CHAPTER I PROEM HE story in hand has dates of beginning and ending ia». T which are not very indefinite. Its chapters are sandwiched between the last months of 1899 and the summer of 1901. Should an occasional break be made beyond these bounds, I promise that the hedge shall not be greatly damaged nor the gap often trodden. I desire to establish with my reader, if I can, my point of view, and it cannot be said to have been reached by that single life-voyage made within the narrow boundaries I have acknowledged. WhaAngloBoerWar.comt brought the Imperial Yeoman to his attestation ? That is too large a question: for Imperial Yeomen were many and reasons were diverse. What brought me to enlist will alone serve the purpose of assisting a reader to an understanding of the experience that guided my choice of the incidents and subjects recorded, or will explain whatever of inclination or bias that may be apparent in my story. My own reasons may not have widely differed from those of the majority of my comrades, yet for all that, no two men's points of view are ever quite the same, therefore—a trespass. I am an Englishman, one who for many years has lived under other flags, but who, in spite of all tempta­ tions, has remained an Englishman, and voiceless and voteless in the politics of any country. My age was more years than I care to tell beyond that limit which the War Office decided was admissible or compatible with efficiency. 2 I 2 THE STORY OP THE 34TH COMPANY, I. Y. I do not think I loved my country one whit the less because I had lived in another for a long time; the effect of absence was wrought into an adage when yet the world was young. I did, however, acknowledge to myself a double debt, one to the land of my birth, another to that of my most lengthened sojourn. My wistful offer to discharge a part of the score run up against me for salt was refused by the present President of the United States himself, when he was colonel of the Rough Riders that bore his name. That was a great disappointment to me. His rejection was at once kindly, sympathetic and cha­ racteristic. He regarded me keenly, weighing me in his balance, which I believe to be delicate and just. He took hold of my hand and scrutinised it, and decided that I had been too unused to severe manual labour to be able to stand the hardships which he expected would be en­ countered in the path of troopers he led. In that he may have been mistaken: it was to my disadvantage that I had not a robust appearance. Nevertheless, I have the satis­ faction of remembering that he hesitated to refuse me, that his final rejection of my service was not made with­ out compunctioAngloBoerWar.comn or without a consultation with his co­ worker Colonel Wood, and a medical examination which I now know to have been incompetent. Nor had I cause to find fault with the terms of his decision; he touched my arm gently and said, " I am very sorry, but you will remember that I have many more applicants than it is possible for me to satisfy." Less than one in three of the enrolled men ever found their way to Cuba, and they went through that short campaign as foot soldiers, their horses, for lack of ready or suitable transport, being left behind. I had many friends in that regiment, and bidding them goodbye was an ordeal to me. Of a few of the more intimate of those I had expected to call comrades, one lost his life in that campaign, and two others, lieutenants and brothers-in-law, whose company in the regiment I had hoped to join, lost their lives together with General Lawton (whom I had also once met), all in the Philippines, PROEM 3 within a few days of each other, and that sad news I learnt on the South African veldt from a stray scrap of newspaper. In the autumn of 1899, more than a year after my attempt to join the "RRR's," I found myself once more in England. I had been absent so many years that it was with something of an exile's pride and delight in home that I drank to the full of the exquisite beauty, orderliness, and established glory of England. I leisurely took count of this heritage, in one of the fine old cathedral towns. The threatenings of storm in South Africa did not at first greatly disturb me, where I idled in the back­ ground of a fool's paradise. It was not until the beginning of November that I recognised the fly in my precious ointment. From under "immemorial elms" I looked up to glorious, sun-flecked traceries and lofty spires, and from smooth green lawns, within a close, I heard the sounds of organ, choir, or bells, things that had been a blinding memory to me at times in a Far West, and these and mucAngloBoerWar.comh besides were in the inventory, tangible assets of patriotism and training— "1 Here and here did England help me: how can I help England ?1 —say, Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray," —that was the burning thought. An imperative one. I had seen a mere civilian, at a moment of national peril, make the enrolment and equipment of a regiment of mere civilian troopers the task of a few days. Was there any real reason why the experiment should not be repeated now and here ? There was:—the War Office would not accept us, yet I November saw little progress in this, the right direction: No?«mb« —a fiat, even, went forth that infantry was preferred. In the daily press a few old knowing hands modestly suggested, as if they tewed to appear hypercritical, that the scouting of Parent. There could 4 THE STORY OF THE 34TH COMPANY, I. Y. be no two opinions of that among men familiar with wide stretches of wild country. In the Times Sir George Chesney was well and aptly quoted on Boer tactics; Sir H. H. Howorth and others were wondering that we had no cavalry, and a sentiment was gaining ground that colonial experience might prove almost as useful to com­ batants in this war as a faultless knowledge of parade drill or sword exercise. There were many unwandering Masters of the Seven Seas who had but the vaguest conception of what colonial experience meant—for what virtues, knowledge, or acquirements our soldiers did not possess it stood for, and there was little possibility of explaining although people were so willing and desirous of finding out, for conditions of home and colonial life differed so. An old " Gum-sucker " rather hurt our English complacency, if not our self-respect, by declaring that few of our men knew anything of so simple a matter as the lighting of a fire, which was beginning at the bottom of things with a vengeance, for it is a conceit with every man, a vestige of primal habits, that no one knows better how to start or mend a fire than he himself—and yet howAngloBoerWar.com much the most expert of us can learn from Kaffir or savage juggling with a glowing ember and frost-soaked dung! Something was wrong, we did not exactly know what, and uneasy reflections were expressed, but not very con­ spicuously during November. Wrangling over the causes of the war, a kind of fiddling over a burning question, was more the concern of the hour than the dire necessity for scouts and legs for our army. It was thought we might yet muddle through without them. Mr. Selous was assuring us passionately that the Boer was, besides other virtuous things, a very hospitable person, Hospitality, as is well known, is a common trait of nomadic peoples, who know how it is themselves to be left out in a cold world—as, for instance, the Red Indian and the Arab— and it is an admirable trait, but its cloth is not of that ample width that is required to cover a multitude of PROEM 5 political delinquencies. There were many who yet doubted the existence of a "Dutch Conspiracy." The full significance of evidence of the Reitz-Schreiner- dialogue kind was too apparent to be conspicuous. On November 23rd a friendly German officer wrote to the Times : " I take it for granted that you sufficiently understand at home the immense gravity of the war as regards the continuance of the British Empire as Weltreich, and that you are consequently resolved on victory, cost what it may in time, life, or money sacrifice." A week later Mr. Chamberlain, as if in answer, spoke of this aspect of the question in clear unmistakable language. We were waking up to the situation. And in December almost every morning paper was as a JTi^tok lash on naked flesh. I think that period has been called Dm" "those dark December days." There is no gainsaying it, they yeere dark days, and we were reminded of what Emerson had said of England: " I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well remembering that she has seen dark days before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little betteAngloBoerWar.comr in a cloudy day, and that in a storm of battle and calamity she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a cannon." For my own part I began to feel the serene and sheltered atmosphere of a cathedral town too rare, and I went to London.