LETTERS FROM THE FRONT

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11373, 16 May 1900, Page 6

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT

THE DOORNSPRUIT ENGAGEMENT. Trooper K. IT. Wlldcblood. of Robert*' Horse, writing to bin mother in Wiuk&ln. fives some interesting particulars of the Doornspruit engagement. He says: —" Just a few lines to lei you know that I am alive and well, as you will, no doubt, have been rather anxious to hear, after the battle of Doornspruit (I believe it will be called). It was a very tragic ending of the Tbabanchu patrol, was it not? This was how it was. Word was brought us the Boers were advancing in force (8000 strong) upon us, so on the day the scouts brought in the news we started to retire on Bleomfontein. the transport waggons leaving about midday, and we about nine p.m. (Friday night), being rearguard. We marched all" night till we caught up, and camped, with the convoy, about three o'clock a.m., and had an hour and a-ha!f sleep, till daylight, when we started again. The enemy in the meantime had caught up with us and commenced shelling us as we retired. The shells burst amongst the horses, and also in the convoy, j the practice being very good, luckily, however, without doing much harm. We were now in the advanced guard of the column, in rear of the convoy, and ' IV squadron (ours) was in the leading formation with ' A' squadron, which, as after events proved, accounts for our heavy loss. After we had ' been on the march for, perhaps, halfan-hour, a Rimington Scout darted up, and called out, ' Where is the commanding officer? 1 and the colonel (Dawson) was pointed out to him (he happened to be a couple of horses' lengths in front of me at the time). The i scout rode up to him, and pointing to our transports, which were about a mile ahead, said they were in the hands of the enemy, and that they were disarming the men in charge, but our officers, instead of giving the word to retire, not knowing the strength of I the enemy, ordered us to ' trot,' and we rode | up to within 50yds of the waggons, to find ' about 2000 Boers under the waggons, in the j long grass, and in a, long trench they had I made ; thus, we were in a semi-circle of the |

enemy, .when. the order was given. to right incline, bringing us square on to the wag gons, and then one of the Boer leaders stooi up, and called out, Go to your waggons and give up your arms,' . Then the Mate called out, ' Files about gallop,' and 200! rifles and two Maxims opened fire on us and in the short two minutes of that ride w lost 96 men (Roberts' Horse alone). 0 course, they fell in heaps, men and horses There were only eight men left in my troop lieutenant Crowle and all the non-coms were tilled or wounded. You will see tin sad list, I suppose. Well, we fought on fo: seven hours, and saved all the guns but one The artillerymen and horses lay in dozen: I around the guns, but they got the five gun: out with tho few horses which were left It was a ghastly day. Towards evening General French came to our relief with 500( men, and shelled the enemy off. That nighi we rode to Bloemfontein, 22 miles, and wen man was nearly dead of hunger and fatigue* not having tasted grub since the Friday Every time there was a halt the tired iner would tumble off their horses, and go tc sleep on the dusty road. We got in camr at about two a.m., and were immediately served out with rations and mm, and fed the horses. I was in town yesterday foi remounts. I saw Lord Roberts with oui Colonel. Roberts saluted us twice as he passed. We move with the column on Monday next, part of which has come from Builcr, from Natal, and I hope it will settle the Boers, as we shall go straight to Pretoria. I am keeping very fit now, and though I got a Bum Dum bullet through my haversack on Saturday, am none the worse. Poor Jayne (our Bishop Jayne's son, of Chester] was killed that day. We lost about a third of the regiment, killed, wounded, and missing. One of the fellows who came over with me m the Damascus, from Melbourne, is also gone poor fellow, and the other taken prisoner. The New Zea'anders were there, but lost no men. except those who were with the waggons and were taken prisoners. Our total loss on Saturday was 500 killed and wounded (out of 12,000). of which Roberts' Horse lost 96. The bullets came in like hail from the rifles and Maxims, without exaggeration, and though, as you know, it is not by any means my first 'battle, I can candidly say it was a dreadful affair, and one not likely to happen twice in a man's lifetime, at least, I hope not. It was a great move on the part of the Boers, but never mind, it will bo our turn next, and we got a few on Saturday, for that matter. I can promise you our volleys must have shaken them up a bit. I can hear the naval guns thundering away as 1 sit here writing, about 15 miles away. You can hear those big beggars a tremendous way off. . We lost all our kit with th 3 waggons, but are being served out with fresh ones to-day. We are m the Ninth Division. Since 'writing the above I have a most important niece of news to tell you. I, and two other men from ' B' squadron, have been recommended by the Colonel for Imperial