The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  “I think you’d better explain fully. Come now!” A hand reached out, and cruelly jerked his shoulder. He gave a shout of sudden pain, and heard the bearded man laugh. “You’re not badly hurt — you’ll live, Harry Bland! A glancing shot across your skull, no more than that. Now.”

  “Very well. I … I’ve deserted — from the Kimberley Regiment. I broke through the fence. They didn’t see me for a while — long enough. Then they started shooting.” He paused, shutting his eyes as the lantern came closer. “Thank God it was you who found me … and not them.”

  “Why have you deserted?”

  “It never was my fight,” Ogilvie said. “I just got caught up in it, that’s all, while visiting from England.” Bile rose in his throat. He said unsteadily, “You’d better stand away … ”

  “Why should I stand away?”

  “Because I’m going to be sick.” He was: gushingly, horribly. The bearded man went back with a bound, swearing to himself in Afrikaans. He watched from a safe distance, holding the lantern high. After a moment he turned to another man, standing with others in the shadow of the trench.

  “You, Grootjens,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “The doctor. This yellow-belly may have the plague from Kimberley — the enteric or the dysentery. Quickly, now!”

  The man Grootjens hurried away along the trench. From the others there was an instinctive movement away from possible disease, but in the lantern’s glow Ogilvie could see the watchful eyes and the ring of rifles pointed down at him.

  7

  “I AM COMMANDANT WESSELS. I COMMAND THE SIEGE army.” The tone was guttural, the command of English fair but the words heavily accented. Ogilvie was sitting before the Commandant in the latter’s tent behind the siege line, brought there through a bright sunny day by a field-cornet, the bearded man who had questioned him the night before. “The doctor tells me you have no disease, merely the head wound.”

  “Yes.” Ogilvie lifted a hand and fingered the bandage around his head. He was feeling a good deal better physically, but had been dismayed that, when searched during the night after the doctor’s visit, the wash-leather bag with the Red Daniel in it had been taken away — only for safe keeping, according to the field-cornet, but safe keeping was a term open to fairly wide interpretation, he fancied.

  Wessels went on, “You are Private Harry Bland, deserter from the Kimberley Regiment.” He shook his head, apparently in wonderment. “Kimberley is a strange town! Men break out, and other men break in. Last night, two men broke in. Tell me, Private Bland, who were those men?”

  “I don’t know,” Ogilvie said.

  “There was firing. You must have heard it.”

  “Yes, but there’s often firing, Commandant Wessels, it’s nothing remarkable.”

  “There were no rumours?”

  Ogilvie hesitated. “Well, there was a vague rumour that someone had come in with despatches for Rhodes — someone to do with De Beers, probably. That’s all I know.”

  Wessels nodded, seeming satisfied. Ogilvie was aware of a curious naivety about the Boer: he appeared unused to stratagems and deceptions, which was perhaps just as well for Ogilvie’s task. They were simple farmers, after all, these people — not diplomats or politicians — accustomed to looking after their lands in a God-fearing community. Wessels went back to his earlier point: “You are a deserter. I am told this already.”

  “And you don’t like deserters?”

  “I have not said this. Oh, you British! You are a military race. We Afrikaners are Boers, farmers,” he added as if in reflection of Ogilvie’s own thoughts. “We have turned into soldiers only from necessity. No, I do not dislike deserters as you British would! And now I am more interested in why you have deserted, than in the bare fact that you have done so. You will tell me, please.”

  Ogilvie did so, giving him the prepared story.

  “Things are bad, then, in the town?”

  “Terrible. It doesn’t bear thinking about. Starvation, sickness … ”

  “The sickness I have heard about. The starvation — this surprises me. I have understood the De Beers Company had large food stocks.”

  Ogilvie shrugged. “This may be so, I don’t know. All I know is, it’s not being distributed — except to the officers and the high-up town officials and so on, perhaps. As for the natives, the Bantus, they’re getting next to nothing!”

  “And as a result, are discontented?”

  “More than that! As I said, Commandant — mutinous. Of course, none of this has been allowed to leak out — the British authorities outside Kimberley know nothing of the real truth!”

  “It has not been reported by the man Kekewich? His telegraph station is destroyed, but I know he is able to communicate by means of his heliograph, with the next telegraph station — ”

  “He doesn’t want it known that he’s not in full control. He has his career to think about, and he is relying on a fast relief by General Buller. But it’s my belief the town will fall long before the relieving columns can arrive.”

