The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  *

  “It’s not Germany alone,” Louis Botha said, pacing up and down with Ogilvie and Old Red Daniel, and casting glances towards Ladysmith in the distance. “No! Russia, France — they have no love for England, and have waited for years to see the English brought down. I think the question for the English now is, not so much will they lose South Africa, but will they lose the whole Empire?”

  “You mean if there were a concerted attack, war on a world scale?” Opperman asked.

  Botha nodded, his eyes alight. “Just so, my dear old friend, just so! I have the ear of Oom Paul, and that is the way he is thinking. Count Bülow is but one possible friend who may come out for us. But we shall see — we shall see!” He halted, shading his eyes and looking again towards the besieged town, gazing at the Platrand, a great 300-foot high ridge south-east of the town itself. Then he let fall another item of news, news very personal to James Ogilvie if Botha had but known. “I have word that Buller’s being reinforced,” he said. “That must mean he intends to try again to relieve Ladysmith — perhaps before Roberts arrives.” He laughed. “It would be such a feather in that fat little man’s hat — but he’ll not be allowed to wear it if I have my way!”

  “Truly said!” Opperman laughed. “What are the reinforcements, General?”

  Botha said, “Oh, a regiment from Lord Methuen’s force that was to relieve Kimberley. A regiment of Scots in skirts named the Royal Strathspeys.” He added, “I’m told they’re already on their way by rail and foot across Cape Colony and up through Griqualand East — and may the good God of battles make it hot marching for them!”

  13

  THEY MARCHED IN COLUMN OF ROUTE, A FIELD-BATTERY of the Royal Artillery and eight hundred weary Scots — the casualties had been heavy at Magersfontein and in the actions preceding that battle, and also in skirmishes after it, though in all conscience most of the warfare after the retreat to Modder River Station had been against the myriads of flies that flew and crawled over men and horses, rations and waste tips. Men’s tempers were ragged now; during the rail lift along the southern Orange Free State border, the crawling train, stopped for a long and apparently pointless spell, had been attacked by a plague of locusts that no shutting of windows seemed able to keep out. The results had been unpleasant in the over-crowded, foetid carriages. After the jolting rail travel they now faced the long, long march up the whole length of Griqualand East from Maclear, where the line had ended until, if they were lucky, they might entrain again at the railhead inside Natal. Meanwhile their feet, as they struggled by forced marches to join Buller — still commanding the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Divisions in Natal — were sore and bleeding. They would continue to bleed, and to be bandaged by the busy medical orderlies, until the column made contact with the Third Division and found new comrades amongst the Irish and Fusilier Brigades. Then there might come some rest, and better food. Food on that march was scarce: after five days, the Royal Strathspeys were down to half rations: though now and again they fell in with friendly natives, black-skinned tribesmen, fugitives from Boer territory who had no love for the hard-fisted Dutch farmers who had taken their land and virtually enslaved many of their kind; these poor people sold the troops a little butter and some onions, individually, so that at least a few fortunate mouths were unofficially fed with luxuries. Accoutrements grew heavy, khaki jackets became drenched with sweat, kilts sogged against sun-blistered knees to add to the discomforts of an appalling march, every bit as bad as the Khyber, through sand-strewn mountain passes. They made good some fifteen to sixteen miles a day, and to achieve this the harsh, harrying voices of the colour-sergeants and corporals were a very necessary lash. Dornoch was indefatigable, riding up and down the column, always with a smile and an encouraging word for the stragglers. At sundown each evening they bivouacked with sentries manning the outposts in hastily-constructed sangars, vigilant as they faced the bitterly cold nights and heavy morning dews.

