The Chaplain

by Paul Almond

  Towards evening, the African sky offered Jack a most glorious sunset, wispy clouds overhead and, on the horizon, heavy bunched-up, blood-red cumulus, auguring the battles to come. Again Jack examined his conscience: how on earth could his sermon on the morrow justify an exhortation to go forth and kill enemy soldiers — farmers whose windmills he’d seen, perhaps, and rather like his own family. Well no, he argued, not like them. They did deserve a whipping, having challenged Her Majesty. Or did they? Would not slaughter be a bit harsh for simple men taking up arms to defend their own country, as that Quebec shopkeeper had maintained?

  No no, they were rebels, savages who must be taught a lesson. After all, didn’t the British Empire stand for certain freedoms? He’d heard enough in Cape Town to know the Boers treated the black natives, Kaffirs, like an inferior species, almost like animals, with none of the rights that Her Majesty would bestow upon them. How could religious-minded farmers be so harsh to these original inhabitants? But then again, what did he know of actual conditions hereabouts? Wasn’t the Zulu Uprising only a couple of decades ago?

  Back and forth between these two poles of thought flew Jack’s brain all day long as his train sped through the inner plateau of the Karoo desert, and sleep finally claimed him.

  Sunday morning around four am, the train pulled up and the men sleepily disembarked at the junction of De Aar, 4, 180 feet above sea level, with a population of six hundred. The town consisted of a straggling line of cottages, a hospital with three hundred and fifty wounded, and a fat little cemetery. The officers were quick to point out that this new vantage point was well suited for defence, for they could take advantage of the many small hills, those kopjes that ringed the town, where now nine pounders and howitzers dominated the skyline. At last, forty-four hours north of Cape Town, Jack had reached a real battle zone.

  Before the sun was fully up, they marched over a rotten bridge that spanned a stream that Jack thought might better be termed a sewer, and got to a dusty campground next to the 2nd Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, and pitched their tents

  No church service. Jack didn’t know whether to be pleased or annoyed. After that cramped journey, he was in no great mood to preach, but on the other hand, the rhythm of Sunday services would be most beneficial to the men. Everyone more or less dropped down and slept, taking advantage of their morning off.

  Just as well, for at noonday the most pulverising sandstorm tore through, blasting the tents with blinding, shifting sands. Jack fought the onslaught, but finally had to lie flat, like the others, handkerchief over his mouth, on the lee side of a crate of ordinance. The sand stuck to his sweaty face. It put Jack in mind of those good, old-fashioned Labrador blizzards, but these grains of fiercely stinging sand did not melt on contact and found their way into every portion of the clothing. Try to eat lunch in those conditions? No, food was a mockery; water and biscuits had to suffice.

  Not the picnic everyone had prophesied.

  Chapter Twelve

  Three days of punishing high temperatures, sandstorms, ever-lasting thirst and unchanging routine tormented Jack and his fellows until, at last, an order came to entrain for Orange River. The next day at dawn, Jack noticed the enlisted men being loaded into open cars. As an officer, he’d been assigned a compartment in a covered carriage. But he remembered his conversations on the boat and decided to travel with the enlisted men. He walked past the open carriages and spotted his fisherman friend, Eamon McAndrews, who he hadn’t talked to for a while. So he crammed himself into a hard wooden seat between his friend and other privates.

  Moments after Jack had settled, who should come past but Adjutant Brown with a couple of officers, inspecting the carriages before the train set off. Arriving opposite Jack, he stopped dead. Jack met his gaze as he took in Jack’s uniform sitting among the enlisted men. The others stared as well. Jack felt three pairs of eyes on him, and smiled graciously.

  Brown gathered steam to blast an invective, but the train gave its peculiar whistle; the two officers finished their inspection and Brown had to follow, obviously seething.

  Jack relaxed. “I suppose all this inactivity is driving you crazy, Eamon, like the rest of the men?”

  A tough bearded Corporal in the seat ahead joked, “If he don’t have enough to do, I’ll fix that pretty quick!” He gave a hearty laugh, and Jack saw at once that it was Ferguson. “Corporal, I didn’t recognize you in that beard!”

