a dangerous Boer general, Cronje. Of
course all this is not opinion : I do not pre-
tend that I am capable for one moment of
forming opinions on such matters ; but I
met so many clever men out there whose
opinion appeared to be valued by others
wiser than either themselves or myself, that
I believe more than I ever did, and I always
had great faith in it, that the cultivation
of "dash" is to be mightily encouraged in
our English army. The courage and endur-
ance of our soldiers, officers, and men is a
proverb now, but I believe, and I am sure
that I am right, that the fear of responsi-
bility has been the cause of all the failures
in this South African war. I have met and
talked with men who have failed, and their
only excuse has been fear of making a mis-
take. Surely it were better to try for a suc-
cess and make a mistake than not to try
and so lose all chance of a possible success.
The nights were very cold now, and the
only fireplaces in the house were in the
KROONSTAD 273
dining-room and kitchen, so we had to burn
a lamp in Lance's room all night, and the
puzzle about this time was how to get oil,
which we had to beg and borrow from any-
where. We were very short of everything.
Our tablecloths were the great trial, as we
had only three, I think. Our glasses were
the very thickest tumblers made, I should
think, and very nearly our only food was
mutton or Maconochie's rations and tinned
soup, though sometimes the Commissioner
was lucky enough to get some birds, duck
or kuraan.
I went up on the 3Oth to see some of our
men who were in No. 3 Hospital. It was a
very large general hospital, then holding 700
patients, and before we left Kroonstad it was
made much larger. There were rows and
rows of large marquees, each holding eight
patients for ordinary cases of sickness or
wounded, and there were two long rows of
double marquees, two made into one, each
holding eighteen enteric cases. This hospital
is not a luxurious one, but it struck one as
being very clean and well arranged, and I heard
s
274 YEOMAN SERVICE
very few complaints from the men, except the
general ones about orderlies. It was the uni-
versal grumble in every hospital in South
Africa that if a man on arrival was too ill to
hand in his kit himself and get a receipt, he
either never saw any of it again or received
it with most of the valuable things missing.
It seems absurd to brand the orderlies as a
class as dishonest men, but such was the
complaint, and it was so general that I think
there must have been some absolute truth
in it.
That evening Lord Kitchener and his staff
arrived in Kroonstad and the usual tidying
up went on. The following morning, Sunday,
Lord Kitchener's A.D.C., Major Watson, came
to see me with a message from him, to ask
how Lance was, and whether he could do
anything to assist us. I never was so pleased
in my life, and I was honestly surprised, as
that alarming General was so universally re-
ported as disapproving of ladies at the front,
that I should have much sooner expected to
be sent down to Cape Town, than to be asked
if I required any help ; but I now know that
KROONSTAD 275
this was just like Lord Kitchener. If people
are doing their duty, he is satisfied ; if they
are not, then beware ; and as he knew every-
thing that went on in South Africa, perhaps
he knew that I had tried to do my duty.
There was one thing that happened whilst
he was in Kroonstad at this time which
pleased me very much. It was a little thing,
but it instanced his thought and value for
his men.
The trains going up this thousand miles of
communication from Cape Town to Pretoria
were sights not easily forgotten ; long serpents
twisting through the country, made up of every
description of truck and carriage, perhaps
one corridor carriage for passengers, succeeded
by two trucks full of stores ; after them two
or three filled with horses or mules ; then a
piled-up truck covered with tarpaulin which
concealed a great load of hay ; again possibly
two waggons laden with artillery, the guns
guarded by their own men; then perhaps
several open trucks full of soldiers, in which
they lived and slept sometimes for days.
They were very long trains, and were always
276 YEOMAN SERVICE
an interesting sight. On the top of the wag-
gons which were filled with stores or hay
one often saw Kaffirs and soldiers sitting.
As the hay generally rose to an apex upon
which the men sat astride as the only means
of holding on, it always seemed a most dan-
gerous position, and as a matter of fact
several men had fallen off and lost their lives
by going to sleep up there on a cold night,
or in the hot sun. Lord Kitchener was at
Kroonstad Station when one of these trains
was either passing through or being made up.
He ordered some men to get down from their
lofty seat. He was told that there was no
other place for them as the train was very full.
" Then they must stay behind," he said ;
" enough lives have been lost in this war
without that." There were hundreds of little
stories of this kind going about with reference
to this great General in South Africa. I
should not venture to tell even this one, were
it not that I had seen stories against him in
print which are probably not true, which this
one happens to be.