commissions Of course, there will be a large number of anplications, so the chances are I do not tret one. ° Writing to his parents from Kenhardt Under date of April 4, Lieutenant Cecil Banks, son of Lieutenant-Colonel Banks who left with the Second Contingent, and is now with the Carnarvon Field Force, says : —" We have, arrived at Kenhardt, but have found no signs of the enemy. The march lias been a most trying one 'for both horses and men, and we have landed with only half our men and horses, and now we have got orders to return and proceed to the front, which we are all glad of. I have been riding on the Maxim jam, which is most comfort able. There has been terrible sickness amongst the troops, and it is increasing at Kenhardt. . . . We managed to capture 30 prisoners, together with a waggon full of rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition. You will be surprised to hear of my new appointment as commander to the Royal Canadian Maxim Battery, which is with our column on the march. The guns (Vickers) are mounted on field-galloping carriages, with teams of four splendid horses and extra gunners. I took them over on the 21st day of March, 1900. They landed here without an officer, and the Colonel finding that I was the only officer who knew anything about the guns in the whole column, I was called up and given the command as a separate unit. Of course 1 was sorry to leave the Auckland division, but you must obey orders. I have great times, the men are all Canadians, all gentlemen, and very nice fellows indeed. . . . We nearly lost an officer, Lieutenant Findluy, and four men, last Sunday, April 16. They were going out patrolling, and had to cross a swift, river. Lieutenant Findlny's horse fell in, taking with it another, that of Corporal Ncald, and men and hordes were washed miles down the river and nearly drowned. However, the two remaining men managed to get them on to some rushes and keep them there until assistance came from camp. Some cowboys, with the Canadian Mounted Rifles, with their lassoo-ropes, tried to rescue them, and it was an awful time for those on shore watching, as man after man failed to get out to them, until at last one succeeded, and after an hour we got the lieutenant and his companion ashore more dead than alive. . . . Eastgate has been left behind sick at Van Wycks Vlei, but we shall pick him up again at that place when we return to get on the train for the front." _^ SOME WOMEN IN THE WAR. BITS OF A KIMBERLEY SURGEON'S DIARY. [BY JULIAN ItALHI, IN THE LONDON DAILY MAIL.] KIMBKBLEr, March 13. The leading surgeon hero, Dr. E. Oliver Ashe, from London, has allowed me to read his diary of tho siege, and from it I have made a fow notes of what the women did. Tho doctor has boon urged to publish his diary in book-form, and if he does it will prove both fascinating and valuable in a superlative decree. I shall not hurt it l:y dipping a teaspoon once into his great bucketful of curious notes and comments. In the first place, the women stayed at homo while a very great number of the men were in the various volunteer forces, manning the forts, living in camps, skirmishing with the enemy— at soldiering. They were not. bombarded as much as the women in the town wore, but even if they had been, it would not have been so bad for them, because it takes half the "cussodness" out cf danger to be fighting the fellows who aro trying to kill you. When we come to making the terms cf settlement with those inhuman Boors, every woman in England must remember why lior sisters in Kiinberley were in more danger from shells than their husbands. It was because the Boers purposely shelled the houses, knowing that only women and children were in them. Tho Boer commandant was quoted in a Free Stato paper as saying that he was "putting his sheik right in the middle of the town" mi purpose. That was done in defiance of the (lonovo Convention, but the Boers regard that »Kreorncnt as tho Tammany Hall political thief looked upon Hip Constitution of his State. When he was arranging a job to enrich his friends, and someone suggested that ho was violating the Constitution, he said, ''"Arralt, phwat is a little thing like tho Constitution to come between friends?" Tim houses of tho town nro not especially constructed to resist 1001b shells. What sort they are may bo interred from this din- I logue, which took place in one last week, I Two women were talking, and one proposed ! something which the other considered pre- ! posterous. ! "1 say!" she exclaimed, "do you think ' I am a sardine becauso I live in a tin house?" I The houses, even of the more solid sort, I o'.forod such slender defence againut shells ! that hundreds of households prepared what ' were called "splinter proofs" in their yards and gardens. These wore littlo chambers I or caves hollowed out of the earth. Rome were as good as brains could devise and money could obtain. They wcro very deep, and wore roofed over with gigantic beams, stool plates, earth, and then another layer of stool and earth or sandbag? over all. The one in the grounds of the dwelling of Mr. (lordlier F. Williams, jcnnral manager of the Do Beers Company, is well floored, contains rugs and wall-hangings, is