Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1163 page)

So far the British had succeeded in driving and injuring, but never in destroying, the Boer bands. It was a new departure therefore when, upon September 4th, the commando of Lotter was entirely destroyed by the column of Scobell. This column consisted of some of the Cape Mounted Rifles and of the indefatigable 9th Lancers. It marked the enemy down in a valley to the west of Cradock and attacked them in the morning, after having secured all the approaches. The result was a complete success. The Boers threw themselves into a building and held out valiantly, but their position was impossible, and after enduring considerable punishment they were forced to hoist the white flag. Eleven had been killed, forty-six wounded, and fifty-six surrendered — figures which are in themselves a proof of the tenacity of their defence. Lotter was among the prisoners, 260 horses were taken, and a good supply of ammunition, with some dynamite. A few days later, on September 10th, a similar blow, less final in its character, was dealt by Colonel Crabbe to the commando of Van der Merve, which was an offshoot of that of Scheepers. The action was fought near Laingsburg, which is on the main line, just north of Matjesfontein, and it ended in the scattering of the Boer band, the death of their boy leader (he was only eighteen years of age), and the capture of thirty-seven prisoners. Seventy of the Beers escaped by a hidden road. To Colonials and Yeomanry belongs the honour of the action, which cost the British force seven casualties. Colonel Crabbe pushed on after the success, and on September 14th he was in touch with Scheepers’s commando near Ladismith (not to be confused with the historical town of Natal), and endured and inflicted some losses. On the 17th a patrol of Grenadier Guards was captured in the north of the Colony, Rebow, the young lieutenant in charge of them, meeting with a soldier’s death.

On the same day a more serious engagement occurred near Tarkastad, a place which lies to the east of Cradock, a notorious centre of disaffection in the midland district. Smuts’s commando, some hundreds strong, was marked down in this part, and several forces converged upon it. One of the outlets, Elands River Poort, was guarded by a single squadron of the 17th Lancers. Upon this the Boers made a sudden and very fierce attack, their approach being facilitated partly by the mist and partly by the use of khaki, a trick which seems never to have grown too stale for successful use. The result was that they were able to ride up to the British camp before any preparations had been made for resistance, and to shoot down a number of the Lancers before they could reach their horses. So terrible was the fire that the single squadron lost thirty-four killed and thirty-six wounded. But the regiment may console itself for the disaster by the fact that the sorely stricken detachment remained true to the spirited motto of the corps, and that no prisoners appear to have been lost.

After this one sharp engagement there ensued several weeks during which the absence of historical events, or the presence of the military censor, caused a singular lull in the account of the operations. With so many small commandos and so many pursuing columns it is extraordinary that there should not have been a constant succession of actions. That there was not must indicate a sluggishness upon the part of the pursuers, and this sluggishness can only be explained by the condition of their horses. Every train of thought brings the critic back always to the great horse question, and encourages the conclusion that there, at all seasons of the war and in all scenes of it, is to be found the most damning indictment against British foresight, common-sense, and power of organisation. That the third year of the war should dawn without the British forces having yet got the legs of the Boers, after having penetrated every portion of their country and having the horses of the world on which to draw, is the most amazingly inexplicable point in the whole of this strange campaign. From the telegram ‘Infantry preferred’ addressed to a nation of rough-riders, down to the failure to secure the excellent horses on the spot, while importing them unfit for use from the ends of the earth, there has been nothing but one long series of blunders in this, the most vital question of all. Even up to the end, in the Colony the obvious lesson had not yet been learnt that it is better to give 1000 men two horses each, and to let them reach the enemy, than give 2000 men one horse each, with which they can never attain their object. The chase during two years of the man with two horses by the man with one horse, has been a sight painful to ourselves and ludicrous to others.

In connection with this account of operations within the Colony, there is one episode which occurred in the extreme north-west which will not fit in with this connected narrative, but which will justify the distraction of the reader’s intelligence, for few finer deeds of arms are recorded in the war. This was the heroic defence of a convoy by the 14th Company of Irish Imperial Yeomanry. The convoy was taking food to Griquatown, on the Kimberley side of the seat of war. The town had been long invested by Conroy, and the inhabitants were in such straits that it was highly necessary to relieve them. To this end a convoy, two miles long, was despatched under Major Humby of the Irish Yeomanry. The escort consisted of seventy-five Northumberland Fusiliers, twenty-four local troops, and 100 of the 74th Irish Yeomanry. Fifteen miles from Griquatown, at a place called Rooikopjes, the convoy was attacked by the enemy several hundred in number. Two companies of the Irishmen seized the ridge, however, which commanded the wagons, and held it until they were almost exterminated. The position was covered with bush, and the two parties came to the closest of quarters, the Yeomen refusing to take a backward step, though it was clear that they were vastly outnumbered. Encouraged by the example of Madan and Ford, their gallant young leaders, they deliberately sacrificed their lives in order to give time for the guns to come up and for the convoy to pass. Oliffe, Bonynge, and Maclean, who had been children together, were shot side by side on the ridge, and afterwards buried in one grave. Of forty-three men in action, fourteen were killed and twenty severely wounded. Their sacrifice was not in vain, however. The Boers were beaten back, and the convoy, as well as Griquatown, was saved. Some thirty or forty Boers were killed or wounded in the skirmish, and Conroy, their leader, declared that it was the stiffest fight of his life.

In the autumn and winter of 1901 General French had steadily pursued the system of clearing certain districts, one at a time, and endeavouring by his blockhouses and by the arrangement of his forces to hold in strict quarantine those sections of the country which were still infested by the commandos. In this manner he succeeded by the November of this year in confining the active forces of the enemy to the extreme north-east and to the south-west of the peninsula. It is doubtful if the whole Boer force, three-quarters of whom were colonial rebels, amounted to more than fifteen hundred men. When we learn that at this period of the war they were indifferently armed, and that many of them were mounted upon donkeys, it is impossible, after making every allowance for the passive assistance of the farmers, and the difficulties of the country, to believe that the pursuit was always pushed with the spirit and vigour which was needful.