1 told Major Watson that I was a little
KROONSTAD 277
anxious about our berths on a steamer going
home, as Captain Davenport, who had been
kind enough to forward all my letters and
to do my little commissions in Cape Town
for me, was ill in Bloemfontein, Major
Watson said at once, " Oh ! we will see to
that," and he did, with the result that the
best berths were kept for us on board four
mail steamers going home, so we only had
to let them know when we were able at last
to start.
On the afternoon of the 2nd I drove with
Artie to see the wreck of the great railway
bridge here. It was a deplorable sight,
for it must have been a very fine iron bridge
on five lofty stone piers, as the donga over
which it is thrown is a very deep one. Two
of the spans were still up, though broken,
but the others were lying smashed up on
the ground beneath. The piers could be re-
paired, but the spans would have to be re-
placed by entirely new ones, as the dynamite
they used to destroy the bridges strains the
iron when it is blown up. This piece of de-
struction on the part of the Boers is the more
278 YEOMAN SERVICE
annoying because it simply means great waste
of money and material only, for they really
caused comparatively little inconvenience by
destroying a bridge, as in nearly all cases the
old deviation which was made before the
bridges were built was still in existence and
easily restored to use, only requiring renewing
and repairing to be used in a few days. Of
course the line by the deviations is a little
slower, but not so much so as to make it
worth while for an enemy to destroy a fine
piece of engineering like a railway bridge.
At Kroonstad was an immense storehouse
for every description of thing wanted for the
army, and there was a very long siding I
should think a mile or two^ in length which
was quite filled by trains made up of trucks
either empty or full. All these things had
to be guarded, and there were sentries all
along this part of the line, although Kroonstad
itself was strongly fortified and guarded ; but
these sentries had to be placed against ene-
mies within the lines, for there were both
white and black robbers ready to lay hands
upon the valuables contained in those trucks.
KROONSTAD 279
On one of these days Mr. Oldfield asked
to see me because Lord Roberts had written
down from Pretoria asking how Lance was,
and he had come for particulars. It really did
Lance good when I went in and told him this.
He was so gratified to know that Lord
Eoberts knew and had thought about him.
People at home are fond of saying, "Why
have we not more good generals?" I say,
" Why have we so many ? " When one has
seen and come in contact with all that is re-
quired and expected from great Generals in a
war like this, what unceasing watchfulness
and thought ; what it means to hold in your
hands the ropes which pull the different parts
forming this great army so that they make
something like a united whole; when one
knows and hears how often their nights have
to be disturbed when they have prepared for
sleep, and how often they do not prepare a
rest at all because they know it is useless, is
it any wonder that there are failures ? The
genius of men like Lord Roberts and Lord
Kitchener, and that of many other less cele-
brated generals, is a marvellous thing.
280 YEOMAN SERVICE
Cannot all of us recall the frenzied appear-
ance of the conductor of any great orchestra
who has to keep his eye on perhaps a few thou-
sand men and women ? What is this compared
' to the work of a general ? The conductor has
to be on guard for a few hours, the general for
many months, not to say years. The conductor's
worst fear is a disgrace and a failure which
will not bring a credit to himself and his
orchestra ; the general trembles under the
thought of a national disaster costing many
valued lives and the loss of much property ;
and yet, if we see the conductor agitated, red
in the face, and too often out of temper, we
readily excuse him, because .we consider his
post so difficult a one. Look at our Generals !
There they are, neat, trim, soldierly in every
sense of the word, attending to the urgent
business which means the success of the war
in their working hours, and in their few hours
of rest how often going round the hospitals
giving the kind word that cheers the weary
soul of one who thinks his suffering worth
while if it wins a word of commendation from
the man he almost worships, or giving a
KROONSTAD 281
thought, as in our case, to a man lying on a
bed of sickness miles away. I feel, for one,
nothing is too good for our generals. It may
be necessary to recall some men who have
broken down from pressure of over-work, over-
anxiety, and possibly want of initiation, but
surely as a nation we ought never to let them
bear even a shadow of disgrace. Is it not true
that even those who have been blamed have
thousands of friends who stand up for them,
and will not hear a word of blame attached to
them ? Let them rest in peace ; let us honour
with all our might those who have done very
well, but for our credit's sake let us not dis-
honour those who have tried and failed.
On the 3rd July Major Pike came to say
that he was ordered off with his field hospital
to accompany the 1200 horsemen who were
being sent out under the command of Colonel
Hickman, and were setting forth to try and
catch Christian De Wet. We were very sorry
to lose him, as he had been so kind and
attentive to Lance, who had been very ill
during these ten days. Major Pike had always
been so cheerful and yet sympathetic, and I
282 YEOMAN SERVICE
was very much afraid that a change of doctors
would throw Lance back.
