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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
comrade in my visit to the army, went off again, trekking up
country with the Imperial Yeomanry and ran right into the
arms of De Wet, who had just raided the line and won a small
victory at a place called Roodeval. The famous guerilla leader
was stern but just, and he treated the hospital men with consideration, so that Archie returned none the worse for his adventure. But there was a bad day or two for me between our
learning of his capture and of his release.
The army had got forward with little fi ghting, and Pretoria was in our hands. It seemed to all of us that the campaign
was over and that only cleaning-up remained to be done. I began to consider my own return to Europe, and there were two
potent infl uences which drew me, apart from the fact that the
medical pressure no longer existed. The fi rst was that I had
during all this time continued to write the History of the
War, drawing my material very often from the eye-witnesses
to these events. But there was a good deal which could only
be got at the centre, and therefore if my book was to be ready
before that of my rivals it was necessary for me to be on the
spot. The second was that a political crisis and a general election were coming on, and it was on the cards that I might be
a candidate. I could not, however, leave Africa until I had seen
Pretoria, so, with some diffi culty, I obtained leave and was off
on the much-broken and precarious railway on June 22.
That journey was certainly the strangest railway journey of
my life. From minute to minute one never knew what would
happen. I was in the good company of Major Hanbury Williams, Lord Milner’s Secretary, who allowed me to share his
special carriage, and we had with us a little alert man named
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ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Amery, then unknown to fame, but now deservedly in the seats
of the mighty. There were others but I have forgotten them.
When the train stopped in the middle of the veldt, which it
continually did, one never knew whether it was for fi ve minutes or for fi ve hours, as did actually occur, and as it went on
again without warning one had to sit tight. We met a down
train with its windows shattered and heard that twenty folk
had been injured in a Boer ambuscade. Every hour we expected to be attacked. Once during one of our long halts we saw
a horseman come cantering over the great green expanse. We
got out to see and interview him. He was a tall, slab-sided fellow, unarmed, but with a rakish debonnaire look to him. He
said he was a loyal British farmer, but I had no doubt in my
own mind that he was a Boer scout who wanted to see what
our train was carrying. He sat easy in his saddle for some little
time, chatting with us, and then suddenly wheeled his grey
horse round and galloped away. Some way further down the
line we saw a farm burning, and a fringe of our irregulars riding round it. I was told that it was one of De Wet’s farms and
that it was a punishment for cutting the line. The whole scene
might have been the middle ages – say a company of Moss
troopers on a raid over the English border.
When we came to the place of the Roodeval disaster, where
our Derbyshire militia had been sadly cut up by De Wet, the
train had to stop, for the line was under repair, and we were
able to go over the ground. The place was littered with shells
for the heavy guns taken from some looted train. Then there
were acres covered with charred or partly charred letters,
blowing about in the wind, for De Wet had burned the mail
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MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
bags – one of his less sportsmanlike actions. Napoleon went
one better, however, on a certain occasion when he published
an Intercepted British mail, which led to a British reprisal of
the same sort, not at all conducive to the peace of families.
I picked up one letter which fl uttered up to me, and I read in
rough handwriting, “I hope you have killed all them Boers by
now,” with many x (kisses) underneath. Among other things
were some of the band instruments, across which De Wet had
driven his heavy wagons.
It gave me a strange thrill when I looked out early one
morning at a deserted platform and saw the word Pretoria printed upon a board. Here we were at last at the very
centre of all things. The Transvaal Hotel was open and for
several days it was my head-quarters while I examined men
and things. One of my fi rst tasks was to see Lord Roberts, who
desired to interview me on account of some sensational articles by Burdett-Coutts which had appeared in the London
Press upon the state of the hospitals. Of course that state had
in many cases, possibly in all, been awful, but the reason lay
in the terrible and sudden emergency. Every one had done his
best to meet it and had met it to a surprising degree, but cases
of hardship were numerous all the same. This I explained to
Lord Roberts – and also to the Royal Commission in London.
As an unpaid independent volunteer my words may have had
more weight than those of some far greater authority who was
personally involved. I can see Roberts now as he sat behind
a small desk in his room. His face looked red and engorged,
but that was due no doubt to his life in the sun. He was urbane and alert, reminding me at once of our former meeting
233
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
in London. His light blue eyes were full of intelligence and
kindness, but they had the watery look of age. Indeed, I can
hardly remember in all military history a case where a man
over seventy had been called out from retirement to conduct
so arduous a campaign, and it was his conception of the fi ne
fl ank march to Paardeburg which had actually beaten the
Boers, however long they might keep up appearances of resistance. We had a short vivid talk and I never saw him again
until he came to my own house at Hindhead to inspect my
rifl e range in 1902.