  There was occasional action in the course of that Natal-ward trek north from Maclear: the enemy was making forays from the Orange Free State into Basutoland and Griqualand East. Once the Boers, sighting the dust raised by the column, appeared in some force to make a stand on the summit of a hill in their track. Lord Dornoch at once broke column, and the Royal Strathspeys advanced in fighting order against the hillside. It was an irritating delay; but in the result, after four hours’ rifle fire supported by the guns of the field-battery, they dispersed the Boers, who turned and ran for their ponies. The British force suffered twelve casualties in that small action — eight wounded in varying degrees, four killed. The burial parties secured the corpses against the waiting beaks of the aasvogels; and the regiment and the guns moved on behind the pipes and drums, foot-slogging their way to the Tugela, blistered, weary almost to death, cursing belts and rifles and equipment, swatting ceaselessly at flies, blackened and shrivelled by the cruel sun as they marched, if they had but known it, towards the different discomforts of rain and mud — guarding near-empty water-bottles currently more precious by far than all the diamonds of Kimberley — striving instinctively to straighten their sagging backs and shoulders in response to the sad but heroic wailing of the pipes which, together with the beat of the drummers, led the column out.

  *

  Maisie Smith said, “Well, I see you have a problem, all right.”

  “Problem!” Ogilvie lifted his clenched fists in the air and shook them. “I’m not staying this side of the line with my own regiment on the other, Kitchener or no Kitchener! Listen, Maisie: every time I talk to the Boers from now on, every time I gain them a new recruit, I’m acting in a very definite sense, directly against my own friends — aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but so you were before, weren’t you?”

  “There’s a difference. If you can’t see it, that’s your misfortune!”

  “Oh, well. What’s all this about Kitchener, anyway?”

  He said shortly, preoccupied with his own dilemma, “Never mind about that, forget it. The thing is, we have to find a way of getting out, and you seem to be putting difficulties in the way, Maisie — ”

  “Don’t go on so,” she said. She gave him a pert look. “I want to get out, just as much as you, don’t I? I’m right with you, only I don’t want you to blame me after, like, for perhaps making you get out before you’ve done whatever it is you really came to do. That’s all. I don’t want to seem to push you … so maybe I’m leaning over backwards — ”

  “Oh, all right, all right!” he snapped. While Maisie Smith sat on a canvas groundsheet, he walked up and down, trying to think things out. (Once again, in spite of a good deal of rain and mud, he had brought the girl to what they had come to regard as ‘their’ hollow in the hills; only this time there was to be no love-making, no dailliance.) Physically, the break-out from the Boers should be simple enough, since they trusted him. They wouldn’t question his riding down to the Tugela with Maisie Smith, although it was a longish way from the Ladysmith siege lines. Trouble would come the moment he looked like crossing over, no doubt; but that was a hazard of war, and would be dealt with when it arose. No: the main problem was simply that he had not yet managed to complete his mission. So far, he had no real knowledge of the ahead planning of the Boer High Command, other than in a broad political sense; though this would most certainly be useful information for Kitchener to have, Kitchener would not consider the mission complete unless he, Ogilvie, also brought out the campaign plans, if such existed. And, whatever had been his initial reaction in his outburst to Maisie, Ogilvie knew very well that to proceed too far along the lines of ‘Kitchener or no Kitchener’ simply would not do at all …

  “When are they arriving?” Maisie Smith asked. “Your regiment, I mean.”

  “I don’t know. Botha’s information didn’t go that far.”

  “What are you going to do? Really going to do. Because I don’t think you do mean just to nip over the Tugela and join up with them, do you?”

&n
bsp; “What gave you that idea?” He sounded belligerent.

  She laughed and said, “Your face! I’m used to reading men, you know. I’ve had to do quite a lot of that, one way and another. Well, James?”

  “You’re right,” he said. “There are things I must do first, and we may not have much time — ”

  “We?”

  “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you’ll have to help me.”

  She stared. “Help you do what?”

  “I don’t know yet, Maisie. Give me time and I’ll let you know!”

  She said with a touch of petulance. “I don’t want to get mixed up in anything nasty. You’re doing something secret and to me that means spying.”

  “And if it does?”

