Delphi Complete Works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Illustrated) (1431 page)

French officers above a certain rank develop and show their own individuality. In the lower grades the conditions of service enforce a certain uniformity. The British officer is a British gentleman first, and an officer afterwards. The Frenchman is an officer first, though none the less the gentleman stands behind it. One very strange type we met, however, in these Argonne Woods. He was a French-Canadian who had been a French soldier, had founded a homestead in far Alberta, and had now come back of his own will, though a naturalised Briton, to the old flag. He spoke English of a kind, the quality and quantity being equally extraordinary. It poured from him and was, so far as it was intelligible, of the woolly Western variety. His views on the Germans were the most emphatic we had met. ‘These Godam sons of’ — well, let us say ‘Canines!’ he would shriek, shaking his fist at the woods to the north of him. A good man was our compatriot, for he had a very recent Legion of Honour pinned upon his breast. He had been put with a few men on Hill
285, a
sort of volcano stuffed with mines, and was told to telephone when he needed relief. He refused to telephone and remained there for three weeks. ‘We sit like a rabbit in his hall,’ he explained. He had only one grievance. There were many wild boars in the forest, but the infantry were too busy to get them. ‘The Godam Artillaree he get the wild pig!’ Out of his pocket he pulled a picture of a frame-house with snow round it, and a lady with two children on the stoop. It was his homestead at Trochu, seventy miles north of Calgary.

* * * * *

It was the evening of the third day that we turned our faces to Paris once more. It was my last view of the French. The roar of their guns went far with me upon my way. Soldiers of France, farewell! In your own phrase I salute you! Many have seen you who had more knowledge by which to judge your manifold virtues, many also who had more skill to draw you as you are, but never one, I am sure, who admired you more than I. Great was the French soldier under Louis the Sun-King, great too under Napoleon, but never was he greater than to-day.

And so it is back to England and to home. I feel sobered and solemn from all that I have seen. It is a blind vision which does not see more than the men and the guns, which does not catch something of the terrific spiritual conflict which is at the heart of it.

 Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
 
— He is trampling out the vineyard where the grapes of wrath are stored.

We have found no inspired singer yet, like Julia Howe, to voice the divine meaning of it all — that meaning which is more than numbers or guns upon the day of battle. But who can see the adult manhood of Europe standing in a double line, waiting for a signal to throw themselves upon each other, without knowing that he has looked upon the most terrific of all the dealings between the creature below and that great force above, which works so strangely towards some distant but glorious end?

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

IF you want to enjoy God’s fresh air, and the heave and swing of the cantering horse, work in as enteric ward for a month, and then have a week’s leave of absence amid the vast clear distances of the veldt, with the exhilarating atmosphere of the camp around you, and the intense living interest of war to fill your mind.

Such a holiday was mine recently, and ere the impression becomes blurred in my mind I would set my experience down, on paper — though too near me, perhaps, to get the true focus of all that I have seen.

It was at Karee Siding that we overtook the army — or the centre column thereof. There over a great olive-green plain, heaving up into fantastic hills, there lay a portion of the greatest host which has ever marched under the British colours. These are the Guards’ Brigade and Stephenson’s Brigade (Welsh, Yorks, Essex, and Warwicks), the whole making the 11th Division. To think that we should have lived to see an English army with eleven, divisions! From Kimberley to Elandslaagte, and from Karee to Burghersdorp, well over two hundred thousand sabres and bayonets were ready for the word to advance.

How we have chafed during these five weeks — the more so at the thought of how you must have chafed at home! But now we are well-horsed and well-fed and high of heart, and our little man is off again. There will be sore hearts if we atop again on this side of Pretoria.

Walk among the fierce brown, infantry, see the splendid Colonials, mark the keenness of the cavalry, note the lines of the guns and the hard, savage faces of the men who will handle them. Who can stop this army on the open veldt, now that it has weeded out some of its incompetence and had time to learn in war a few of those lessons which should have been taught in peace? It makes one’s heart bleed to think of the deaths and the mutilations and (worse than either) the humiliations which have come from our rotten military system, which has devoted years to teaching men to walk in step, and hours to teaching them to use their weapons.

Stand in the pass at Karee, and look north in the clear, fresh morning air. Before you lies a great plain, dull green, with white farmhouses scattered here and there. One great donga slashes it across. Distant hills bound it on all sides, and at the base of those in front, dimly seen, are a line of houses and a steeple. This is Brandfort, ten miles off, and we are advancing to attack it.