Of Lord Kitchener I saw nothing at Pretoria, but on one occasion a big man on a huge bay horse went past me at a hand
gallop on the veldt, and as he passed he waved his hand, and
I knew it was the famous soldier. He had been under a cloud
since Paardeburg, and indeed it is hard to see how his tactics
can be justifi ed, since he attacked the Boers and lost some
2,000 men, when they were headed off and were bound to surrender in any case. There may be reasons unknown to a civilian, but I have heard soldiers speak warmly about it, for some
of the attackers were mounted troops who had to gallop to
the edge of the donga, and could do nothing when they got
there. Colonel Hannay actually registered some protest before
obeying the orders in which he and many of his men met their
death. However, it was to Kitchener that all men turned now
when the organization of the lines of communication was the
vital point, and that rather than actual battle was his forte.
I have been told by some who have been in action with him
that he became nervously restless and impatient in a fi ght,
while Roberts, on the other hand, became cooler and more
234
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
quiet the greater the danger grew. In organization, however,
Kitchener was inhuman in his cool accuracy. “Regret to report
great dynamite explosion. Forty Kaffi rs killed,” was the report
of one offi cer. “Do you need more dynamite?” was the answering telegram from Lord Kitchener.
There was a bench outside my hotel on which a group of
old bearded burghers used to smoke their pipes every day.
I went down and sat among them with my Boer pipe fi lled
with the best Magaliesburg. I said nothing, so soon they began
to make advances, speaking excellent English in rough guttural fashion. Botha was not far from the town, and it was notorious that spies took him out the news every night. These
old fellows were clearly a collecting station, so I thought it
would be useful to give them something to ponder. After conversational remarks one of them said: “Tell us, Mister, when
are we to have peace?” They were under the impression that
the whole British nation was longing for peace, and it was this
which encouraged the resistance. “Oh,” said I, “I hope not for
a long time yet.” They all looked at each other, and then the
spokesman said: “Why do you say that, Mister?” “Well, it’s this
way,” said I. “This country, you see, is going to be a British Colony. It would be very awkward for us to have a Colony which
was full of dangerous men. We couldn’t kill them then, could
we? They would be fellow-citizens and under the law’s protection, the same as we. Our only chance is to kill them now, and
that’s what we will do if we have the time.” The old fellows
all grunted and puffed furiously at their pipes, but they could
fi nd no answer. Possibly some version of the matter may have
reached the point I was aiming at.
235
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Our longest excursion from Pretoria was to Water-val,
whither Bennett Burleigh took me in his Cape cart. Once
we got quite close to a Boer patrol, about a dozen horsemen.
Burleigh could not believe that they were actually the enemy until I pointed out that several of the horses were white,
which was hardly ever known in our service. He then examined them with his glass, and found I was right. They were
clearly on some quest of their own, for they took no notice of
us, though they could easily have cut us off. Our drive took us
to the great prison camp where so many British and Colonial
soldiers had a humiliating experience. The prisoners had only
got free a week or two before, and the whole place, many acres
in size, was covered with every sort of souvenir. I contented
myself with a Boer carbine which had been broken by a British prisoner, a band triangle, a half-knitted sock, the knitting
needles being made from the barbed wire, and a set of leg fetters from the camp gaol. A tunnel had been bored just before
the general delivery by some captive Hussars. It was a wonderful work, considering that it was done chiefl y with spoons, and
it had just been fi nished when relief came. I descended into
it, and was photographed by Burleigh as I emerged. I daresay
many of my friends have copies of it still, with my inscription:
“Getting out of a hole, like the British Empire.”
I spent a day in Johannesburg, walking its deserted streets
and seeing its great mines now dead or at least in suspended animation. I descended one of the deep mines, the Robinson, but
as the hoisting machinery was out of order, and we had to walk
in darkness down hundreds (it seemed thousands) of slippery
wooden steps, with buckets, which did the draining, clanking
236
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
past one’s ear, it was certainly an over-rated amusement. We got
the usual tips as to which mines were going to boom – on all of
which I acted, and all of which proved to be wrong.
On July 4, after an uneventful journey, which proved in
itself that our grip was tightening upon the country, I found
myself back in the Langman Hospital again. Times were quiet
there, though another of our poor orderlies had just died of
erysipelas, which had broken out in the wards – not traumatic
erysipelas, but a variety which came without apparent cause.
I mention the fact because enteric had been so universal that
there really seemed no other disease, and this was the only appearance of any other ailment. If the army had all been inoculated, this would, I think, have been absolutely the healthiest
war on record. Of surgical cases we had few, but I remember
one operation which is perhaps rather technical for discussion and yet stands out very clearly in my memory. It was performed upon the Dutch military attaché with the Boers, who
was picked up wounded and paralyzed after some engagement.
