The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  “Damn it, Ogilvie, Rhodes is mad. Damned upstart in my opinion — though I’m not to be quoted on that. The very idea of spreading false rumours to hearten the enemy — it disgusts me!”

  “Mr Rhodes’s idea isn’t to hearten the enemy, sir — ”

  “But that’s the effect it’ll have!”

  “Only until it has acted as a prod to our own high command, sir. But there’s another point as well: the delivery of such a message … it gets me where Lord Kitchener wants me to be. For that purpose, sir, it’s excellent.”

  Kekewich shrugged, and stared unhappily out of the window, gazing across towards the distant Boer lines. “We’ll say no more about it. It’ll be Rhodes’s responsibility, not mine, thank God!”

  He brought out his watch from his pocket and studied it gloomily. “You’d better get along to see Mrs Gilmour now.”

  “Are you coming with me, sir?”

  Kekewich shook his head. “No, no, I shall keep well out of that aspect from now on, Ogilvie. It is not something that should concern me.” He added, as Ogilvie turned away, “I shall see you later — I’ll send for you when I’ve made my arrangements for your leaving the town, which will be as far as my participation will go.”

  Ogilvie hesitated by the door. “When shall I leave, sir?”

  “Tonight at full dark, unless there is too much moon. Even so, it’ll be far from easy.” Kekewich frowned, and went on with an almost hysterical look in his eye. “You’re expected to exaggerate our difficulties — I realize that — but by God, that man Rhodes laid it on damn thick! As to the food supplies, I mean. We’re not starving yet in Kimberley — that disgraceful meal was nothing but — but damn play-acting!”

  He snorted in derision. Ogilvie hid a grin. Poor Kekewich was still furious about Rhodes’s pinpricks.

  6

  FAR FROM EASY — NOTHING MORE TRUE, OGILVIE THOUGHT as he made his way to the home of the Hendriksons of the De Beers Company, where Mrs Gilmour was staying. Very far from easy; getting in had been one thing, and there had been a good deal of luck around, to say nothing of the competence of Major Allenby. But he would go out on his own, right into the enemy lines — and who could say that a trigger-happy Boer would not take a pot shot at him? He knew the Boers were excellent shots, having been mostly brought up from an early age to bring down buffalo on the run at a range that would have appeared more than extreme to the majority of British marksmen.

  Kimberley by day, as opposed to Kimberley by night, was a thronged town. Walking along, dressed now as an Englishman in clothes provided by Colonel Kekewich, Ogilvie rubbed shoulders with men in khaki, or civilians, both men and women, and passed by coloured people and Bantus in the gutters, ignoble natives with eyes downcast as the white rulers strode or rode by. There was little joy in any of the faces, and many of the people looked ill, with greyish, drawn features. There was fear in many of the eyes, a kind of looking-over-the-shoulder aspect as though in apprehension of a bombardment by Boer artillery, the crashing explosions of the 75-mm Creusot field guns which might soon be joined by the heavier ones of the Long Toms. Once again Ogilvie felt the claustrophobic constriction of being under siege: the knowledge of shortening food supplies and medical comforts, and the lengthening sick list, must indeed be hard to bear and yet keep smiling. It came to Ogilvie that the mendacity Rhodes had ordered him to indulge in might yet turn into the very truth. If the townspeople should decide to surrender, Kekewich would be hard put to it to prevent the act with his comparatively small force, so overwhelmingly composed of local volunteers who in the event might throw in their lot with their families.

  Reaching the Hendrikson home, Ogilvie was admitted by a coloured servant to the drawing-room, where he introduced himself to Mrs Hendrikson. “Captain James Ogilvie, Ma’am, of the 114th Highlanders. I wonder if I may have a word with Mrs Gilmour? I … come from her grand-daughter in Cape Town.”

  “From Katharine, Captain Ogilvie? A charming child, to be sure. But — how on earth did you get into Kimberley — or shouldn’t I ask that?”

  Ogilvie smiled. “It’s something I can’t answer, I’m afraid, Mrs Hendrikson. I’d be obliged if you’d treat the whole of my visit as confidential — it must not reach Boer ears at all events, and — ”

  “Of course, I understand. But Mrs Gilmour’s confined to bed, Captain Ogilvie. She’s very old, as you must know.” Mrs Hendrikson paused. “She’ll want news of Katharine, however. She may be prepared to let you go to her room … I shall ask her myself.”

