Читать книгу Reports from the Boer War - Edgar Wallace - Страница 6
ОглавлениеReproduced from The Wanganui Chronicle (New Zealand), March 27, 1901
MATJESFONTEIN, January 16, 1901
You may be pardoned for the natural curiosity which prompts you when you read, that Somebody's "Horse," newly raised, has been doing good work, to inquire from the most likely informant the history of the raising of that corps, how it was raised, why, and how it got the name that it bears. Roberts, Strathcona, Driscoll, Warren, Bethune, Paget, Thorneycroft, Cameron, Marshal, Orpen, Rimington, Brabant, Loch, Lovat, and last, not least in war, Kitchener, have given their names to horses or scouts, while corps like the South African Light Horse and the Imperial Light Horse have managed very well without the backing of an illustrious patronymic. They came into being, these corps, and you at home know nothing of the labour and travail that attended the birth. You did not know of swearing adjutants, sweating remount officers, despairing C.O.s, of recruits without discipline, who had ideas to be knocked out of them, of hastily acquired equipment, of gloomy forebodings that the war would be over before they were ready to take the field.
FIRST THE PROLOGUE
They came to you first in the list of casualties, which, being official, took precedence of the Press report that came later, and while you were reading the Special's account of the mad desperate rush, or the grim, bitter resistance, of the new- made soldiers, they themselves were wiping the marks of battle from their brand-new equipment, and thanking Heaven that the British army had a corps like theirs to fall back upon in the hour of danger.
In most cases these forces bear the names of the men to whom they owe their inception—men who have given, in addition to their names, service, fortune, and, in the case of poor Montmorency, that charming gentleman who fell with his Guides, life.
The story of Kitchener's Fighting Scouts is necessarily a short one. Indeed, the prologue is scarcely written, but the interest of that portion of the story deserves attention.
A few months ago the world of sport—that world that is not satisfied with shooting over preserves, but looks towards Somaliland and Rhodesia for the pleasures of life—was grieved to learn of the sudden death of Mrs. Colenbrander, a splendid sportswoman who had taken up her gun I against the Matabele impis, and had fought side by side with her husband in the dark days of '96.
She it was who, with Mr. Colenbrander, had accompanied Mr. Rhodes in his daring indaba in the Matoppos, and her fame throughout Rhodesia was no less than that of Johannes Colenbrander—that mighty hunter whose name is a passport from the Swaziland border to the Zambesi. Her tragic death came like a thunderbolt upon Johannes, and finding life under the old conditions unbearable, he resolved to sell out his every possession in Rhodesia and find distraction in the Transvaal. He was not long in Johannesburg before Lord Kitchener, who knew him by repute, sent for him, and in the half-hour's conversation between them the corps that bears the name of the Commander-in- Chief was born.
Indaba (Zulu)—A council or meeting of indigenous peoples of southern Africa to discuss an important matter. ]
A HUSBAND DESOLATE
"What are you doing, and where are you going?" was Kitchener's peremptory demand.
"I am looking out for a new home, and I am going to England to attend a board meeting," was the reply.
"Better join me," advised the strong man. "They tell me you know every inch of the Swaziland border?"
"I know Zululand and Swaziland like a book."
Kitchener thought for a while.
"Will you take command of a force to patrol the Swaziland border?" he asked.
"I will raise a force on one condition," responded Mr. Colenbrander— "if you give , me leave to recruit."
Now at that time every irregular regiment in the field had opened recruiting offices in all the large towns of the Colony and Natal. There was not a hoarding in Capetown, Port Elizabeth. East London, Grahamstown, Durban, or Maritzburg that did not bear a dozen invitations to the youth of the colony to step up lively and join the Imperial Light Horse, or the South African Light Horse, or B.P.'s Police, or Marshall's, Nesbitt's, Brabant's, or other regiments of Light Horse.
The Pioneer Regiments, the local volunteers, in fact, every corps on service, were soliciting recruits, and every dorp or town throughout South Africa had its recruiting office. Consequently Colenbrander's offer to raise an entirely new force was a somewhat daring one.
"Where will you recruit?" said the General.
"Everywhere—Capetown, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and Bulawayo."
Kitchener pointed out that recruiting in Bulawayo had been going on for some considerable time—in fact, he thought that the Rhodesian supply of recruits was exhausted.
"After you have finished recruiting, said Colenbrander calmly, "I will undertake to raise 300 men from Rhodesia alone."
"Very well," said Lord Kitchener promptly, "put your ideas on paper and bring them along to-morrow morning at 11."
As Colenbrander turned to go, he bethought him to ask what name the corps should bear.
"What do you think?" asked the chief.
"Well, sir," was the instant, reply, "if you don't mind, I think 'Kitchener's Scouts' would not be a bad name.
At this Lord Kitchener demurred.
"Can't you find another name?" he asked.
"I couldn't find a better," was the quick response.
SCOUTS AND MORE
Kitchener smiled. "All, right," he said, "if you would like it, be it so—but you are to be something more than scouts. I want you to fight."
"Then 'Kitchener's Fighting Scouts' let it be," said the newly-appointed commanding officer, and "Kitchener's Fighting Scouts" it was.
The next day a rough plan for forming the corps was drawn up, and the last of Colenbrander's conditions for raising the corps was quaint. "No Imperial officer other than Lord Kitchener shall have control over the regiment." Lord Kitchener laughed, and agreed, and Colenbrander walked away with the embryo of a regiment in his pocket-book.
Then Johannes Colenbrander sat still, and looked around for his officers. His second in command was easily found. Major Wilson was on Lord Kitchener's staff and he had a South African record that many generals might envy. Wilson had the eye and mind for organisation. Colenbrander had the love and trust of his fellows throughout South Africa. Both were brave, strong men. Between them they chose their officers.
They were men who had "shot for the pot" from their youth up—men who had wandered away from time to time from the beaten tracks, and made paths through the unknown wilderness of the north.
Pioneers who had carved their names in the primeval forests, and had set their monograms down in cleared townships. They were men who were wont to disappear at intervals from the Bulawayo Club and turn up a few months later with a new stock of reminiscences, and the fag end of an attack of fever.
The officer commanding one squadron was down at Massi-Kassi in the days of the Portuguese raid, and his subaltern calls Barotseland "home."
Wilson was on the Shangani in '93—and they have all been through the '96 rebellion.
And so with the men. Forty per cent of them wear the orange- and blue-barred ribbon '96. They, too, know the bad backland, and carry tabloids of quinine in their pockets. They are here in Matjesfontein, with their two spare horses and their Cape carts, with their native scouts and pom-poms. If they by any good luck get the order to chase De Wet they will get him, for they have the pick of the horses, and reject twice as many as they accept from the remount officer.
They will not take anything that has a suspicion of "crock" in his composition, and in consequence they will be the finest mounted force that has ever chased a Boer commando.
In the meantime Webber, who is the remount officer, is turning grey.