Artie, Nan, and I went out to the corner
of the road to watch the whole of this long
column go by all mounted men. It seems
so strange at this distance of time to believe
that we thought it quite possible that they
would catch Christian De Wet, that will-o'-
the-wisp who still leads our men on to death
and failure.
In the afternoon I walked up with Artie
to the Scottish Hospital, as we heard that a
convoy had come in from Lindley. We found
Major Starkey and Captain Dawson, both
belonging to the 3rd Battalion, who had been
wounded at Lindley the same day as Lance,
the former in the foot, the latter in the knee.
They were both getting on, but not as well
as they ought to have done, as Captain Dawson
had water on the knee, and Major Starkey' s
wound in his foot had healed too fast and
had broken out again. I was not at all sur-
prised at this, as they were suffering from the
same neglect which had made Lance so ill.
We had quite a tea-party on the afternoon
KROONSTAD 283
of the 4th General Knox, Major Starkey,
Mr. Villiers Stuart, and some others. Lance
was now able to get up, and used to sit in
his chair and listen while we all talked, as he
was still too weak to take any real part in the
conversation. Every evening when he went
to bed, Nan used to massage his legs, which
were still quite numb from the paralysis, and
he always felt the cold in them in consequence.
I used to get through my letters for the mail
and write up my diary every evening after
dinner, whilst the Commissioner wrote his
diary and did an enormous amount of business.
Telegrams poured in sometimes long after we
had all gone to bed, and when, as was often
the case, many of these were in cipher, it meant
that Captain De Bertodano had no rest till
two or three o'clock in the morning. The
work of a District Commissioner is extremely
interesting, though it must become monotonous
after a long time, but Kroonstad has been so
very much in the thick of things ever since
our troops went up to Johannesburg, that he
must have had more excitement than many
District Commissioners in other districts.
284 YEOMAN SERVICE
I was very glad that about this time Lord
Roberts sent down from Pretoria to ask who
was responsible for the excellent information
he received from the Kroonstad District, which
was more valuable and reliable than any he
received from other parts. I was not at all
surprised at this, because Captain De Bertodano
took so much trouble about everything he did,
and he undoubtedly has the gift of exacting
faithful service from those he came in contact
with, white men or black boys. He had a
number of Kaffir runners in his employ, who
brought him in constant private information,
and I was often struck by the instinct he
seemed to have whether that information was
true or not, and I never knew him wrong.
After Major Pike's departure Colonel Wood
appointed Major Gray, E-.A.M.C., to look after
Lance, and I must say I think that our luck
was quite extraordinary that we should have
fallen into the hands of two doctors, both of
them so excellent in every way professionally,
and so pleasant to meet as friends.
On the 6th July, Professor Chiene, the Scotch
surgeon, was passing through Kroonstad, and
KROONSTAD 285
Colonel Wood brought him to see Lance. We
had about this time made up our minds that
Lance might leave Kroonstad in a week or ten
days, but Professor Chiene said that he must on
no account be moved for a month at least. I
was really in despair when he said this. Of
course I did not want Lance to run any risks,
but the difficulty of getting food to tempt him
for by this time the novelty of my beef-tea
dainties had worn off and the fact that we
were filling up a stranger's house, made the
whole outlook most difficult. I really felt
quite shy about telling the Commissioner what
the Doctor had said when he came in, because
even if we had wished to move into another
house, we could not do so without his per-
mission and help, and I knew too much of his
kindness by this time not to feel that he would
never let us go. It would look ungracious and
ungrateful to insist on going away, and besides
I did not know where to go ; and yet it was a
serious thing to take possession of a man's
house for a month or more six weeks in all
as we were obliged to do. But I shall never
to my dying day forget the kindness and hospi-
286 YEOMAN SERVICE
tality we received from Captain De Bertodano.
I cannot say any more because words fail me
to express my thoughts on this subject.
For one reason I should have liked to have
got away from Kroonstad, and this was* that the
place was becoming more and more unhealthy
every day. Immense numbers of troops were
constantly passing through, and these had to
camp always more or less on the same ground.