A shrapnel bullet had broken one of his cervical vertebrae,
the bone pressed on the nerves, and they had ceased to function. Watson Cheyne of London was the operator. He had cut
down on the bone with a free incision and was endeavouring
with a strong forceps to raise the broken arch of bone, when an
amazing thing happened. Out of the great crimson cleft there
rose a column of clear water 2 feet high, feathering at the top
like a little palm tree, which gradually dwindled until it was
only a few inches long, and fi nally disappeared. I had, I confess,
no idea what it was, and I think many of the assembled surgeons were as taken aback as I was. The mystery was explained
237
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
by Charles Gibbs, my mentor in such matters, who said that the
cerebrospinal fl uid, which is usually a mere moistening round
the cord, had been greatly stimulated and increased by the
pressure of the broken bone. It had fi nally distended the whole
sheath. The forceps had punctured a small hole in the sheath
and then the fl uid had been pressed through and shot into the
air as I had seen it. Perhaps the release was too sudden, for the
patient died shortly after he was removed from the table.
Charles Gibbs is still in practice, and senior surgeon of
Charing Cross Hospital, but he will forgive me if I remind him
that his pupil did once score over him. One of my enteric patients was obviously dying and kept murmuring that he would
like some solid food.
Of course the fi rst law in treating enteric is, or was, that
diet must be fl uid, as the intestine is ulcerated and puncture
of it means death by peritonitis. I said to Gibbs: “Do you consider that this man is sure to die?” “He is certainly as bad as
he can be,” said Gibbs. “Well then,” said I, “I propose to give
him a solid meal.” Gibbs shook his head and was shocked. “It is
a great responsibility you take.” “What’s the odds,” I asked, “if
he has to die anyhow?” “Well, it’s just the difference whether
you kill him or the disease does.” “Well, I’ll take the chance,”
said I – and I did so. A year or so later I was attending a public
meeting at Edinburgh when the following letter, which I copy
from my book of curiosities was handed up to me.
128, ROYAL ROAD,
KENNINGTON PARK
LONDON, S.E.
October 1, 1900.
238
MEMORIES AND ADVENTURES
SIR; – As one who was under your care at Bloemfontein in
“Langman’s Hospital” I hope you will forgive me in taking the
liberty of wishing you success at Edinburgh. I am actuated in
this not only by political principles but by the fact that I (and
others) owe my life to your kindness and care. You may not
remember me, Sir, but I can assure you the remembrance of
you is written in my mind and can never be removed. Again
wishing you success and hoping you will pardon this liberty,
I remain, Sir, Yours obediently,
(Pte.) M. Hanlon, C.I.V.
M. Hanlon was my enteric patient and he had never looked
back from the day he had that square meal. But I don’t say it
was an example of the family practitioner to copy.
On July 11 I went on board the Briton at Capetown and we
sailed for England once more. I called upon Sir Alfred Milner
before I left, and found him a very much older man than when
only a few years before I had met him on the eve of his African
experience. His hair was grizzled and his shoulders bowed, but
his brave heart was as steadfast as ever, nor did it ever fail until his hard and thankless task was done. He made one error,
I think, when he desired to keep South Africa under martial
law when the war was over, but who could have done better, or
as well, under the intolerable conditions which he had to face?
It was a remarkable passenger list on the Briton, and a very
joyous voyage. The Duke of Norfolk and his brother Lord Edward Talbot were two of the most cheery people on the ship.
It was a weird sight to see the senior Baron of England and
a lumpy Hollander sitting face to face on a spar, and slashing each other with bladders to see which could knock off the
239
ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
other. Blood told, if I remember right. Then there was Sir John
Willoughby, of Jameson Raid fame, Lady Sarah Wilson from
Mafeking, the Duke of Marlborough, Lady Arthur Grosvenor,
the Hon. Ivor Guest and many famous soldiers. Especially was
I fortunate in my friendship with Fletcher Robinson and with
Nevinson, which was cemented by this closer association. Only
one cloud marred the serenity of that golden voyage. There
was a foreign offi cer on board, whose name I will not mention, who had been with the Boers and who talked with great
indiscretion as to his experiences and opinions. He stated in
my presence that the British had habitually used Dum-Dum
bullets, on which I lost my temper and told him he was a liar.
I must say that he behaved very well, for after thinking it over
he saw that he was in the wrong and he sent dawn my friend
Robinson to my cabin with a query as to whether I would accept an apology. I answered that I would not, since it was the
army, and not me, which had been insulted. In an hour Robinson reappeared with the following letter, which ended what
might have been a serious incident.
DEAR SIR, – Allow me to tell you that I regret lively what
I said about expanding bullets – which I said but after hear saying evidence I request you to let everybody know that I strongly wish on the contrary that I desire to be on best terms with
every Englishman and beg you for that to be my interpreter.
Yours very truly.
The fi rst days of August saw me in London once more, and
soon all that strange episode – the green expanse of the veldt,
the fl at-topped hills, the enteric wards – had become the vision of a dream.
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