The Covenant (127 page)

“I wasn’t allowed in the battle. They never called for our reserve.”

“Our losses were heavy, General. But not like the English. Did you hear about the Carolina Commando? They had a clear shot, right down the English trenches. They killed everybody.”

It was another young fellow, only a boy, really, who asked the question that saved the day for the Boers: “I was on the eastern hill when the English crawled up and took it. Why did they go back down?”

In the darkness General de Groot asked, “You saw them go down?”

“Yes. They were very brave. One officer …”

“But they went back down?”

“Yes, they drove us off the hill. We lost sixteen, seventeen men. Jack Kloppers standing beside me. Right through the forehead.”

De Groot took the lad by his shoulders, pulling him into the flickering light of a small fire. “You say they held the hill, then abandoned it?”

“Yes. Yes. I covered Jack Kloppers with a blanket and I went back to the summit. They went down and we didn’t even fire at them.”

For some minutes General de Groot stood in silence, looking up at Spion Kop. Finally he said in a very low voice, “Son, I think you and I should go back up that hill. I think that maybe God has been holding me in reserve for this moment.” He asked for volunteers, and Jakob van Doorn, of course, stepped forward.

So the three tired Boers, at two-thirty on that dark, forlorn morning, set out to climb the hill where so many had died. In front, walking faster than the others, was Paulus de Groot in top hat and frock coat. Behind him came the lad who had occasioned this expedition, and behind, puffing heavily, came Jakob van Doorn, who had been quite content to have his commando held in reserve: death terrified him.

They climbed slowly, for there was no moon, and from time to
time they trod on the face of some fallen comrade. When they approached the crest, where the fighting had been most hazardous, they stepped on many bodies, and then the old general, his hat still in place, rose upon the horizon in a position which would have been fatal had English troops been on the hill. Slowly the other two joined him, and like scouts reconnoitering some dismal field of death, they moved forward, coming to the trench where the English lads lay stacked, bullets through the sides of their heads, and all the way to the other edge of the plateau, where they could look down upon the silent camp of the enemy.

Running back to the center of the silent battlefield, where he assured himself that this miracle had taken place, Paulus de Groot removed his hat, placed it over his heart, and kneeled in the bloody dust: “Almighty God of the Boers, You have brought us victory, and we didn’t know it. Almighty God of the Boers … dear faithful God of the Boers …”

The sky was brightening when he straightened up and walked to the edge of the hill to alert his comrades below: “Boers! Boers!”

In their bivouac the commandos had watched as sun began to break, uncertain as to what they might have to face this day from that bloody embattled mount.

An incredible sight greeted them. On the summit, outlined against the sky, stood an old man, the victor of Majuba nineteen years before, waving his top hat triumphantly. General Paulus de Groot had captured Spion Kop.

There had been at the hill that twenty-fourth day of January 1900 three young men of radically different character; no one of the three saw the other two, but each would live to play an outstanding role in the future history of his particular country.

The oldest was a Boer officer, only thirty-seven, on whom fell the burden of rallying his troops when all seemed lost and sustaining them when the leadership of the older generals proved defective. Had some young English colonel of comparable ability managed to insert himself in place of his own wavering and slow-witted generals, that side would probably have won this crucial battle; fortune dictated that it would be the Boers who would act intelligently. This splendid military genius was Louis Botha, who would become the first Boer prime minister of the new nation that would emerge from this battle.
At Spion Kop young Botha, who ended the day in overall command, became convinced that Boer and Englishman would do better if they worked together. In the rage of battle he knew that this internecine warfare was senseless, and that unless the two white races coalesced in their common interests and humanity, South Africa must be torn apart. He became the great conciliator, the prudent counselor, the head of state, and few names in the history of his country would stand higher.

