Ladysmith | Page 7

There was no panic. The few ladies who
remain went riding or cycling along the dusty, blazing road which
makes the town. The Zulu women in blankets and beads walked in
single file with the little black heads of babies peering out between
their shoulder-blades, and roasting in the sun. Huge waggon-loads of
stores--compressed forage, compressed beef, jam, water-proof sheets,
ammunition, oil, blankets, sardines, and all the other necessaries of a
soldier's existence--came lumbering up from the station behind the long
files of oxen urged slowly forward by savage outcries and lashes of
hide. Orderlies were galloping in the joy of their hearts. The band of the
Gloucesters were practising scales in unison to slow time. Suddenly a
kind of feeling came into the air that something was happening. I
noticed the waggon stopped; the oxen at once lay down in the dust; the
music ceased and was packed away. I met the Gordons coming into
town and asking for their ground. Riding up the mile or two to camp, I

found the whole dusty plateau astir. Tents were melting away like snow.
Kits lay all naked and revealed upon the earth. The men were falling in.
The waggons were going the wrong way round. The very headquarters
and staff were being cleared out. The whole camp was, in fact, in
motion. It was coming down into the town. In a few hours the familiar
place was bare and deserted. I went up this morning and stood on
Signal Hill where the heliograph was working yesterday, just above the
camp. The whole plain was a wilderness. Straw and paper possessed it
merely, except that here and there a destitute Kaffir groped among the
_débris_ in hopes of finding a shiny tin pot for his furniture or some rag
of old uniform to harmonise with his savage dress. In one corner of the
empty iron huts a few of the cavalry were still trying to carry off some
remnants of forage. It was a pitiful sight, and yet the rapidity of the
change was impressive. If the Boers came in, they would find those tin
huts very luxurious after their accustomed bivouacs. Is it possible that
tin huts might be their Capua?
The camp was thought incapable of defence. Artillery could command
it from half a dozen hills. Whoever placed it there was neither strategist
nor humanitarian. It is like the bottom of a frying-pan with a low rim.
The fire is hot, and sand is frying. But, indeed, the whole of Ladysmith
is like that. The flat-topped hills stand round it reflecting the heat, and
in the middle we are now all frying together, with sand for seasoning.
The main ambulance is on the cricket ground. The battalion tents are
pitched among the rocks or by the river side, where Kaffirs bathe more
often and completely than you would otherwise suppose. The river
water, by the way, is a muddy yellow now and leaves a deep deposit of
Afric's golden sand in your glass or basin. The headquarters staff has
seized upon two empty houses, and can dine in peace. The street is one
yelling chaos of oxen in waggons and oxen loose, galloping horses,
sheep, ammunition mules, savages, cycles, and the British soldier. He,
be sure, preserves his wonted calm, adapts himself to oxen as naturally
as to camels, puts in a little football when he can, practises alliteration's
artful aid upon the name of the Boers, and trusts to his orders to pull
him through. His orders are likely to be all right now, for Colonel Ward
has just been put in command of the whole town, and already I notice a
method in the oxen, to say nothing of the mules. What is it all but a

huge military tournament to be pulled together, and got up to time?
This morning most people expected the attack would begin. I rode five
miles out before breakfast to see what might be seen, but there were
only a few Lancers pricking about by threes, and never a Boer or any
such thing. So we have waited all day, and nothing has happened till
this afternoon the rumour comes with authority that a train has been
captured at Elands Laagte, about sixteen miles on the way to Dundee.
The railway stopped running trains beyond there yesterday, and had
better have stopped altogether. Anyhow, the line of communication
between us and the splendid little brigade at Dundee is broken now.
Dundee is pretty nearly fifty miles N.N.E. of this. The camp is happily
on a stronger position than ours, and not mixed up with the town. But at
present it is practically besieged, and no one can say how long the siege
of Ladysmith also will be delayed. For the moment, it seems