  “Fall?” Bright eyes stared into Ogilvie’s face. “Do you mean — surrender?”

  “Yes, I do, Commandant. The whole town’s ripe for it.”

  “And your Cecil Rhodes?”

  Ogilvie laughed. “Not him! He’s said to be all for sitting it out until Buller gets there. Kekewich more or less does what Rhodes tells him, so he’ll not surrender either — but I think his hand’s going to be forced before much longer!”

  “I see.” Wessels drummed his fingers on the packing-case he was using as a desk. “In that case, why did you not wait for all this to happen, rather than risk crossing No Man’s Land, with the British guns behind you, and ours in front?”

  “I didn’t mean to wait to get caught up in the panic — or the reprisals afterwards! As I said, Commandant, it’s not my war. I hold no brief for what the British want out here. As far as I’m concerned, it’s your country. The war’s bloody stupid and bloody wrong too!”

  “Yes. Then why did you join the British Army when you reached Kimberley?”

  “Well — I had to. I don’t mean I was conscripted … but a man has to do something in a siege situation! After all, it’s a defensive situation, isn’t it, purely for survival and — and all that. But in the end, you see, I just couldn’t go on taking it any more … so I got out. That’s all.”

  “Not quite all,” Wessels said with a sly look on his face now. “No?”

  Ogilvie said, “No, you’re right. There is something else. A mission I’ve been asked to undertake.”

  “To do with — this?” Wessels reached into a pocket and brought out the wash-leather bag. Opening the neck, he shook the diamond with its tissue-paper out onto his palm. He removed the tissue-paper. The Red Daniel glowed in the daylight coming through the tent flap, glowed as it had in Mrs Gilmour’s bedroom the previous day. “I think you had better tell me, Private Bland.”

  “That diamond … it’s known as the Red Daniel.”

  “I know this. It is a famous stone.”

  “Then you know its history?”

  Wessels nodded. “Oh yes, yes! But you are telling me, not I you. Go on, please.”

  “Commandant Daniel Opperman, after whom it’s named, gave it to a Major Gilmour, years ago, after the battle of Laing’s Nek. Major Gilmour had saved Commandant Opperman’s life.”

  “Yes. You know what you are speaking of. Go on.”

  “It now belongs to Major Gilmour’s mother — or at any rate, it was in her possession. She’s in Kimberley. She has a message, which she believes to be important, for Commandant Opperman. She has asked me to go to him with this message, and she gave me the Red Daniel as proof that I come from her.”

  “This is why you deserted?”

  “No! I keep telling you, Commandant — it isn’t my war! I’m not interested really. The old lady — Mrs Gilmour — she … well, she befriended me from the start. I used to talk to her, she was like a mother. I got to know
her very well. I told her what I meant to do. At first she didn’t believe me. But in the end she realised I was determined — and she asked me to do this for her, you see. Well, naturally, I agreed.”

  “Why naturally?” Those keen bright eyes stared into Ogilvie again, penetratingly.

  Ogilvie said, “The diamond meant a sort of safe conduct to me. I knew it would … help me into your lines. And it has — hasn’t it, Commandant?”

  Wessels laughed. “Quite a sharp young man! Yes, it has, in a sense. Well — now what do you want? To be allowed to go free, to rejoin the British somewhere else — with a king’s ransom in your pocket, after perhaps buying me off with a promise of a share in the sale of the Red Daniel? Is this your plan?”

  “No, it isn’t.” Ogilvie looked up, full into the Boer’s eyes. “I may be a deserter, but I mean to honour my word to Mrs Gilmour. I want you to give me a safe conduct to Commandant Opperman, wherever he may be. Naturally, I’ll expect to be escorted by an armed party — that would be only reasonable of you to insist upon. Will you do that?”

  Wessels asked sardonically, “This message — what is it?”

  “It is only for Commandant Opperman. I am sorry.”

  “You refuse to tell me?”

  “It’s not so much that I refuse, Commandant. I have given my word that I will tell only Commandant Opperman.”

