A WAR CORRESPONDENT ON LORD ROBERTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVII, Issue 11538, 24 November 1900, Page 1 (Supplement)

A WAR CORRESPONDENT ON LORD ROBERTS.

Mb. H. C. Shelley, who served as a war correspondent, writes as follows in the Westminster Budget: —

On several occasions during the campaign it was my privilege to come into close contact with the Commander-in-Chief, and I want to set down, if I can, some of the impressions which remain with me as memories of those interviews. Lord Roberts is the chief figure in my recollections of Majuba Day. Yet that was a day of many moment- j oris impressions. One half-hour of its grey dawn I am hardly likely to forget. With two other correspondents I as camped at the foot of a rocky kopje some 3000 yards from the Boer position. Our resting-place was the bare earth; our shelter a waterproof sheet stretched over the shaft of a Cape cart. From this rude couch we were aroused by resonant volleys of rifle fire from the river bed nearly two miles away. When we crept out into the chill air and stood up to peer into the darkness we heard the whiz of bullets all round! Later that day there were other exciting experiences. To see Cronje a prisoner in our camp, to watch the arrival afterwards of Major Albrecht and other notable commandants, to go across the veldt and meet the swarming 4000 as they poured into our lines, to wander afield to that laager in the river bed which it would have been death to have approached a few hours earlier —all these were experiences likely to have made a deep impression on the mind. Yet the one scene which comes first to my memory on the mention of Majuba Day is none of these. It is rather of a little group of soldiers under the shade of the stunted trees which fringe the Modder River at Paardeberg. Central in that group is + he erect form of the man who is supreme here for all the issues of life and death. His bearing is that of one destined to command, yet he receives the services of those over whom he sways authority as though he were a courtly knight newly stepped out of some mediaeval canvas. As his erstwhile foe is conducted forward he advances to meet him, and all that kindly, delicate feeling can do to lessen the sting of defeat is not wanting. It was from that scene I received my first impression of the greatness of Lord Roberts.

On the march from Paardeberg to Bloemfontein I saw little of the Field-Marshal save at the battle of Driefontein. The battlefield made no difference in the man. As in the camp, he was 'commanding in bearing without a tinge of severity. His orders were uttered with the tone of one who had a perfectly clear conception of the problem he had been set to solve, and they breathed that air of "without haste without rest" which is the secret of so much successful work. If one went within voice-range of him, he did not shout, as one general did, " Don't speak to me unless you have something veiy important to say!"

During the long halt at Bloemfontein I saw a great deal of Lord Roberts. One afternoon he was kind enough to give me a special sitting for my camera rather, a special standing, for when he came out of the Presidency and saw the chair which had been placed ready for him he ejaculated, smiling meaningly the while, " I'm not going to sit down." That expression might be taken as the index of the man. One of his principal A.D.C.'s told me that he was astounded at the amount of work Lord Roberts got through every day. When the banquet to the Foreign Attaches was given at the Presidency, I was allowed to attend the function for the purpose of taking a flashlight photograph of the scene, and was the only journalist present at that historic gathering. The speeches of the Attaches showed that Lord Roberts impresses .the foreign mind in the same manner as he does that of his own countrymen.

Two other Bloemfontein memories may be recalled. During the early days of the halt Lord Roberts mapped himself out a programme of reviews, and each of the divisions was inspected in turn. These were big occasions, of course, and every attention was paid to all the details of the functions as though they were taking place in peace time at Home. In due course the turn of the Naval Brigade came. This was perhaps the smallest unit of Lord Roberts' force; yet the review was carried through with as much care as that of a division of 10,000 men. When the Field-Marshal had passed along the lines of those delighted bluejackets and marines, he turned to the saluting base and addressed them collectively for a few minutes. To report that little speech would be useless ; to characterise it is impossible. Tone and h'partwarmth made it what it was, and cold type is no channel for the expression of those qualities. But it was a thrilling experience to hear it. The right word spoken with the right accentthis was'the charm which caused all listeners' hearts to glow within them as the veteran soldier spoke to that band of valorous seamen. Nervous with the excitement of the event, the commander of the brigade overlooked the fact that his men would want to cheer. And there was Lord Roberts riding away! Happily he had not gone many yards ere the order to fall out was given, and then it was a sight of a lifetime to se those hardy men of the sea dash after the Commander-in-Chief, cluster round their huge guns, and, with hats wildly waving, burst into a mighty storm of British cheering. In a flash the great soldier wheeled his horse sharply round and stood at salute with inimitable grace until the last echoes ot that affectionate outburst had died away. That simple scene seemed to show me another side of the man's greatness.

Then there was a dinner at Bloemfontein, a dinner at which other distinguished men were present, but there could be no doubt as to who was the greatest man in that company. There, too, he made aMittle speech, the charm of which, again, was the right word uttered in the right accent, though his auditors were quite other than those men of the sea whose hearts he won so wholly the other day. Close contact with Lord Roberts does not spell disillusionment. Nor does his rare courtesy and kindness foster familiarity. Though you may meet him at the most social of functions, where most other men show that greatness has its fathomable depths, you will feel that this man cannot be measured with your plumb-line, that there is a spaciousness in his character which cannot be mapped out no matter how near you may come to him. It is not that he hides himself or covers up vacancy with a thin veneer of reserve, but that there are depths in his nature which are as much beyond the ordinary vision as there are spaces in the great universe which no telescope has penerated. A character so simple and vet so complex is a rare evolution.