The Heart of the Empire

by Philip McCutchan

  She laughed and said, “Don’t talk to me about India if you want to impress me. People like the Duff-Kinghornes … if they were in Ladysmith I’d love to see them suffer!”

  “That’s not very British, is it?”

  His tone had been unaccustomedly stiff; it made her give another laugh. “You take being British really seriously, don’t you, eh? If you ask me, it’s a matter of class — being British!”

  He was puzzled. “What d’you mean by that, Maisie?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “It’s fine for the carriage folk like you, but for them like me, well, I don’t know so much. We don’t get so much out of it, see. Never mind, though. I’ll still stick up for dear old England!”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” he said.

  “So long as I get my baby back. I don’t want to do anything that might stop that, don’t you see! My baby’s all I think of, all the while — not Ladysmith, or capturing Botha, or anything else at all.” There were tears in her voice now, and Ogilvie felt the hard, almost panicky grip of her fingers on his arm. “I don’t want to take any more risks, that I don’t!”

  “But Maisie … getting out is a risk in itself, or anyway it will be once we reach the Tugela. And you do want to get out.”

  “Yes. But we don’t have to take Botha!”

  “I have my duty.”

  “Oh!” she said, stamping her foot. “Now you’re being British again!”

  “I’m sorry, Maisie.”

  “God, you’re determined!”

  He repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  “I think you’re a beast.”

  He shrugged; he could do no more. She turned away from him, walking quickly back through the night towards the laager and its flickering camp-fires. He caught her up, and took her hand, but she pulled it from him: crying bitterly now, she walked on, turning her face away. He wanted to tell her that, since his mind was made up, they would have the best chance, perhaps the only chance, if she would give him her help; but to say any more now would only make matters worse, for she would never listen to reason in her present state. Reaching the laager together, but with an all too obvious constraint between them, they walked almost into the arms of Opperman.

  In the light of a camp-fire, Ogilvie saw the lifted eyebrows and troubled face. Opperman said, “Come now, young lady, never tell me Mr Bland’s been upsetting you!”

  Maisie gave him a glare of fury and, lifting her skirts, ran off towards her tent without a word. Opperman, after a startled look in her direction, turned to Ogilvie and took his arm. “The way of a woman is unpredictable,” he said. “But perhaps I was tactless to have noticed. If so, I’m sorry, Mr Bland.” He coughed. “It’s none of my business, of course, but may I ask what the trouble is?”

  “Oh, just a disagreement, Commandant, nothing of any importance.”

  “I see.” There was obstinacy in Opperman’s tone: clearly, he was determined to do what he thought was right. “We have spoken before of marriage, Mr Bland. You know the way a woman thinks, and feels … marriage is security, and I’m sure the young lady favours you. God smiles upon marriage, Mr Bland. Neither He nor I would look kindly upon shilly-shallying, upon playing with a young woman’s affections — ”

  “But Commandant … have I done that?” Ogilvie was all innocence and surprise.

  Opperman snorted. “Have you done that? Look, now, when a young woman gives way to tears, there is always a reason, Mr Bland!”

  “Is there, Commandant?”

  Opperman gave him a sharp look, opened his mouth, shut it again, then smiled. “No. No, not always. Not, that is, what a man would call a reason. To the woman, yes, there is. At least, I think so.” He let go of Ogilvie’s arm, and instead placed his own arm heavily and awkwardly around Ogilvie’s shoulder. “Think well, Mr Bland. Never do wrong. She is a very personable young woman, and though usually she seems strong and collected on the surface, I think she is soft enough beneath — and can be hurt! Bear this in mind, and pray to God that He should bring you two together as soon as may be.”

  Ogilvie asked lightly, “Wouldn’t it be presumptuous, to try to change His mind for Him?”

  “No, no. What is prayer for? In any case, to ask Him to show a better turn of speed would be no presumption!” Opperman hesitated. “The Red Daniel, Mr Bland. You said it had to go to Major Gilmour’s daughter.”

  “That’s right, it has.”

  “You have met her … she is pretty?”

  “No,” Ogilvie said, feeling the prickle of danger. “I’ve not met her. Why do you ask?”

  Opperman shrugged. “Oh, no real reason, just a passing thought … ”

  “A thought that I might perhaps have another commitment, other than to Miss Smith?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Then you can forget it. I’m as free as air.”

