Adventures and Letters
by
Richard Harding Davis
Part 5 out of 7
He was hit in three places but established the fact that Young
was up on the trail on our right across the valley for they
cheered. He was a man who had run on the Gold Ticket for
Congress in Arizona, and consequently, as some one said,
naturally should have led a forlorn hope. A blackguard had
just run past telling them that Wood was killed and that he
had been ordered to Siboney for reinforcements. That was how
the report spread that we were cut to pieces-- A reporter who
ran away from Young's column was responsible for the story
that I was killed. He meant Marshall who was on the left of
the line and who was shot through the spine-- There was a lot
of wounded at the base and the fighting in front was fearful
to hear. It was as fast as a hard football match and you must
remember it lasted two full hours; during that time the men
were on their feet all the time or crawling on their hands--
Not one of them, with the exception of ----, and a Sergeant
who threw away his gun and ran, went a step back. It was like
playing blindman's buff and you were it. I got separated once
and was scared until I saw the line again, as my leg was very
bad and I could not get about over the rough ground. I went
down the trail and I found Capron dying and the whole place
littered with discarded blankets and haversacks. I also found
Fish and pulled him under cover--he was quite dead-- Then I
borrowed a carbine and joined Capron's troop, a second
lieutenant and his Sergeant were in command. The man next me
in line got a bullet through his sleeve and one through his
shirt and you could see where it went in and came out without
touching the skin. The firing was very high and we were in no
danger so I told the lieutenant to let us charge across an
open place and take a tin shack which was held by the
Spaniards' rear guard, for they were open in retreat.
Roosevelt ordered his men to do the same thing and we ran
forward cheering across the open and then dropped in the grass
and fired. I guess I fired about twenty rounds and then
formed into a strategy board and went off down the trail to
scout. I got lonely and was coming back when I met another
trooper who sat down and said he was too hot to run in any
direction Spaniard or no Spaniard. So we sat down and panted.
At last he asked me if I was R. H. D. and I said I was and he
said "I'm Dean, I met you in Harvard in the racquet court."
Then we embraced--the tenth came up then and it was all over.
My leg, thank goodness, is all right again and has been so for
three days. It was only the running about that caused it. I
won't have to run again as I have a horse now and there will
be no more ambushes and moreover we have 12,000 men around
us-- Being together that way in a tight place has made us all
friends and I guess I'll stick to the regiment. Send this to
dear Mother and tell her I was not born to be killed. I ought
to tell you more of the charming side of the life--we are all
dirty and hungry and sleep on the ground and have grand talks
on every subject around the headquarters tent. I was never
more happy and content and never so well. It is hot but at
night it is quite cool and there has been no rain only a few
showers. `No one is ill and there have been no cases of fever. I
have not heard from you or any one since the 14th, which is not
really long but so much goes on that it seems so. Lots of
love to you all.
DICK.
After reading this over I ought perhaps to say that the
position of the real correspondents is absolutely the very
best. No one confounds us with the men at the base, and
nothing they have they deny us. We are treated immeasurably
better than the poor attaches who are still on the ship and
who if they were spies could not be treated worse. But for
Whitney, Remington and myself nothing is too good. Generals
fight to have us on their staffs and all that sort of thing,
so I really cannot complain, except about the fact that our
real news is crowded out by the faker in the rear.
SANTIAGO.
Headquarters
Cavalry Division, U. S. Army.
Headqrs. Wood's Rough Riders.
June 29th, 1898.
DEAR DAD:
I suppose you are back from Marion now and I have missed you.
I can't tell you how sorry I am. I wanted to see you coming
up the street this summer in your knickerbockers and with no
fish, but still happy. Never mind, we shall do the theatres
this Fall, and have good walks downtown. I hope Mother will
come up and visit me this September, at Marion and sit on
Allen's and on the Clarks' porch and we can have Chas. too. I
suppose he will have had his holiday but he can come up for a
Sunday. We expect to move up on Santiago the day after
to-morrow, and it's about time, for the trail will not be
passable much longer. It rains every day at three o'clock for an
hour and such rain you never guessed. It is three inches high
for an hour. Then we all go out naked and dig trenches to get it
out of the way. It is very rough living. I have to confess that
I never knew how well off I was until I got to smoking Durham
tobacco and I've only half a bag of that left. The enlisted men
are smoking dried horse droppings, grass, roots and tea. Some of
them can't sleep they are so nervous for the want of it, but
to-day a lot came up and all will be well for them. I've had a
steady ration of coffee, bacon and hard tack for a week and
one mango, to night we had beans. Of course, what they ought
to serve is rice and beans as fried bacon is impossible in
this heat. Still, every one is well. This is the best crowd
to be with--they are so well educated and so interesting. The
regular army men are very dull and narrow and would bore one
to death. We have Wood, Roosevelt, Lee, the British Attache,
Whitney and a Doctor Church, a friend of mine from Princeton,
who is quite the most cheerful soul and the funniest I ever
met. He carried four men from the firing line the other day
back half a mile to the hospital tent. He spends most of his
time coming around headquarters in an undershirt of mine and a
gold bracelet fighting tarantulas. I woke up the other
morning with one seven inches long and as hairy as your head
reposing on my pillow. My sciatica bothers me but has not
prevented me seeing everything and I can dig rain gutters and
cut wood with any of them. It is very funny to see Larned, the
tennis champion, whose every movement at Newport was applauded by
hundreds of young women, marching up and down in the wet
grass. Whitney and I guy him. To-day a sentry on post was
reading "As You Like It" and whenever I go down the line half
the men want to know who won the boat race-- To-day Wood sent
me out with a detail on a pretense of scouting but really to
give them a chance to see the country. They were all college
boys, with Willie Tiffany as sergeant and we had a fine time
and could see the Spanish sentries quite plainly without a
glass. I hope you will not worry over this long separation.
I don't know of any experience I have had which has done me so
much good, and being with such a fine lot of fellows is a
great pleasure. The scenery is very beautiful when it is not
raining. I have a cot raised off the ground in the Colonel's
tent and am very well off. If Chaffee or Lawton, who are the
finest type of officers I ever saw, were in command, we would
have been fighting every day and would probably have been in
by this time. This weather shows that Havana must be put off
after Porto Rico. They cannot campaign in this mud.
DICK.
SANTIAGO, July 1898.
DEAR FAMILY:
This is just to reassure you that I am all right. I and
Marshall were the only correspondents with Roosevelt. We were
caught in a clear case of ambush. Every precaution had been
taken, but the natives knew the ground and our men did not.
It was the hottest, nastiest fight I ever imagined. We never
saw the enemy except glimpses. Our men fell all over the
place, shouting to the others not to mind them, but
to go on. I got excited and took a carbine and charged the
sugar house, which was what is called the key to the position.
If the men had been regulars I would have sat in the rear as
B---- did, but I knew every other one of them, had played
football, and all that sort of thing, with them, so I thought
as an American I ought to help. The officers were falling all
over the shop, and after it was all over Roosevelt made me a
long speech before some of the men, and offered me a captaincy
in the regiment any time I wanted it. He told the Associated
Press man that there was no officer in his regiment who had
"been of more help or shown more courage" than your humble
servant, so that's all right. After this I keep quiet. I
promise I keep quiet. Love to you all.
RICHARD.
From Cuba Richard sailed with our forces to Porto Rico, where
his experiences in the Spanish-American war came to an end,
and he returned to Marion. He spent the fall in New York, and
early in 1899 went to London.
One of the most interesting, certainly the most widely talked
of, "sporting events" for which Richard was responsible was
the sending of an English district-messenger boy from London
to Chicago. The idea was inspired by my brother's general
admiration of the London messenger service and his particular
belief in one William Thomas Jaggers, a fourteen-year-old lad
whom Richard had frequently employed to carry notes and run
errands. One day, during a casual luncheon conversation at
the Savoy with his friend Somers Somerset, Richard said that he
believed that if Jaggers were asked to carry a message to New
York that he could not only do it but would express no surprise
at the commission. This conversation resulted in the bet
described in the following letters. The boy slipped quietly
away from London, but a few days later the bet became public
and the newspapers were filled with speculation as to whether
Jaggers could beat the mails. The messenger carried three
letters, one to my sister, one to Miss Cecil Clark of Chicago,
whom Richard married a few months later, and one to myself.
As a matter of fact, Jaggers delivered his notes several hours
before letters travelling by the same boat reached the same
destinations. The newspapers not only printed long accounts
of Jaggers's triumphal progress from New York to Chicago and
back again, but used the success of his undertaking as a text
for many editorials against the dilatory methods of our
foreign-mail service. Jaggers left London on March 11, 1899,
and was back again on the 29th, having travelled nearly
eighty-four hundred miles in eighteen days. On his return he
was received literally by a crowd of thousands, and his feat
was given official recognition by a gold medal pinned on his
youthful chest by the Duchess of Rutland. Also, later on, at
a garden fete he was presented to the Queen, and incidentally,
still later, returned to the United States as "buttons" to my
brother's household.
Bachelors' Club,
Piccadilly, W.
March 15th, 1899.
DEAR CHAS.