The troops are moving forward, line after line of red face and khaki, with rumbling columns of guns. Two men sit their horses beside us on a knoll, and stare with their glasses at the distant houses. Gallant figures both of them: the one spruce,
débonnaire
, well-groomed, with laughing eyes and upward-curved moustache, a suggestion of schoolboy mischief about his handsome face; the other, grim, fierce, all nose and eyebrow, white scales of sun-dried skin hanging from his brick-red face. The first is Pole-Carew, General of Division; the second is Brigadier Stephenson. We are finding our men, and these are among them.

Here is another man worth noting. You could not help noting him if you tried. A burly, broad-shouldered man, with full, square, black beard over his chest, his arm in a sling, his bearing a mediaeval knight-errant. It is Crabbe, of the Grenadier Guards. He reins his horse for an instant while his Guardsmen stream past him.

“I’ve had my share — four bullets already. Hope I won’t get another today.”

“You should be in hospital.”

“Ah, there I must venture to disagree with you.” He rides on with his men.

Look at the young officers of the Guards, the dandies of Mayfair. No carpet soldiers, these, but men who have spent six months upon, the veldt, and fought from Belmont to Bloemfontein. Their walk is dainty, their puttees are well-rolled — there is. still the suggestion of the West End.

If you look with your glasses on the left you may see movement on the farthest sky-line. That is Hutton’s Mounted Infantry, some thousands of them, to turn the flank of any resistance. As far as you can see to the right is Tucker’s Division (7th). Beyond that again are Ian Hamilton’s Mounted Infantry and French’s Cavalry. The whole front is a good thirty miles, and 35,000 men go to the making of it.

Now we advance over the great plain, the infantry in extended order, a single company covering half a mile. Look at the scouts and the flankers — we should not have advanced like that six months ago. It is not our additional numbers so much as our new warcraft which makes us irresistible. The big donga is only two thousand yards off now, so we halt and have a good look at it. Guns are unlimbered — just as well to be ready. Pole-Carew rides up like a schoolboy on a holiday.

“Who’s seen old Tucker?” says he, with his glass to his eyes: He has sent a message to the scouts. “There, now, look at that aide of mine. He has galloped along the donga to see if any Boers are in it. What right had he to do that? When I ask him he will say that he thought I was there... Halloa, you, sir, why don’t you come back straight?”

“I did, sir.”

“You didn’t. You rode along that donga.”

“I thought you were there, sir.”

“Don’t add lying to your other vices.”

The aide came grinning back. “I was fired at, but I dare not tell the old man.”

Rap! Rap! Rap! Rifles in front. “Who said ‘rats’?” Everyone pricks up their ears. Is it the transient sniper or the first shot of a battle? The shots come from the farmhouse yonder. The 83rd Field Battery begins to fidget about its guns. The officer walks up and down and stares at the farmhouse. From either side two men pull out lines of string and give long, monotonous cries. They are the range-finders. A gunner on the limber is deep in a sixpenny magazine, absorbed, his chin on his hand.

“Our scouts are past the house,” says an officer.

“That’s all right,” says the major.

The battery limbers up, and the whole force advances to the farmhouse. Off-saddle and a halt for luncheon.

Halloa! Here are new and sinister developments. A Tommy drives a smart buggy and pair, out of the yard, looted for the use of the army. The farm is prize of war, for have they not fired at our troops? They could not help the firing, poor souls, but still this sniping must be discouraged. We are taking off our gloves at last over this war. But the details are not pretty.

A frightened girl runs out.

“Is it right that they kill the fowls?”

Alas! the question is hardly worth debating, for the fowls are dead. Erect and indignant, the girl drives in her three young turkeys. Men stare at her curiously, but she and her birds, are not moltested.

Here, is something worse. A fat white pig all smothered in blood runs past. A soldier meets it, his bayonet at the charge. He lunges and lunges again, and the pig screams horribly. I had rather see a man killed. Some are up in the loft throwing down the forage. Others root up the vegetables. One drinks milk out of a strange vessel, amid the laughter of his comrades. It is a grotesque and mediaeval scene.

The General rides up, but he has no consolation for the women. “The farm, has brought it upon itself.” He rides away again.

A parson rides up. “I can’t imagine why they don’t burn it,” says he.

The little Dutch boy stares with large, wondering grey eyes. He will tell all this to his, grandchildren when we are in our graves.