  “You split meanings, young man. Now split some more.” Wessels leaned heavily forward across the packing-case. “You have sworn not to reveal this message, so you will not reveal it. Yet when you joined your regiment in Kimberley, you would have sworn loyalty and allegiance to your Queen Victoria, sitting on her golden throne in Buckingham Palace, and wearing her golden crown, and wagging her golden sceptre over all her subject peoples … yet you have deserted, and thus broken your word to her! What is the difference — eh?”

  Ogilvie said, “I’ve never met Queen Victoria. I knew Mrs Gilmour well.”

  Again Wessels laughed — uproariously, slapping a heavy hand against a thigh. “Well split indeed! Oh, you British, I have a strong feeling that you should all have been comedians! It is a shame to kill you, for the world needs laughter!” He sobered down. “Is this a message that will please Old Red Daniel Opperman?”

  “Yes, and bring him much credit if he is able to make use of the information. And no doubt, Commandant, he’ll pass on credit where it’s due.”

  That, it seemed, was the wrong thing to say. Wessels growled, “Young man, do not make me slap your tender face for having the impertinence to suggest I can be swayed by bribes. If I send you to Commandant Opperman, it will be simply because I have a high regard for him as a man. If this message is as important as you say, he must hear it for himself. If there is any trickery, he will know well enough how to deal with it — and with you, Private Harry Bland.”

  “Then you’ll send me?”

  Wessels nodded. “Yes, I’ll send you — I can’t really spare the men, but I’ll send you. Do you know where Commandant Opperman’s to be found, eh?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he’s in Carolina, over in the eastern Transvaal. It’s no short distance. I’ll send three men, but there will be no delays permitted — you will ride fast. The British are not far off Kimberley now, as perhaps you know.”

  Ogilvie said, “We’ve heard rumours, that’s all. The high command doesn’t keep the troops too well informed, which — ”

  “What rumours?”

  “That General Buller has ordered our relief.” Ogilvie grinned, and waved a hand in the direction of the distant town. “Or rather — their relief, seeing it doesn’t affect me any longer!”

  “That’s all, is it?”

  “Broadly, yes. Lord Methuen’s said to be not far off, coming up from the Cape.”

  “True — he is. That’s why I want to be at full strength, though I’ve not the smallest doubt Methuen will be stopped before he reaches us!”

  “Have you any news of Lord Methuen, Commandant Wessels?”

  “He had his cavalry badly cut up near Enslin sidings — cut up uselessly too, for they achieved nothing!” Wessels gave a deep laugh. “I believe Lord Methuen was so angry that he dismissed his cavalry commander, Colonel Gough of the 9th Lancers!”

  “He’s got as far as Enslin, has he?”

  “Yes, but he’ll get little farther, my friend! General Koos de la Rey is waiting for Methuen and his troops at the Modder River, and if Methuen should cross the Modder itself he will be halted at Magersfontein hills … and let me prophesy, it will be those blue hills of Magersfontein that will bring Methuen to his Waterloo!”

  *

  Wessels wasted no time: with the Red Daniel restored to him, Ogilvie was sent on his way astride a pony during that morning, with a heavily armed escort of three mounted Boers. They rode out into a splendid morning, heading directly east from the siege line, and Kimberley was soon well behind them as they crossed the border into the Orange Free State. It was pleasant riding, in invigorating air, a day for shooting — not men, but game. Hares, buzzards, coveys of small birds started up at the ponies’ approach; and all was peaceful. Ogilvie’s thoughts were split between the job ahead of him and his regiment in rear, marching with Lord Methuen for a hot reception, if Wessels was to be believed, at the Modder River. Wessels probably was quite correct: the Modder, and the Magersfontein hills, were the last obstacles before Kimberley itself, and in these locations the Boers would mass their artillery and their best riflemen. This was to be expected. But knowledge of the due and proper expectations of war brought no peace of mind to Ogilvie. His highlanders would fight well and bravely, of that there was no doubt at all, and willingly too; but he would have wished with all his heart to be with them, rather than to be sneaking off in the guise of a deserter into comparative safety, to act as a spy.

