by CL Skelton
‘It was the letters, Andrew.’
‘What letters? They don’t matter. You must not exhaust yourself so.’
‘I burned them, Andrew. Your letters to Maud. She never got them.’
He remembered then. It was forty years ago. Letters he had written to her from China and New Zealand. Letters to which she had never replied. ‘Why did you?’ he had asked. ‘There was nothing in them.’
‘I know. But I was afraid. I was afraid that you might want to marry her and I knew what that would do to you. I was very wrong, and it has been on my conscience all these years. My son, I beg you to say you forgive me.’
‘Of course I forgive you,’ he said, ‘and I know that Maud, too, will understand.’ What else could he have said, his mother dying. He had no option.
He never saw her alive again, and for some little time afterwards the thought of what she had said had rancoured him; but by now he had got over it. After all, it did not matter any more. Or did it? He had been pretty short with Willie for a while, and Willie had stopped coming round. Of course, he had told him nothing about what his mother had said and, after a little thought, he decided that Maud also should never know.
Now, on the twentieth of February, the thaw having set in, Andrew was sitting alone in the library and thinking about Willie and wishing that he would call, and wishing that he could get some news. The business about Maud was so much in the past that it really did not matter any more. His mother was dead; let the secret die with her.
It was almost as if in answer to his thoughts that Willie Bruce at that moment strode into the room. Willie was seventy, but his back was as straight as it had been when he was twenty, and he still strode like a soldier, marching rather than walking.
‘Hope you dinna mind me bustin’ in on you like this, Andrew,’ he said.
‘I’m delighted,’ replied Andrew, struggling to get out of his chair.
‘Dinna fash yourself,’ said Willie. ‘Is the bottle in its usual place? I’ll get the drams.’ Without waiting for a reply, he went to the sideboard and poured out two generous measures of the Glenlivet. ‘Here, you’d better read that while I pour them.’ He tossed a copy of that day’s edition of the Inverness Courier on to Andrew’s lap.
‘How the devil did you get this?’ demanded Andrew. ‘And how the devil did you get over from Cluny?’
‘I didna. I’ve been in Inverness. I was trapped there and couldna get hame. I’ve been livin’ it up at the Station Hotel. I still canna get tae Cluny.’
‘Then you’ll stay with us, of course,’ said Andrew.
‘Stop blathering. Of course I’ll stay here. Read, mon, read.’
Andrew opened the paper at where he knew that he would find the war news, and the first thing that caught his eye was a column headed Kimberley Relieved. It started:
The cheering news was received on Friday morning that Kimberley had been relieved. Owing to the interruption of telegraphic communication, the information was not known in Scotland until Friday night or indeed generally until Saturday morning. The exploit of General French and his Cavalry Division seems to have been one of the most brilliantly executed in the annals of our mounted troops, and affords another proof of the enormous advantage of a force possessed of great mobility. Let us note General French’s movements from official telegrams.
Tuesday morning 11:30 A.M. ‒ Left the Reit River.
Tuesday afternoon at 5:35 reported that he had forced the passage of Klip Drift on Modder River after marching twenty-five miles.
Wednesday ‒ Left Modder River.
Thursday evening ‒ Reached and relieved Kimberley …
Andrew read quickly through the rest of the article but could find no mention of the Maclarens. Finally he put the paper down.
‘Willie, this is wonderful news.’
‘Och, man, you’ve heard nothing yet. I’ve been on the telephone tae Whitehall and Maud and the bairns are safe.’
‘Thank the Lord for that. Where are they?’
‘I can tell you that, too. You canna whack auld Willie when it comes tae gettin’ information. They arrived at the Cape yesterday. They’re coming hame on the Majestic.’
‘I’m really very happy for you, Willie,’ said Andrew. ‘Any word of Donald?’
‘No. Of course, I have nae way of knowing if Maud has news.’
‘Of course not.’
‘But stop interrupting. I havena finished.’
‘What else could there be?’
‘Gordon.’
‘Gordon?’