“War is a terrible thing,” says the mother, in Dutch. The Tommies, with curious eyes, cluster round the doors and windows, staring in at the family. There is no individual rudeness.

One Kaffir enters the room. “A Kaffir!” cried the girl, with blazing eyes.

“Yes, a Kaffir,” said he, defiantly — but he left.

“They won’t burn the house, will they?” cried the mother.

“No, no,” we answered; “they will not burn the house.”

We advance again after lunch, the houses and steeple much nearer. Boom! Boom! Boom! Cannon at last!

But it is far away, over at Tucker’s side. There are little white puffs on the distant green hills. Those are shells bursting. If you look through your glass you will see — eight miles off — a British battery in action. Sometimes a cloud of dust rises over it. That is a Boer shell which has knocked up the dust. No Boers can be seen from here.

Boom! Boom! Boom! It becomes monotonous. “Old Tucker is getting it hot!” Bother old Tucker, let us push on to Brandfort.

On again over the great plain, the firing dying away on the right. We have had a gun knocked off its wheels and twelve men hit over there. But now Hutton’s turning movement is complete, and they close in on the left of Brandfort. A pom-pom quacks like some horrid bird among the hills. Our horse artillery are banging away. White spurts of shrapnel rise along the ridge. The leading infantry bend their backs and quicken their pace. We gallop to the front, but the resistance has collapsed. The mounted men are riding forward and the guns are silent. Long, sunlit hills stretch peacefully before us.

I ride through the infantry again. “The —— blister on my toe has bust.” “This —— water-bottle!” Every second man has a pipe between his parched lips.

The town is to the right, and two miles of plain intervene. On the plain a horseman is rounding up some mares and foals. I recognise him as I pass — a well-known figure in society. A correspondent suggests that we ride to the town and chance it. “Our men are sure to be there.” No sign of them across the plain, but we will try. He outrides me, but courteously waits, and we enter the town together. Yes, it’s all right; there’s a Rimington Scout in the main street — a group of them, in fact.

A young; Boer, new caught, stands among the horsemen. He is discomposed — not much. A strong, rather coarse, face; well-dressed; might appear, as he stands, an an English hunting-field as a young yeoman farmer.

“Comes of being fond of the ladies,” said the Australian sergeant.

“Wanted to get her out of the town,” said the Boer.

Another was brought up. “I’d have got off in a minute,” says he.

“You’d have got off as it was if you had the pluck of a louse,” says his captor. The conversation languished after that.

In came the staff, galloping grandly. The town is ours.

A red-headed American Irishman is taken on the kopje. “What the —— is that to you?” he says to every question. He is haled away to gaol — a foul-mouthed blackguard.

We find the landlady of our small hotel in tears — her husband in gaol, because a rifle has been found. We try to get him out, and succeed. He charges us 4s for half a bottle of beer, and we wonder whether we cannot get him back into gaol again.

“The house is not my own. I find great, burly men everywhere,” he cries, with tears in his eyes.

His bar is fitted with pornographic pictures to amuse our simple farmer friends — not the first or the second sign which I have seen that pastoral life and a Puritan creed do not mean a high public morality.

Sit on the stoep and smoke in the moonlight.

There comes a drunken inhabitant down the main street. A dingy Tommy stands on guard in front.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“A friend.”

“Give the countersign.”

“I’m a free-born Englishman!”

“Give the countersign!”

“I’m a freeborn—”

With a rattle the sentry’s rifle came to his shoulder, and the moon glinted of his bayonet.

“Hi, stop !” cries a senior correspondent. “ You Juggins, you’ll be shot! Don’t fire, sentry!”

Tommy raised his rifle reluctantly and advanced to the man.

“What shall I do with him, sir?” he asked the correspondent.

“Oh, what you like!” He vanished out of history.

I talk politics with Free Staters. The best opening is to begin, in an enquiring tone, “Why did you people declare war upon us?” They have got into such an injured-innocence state that it comes quite as a shock to them when they are reminded that they were the attackers. By this Socratic method one attains some interesting results. It is evident that they all thought they could win easily, and that they are very bitter now against the Transvaal. They are mortally sick of the war; but, for that matter, so are the British officers. It has seemed to me sometimes that it would be more judicious, and even more honourable, if some of the latter were less open about the extent to which they are “fed-up.” It cannot be inspiriting for their men. At the same time there would be a mutiny in the Army if any conditions short of absolute surrender were accepted-and in spite of their talk, if a free pass were given to-day, I am convinced that very few officers would return until the job was done.