Within 100 yards of our house was an open
space, across which was really a short cut to
Artie's camp, but I could not walk across
it without holding my nose, and yet there
was nothing disagreeable to be seen. This is
practically the condition of every town up
country in the seat of war now. When Lance
went through Kroonstad on his way to Lindley
he says he passed at least fifty dead horses
by the road. These had all been buried at
least those in the town had been but one
could not go in almost any direction at all
outside the town without coming upon dead
horses, with their perfectly horrible smell. I
do not know for certain of course, but I
always felt that, however hungry I was, nothing
KROONSTAD 287
in this world would ever induce me to eat
a piece of horse, and I know that some of the
people during the sieges suffered from this
drawback. Mrs. Smith told me that the great
difficulty she had in Kimberley in cooking or
disguising the joints of horse-meat which were
sent to her for the sixteen people she had to
provide for was that they smelt so very nasty
whilst being cooked quite different to whole-
some beef and mutton. The way they get rid
of the dead horses is to dig a large pit into
which their bodies are thrown with chloride
of lime or something of the kind, and they
are then covered over with earth ; but it is
very disgusting work, and I should think very
provocative of enteric. Then there are the
horses constantly arriving by train both from
the south and north. As I have said, some of
the horses from the south are so injured that
they have to be shot, but the horses from
the north are of course far worse, as they
are generally suffering so severely from over-
work that they are being sent down to some
remount camp for rest.
There was deservedly great indignation at
288 YEOMAN SERVICE
Kroonstad over one train-load which arrived
there about this time from the north. Out
of 250 horses 200, I believe, had to be killed,
50 of those being so weak they could hardly
get out of the train and had to be killed on
the station platform, which became a perfect
shambles. The other 150 were taken outside
the town and killed there where they could
be buried on the spot. It was said that some
man had made an agreement to send these
horses south, by which he was paid so much
per head for each horse entrained, but the
scandal created by those poor beasts' sufferings
put a stop to anything further of this kind
occurring.
On the loth Colonel Kekewich came in to
see us. It was so interesting to see him again
after all I had heard about him in Kimberley,
and I think he was glad when I told him
how gratefully he was remembered and spoken
of there. A-propos of his difficulties in Kim-
berley, I meant to have asked him the truth
of one story I had heard on such good
authority, that I think there is no doubt
that it is accurate, as it was told me to
KROONSTAD 289
prove how full Kimberley was of spies during
the siege. It was, that every day twenty
minutes after the password was fixed it was
signalled back to Kimberley from the Boer
lines, and although Colonel Kekewich tried
every means in his power to trace the spy
by fixing the password in different points of
Kimberley, he was never able to do so simply
because of the number of these traitors. When
one remembers that these must have been, as
it were, " foes of his own household," men
that he trusted, what a difficult task his must
have been !
Colonel Hickman's column came back on
the loth, all very disgusted men. This was
the first failure, how many have there been
since then? Major Pike looked us up as he
came through on his way to Pretoria, and
when we remembered how lost we felt when
he had to go away, we realised how fortunate
we were to have found his successor in Major
Gray. I used to go round nearly every day
with books to the Grand Hotel Hospital, to
see Major Eastwood of the i2th Lancers, who
was just beginning to get better after two
290 YEOMAN SERVICE
months' illness of enteric. He and poor young
Jack Hamilton, whom I had seen at Welling-
ton, and Major Kalli, had all been taken ill at
the same time, and Major Eastwood was the
only one to recover, and he was only a shadow
of his former self.
On the afternoon of the nth there were
some sports got up by the troops in Kroon-
stad. There were pony races and artillery
driving, tilting and tent-pegging. The last
was very interesting, as some Indian Syces
competed, and their riding was very wild and
splendid. They came at the pegs at a terrific
pace, with yells and cries, which Artie said
were really prayers meaning,, " Oh ! Lord help
me to take this peg ! " and they generally
got it too. Their picturesque dress and all
their appropriate action made the sport quite
dramatic and terrifying, quite different from
the 'usual tame show one sees in England.
The whole scene was very unlike anything
of the kind one had ever seen before. The
rows of kharki-clad soldiers, some mounted, but
most on foot, a long church pew (produced for
seats) filled by army nurses with voluminous
KROONSTAD 291
white aprons and veils, scarlet caps and para-
sols, looking very bright and pretty. Indian
syces on horse or foot, in many quaint forms
of native dress, and all with smart turbans
and bright or contrasting sashes. Then very
dark or copper-coloured Kaffirs, some with
little or no clothes, others dressed more or
less like Europeans or draped in the always
well-coloured Kaffir blanket. Then the arid
plain and the brown hills and bare trees
making so strange a background on such a
warm day, that one could not bear the sun
without a parasol, and yet it was mid- winter.