  She left the drawing-room and was back within two minutes, saying Mrs Gilmour would see Captain Ogilvie with pleasure. She took him up the stairs, made the introduction, and left them alone. Ogilvie felt extreme embarrassment and sorrow at the deception as the frail old woman in the great four-poster bed reached out a thin white hand. She smiled at him.

  “How very kind of you to come, Captain Ogilvie. My granddaughter has spoken of you in the past. You were with my son, of course.”

  “Yes, Mrs Gilmour.”

  “Please sit down. Draw a chair up to the bed, and talk to me.”

  Ogilvie did so, smiling back at the old lady. Gentle and quiet, the impression she gave was of muffins and afternoon tea, tea in an English country garden, elegance and old lace and great kindliness. Ogilvie produced the locket, pressing it into Mrs Gilmour’s hands. “Katharine said you were to have this,” he said.

  “How very kind of her — it’s of her dear mother, you know — ”

  “Yes, I know. She — ”

  “Tell me about my son, Captain Ogilvie. Tell me about that terrible journey through the Khyber Pass.”

  Ogilvie did so, speaking of her son’s manly death in the blinding Khyber snows, under fire from the Pathan hordes. The old lady listened intently, looking into his eyes all the while. When he had finished, she nodded. She said, “I’m so very glad to meet you, Captain Ogilvie. My grand-daughter has often told me how brave … how brave and kind and gallant you were. And you were the last man to know my son.” For a moment Ogilvie saw the sparkle of tears in her eyes, then she seemed to stiffen herself and went on, “Now tell me about Katharine. She is well — she is in no trouble?”

  “No trouble,” Ogilvie said. “There is something she wishes me to ask of you, however.” He stopped.

  “Then ask, Captain Ogilvie.”

  “It concerns the Red Daniel.”

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “Your grand-daughter wishes it … brought to a safer place than Kimberley — Kimberley under siege, Mrs Gilmour. Perhaps you’ll understand. I hope you will.” He felt himself sweating: he detested the lie.

  “But Kimberley’s not going to fall, Captain Ogilvie!”

  “No, of course not. That is, the British Army will make every endeavour to see that it doesn’t. But — ”

  “But Katharine fears that Paul Kruger will succeed. I understand that fear very well. I confess — in spite of what I have just said — that I have it myself from time to time. It is not that I don’t have confidence in the army, Captain Ogilvie, but I know the fighting spirit, and the determination and the single-mindedness, of the Boers. I know their aspirations, their nationalistic feeling.” She closed her eyes, and seemed to be thinking deeply. “I also know what my son’s plans were for the Red Daniel. It was his security,. and Katharine’s.”

  “She told me that, Mrs Gilmour.”

  “And it is hers by right. It is her property. Well, if she wants it in Cape Town, she must have it.” She gave him a direct look as the opened her eyes again. “Am I to understand you will take it to her?”

  Again the detestable lie. “Yes, Mrs Gilmour. That is, if you will trust me with it — ”

  “Trust you? Of course I shall trust you! Tell me: did not Katharine send the locket as a token that I could trust you?”

  “Yes, that’s — ”

  “Then she had no need to. You have a trustworthy face, Captain Ogilvie, the face of an honest and truthful young man, and your description of
my son’s death in the Khyber Pass agrees with Katharine’s, except insofar as you were too modest in regard to your own part. You may take the Red Daniel, and may God protect both you and it. You are a brave man, Captain Ogilvie, to enter and leave this poor town whilst under siege. Bring me my jewel-box, if you please. It’s in the top drawer of the dressing-table.”

