The Heart of the Empire
Philip McCutchan
© Philip McCutchan 1973
Duncan MacNeil has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1973 by Nordon Publications, Inc as The Red Daniel.
This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
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1
KHAKI EVERYWHERE: THE TRAIN, BEGINNING SLOWLY TO move with its northward-bound freight, seemed to be chuffing through a sea of uniforms interspersed with the gay dresses of the God-speeding women. It never had taken the British Tommy long to get to know the girls. Tears, brave smiles, bursts of nervous laughter — the last few seconds that might lead to eternity.
Hearty cheers: “Teach Oom Paul a lesson, lads!”
“Give my love to Kimberley and all those lovely diamonds!”
“Remember Majuba!”
And song; song roared out in splendid manly fashion till it brought fresh tears to women’s faces:
Goodbye Dolly I must leave you,
Though it breaks my heart to go,
Something tells me I am needed,
At the front to fight the foe,
See, the soldier boys are marching,
And I can no longer stay —
Hark! I hear the bugle calling,
Goodbye Dolly Gray.
Kilts, stores, horses: all the accoutrements of war. A real mix-up of regiments: Argyll and Sutherland, Black Watch, Seaforths, Royal Strathspeys. Tall guardsmen — Coldstreams, Grenadiers, Scots. Bush-hatted troopers of the Imperial Light Horse. Plain English queen-of-battles infantry: Northamptons, KOYLI, Northumberland Fusiliers. Gunners. The Cape Town sun shone down on them all regardless, blazing from somewhere over Table Mountain, blazing down on the masts and yards of shipping in the background. From one of the windows of the crowded troop train leaned one of the kilted officers — Captain James Ogilvie of the Royal Strathspeys.
Tips of fingers touched lightly. “Good-bye, James. Take the greatest care — but teach the Boers a lesson!”
A laugh: “You can rely on that, Katharine.”
“Don’t forget the Red Daniel.”
“You can rely on me for that, too. Good-bye, Katharine.”
“Goodbye … ” The engine was really pulling now, it had got its grip on the overload. Movement was a trifle faster. James Ogilvie waved and grinned, looking back at the girl on the platform, fashionable in her long dress with leg-of-mutton shoulders, extravagantly hatted and parasolled. She’d landed him with quite a task, but old French’s Chief of Staff, Major Douglas Haig, had been insistent that he should give his help. Besides, he had a soft spot for Katharine Gilmour: they’d shared great danger together in the past, in India. It had brought a comradeship … James Ogilvie, as the station platform receded, brought himself in from the window and found his thoughts going back to India, now almost three weeks and a good few thousand miles away. From India they had been expecting a posting home on relief, and had been surprised when the Colonel had announced that the regiment had been ordered to the Cape to join the Army Corps under Sir Redvers Buller. The war reports had not been good: the telegraph had brought word that the first news to greet Buller when, on the day before the Colonel’s announcement in the Mess, he had disembarked at Table Bay, was that of the defeat of Sir George White at Ladysmith. That town was already under heavy siege, and Kimberley also was threatened. The Colonel’s announcement had been well received throughout the regimental lines, despite an undoubted disappointment at not going back to Scotland yet after so many long years of fighting along the North-West Frontier. There was keenness to hit back at Brother Boer.
Kruger watch out — watch out all you whiskery bastards, get back to your stinking farms, we’re on our way to give you merry hell! That was the underlying message behind the wild singing, when the news reached the men, of Soldiers of the Queen.
We’re part of England’s glory, lads,
For we’re Soldiers of the Queen …
But — would it work out so nicely? Would it?
