Adventures and Letters [110]
bags and was just as clean and just as happy. One boy does nothing but polish my boots and gaiters and harness, so that I look as well as the officers who are not much good at anything but that. I must tell you what I think is the saddest story of the siege-- They could not feed the horses, so they kept part of them for scouting, part to eat and drove 3,000 of them towards the Boers. Being, well trained cavalry horses, they did not know how to eat grass, so at bugle call the whole 3,000 came trotting back again and sentries were placed at every street to stampede them back into the veldt-- One horse from one battery met out in the prairie another horse that had been its gun mate in an artillery regiment five years before in India and the two poor things came galloping back side by side and passed the sentries and into the lines and drew up beside their battery. Another horse found its rider acting as sentry and when the man tried to drive it away it thought he was playing with it and kept coming back and finally the man brought it in to the colonel and cried and asked if it might have half of his rations of corn. Good night and God bless you all with all my love. DICK.
March 15th, 1900. DEAR MOTHER:
I am on my way back to Cape Town. This seemed better than staying with Buller who will not move for two or three weeks. I shall either go straight up to Roberts, or we will return to London. I have seen the relief of Ladysmith and got a very good idea of it all, and I do not know but what I shall quit now. I started in too late to do much with it and as it is I have seen a great deal. It is neither an interesting country nor an interesting war. But I don't have to stay here to oblige anybody. If I do go up to Roberts it will only be to stay for three weeks at the most and only then if there is fighting. I won't go if he is resting as Buller is. So this will explain why we start home so soon. I am very glad I came. I would have been very sorry always if I had not, but my heart is not in it as, of course, it was in our war. Sometimes they fight all day using seven or eight regiments and kill a terrible lot of fine soldiers and capture forty Boer farmers and two women. It is not the kind of war I care to report. "Nor mean to!" I cannot make a book out of what little I've seen but I will come out about even. It has been very rough on Cecil. Today I went to the Maine and asked Lady Randolph to give me a lift down to Cape Town as the ship gets there two days ahead of the Castle Steamer. So, they were apparently very glad to have me and I am going on Saturday. I like it on the ship where I have been spending the day as it is fun taking care of the wounded and listening to their stories. I am to write an article for her next Anglo Saxon magazine on the Passing of the War Correspondent. The idea is that he must either disappear altogether like the Vivandiere or be allowed to do his work. As it is now the Government forces him upon the Generals against their will and so they get back by taking it out of him. Either they should persuade the Government that their objections to him are weighty and suppress him altogether, or recognize him as a part of the outfit. I don't much care which as I certainly would never again go with an English army. I am sorry the letters home have been so dull but I have had rather hard luck straight through, and the distances are so very great and the time spent in covering them seems very wasteful. I shall be glad I saw it because it is the biggest thing as to scale that I ever saw of the sort, and I could not have afforded to have missed being in it. It is the first big modern war and all the conditions and weapons are new. I don't think the English have learned anything by it, because the fault lies entirely with their officers who are all or nearly all of one class.
DICK.
March 25th, 1900. Cape Town.
This is just to explain our plans and as they take a bit of explaining this is meant for the Houses of Clark and of Davis. So, pass it on-- After Ladysmith
March 15th, 1900. DEAR MOTHER:
I am on my way back to Cape Town. This seemed better than staying with Buller who will not move for two or three weeks. I shall either go straight up to Roberts, or we will return to London. I have seen the relief of Ladysmith and got a very good idea of it all, and I do not know but what I shall quit now. I started in too late to do much with it and as it is I have seen a great deal. It is neither an interesting country nor an interesting war. But I don't have to stay here to oblige anybody. If I do go up to Roberts it will only be to stay for three weeks at the most and only then if there is fighting. I won't go if he is resting as Buller is. So this will explain why we start home so soon. I am very glad I came. I would have been very sorry always if I had not, but my heart is not in it as, of course, it was in our war. Sometimes they fight all day using seven or eight regiments and kill a terrible lot of fine soldiers and capture forty Boer farmers and two women. It is not the kind of war I care to report. "Nor mean to!" I cannot make a book out of what little I've seen but I will come out about even. It has been very rough on Cecil. Today I went to the Maine and asked Lady Randolph to give me a lift down to Cape Town as the ship gets there two days ahead of the Castle Steamer. So, they were apparently very glad to have me and I am going on Saturday. I like it on the ship where I have been spending the day as it is fun taking care of the wounded and listening to their stories. I am to write an article for her next Anglo Saxon magazine on the Passing of the War Correspondent. The idea is that he must either disappear altogether like the Vivandiere or be allowed to do his work. As it is now the Government forces him upon the Generals against their will and so they get back by taking it out of him. Either they should persuade the Government that their objections to him are weighty and suppress him altogether, or recognize him as a part of the outfit. I don't much care which as I certainly would never again go with an English army. I am sorry the letters home have been so dull but I have had rather hard luck straight through, and the distances are so very great and the time spent in covering them seems very wasteful. I shall be glad I saw it because it is the biggest thing as to scale that I ever saw of the sort, and I could not have afforded to have missed being in it. It is the first big modern war and all the conditions and weapons are new. I don't think the English have learned anything by it, because the fault lies entirely with their officers who are all or nearly all of one class.
DICK.
March 25th, 1900. Cape Town.
This is just to explain our plans and as they take a bit of explaining this is meant for the Houses of Clark and of Davis. So, pass it on-- After Ladysmith