  “In that case I apologise humbly,” Opperman said with a broad smile of pleasure. “Now let us forget the matter, Mr Bland. I am glad I encountered you, for General Botha wishes words with you.”

  “He does? What about — do you know?”

  “I understand he has a request to make. I have my doubts that you will agree, and this I have told him, but there it is. Listen patiently to him, please.”

  “I’ll do that, of course. What’s the request to be, Commandant?”

  “I think General Botha must tell you that himself. Come, Mr Bland, we’ll go to his tent at once.”

  They walked across the laager, past the wagons and the tents, past groups of armed Boers sitting around the camp-fires and singing, or making ready for a night’s rest. A rising wind brought the night smells of the veld, and the sounds of animals, and a hint of more rain to come. Once again, Ogilvie felt the whisper of danger in his ear, and not from acts of war and espionage alone. He felt a personal constriction creeping up on him, another excellent reason why he should get away fast from this Boer laager and the marriage-pressures of Old Red Daniel Opperman!

  14

  LOUIS BOTHA WAS SITTING IN SHIRT-SLEEVES IN HIS tent, behind a makeshift table of packing-cases. His revolver and an ammunition-belt were on the table; four other men were with him, two also in shirt-sleeves, two in dark coats, all with bandoliers across their chests, three of them bearded, all hard-faced men whom Ogilvie had not seen before around the laager or at the siege lines outside Ladysmith.

  “Ah — Mr Bland! Take a seat.” Botha indicated a camp-stool in front of the table. Ogilvie sat; Opperman pulled up another stool and sat alongside the other men. Ogilvie at once felt at a disadvantage, the interviewee confronted by the Board. The sense of danger was stronger now, though there was no really apparent reason for it. Botha seemed friendly enough, all cheery smiles and pipe smoke: it was perhaps the other men, the four strangers. Botha introduced them in rotation from right to left.

  “President Steyr, President of the Orange Free State,” he said, indicating a big-built man with a face that, though obviously strong and resolute, was perhaps less hard than those of his three companions. The sense of danger, grew afresh: next to Kruger himself, Steyn was the most prominent of the Boer politicians. Steyn gave Ogilvie a polite nod, but said nothing. Botha went on around the table: “Judge Hertzog, General Christian de Wet, Mynheer Jan Smuts.”

  “I’m glad to meet you all, gentlemen,” Ogilvie said.

  The beardless man — Jan Smuts, who looked a good deal younger than the others — stared at him coldly. Smuts, Ogilvie saw, had extremely penetrating eyes and seemed a man to beware of. Smuts said, “You have come from Kimberley, Mr Bland.”

  “Yes.”

  “Please tell me about your experiences there, and give the reasons why you deserted.” Smuts watched Ogilvie’s gaze go round towards Opperman, and he said impatiently, “Yes, yes. You have told all this to Commandant Opperman and to General Botha. Now I wish to hear it for myself, even if you are tired of repeating it.”

  “All right,” Ogilvie said. Once again, he went through his story of the hards
hips, the starvation, the low morale of Kimberley’s garrison and townspeople, all the things Rhodes had told him to say. The Boer leaders listened politely, but the cold eyes of Jan Smuts never once left Ogilvie’s face: the man had somehow the look of a lawyer, and once or twice Ogilvie saw him confer in a whisper with Judge Hertzog whilst still staring intently.

  “Thank you, Mr Bland,” Smuts said when Ogilvie had finished. “What do you think of Cecil Rhodes?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Please answer the question, Mr Bland.”

  Ogilvie hesitated. “It wasn’t up to me to think anything. I was only a private soldier — I never met Rhodes.”

  “But you must have formed an opinion, even if a distant one only.”

  “Well … we regarded him as rather pompous really.”

  “We?”

  “The troops. We got the impression he didn’t think much of the military.”

  “How did the townspeople, the civilians, regard him?”

  “I don’t know,” Ogilvie said. “In general, though, I think he was well enough liked. Of course, Kimberley’s dependent on him to a large extent.”

  “True. Now, Mr Bland. A little about you yourself. I am told you had not been long in Kimberley. Please give me your own history — and why you came out here, where you live in England, what if anything your work is. The full details.”