  “Well,” she said uneasily, “like I just told you, I don’t want to get involved. All I want is to get back to England and my baby — ”

  “I — ”

  “ — and I’ll not do that, will I, if the Boers think I’m mixed up in spying. I don’t know what they do to spies, but they may shoot them, mayn’t they, James?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. “But I doubt if you’ll get out without me, and I’m not going till I’m ready, so you’ll just have to do as I tell you. Try not to worry too much — and don’t go around with too long a face, Maisie, or Old Red Daniel will start thinking, and putting two and two together perhaps, for he’s certainly no fool!”

  “Oh, I’ll keep my end up,” she said. “James, give me a kiss?” Obediently, he went down on one knee and took her in his arms.

  He felt the play of her hands, up and down his back, felt her hold him close, hold him like the rock upon which her whole future happiness depended. When their lips parted, she nuzzled at his ear, murmuring barely audible words of desire, but he freed himself and stood up. “I’m sorry, Maisie,” he said. “Not just now. We have to get back and show our faces. I told you, time may be short now.”

  “Oh, but James love — ”

  “No, Maisie. You want your baby — don’t you? From now on, we have to give our whole minds to the job — don’t you see?”

  She pouted, looking up at him with large reproving eyes, and sighed. Then, getting suddenly to her feet, she laughed. “I see you’re too much the bloody officer and gentleman,” she said, “but I s’pose you’re right really. I don’t want to do anything to make things go wrong, not even that, though God knows it’s a sacrifice! Come on, then: I’ll race you back to the laager.”

  They raced the ponies across the veld, feeling the wind in their hair, smelling the mimosa, looking across towards the distant hills and the siege ring, hearing spasmodically the thunder of the bombarding guns. Half peace, half war — and he, half soldier now and half civilian. An uneasy situation made a thousand times worse by the knowledge that the 114th Highlanders would soon be encamped across the Tugela. There was just one bright spot for which Ogilvie was immensely grateful: Old Red Daniel had never asked for his parole, nor had Louis Botha, so there would be no question of his breaking his word in any direct sense; though it lay heavily on his mind that he was so much trusted by the Boer leaders that presumably they had considered a formal parole to be unnecessary. But he had to cast all that from his mind: concentration on the objective, as he had told Maisie Smith, was all.

  What was he to do?

  To appear to probe Opperman’s mind, or Louis Botha’s — to attempt to dig too deep, might be fatal. What he had picked up so far he had picked up almost casually, without the need to seem too interested or curious. With luck, of course, that process might continue — indeed it probably would, but too slowly.

  The pace had to be forced, but not too obviously. It was, Ogilvie knew, going to be devilish tricky! Perhaps some miracle would happen, perhaps God, listening with equal ear to the war-prayers of both Brother Boer and British Army chaplain, would come down on the side of Empire and the big battalions, and whisper a message into an earthbound mind, indicating what should be done now. Grinning to himself as he rode on fast with Maisie Smith, Ogilvie had the blasphemous thought that if God didn’t act on the side of the British, then He would have Lord Kitchener to answer to!

  Ogilvie, who was still no better a horseman than he had been in India, rode into the laager some distance behind Maisie Smith, who turned to wave and laugh as he came up. They rode together between the wagons and the tents of Louis Botha, hot and tired, and the ponies lathered with sweat. Botha himself, emerging from his headquarters tent, gave them a cheery greeting; and it was in that moment that the God of Battles spoke to Ogilvie.

  *

  After the evening meal he left the camp-fire and walked outside the laager with Maisie Smith. He said, “What I have in mind is dangerous and I won’t try to make out it isn’t, but it’s the only thing we can do. So hold on to your hat, Maisie!”

  “I’m holding. Well, what is it?”

  “We’re going out with a prisoner,” he said.

  “Oh, are we? Who?”

  “Louis Botha.”