  “I got so sick of shaving in cold water, Padre, I thought I’d take on the look of a Boer. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak up on ’em quiet-like, and knock off a few.”

  “You big ruffian, don’t you have anything else t’occupy that bleedin’ empty head than choking the life out’a us all with those damn drills?” Eamon quipped. Jack saw they had developed an easy camaraderie.

  “I know enough to shoot a Boer between the eyes. That all I need.” The Corporal laughed again. “Now Captain Alford, how d’ye end up coming to sit with the likes of us? You should be up there in a closed carriage with the rest of them. Did you not see the look on the Adjutant’s face?”

  “Corp, you know how deeply I care about what he thinks!” Eamon grinned with the others. “And maybe from here, I’ll be better able to instil in the lads a love of the Almighty, and even a few of His Ten Commandments.“ Jack finished with a wink at Eamon.

  The soldiers around joined in the merriment. “You’ll never instil nothing in our Ferguson, Padre,” Eamon joked. “He’s the toughest one in the Army. Oh yes...”

  “And we’re even proud to have him as our NCO,” another private threw in.

  “But don’t let him hear you,” Eamon said, “or he’ll — ”

  “Bloody right, he’ll....” the Corporal croaked. “He’ll see you run around the train three times for your bravado!” The others didn’t know whether to laugh or be silent.

  “And when do you think this blasted inactivity is going to end, Padre?” Eamon asked. “I missed our church service last Sunday. Did you cancel it? Or did they?”

  “Oh, they did, for sure. Just to let me off the hook!” Jack grinned. “But next Sunday, I have to give you a double-barrelled sermon to make up for it.”

  They all laughed again.

  After the men had settled down, some drifting off to sleep, Eamon whispered, “How’d you make out with that nice little nurse, Padre? She seems nice, but I would have gone for the prettier one, that one there in charge.”

  “Beauty is only skin deep, Eamon,” Jack repeated for want of something better, but chastising himself for mouthing such a cliché. “Well, I was sad enough saying goodbye. But we might end up serving in the same hospital, looking after the few — very few, I hope — Canadians felled by Boer bullets. For the moment, she’s better off down at Wynberg. She did say she’d rather look after Canadians than the British who are apparently coming down by the trainload.”

  “Aye,” Eamon murmured, “them Brits ain’t doin’ too good. I guess they’ll need the likes of us. We’ll show them Boers a thing or two, when we get into it!”

  “I pray you are right,” Jack mumbled dubiously.

  “You don’t sound like on the ship. Your sermons then was sure full o’ fire!”

  No, he didn’t, true. Perhaps the bartender’s words had rattled his composure. The Boers did have better armaments, and were savaging the Brits. But Otter, who had shown little regard for his men on the ship, might now prove to be a great marshal in battle. This thought made him feel better. “I’m quite sure that we Canadians will acquit ourselves with great valour, high skill, and unique bravery, when the time comes.”

  That settled the conversation for the moment and as Eamon fell silent, Jack found himself drifting off.

  Visions of his sweet Kelsie returned. How was she bearing up under the stress of the Wynberg Hospital, with its trainful after trainful of wounded? He should write her when he had time; she had often entered his thoughts since their parting. Enough of that, he said to himself, and forced his though
ts off to the Gaspe and his Old Homestead, now under snow. What a snowball fight he’d had with Mac, when they were youngsters! With a stroke of luck, he’d knocked the tuque off Mac, and then his younger brother had charged him and they had both fallen back into the snow. He found himself smiling and drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  The packed train chugged through the desert heat, soot from the engine choking Jack in this open carriage, especially as they rounded curves. But for the most part, the rails ran dead straight — and thus were fraught with danger. So easy for Boers to cut the line, thought Jack, or indeed gallop up and ambush them. Yes, they were coming ever closer to Boer territory.

  At noon five hours later, still not having eaten, they arrived at Orange River. But then, Jack found himself and the others forced to stand, sit, even lie, baking on the sand under a scorching sun while their officers haggled. Jack raged against this uncalled-for delay — apparently centred on which of the two regiments was to advance, theirs or that of the Gordon Highlanders, who had been waiting here. In the end the Highlanders won, poor souls, soon to be decimated at Magersfontein under Lord Methuen, not thirty miles away, in what would be known as the Black Week.