  Ogilvie did as he was told. He laid the jewel-box on the bed and Mrs Gilmour brought a tiny key from beneath her bed-jacket, a key on a slim chain similar to the chain of Katharine’s locket, and opened the jewel-box. She shook the Red Daniel out from a small wash-leather bag. As the diamond lay in the palm of her hand, a shaft of sunlight, streaming through the window, caught it: it glowed with a faintly pink light — that light which Katharine, back in Cape Town, had been unable properly to describe. Ogilvie, as he looked at it, was conscious of his own sharply-indrawn breath. The Red Daniel was beautiful, exquisite, and obviously extremely valuable. From all over, its facets reflected the sunlight so that it seemed to glow and sparkle like a living thing, some splendid glow-worm encased in crystal. And old Mrs Gilmour’s shining trust in the word of a British officer and gentleman, as she handed over the family’s security in that little wash-leather bag and a molehill of soft tissue paper, was like a knife thrust into Ogilvie’s heart and soul. He found himself cursing the names of Haig and Kitchener as soon after, with the precious diamond in his pocket, he left the old lady’s bedroom.

  *

  Kekewich was there in person, wearing mess dress after dining with Rhodes and some of the big men from De Beers. The Colonel still obviously disliked the business, but. was there as a soldier to bid a kindly God-speed to a fellow officer. The night was moonless; in fact heavy cloud had rolled up at dusk. The conditions, Kekewich said, were the best they were likely to get. He looked critically at Ogilvie as they stood together beside one of the perimeter strongpoints, by a prepared gap in the barbed-wire fence. Ogilvie was dressed in the khaki of the Kimberley Regiment, a tattered and dirty uniform with a tear in one sleeve where the wire would have caught him as he scrambled through, also a couple of neat round holes in one sleeve, evidence, when he reached the Boer lines, of British marksmanship.

  Kekewich said, “You’ll do, I fancy. There’s one more thing, though.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  The defence commander indicated the tear. “Authenticity is all. Your flesh, my dear fellow, is unsullied!”

  “Oh — I see.” Ogilvie, clenching his teeth hard, moved towards the wire. As Kekewich watched, he thrust his arm into the wire, set the flesh against a jag, pressed, and pulled. There was an agonising pain and a good deal of blood that soaked convincingly into the khaki sleeve around the tear.

  “Hurt — does it?”

  “Yes!”

  Kekewich gave a grim laugh. “It’s. less painful than a Boer executioner’s bullet, and less final too. Are you all set, Ogilvie?”

  Ogilvie nodded, turning to stare across No Man’s Land and the distant flicker of the camp-fires. Kekewich squared his shoulders and tweaked at his moustache. “Remember the drill. I’ll not stop the searchlights, but they’ll be careful not to find you before you’re well enough on your way. Keep at the double for as long as you can, of course. The firing will start as soon as we judge you at a safe distance — safe from recapture by us, that is! That’s when the Boers should take over, and we have to hope they content themselves with bringing you in alive rather than shooting to kill. From then on, it’s up to you. Any questions?”

  “Just one, sir. One that’s just occurred to me.”

  “Well, go ahead, what is it, Ogilvie?” Kekewich sounded impatient now, eager to be done with dirty work.

  “Sir, supposing Major Allenby and I hadn’t been able to slip through last night — supposing we’d had to establish ourselves as Boers, and then break away across No Man’s Land? How would I then have been got out of Kimberley tonight?”

  Kekewich shrugged and said, “Oh, we’d have thought something up, don’t worry!”

  “I’m not worried now, sir — just curious.”

  “As a soldier, you should know the British ability to improvise, Ogilvie. As a matter of fact, Mr Rhodes was banking on last night’s success.”

  Ogilvie nodded and said no more. He wanted badly to ask: And you, Colonel Kekewich? Were you also banking on success? The question remained unasked, for he saw that Kekewich was a worried man, Mr Rhodes being not the least of the indigestibles. The strains and pressures on Kekewich were immense, and his position was an isolated and a lonely one. But Ogilvie, as he took his final leave of Kimberley and its commander, felt a sense of extreme bitterness that so much, all around, was being left to an ‘ability to improvise’. This outlook, he believed, could be largely responsible for the lack of fast British success against the Boers. True, the Boers were fighting from an entire basis of improvisation, but theirs was at least an inevitable, and to some extent a prepared, improvisation and indulged in solely because they had no properly constituted army in any case: the British, he felt now, were in danger of throwing away their immense military superiority by being too amateurish about the whole conduct of the campaign. Perhaps, as the nineteenth century ran out, it was time for England to wonder if the sport of gentlemen was not undergoing a change. Possibly there were, after all, grains of truth and wisdom in Mr Rhodes’s pernickety prodding!

