The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  *

  The bullet was removed from his arm in a doctor’s surgery, a painful process made more bearable by a bottle of good brandy. Opperman was present throughout. Afterwards he said, “The bravest act I’ve seen Mr Bland, to take the bullet yourself. I haven’t the words to say thank you properly.”

  “It was just instinctive.”

  “An instinct that saved my life! I tell you something, Mr Bland: instinct, in many men, would have worked the other way — a quick dash for safety! You are going to be a hero now, Mr Bland.”

  “Rubbish, there was nothing heroic in it.”

  Opperman smiled and waved towards the window. “Can’t you hear? Don’t you know what’s waiting for you?” There was in fact some considerable noise from the street, a loud and growing murmur as men and women gathered. And it was far from a hostile sound. Ogilvie reckoned he had undoubtedly scored a point, but was in two minds as to whether or not he had helped the British Army much by saving the life of one of the better of the Boer leaders, though it would presumably bring joy to the hearts of both Rhodes and Kitchener.

  He asked, “What about the man? Do you know who he was?”

  “Yes, I recognised him. Piet Kries, a man whose son was killed whilst fighting in my commandos.”

  “Poor beggar! Can’t you feel for him?”

  “Oh yes, I can. I’m sorry enough for any man who loses a son, but that doesn’t excuse what he tried to do.”

  “What’ll happen to him?”

  “Oh, he’ll be tried by a military court, and shot.”

  Ogilvie felt sickened. “Can’t I plead for him?”

  “Why should you? He’s nothing to you.” Opperman dismissed the would-be assassin from his mind. Justice would, as ever, take its course. “Do you feel fit to walk now?”

  “Where to?”

  “The hotel. I’ll make the arrangements.”

  “Not Pretoria, and the prison compound?”

  Opperman grinned. “By no means! The townspeople wouldn’t hear of that. Didn’t I tell you — you’re a hero now! Take my arm, Mr Bland.”

  Opperman held out his arm. Ogilvie leaned his weight on it; he felt groggy but quite capable of motion, and also quite capable of finding some grim humour in the situation as he and Old Red Daniel emerged from the surgery into the midst of a frantically yelling crowd who clearly wanted to slap him on the back, wring his hand, and heap figurative garlands upon him — and probably would have done but for the restraining and protective hand of Commandant Opperman. A noted Boer leader, whose death would much have helped British morale in South Africa, arm-in-arm with a captain of the Queen’s Own Royal Strathspeys! Kekewich — Ogilvie reflected as the plaudits of the crowd beat on his eardrums — Kekewich, who had spoken of Rhodes and Kitchener as being strange bedfellows, really should have been here now!

  One thing was sure enough: the Boers loved their Old Red Daniel, and a good deal of that love was rubbing off on James Ogilvie, alias Mr Bland, deserter.

  *

  More mutual trust was solemnly formalised in Ogilvie’s hotel bedroom: the Red Daniel was once again transferred with a flourish. “Now we are friends,” Opperman said.

  “I still don’t know how I’m going to live.”

  “As to that, I have some ideas, now.”

  “Oh?”

  “You have said you sympathise with us Afrikaners — like your own Lloyd George and many, many others of all classes in England, though I think they’re mostly careful enough how far they let their opinions be known. But since you see our point of view, and appreciate our right to run our land in the way we want, then perhaps you would care to work with us, Mr Bland?”

  Cautiously Ogilvie said, “Work, yes. Fight, no! I’ve done with fighting.”

  “Yet you are a brave man.”

  “Oh, I happened to take that shot — ”

  “You threw yourself in its path. That was very brave. No, you are not avoiding fighting because of cowardice. Why?”

  “I don’t want to kill people. That’s all, really.”

  Opperman nodded. “Very well, that is your outlook, I shall accept it. No fighting — no killing. But would you object to … shall I call it, staff work?”

  Ogilvie pursed his lips and studied Opperman’s face. “What sort of staff work? Staff work in the field?”

  “No, no. Not that, no.”