I hope you are not annoyed about Jaggers. When he started no
one knew of it but three people and I had no idea anyone else
would, but the company sent it to The Mail without my name
but describing me as "an American gentleman"-- Instantly the
foreign correspondents went to them to find out who I was and to
whom I was sending the letter-- I told the company it was none of
their damned business--that I employed the boy by the week and
that I could send him where-ever I chose. Then the boy's father
got proud and wrote to The Mail about his age and so they got the
boy's name. Mine, however, is still out of it, but in America
they are sure to know as the people on the steamer are crazy
about him and Kinsey the Purser knows he is sent by me. After
he gets back from Chicago and Philadelphia, you can do with
him as you like until the steamer sails. If the thing is
taken up as it is here and the fat is in the fire, then you
can do as you please-- I mean you can tell the papers about it
or not-- Somerset holds one end of the bets and I the other.
There are two bets: one that he will beat the mail to Chicago,
Somerset agreeing to consider the letter you give him to
Bruce, as equivalent to one coming from here. The other bet
is that he will deliver and get receipts from you, Nora and
Bruce, and return here by the 5th of April-- You and Bobby
ought to be able to do well by him if it becomes, as I say, so
far public that there is no possibility of further
concealment-- You have my permission to do what you please--
He is coming into my employ as soon as he gets back and as
soon as the company give him a medal.
Over here there is the greatest possible interest in the
matter-- At the Clubs I go to, the waiters all wait on me in
order to have the latest developments and when it was cabled
over here that the Customs' people intended stopping him,
indignation raged at the Foreign office.
of love,
DICK.
89 Jermyn Street, S. W.
March--1899
DEAR NORA:
This is to be handed to you by my special messenger, who is to
assure you that I am in the best of health and spirits-- Keep
him for a few hours and then send him on to Chicago-- As he is
doing this on a bet, do not give him any written instructions
only verbal ones. I am very well and happy and send you all
my love-- Jaggers has been running errands for me ever since I
came here, and a most loyal servitor when I was ill-- On his
return I want to keep him on as a buttons. See that he gets
plenty to eat-- If he comes back alive he will have broken the
messenger boy service record by three thousand miles.
Personally, it does not cost me anything to speak of. The
dramatization of the Soldiers continues briskly, and Maude is
sending Grundy back the Jackal, to have a second go at it.
Maude insists on its being done--so I stand to win a lot.
RICHARD.
Beefsteak Club, 9, Green Street,
Leicester Square, W. C. Tuesday.
March--1899.
DEAR MOTHER:--
The faithful Jaggers should have arrived to-day, or will do so
this evening-- I am sure you will make the poor little chap
comfortable-- I do regret having sent him on such a journey
especially since the papers here made such an infernal row
over it-- However, neither of us will lose by it in the end--
I dined with Lady Clarke last night and met Lord Castleton
there and he invited me up to Dublin for the Punchtown Races--
I have a great mind to go and write a story on them-- Castleton
is a great sport and very popular at home and in England and it
would be a pleasant experience. Kuhne Beveridge is doing a bust
of me in khaki outfit for the Academy and also for a private
exhibition of her own works, which includes the Prince of Wales,
and the Little Queen of Holland.
Hays Hammond has invited me down to South Africa again, with a
promise of making my fortune, but I am not going as it takes
too long.
DICK.
CHAPTER XII
THE BOER WAR
On May 4, 1899, at Marion, Massachusetts, Richard was married
to Cecil Clark, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John M. Clark of
Chicago. After the marriage Richard and his wife spent a few
weeks in Marion and the remainder of the summer in London and
Aix-les-Bains.
MARION, May 28th, 1899.
DEAR MOTHER:
You sent me such a good letter about the visit of the three
selected chorus girls. But what was best, was about your
wishing to see me. Of course, you know that I feel that too.
I would have it so that we all lived here, so that Dad could
fish, and Nora and Cecil could discuss life, and you and I
could just take walks and chat. But because that cannot be,
we are no further away than we ever were and when the pain to
see you comes, I don't let it hurt and I don't kill it either
for it is the sweetest pain I can feel. If sons will go off
and marry, or be war-correspondents, or managers, it does not
mean that Home is any the less Home. You can't wipe out
history by changing the name of a boulevard, as somebody said
of the French, and if I were able to be in two places at once,
I know in which two places I would be here with Cecil at
Marion, and at Home in the Library with you and Dad and The
Evening Telegraph, and Nora and Van Bibber. You will never
know how much I love you all and you must never give up trying to
comprehend it. God bless you and keep you, and my love to you
every minute and always.
DICK.
Late in January, 1900, Richard and his wife started on their
first great adventure together to the Boer War. Arriving at
Cape Town, Richard left his wife there and, acting as
correspondent with the British forces for the New York
Herald and London Mail, saw the relief of Ladysmith.
After this he returned to Cape Town, with the intention of
joining Lord Roberts in his advance on Pretoria. But on
arriving at Cape Town he learned that Lord Roberts did not
intend to move for three weeks, and so decided to say farewell
to the British army and to return to London in a leisurely and
sightseeing fashion along the east coast. It was after they
were well started on this return voyage that Richard conceived
the idea of leaving the ship at Durban, going to Pretoria,
and, as he expressed it, "watch the Boers fighting the same
men I had just seen fighting them."
R. M. S. Scot
February 4th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
A great change has come since I wrote you from Madeira. We
are now on Summer seas and have regulated the days so that
they pass very pleasantly--not that we do not want to be on
land-- I never so much wanted it-- Somers is with us and is
such a comfort. He is even younger than he used to be and so
quick and courteous and good tempered. He is like a boy off
on a holiday-- I think he is very much in love
with his wife, but in spite of himself he is glad to get a
holiday, and like all of us he will be so much more glad when
he is homeward bound. They threatened to shut us out of our
only chance of putting foot on land at Madeira-- In the first
place, we were so delayed by the storm that we arrived at
eight o'clock at night, so that we missed seeing it in its
beauty of flowers and palms. And then it was so rough that
they said it was most unsafe for us to attempt to go ashore.
It was a great disappointment but I urged that every one loved
his own life, and if the natives were willing to risk theirs
to sell us photographs and wicker baskets it was probably
safer than it looked-- So we agreed to die together, and with
Somers got our rain coats, and the three of us leaped into a
row boat pulled by two Portugese pirates and started off
toward a row of lamps on a quay that seemed much lower than
the waves. The remainder on the ship watched us disappear
with ominus warnings-- We really had a most adventurous
passage--towards shore the waves tossed us about like a
lobster pot and we just missed being run down by a coal barge
and escaped an upset over the bow anchor chain of a ship. It
was so close that both Somers and I had our coats off and I
told Cecil to grab the chain-- But we weathered it and landed
at a high gangway cut in the solid rock the first three steps
of which were swamped by the waves. A rope and chain hung
from the top of the wharf and a man swung his weight on this
and yanked us out to the steps as the boat was on the wave.
The rain beat and the wind roared and beautiful palms lashed
the air with their fronds-- It was grand to get on shore once
again-- At the end of the wharf we were hustled into a sled on
steel runners, like a hearse with curtains around it and drawn by
bullocks-- The streets were all of mosaic, thousands of little
stones being packed together like corn on a cob. Over this the
heavy sledge was drawn by the bullocks while a small boy ran
ahead through the narrow streets to clear the way-- He had a
feather duster made of horse's tail as a badge of authority and
he yelled some strange cry at the empty streets and closed
houses. Another little boy in a striped jersey ran beside and
assured us he was a guide. It was like a page out of a fairy
story. The strange cart sliding and slipping over the stones
which were as smooth as ice, and the colored house fronts and the
palms and strange plants. The darkness made it all the more
unreal-- There was a governor's palace buttressed and guarded
by sentinels in a strange uniform and queer little cafe's
under vines--and terraces of cannon, and at last a funny,
pathetic little casino. It was such a queer imitation of Aix
and Monte Carlo-- There were chasseurs and footmen in
magnificent livery and stucco white walls ornamented with silk
SHAWLS. Also a very good band and a new roulette table--
Coming in out of the night and the rain it was like a theatre
after the "dark scene" has just passed-- There were some most
dignified croupiers and three English women and a few sad
English men and some very wicked looking natives in diamonds
and white waistcoats. We had only fifteen minutes to spare so
we began playing briskly with two shilling pieces Cecil with
indifferent fortune and Somers losing-- But I won every time
and the croupiers gave me strange notes of the Bonco de
Portugal which I put back on the board only to get more of a
larger number-- I felt greatly embarrassed as I was not a real
member of the club and I hated to blow in out of a hurricane
and take their money and sail away again-- So I appealed to
one of the sad eyed Englishmen and he assured me it was all
right, that they welcomed the people from the passing steamers
who generally left a few pounds each with the bank. But the
more I spread the money the more I won until finally the whole
room gathered around. Then I sent out and ordered champagne
for everybody and spare gold to all the waiters and still
cashed in seventy-five dollars in English money. It was
pretty good for fifteen minutes and we went out leaving the
people open-eyed, and hitting the champagne bottles-- It was
all a part of the fun especially as with all our gold we could
get nothing for supper but "huevos frite" which was all the
Spanish I could remember and which meant fried eggs-- But we
were very wet and hungry and we got the eggs and some fruit
and real Madeira wine and then rowed out again rejoicing. The
pirates demanded their pay half way to the boat while we were
on the high seas but they had struck the very wrong men, and I
never saw a mutiny quelled so abruptly-- Somers and I told
them we'd throw them overboard and row ourselves and they
understood remarkably well-- The next day we were the admired
and envied of those who had not had the nerve "to dare to
attempt." It was one of the best experiences altogether we
ever had and I shall certainly put Madeira on my silver cup.
RICHARD.