The youngest of the men was a rowdy newspaperman whom nobody could discipline. Reporter for a London paper, he wrote penetrating, irreverent accounts of men like Warren, so that proper military men shuddered when he approached. He was then tallish and slim, and spoke with a lisp that caused merriment among the sturdier types. He had not done well in school, had avoided university altogether, and was thought of as pretty much a freak. Because of carelessness, he had already been captured once by the Boers but had escaped through sheer brazenness. There was a kind of price on his head, not to be taken seriously, perhaps, but had he been captured at Spion Kop, things might have been rather sticky. In spite of this, he climbed three times to the crest of the hill, where he was revolted by the confusion and inefficiency. He was Winston Churchill, twenty-five years old, already the author of several fine books and desperately hungry to get into Parliament. A brief fourteen years after this day on Spion Kop, young Churchill would find himself in the middle of a much greater war, and in the war cabinet, and in charge of naval operations. At Gallipoli he would interfere in military matters so disgracefully that he would ensure the tragic defeat of a major English operation, so that his name became synonymous with civilian incompetence. On Spion Kop that day he had learned a lesson from defeat, for when the battle was dismally lost, General Buller at last took complete charge, and in rallying his men he was superb, a stubborn man with iron courage who stared into the face of catastrophe and assured his troops: “We shall win this war.” And his men were willing to support him. Of Buller, Churchill wrote: “It’s the love and admiration of Tommy Atkins that fortifies him.” In 1941 this lesson in bulldog tenacity would lead Winston Churchill to immortality.

The third young man was a curious type; scrawny, short, spindly legged, very dark of countenance, with even darker hair, he served that day as an ambulance runner. If Louis Botha had seen him, he
would have ignored him as an unwelcomed immigrant; had Winston Churchill seen him foraging among the dead to ascertain if even one man still survived, he would have dismissed him as inconsequential. Born in India, he had surveyed that impoverished land and decided that it held no promise for young lawyers, so he had eagerly emigrated to South Africa, where he fully intended to spend the remainder of his life. His name was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, volunteer stretcher bearer to the English forces. Aware that the ruling castes, Boer and Briton, held all Indians in disdain, he had persuaded his fellow Hindus in Durban to volunteer for the war’s most dangerous service to prove their worth; on this day he had escaped death a score of times, and two of his associates had been killed. On Spion Kop, Mohandas Gandhi learned that warfare was unutterably stupid, that it solved no problems, and that when the dead were collected and the medals distributed, the warring parties still faced their insoluble problems. How much better had they avoided violent discourse and taken resort to peaceful non-resistance.

There was a fourth man on Spion Kop that day, or rather that night, but no one paid him any attention, and he did not rise in later years to lead his nation, but on this encrusted battlefield he did learn the first and only of his great lessons. When General de Groot, at two-thirty in the morning of the day following the battle, climbed back up Spion Kop, there were two men with him, the young fellow who alerted the move and Jakob van Doorn, his constant companion. There was a fourth man, but since he was black he didn’t count. He was Micah Nxumalo, who would never be far from the old general in the days of this war. He did not have to participate, and he had no gun to defend himself; he merely tagged along because he loved the old general and had served him in various capacities. He could tend horses, scavenge for food, help the women, serve as scout when conditions grew tense, and tend the sick commandos. On Spion Kop, Micah Nxumalo began to develop a great truth which he would later quietly pass along to his people. As he moved through that fiery day, seeing the troops who seemed so numerous, he noticed that taken altogether, they numbered far fewer than his Zulu tribe, or the Xhosa, or the Swazi, or the Basuto, or the Bechuana, or the Matabele. He saw that the English and the Boers were playing tremendous games, but that when the battles were finished they would be brothers, a few white men set down amidst a vast congregation of blacks: When the games are ended and the mighty guns are silenced, the real struggle
will begin, and it will not be Englishman against Boer. It will be white man against black, and in the end we shall triumph.

For the duration of the present episode Nxumalo would continue with the Boers; they were his proven friends; and he hoped they would win this time. But he was struck by the fact that an equal number of blacks served with the English, hoping, no doubt, that they would win.

