LITMIR.BIZ

      Photo: Dickinson MAJOR (LOCAL COLONEL) W.C. ROSS, C.B.

      Some months after the severance of associations that had been so pleasant for commander and commanded, when Lumsden’s Horse had seen their last of South African fighting, Colonel Ross had the lower part of his face shattered by a bullet while attacking a Boer position at Bothaville with the gallant dash which his old comrades remember so well. In that fight De Wet’s forces were completely routed, and lost nearly all their artillery; but the victory was not achieved without heavy sacrifices on our side. Colonel Le Gallais, who commanded the Mounted Infantry, and also Captain Williams, formerly Staff-Officer of the 8th M.I. Corps under Colonel Ross, were killed, while going to the assistance of their brother-officer; and, in the same fight, Lieutenant Percy Smith, who had gained honours as a trooper of Lumsden’s Horse at Ospruit when he went out with his Colonel to bring in a helpless comrade, was wounded in the performance of a gallant action by which he won the D.S.O.

      For the sake of finishing a story events have been somewhat anticipated, and B Company may resent the interpolation, at this stage, of a flattering comment that belongs properly to a later period. In the actions from which Colonel Ross formed his high opinion of Lumsden’s troopers, B Company had taken its full share. Before resuming touch with the movements of that body, however, reference must be made to another incident in which A Company had the proud distinction of representing the whole corps. The occasion was a visit on April 4 by Lord Roberts, who, after inspecting the company, called out and shook hands with Trooper Hugh Blair, whose brother, an officer of the Royal Engineers, had been badly wounded in the Candahar campaign. The Commander-in-Chief then made a brief speech to Colonel Lumsden and his troopers. Of this no shorthand note or transcription from mental tablets seems to have been made, but its meaning is probably expressed in the following letter which Lord Roberts wrote to Sir P. Playfair, C.I.E., Chairman of the Executive Committee of Lumsden’s Horse: ‘Dear Sir Patrick—Many thanks for your letter of February 26. A few evenings ago I had great pleasure in inspecting Lumsden’s Horse immediately after their arrival here. I sent a telegram to the Viceroy to inform him that I had done so. They are a workmanlike, useful lot. I am sure they will do splendidly in whatever position they may be placed. It is most gratifying to hear the way in which the corps was raised. The sum subscribed by the public generally is the proof of the patriotism of the subscribers, especially Colonel Lumsden himself. You will have seen in the papers that we are detained here for a while until we can refit, but when this is done we shall move northward. I am confident that during our advance Lumsden’s Horse will do credit to themselves and to India. Believe me, yours very truly, (Signed) Roberts.’

      A few days after that inspection the Commander-in-Chief sent to Colonel Lumsden a telegram he had received from the Viceroy. Lord Roberts’s secretary wrote as follows: ‘Dear Colonel Lumsden—The Field-Marshal asks me to send you the enclosed telegram from the Viceroy, and to say that he fully agrees with the last sentence of it.—Yours sincerely, H.V. Cowan, Colonel, Military Secretary.’ Lord Curzon’s telegram said: ‘Lord Roberts, Bloemfontein.—We are delighted to hear of your kind reception of our Indian Volunteer contingent, and hope that they may have a chance of going to the front, where we are confident of their ability to distinguish themselves.—Viceroy.’

      Carrying on the narrative from this point, but leaving the lighter incidents of life in Bloemfontein for other pens to chronicle, Colonel Lumsden deals briefly in his diary with the remaining period of A Company’s isolation, and brings it down to the day when the corps was to be reunited under his command. With natural gratification at the position assigned to him, he says:

      General Ian Hamilton is to command a division of 10,000 Mounted Infantry, of which Colonel Ridley’s brigade forms nearly a half, consisting of four corps of about 1,200 strong each. We are embodied with the 8th Mounted Infantry Corps, consisting of Loch’s Horse, ourselves, and various companies of Mounted Infantry from Regular battalions, under the command of Colonel Ross. Both Colonels Ridley and Ross are well known in India, and we are fortunate in being under their command and in having such a dashing divisional commander as General Ian Hamilton. Our first camp in Bloemfontein proved a sickly one, water being scarce owing to the Boers having blown up the waterworks and cut off the main supply. This, no doubt, has been the cause of numerous cases of dysentery, and our camp was shifted yesterday to a healthier locality, with a more plentiful water supply. Strange to say, we have had an attack of mumps among the men, emanating, we believe, from a native servant who developed that disease on board ship. I regret to say that Captain Beresford had to be taken to hospital yesterday, suffering from an acute attack of dysentery; but a few days of careful dieting will enable him to rejoin us, I hope. B Company, owing to the congested state of the railway traffic from Cape Town to Bloemfontein, was landed at East London, to proceed thence by rail to join us. Transport, however, was found to be equally difficult by that route, and in consequence the company had to march the greater part of the way.

      What meanwhile had befallen that force under the command of Major Showers may be told in the words of a trooper whose lively contributions to the ‘Indian Daily News’ do not seem to have been regarded as an infringement of a rule laid down in the mobilisation scheme by which volunteers for Lumsden’s Horse were warned that they would on no account be allowed to act as special correspondents for newspapers. This regulation, like many others, seems to have been more honoured in the breach than the observance. Taking up the broken thread where it was dropped some pages back, he writes:

      At Queen’s Town we had a fairly pleasant time, except on nights when it simply rained cats and dogs and hailed as well. Most of our tents leaked badly, so we were rendered thoroughly uncomfortable. The horses and the unfortunate stable pickets (I was one, and speak from personal experience) were in a wretched plight, without shelter of any kind. When the storms were at their worst, and picketing pegs would not hold in the soft ground, we may have used words that were not endearing to horses that got loose. On April 2 we were told that the company would start on the 4th, marching to Bethulie, waggons for our horses not being available then, but that we should probably entrain a few stations further up. We were informed that all superfluous clothing, &c., would have to be packed up and returned to East London, and each man would only be allowed to take one kit bag, weight not to exceed thirty pounds. We therefore set to work, and cudgelled our brains trying to decide what to take and what to leave behind—no easy task, I can tell you. However, the die was cast at last, and we were ready for kit-bag weighing next morning. Several of the men had evidently rather vague ideas on this point, and, after filling their bags to a weight of forty or fifty pounds each, had to repack them, much to their disgust. We left next day, our destination being Baileytown, a small place about thirteen miles distant. We were all, of course, in full marching order—supplied with water-bottles, haversacks, bandoliers, rifles, and corn-bag. The first three were hung round our shoulders, the rifles in the bucket on the off side of the saddle, and the corn-bag slung to the saddle. I was not accustomed to it; the strain on the shoulders is pretty severe; and we were all glad when Baileytown drew in sight. This march gave us a very good opportunity of examining the country, and as we passed kopje after kopje it was very easy to realise how difficult a task it is to dislodge the Boers from their veritable strongholds. Arriving at Baileytown about 5 p.m., and finding no tents there, we bivouacked, and found the bare veldt no such uncomfortable bed after all. We spent the whole of the next day there, and as very good grass was plentiful on the slope of the hills the opportunity was taken of knee-haltering and grazing the horses. Resumed our march next day; did about twenty-two miles by 3 o’clock in the afternoon, when a halt was made at a place called Sterkstroom. Here, to our delight, orders came for us to be sent off at once by train. We spent a very busy afternoon unloading kits from the transport carts and reloading them into railway waggons, and entraining horses.

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