After their arrival at Cape Town, where Richard arranged for
his wife to stay during his absence at the British front, he
started for Ladysmith, sailing on the same vessel on which he
had left England.
February 18th, 1900
board Scot.
DEAR MOTHER:
I got off yesterday and am hoping to get to Buller before
Ladysmith is relieved. I could not get to go with Roberts
because Ralph has been here four months and has borne the heat
and burden of the day, so although I only came in order to be
with Roberts and Kitchener I could not ask to have Ralph
recalled-- They wanted me with Roberts and I wanted it but
none of us could make up our minds to turn down Ralph. So I
am going up on this side track on the chance of seeing
Ladysmith relieved and of joining Roberts with Buller later.
I shall be satisfied if I see Ladysmith fall. Fortunately I
am to do a great deal of cabling for The Mail every day and
that counts much more with the reading public than letters--
Cape Town is a dusty, wind ridden western town with a mountain
back of it which one man said was a badly painted back drop--
The only attractive thing about the town is this mountain and
a hotel situated at its base in perfectly beautiful gardens.
Here Cecil is settled. I got her a sitting room and a big
bedroom and The Mail agent or Pryor pays her $150 a week and
will take good care of her. It really is a beautiful and
comfortable hotel and grounds and she has made many friends,
and also I forced a pitch battle with a woman who was rude to
her when we visited the hospital-- So, as the hospital people
were very keen to have me see and praise their hospital they
have taken up arms against the unfortunate little bounder and
championed Cecil and me. Cecil had really nothing to do with
it as you can imagine-- She only laughed but I gave the lady
lots to remember.
On the other hand every one is as kind and interested in Cecil
as can be. Mrs. Waldron whose son is Secretary to Milner and
his secretary were more than polite to each of us. Milner
spent the whole evening we were there talking to Cecil and not
to the lady we had had the row with, which was a pleasing
triumph. He sent me unsolicited a most flattering personal
letter to the Governor of Natal, saying that I had come to him
with my strong letters but that he had so enjoyed meeting me
that he wished to pass me on on his own account. Cecil asked
me what it was I had talked so much to him about and I asked
her if it were possible she couldn't guess that of course I
would be telling him how to run the colony. My advice was to
bombard Cape Town and make martial law, for the Cape Towners
are the most rotten, cowardly lot of rebels I ever imagined as
being possible. He seemed so glad to find any one who
appreciated that it was a queen's colony in name only and
said, "Mr. Davis, it is as bad as this--I can take a stroll
with you from these gardens (we were at the back of the
Government House) and at the end of our stroll we will be in
hostile territory."
We spent the last day after I had got my orders to join Buller
(who seemed very pleased to have me) calling on the officials
for passes together and they were in a great state falling
into their coats and dressing guard for her and were all so
friendly and hearty. The Censor seems to think I am a sort of
Matthew Arnold and should be wrapped in cotton, so does Pryor
The Mail agent who apologizes for asking me to cable, which
is just what I want to do. They are very generous and are
spending money like fresh air. I am to cable letters to Cape
Town, only to save three days. So, now all that is needed is for
something to happen. Everything else is arranged. All I want is
to see three or four good fights and a big story like the relief
of Ladysmith and I am ready and anxious to get home. I shall
observe them from behind an ant hill--I don't say this to please
you but because I mean it. This is not my war and all I want is
to earn the very generous sums I have been offered and get home.
We are just off Port Elizabeth. I will go on shore and post
this there. With all love.
DICK.
Deal's Central Hotel, East London.
February 20th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are stopping at every port now, as though the Scot were a
ferry boat. We came over the side to get here in baskets with
a neat door in the side and were bumped to the deck of the
tender in all untenderness. This is more like Africa than any
place I have seen. The cactus and palms abound and the
Kaffirs wear brass anklets and bracelets. A man at lunch at
this hotel asked me if I was R. H. D. and said he was an
American who had got a commission in Brabants horse-- He gave
me the grandest sort of a segar and apparently on his
representation the hotel brought me two books to sign, marked
"Autographs of Celebrities of the Boer War." It seemed in my
case at least to be premature and hopeful.
Good luck and God bless you. This will be the last letter you
will get for ten days or two weeks, as I am now going directly
away from steamers. This one reaches you by a spy gentleman
who is to give it to Rene Bull of The Graphic and who will
post it in Cape Town-- He and all the other correspondents are
abandoning Buller for Roberts. Let 'em all go. The fewer the
better, I say. My luck will keep I hope.
DICK.
Imperial Hotel,
Maritzburg, Natal.
Feb. 23rd, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:--
I reached Durban yesterday. They paraded the band in my
honour and played Yankee Doodle indefinitely-- I had corrupted
them by giving them drinks to play the "Belle of New York"
nightly. The English officers thought Yankee Doodle was our
national anthem and stood with their hats off in a hurricane
balancing on the deck of the tender on one foot-- The city of
Durban is the best I have seen. It was as picturesque as the
Midway at the Fair-- There were Persians, Malay, Hindoo,
Babu's Kaffirs, Zulu's and soldiers and sailors. I went on
board the Maine to see the American doctors--one of them
said he had met me on Walnut Street, when he had nearly run me
down with his ambulance from the Penna Hospital. Lady
Randolph took me over the ship and was very much puzzled when
all the hospital stewards called me by name and made
complimentary remarks. It impressed her so much apparently
that she and the American nurses I hadn't met on board came to
see me off at the station, which was very friendly. I have
had a horrible day here and got up against the British officer
in uniform and on duty bent-- The chief trouble was that none
of them knew what authority he had to do anything--and I had
to sit down and tell them. I wonder with intelligence like
theirs that their Intelligence Department did not tell them the
Boers fought with war clubs and spears. I bought a ripping pony
and my plan is to cut away from all my magnificent equipment and
try to overtake Buller before he reaches Ladysmith and send
back for the heavy things later. It is just a question of
minutes really and it seems hard to have come 1500 miles and
then to miss it by an hour-- I arrive at Chievely tomorrow at
five--that is only ten miles from where Buller is to night, so
were it not for their d----d regulations I could ride across
country and join them by midday but I bet they won't let me
and I also bet I'll get there in time. Of course you'll, know
before you see this. Marelsburg is the capital and its chief
industry is rickshaw's pulled by wild Kaffi's, with beads and
snake skins around them and holes in their ears into which
they stick segars and horn spoons for dipping snuff. The
women wear less than the men and have their hair done up in
red fungus.
Well, love to you all, to Nora and Dad and Chas,
and God bless you.
DICK.
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.
LADYSMITH. March 1st, 1899.
DEAR CHAS:
This is just a line to say I got in here with the first after
a gallop of twelve miles. Keep this for me and the envelope.
With my love and best wishes--
DICK.
LADYSMITH, March 3, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
The column came into town today, 2200 men, guns, cavalry,
ambulances, lancers, navy guns and oxen. It was a most cruel
assault upon one's feelings. The garrison lined the streets
as a saluting guard of honor but only one regiment could stand
it and the others all sat down on the curb only rising to
cheer the head of each new regiment. They are yellow with
fever, their teeth protruding and the skin drawn tight over
their skeletons. The incoming army had had fourteen days hard
fighting at the end of three months campaigning but were
robust and tanned ragged and caked with mud. As they came in
they cheered and the garrison tried to cheer back but it was like
a whisper.
Winston Churchill and I stood in front of Gen. White and cried
for an hour. For the time you forgot Boers and the cause, or
the lack of cause of it all, and saw only the side of it that
was before you, the starving garrison relieved by men who had
lost almost one out of every three in trying to help them. I
was rather too previous in getting in and like every-one else
who came from outside gave away everything I had so that now
I'm as badly off as the rest of them. Yesterday my rations
for the day were four biscuits and an ounce of coffee and of
tea, with corn which they call mealies which I could not eat
but which saved my horse's life. He is a Boer pony I bought
from a Tommy for two pounds ten and he's worth both of the
other two for which I paid $125 a piece. Tomorrow the wagon
carrying my supplies will be in and I can get millions of
things. It almost apalls me to think how many. Especially
clean clothes. I've slept in these for four days. I got off
some stories which I hope will read well. I can't complain
now that I saw the raising of this siege. But I hope we don't
stay still. I want to see a lot quickly and get out. This is
very safe warfare. You sit on a hill and the army does the
rest. My sciatica is not troubling me at all. Love to you
all and God bless you.
DICK.
LADYSMITH, March 4th, 1900.
DEAR, DEAR MOTHER:
Today I got the first letter I have had from you since we left
home. It was such happiness to see your dear sweet handwriting
again. It was just like seeing you for a glimpse, or hearing you
speak. I am so hungry for news of Nora and Chas and you all. I
know you've written, but the letters have missed somehow. I sent
yours right back to Cecil who is very lonely at present.
Somerset has gone to the front and Jim--home--Blessed word! A
little middy rode up to me today and began by saying "I'm going
home. I'm ORDERED there. Home-- To England!" He seemed to
think I would not understand. He prattled on like a child saying
what luck he had had, that he had been besieged in Ladysmith and
seen lots of fighting and would get a medal and all the while he
was "just a middy." "But isn't it awful to think of our chaps
that were left on the ship" he said quite miserably. It is a
beastly dull war. The whole thing is so "class" and full of
"form" and tradition and worrying over "putties" and etiquette
and rank. It is the most wonderful organization I ever
imagined but it is like a beautiful locomotive without an
engineer.