Colonel Hickson came in to say good-bye,
as he was ordered off with the "Buffs" to
Pretoria. We were all so sorry to lose him,
as he was so kind and cheery, and very good
about coming to see Lance, for whom he
always brought newspapers and books and
lots of news. His departure made Artie
Brigadier and gave him more to do.
That night they got up a dance in the
town, to which of course Nan and I were
invited, but equally of course we did not go,
and yet one was very glad that the men
292 YEOMAN SERVICE
should have some relaxation of the kind.
There were lots of young married women and
girls in Kroonstad, many of them with very
divided sympathies, as some were Dutch
maidens who had married Englishmen, and
others English girls who had married Boers,
but most of them went and seemed to enjoy
themselves very much, from all I heard. The
nurses from the Hospitals were invited, but
were not allowed to go, and Captain Mares-
chaux asked me to intercede for them. It
was difficult for me to do so, as neither IN an
nor I could go ourselves. However, I spoke
to one of the Sisters, a very nice but rather
severe lady, about it, and she remarked that
she thought it disgraceful to be dancing when
war was going on. I said I thought I could
not agree with her, for no one seemed to
regard it as a disgrace to have been at the
ball at Brussels on the eve of Waterloo,
and the position was the same. I should
certainly have gone to the dance if my hus-
band had not been so ill. We could not
both leave him, and Nan did not care to go
without me.
KROONSTAD 293
On the morning of July I2th, one of our
men, Dillon, came down to me with a list of
all the men of the 3rd Battalion that were in
No. 3 Hospital. I had not the time now to
hunt myself, and he had been kind enough to
look them all up for me. No one knows until
they have tried the difficulty of finding people
in a field hospital. When you go to the office
and find an obliging orderly, who not only looks
through the lists himself, but will let you look
over his shoulder, all this taking some time,
you run through your list and proceed to walk
in search of marquee (say) 23. It is probably
several hundred yards away from the office tent,
and each marquee covers an enormous amount
of space with its ropes stretched out all round it.
Then you find your man and you talk to him,
and then somehow you get into conversation
with some of the men round him. I used to
find it really hard work to visit six men in one
morning, and I generally only managed about
three. However, this morning, Dillon and I
saw quite eight, and even went to the con-
valescent camp as well. Finding two of our
men nearly threadbare, I bade them come to
294 YEOMAN SERVICE
the house for some clothes. On the way back
we saw some of our men off to Deelfontein.
They have all been amiss, and want quiet,
and comfort, and care, none of which it is
possible to give them here ; the hospitals are so
badly wanted for more severe cases sent down
from the front, and convalescent men must
leave the hospitals when once they are better.
Deelfontein has been the greatest boon in this
way, and many a man's health, if not life, has
been saved in consequence of his being able to
go there, I feel sure.
Lance had been for a tiny walk the day
before, just up and down the road outside, but
to-day we went a little farther, to the Grand
Hotel, and Major Eastwood got a chair and sat
near the railings of the balcony upstairs and
talked to Lance, who sat in another chair in
the road below. They did look two poor
things, and would have been unrecognisable
to any of their friends at home.
The following day was very exciting for us,
as the whole of Lord Methuen's column arrived
in Kroonstad to entrain for the Transvaal.
We took a chair for Lance to the corner of
KROONSTAD 295
the road, and our lads came crowding round
him, until I thought it was too much and took
him in; but they were in and out all the
afternoon, and it was delightful to see all " our
boys" again. Lance stayed up to dinner for
the first time and they kept on coming and
going until nine o'clock when the South Notts
Hussars left. Some of those we met that day,
we were never to see again, amongst them
Captain Knowles, one of our officers, who was
killed about six weeks later while gallantly
leading his men.
Captain Warwick of Warwick's Scouts dined
with us that evening. I was very glad to see
him, and thought him a very remarkable-look-
ing man, with the most curious eyes I ever
saw. They expand like an eagle's when he
looks keenly at anything, and his conversation
was very interesting; his criticisms being very
severe, but sound, I should think. At the same
time all these colonists make one long for a
European war that would try their mettle,
because they all seem to take it for granted
that they have done well (and they have done
splendidly) because they are Colonials not
296 YEOMAN SERVICE
Colonists, and they lose sight of the fact that
they are Englishmen all the same, only Eng-
lishmen living where their daily mode of life
gives them immense advantages in this present
war. Of course there are men like Captain
Warwick who would be distinguished and re-
markable anywhere, but I do not think that
this would apply to a great many of the other
Colonials any more than to any of our ordinary
Englishmen. We heard that night that some
guns had been lost near Pretoria, and that was
why more troops were being taken from round
Kroonstad. The following day we had one of
the awful dust-storms which are prevalent in
South Africa and we could not put our noses
out of doors all the morning, and as Lance
was very tired after such a long day, we did
nothing but read and write.