  Jack marched with the men to the campground of the Scottish regiment, who had left it in a right old mess. And once again, the African weather displayed its turbulence by drowning them all in a blinding rainstorm as they tried to pitch the tents. Torrential rain did happen on the Gaspe, but nothing like the suddenness and force of these downpours.

  Orange River was no place of luxury, either. The enemy were in force not many miles away, so the lads had to keep ready for a night attack at any moment. Having eaten almost nothing and sopping wet, they all retired on thin bed sheets laid over puddles on the stony ground. To make matters worse, at this altitude, a blue and freezing moon rose, casting a chill over any attempt at sleep.

  Jack was growing more and more annoyed at the inefficiencies of the supply lines. On arrival here, they had found no water to drink save in a murky trough. The boarding house across the tracks had some, but Jack was suspicious of that. He saw other men so thirsty that they got down on their hands and knees to drink from the rough trough like animals. Jack also knelt to take a look. Cloudy and hot; what a perfect breeding ground for germs! What should he do? He took a little, just to moisten his lips.

  Finally, he strode to the nearest Captain who was standing by himself and demanded to know why fresh water had not been provided.

  “I’m sorry, Padre,” the Captain replied. “As you know, we’re supplied by the Imperial Army. Probably some sort of slip up.”

  “Well, this had better be the last one, so far as water is concerned!” Jack had lost his clerical sang-froid, for sure. “This is a desert here. The first thing we all need is water.”

  “We’re well aware of that, Padre.”

  “You are? So why are we faced with that hot muddy liquid full of germs? It’s... it’s just not right!”

  The Captain nodded and shrugged. “Wartime, Padre. Lots of things happen that are just not right.” He turned away sorrowfully.

  The men who had drunk at the boarding house came down sick, for the Boers had thrown a dead sheep into the well to poison the water, before the Highlanders had arrived.

  The next morning, December eighth, over a breakfast of hard tack and tea, gossip abounded: either they were off at once, or Boers were on the attack — all manner of rumours voiced by all manner of passers-by. But it ended up with the men ordered to build, of all things, a railway siding.

  Troops, Jack thought, come to fight. Now being asked to be labourers?

  He wandered over to watch a couple of hundred soldiers digging away, laying sleepers and stretching great lengths of heavy iron track.

  He stood, taken aback, then all at once threw off his helmet and jacket and pitched in. But after working for ten minutes, Jack saw his cabin-mate from the Sardinian, Captain Forbes, stamping towards them. Oh-oh, he thought, trouble. He looked down at the earth he was levelling, and just kept working.

  “Rolling up your sleeves, Padre?”

  That’s a switch, he thought and grinned as he lifted his heavy pick. “Only to make you realize we chaplains are good for something.”

  “Bully for you.”

  “However did they rope you into this little enterprise?” Jack kept swinging his pick.

  Forbes squatted down. “I told you, before I joined up, I did a little work on a rail crew out west. No one else here seems to know anything.”

  “I know nothing of railways either,” Jack grunted. “We don’t even have one yet on the Gaspe.”

  “Any and all advice is welcome.” The Captain rose and repeated it louder for everyone’s benefit. So he does have a humanitarian side, Jack thought, gratified.

  As they dug with picks and shovels, Jack found himself working beside Pvt. McAndrews again. “How do you like going this ’going to war’ business, Eamon?”

  “Sure beats being shot at, Padre. But the time will come for that too, eh?” Eamon broke off and looked up.

  Above them stood Adjutant Brown. “What’s this, what’s this?” the Major snorted. “Padre, will you never learn?”

  “No, never!” Jack retorted. He made no pretence of hiding his dislike. Six weeks in uniform had not tamed him. Eamon moved away.

  Brown reacted as if struck, but controlled himself. “Chaplains don’t belong in work parties. Honorary or not, you are still a Captain... Now why don’t you come away out of that trench, and behave like a proper officer?”

  Jack stood up, thinking. How should he handle this?

  Behind the Adjutant, he spied his friend Lieut. Dorsey taking off his officer’s coat. Placing his helmet on the folded jacket, Big George walked calmly over and joined Jack in the trench.