The Boers outplay them in intelligence every day. The whole
army is officered by one class and that the dull one. It is
like the House of Peers. You would not believe the mistakes
they make, the awful way in which they sacrifice the lives of
officers and men. And they let the Boers escape. I watched
the Boers for four hours the other day escaping after the
battle of Pieters and I asked, not because I wanted them
captured but just as a military proposition "Why don't you
send out your cavalry and light artillery and take those
wagons?" The staff officer giggled and said "They might kill
us." I don't know what he meant; neither did he. However,
I'm sick of it but there's nothing else to talk of. I hate
all the people about me and this dirty town and I wish I was
back. And I'm going too. I'll have started by the time you get
this.
I mean to cut out of this soon but don't imagine I'm in any
danger. I'm taking d---d good care to keep out of danger. No
one is more determined on that than I am. Dear Mother, this
is such a dull letter but you must forgive me. I was never so
homesick and bored in my life. It will be better when I go
out tomorrow in my green tent and leave this beastly hole. I
like the tent life, and the horses and being clean. I've
really starved here for four days and haven't had a clean
thing on me. God bless you all and dear Nora God bless her
and Chas and the Lone Fisherman.
DICK.
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.
March 15th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
I am on my way back to Cape Town. This seemed better than
staying with Buller who will not move for two or three weeks.
I shall either go straight up to Roberts, or we will return to
London. I have seen the relief of Ladysmith and got a very
good idea of it all, and I do not know but what I shall quit
now. I started in too late to do much with it and as it is I
have seen a great deal. It is neither an interesting country
nor an interesting war. But I don't have to stay here to
oblige anybody. If I do go up to Roberts it will only be to
stay for three weeks at the most and only then if there is
fighting. I won't go if he is resting as Buller is. So this
will explain why we start home so soon. I am very glad I
came. I would have been very sorry always if I had not, but
my heart is not in it as, of course, it was in our war.
Sometimes they fight all day using seven or eight regiments
and kill a terrible lot of fine soldiers and capture forty
Boer farmers and two women. It is not the kind of war I care
to report. "Nor mean to!" I cannot make a book out of what
little I've seen but I will come out about even. It has been
very rough on Cecil. Today I went to the Maine and asked
Lady Randolph to give me a lift down to Cape Town as
the ship gets there two days ahead of the Castle Steamer.
So, they were apparently very glad to have me and I
am going on Saturday. I like it on the ship where I have been
spending the day as it is fun taking care of the wounded and
listening to their stories. I am to write an article for her
next Anglo Saxon magazine on the Passing of the War
Correspondent. The idea is that he must either disappear
altogether like the Vivandiere or be allowed to do his work.
As it is now the Government forces him upon the Generals
against their will and so they get back by taking it out of
him. Either they should persuade the Government that their
objections to him are weighty and suppress him altogether, or
recognize him as a part of the outfit. I don't much care
which as I certainly would never again go with an English
army. I am sorry the letters home have been so dull but I
have had rather hard luck straight through, and the distances
are so very great and the time spent in covering them seems
very wasteful. I shall be glad I saw it because it is the
biggest thing as to scale that I ever saw of the sort, and I
could not have afforded to have missed being in it. It is the
first big modern war and all the conditions and weapons are
new. I don't think the English have learned anything by it,
because the fault lies entirely with their officers who are
all or nearly all of one class.
DICK.
March 25th, 1900.
Cape Town.
This is just to explain our plans and as they take a bit of
explaining this is meant for the Houses of Clark and of Davis.
So, pass it on-- After Ladysmith was relieved Buller decided
he would not move for a month, so I came back to join Roberts. I
could not do that on first arriving because there was a Mail man
with him. I meant to do it later as a Herald man, and to let
The Mail go. But on arriving here, having spent a week in
coming and having sold all my outfit at a loss, I found that
Roberts did not intend to move for three weeks either. So I
decided I had seen enough to justify my returning. There were
other reasons, the chief one being that the English irritated
me and I had so little sympathy with them that I could not
write with any pleasure of their work. My sporting blood
refused to boil at the spectacle of such a monster Empire
getting the worst of it from an untrained band of farmers-- I
found I admired the farmers. So we decided to chuck it and go
to London. I would not have missed it for anything. I would
never have been satisfied, if we had not come. I have seen
much of the country and the people, and of the army and its
wonderful organization and discipline. I enjoyed two
battles--and the relief of Ladysmith is one of the things to
have seen, almost the best, if not the best. Every officer
and correspondent agrees that I got the pick of the fighting
and the "best story." By the way, I beat all the London
papers in getting out the news by one day. At least, so
Pryor, The Mail manager tells me. The paper was very much
pleased. We have now decided to come home by the East Coast.
It was Cecil's idea and wish and I was only too glad to do it.
She says we certainly will never come to this country again.
God help us if we do--and that it would be criminal to spend
seventeen blank days on the West coast when we could fill in
the entire trip North on the East Coast at many ports. It is
a rather complicated trip as one has to change frequently but
it will be a great thing to have seen. Cecil has really seen
nothing at Cape Town and on this trip she will be paid for all
the boredom that has gone before. I have been over part of it
and am sure. Durban alone is one of the most curious cities I
ever saw. It is like the Midway at the Fair. I want her to
have some fun out of this. She has been so unselfish and fine
all through and I hope I can make the rest of the adventure to
her liking-- It is sure to be for after Delagoa Bay it is all
real Africa not the shoddy "colonial" shopkeepers' paradise
that we have here. And we are going to stop off at Zanzibar
for some time where we have letters to everybody and where
Cecil is to draw the Sultan and I am to play him the "Typical
Tune of Zanzibar." You will see by our route that we spend
two days or a day at many places and so shall get a good idea
of the country. The Konig is a 5,000 ton ship and we have
two cabins-- From Port Said we will run up to Cairo to get a
dinner and then over to Constantinople to see Lloyd Griscom
and the city which Cecil has never visited. Then to Paris by
way of the Orient Express. Then London and back with Charley
to Aix. I feel sure that one more course there will cure my
leg for always. As it is it has not touched me once even
during the campaign when I was wet and had to climb hills, and
at Ladysmith, where I had no food for a week. Of course, if
we get tired on the way up we may go straight on from Port
Said to Marseilles and so to London. It seems funny to look
upon Port Said as being at home, but from this distance it
seems as near New York as Boston-- You will get this when we
reach Zanzibar or later and we will cable when we can.
DICK.
It was said at the time that Richard left the British forces
because the censors would not permit him to send out the truth
about Buller's advance, and that the English officials
resented his going to report the war from the Boer side. The
first statement my brother flatly denied, and the fact that it
was through the direct intervention of Sir Alfred Milner,
assisted by the efforts of our consul Adelbert S. Hay at
Pretoria, that Richard was enabled to reach the Boer capital
seems to prove the latter charge equally false. Although
throughout the war my brother's sympathies were with the
Boers, and in spite of the fact that the papers he represented
wanted him to report the war from the Boer side, he persisted
in going at first with the British forces. His reasons were
that he wished to see a great army, with all modern equipment
in action, and that practically all of his English friends
were with the British army. "My only reason for leaving it",
he wrote, "was the fact that I found myself facing a month of
idleness. Had General Buller continued his advance
immediately after his relief of Ladysmith I would have gone
with his column and would probably have never seen a Boer,
except a Boer prisoner."
Royal Hotel,
Durban, Natal.
April 5th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
We arrived here to-day and got off in a special tug together.
We did the basket trick all right, although the next time it
came down a swell raised the tug and fractured every one in
the basket except Sangree and Rogers, the two New York
correspondents who were hanging on by the upper edges. Cecil
loved the place which is the Midway Plaisance of cities and we
had a good lunch and managed to get into the hotel where there
are over twenty cots in the reading room, and hall. The
Commandant objected to our going to Praetoria and seemed inclined
to refuse us passes to leave Durban for Delagoa Bay. He also was
rather fresh to Cecil, so I called him down very hard, and
told him if he couldn't make up his mind whether we would go
or not, I'd wire to some others who would help him to make up
his mind quickly. He said I was at liberty to do that, so I
went out and burned wires over all of South Africa. As he
reads all the telegrams he naturally read mine and the next
morning he was as humble and white as a head waiter. But by
ten o'clock my wires began to bear fruit and he began to catch
it. Milner wired him to send us on at once and apologized to
us by another wire so all is well and we go vouched for by the
High Commissioner.
DICK.
PRETORIA, May 18th, 1900.
DEAR DAD--AND OTHERS OF THE CLARK AND DAVIS FAMILIES:
I have not had time to write such a long letter as this one
must be, as I have been working on my Ledger and Scribner
stories.
Cecil and I started to the "front," which was then May 4th, at
Brandfort with Captain Von Loosberg, a German baron who
married in New Orleans and became an American citizen and who
is now in command of Loosberg's Artillery in the Free State.