  Opperman was being mysterious. Ogilvie felt a strong and insane desire to burst out into loud laughter, for he had a feeling he was going to be asked to spy. A spy in the pay of both sides at once? It would be comic opera! But Opperman’s next words killed that conjecture. He said, “Recruiting.”

  That, too, took Ogilvie’s breath away for a moment. “Recruiting? Me — a deserter from Kimberley, trying to sell the fighting spirit? I doubt if I’d be much good, you know!”

  “But you would. You would be invaluable! A Briton, Mr Bland, a Briton who has taken sides with us because he knows we are right. A Briton who can address public meetings moreover — and tell of the horrors in besieged Kimberley — heartening our less valorous men with eye-witness accounts of the low state the British have come to! If there is any man in South Africa who can convince our people that victory is near, and that one extra push will bring it about, that man is you, Mr Bland!” Opperman, who had been looming like a war-cloud over Ogilvie, dropped tack into a wickerwork chair, his eyes shining with his beliefs. “Now — will you do it? Will you? Did you not say you wished to help?”

  “Yes, I did say that, Commandant.” Ogilvie lifted a hand to his forehead: he was, he found, streaming with sweat. “All right. I’ll do it.”

  Opperman jumped to his feet again and took Ogilvie’s good hand, seized it, pumped it. “Thank you! You will not regret this, when the war is over, I promise you! Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. Now, hurry up and get fully fit, Mr Bland, for time is precious — in war, it is always that, but even more so at present, for we have to consolidate our position by making sure of the fall of those three towns — Mafeking, Ladysmith, Kimberley!”

  Opperman talked on for a while, excitedly, then at last left Ogilvie alone — to rest, he insisted. But no mental rest came to Ogilvie after Opperman had clattered down the stairs to set up the machinery for public addresses and recruiting campaigns par excellence. Worry nagged at his mind: in acceding to Opperman’s plan, he, James Ogilvie, would be in a very positive sense bringing comfort to the enemy, which was an act of treason. He could only hope that Lord Kitchener would approve his emissary’s interpretation of his orders! That evening, when a servant brought him his supper, he had fresh worries. The servant brought newspapers, with word of Lord Methuen’s column as it had fought through towards Kimberley. Ogilvie sent down for someone to translate the Afrikaans, and when a young man came up to do so the reports made bitter hearing. Methuen, it seemed, had been halted at the Modder River as Wessels had predicted. It was there at the Modder that the Boers had made their first real defence line: there would be no more strategic withdrawal, as had to some extent been the pattern at Belmont and Enslin. At the Modder the Boers had stuck, digging themselves in along the south bank of that river and of its tributary the Riet, where a preponderance of trees and bushes gave them fine cover. Reinforced by more Free Staters and by Cronje with some commandos from his main army, the Boers numbered 3500 men; Lord Methuen had advanced upon the Modder with some 8000, but poor reconnaissance had failed to inform Lord Methuen that the Boers were massed behind that pleasant-looking green foliage along the river bank. And the next morning — with the Guards Brigade leading the British advance and the Royal Strathspeys in the centre of the line behind them — the Boers opened with artillery and well-directed rifle fire, the new automatic one-pounder guns sending out necklaces of shells that had a startling effect on the surprised attackers. Methuen’s force was enfiladed and quickly brought to a full stop, finding what cover they could — which, the newspapers said, was little enough. Many of the British, driven half mad with thirst after ly
ing for hours in strong sunlight — sunlight so strong that rifles had to be lain upon to keep them cool enough for use if they had the chance against the concealed Boers — died as they ran back without orders to the water-carts. For no advance at all since the start of the battle, the British had ended that day with 500 dead and wounded; and during the night, having achieved the desired delay, the Boers had pulled back in safety to the Magersfontein hills to join the swiftly congregating reinforcements for a magnificent stand before Kimberley.

  His mind numbed, Ogilvie dismissed the translator.

  *

  “Why so gloomy, Mr Bland?”