‘Aye, he’s wi’ Maud. Somehow he got into Kimberley wi’ French and he’s wi’ them at the Cape. Well, ye ken I hae a wee bittie influence in high places.’
‘Go on, Willie, what have you done?’
Willie was acting like a naughty schoolboy who had just put one over on his teacher.
‘Man,’ said Willie, ‘I persuaded them tae let Gordon come hame. I told them that he’d be verra useful here.’
‘How the devil would he manage to be that?’
‘Why, raising a volunteer battalion, o’ course.’
‘But,’ said Andrew, ‘there’s hardly anybody around here who could have gone who hasn’t gone already.’
‘You ken that, I ken that, but they dinna ken that in London, and I didna want Maud and the bairns coming all that way by themselves.’
‘What about the regiment?’
‘They’re up country wi’ Kitchener. Roberts is ill. Nae doot we’ll hear aboot them soon.’
Chapter Twelve
The idea was to march east along the Modder River and then bear slightly south and into Bloemfontein. That way Roberts’s huge army would always be able to get water for men and draught animals, and though it would undoubtedly make their intentions obvious to the Boers, Roberts had decided that the convenience afforded by never being away from water was worth the added dangers that were involved.
What they were not totally aware of was just where the masses of the Boer forces lay. The largest of these was under the command of Cronje and it did in fact lie between them and their target, albeit on the north side of the Modder.
It was on the night of the seventeenth of February, just over two days before Willie Bruce and Andrew Maclaren got the news of the relief of Kimberley, that the Maclarens marched eighteen miles, making a grand total of thirty-one miles in the preceding twenty-four hours. They arrived, just before dawn, on the south bank of the Modder opposite a hill which went by the name of Paardeberg. It was there that, footsore and weary, they slipped out of their packs and prepared to bivouac for a few hours. It was now the eighteenth of February and the grey line of dawn was just appearing in the night sky.
As the light improved, a sight they had never expected met their eyes. On the other side of the river lay what looked like a sprawling village with oxen, horses, wagons, and literally thousands of people moving about and looking from that distance like a colony of ants. It was Cronje’s laager.
Field-Marshal Roberts was not with his troops. Illness had detained him and the command had fallen upon General Kitchener. The Maclarens were in the sixth division under the command of an officer, General Kelly-Kenny, who was senior to Kitchener, but who accepted his orders because Kitchener also held the post of second-in-command to Roberts.
It was therefore Kitchener as chief of staff who took command of the operation. He realized that he had been presented with an excellent opportunity to smash Cronje’s force in the field. So far as he was able to ascertain, no other sizeable Boer contingent lay between him and Roberts’s avowed objective, Bloemfontein. Kitchener was a good, if ruthless, soldier and he knew that the task would not be an easy one. Along the banks of the river were lots of trees and vegetation which would afford the enemy good cover and make any attack upon his position a highly costly operation, so far as casualties were concerned. To counter this advantage, Kitchener detailed an entire division for this phase of the battle.
Kelly-Kenny hastily convened a conference
of his battalion commanders in order to explain his plans. There was a drift about three miles upstream from Cronje’s force. It would be necessary to cross the Modder at this point. It fell to Ian Maclaren and his battalion to cross, force if necessary, the river at that point. There they were to establish a bridgehead for the rest of the division or, if there was little or no opposition at that point, to proceed on towards the laager and take the first line of entrenchments. They were to move out within half an hour.
So, just when the sun had risen fully above the horizon, the Maclarens moved out. They had not even had time for breakfast. A quick swill of coffee and they were on their way.
They arrived at the drift without incident. There they halted and viewed the muddy, brown, fast-flowing water with extreme distaste. Sergeant Leinie waded into the water and before he was halfway across, it was up to his chest. He returned and reported to Robert Maclaren.
‘It’s no going tae be easy, sirr. Yon watter’s bloody fast.’