  For a brief moment, Smuts’ gaze flickered round the other men’s faces as if assessing their reactions to his probing: watching this, Ogilvie read the danger signals: General de Wet and Judge Hertzog looked to him ready to disbelieve anything he said. Louis Botha was no longer looking so cheery: there was an anxious frown on his face as he met Jan Smuts’ gaze, yet Ogilvie felt he still had a friend in Botha, and another in Opperman. And in the event he need not have worried: his story held together under Smuts’ interrogation, and Opperman spoke up nobly for him, saying that he could be trusted absolutely, repeating that there had been no reason whatsoever why Mr Bland should have saved his life in Reitz, at risk of his own, had he been anything other than what he claimed to be.

  The faces behind the table relaxed at last, though those of de Wet and Hertzog remained somewhat withdrawn. Steyn got to his feet, and extended a hand to Ogilvie.

  “You are very welcome, Mr Bland,” he said. “I wish personally to thank you for all you have done for our cause — which is a just one, and must and will prevail. You can do a lot more for us, if you will.”

  Ogilvie felt almost light-headed and was possessed, as once before he had been possessed when Opperman had seemed about to suggest something similar, with a strong and insane desire to break out into peals of laughter. This time, the suggestion had been actually made: Mr Bland was being asked to re-join the British, not in Kimberley but across the Tugela. He was to rejoin as an escaped prisoner of war, a private from another sector: a soldier of the 1st Derbyshires of Colonel Allen’s brigade under Sir William Gatacre, captured in the fighting at Stormberg and taken prisoner to Bloemfontein and thence to the compound at Pretoria. From here, like Winston Churchill from the officers’ prison in the State Model School, he had escaped; and had come south across country, killing a Boer on the way and taking his clothes. Before leaving, he would be fully instructed in the composition of Gatacre’s force, in the names of his own officers, and the details of the fighting around Stormberg, Molteno and Kissieberg. Once established in the British lines, he was to obtain precise information as to the distribution and strength of Buller’s army, its lines of communication, availability of stores, ammunition, animals and vehicles and, so far as possible, the planning intentions of its commander. Having got all this, he was either to break out and cross the Tugela again to the Boer lines, or he was to find opportunities of sending the information across by heliograph. Boer signallers would be constantly on watch throughout the hours of daylight to pick up any such messages; and if he himself had not broken out before Buller moved, he was to do so after the British had started to advance, if such was their intention.

  Although delighted by the turn of events in his favour, Ogilvie felt it necessary to object.

  “I’ve always told Commandant Opperman,” he stated, “that I’ll not use arms against my own people — ”

  “You are not being asked to do that, Mr Bland.”

  “Not directly — no! But what you’re asking me to do is the equivalent, isn’t it, in the long run? I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t do that. I’ll help — ”

  “Think again, Mr Bland.” There was iron in Steyn’s voice now. “You are already pledged to help us, you are deeply committed — you must realise that for yourself. You are the only person who can do what we ask, and you must do it, or there will be sorry consequences for you.”

  “What consequences?”

  Steyn said, “You have not forgotten Miss Smith?”

  “Miss Smith? What has she to do with it?”

  “She stays here, Mr Bland, whether you agree to go or not. If you do not agree, she will be imprisoned and kept on a low diet until you do agree. And if there should be deception once you are in Buller’s lines, then she will be the hostage. Another hostage will be the fact that you can be denounced to the British as a deserter — so you will give us your full allegiance, Mr Bland. Do you understand?”

  Ogilvie, although he protested further in the interest of authenticity, had no wish to bring harm to Maisie. Maisie in fact was his only worry, and a bad one. She was going to take this hard; and for his part he knew he would be guilty of a real act of desertion in leaving her behind.

  *

  “I have to do my duty.”

  “Oh, God, not that again!”

  She was crying bitterly, held tight in his arms. Ogilvie had decided to risk outraging Boer morality that night, and she was in his tent. He had done his best to make her see that he was in the deftest of cleft sticks, but, not unnaturally, her own plight was her first concern. He said for the hundredth time, “I’ll come back for you, I promise.”

  “Bloody likely!”

  “I’ll get you out somehow — ”

  “How, somehow?” She pushed her body away, lying back from him, and in the deep gloom he felt rather than saw her eyes staring at him and into him. “It’s just words, isn’t it, nothing else! Once you go, I’m done for.” She caught her breath suddenly. “Suppose I tell Botha who you are — what do you do then, may I ask, Captain James bloody Ogilvie — eh?”