  Ogilvie, deep in thought about Dornoch and the rest of the battalion, looked startled. He said, “I’ve been reading the newspapers, Commandant. Or rather, listening to a translation.” This he could scarcely conceal: the pages littered his bed; and in any case instinct warned him to act naturally. “I may have deserted, but I’m still British. You know I’m not seeking a British victory in the war … but all those casualties are pretty sickening!”

  Opperman, advancing into the room, shrugged and sat again in the wickerwork chair, which creaked under his weight. “Just so. I understand, of course. Nobody likes war and killing, but it has to be in such days as these. Had you friends amongst this British force, Methuen’s force, at the Modder River?”

  “No friends,” Ogilvie said, sick at heart at the lie. “I came straight to Kimberley from England, and there I stayed when the war broke out.”

  Opperman grunted. “That is as well, Mr Bland, for Lord Methuen will be mauled again at the Magersfontein hills. He will not be allowed to relieve Kimberley — certainly not at this stage when victory is within our grasp.” He reached out and put a hand on Ogilvie’s shoulder. “Your report of the terrible state of things in the town has been passed on, Mr Bland — ”

  “Will this affect your strategy, Commandant, your plans?”

  “Not our strategy or plans. Kimberley was always to be occupied. But the word, which will be widely spread, will greatly hearten our commandos as they make their stand against Methuen … and fortunately for us, his attributes as a general make his own task the harder!”

  “How’s that, then?”

  “Why, he’s a typical British general of his generation, Mr Bland. He is predictable — so predictable! For one thing, he’s no flanker or rearer … always, always he can be relied upon to mount frontal attacks — ”

  “What do you regard as a typical general, Commandant? Is there really such a person?”

  Opperman laughed heartily. “Well, they may look different — like Buller and Methuen. But thin, fat, short, long — they are all the same inside! Very little imagination, plenty of courage but small of brain, hardly any ability to think and plan, to use initiative or to improvise. In a word, they are hidebound.” He chuckled, unaware that he had virtually paraphrased Rhodes’s opinion of the military, and started to fill a pipe that, when lit, filled Ogilvie’s room with reek and thick blue smoke. “I have a theory. Our generals, who are farmers mostly, have so far outwitted all your British generals — if we’d had the numbers, you would all have been driven into the sea long ago! And our farmer-generals, Mr Bland, are plainly-dressed men in shirt sleeves and waistcoats and broken boots — so I say this: the more the plumes and the helmets and the scarlet coats and the swords, the less the resilience of the brain! You see, the brain grows tired and weary with its main military pre-occupation, which is formal dress, and ceremonial, and parades, and marching in step, and saluting, all the trappings which do not ever concern us! Am I not right, Mr Bland? Give me an honest answer!”

  Ogilvie couldn’t help a smile. “You may be right, Commandant. You may indeed.” The smile broadened as his mind went back to India, and Lieutenant-General Francis Fettleworth — Commander, by the grace of God and Queen Victoria, of the First Division in Nowshera and Peshawar. How Bloody Francis had loved parades! He would never remotely have understood the mind of men like Old Red Daniel Opperman — and the fact that the army contained so many Fettleworths perhaps held at least part of the reason for the British failures. Casting General Fettleworth from his mind with a certain gladness, Ogilvie asked, “Have you heard of Lord Roberts, Roberts of Kandahar?”

  “Who has not!”

  “There’s nothing unresilient about him, Commandant.”

  “No, that’s true. If ever that man comes out here, things could go differently, I’ll grant, but we shall still win in the end — ”

  “And Kitchener?”

  “Kitchener!” Opperman growled something in Afrikaans; his face had grown darkly ominous and surly. “I pray nightly to God in heaven that He should keep that terrible man busily occupied in Egypt — and at the same time have mercy on the suffering Egyptians!” He went on scowling blackly for some moments, then asked, “How are you feeling, Mr Bland?”

  “A lot better — ”

  “Good! There is work to do, Mr Bland, and no time for delay. I’ve arranged that tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock you will address a meeting of our burghers, and fire the first shot in my recruiting campaign to defend Ladysmith and Mafeking against relief.” Opperman stood up. “You’re ready to do this?”