‘I’ll talk to the colonel,’ replied Robert and went to seek out Ian Maclaren. ‘I think we’ll have to get a line across,’ he said to Ian. ‘It’s running pretty fast and my guess is that it must be over four feet, which is going to make it pretty tough on the small fellows.’
Ian tried to sum up the situation. He studied carefully the problem which confronted him. The river curved gently and they were inside a small arc. Climatically it was almost pleasant; the fast-moving water was no breeding ground for mosquitoes and the river itself kept the temperature down within bearable limits. The ground shelved quite gently towards their side of the river, but on the opposite side the natural erosion had produced a pretty stiff climb ‒ not very high, a matter of ten or twelve feet, but very steep. It would mean quite a stiff scramble on the far bank. There was vegetation along the banks and even a few trees. All of this was good, for, as they had no precise idea of how far along the far bank the Boer lay, they might need the cover. However he did not seem to be too close, as no one had opened fire on them yet. They would certainly be lucky to get the men across without being spotted and that was the immediate task.
Robert was quite right. If that water was four feet deep, then the smaller men with their equipment and their weapons were going to find it very difficult and casualties would be a near certainty.
Ian turned to Robert. ‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘The obvious thing to do is to get a rope across and then the men will be able to use it as a hand rail.’
‘Agreed,’ said Robert. ‘Who’s going to do it?’
‘Who do you suggest?’
‘There’s no choice. I’m the tallest man in the battalion and the toughest.’
‘We’ll let that pass,’ said Ian with a smile. ‘But I take your point. There’s another thing. All the gear will be soaked when we get across. We’ll need time to dry out rifles and ammunition. I tell you what we’ll do. Send a runner back to the general and tell him the form. Ask him for cover from this bank if we find any opposition. All right?’
‘As you say,’ said Robert.
‘We’re right under the hill and as far as we can see there are no Boers there; we shouldn’t need the cover. But just in case …’
The runner was sent off and then, with a light cord around his waist, Robert stepped into the brown muddy water and started across. It was not easy to maintain a foothold, but after about ten minutes he managed it and crawled out on to the opposite bank. The battalion had taken up position along the bank just in case there was any attempt to stop Robert, but he managed to get across without a single shot being fired. Ian felt that his luck was in. If only it would hold for the next couple of hours …
Robert hauled away at the heaving line which was attached to the rope which would form the handhold to get them across. He made the rope fast to a tree after getting it across, a feat which took all of his strength, and then under the command of the R.S.M., four men took up the slack and made it tight, attaching it to a convenient tree on their side. Robert, his task finished, for the moment at any rate, sat down with his back to the tree to which he had attached his end of the rope. For the smaller of them it was difficult, though it would have proved impossible had they not had that handhold. On they came, all eight hundred of them, slithering and slipping, sometimes helping the weaker as they almost lost their grip.
All had gone smoothly and the majority of them were across when Alasdair Maclaren stepped into the water followed by Corporal MacTavish. Maclaren was almost in midstream when he suddenly stopped. A gap widened in front of him and other men started to bunch up behind him. It seemed to Corporal MacTavish that young Alasdair had his eyes firmly fixed on some object downstream, though MacTavish himself could see nothing.
‘Get on wi’ it, you daft bugger,’ yelled MacTavish. ‘You’re ho’din’ us a’ up.’
There was no reply from Maclaren, none that was audible anyway, for his lips moved soundlessly.
Corporal MacTavish was a big man but even he could feel the drag from the current as he stood there hanging on to the rope. He knew that if he released his hold and tried to get around Alasdair, he would not stand a chance. The scudding water was up to his armpits. ‘Move, damn ye, move,’ he shouted.
Maclaren looked at him. MacTavish had seen that sort of look before. It was the look that a man gets when the sun has got to him or when he is half crazed with drink.
‘Dae ye no see her?’ said Maclaren.
‘Shut up and get on,’ hollered back MacTavish, trying to push the young soldier into motion; but Maclaren seemed to be oblivious to what was going on around him.
‘I can see you, Marhi Crow,’ he called. ‘I mind you were coming for me! Here I come, Marhi Crow.’