  Carolina was some four hundred miles as the crow flies, through high ground and across the Vaal River below Johannesburg. The journey could take as much as twenty days, and the four ponies carried meagre rations to last this time, together with water-bottles that would be used sparingly. To a large extent Ogilvie and his escort would be able to live off the country, shooting game as they went and cooking it over a camp-fire. This they did successfully for the first three days, keeping the iron rations in reserve, eating reasonably well, and sleeping for a few hours each night beneath the stars, in sleeping-bags. They yarned all the time during the riding days, and Ogilvie stored away all the information he learned about the Boer ways and outlook, continuing the lessons begun by Major Allenby — whom he had not met again before leaving Kimberley. They encountered no British patrols, no penetrative probes — and very few Blacks. On one of the rare occasions when they spotted the crinkly-haired heads, and the few tattered garments, and the spears, Ogilvie asked where all the natives had gone.

  “Oh, they’re hereabouts and thereabouts,” the Boer said dismissingly and without interest. “They keep out of our way — they don’t like us, nor we them. This is our land now.”

  “Whose side d’you suppose they’re on?”

  “If any side at all, Mr Bland — the British side, for what that’s worth.”

  “Do they ever attack?”

  “Attack us? Oh, they’ve come at us with their spears from time to time, yes. Paying off what they think of as old scores. But they’re only rabble, and make no impression. You can forget them, Mr Bland, just as we do.”

  They rode on, interminably as it seemed. Then, on the fourth day, they had a stroke of luck that saved them a wasted journey: they fell in with a party of Boers who told them that Old Red Daniel Opperman had left Carolina and was moving south into Natal to place himself and his commandos under the orders of General Louis Botha outside Ladysmith which was still, like Kimberley, under siege.

  “Oho! Where’s Old Red Daniel making for precisely, then?”

  “Towards the Tugela River.”

  “That’s a long river. Whereabouts on the Tugela, eh?”

  “I can’t sa
y. Maybe Colenso. There’s a rumour that Botha’s building up a force around there, between Colenso and Spion Kop. But that’s just a rumour.”

  “Where do we pick him up, can you tell me that?”

  “He’s making for Reitz in the first place. He’ll be there a few days, so they say … recruiting.”

  Reference to the map indicated that they could be in the town of Reitz in the Orange Free State within seven to eight days with luck, hard riding and the minimum of sleep. They made it, in fact, in seven: seven days of slogging, punishing days for ponies and men, seven days of intermittent plaguing from the wind-whirled dust devils that came twisting up from the dryness of the veld, seven days that brought them wearily into Reitz. The first townsmen they met told them where they would find Commandant Opperman. He had arrived only the day before, this man said, and was busy forming a new commando of Free Staters to oppose General Buller, who had recently placed himself in personal command of the force that was expected to march on Ladysmith.

  Following the directions given, noting the stares of curiosity and of hostility at his tattered, filthy British uniform, Ogilvie rode with his escort to a church hall on the eastern outskirts of the town. There they found Opperman with his officers. From descriptions given there was no mistaking that fiery red hair … Ogilvie felt that the years could scarcely have touched it, that, although Opperman was no longer young, that hair was probably no less fiery than when, twenty years before, Opperman had given the Red Daniel to Major Gilmour.

  8

  “WHO IS THIS, A PRISONER? THIS IS A RECRUITING CENTRE, not a prison camp!”

  “Commandant Wessels outside Kimberley has sent him to speak to Commandant Opperman,” the leader of the escort said. “He’s all right, I’ll vouch for him. Will you tell the Commandant?”

  “I can tell him, yes.”

  While the man went over towards Opperman, Ogilvie looked around the hall. For a church building, it was remarkably warlike. The chairs and benches had all been stacked away, except for those occupied now by Opperman’s recruiting team, who sat behind packing-cases similar to that used by Wessels outside Kimberley. Rifles were piled in one corner, belts of ammunition in another. Outside the porch, Ogilvie had seen machine-guns and a couple of the Creusots. There was an air of bustle from the recruiting team, who were under the eye of Old Red Daniel Opperman personally, but in truth there did not appear to be many recruits forthcoming. Perhaps they had all joined up already, and Opperman, coming from his own district of Carolina to a strange place, was getting only the dregs, the bottom of a very well-scraped barrel … certainly the few who were being enrolled in his commando were weedy-looking enough — gangling youths with largely vacant expressions and little hair upon their faces, which in many cases were pale and spotty and clerkly. Major Allenby had spoken of manpower problems facing the Boers: now, Ogilvie could well believe that there was indeed a problem.