The books I brought out from England have
certainly done their duty out here, and have
been round and round a good many hospitals
in South Africa, but it is very difficult to keep
sick men going in literature, as there is
nothing else for them to do but read.
One of these days, when I was up at the
KROONSTAD 297
Scottish Hospital, I saw quite a nice little
Victoria with a pair of little grey horses ; so I
found out where it came from, and on the
1 6th Lance went out for his first drive. On
this day we heard that there had been a plot
discovered at Johannesburg to capture all the
officers whilst they were at dinner at the
club. We were told, though I do know if it
was true, that it all came out through a
Dutch girl who was in love with a young
English officer. One could perfectly under-
stand that such a plot might be successful
after seeing the club at Bloemfontein any
evening. Both there and at the Kimberley
Club the best dinner the two towns could
produce was to be obtained, and all the officers
used it as a mess-house, and such a plot, if
successful, might have had most dangerous
consequences. We also heard that day that
De Wet had again slipped through the hands
of our troops at Bethlehem when they were
supposed to have him " quite tight " this time.
People were just beginning to think that he
was a very awkward customer.
Lance and I walked across the following
298 YFOMAN SERVICE
day to the station, and there I got him a
chair from the E.S.O.'s office, and he sat on
the platform and talked to people. The
stations are always amusing places, as there
is so much going on, and it is the place to
hear all the news, gossip, and canards. Very
often the news is false, but often it is only
"previous," with generally a large foundation
of truth, and it annoys the authorities very
much in consequence. It often happens that,
if one asks any of the Staff officials if such
and such is true, they reply, with a sniff,
" We know nothing of it ; I suppose you
heard that at the stations ! " It used to amuse
me to draw them in this way. Of course one
can quite understand that news does travel
down the railway by people coming south, but
of course it is very undesirable that things
should get out before the authorities wish it.
On the 1 8th, Lance took his first long
drive out to the Oxfordshire Camp, which
Artie had christened " Oxford Circus." The
band played and Lance sat quietly in the
carriage and read the papers and listened to
it. It always used to touch me to be present
KROONSTAD 299
when the band played " God save the Queen."
The men would be lying about outside their
tents in every sort of attitude and at every
sort of occupation, but at the first note of the
dear old tune each man sprang to attention,
and there was literally not a movement until
the last note had ceased. What a tie that
hymn is all over the world to every Briton
in it!
The next day we drove up to the top of Gun
Hill, where are some 4.7 guns. On each side
of the Hill is a new graveyard, both of them
nearly full. We had put up a cross to mark
the grave of a friend who died and was buried
in one, as I had tried hard to find the graves
of two men, officers who had died there within
the last two months, but they could not be
identified. Of course it does not really make
much difference, but still one does like to feel
that the grave one loves is marked.
I had made the acquaintance of a Mrs. Miller
in Kroonstad. Her parents were Boers, but
her husband was an Englishman, and she told
me many most interesting things ; amongst
others, that it was perfectly true that Steyn
300 YEOMAN SERVICE
had " sjambocked " the Boers at Kroonstad to
compel them to rejoin. At the commencement
of Lord Roberts's successes the Boers were
much cast down, and they became more and
more so as time went on, and after Bloem-
fontein was taken by our troops they would
gladly have retired to their farms ; in fact,
they tried to do so ; but Steyn stood over
them, and threatened them with dire penalties,
even in this case using his whip upon them
until they returned to their commandoes. Her
husband was luckily not a burgher, so he
refused to fight when he was commandeered,
and they could not compel him to, though
they threatened him several times. Mrs. Miller
was in a dreadful position, because three of
her brothers were fighting with the Boers, all
unwillingly, and she had heard nothing of
two of them for several months. She said
there was much indignation amongst the Boers
with Kruger and Steyn for making such false
death-lists, and there is no doubt that it is
perfectly true that Kruger had to be protected
from the fury of the women at Pretoria when
they did at last learn the truth, and knew
KROONSTAD 301
how many of their men had already died. The
Boer women have terrible anxiety to bear, as
they do not get news even as well as we do
out here, and that is not saying much, and
they had now begun to find out that the truth
was concealed. Mrs. Miller had a dear little
girl, who used to come round with puddings
for Lance, and she was altogether most kind
and considerate to us.