The night we left, the English took Brandfort, so we decided
to go only as far as Winburg. The next morning
the train despatcher informed us Winburg was taken, so we
decided to go to Smalldeel, but that went during the
afternoon, so we stopped at Kronstad. From there, after a
day's rest, we went to Ventersberg station, and rode across to
Ventersberg town, about two hours away, and put up in Jones's
Hotel. The next day we went down to the Boer laagers on the
Sand river and met President Steyn on the way. He got out of
his Cape Cart and gave Cecil a rose and Loosberg his field
glasses, which Cecil took from Loosberg in exchange for her
own Zeiss glass, and he gave me a drink and an interview. He
also gave us a letter to St. Reid, who had established an
ambulance base on Cronje's farm, telling him to give Cecil
something to sleep upon. The, Boers were very polite to Cecil
and as she rode through the different camps every man took off
his hat. We went back to Ventersberg that night and about two
o'clock Cecil came to my room and woke me up with the
intelligence that the British were only two hours away. She
had heard the commandant informing the landlady, a grand low
comedy character from Brooklyn, who had the room next to
Cecil's. I interviewed the landlady who was sitting up in bed
in curl papers, and with a Webley revolver. She was quite
hysterical so I aroused Loosberg who was too sleepy to
understand. The commandant could be heard in the distance
offering his kingdom for a horse and a Cape cart. Cecil and I
decided our horses were done up and that we were too ignorant
of the trail to know where to run. So we decided to go to
sleep. In the morning we confessed that each had been afraid
the other would want to escape, and each wanted only to be
allowed to go to sleep again. Loosberg's Cape Cart and five
mules having arrived we packed our things on it and started again
for the Sand River where we spent the night on Cronje's farm.
Mrs. Cronje had taken away all the bedding but Dr. Reid gave
Cecil his field mattress and I made one out of rugs and piano
covers. In the morning I found that the iron straps of the
mattress had marked me for life like a grilled beefsteak. There
were only Reid and his assistant surgeon in the farmhouse and
they were greatly excited at having a woman to look after.
We bade farewell to Loosberg who had found his artillery push,
and started off in his Cape Cart which he wished us to use and
take back for him for safety to Del Hay at Pretoria. Our
objective point was the railroad bridge over the sand. The
Boers were on one bank, the British about seven miles back on
the other, the trail ran along the British side of the river
which was sad of it. However, we drove on, I riding and Cecil
and Christian, the Kaffir, in the Cart. We saw no one for
several hours except some Kaffir Kraals and we almost ran into
two herds of deer. I counted twenty-six in one herd, they
were about a quarter of a mile away. We came to a cross road
and I decided to put back as we had lost track of the river
and were bearing straight into the English lines. Just as we
found the river again and had got across a drift cannon opened
on our right. We then knew we were in between the Boers and
the English but we had no other knowledge of our geographical
position. Such being the case we decided to outspan and lunch.
Out-spanning is setting the mules and horses at liberty,
in-spanning trying to catch them again. It takes five minutes to
out-span, and three hours to in-span. We had Armour's corned
beef and Libby's canned bacon. Cecil cooked the bacon on a stick
and we ate it with biscuits captured by our Boer friends at
Cronje's farm from the English Tommies. About three o'clock we
started off again, and were captured by three Boers. I was
riding behind the cart and threw up my hands "that quick," but
Cecil could not hear me yelling at her to stop on account of the
noise of the cart. I knew if I rode after her they would
shoot at me, and that if she didn't stop, as they were
shouting at her to do, they would shoot her. Under these
trying circumstances I sat still. It caused quite a coolness
on Cecil's part. However the Boers could see I was trying to
get her to halt so they only rode around and headed her off.
We were so glad to see them that they could not be suspicious.
Still, as we had come directly from the English lines they had
doubts. We told them we had lost ourselves and the more they
threatened to take us to the commandant the more satisfied we
were. I insisted on taking photos of them reading Cecil's
passport. It annoyed them that we refused to be serious, we
assured them we had never met anyone we were so glad to see.
They finally believed us, and our passports which describe
Cecil as my "frau," and artist of Harper's Weekly, an idea
of Loosberg's. We all smoked and then shook hands and they
went back to their positions. We next met Christian De Vet
one of the two big generals who is a grand character. Nothing
could match the wonderful picturesqueness of his camp spread
out over the side of a hill with the bearded fine featured old
Van Dyck and Hugonot heads under great sombreros. De Vet made
us a long speech saying it was only to be expected that the
Great Republic would send men to help the little Republics,
but he had not hoped that the women would show their sympathy
by coming too. All this with the most simple earnest courtesy.
He said "No English woman would dare do what you are doing." He
showed us a farin house on a kopje about five miles off where he
said we could get shelter and where we would be near the fighting
on the morrow. We rode in the moonlight for some time but when
we reached the house it was filthy and the people were in such
terror that we decided to camp out in the veldt. We found a
grove of trees near by and a stream of water running beside it so
we made a fire there. We had only one biscuit left but several
cans of bacon and tea. It was great fun and we sat up as late as
we could around the fire on account of the cold. We could see
the Boer fires in the moonlight on the hills and across the
Sand, the English flashlights signalling all night. We put a
rubber blanket on the grass and wrapped up in steamer rugs but
both of us died several times of cold and even sitting on the
fire failed to warm me. We were awakened out of a cold
storage sort of sleep by pom-poms going off right over our
They sounded just as disturbing I found from the rear
as when you are in front of them. They are the most effective
of all the small guns for causing your nerves to riot. We
climbed up the hill and saw the English coming in their usual
solid formation stretching out for three miles. We went back
and got the cart and drove to a nearer kopje, but just as we
reached it the Boers abandoned it. Roberts's column was now
much nearer. We then drove on still further in the direction
of the bridge. I kept telling Cecil that the firing was all
from the Boers as I did not want Christian to bolt and run
away with the cart and mules. But Cecil remembered the
pictures in Harper's Weekly showing the shrapnel smoke
making rings in the air and as she saw these floating over our
head, she knew the English were firing on us, but said nothing
for fear of scaring Christian. I had promised to get her under
fire which was her one wish so I said that she was now well under
fire for the first and the last time. To which she replied
"Pshaw!" I never saw any one show such self possession. We
halted the cart behind a deserted farm house, and saddled her
pony. The shells were now falling all over the shop, and I
was scared to distraction. But she took about five minutes to
see that her saddle was properly tightened and then we rode up
to the hill. Again the Boers were leaving and only a few
remained. They warned her to keep back but we dismounted and
walked up to the hill. It was a very hot place but Cecil was
quite unmoved. We showed her the shells striking back of her
and around her but she refused to be impressed with the
danger. She went among the Boers begging them to make a stand
very quietly and like one man to another and they took it just
in that way and said "But we are very tired. We have been
driven back for three days. We are only a thousand, they are
twenty thousand." Some of them only sat still too proud to
run, too sick to fight! When the British got within five
hundred yards of the artillery I told her she must run. At
the same moment Botha's men a mile on our right broke away in
a mad gallop, as though the lancers were after them. I
finally got her on her pony and we raced for Ventersberg with
Christian a good first. He had lost all desire to out-span.
At Ventersberg we found every one harnessing up in the street
and abandoning everything. We again felt this untimely desire
for food, and had lunch at Jones's hotel on scraps and Cecil went
off to see if she could loot the cook, as everyone but her had
left the hotel and as we needed one in Pretoria. A
despatch-rider came running to me as I was smoking in the garden
and shouted that the "Roinekes" were coming in force over the
hill. I ran out in the street and saw their shells falling all
over the edge of the village. They were only a quarter of an
hour behind us. I yelled for Cecil who was helping the looted
cook pack up her own things and anyone else's she could find in a
sheet. I gathered up a dog and a kitten Cecil wanted and left a
note for the next English officer who occupied my room with the
inscription "I'd leave my happy home for you." We then put
the cook, the kitten, the dog and Cecil in the cart and I got
on the horse and we let out for Kronstad at a gallop. We
raced the thirty miles in five hours without one halt. That
was not our cruelty to animals but Christian's who whenever I
ordered him to halt and let us rest, yelled that the Englesses
were after us and galloped on. The retreat was a terribly
pathetic spectacle; for hours we passed through group after
group of the broken and dispirited Boers. At Kronstad
President Steyn whom I went to see on arriving ordered a
special car for me, and sent us off at once. We reached here
the next morning, Christian arriving a day later having killed
one mule and one pony in his eagerness to escape. We are
going back again as soon as Roberts reaches the Vaal. There
there must be a stand. Love and best wishes to you all----
DICK.
June 8th, 1900.
On board the Kausler.
DEAR MOTHER:
We engaged our passage on this ship some weeks ago not
thinking we would have the English near Pretoria until
August. But as it happened they came so near
that we did not know whether or not to wait over and see them
enter the capital. I decided not, first, because after that
one event, there would be nothing for us to see or do. We
could not leave until the 2nd of July and a month under
British martial law was very distasteful to me. Besides I did
not care much to see them enter, or to be forced to witness
their rejoicing. As soon as we got under way and about half
the distance to the coast, it is a two days' trip. We heard
so many rumors of Roberts's communication having been cut off
and that the war was not over, that we thought perhaps we
ought to go back-- As we have no news since except that the
British are in Pretoria we still do not know what to think.
Personally I am glad I came away as I can do just as much for
the Boers at home now as there where the British censor would
have shut me off from cabling and mails are so slow. With the
local knowledge I have, I hope to keep at it until it is over.
But when I consider the magnitude of the misrepresentation
about the burghers I feel appalled at the idea of going up
against it. One is really afraid to tell all the truth about
the Boer because no one would believe you-- It is almost
better to go mildly and then you may have some chance. But
personally I know no class of men I admire as much or who
to-day preserve the best and oldest ideas of charity, fairness
and good-will to men.
DICK.
