February, 1900.
[DEAR DEAR MOTHER: — ]
I am here at last and counting the days when I shall get
away. War does not soothe my savage breast. I find I want
Cecil, and Jaggers, and Macklin to write, and plays to
rehearse. Without Cecil bored to death at Cape Town, I would
not mind it at all. I know how to be comfortable and on my
second day I beat all these men who have been here three
months in getting my news on the wire. For I am a news man
now, and have to collect horrid facts and hosts of casualties
and to find out whether it was the Dubblins
or the Durbans that did it and what it was they did. I was in
terrible fear that I would be too late to see the relief of
Ladysmith but I was well in time and saw a fight the first few
hours I arrived. It is terribly big and overwhelming like
eighty of Barnum circuses all going at once in eighty rings
and very hard to understand the geography. The Tugela is like
a snake and crosses itself every three feet so that you never
know whether you have crossed it yourself or not. Every one
is most kind and I am as comfortable as can be. Indeed I like
my tent so much that I am going to take it to Marion. It has
windows in it and the most amusing trap doors and pockets in
the walls and clothes lines and hooks and ventilators — It is
colored a lovely green — I have also two chairs that fold up
and a table that does nothing else and a bed and two lanterns,
3 ponies, one a Boer pony I bought for $12. from a Tommy who
had stolen it. I had to pay $125 each for the other two and
one had a sore back and the other gets lost in my saddle. But
war as these people do it bores one to destruction. They are
terribly dull souls. They cannot give an order intelligently.
The real test of a soldier is the way he gives an order. I
heard a Colonel with eight ribbons for eight campaigns scold a
private for five minutes because he could not see a signal
flag, and no one else could. It is not becoming that a
Colonel should scold for five minutes. Friday they charged a
hill with one of their "frontal" attacks and lost three
Colonels and 500 men. In the morning — it was a night
attack — when the roll was called only five officers answered.
The proper number is 24. A Captain now commands the regiment.
It is sheer straight waste of life through dogged stupidity.
I haven't seen a Boer yet except
some poor devils of prisoners but you can see every English
who is on a hill. They walk along the skyline like ships on
the horizon. It must be said for them that it is the most
awful country to attack in the world. It is impossible to
give any idea of its difficulties. However I can tell you
that when I get back to the center of civilization. Do you
know I haven't heard from you since I left New York on the
St. Louis. All your letters to London went astray. What
lots you will have to tell me but don't let Charley worry. I
won't talk about the war this time. I never want to hear of
it again.
DICK.
