Through Shot and Flame

Through Shot And Flame By J. D. Kestell THROUGH SHOT AND FLAME PART I HOPE CHAPTER I I JOIN THE HARRISMITH COMMANDO I purpose to chronicle in the following pages my experiences of the war between the Boers and the English. It is my object to record what I went through on commando, and to give the reader an idea, according to my own observation, of the struggles and sufferings of a small nation against the overwhelming odds of an Empire—nay, against the world itself. For was it not against the world that the little nation fought? Think of it. Not only did England have 240,000 men in the field against 45,000 of the two South African Republics; not only did she have more guns than the two little States, much more ammunition, a much greater amount of supplies, a great many more horses, much more money—but she had the world also on her side. The world looked on the strife without putting forth a hand to help the weak against the strong: nay, it helped the strong. The United States of North America sold horses and wheat and meat to the mighty Empire, that was carrying on a war of extermination against the two small States in South Africa; the Republics of South America gave mules; Austria and Russia supplied horses. I do not forget, when I say this, the large sympathy which the world showed us. I should be guilty of the most heinous ingratitude if I did not acknowledge that the world, and especially Holland, went out of its way in liberally supplying clothing and large sums of money to our women and children in the concentration camps, and to the prisoners of war on the islands. But England had the advantage of a market almost wherever she wished to buy; and she closed up every avenue through which we might have been aided. And so the little nation stood alone, while its great adversary was assisted from the four corners of the earth. Now I purpose to put on record my experiences in this strife. I will do so as well as I can. What I have to relate, however, will by no means be a history of the war.—We shall not have a history of the war until our children write it.—No, I am not going to write a history: I am going to record my limited experiences. You will not find here, for instance, anything about the events which happened at Stormberg or Magersfontein, or about the taking of Bloemfontein or Pretoria. I was not present at those events. Only on that of which I was an eye-witness, or on what took place in the commando to which I belonged at the time, or what came to my notice shortly after its occurrence—only on that will I report in these pages. But let me tell you before I proceed, that I accompanied the burghers only as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. I was never armed. I never took part in a fight as a soldier. I never meddled with military matters. All that, I felt, lay outside of my province. And yet, as will appear in what follows, I fought in the great fight. I was often in action, and if I carried no arms, I carried a pouch of bandages. My presence in a fight gave heart to some and eased the pain of others. I fought, too, in another way: I encouraged the burghers in every service I held, just as every chaplain ought to do, and admonished them to persevere in the great fight. But I never forgot that I was a minister of religion. Every Sunday, and whenever I had an opportunity in the week, I conducted divine service, taking, as a rule, my text from the Old Testament. Besides this I devoted myself to ambulance work, without, however, ever wearing a Red Cross on my sleeve. I need not say that I was heart and soul one with the great cause of the Republics. Nothing lay nearer to my heart than their welfare; and when it appeared that war was imminent, and that it would be disastrous to my people, it weighed upon my mind like lead. War?—Ay, war! I feared a collision with England from the moment that Sir Alfred Milner proved at the Bloemfontein Conference that nothing could satisfy him. I became convinced then of what I had all along suspected, but would not believe, that the object of England was not to see that the Uitlander should obtain his rights, but that the two Republics should be annihilated, and that the map of South Africa should, as Rhodes had put it, be painted red. These suspicions of mine soon proved not to have been unfounded. President Kruger had consented, at last, to grant the franchise to Uitlanders, after a residence of five years in the country; and everybody thought now that war was averted, and that there would be a peaceful adjustment of the differences between England and the South African Republic. But England did not want that. England wanted the Transvaal. Contrary to the expectations of everyone, the British Government did not accept the proposal of President Kruger, and said that it would dictate its own terms. It was speedily seen that England intended to do this by force of arms, for numbers of British troops had begun to mass on the boundaries of the two Republics. At last England got what it had been seeking—a palpable causa belli, in the Ultimatum which the Transvaal Government, wearied to death, at last issued. Both Boers and Britishers have declared that it was a fatal mistake on the part of the Transvaal to issue the Ultimatum. The Boers said that President Kruger should have waited until England had begun hostilities; and the English protested that there would have been no war, if there had been no Ultimatum. Lord Salisbury, especially, has never wearied in his attempt to make the world believe that England went to war with the Republics solely because of the insult offered by the Ultimatum; and that the two States themselves had by that act made it impossible for the British Government to permit them to retain their independence. But the world knows better. The world knows that it was England, not the Republics, that began the quarrel, when, contrary to the terms of the Convention of 1884, she interfered with the internal affairs of the South African Republic; when later on she would listen to no proposal of the Transvaal Government, and when she began sending troops to the boundaries of the two States. The world can comprehend also that the Republics could not wait until England had completed the massing of her troops on the borders, to wake up one morning and find themselves invaded from every side. The world, too, knows what must be said of the blow which falls in a manner mechanically, after unendurable provocation. And posterity, sitting in judgment, will pass its verdict on the Ultimatum. It will say that it was a protest against wrong and oppression. It will hear a little people speaking through that Ultimatum to a great nation: "Thou art great and mighty, and thou wouldst set thy foot upon my neck; but I declare here before the whole world that Might is not Right; and I defy thee!" I cannot enter into a discussion here of the question whether the South African Republic wronged the Uitlanders. But if this had been the case, was England then the knight-errant among the nations of the earth, to rush to the succour of such as might be oppressed by the one or the other Power?—And if she considered that this was her mission, why did she never attempt to teach Turkey, Russia, even the United States of America, what their duty was? Nothing was further removed from the thoughts of England than such disinterestedness. But she imagined that she had a chance with this little people; and when she wished to beat the dog, she found a stick in the grievances of the Uitlanders. Poor Transvaal, thou wert not perfect—far from that! But thou hadst had no time to become so. Thou hadst had no time to develop into what thou wouldst have become in the course of years. Thy great neighbour, arrived at maturity through centuries of imperfections, found thee a child, and, counting it a crime in thee to be a child, made a murderous assault on thee! The negotiations between England and the South African Republic were still progressing when England sent troops, not only to the Transvaal, but also the Free State borders. What else but undisguised hostility could the Governments of the two Republics see in this action of England? They were compelled by it to prepare themselves for any emergency; and enjoined, in consequence, the landdrosts to instruct the commandants of all the districts of the two States to commandeer the burghers. This commandeering took place on 2nd of October 1899. It was on Sunday, and many a Boer had gathered his household around him, and was sitting with his Bible open before him, while he was conducting his Sunday family worship, when the field-cornet, or other person sent in his stead, came and told him that he had to appear at a certain place, with his horse, saddle and bridle, rifle and thirty rounds of ammunition, and rations for eight days. The Harrismith Commando was ordered to muster on the farm—The Oaks; and most of the burghers composing it arrived there next day.

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