Ogilvie was, frankly, less sanguine than the Other Ranks on that score. All, unhappily, did not appear to a thinking mind to be set quite so jolly fair! All the Empire was converging on Table Bay, so said the news, to teach that well-deserved lesson to the unruly Boer farmers of the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. The Times of India had reported massive enthusiasm at home in England, of wildly cheering men and women crowding the regiments as they marched to embark, of patriotic fervour in the music halls — and in the exclusive London clubs as well as all the blue blood in the British Isles rushing to enlist under Sir Redvers Buller or Sir George White, the latter until recently Commander-in-Chief in India. In Natal volunteers were being raised from the colonists and displaced Uitlanders. The signs had been good, the force of arms immense and colourful and impressive: but to date, sadly, the results had not been equal to the effort. The troops were strung out and dispersed — White had 8000 men at Ladysmith, and forty miles away at Dundee General Penn Symons commanded another 4000, since to have concentrated all on Ladysmith would have been virtually to abandon Natal’s north-west: a purely political consideration that had overridden military needs. Very soon Penn Symons had been personally under fire from the first Boer shells of the war. Through an excess of bravery that verged on stupidity, Penn Symons was mortally wounded at Talana hill — and Penn Symons had only recently fought on the North-West Frontier himself. Talana was a kind of victory, but a Pyrrhic one: Penn Symons lost 546 of his men and left the Boers holding Impati and the water supply for Dundee. On the day of the battle General French, sent out to command White’s cavalry, arrived at Ladysmith, bringing Major Douglas Haig as his Chief of Staff. There followed another Pyrrhic victory at Elandslaagte: Pyrrhic because owing to a misunderstanding as to the Boer intentions and strength, White within hours of the action ordered the abandonment of captured Elandslaagte which had been taken at the cost of heavy casualties to the Devons, the Manchesters and the Gordon Highlanders. Semi-victories were not what the British had expected, neither had they expected muddle. The British Army was supreme, all-powerful, always undefeated even in major wars. How was it that they had failed to decimate a bunch of undisciplined farmers at the very first encounter? At home in England, the public was sustaining a considerable degree of shock, and it was possible their confidence even in Buller might be shaken. Sir Redvers Buller was loved, revered, by the public, and his troops would follow him anywhere; but among the army’s younger officers was a whisper that poor old Buller was too often given to leading in the wrong direction; and he looked like an apple dumpling on a horse. Buller, it was said, didn’t like to out-run the champagne and caviar. And he was sixty years of age — a chicken, of course, compared with the venerable Duke of Cambridge even when the latter had yet occupied the Horse Guards — but still!
Ogilvie’s mind, as the troop train chuffed out of Cape Town, now went on to the Indian Ocean, reflecting on the long haul in the transport. The Malabar had still been a day’s steaming off Table Bay when she had been signalled by a passing freighter, by means of a blackboard slung in the latter’s halliards: LADYSMITH AND KIMBERLEY STILL UNDER SIEGE. BOERS CONTROL RAILWAY FROM ORANGERIVER TO RHODESIA. PLUMER FORCED BACK FROM LIMPOPO. WHITE SURROUNDED BY STRONG FO
RCES.
No depression aboard the troopship: the men were simply anxious to be in the fight. It couldn’t last long now. The next day’s arrival off Cape Town had given point to this belief. The roadstead was filled with ships, ships that had brought Buller’s Army Corps from England, ships that had brought troops from Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand. It was a mighty concourse, a sight to be seen with awe. Boats came out to greet the Malabar and her contingent from India, men cheered, flags waved gaily, and the sun shone down from a clear blue sky as the inward-bound trooper eased to her anchorage and let go. From one of the boats came a staff officer, who climbed the accommodation-ladder the moment it was in the water, and was met at its head by Lord Dornoch and the adjutant. Ogilvie, standing nearby, heard him remark that the battalion had got there just about in time; and wondered: just in time for what?
*
“Sir Redvers Buller,” Dornoch had told the assembled officers just before dinner in the saloon, “has turned the War Office plans upside down — with what effect I dare say we shall see in due course.” He went on to say that the Army Corps had now been split up into three: one column would relieve Ladysmith, another Kimberley, and the remainder, which was not especially strong, would hold the outward thrust of Boers from the Orange Free State until General Buller re-formed the whole Army Corps in the Cape Midlands to carry out the original plan, which was to make a direct assault on Bloemfontein and Pretoria. “The battalion,” Lord Dornoch said, “is to join what’s being called the Kimberley Relief Force. This will be commanded by Lord Methuen. His orders are, to bring his force together at Orange River Station, relieve Kimberley and then Mafeking, which is also under siege as we know, and finally, to re-open communications with Rhodesia. Our own orders are to move up country as fast as possible by train to Orange River Station. To that end, gentlemen, we disembark at ten a.m. tomorrow.” He looked around and caught James Ogilvie’s eye. “A word in your ear, James … ”
“Colonel?”