We drove out on the evening of the 24th,
across the drift, in quite a different direction
from any I had ever been before. We passed
through miles of camps along the road by
which Lord Roberts entered Kroonstad. There
were plenty of dead horses out there as it
was too far away from the town for anybody
to trouble about them. We also went to see
the engine of the train which was attacked
and burned by the Boers near Rodeval on
the 2 1 st. Each train has a number which is
placed on the front of the engine and this
train was No. 16. It arrived at Bloemfontein
with ; 20,000 in specie, which was for some
reason at the last minute removed from it
and placed on No. 12, which had arrived
302 YEOMAN SERVICE
quite safely at Kroonstad Station, and was
there when we saw the wrecked train. The
Boers stopped No. 16 and only found forage
on board, and they were so angry that they
burned the whole thing. Somehow the engine
got away, but not before they had killed the
engine-driver (which was an abominable action,
as he is, in law, a non-combatant) and three
soldiers, and taken besides a number of
prisoners. The engine was full of large holes,
and one could not help the feeling that the
wounds must have hurt it, but it was not
past restoration. The trucks, however, were
a deplorable sight, absolute wrecks, all the
wood-work burned away, and only the iron-
work left, the whole thing looking very gaunt
and curious.
We went another day to see Major Harries
at the remount camp, and he showed us four
South American ponies with curly coats like
Astrachan. One was a chestnut, two brown,
and one grey. I never saw anything so
curious. Their coats were so curly you could
put your fingers into the waves. They were
not very well shaped horses, but they were
KROONSTAD 303
not ugly, and the curly coat ought to look
very well if groomed, unless brushing it made
the curl come out, which was not very likely.
I longed to bring one home, and I think a
team of these ponies would create a great
sensation.
Towards the end of my stay in Kroonstad,
I performed a ceremony which must be, I
think, almost unique under the circumstances.
The Presbyterian minister, as ambassador for
the other religious denominations in the town,
asked me to open a bazaar of work, &c., done
by the ladies and gentlemen in Kroonstad
chiefly during the war, the proceeds to be
used for the benefit of the schools. One
morning I dressed myself in the smartest
clothes at my command (and very shabby they
were), and drove down through a gale of wind
and cloud of dust in a very " wobbly " Cape
cart to a large hall in the middle of the town.
At one end was a stage with various scraps
of scenery piled together upon it, one or two
chairs, and a carpet for our feet. On this
stage, the District Commissioner, Captain De
Bertodano, the Presbyterian minister, and
304 YEOMAN SERVICE
myself were seated. There were only about
a dozen ladies and as many children in
the room, which was otherwise filled by officers
and men in kharki. There were two large
tables piled up with food, cakes, and other
eatables. There was a long stall where
second-hand books were sold, and two or three
other stalls where the ordinary bazaar articles,
such as dolls, ornaments, needlework, &c., were
to be purchased. The room was bright with
flags and drapery, but before the bazaar was
opened the Commissioner was obliged to have
an Orange Free State flag taken down I do
not think it was ever discovered who had been
stupid enough to put it up. There was little
in the room of real value, except some fine
deer heads, and yet this bazaar realised the
vast sum of nearly ^600. "Tommy" went
meaning to spend his money, and spend it
he did right royally. He was also extremely
glad to be able to buy anything good to eat.
The Commissioner, who was in the chair, made
a very nice speech with all sorts of embarrass-
ingly charming remarks about me, and then
I got up and said a few words. Of course I
KROONSTAD 305
had often done the same sort of thing at
home, but oh the difference then ! That sea
of upturned bronzed faces, the kindly expres-
sion which seemed to me to mean, "Here is
an Englishwoman from home, let us give her
a welcome," gave me a bad lump in my throat ;
but I felt glad to be there, and very pleased
with the compliment that had been paid me
in asking me to do this little thing for them.
On Saturday, July 28, we heard that General
Piet De Wet had surrendered, and had come
in with his son and some other men of his
commando to Kroonstad, and that afternoon
we went to some sports of the Scottish
Hospital, and the General was there. He
was introduced to me, but I could only say a
few words to him, aD i as I was very anxious
to see more of a great Boer General, the
Commissioner asked him to dine the follow-
ing (Sunday) night. He spoke English very
slightly, and so Mr. Benny, a friend of Captain
De Bertodano, was interpreter for him and us.
He arrived about seven o'clock, a tall large-
made man, with, by a long way, the best
countenance I ever saw on any Boer. He
u
306 YEOMAN SERVICE
wore a suit of grey clothes with a coat button-
ing up to the neck, and his hair was brushed
straight back from his forehead. He had
only a small beard, and was really a fine-
looking man. There were several English
officers dining there too, and I could not help
admiring the way he took the news, which
arrived by telegram to the Commissioner soon
after he came, of General Prinsloo's surrender
with several thousand men. He said, " In-
deed ! is that so?"
