Outside Ladysmith.
5th March, 1900.
[DEAREST MOTHER:]
I was a brute to write as I did last night. But I was so
blue in that miserable town!!! It was so foul and dirty. The
town smelt as bad as Johnstown. My room in the so called
hotel stunk, the dirt was all over the floor and the servants
had to be paid to do everything even to bring you a towel — and
then I had no place to write or be alone, and nothing to eat —
The poor souls at my table who had been in the siege, when
they got a little bit of sugar or a can of condensed milk
would carry it off from the table as though it were a diamond
diadem — I did the same thing myself for I couldn't eat what
they gave me and so I corrupted the canteen dealer and bought
tin things — I've really never wanted tobacco so much
and food as I have here — to give away I mean, for it was
something wonderful to see what it meant to them. Three
troopers came into the dining room yesterday and asked if they
could buy some tea and were turned out so rudely that it
seemed to hurt them much more than the fact that they were
hungry: I followed them out and begged them to come back to
my verandah and have tea with me but they at first would not
because they knew I had witnessed what had happened in the
hotel. They belonged to a very good regiment and they had
been starved for four months. But in spite of their
independence I got them to my porch. I had just purchased at
awful prices a few delicacies like sugar and tobacco,
marmalade and a bottle of whiskey. So I gave them to them and
I never enjoyed anything so much — The poor yellow faced
skeletons ate in absolute silence still fighting with their
pride until I told them I was an American and was a canteen
contractor's friend — Then I gave them segars and it was too
pitiful — In our column, if you give a man something extra he
says a lot and swears it's the best drink or the best segar or
that you're the best chap he ever met — Just as I say it to
them when they give me things. But these starved bodies tried
to be very polite and conversational on every subject except
food — when I offered them the segars which could only be got
then at a dollar twenty-five a piece (they had not cost me
that as I had bought them in Cape Town for two cents apiece!)
What has Dad to say to that for economy? They accepted them
quite as though it was in Havana — and then leaned back and
went off into opium dreams — Imagine the first segar after
three months. I am out here now on a bluff, with two trees in
front and great hills with names
historical of the siege of Ladysmith — names which I refuse to
learn or remember — I am perfectly comfortable and were it not
for Cecil perfectly content — If she were only here it would
be perfectly magnificent — I have a retinue that would do
credit to the Warringtons in the Virginians — Three Kaffir
boys who refuse to yield to my sense of the picturesque and go
naked like their less effete brothers, two oxen and three
ponies, a little puppy I found starved in Ladysmith and fed on
compressed beef tablets. I call her Ladysmith and she sleeps
beside my cot and in my lap when I am reading — I have also a
beautiful tent with tape window panes, ventilators, pockets
inside, doors that loop up and red knobs; also, it is green so
that the ants won't eat it. Also two tables, two chairs, a
bath tub, two lanterns, and a cape cart — and a folding bed —
In Cuba I had two saddle bags and was just as clean and just
as happy. One boy does nothing but polish my boots and
gaiters and harness, so that I look as well as the officers
who are not much good at anything but that. I must tell you
what I think is the saddest story of the siege — They could
not feed the horses, so they kept part of them for scouting,
part to eat and drove 3,000 of them towards the Boers. Being,
well trained cavalry horses, they did not know how to eat
grass, so at bugle call the whole 3,000 came trotting back
again and sentries were placed at every street to stampede
them back into the veldt — One horse from one battery met out
in the prairie another horse that had been its gun mate in an
artillery regiment five years before in India and the two poor
things came galloping back side by side and passed the
sentries and into the lines and drew up beside their battery.
Another horse found its rider acting as sentry and
when the man tried to drive it away it thought he was playing
with it and kept coming back and finally the man brought it in
to the colonel and cried and asked if it might have half of
his rations of corn. Good night and God bless you all with
all my love.
DICK.