June 29th, 1900.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are now just off Crete, and our next sight of the blue land
will be Europe. It means so many things; being alone with
Cecil again, instead of on a raft touching elbows with so
many strangers, and it means a shop where
you can buy collars, and where they put starch in your linen.
Also many beautiful ladies one does not know and men in
evening dress one does not know and green tables covered with
gold and little green and red bits of ivory where one passes
among the tables and wonders what they would think if they
knew we two had found our greatest friends in the Boer
farmers, in Dutch Station Masters who gave us a corner under
the telegraph table in which to sleep, with Nelson who kept
the Transvaal Steam Laundry, Col. Lynch of the steerage who
comes to the dividing line to beg French books from Cecil, and
that we had cooked our food on sticks, drunk out of the same
cups with Kaffir servants and slept on the ground when there
was frost on it. It will be so strange to find that there are
millions of people who do not know Komali poort, who have
thought of anything else except burghers and roor-i-neks-- It
seems almost disloyal to the Boers to be glad to see
newspapers only an hour old instead of six weeks old, and to
welcome all the tyranny of collar buttons, scarf pins, watch
chains, walking sticks and gloves even. I love them both and
I can hardly believe it is true that we are to go to a real
hotel with a lift and a chasseur, where you cannot smoke in
the dining-room. As for Aix, that I cannot believe will ever
happen-- It was just a part of one's honeymoon and I refuse to
cheat myself into thinking that within a week I will be riding
through the lanes of the little villages, drinking red wine at
Burget, watching Chas spread cheese over great hunks of bread
and listening to three bands at one time. And then the joy to
follow of Home and America and all that is American. Even the
Custom House holds nothing but joy for me--and then "mine own
people!" It has been six weeks since we have heard from you
or longer, nearly two months and how I miss you and want you.
It will be a happy day when Dad meets me at the wharf and I
can see his blue and white tie again and his dear face under
the white hat--where you and Nora will be I cannot tell, but I
will seek you out. We will be happy together--so happy-- It
has been the longest separation we have known and such a lot
of things have happened. It will be such peace to see you and
hold you once again.
DICK.
AIX--LES--BAINS.
July 6th, 1900.
DEAR FAMILY:
Cecil and I arrived last night tired and about worn out--we
had had a month on board ship and two days in the cars and
when we got out at Aix and found our rooms ready and Francois
waiting, we shouted and cheered. It was never so beautiful as
it looked in the moonlight and we walked all over it, through
the silent streets chortling with glee. They could not give
us our same rooms but we got the suite just above them, which
is just as good. They were so extremely friendly and glad to
see us and had flowers in all the rooms. We have not heard a
word about Chas yet, as our mail has not arrived from Paris,
but I will cable in a minute and hear. We cannot wait any
longer for news of him. I got up at seven this morning so
excited that I could not sleep and have been to the baths,
where I was received like the President of the Republic. In
fact everybody seems to have only the kindest recollections of
us and to be glad to have us back.
Such a rest as it is and so clean and bright and good--Only I
have absolutely nothing to wear except a two pound flannel
suit I bought at Lorenzo Marquez until I get some built by a
French tailor. I must wear a bath robe or a bicycle suit
until evening. We have not been to the haunts of evil yet but
we are dining there to night and all will be well. Cecil
sends her love to you all-- Goodbye and God bless you.
Richard and his wife returned to America in the early fall of
1900 and, after a visit to Mr. and Mrs. Clark at Marion,
settled for the winter in New York. They took a house in East
Fifty-eighth Street where they did much entertaining and lived
a very social existence, but I do not imagine that either of
them regarded the winter as a success. Richard was unable to
do his usual amount of work, and both he and his wife were too
fond of the country to enjoy an entire winter in town. In the
spring they went back to Marion.
MARION,
MASSACHUSETTS. May, 1901.
We arrived here last night in a glowing sunset which was
followed by a grand moon. The house was warm and clean and
bright, with red curtains and open fires and everything was
just as we had left it, so that it seemed as though we had
just come out of a tortuous bad dream of asphalt and L. roads
and bad air. I was never so glad to get away from New York.
Outside it is brisk and fine and smells of earth and melting
snow and there is a grand breeze from the bay. We took a long
walk to-day, with the three dogs, and it was pitiful to
see how glad they were to be free of the cellar
and a back yard and at large among grass and rocks and roots
of trees. I wanted to bottle up some of the air and send it
to all of my friends in New York. It is so much better to
smell than hot-house violets. Seaton came on with us to
handle the dogs and to unpack and so to-day we are nearly
settled already with silver, pictures, clothes and easels and
writing things all in place. The gramophone is whirling madly
and all is well-- Lots and lots of love.
DICK.
The following was written by Richard to his mother on her birthday:
MARION, MASSACHUSFTTS.
June 27th, 1901.
DEAR MOTHER:
In those wonderful years of yours you never thought of the
blessing you were to us, only of what good you could find in
us. All that time, you were helping us and others, and making
us better, happier, even nobler people. From the day you
struck the first blow for labor, in The Iron Mills on to the
editorials in The Tribune, The Youth's Companion and The
Independent, with all the good the novels, the stories
brought to people, you were always year after year making the
ways straighter, lifting up people, making them happier and
better. No woman ever did better for her time than you and no
shrieking suffragette will ever understand the influence you
wielded, greater than hundreds of thousands of women's votes.
We love you dear, dear mother, and we KNOW you and may your
coming years be many and as full of happiness for yourself as
they are for us.
RICHARD.
CHAPTER XIII
THE SPANISH AND ENGLISH CORONATIONS
Interrupted by frequent brief visits to New York Philadelphia,
and Boston, Richard and his wife remained in Marion from May,
1901, until the early spring of 1902. During this year
Richard accomplished a great deal of work and lived an ideal
existence. In the summer months there were golf and tennis
and an army of visitors, and during the winter many of their
friends came from New York to enjoy a most charming
hospitality and the best of duck shooting and all kinds of
winter sports.
Late in April, they sailed for Gibraltar on their way to
Madrid, where Richard was to report the coronation ceremonies,
and from Madrid they went to Paris and then to London to see
the coronation of King Edward. It was while on a visit to the
Rudyard Kiplings that they heard the news that Edward had been
suddenly stricken with a serious illness and that the ceremony
had been postponed.
11, St. James's Place,
St. James's Street, S. W.
London.
June, 1902.
DEAR MOTHER:--
This is only to say that at the Kipling's we heard the news,
and being two newspaper men, refused to believe it and went to
the postoffice of the little village to call up Brighton on
the 'phone. It was very dramatic, the real laureate of the
British Empire asking if the King were really in such danger that
he could not be crowned, while the small boy in charge of the
grocery shop, where the postoffice was, wept with his elbows on
the counter. They sent me my ticket--unasked--for the Abbey,
early this morning, and while I was undecided whether to keep
it--or send it back, this came. So, now, I shall frame it as a
souvenir of one of the most unhappy occasions I ever witnessed.
You can form no idea of what a change it has made. It really
seems to have stunned every one--that is the usual and accepted
word, but this time it describes it perfectly.
Goodbye,
DICK.
During the summer of 1903 my mother and father occupied a
cottage at Marion, and every morning Richard started the day
by a visit to them. My brother had already bought his
Crossroads Farm at Mount Kisco, and the new house was one of
the favorite topics of their talk. The following letter was
written by my mother to Richard, after her return to Philadelphia.
September, 1903.
Here we are in the old library and breakfast over. There
seemed an awful blank in the world as I sat down just now, and
I said to Dad "Its Dick--he must come THIS morning."
You don't know how my heart used to give a thump when you and
Bob came in that old door. It has been such a good
month--everybody was so friendly--and Dad was so well and
happy--but your visits were the core of it all. And our good
drives! Well we'll have lots of drives at the Crossroads.
You'll call at our cottage every morning and I'm going to train
the peacocks to run before the trap and I'll be just like Juno.
There isn't a scrap of news. It is delightfully cool here.
M.
CHAPTER XIV
THE JAPANESE-RUSSIAN WAR
During the fall and early winter of 1903 Richard and his wife
lingered on in Marion, but came to New York after the
Christmas holidays. The success of his farce "The Dictator"
had been a source of the greatest pleasure to Richard, and he
settled down to playwriting with the same intense zeal he put
into all of his work. However, for several years Robert J.
Collier and my brother had been very close friends, and
Richard had written many articles and stories for Collier's
Weekly, so that when Collier urged my brother to go to the
Japanese-Russian War as correspondent with the Japanese
forces, Richard promptly gave up his playwriting and returned
to his old love--the role of reporter. Accompanied by his
wife, Richard left New York for San Francisco in February.
February, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We are really off on the "long trail" bound for the boundless
East. We have a charming drawing-room, a sympathetic porter
and a courtly conductor descended from one of the first
Spanish conquerors of California. We arranged the being late
for lunch problem by having dinner at five and cutting the
lunch out. Bruce and Nan came over for dinner and we had a
very jolly time. They all asked after you all, and drank to
our re-union at Marion in July. Later they all tried to
come with us on the train. It looked so attractive with
electric lights in each seat, and observation car and library.
A reporter interviewed us and Mr. Clark gave us a box of
segars and a bottle of whiskey. But they will not last, as
will Dad's razors and your housewife. I've used Dad's razors
twice a day, and they still are perfect. It's snowing again,
but we don't care. They all came to the station to see us off
but no one cried this time as they did when we went to South
Africa. Somehow we cannot take this trip seriously. It is
such a holiday trip all through not grim and human like the
Boer war. Just quaint and queer. A trip of cherry blossoms
and Geisha girls. I send all my love to you.