In the north-east, Myburgh, Wessels, and the truculent Fouche were allowed almost a free hand for some months, while the roving bands were rounded up in the midlands and driven along until they were west of the main railroad. Here, in the Calvinia district, several commandos united in October 1901 under Maritz, Louw, Smit, and Theron. Their united bands rode down into the rich grain-growing country round Piquetberg and Malmesbury, pushing south until it seemed as if their academic supporters at Paarl were actually to have a sight of the rebellion which they had fanned to a flame. At one period their patrols were within forty miles of Cape Town. The movement was checked, however, by a small force of Lancers and district troops, and towards the end of October, Maritz, who was chief in this quarter, turned northwards, and on the 29th captured a small British convoy which crossed his line of march. Early in November he doubled back and attacked Piquetberg, but was beaten off with some loss. From that time a steady pressure from the south and east drove these bands farther and farther into the great barren lands of the west, until, in the following April, they had got as far as Namaqualand, many hundred miles away.

Upon October 9th, the second anniversary of the Ultimatum, the hands of the military were strengthened by the proclamation of Cape Town and all the seaport towns as being in a state of martial law. By this means a possible source of supplies and recruits for the enemy was effectually blocked. That it had not been done two years before is a proof of how far local political considerations can be allowed to over-ride the essentials of Imperial policy. Meanwhile treason courts were sitting, and sentences, increasing rapidly from the most trivial to the most tragic, were teaching the rebel that his danger did not end upon the field of battle. The execution of Lotter and his lieutenants was a sign that the patience of a long-suffering Empire had at last reached an end.

The young Boer leader, Scheepers, had long been a thorn in the side of the British. He had infested the southern districts for some months, and he had distinguished himself both by the activity of his movements and by the ruthless vigour of some of his actions. Early in October a serious illness and consequent confinement to his bed brought him at last within the range of British mobility. On his recovery he was tried for repeated breaches of the laws of war, including the murder of several natives. He was condemned to death, and was executed in December. Much sympathy was excited by his gallantry and his youth — he was only twenty-three. On the other hand, our word was pledged to protect the natives, and if he whose hand had been so heavy upon them escaped, all confidence would have been lost in our promises and our justice. That British vengeance was not indiscriminate was shown soon afterwards in the case of a more important commander, Kritzinger, who was the chief leader of the Boers within Cape Colony. Kritzinger was wounded and captured while endeavouring to cross the line near Hanover Road upon December 15th. He was put upon his trial, and his fate turned upon how far he was responsible for the misdeeds of some of his subordinates. It was clearly shown that he had endeavoured to hold them within the bounds of civilised warfare, and with congratulations and handshakings he was acquitted by the military court.

In the last two months of the year
1901, a
new system was introduced into the Cape Colony campaign by placing the Colonial and district troops immediately under the command of Colonial officers and of the Colonial Government. It had long been felt that some devolution was necessary, and the change was justified by the result. Without any dramatic incident, an inexorable process of attrition, caused by continual pursuit and hardship, wore out the commandos. Large bands had become small ones, and small ones had vanished. Only by the union of several bodies could any enterprise higher than the looting of a farmhouse be successfully attempted.

Such a union occurred, however, in the early days of February 1902, when Smuts, Malan, and several other Boer leaders showed great activity in the country round Calvinia. Their commandos seem to have included a proportion of veteran Republicans from the north, who were more formidable fighting material than the raw Colonial rebels. It happened that several dangerously weak British columns were operating within reach at that time, and it was only owing to the really admirable conduct of the troops that a serious disaster was averted. Two separate actions, each of them severe, were fought on the same date, and in each case the Boers were able to bring very superior numbers into the field.

The first of these was the fight in which Colonel Doran’s column extricated itself with severe loss from a most perilous plight. The whole force under Doran consisted of 350 men with two guns, and this handful was divided by an expedition which he, with 150 men, undertook in order to search a distant farm. The remaining two hundred men, under Captain Saunders, were left upon February 5th with the guns and the convoy at a place called Middlepost, which lies about fifty miles south-west of Calvinia. These men were of the 11th, 23rd, and 24th Imperial Yeomanry, with a troop of Cape Police. The Boer Intelligence was excellent, as might be expected in a country which is dotted with farms. The weakened force at Middlepost was instantly attacked by Smuts’s commando. Saunders evacuated the camp and abandoned the convoy, which was the only thing he could do, but he concentrated all his efforts upon preserving his guns. The night was illuminated by the blazing wagons, and made hideous by the whoops of the drunken rebels who caroused among the captured stores. With the first light of dawn the small British force was fiercely assailed on all sides, but held its own in a manner which would have done credit to any troops. The much criticised Yeomen fought like veterans. A considerable position had to be covered, and only a handful of men were available at the most important points. One ridge, from which the guns would be enfiladed, was committed to the charge of Lieutenants Tabor and Chichester with eleven men of the 11th Imperial Yeomanry, their instructions being ‘to hold it to the death.’ The order was obeyed with the utmost heroism. After a desperate defence the ridge was only taken by the Boers when both officers had been killed and nine out of eleven men were on the ground. In spite of the loss of this position the fight was still sustained until shortly after midday, when Doran with the patrol returned. The position was still most dangerous, the losses had been severe, and the Boers were increasing in strength. An immediate retreat was ordered, and the small column, after ten days of hardship and anxiety, reached the railway line in safety. The wounded were left to the care of Smuts, who behaved with chivalry and humanity.