  Ogilvie, concentrating upon his own survival a moment later, went through the gap in the barbed-wire into No Man’s Land. At once, that gap was closed behind him.

  He was on his own.

  Above his head, the searchlights played their nightly game. Rhodes’s Eyes, peering through the darkness, looking for the enemy who might come at any time. There were men, invisible to Ogilvie, in the watchtowers, manning the strongpoints: there was infantry behind the wire along the perimeter, and beside the ready guns the men of the Garrison Artillery kept their own watches.

  But there was silence out there in No Man’s Land, a silence that could almost be felt, a silence that settled with a grim tenacity on Ogilvie’s shoulders as, at the double now, he made towards the Boer lines and the flickering camp-fires.

  He was heading out for a sector of the siege line to the east of the town. Although he had studied the maps in Kekewich’s command post, and had a precise theoretical idea of where he was going and what his surroundings were like, he was in fact very quickly lost in that thick darkness and was forced to go on by nothing better than intelligent guesswork. He had been advancing at a loping run for around twenty minutes when one of the searchlights swept on to him: at once he broke into a faster stride, dodging from right to left. This was the moment of action: the searchlight, by design, failed to find him again, but soon after this firing came from his rear. Running fast for the Boer lines, he became aware of some movement ahead and then, in the glow from the camp-fires, saw the Boer riflemen standing to. He saw the rifles come up, saw the flashes as they were fired and felt the wind of the bullets singing past his head. He shouted out, a hoarse yell in the night:

  “Friend — hold your fire!”

  The answer was more bullets. Ogilvie was within a hundred yards of the siege line when a sledgehammer blow took the side of his head, he saw a brilliant ball of fire that seemed to burst from deep inside his skull, and he went down flat.

  *

  His head ached abominably and he felt deathly sick, and the side of his head and his tattered khaki uniform were thick with blood. Painful shivers of light crackled before his eyes, but beyond the light he realised that it was still dark. He lay still, hoping that lack of movement would ease the blinding, racking pain. For a while he had no idea where he was, except that he was lying out in the open, with scrubby grass beneath him and a cold wind picking at his body. Slowly, things came back to him. The Red Daniel … making a tremendous effort he felt in his pocket. The wash-leather bag was still there, intact with a silk cord drawn tight about its neck. Rhodes, Kekewich, Mrs Gilmour … Katharine! He had to do his best fo
r Katharine … but there was Rhodes as well, and who else?

  Kitchener!

  Fresh pain shot through his head as he made a sudden movement, a reaction to the very image of Kitchener. He had that very special mission to accomplish, and he had been brought down in the first phase — Act One, Scene One.

  God damn all Boers! It came to him that he was being left to die, out there in No Man’s Land, to bleed to death from his wound, to freeze in that bitter wind. He tried to sit up, to call out, even to crawl forward to the siege line, but the effort exhausted him and brought more agonizing pain. Then everything once again went blank. He had no idea how long that second period of unconsciousness lasted; but when he came round again it was to hear low voices, and feel rough hands lifting his body, and still the pain and the sticky drool of blood. He heard his own voice saying that he was a friend, not an enemy, but no one seemed to be heeding him. A jogging motion told him he was being carried along; and soon he saw the camp-fires again, growing larger. There were grunts and heavy breathing from his bearers as they lifted him on to what he saw dimly was a parapet, and then, from a trench, other hands reached out and took him, and his body was slid down bare earth and laid on duckboards in the bottom of the trench. A lantern was held suspended over his face, and behind it he made out a heavily bearded man wearing a wide-brimmed hat, and bending closely over him. In English this man asked, “Who are you — what is your name, and what is your purpose?”

  “My name … is Harry Bland.”

  “Harry Bland, eh. Your purpose? You were mounting a one man attack on us?”

  “No.” Ogilvie licked at his lips, feeling another wave of sickness. The trench stank, which made matters worse. “No attack … I tried to tell your people, I come as a friend.”

  “A friend? How’s that, then, a friend?”

  “You see I have no rifle. There was no attack.”