Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent by Simon Read

Author:Simon Read [Read, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Adventurers & Explorers, Presidents & Heads of State, History, Modern, 19th Century
ISBN: 9780306823824
Google: TPYqCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Hachette Books
Published: 2015-10-13T20:26:21.670398+00:00

The prisoners were brought to a halt at the top of the hill, near the artillery that had wrought so much devastation. Here Churchill learned the extent of the British casualties: five men were dead and would be buried by the Boers; sixteen seriously injured men had escaped on the engine; thirteen had been taken prisoner and would receive the necessary medical treatment in field ambulances or the hospital at Ladysmith. Among the prisoners currently gathered under the Boer guns, seven—including Churchill, who took a piece of shrapnel in the hand—were only slightly injured. So casualties numbered “between thirty-five and forty.” Although he considered the numbers high enough, Churchill marveled that more had not been killed or injured.

An order to continue marching derailed his thoughts. As they crested one hill after another, Churchill realized the force responsible for attacking the train was actually a detachment from a much larger army. On the plain below he saw roughly three thousand Boers marching in the direction of Estcourt. The prisoners were soon corralled outside the tented headquarters of General Petrus Jacobus Joubert, the Boer commander in chief, and instantly surrounded by a crowd of curious onlookers. Not sure whom he should address, Churchill loudly proclaimed his role as a journalist and demanded to be released. A man stepped forward, took Churchill’s credentials, and disappeared into the tent. The name on the papers caused a stir among the Boers, prompting one to ask if he was the son of Lord Randolph Churchill. Churchill answered in the affirmative, which caused more excited chatter. The Boer chuckled. It was not every day, he said, they caught the son of a lord.

Once again the prisoners resumed their march, dashing Churchill’s hopes of meeting Joubert in person to plead his case. They soldiered on for six hours through the torrential downpour, the ground underfoot a thick sludge, before reaching the train station at Colenso. The Boers herded their captives into a “corrugated iron shed near the station, the floors of which were four inches deep with torn railway forms and account books.” Churchill felt dejected. He had spent his life avoiding boredom and inaction, yet here he was, deprived of his war. For one so heavily addicted to adventure, captivity was akin to torture. He dropped to the filthy floor in a state of utter exhaustion and thought, almost enviously, of a soldier he had seen be struck down during the fight. Death at least spared one the ignominy of capture. Hours passed before the Boers let the men out to warm themselves by two large fires and gnaw on strips of ox meat. When they had finished they were put back in the shed for a cold, uncomfortable night. The conditions made sleep all but impossible. Churchill lay in the darkness, listened to the rain’s relentless hammering on the tin roof, and cursed his predicament.

The morning sun, bleak and pallid, worked its way through the shed’s dirty windows and skylight. Churchill sat up, his body aching.

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