  Two other lieutenants followed suit. Further away, a captain joined the work.

  Dorsey glanced up at Brown. “Come join us, Major. Nothing in the book forbids officers to do hard work, from time to time, not even an Adjutant.” He grinned and picked up a shovel.

  Jack knew his friend was risking insubordination, but with everyone now following suit, Brown just sneered, spun on his heel and stalked off.

  They all had a good, though smothered, laugh and on went the work of building the siding and platform.

  By the end of the sweltering day, which Jack hoped he’d not have to repeat, they found out that Lt.-Col. Girouard, of Soudan fame, had arrived from Cape Town. This Canadian served with the Imperial forces and had been appointed military head of the railways here. Jack and the soldiers were drawn up as he came over to inspect their work: three quarters of a mile of track laid, and 150X15 feet of platform built. Addressing them in a loud voice, he congratulated them on a job exceedingly well done. He was on his way up the line and would most certainly bring news of their wide range of abilities to Field Marshall Roberts.

  All very well, thought Jack, but why not give the men what they came for, a rousing good battle?

  Chapter Thirteen

  That night as Jack fell onto his thin ground sheet under canvas, he heard the news: they were off the next day to Belmont, where the British rear guard was encamped.

  Promptly on the morrow, they entrained and travelled the short twenty miles north to Belmont. Again, no city, just a few sad buildings. His Regiment marched out to a farm and then marched right back again. Finally, they encamped beside the railway station, with its projected roof and long platform. Nearby, an empty hotel had been vacated by its owner, a Mr. De Kock, interned by the British in Cape Town as a Boer inciter. At one end of the platform, a derelict shack served as a poor excuse for a shop, opposite a goods shed with holes in the roof.

  This first night in Belmont, the regiment all had to sleep with their boots on, ready to turn out at a moment’s notice, with half a hope and half a dread of a Boer attack. They had set up a picket on Scots Ridge, the largest Kopje, from whose top, it was reported, they could see the flashing message signals from dista
nt Kimberly, where Cecil Rhodes, the former Cape premier and diamond magnate, had been surrounded by the Boers on November twenty-fourth.

  The terrain around was littered with the bodies of dead horses and men awaiting burial, giving rise to the horrid stench of decomposition. Scarcely three weeks before, General Sir Redvers Buller, then Britain’s commander-in-chief in South Africa, had undertaken to clear the enemy from this one crucial line of communication, the railway. So General Lord Methuen had marched his eight thousand Imperial troops forward to find the Boers here on three stony kopjes, the only defensive position in the eighty miles between Orange and the important town of Kimberly. His brigade of Guards attacked under cover of darkness. But the maps were faulty, and when dawn came, the Guards found themselves still some distance from the nearest kopje. “Suddenly,” a witness said, “quick vivid jets of fire ran along the crest of the kopje like jewels on a coronet,” as the Boers fired.

  The British infantry had to clamber on hands and knees up sheer sides covered with rough thorn bushes and scratchy brush. The Boers calmly leaned over the breastworks and picked off the pith helmets as they appeared; a short, crude, bloody affair.

  The Guards finally did seize the hills, but hundreds of Boers trotted away across the veldt, untouched by artillery or cavalry. Some three hundred British were found dead or missing and only half as many Boers. The enemy were said to have been using dumdum, or soft-nosed bullets that expand, and Britain protested in official letters — the first of such allegations. But throughout the war, both sides were to accuse the others of their use.

  After breakfast, Jack knew that the many grisly burials would begin, with him officiating. But first, he decided to look around a bit. Up the hill he went, passing the bodies of six men and seventeen horses lying in a heap. At one pile of rock, he stopped. A curious stone? He stepped closer. No, the face of a half covered Boer! Staring bleakly out from under its burial cairn. As he climbed, he saw feet and arms sticking out of the earth. All around him lay other reminders of the battle: scattered shrapnel balls, broken belts, snapped bayonets, smashed rifles, spent cartridges and lost equipment. This eagerly anticipated war, he was beginning to see, not only littered the ground with brave animals who had patiently served a Boer or British cause, but with shattered human remains, too. And even after the fatigue parties had given them decent burial, the air still bore their penetrating perfume.