And with that he let go of the rope and took a step downstream where, in an instant, the pace of the current and the weight of his equipment had sucked him under and into fifteen feet of water. For a moment MacTavish and the men behind him stared horrified at what had happened, and then, without thinking, MacTavish started to let go of the rope to try and save Maclaren.
‘Hald on tae that rope, sodger. Let him go!’ It was the voice of authority. Frankie Gibson, who was bringing up the rear, had seen it all and knew that any attempt to rescue Maclaren would only result in further loss.
With an instinct born of long service and instant obedience to orders, MacTavish grabbed back at the rope just in time and continued across. Maclaren’s body was recovered several days later, and when they found it, his tightly corked water bottle smelled of methylated spirit; might that have been the explanation?
It had been a scary experience for MacTavish. Like most of the men from the glen, the name Marhi Crow was not unknown to him. Nor were some of the stories about her. He would, however, never know what it was, or who it was that Private Maclaren had been looking at there in the middle of the river, before the muddy water had swallowed him up. He got to the far bank and scrambled ashore. Robert, who had watched the whole incident, was waiting for him.
‘What the hell happened out there?’ demanded Robert. ‘What was that fool doing?’
‘I dinna ken, sirr,’ replied MacTavish. ‘He stopped all o’ a sudden. I yelled tae him tae keep movin’, but he dinna seem tae see me. Then he said something about Marhi Crow, she’s the yin wi’ the sight. And then he was gone.’
‘All right, Corporal,’ said Robert. ‘It was not your fault. You were right not to go after him.’
By this time all the battalion was across and busy with oil bottles and pull-throughs, cleaning and drying their weapons.
‘What dae we dae aboot the rope, sir?’ Frankie Gibson asked Ian.
Ian thought for a moment. ‘There are more men of ours over there. They’ll need it to back us up. The Gordons and the Canadians should be close behind us.’
And indeed the first of those two battalions was already approaching the south bank.
‘Now, Sergeant-Major, as soon as the men have made sure that their weapons are fit for use, we fix bayonets a
nd we’ll start for the laager as soon as they are ready.’
‘Dae ye mind tellin’ me what we’se are supposed tae be doing?’ asked Frankie.
‘You saw the laager this morning?’ said Ian.
‘Aye, sirr.’
‘Cronje’s there. We’re going to attack.’
Frankie’s weather-beaten face assumed a sober expression. ‘That’ll no be easy,’ he said. ‘It’ll cost us mony a man. They hae plenty o’ cover.’
‘Dammit,’ said Ian, ‘I know that it’s not going to be easy. But I’ve got my orders.’
‘Aye, sirr,’ said Frankie.
The sun was well up now and it took them very little time to dry out their rifles and ammunition. Then Ian ordered the advance in open order by companies and they started towards the laager.
They moved up a little way from the river which brought them a little north of Cronje. This gave them the advantage of high ground. Within half an hour the whole Boer position was within their view and consequently they knew that they must also be quite visible to the Boers. They could see the trenches between themselves and the laager. They advanced slowly and cautiously, conserving their energies for the charge which must come. Each man had five rounds in the magazine of his Lee-Metford and he was well aware that, when the fighting started, there would be no time for reloading. Each and every one of those rounds had to tell; after that, it would be the bayonet.
Ian knew that Frankie Gibson’s fears were well founded and that he would lose a lot of men that day. He tried hard not to think about that as he moved forward straining to keep his mind on the objective and not on the price that he would have to pay.
Robert Maclaren, leading his company, had no such thoughts. He casually relit his cigar which had gone out when young Alasdair had been lost in the Modder, and strolled forward as if he were taking a Sunday afternoon walk in the park. Only when someone in the ranks behind him started singing ‘Dolly Gray’ and their pace quickened so that he was getting ahead of the battalion which stretched out on either side of him, did he seem to be aware of the purpose of this stroll. He ordered the men to stop singing and slowed them down so as to keep level with the other companies.