The covenant - James A. Michener [436]
He worked night after night, going over and over his plans, but after he had swilled most of a bottle of Trianon, his eyes, already almost touching at the corners, seemed to come together, at which times he would drift away from battlefield problems and discourse on his theories of parade-ground military combat: 'Keep the shoulders touching, move forward in line, don't fire too soon, and the ruddy bastards will never stand up against an English march.'
'With the Boers, it's mostly cavalry, sir,' Saltwood reminded him.
'Don't like the cavalry. Never know where the devils will be going next. Give me foot soldiers every time.'
Sometimes late at night, when he was well under, he would grow sentimental: 'Worst thing ever happened to the English soldier, they put him in this damned olive-drab. Said it made him less a target. I say it killed his spirit. In Egypt you had six hundred gallant lads in bright red, marching in the sun. By gad, it struck terror, that's what it did. It struck terror.'
He never referred to his own bravery, which had been considerable, in all theaters of war, but if someone pressed him about his V.C., he would say, 'There's a job to be done, you press forward. No need to give a man medals. That's his job.'
After all his sound deliberations on the folly of a frontal assault on a river and a chain of hills, General Buller changed his mind on the eve of battle and elected to do precisely that. 'We'll roll back the Boers and lift the siege of Ladysmith,' he told Saltwood triumphantly, and as if the deed were done, he sent another heliogram assuring the defenders that he would be there within five dayswith plenty of food.
With a shockingly inadequate map of the area and incomplete scouting sorties, he threw his men against the Boers, who stayed north of the river and picked them off in isolated batches. His fifteen-pounders, inspirited by the idea of the daring dash into the face of an enemy, rashly moved far ahead of their supporting infantry and were isolated. Rescue attempts failed and the guns were captured by the enemy, a loss of more than half the army's field artillery. By nightfall one hundred and forty English soldiers were killed, to the Boer's forty, and more than a thousand were wounded or missing. In dismay and confusion, General Buller ordered his first retreat from the Tugela and afterward dispatched one of the more shameful telegrams of military history.
Ordering the heliographer to his tent, he scribbled a message, which Saltwood begged him not to send: 'It will dash the hopes of the Ladysmith defenders, sir.'
'They're soldiers. They've got to know the worst.'
'But let it come upon them slowly, I beg you. Not from their own commander-in-chief.'
'Send the message!' Buller stormed, as if he were driven to prove himself an ass before the entire world, and it was sent, from an addled commander to a very brave man striving to defend a difficult position:
It appears that I cannot relieve Ladysmith for another month, and even then, only by means of a protracted siege operation. I need time to fortify myself below the Tugela. When I'm in position I suggest you burn your ciphers, destroy your guns, fire away your ammunition, and make the best terms possible with the Boers.
A commanding general had advised one of his bravest subordinates to surrender while there was still a fighting chance to hold on. Buller himself, after a lengthy effort to pull his troops together, tried to ford the Tugela again and wound up in a second confused retreat. In desperation he told Saltwood, 'There must be a way to cross that river. I'll think of something.'
It was imperative that he do so, for the general commanding the defenses at Ladysmith had refused to surrender, and it was obligatory that Buller try once more to rescue him. Instead, in his report to London he complained that he had been repulsed at the Tugela because the Boers outnumbered him: 'They had eighty thousand in the field against me.' To this, London replied acidly: 'Suggest