DICK.
SAN FRANCISCO, February 26th.
DEAR MOTHER:
We got in here last night at midnight just as easily as though
we were coming into Jersey City. Before we knew it we had
seen the Golden Gate, and were snug in this hotel. Today as
soon as we learned we could not sail we started in to see
sights and we made a record and hung it up high. We went to
the Cliff House and saw the seals on the rocks below, to the
Park, the military reservation, Chinatown, and the Poodle Dog
Restaurant. We also saw the Lotta monument, the Stevenson
monument, the Spreckles band stand, the place where the
Vigilance Committee hung the unruly, and tonight I went to a
dinner the Bohemian Club gave to the War correspondents. I
made a darned good speech. Think of ME making a speech of
any sort, but I did, and I had sense enough not to talk about
the war but the "glorious climate of
California" instead and of all the wonders of Frisco. So, I
made a great hit. It certainly is one of the few cities that
lives up to it's reputation in every way. I should call it
the most interesting city, with more character back of it than
any city on this continent. There are only four deck rooms
and we each have one. The boat is small, but in spite of the
crowd that is going on her, will I think be comfortable. I
know it will be that, and it may be luxurious.
DICK.
On way to Japan.
March 13th, 1904.
About four this afternoon we saw an irregular line of purple
mountains against a yellow sky, and it was Japan. In spite of
the Sunday papers, and the interminable talk on board, the
guide books and maps which had made Japan nauseous to me, I
saw the land of the Rising Sun with just as much of a shock
and thrill as I first saw the coast of Africa. We forgot
entirely we had been twenty days at sea and remembered only
that we were ten miles from Japan, only as far as New Bedford
is from Marion. We are at anchor now, waiting to go in in the
morning. Were it not for war we could go in now but we must
wait to be piloted over the sunken mines. That and the
flashlights moving from the cruisers ten miles away gave us
our first idea of war. To-morrow early we will be off for
Tokio, as it is only forty miles from Yokohama. Of course, I
may get all sorts of news before we land, but that is what we
expect to do. It will be good to feel solid earth, and to see
the kimonos and temples and geishas and cherry blossoms. I am
almost hoping the Government won't let us go to the
front and that for a week at least Cecil and I can sit in tea
houses with our shoes off while the nesans bring us tea and
the geishas rub their knees and make bows to us. I am sending
you through Harper's, a book on Hawaii and one of Japan that I
have read and like and which I think will help you to keep in
touch with the wanderers. With all my love to all.
DICK.
TOKYO, March 22nd, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
The "situation" here continues to remain in such doubt that I
cannot tell of it, as it changes hourly. There are three
"columns," so far existing only in imagination. That is, so
far as they concern the correspondents. The first lot have
chosen themselves, and so have the second lot. But the first
lot are no nearer starting than they were two weeks ago. I
may be kept waiting here for weeks and weeks. I do not like
to turn out Palmer, although I very much want to go with the
first bunch. On the other hand I am paid pretty well to get
to the front, and I am uncertain as to what I ought to do. If
the second column were to start immediately after the first,
we then would have two men in the field, but if it does not,
then Collier will be paying $1000. a week for stories of tea
houses and "festivals." Palmer threatens to resign if I take
his place in the first column and that would be a loss to the
paper that I do not feel I could make up. If it gets any more
complicated I'll wire Collier to decide.
Meanwhile, we are going out to dinners and festivals and we
ride. I have a good pony the paper paid for Cecil has hired
another and we find it delightful to scamper out into the
country. We have three rooms in a row. One we use for a sitting
room. They look very welland as it is still cold we keep them
cheerful with open fires. We have a table in the dining-room to
ourselves and to which we can ask our friends. The food is
extremely good. Griscom and the Secretaries have all called and
sent pots of flowers, and we are dining out every other night.
In the day we shop and ride. But all day and all night we the
correspondents plot and slave and intrigue over the places on the
columns. I got mine on the second column all right but no one
knows if it ever will move. So, naturally, I want to be on the
first. The rows are so engrossing that I have not enjoyed the
country as I expected. Still, I am everlastingly glad we came.
It is an entirely new life and aspect. It completes so much that
we have read and seen. In spite of the bother over the war
passes I learn things daily and we see beautiful and curious
things, and are educated as to the East, as no books could
have done it for us. John Bass who was my comrade in arms in
Greece and his wife are here. They are the very best. Also
we see Lloyd daily, and the hotel is full of amusing men, who
are trying to get to the front. Of course, we know less of
the war than you do. None of the news from Cheefoo, none of
the "unauthorized" news reaches us. Were it not for our own
squabbles we would not know not only that the country was at
war but not even that war existed ANYWHERE in the world. We
are here entirely en tourist and it cannot be helped. The men
who tried to go with the Russians are equally unfortunate.
Think of us as wandering around each with a copy of Murray
seeing sights. That is all we really do, All my love.
DICK.
YOKOHAMA--April 2, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
I just got your letter dated the 28th of February and the days
following in which you worried over me in the ice coated
trenches of Korea. I read it in a rickshaw in a warm sun on
my way to buy favors for a dinner to Griscom. We have had
three warm days and no doubt the sun will be out soon. The
loss of the sun, though, is no great one. We have lots of
pleasures and lots of troubles in spite of the Sun. Yesterday
the first batch of correspondents were sent on their way. I
doubt if they will get any further than Chemulpo but their
going cheered the atmosphere like a storm in summer. The
diplomats and Japanese were glad to get rid of them, they were
delighted to be off. Some had been here 58 days, and we all
looked at it as a good sign as it now puts us "next." But
after they had gone it was pretty blue for some of them were
as good friends as I want. I know few men I like as well as I
do John Bass. Many of them were intensely interesting. It
was, by all odds, the crowd one would have wished to go with.
As it is, I suspect we all will meet again and that the two
columns will be merged on the Yalu. None of the attaches have
been allowed to go, so it really is great luck for the
correspondents. Tell Chas I still am buying my Kit. It's
pretty nearly ready now. I began in New York and kept on in
Boston, San Francisco, and here. It always was my boast that
I had the most complete kit in the world, and in spite of
Charley's jeers at my lack of preparedness everybody here
voted it the greatest ever seen. For the last ten days all
the Jap saddlers, tent makers and tinsmiths have been copying it.
DICK.
TOKIO--May 2, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
Today, we walked into our new house and tomorrow we will
settle down there. We rented the furniture for the two
unfurnished rooms; knives, forks, spoons, china for the table
and extras for 35 dollars gold for two months. It took six
men to bring the things in carts. They got nothing.
Yesterday, I took two rickshaw men from half past twelve to
half past five. Out of that time they ran and pushed me for
two solid hours. Their price for the five hours was eighty
cents gold. What you would pay a cabman to drive you from the
Waldorf to Martin's. I wish you could see our menage. Such
beautiful persons in grey silk kimonos who bow, and bow and
slip and slide in spotless torn white stockings with one big
toe. They make you ashamed of yourself for walking on your
own carpet in your own shoes. Today we got the first news of
the battle on the Yalu, the battle of April 26-30th. I
suppose Palmer and Bass saw it; and I try to be glad I did
what was right by Collier's instead of for myself. But I
don't want to love another paper. I suppose there will be
other fights but that one was the first, and it must have been
wonderful. On the 4th we expect to be on our way to Kioto
with Lloyd and his wife and John Fox. By that time we expect
to be settled in the new house.
DICK.
TOKIO, May 22nd, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
You will be glad to hear that the correspondents at the front
are not allowed within two and a half miles of the firing line.
This I am sure you will approve. Their tales of woe have just
been received here, and they certainly are having a hard time.
The one thing they all hope for is that the Japs will order them
home. My temper is vile to-day, as I cannot enjoy the gentle
pleasures of this town any longer and with this long trip to
Port Arthur before I can turn towards home. I am as cross as
a sick bear. We were at Yokohama when your last letters came
and they were a great pleasure. I got splendid news of The
Dictator. Yesterday we all went to Yokohama. There are four
wild American boys here just out of Harvard who started the
cry of "Ping Yang" for the "Ping Yannigans" they being the
"Yannigans." They help to make things very lively and are
affectionately regarded by all classes. Yesterday, they and
Fox and Cecil and I went to the races, with five ricksha boys
each, and everybody lost his money except myself. But it was
great fun. It rained like a seive, and all the gentlemen
riders fell off, and every time we won money our thirty
ricksha men who would tell when we won by watching at which
window we had bet, would cheer us and salaam until to save our
faces we had to scatter largesses. Egan turned up in the
evening and dined with John and Cecil and me in the Grand
Hotel and told us first of all the story the correspondents
had brought back to Kobbe for which every one from the
Government down has been waiting. It would make lively
reading if any of us dared to write it. To-day he made his
protests to Fukushima as we mapped them out last night and the
second lot will I expect be treated better. But, as the first
lot were the important men representing the important
syndicates the harm, for the Japs, has been done. Of course,
much they do is through not knowing our points of view. To
them none of us is of any consequence except that he is a
nuisance, and while they are conversationally perfect in
politeness, the regulations they inflict are too insulting.
However, you don't care about that, and neither do I. I am going
to earn my money if I possibly can, and come home.
DICK.