  Ogilvie nodded. He said, “I’m at your disposal, Commandant,” and felt his heart give a sick lurch at his own words. Tomorrow truly was to be a time for treachery.

  9

  FOLLOWING A COLD NIGHT IT WAS STIFLINGLY HOT IN Reitz. After a late breakfast Opperman came to fetch Ogilvie, who was now dressed in civilian clothes of Boer origin provided by Opperman himself. During the night Ogilvie had tried to sort out in his mind what he was going to say to the assembled burghers, how far he would go in satisfying Opperman’s wishes. He fancied he had a fair scope: Rhodes’s own plan, after all, would be followed insofar as he would be expected to repeat Rhodes’s exaggerations about the food supply and the various sicknesses in Kimberley. That part would be all right; James Ogilvie’s reservations were more concerned with the rest of it: the exhortations he would be expected to give about joining Opperman’s army to reinforce Louis Botha. If his words caused just one man to enlist under the banner of the Republic, he would be the indirect cause of God knew how many British deaths.

  Even so, it had to be.

  He must accept it, had already accepted it by implication in his initial acceptance of Lord Kitchener’s demands, so nicely put as His Lordship’s requests.

  “You’re nervous, Mr Bland?” Opperman swatted at the buzzing, crawling flies that came up like clouds from the horse dung lying in the street.

  “A little. To be honest — very. I’ve not done any public speaking, you know, and my position’s a little tricky.”

  “You mean as a deserter?” Opperman said reassuringly, “Don’t worry about that aspect. No one else will!”

  “I’m glad to know it!” They walked on; there was quite a stream of people making the same way. Most of them had a word for Old Red Daniel, a cheery greeting, a respectful salute. Most were men, but there were some women, bold-looking ones mainly, potential Amazons perhaps — there had been stories in the newspapers he had read back in Peshawar of the Afrikaner women fighting alongside their menfolk, in the field even, though mostly in defence of their homes. Those women handled rifles, it was reported, with astonishing expertness and an incredible lack of fear. It was unseemly, of course, for women to kill, but the Amazons of South Africa didn’t baulk at it. Ogilvie asked Opperman about them.

  “Yes, we have women in our commandos, Mr Bland. There’s been some exaggeration of their numbers — but they exist.” Opperman gave Ogilvie a sidelong glance of appraisal. “Who knows — you’re a good-looking and upstanding young man — you may bring many more women into the fighting today!”

  “God forbid!” Ogilvie said involuntarily.

  “God will not forbid, if He thinks it right. So far, He has not forbidden.”

  Ogilvie felt in some way reproved. God, he knew, loomed very large in the lives of the Boers — Allen
by had made much of this point. Their ways were puritanical, sober, and Sunday-ridden. Here, indeed, was one of those ‘differences’ that the Regimental Sergeant-Major had spoken of: here in South Africa, the Royal Strathspeys were fighting a very Christian enemy! Ogilvie, who was not a deeply religious man in any obtrusive sense — though he had an innate belief in, and respect for, the Holy Trinity — nevertheless felt that this did alter his concept of fighting. Until the action at Belmont not so long ago, he had fought and killed only the heathen. In India he had never thought about the matter, since he had never been called upon to put a Christian to death. Now, however, as he walked along with Opperman towards the hall where the meeting was assembling, he reflected with a sense of some unease that in the sight of God all men were equal, even the heathen …

  Ogilvie and Opperman went into the crowded hall together and marched straight to a dais at one end, where there was a plain deal table, with three white-bearded men seated behind it. The proceedings started with a hymn, dirgely sung but with sincerity, and this was followed by a lengthy prayer in Afrikaans. This over, the meeting got under way. The chairman eulogised Opperman, and Mr Bland from Kimberley, who had bravely broken out and away from starvation and disease, and dictatorship to come along and tell the burghers about the iniquities of the British. Opperman said a few words by way of further introduction, though by this time he scarcely needed to, for Mr Bland’s heroism the day before was widely known, and then Ogilvie himself was called upon to the evident pleasure of the impatient meeting.