When the disaster of Spion Kop was ended, with the land-armada once again south of the Tugela, and the fifteen thousand trek-oxen pulling the massive wagons back to where they started, Frank Saltwood had to evaluate the performance, which he had witnessed mainly at Buller’s elbow: He had rotten luck. Having that Warren thrust upon him. What a dunderhead! The battle could have been won four different ways, and he rejected them all. But then the question arose: I wonder why Buller didn’t discharge him? Buller was in command.

The more he thought about this the more he realized that as a South African not reared in the English military tradition, he could not appreciate the reticence one general would have in ever bringing criticism upon another: They’re a fraternity of aging warriors, each supporting the other, each attentive to the traditions of the service. Losing a battle is far less important than losing relative position in the hierarchy.

But even Saltwood had to admit that not all the blame could be thrown on Warren; Buller, too, had participated in the gross errors: He gave Warren command, then intervened a score of times. After all, it was my man Buller who heckled the commander of the King’s Royal Rifles until those brave men were ordered to retreat.

When he had lined up in his mind all the pros and cons, one fact persisted: Buller’s foot soldiers consider him the best general they ever served under. I’ve asked a score of them. Always the same answer: “I’d go anywhere with Old Buller. He looks after his men.” And now Saltwood realized that many of the horrendous decisions he saw Buller make were done to preserve lives. He might drink too much Trianon sparkling, and as one correspondent wrote, he did eat gargantuan meals; but where human life was concerned, he was Spartan. “Train them hard,” he had told Saltwood. “Drive them hard.
But bring them back in good order.” When Frank asked about this, the old man said, “Most important fact of war? Keep your army in existence. Lose the battle, but keep your eye on winning the war.”

But everyone in Buller’s command had to be aware of the attacks being made upon their general by the experts in Europe. London newspapers began calling him “The Ferryman of the Tugela.” In Parliament he was known as “Sir Reverse Buller.” After the last debacle he humphed and mumbled, “By gad, they’re splendid troops. Retreated without losing one gun carriage.” To which Saltwood said, “They should do it well, sir. They’ve had plenty of rehearsal.” General Buller looked at him with his tiny pinched eyes and laughed. “Yes, yes. What I mean, yes. They are great troops.”

He sent another smashing heliogram to the besieged heroes at Ladysmith, assuring them that he would rescue them within five days, and with fortitude he crossed the Tugela yet again, only to get a shocking bloody nose which sent him reeling back across that pitiful stream once more. In Ladysmith the rations were diminishing, and at the end of twelve weeks Buller was no closer to the town than when he started. Still he had the gall to heliograph yet again that he would succor the town at any moment now.

In view of the growing criticism, Saltwood sometimes wondered why the British authorities allowed him to retain command. There was one reason, tragic and accidental. In Buller’s first attempt to cross the Tugela, that masterpiece of ineptitude, a gallant young officer volunteered to rescue some heavy guns that were about to be lost to the Boers. He was killed, and he happened to be the son of Lord Roberts, who would shortly become Buller’s superior. Now, lest Roberts appear vengeful over a death for which Buller was in no way responsible, he remained silent, when otherwise he would have recommended his removal.

A more subtle explanation was given to some French and German observers one night by a young English officer: “The War Office wants generals like Buller. They’re never comfortable with uncertain types like Kitchener and Allenby. Buller is steady, which they like, and not too clever, which they prefer. As a young man he obeyed orders and plunged ahead. You should have seen him, they tell me, wading into Egyptians. Very forceful. They like it that he can’t speak clearly, that he harrumphs all over the place. That’s how a proper general should behave. Look at Raglan and Cardigan at Balaklava.”

“But why in God’s name don’t they dismiss him when his deficiencies become known?” the German asked.

“Ah! That’s why we’re English. That’s why you’ll never understand us. Who appointed Buller? The establishment. The older generals. The older politicians. Probably some of the archbishops had a hand, if the truth were known. They like him. They trust him. He’s one of them. Good family, you know.”

“But he’s destroying the army,” the Frenchman protested.

“The army! What’s the army? The important thing is that men like Buller be protected. He is England, not some damn-fool lieutenant who got his legs blown off.”