TOKIO, June 13th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We gave a farewell dinner last night to the Ping Yannigans two
of whom left on the Navy expedition and another one to-morrow
for God's country. There were eight men and we had new
lanterns painted with the arms of Corea and the motto of the
Ping Yannigans. Also many flags. All but the Japanese flag.
One of them with a side glance at the servants said, "Gentle-
man and Lady: I propose a toast, Japan for the Japanese and
the Japanese for Japan." We all knew what he meant but the
servants were greatly pleased. Jack London turned up to-day
on his way home. I liked him very much. He is very simple
and modest and gave you a tremendous impression of vitality
and power. He is very bitter against the wonderful little
people and says he carries away with him only a feeling of
irritation. But I told him that probably would soon wear off
and he would remember only the pleasant things. I did envy
him so, going home after having seen a fight and I not yet
started. Still THIS TIME we may get off. Yokoyama the
contractor takes our stuff on the 16th, and so we feel it is
encouraging to have our luggage at the front even if we are
here.
DICK.
YOKOHAMA, July 26th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We gave in our passes to-day, and sail to-morrow at five.
They say we are not to see Port Arthur fall but are to be
taken up to Oku's army. That means we miss the "popular"
story, and may have to wait around several weeks before we see
the other big fight. They promised us Port Arthur but that is
reason enough for believing they do not intend we shall see it
at all. John and I are here at a Japanese hotel, the one Li
Hung Chang occupied when he came over to arrange the treaty
between China and Japan. It is a very beautiful house, the
best I have seen of real Japanese and the garden and view of
the harbor is magnificent. I wish Cecil could see it too, but
I know she would not care for a room which is as free to the
public view as the porch at Marion. It has 48 mats and as a
mat is 3 x 5 you can work it out. We eat, sleep and dress in
this room and it is like trying to be at home on top of a
Chickering Grand. But it is very beautiful and the moonlight
is fine and saddening. No one of us has the least interest in
the war or in what we may see or be kept from seeing. We have
been "over trained" and not even a siege of London could hold
our thoughts from home. I have just missed the mail which
would have told me you were at Marion. I should so love to
have heard from you from there. I do not think you will find
the Church house uncomfortable; and you can always run across
the road when the traffic is not too great, and chat with
Benjamin. I do hope that Dad will have got such good health
from Marion and such lashers of fish. I got a good letter
from Charles and I certainly feel guilty at putting extra work
on a man as busy as he. Had I known he was the real judge of
those prize stories I would have sent him one myself and given
him the name of it. Well, goodbye for a little time. We go on
board in a few hours, and after that everything I write you is
read by the Censor so I shall not say anything that would gratify
their curiosity. They think it is unmanly to write from the
field to one's family and the young princes forbade their
imperial spouses from writing them until the war is over.
However, not being an imperial Samaari but a home loving, family
loving American, I shall miss not hearing very much, and not
being able to tell you all how I love you.
DICK.
DALNY, July 27th, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We left Shimonoseki three days ago and have had very pleasant
going on the Heijo Maru a small but well run ship of 1,500
tons. Fox and I got one of the two best rooms and I have been
very comfortable. We are at anchor now at a place of no
interest except for its sunsets.
We have just been told as the anchor is being lowered that we
can send letters back by the Island, so I can just dash this
off before leaving. We have reached Dalny and I have just
heard the first shot fired which was to send me home. All the
others came and bid John and me a farewell as soon as we were
sure it was the sound of cannon. However, as it is 20 miles
away I'll have to hang on until I get a little nearer. We
have had a very pleasant trip even though we were delayed two
days by fog and a slow convoy. Now we are here at Dalny. It
looks not at all like its pictures, which, as I remember them
were all taken in winter. It is a perfectly new, good brick
barracks-like town. I am landing now. The two servants seem very
satisfactory and I am in excellent health. Today Cecil has been
four days at Hong Kong. Please send the gist of this letter dull
as it is to Mrs. Clark. When I began it I thought I would have
plenty of time to finish it on shore. Of course, after this all
I write and this too, I suppose will be censored. So, there
will not be much liveliness. I have no taste to expose my
affections to the Japanese staff. So, goodbye.
R.
July 31st, 1904.
DEAR MOTHER:
We have been met here with a bitter disappointment. We are
all to be sent north, although only 18 hours away. We can
hear the guns at Port Arthur the fall of which they promised
us we would see. To night we are camping out in one of the
Russian barracks. To-morrow we go, partly by horse and partly
by train. A week must elapse before we can get near
headquarters. And then we have no guarantee that we will see
any fighting. This means for me a long delay. It is very
disappointing and the worst of the many we have suffered in
the last four months. I have written Cecil asking her to
seriously think of going home but I am afraid she will not.
Were it not for that and the disappointment one feels in
travelling a week's journey away from the sound of guns I
would be content. My horse is well and so am I. It is good
to get back to drawing water, and carrying baggage and
skirmishing about for yourself. The contractor gave us a good
meal and the servants are efficient but I like doing things
myself and skirmishing for them. We make a short ride this
morning of six miles to Kin Chow and then 30 miles by rail.
"Headquarters" is about a five days ride distant. Tell Chas my
outfit seems nearly complete. Maybe I can buy a few things I
forgot in Boston at Kin Chow. Fox and I will get out just as
soon as we see fighting but before you get this you will probably
hear by cable from me. If not, it will mean we still are waiting
for a fight. The only mistake I made was in not going home the
first time they deceived us instead of waiting for this and
worst of all.
to you all.
DICK.
MANCHURIA, August 14, 1904.
We have been riding through Manchuria for eleven days. Nine
days we rode then two days we rested. By losing the trail we
managed to average about 20 miles a day. I kept well and
enjoyed it very much. As I had to leave my servant behind
with a sick horse, I had to take care of my mule and pony
myself and hunt fodder for them, so I was pretty busy. Saiki
did all he could, but he is not a servant and sooner than ask
him I did things myself. We passed through a very beautiful
country, sleeping at railway stations and saw two battle
fields of recent fights. Now we are in a Chinese City and
waiting to see what should be the biggest fight since Sedan.
The Russians are about ten miles from us, so we are not
allowed outside the gates of the city without a guide. Of
course, we have none of that freedom we have enjoyed in other
wars, but apart from that they treat us very well indeed. And
in a day or two they promise us much fighting, which we will
be allowed to witness from a hill. This is a
very queer old city but the towns and country are all very
primitive and we depend upon ourselves for our entertainment.
I expect soon to see you at home. In three more days I shall
have been out here five months and that is too long. Good
luck to you all.
R. H. D.
MANCHURIA, August 18th, 1904.
We still are inside this old Chinese town. It has rained for
five days, and this one is the first in which we could go
abroad. Unless you swim very well it is not safe to cross one
of these streets. We have found an old temple and some of us
are in it now. It is such a relief to escape from that
compound and the rain. This place is full of weeds and pine
trees, cooing doves and butterflies. The temples are closed
and no one is in charge but an aged Chinaman. We did not come
here to sit in temples, so John and I will leave in a week,
battle or no battle. The argument that having waited so long
one might as well wait a little longer does not touch us. It
was that argument that kept us in Tokio when we knew we were
being deceived weekly, and the same man who deceived us there,
is in charge here. It is impossible to believe anything he
tells his subordinates to tell us, so, we will be on our way
back when you get this. I am well, and only disappointed.
Had they not broken faith with us about Port Arthur we would
by now have seen fighting. As it is we will have wasted six
months.
Love to Dad, and Chas and Nora and you.
DICK.
In writing of his decision to leave the Japanese army,
Richard, after his return to the United States, said:
"On the receipt of Oku's answer to the Correspondents we left
the army. Other correspondents would have quit then, as most
of them did ten days later, but that their work and Kuroki, so
far from being fifty miles north toward Mukden, as Okabe said
he was, was twenty miles to the east on our right preparing
for the, closing-in movement which was just about to begin.
Three days after we had left the army, the greatest battle
since Sedan was waged for six days.
"So, our half-year of time and money, of dreary waiting, of
daily humiliations at the hands of officers with minds
diseased by suspicion, all of which would have been made up to
us by the sight of this one great spectacle, was to the end
absolutely lost to us. Perhaps we made a mistake in judgment.
As the cards fell we certainly did.
"The only proposition before us was this: There was small
chance of any immediate fighting. If there were fighting we
would not see it. Confronted with the same conditions again,
I would decide in exactly the same manner. Our misfortune lay
in the fact that our experience with other armies had led us
to believe that officers and gentlemen speak the truth, that
men with titles of nobility, and with the higher titles of
General and Major-General, do not lie. In that we were
mistaken."
Greatly disappointed at his failure to see really anything of
the war, much embittered at the Japanese over their treatment
of the correspondents, Richard reached Vancouver in October.
As my father was seriously ill he came to Philadelphia at once
and divided the next two months between our old home and
Marion.
On December 14, 1904, my father died, and it was
the first tragedy that had come into Richard's life, as it was
in that of my sister or myself. As an editorial writer, most
of my father's work had been anonymous, but his influence had
been as far-reaching as it had been ever for all that was just
and fine. All of his life he had worked unremittingly for
good causes and, in spite of the heavy burdens which of his
own will he had taken upon his none too strong shoulders, I
have never met with a nature so calm , so simple, so
sympathetic with those who were weak--weak in body or soul.
As all newspaper men must, he had been brought in constant
contact with the worst elements of machine politics, as indeed
he had with the lowest strata of the life common to any great
city. But in his own life he was as unsophisticated; his
ideals of high living, his belief in the possibilities of good
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