  She stopped in her tracks, staring at him as if he had gone suddenly crazy. “Oh, for God’s sake! Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous — ”

  “Yes, it is, it’s bloody ridiculous — ”

  “Keep your voice down!” he hissed. There was too much silence around; even the distant guns were at rest, and the laager behind them was full of ears. “It can be done — I’ve been thinking it out, Maisie — ”

  “He’s far too well guarded, and we’re miles from the Tugela up here — ”

  “As a matter of fact,” he told her, “he’s not well guarded at all — just one sentry outside his tent, who’s never as alert as he should be. Why should Botha be guarded? He’s in his own head laager and the British are miles away, and he certainly doesn’t suspect us — you and me, Maisie. Spying, if you want to use the word, simply doesn’t occur to him at all. As for the distance, we’ve got the ponies, haven’t we? I’ll guarantee to get Louis Botha out of here at night with a gun in his back in a brace of shakes — and then we ride for the Tugela and make the crossing before dawn, and head for Buller’s camp. Once we’re over the Tugela we’ve little to worry about, and — ”

  “It’s a pretty big once, isn’t it?”

  “What d’you mean?”

  “Once over the Tugela! Oh, yes, I’ll agree we’re all right after that! But how about the before? How do you get your hands on Louis Botha in the first place, I’d like to know!”

  He said, “We take him sleeping — in his tent, having first dealt with the sentry, which is where you come in.”

  “Me?” She stared. “How?”

  “Enticement. Get him talking — anyway, get his attention off me — ”

  “Not me,” she said flatly. “Not little me! Entice a Boer? They’d burn me as a witch, like as not!”

  He said, “It’s what you’re going to do, all the same. Not tonight, but as soon as I hear that my regiment’s arrived and joined up with Buller. I’ll get word of that from Opperman. Then we’ll go into the full details — ”

  “Go all you like,” she flared, with her hands on her hips, “but don’t count me in! Listen, what’s the point anyway? You said Opperman was no fool — well, no more am I, James, and I reckon you’re after the Boers’ plans or some such — you want to find out what they mean to do next. Eh? Well, I don’t see that you taking off Botha’s going to help. You don’t imagine he’s going to tell your old Buller all his plans, do you?” She caught her breath. “Or do you? Does the British Army torture prisoners? I used to hear in Peshawar, torture of a sort was used on the Pathans sometimes. But they wouldn’t do that to white people, would they?”

  “I doubt it,” Ogilvie said. He knew Maisie was right about the rebels along the Frontier: he had his own memories of that. It was not so much torture as naked brutality and the strong fist, mainly. Under pressure, the best of Britons had indulged in it, even Bosom Cunningham w
ith Lord Dornoch’s tacit permission had once threatened to castrate a Waziri tribesman with his claymore and feed his entrails to the barrack pigs. But Boers, white-skinned Afrikaner farmers? No, surely not! There would be no torture of Louis Botha, or the press would see to it that the public was properly scandalised, and Mr Lloyd George, that pro-Boer, would trumpet the facts from the very battlements of Caernarvon Castle! Her Majesty would like it no better. But there were other ways, subtler ways that would certainly be known to Lord Kitchener at all events, of breaking a man in captivity. Yet, as Ogilvie explained to Maisie Smith, this was not quite the point. He said, “Just think of the effect on morale if one of the Boers’ biggest leaders is taken in his own head laager. A lot of them aren’t tremendously keen on the fight, you know — they want to be back in their own lands, their own homes. Look at the way they take leave more or less when they feel like it. Opperman’s often spoken of that. No, Maisie, they’d react pretty badly to a kidnap! Quite likely they’d all desert Botha’s army — and Buller would have a clear run to Ladysmith! Isn’t that worth taking a risk for?”

  “Well — perhaps. For you, yes. I’m not so sure about me.”

  “You want to see our side win, Maisie. If I’m not mistaken, you’ve said as much before now.”

  “Yes, that’s right, I have.”

  “Think of the people in Ladysmith. That bombardment … it’s been going on so long now. Pretty terrible to live under that. Even in India, we didn’t have to put up with sustained heavy gunfire — or never for long.”