Dornoch walked to a corner of the saloon, stood for a moment looking out through a brass-rimmed porthole at the lights of Cape Town in the distance. A softly refreshing breeze wafted in. Dornoch turned towards Ogilvie. “James, the officer who boarded with our orders — Major Haig. Chief of Staff to General French, and recently escaped with him from Ladysmith. He brought a message for you.”
Ogilvie showed his surprise. “For me, Colonel?”
“For you indeed.” There was a smile on the Colonel’s lips but his eyes were grave, even sombre. “From Miss Gilmour, whom I know you’ll remember.”
“Katharine Gilmour!” Ogilvie felt himself flushing foolishly. Major Gilmour’s daughter … he’d brought her out of the Khyber after the death of her parents on the march, a dreadful march beset by cruel problems of war and personalities. Soon after arrival in Peshawar — as soon as she was fit for a journey — she had gone to Murree and then he had heard she had left for Cape Town, where her grandmother had lived. He had thought little about her since, and had not expected to find her here in South Africa still. That had never occurred to him: she had loved England and, homesick, had wanted desperately to be back there. He could not have imagined she would remain in South Africa.
He saw the way the Colonel was looking at him. “I’m sorry, Colonel, my mind was back in the past — ”
“Yes — I understand. I had a great deal of time for Gilmour, James. I had great respect for him. It seems Miss Gilmour wants to see you on some matter to do with him and her mother. I see no harm … I have anticipated your agreeing to see her, James. You will have leave to go ashore tonight, but you’re to be back in the docks by eleven p.m., when a boat will be waiting to bring you off. Major Haig himself will meet you at the jetty at eight-thirty, and take you to Miss Gilmour.” Dornoch hesitated. “James, I dare say I needn’t stress this, but you’ll do well to remember that we’re on active service in what is fast becoming a major war. This is no Frontier skirmish. I can allow no … entanglements. You understand? We leave for the Orange River at ten a.m. I would prefer there to be no backward looks.”
2
NO BACKWARD LOOKS: SO LIKE THE COLONEL TO SAY that! With Dornoch, always the regiment had come first and foremost. It was his life, as, in his regimental days, it had been James Ogilvie’s father’s whole existence. Ogilvie of Corriecraig was a proud patronymic; but it was subservient to Ogilvie of the 114th. As a ship’s boat took him inshore Ogilvie, in mess kit still, stared ahead towards the yellow lights that spotted Cape Town, spread below the wide, flat eminence of Table Mountain. There would be no backward looks, but he was honest enough with himself to understand Lord Dornoch’s stricture: on Indian service, James Ogilvie’s heart had been known to flutter in more than one direction. The flame, for instance, of Tom Archdale’s young widow had burned for a long time, and in burning had set light to many webs of scandal in the messes and bungalows of Peshawar and Simla and Murree. But India was India, and was now in the past.
Ogilvie smiled into the darkness, stretching himself lazily on the thwarts. Katharine … two years on, she might have changed. She’d been very young when her parents had died on that hell-march out of the Afghan hills … also very brave. Ogilvie’s lazy movements became restless ones as his body started suddenly to react to thoughts of Katharine Gilmour. An attractive filly … very! But damn it all … she’d be well chaperoned, no doubt! The elderly, sharp-eyed ladies who seemed inseparable from all regimental life made amours sadly difficult for young captains and subalterns. It was useful experience, all the same: intrigue, planning, the outwitting of the enemy — it was fine background for the Staff, and eventual high command!
