-pound shells a minute these Vickers-Maxim
guns are supposed to fire. But as a matter of fact we are told the
number rarely reached a score. Still the dull pom-pom-pom of the gun,
with the knowledge that shell after shell was coming, always made Tommy
shake; and when he got to the camp fire at night, one man would say to
another, 'I cannot get used to it. It frightens me nearly out of my
life.'
=The Christian under Fire.=
We have asked many of our Christian soldiers how they felt when they
went into fire. All sorts of answers have been given. Most have
confessed to a nervous tremor at first. Said a lance-corporal of the
12th Lancers: 'The worst time I ever had was when we were relieving
Kimberley. There were Boers in front of us and Boers on our flank. We
rode through a perfect hail of bullets. At first I wondered if I should
get through it, and then I became utterly oblivious of shells and
bullets. I rode steadily on, and the only thing that concerned me as we
rode right for the Boer position was to keep my horse out of the ruts.'
Perhaps this is the general experience. No thought of turning back, no
particular fear, no great exultation, simply a keeping straight on. No
wonder from before such a wall of determination the Boers fled for their
lives.
The soldier's great complaint is that he has been kept ill-informed of
the progress of events. He has simply been a pawn on the chess-board, or
a cog in the great wheel. And he laments that often at the end of a long
day's march or fighting he lies down to rest in his wet ragged clothes,
not knowing where he is or whether he has accomplished little or much.
This is inevitable, of course, and the officers themselves were, in
many cases, but little better informed. But one and all have implicit
faith in their generals, and those who added to that faith implicit
trust in God could after the most trying days lie down and rest in
perfect peace. Even at his worst the British soldier is capable of
better things, and out there upon the veldt he has many a time thought
of God, and wondered what possibilities for good there were within him.
Going to the front has made a _new_ man of Tommy. It remains to be seen
whether in the easier times of peace the _old_ man will come back.
Chapter VIII
WITH LORD ROBERTS TO BLOEMFONTEIN
The advent of that splendid Christian soldier, Field-Marshal Lord
Roberts of Kandahar, put an entirely different face upon the war. He
c
|