electrically lighted, and i ventilated by electric funs. As the ladies! of Mr. Williams' family wero away, the ser- ! vants benefited by this haven of wifely. I ' have no doubt tho shctor proof at the Sana-' torium, where Mr. Rhodes lived, is equally j well built and appointed. I do not know I that ho over made use of it. "There was no question of his courngo," i says Dr. Asho, who goes on to state that every day tho nation-maker rodo far out on thu veldt toward the Boer linos, always WEARING WHITE FLANNEL TROUSERS, ! which made him as conspicuous as an electric light on a dark night. By tho way, (here ' were burners at tho ends of most of Hie streets, and thoro was an order that no one might ndo past one of thsso without being soarchod. Mr. Rhodes was stoppod ono day ' by a guard who was detonninod to search i

it- him, Mr. Rhodes fumed and raved, but g- the guard was obdurate. Then Mr. Rhodes )d produced written loave to pass without being s searched. He had only been trying the JL guard. T : - -in But, to return to the shelter-proofs. JU "Ghastly littlo dog-holes, . most of them s ' were,'.' says Dr. Ashe in his absorbing diary. ve They are often without ventilation, and -" were more, dangerous than oven Boer shells. s- Yet to these ran many women (and men, too, p. you may bo sure) when the shells wero flying, s. In these lived many invalids and children ie and nursing mothers, and in one a woman or stayed from a Wednesday morning until a e Friday evening. ' Different women behaved differently "As ' a rule, we think they showed more pluck i than the men," a leading citizen said to me. *' Two women wero sitting on different '(? stoops on different days. In each case a '0 shell fell near by and exploded in tho street, '« One— Englishwoman— on '•' RATHER AMUSED THAN OTHERWISE, e ~' and went out and gathered tho pieces to ;' give away as mementoes. Tho other— in Dutch woman—died of fright. ■° Two Kaffir women wero walking in the ;I } main street side- by side. A shell came, 'J' killed one and did not touch her companion, id Dr. Ashe tells of a lady who walked or >r rodo out with hor husband every day, shells lr or no shells. Plonty suffered dreadful deaths, ie Plenty enjoyed amazingly narrow escapes, i- mainly whilo at their daily work in their |. homes. One young lady hid in a shell-proof pit until it was time to dress for dinner, and then went to her room and was killed. . That is precisely how death camo to George £ Labram, tho mechanical wizard who mado * a big gun for the town. Another shell fell ir under a bed on which a baby was sleeping, r) but it did not explode Another fell under d a bed on which lay a Hindoo mothor with 3- her newly-born child. This shell did explode, ir and set fire to the bed, but mother and child » escaped injury. n Again, a shell camo to tho breakfast-table , of the family of a volunteer who was on duty ,' .on tho town border. It burst and killed a six-year-old child, broke tho arm and leg of '' a younger girl, and badly wounded the d mothor. 3 What Dr. Ashe calls tho most wonderful e of the many narrow escapes was ono which it I will narrate in detail, because it carries is a profound moral with it. It proves how far n men go out of their way to prove themselves 0 absurd when they venture to criticise tho ~ eccentricities of feminine fashion in dress. A (. lady was lying down, fully dressed, on her T bed, resting before dinner. A maid came in to say that she had found a man with firewood (which was very scarce), who wanted 11 a certain sum for a load. The lady turned n over on her side, to got at 'he pocket in tho s back of her dress, and just us alio rolled t away from the sido of the bed a 1001b shell g camo and bored irs way through tho bed in II exactly the place where sho had been lying, g It wont _ through the bed and tho e floor and into tho foundations of the house e without exploding; but it would have cut her to pieces had she been dressed as mon are , clad and been able to put her hand clown at her sido and take her purse out of a pocket . there. ' Plenty of women who stood tho smaller ■ shelling vo-y well found their nerves at the t breaking-point when tho Boers brought the hundred-pounder to play on their homes. That was when, as if by common consent, tho servant girls used to dive under (ho beds j whenever the alarm was sounded to announce tho coming of " a big one." ' When first tho town was put on rations, " the tenderly-reared women had a sorry time. '• Tho business was so badly bungled, that Ine dians, negroes, servants, and hoodlums all 1 struggled together in the line, and the ladies 3 were shouldered out of it. Their husbands f wero away, their servants were not welli served, and they had to go themselves, or go without meat and 60up. Very many tried to ' content themselves with that great' staple of 3 the siege, broad made of wheat and cornflour, " and fried in lubricating oil —a pure sweet-oil 5 made from lard. After a time the system of t ration-distribution was rearranged; the ladies i found their sex and quality respected; and f then, as Dr. Ashe says, it became " a wonder- , ful fight to see ALL THE GREAT SWELLS OF THE i TOWN" l (doctors, architects, barristers, professors, I