Suddenly the jetty loomed, and the boat headed in for some steps cut into the stone. A sailor offered Ogilvie a hand to disembark, but he leapt agilely onto the lower step, which was greasy and dappled with seaweed. At the top there was a lamp, yellow, guttering flame behind smoky glass. Here Ogilvie paused and looked around. As he hesitated, he heard the distant clip-clop of a horse, and the grating sound of metal-rimmed wheels on stone. The sounds came closer; a carriage, a gig, very smart, rattled into the circle of light and stopped. Whip in hand, the driver, an officer in khaki, with the red tabs of the Staff, and a Major’s crown, called to Ogilvie:
“Captain Ogilvie of the Royal Strathspeys?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Haig. Douglas Haig of General French’s staff. Get up, will you, Ogilvie. I’m a busy man, as you’ll appreciate, I expect.”
Ogilvie got into the gig and Haig flipped his reins. He pulled the horse round, and they set off towards the town, going fast. Ogilvie, when they came beneath more lamps, studied Major Haig’s profile. It was a squarish face, rather florid, with a firm jaw. The full moustache was greying a little; Haig, he judged, was around forty years of age. Irreverently, he wondered if there was any connection with the famous whisky. Whisky or not — trade or not — this Douglas Haig had about him an air of immense authority and Ogilvie felt instinctively that here was a man marked out for high command: Chief of Staff to a general in the field at forty was good enough going, as indeed was the fact that such an appointment had gone to a man of major’s rank. Haig spoke little; Ogilvie felt obliged to start some conversation going.
He asked, “You’re taking me direct to Miss Gilmour, sir?”
“That was the idea, wasn’t it?”
“Er … yes.”
“You’ve been briefed by your Colonel, I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Silly question, then.” Suddenly, Haig smiled. “Got any others while we’re about it, Ogilvie?”
Ogilvie felt slightly nettled. “Probably only silly ones.”
“Oh, don’t take umbrage, Ogilvie. If you’ve anything to ask, ask it.”
“What does Miss Gilmour want with me, sir?”
“She’ll tell you that herself.” They were clear of the docks now: the sight of Major Haig had been enough to have them waved and saluted past the military control at the gates. Ha
ig now used his whip, just a flick, and they rattled on faster. “I’m also the prod.”
“The prod?”
“I want you to do what Miss Gilmour wants. It’s important to her. It’ll be difficult, but not impossible. I expect you know, your column’s marching on Kimberley.”
“Yes, sir. What’s the — ”
“You’ll see the connection soon enough, Ogilvie.” Haig paused. “I knew the father well — Major Gilmour, a fine man. You were with him when he was killed — I know all about that. I believe he impressed you as he impressed me.”
“That’s true.”
Haig gave a low laugh. “You’re the man for the job, all right! You’ll see.”
Intriguing! And Katharine Gilmour seemed to live some distance away, which increased the scope for Ogilvie’s inner speculations, the more so as Major Haig fell into a silence which he seemed disinclined to wish broken. The gig travelled the streets of Cape Town and its suburbs for a little under half an hour: The town itself was on a positive war footing: there were troops everywhere, British, Colonials, all in khaki, some with the wide-brimmed bush hats of the Australians — surging about in groups, some silent, some singing, some drunk as lords, pouring from the bars in noisy abandon, a last celebration, perhaps, before entraining for the front. There were regimental pickets in plenty, slow-moving men commanded by dour N.C.O.’s, naval patrols, military policemen. There were sailors, bluejackets from warships berthed in the naval port of Simon’s Town in False Bay, brawny-looking men wearing straw hats with the ship names in gold thread on black ribbons, bearded men largely, with flapping trousers and a rolling — to Ogilvie’s eye undisciplined — gait. (He recalled something his naval uncle had once said: “Don’t expect parade-ground precision from seamen, my boy, if ever you serve with a Naval Brigade. You know what’s been said — Royal Marine Light Infantry will advance in columns of fours, seamen. will advance in bloody great heaps.”) In parts of the town, Kaffirs moved obsequiously along the gutters.
The Heart of the Empire Page 1