  He said, “Maisie, I’m relying on you not to do that.”

  She gave a shrill laugh, a laugh of near hysteria. “Rely away, then! It’s what I’m going to do if you leave me here alone, and don’t you think otherwise! God, you’re like all the rest of your class — use us and then chuck us away! I’ll go straight to Botha and that Opperman — ”

  “Maisie, Maisie!” He laid hold of her and shook her hard, pushed her face down into the pillows as she started to cry out. “You’ve got to listen to reason now. This is war, not a bit of tomfoolery in Hounslow! You’re in great danger and so am I — ”

  “But — ”

  “Hold your tongue, my girl, and listen!” He loomed over her, went on talking, quiet but firmly determined. He impressed on her that to tell Botha the truth would hardly be the best way to get herself to England in the circumstances. He, James Ogilvie, was the only man who could help her in the end. “For God’s sake, Maisie,” he said, “keep your silly little head clear on the main issues. I — ”

  “You — you — ”

  “I’ve given you my word,” he said, calmly pushing her face down into the pillow again, “that I’ll get you out. I won’t go back on that. I know my Colonel will back me to the hilt, so will Buller. All you have to do is stay alive and out of trouble with the Boers that’s all! Keep yourself in the clear — which you’ll certainly not do by denouncing me — and you’ll have the whole of the British Army in Natal on your side!”

  She went on crying, but more quietly, as if something of reality had penetrated. She cried h
erself to sleep in the end, and Ogilvie, unable to sleep himself, held her in his arms with her hair falling over his face and her legs entwined with his own. As dawn slowly whitened the canvas around them, she stirred and sighed and he felt her movement as she put her head back from him and looked into his face.

  “God,” she said miserably, “I’ll miss you such a lot, James. Come back as quick as you can, promise?”

  “Promise,” he said, and kissed her. “Does that mean … ?”

  “Yes,” she said. “What you said makes sense. I’ll keep my end up, don’t worry, but don’t let it be too long.”

  “Bless you,” he said. “And it won’t be long! Nothing’ll be long now Bobs and K are out here.” He kissed her again, with passion and even a little real love. She was a brave girl, and she was beautiful … the next act seemed just to happen without volition on either of their parts, seemed to have no beginning but to emerge from the kiss and to grow from there, grow into a mingling of bodies, of long legs and flat straining stomachs and the erotic pressure of firm breasts, and a whisper of breath that became hot and urgent, and afterwards they lay exhausted but peaceful, in what promised to be the last moment of tranquillity before the Tugela once again erupted in the thunder of the guns that would accompany Buller’s advance on Ladysmith.

  *

  He was to make the crossing of the Tugela that night, and all that day was spent in intensive cramming and rehearsing of all the details that would authenticate his position when he was picked up by a British patrol. In addition to the military details such as the names of the regiments brigaded with him — 2nd Royal Irish Rifles, 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers, 1st Royal Scots, 2nd Berkshires — he was given full details of his supposed route under escort from Stormberg via Bloemfontein to Pretoria and then his lone escape trek south across the veld and the Drakensberg for the Tugela, avoiding Boer concentrations along the way, skirting the Ladysmith siege ring to drop down on the curves of the river where he believed a British force to be encamped. His instructors were Opperman and Louis Botha together with General Christian de Wet. And during the cramming session Ogilvie kept his ears open for other things beside his mentors’ words of wisdom: above the teaching voice of Opperman he was able to hear at least snatches of a low conversation between Botha and de Wet: the two generals had not met recently, it seemed, and they had a good deal to discuss. And after they had departed, leaving Mr Bland to Commandant Opperman, Ogilvie guilefully managed to open Old Red Daniel’s confirmatory mouth: the Boers were taking some account of the fact that they might fail to take Ladysmith after all if Buller was too strongly reinforced, and alternative dispositions were in the air. If Buller relieved Ladysmith, Louis Botha intended to make for Pietermaritzberg and Greytown, towns that were not heavily defended although they contained a large number of women and children. If this thrust should become necessary, Botha fully expected the advantage of surprise. In the meantime, as a diversion from the Ladysmith perimeter, de Wet had a plan up his sleeve to mount an attack on General French on the Central Front; whilst it was Louis Botha’s intention to concentrate his own force on certain strategic points commanding the drifts by which the British might be expected to attempt the crossing of the Tugela …