wealthy merchants, De Boers directors, and f tho rest) patiently taking their places in line - to got their daily meat. There came a fow days towards tho end of ' llio siege when Mr. Rhodes invited all the ' women and children to seek perfect safety in tho diamond mines. Imagination runs riot 1 at tho more idea of these treasure caverns beI coming the familiar haunt and rendezvous of ' a populace Their thoughts on finding them- | selves walled about with rocks whose contents , could purchase principalities and stir tho | longing of queens—these and the emotions of a thousand fair women of modostcr mould, ! who aro of common clay, and yet love din- ' monds full as fondly, are too complex, too in- ' tense, too tremendous for handling here. But, I apart from these suggestions, the actual scones i in those subterranean chambers are said by , Dr. Asho to have been too strange ever to bo i forgotten by him. To one of these gem-encrusted caverns, hollowed deep in the earth's interior, came 1500 womon and children; to another camo 1000. Small as were these companies, it seemed impossible to move without treading on a sleeping child. Rugs, sheets, blankets, and mat* . tresses had been brought to the mouths of these treasure wombs and LOWERED INTO THE DEPTHS, and those who lived in these strange refuges were fed as wero no people on tho earth's surface overhead, for the great diamond mono- j polists produced milk and tinned soups and many delicacies for their guests. A fow wretched men, shaming the honour of their mothers and the sex of their fathers, crept into tho mines to share the safety of the babes and women, but such was the silent contempt they inspired that thoy presently fled to the upper air, and none of their kind took their detestable places. Many women worked in nil the ways that charity, humanity, and bencvolenco suggested, and those who formed an organised corps distributed tho few delicacies obtainable, and especially tho tinned milk, which was most precious, taking care that it went only to tho nursing mothers, the babies, and tho wounded. One thinks of all the fair and gentle sisterhood us lamenting tho oarnago and cruelty of war. Ono is apt to forget in war that, after all, a woman contributed to tho makeup of every warrior. I had forgotten this when I said to gcntlo Sister , yesterday, " Does it not amaze you that men should butcher and manglo each other as these poor chaps in this hospital havo been butchered?" She hesitated, bit hor lip, and then, between set teeth, she said: " Only make it possible for mo to nut on men's clothes and carry a rifle, and I would shoot the cruel and cowardly Boers as lorg as I bad life and strength to pull a trigger." A SPLENDID RECORD. Tho following Army Order, dated March 13, was issued at Bloomfontoin:—lt affords the Field-Marshal Commanding-in-Ohief the gieatest pleasure in congratulating the army in South Africa on the various events that have occurred during tlm past few weeks, and ho would specially offer his sincere thanks to that portion of the army which, under his immediate command, have taken part in the operations resulting yesterday in the capture of Bloomfontoin. On February 12 this force crossed tho boundary which divided the Orange Free St-:te from British territory. Three days later Kiinberley was relieved. Oil the 15th day the hulk of the Boer army in this State, under one of their most trusted generals, were made prisoners. On the 17th day the news of the relief of Ladysmith was received, and on March 13, 29 days from the commencement of tho the capital of the Orange Free State was occupied. This is a record of which any army may well bo proud—a record which could not have been achieved except by earnest, well-disciplined I men, determined to do their duty and to sur* ! mount whatever difficulties or dangers might Ibo encountered. Exposal to extreme ; heat by day, bivouacking under hoavv ' I ram. marching long distances (not ' ! infrequently with reduced rations) ' : the endurance, cheerfulness, and gallan' ! j try displayed by all ranks, nr I'wond praise, i I and Lord Roberts feels sure that neither Her ( I Majesty the Queen nor tho British nation . j will be unmindful of the efforts made by this i ' force to uphold the honour of their country. ' ; The Field-Marshal desires especially to refer to the fortitude and heroic spirit with which ' tho wounded havo borne their sufferings ' Owing to the great extent of country over ' which modern battles have to be fought it is not always possible to afford immediate aid to (hose who are struck down; many hours havo indeed, at times, elapsed before i some of the wounded could be attended to, i but not a word of murmur or complaint has , boon uttered, the anxiety of all, when succour came, was that their comrades should be j oared for first. In assuring every officer and s man how much ho appreciates their efforts in the past, Lord Roberts is confident that, in the future, they will continue to show the i same resolution and soldierly qualities, and to lay down their lives if need be (as so many i bravo mon havo already done) in order to * ensure that the war in South Africa may bo brought to a satisfactory conclusion. '