During dinner the conversation was not
particularly interesting, but after dinner it
became very much so. I ventured to ask
his permission to do a pencil sketch of him,
and as he consented, I went to the other
side of the table, for I had been sitting
next to him, and drew his portrait whilst all
the others talked. He seemed most anxious
to know their opinion of the Boer Generals,
and when told that they admired Joubert, he
said, "Yes, he was a good man." He said
that his brother, Christian De Wet, would
never be taken. He did not say that he
would never surrender, but he felt sure he
KROONSTAD 307
would not do so until the game was abso-
lutely up. He regretted it, he said, because
he knew the war was now quite useless for
them. They had done their best, their cause
was lost, and he had done his best to get
other Boers to come in and surrender when
he did. His brother had kept him a prisoner
for some time because he wished to surrender,
and he did not say how he got away in the
end from Christian De Wet. He said that
Kruger and Steyn had misled them cruelly as
to the power of the English ; that when he
saw how the troops were pouring into the
country and what marvellous resources Lord
Roberts had at his command, then he knew
it was useless to oppose us.
One thing which he said, coming from a
man who seemed sensible, clear-headed, and
fairly well educated, struck one as extraordi-
nary namely, that what they had all relied
upon absolutely and entirely was foreign inter-
vention. Then one of the officers present said,
" Of course you have now given up all idea of
that." "It does not appear as if they would
interfere," he replied. "Of course they cannot, '
3o8 YEOMAN SERVICE
the officer said, "now, on account of China."
General Piet De Wet turned round with a
look of great surprise and said, "What has
China got to do with it?" He evidently did
not in the least grasp the fact that the Allies
were fighting together in China. I thought
this showed more than anything how absolutely
"moleish" the Boers are in their ignorance of
foreign politics.
He told us that one great difficulty they had
was in keeping in any sort of order a rabble of
ruffians, calling themselves Boers, who followed
in the train of their army. We told him how
Lance had been robbed when he was lying
wounded on the ground, and he said that these
men respected nobody. He did not say so,
but we heard from many sources, that Colonel
Blake's Irish commando was one of the worst
offenders in this way. Piet De Wet and his
commando had been at Lindley on the day
when Lance was wounded although Christian
De Wet was in command, and he said that
when our men charged into his convoy splitting
it in half, and getting so close to the prisoners
of Colonel Spragge's Battalion whom he was
KROONSTAD 309
escorting, he gave up his prisoners for lost,
but when he saw our men were so few and
that they were unsupported, he never expected
they would get away themselves. They did so,
however, and, though they were able to rescue
only one of Colonel Spragge's men, they fought
their way out and marched into Lindley, as
Colonel Younghusband said, " only twenty-five
strong, but unmolested." From what Piet De
Wet said the Boers evidently could not believe
that that little band of men would have attacked
them unless they were supported, and person-
ally I thought it very satisfactory, as our
regiment had suffered so severely, to know
from one of the Boers themselves that our
men had succeeded in so thoroughly frighten-
ing them.
The following day was our last in Kroonstad,
as we had got a whole carriage to ourselves to
go down in to Bloemfontein. All day people
were coming to say good-bye, and we finally
left about one o'ciock A.M. on Tuesday. I
could not say that I was sorry to leave Kroon-
stad, as I was really thankful to get Lance
away, but of course I hated leaving Artie, who
3 io YEOMAN SERVICE
I knew would miss us very much ; but as it
turned out, he and his regiment luckily left
the next day. We were all very sorry to
say good-bye to Captain De Bertodano, who
had been so very very good to us. We spent
a night in Bloemfontein at the Little Masonic
Hotel on our way down, and we made a very
good journey to Cape Town, arriving there on
Friday. I thought all the country looked so
much prettier going down than when I was
going up. Whether this was so or not I can-
not say, but possibly my eyes were jaundiced
on my northern journey by anxiety which no
interest could smother. On the way south I
had my soldier with me, wounded it is true,
but still we were going home.
We left for England on the Norman on
Thursday, August Qth.
THE END
Printed by BALLANTYNK, HANSON & Co.
Edinburgh & London
RETURN TO the circulation desk of any
University of California Library
or to the
NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698
ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS
2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(415)642-6233
1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books
to NRLF
Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days
prior to due date
DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
-
.EY
$
YC 48140
GENERAL LIBRARY -U.C. BERKELEY
H
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
