In the Ranks of the C.I.V.

t whose backbone is the railway line running due north from Pretoria to Petersberg. He was to occupy strategic points, isolate and round up stra

fferent humour. We had followed a narrow valley in a northerly direction. Most of the transport waggons, including our own, stuck in a drift some way back, so that we had no tea, and the drivers no blankets to sleep in (gun

ugh what I hear is called Wonderboom Port, a narrow nek between two hills, leading due north, to judge by the sun. We forded a girth-deep river on the way. The nek led out on to a long, broad valley, about six miles

with us, and at the common watering-place, a villainous little pool, with a steep, slippery descent to it, I recognized Alexander Lafone, of the latter corps. I walked to their lines after tea, found him sergeant of the guard, and we talked ov

8.30, and marched till twelve, crossing the valley diagonally, till we reached some kopjes on the

how they can reach us here. A most curious one has just come sailing very slowly overhead, and growling and hiccoughing in the strangest way. I believe it was a ricochet, having first hit the top of the kopje. When it fell there was a rush

hem, I'm sorry to say, is Lafone, with a glancing wound under the eye, sight uninjured. We camped at five, and u

aighten them out, and sit down again. After two more spoonfuls, you find the wheelers playing cat's-cradle with the centres' traces. Perhaps the wheel-driver is asleep, and you get up and put them right. Then the grazing operations of the leaders bring them round in a circle to the wheelers. Up you get, and finally, as the fifth spoonful is comforting a very empty stomach, you hear, "Stand to your horses!" "Mount!" You hurriedly stuff the tin into a muzzle hanging from the saddle, where you have leisure to observe its fragrant juices trickling out, stick the spoon under a wallet-strap, buckle up wither-straps, and mount. At the next halt you begin again, and the same thing happens. It is a positive relief to hear the shriek of a shell, and have something definite to do or interest you. About two the 38th fired a few shots at some Boers on the sky-line, and then we came to Waterva

ad reached us in the cold weather they would have been more useful. It is hot weather now; but a light drill tunic was also served out, and a sign of the times was stewed dry fruit for tea. The ration now is five biscuits (the full ration) and a Maconochie, or bully beef. Only extre

infantry reinforcements hav

re is its gentle unobtrusiveness. About an hour before sunrise, the east grows faintly luminous; then just one arc of it gradually and imperceptibly turns to faint yellow, and then delicate green; but just before the sun tops the veldt there is a curious moment, when all colour fades out except the steel blue of a twilight sky, and the whole firmament is equally lighted, so that it would be hard to say where the sun w

ancy they were only a skirmishing rear-guard, for after a bit of shrapnel-practice we moved on, and had a long, tiring day of slow marching and halting, with scattered firing going on in front and on the flanks. The country must demand great caution, for the bush is thick now, and whole commandos might be

untry, crossing a brute of a drift over a river, where we hooked in an extra pair of horses to our team. In the summer this must be a lovely region, when the trees and grass are green; very like the New Forest, I should think. We had a long halt in the middle of the day, and then marched on till five, when we camped. We waited till eight for tea, as the buck-waggons had stuck somewhere; but I made some cocoa on a

h vexatious suddenness at 10.45 P.M. I had had about two hours' sleep. Up we got, harnessed up, hooked in, and groped in the worst of tempers to where the column was collecting, wondering what was up now. We soon started-no moon and very dark-on a road composed of fine, deep dust, which raised a kind of fog all round, through which I could barely see the lead-driver's back. The order was no talking, no smoking, no lights, and we moved silently along under the stars, wrapped in darkness and dust. Happily the road was level, but night marching is always rather trying work for a driver. One's nerves are continually on edge with the constant little checks that occur. The pair in front of you seem to swim as you strain your eyes to watch the traces, and keep the team in even draught; but, do what you can, there is a good deal of jerking into the collar, and narrow shades of getting legs over traces. Once I saw the General's white horse come glim

ced march was for, is one of the inexplicable things that so ofte

hot too. There was a long ride to water, and then I got some sleep behind my upturned saddle, waking with my eyes glued up. To watering again and evening stables. The wind went down about six

my kit on one of our waggons. Then the Major came up, and was very sympathetic, but said he was sending back one waggon to Pynaar's River, and I had better go on that, and not follow the Battery. So I migrated there and waited for the next move. It came in a general order from the Staff that nothing was to go back. I was to seek an asylum in an R.A.M.C. ambulance waggon. So we trudged over to an officer, who looked at my f

ed to them, and only a biscuit and a half. By a most lucky hap, Williams and I had the night before bought a leg of fresh pig from a Yeomanry chap, and had it cooked by a nigger. In the morning, when we separated, I had hastily hacked off a chunk for him, and kept the rest, and we now had a merry meal over the national animal of the Munsters. It was pleasant to hear the rich Cork brogue in the air. It seems impossible to believe that these are the men whom Irish patriots incite to mutiny. They are loyal, keen, and simple soldiers, as proud of the flag as any Britisher. At five we outspanned, with orders to trek again at the uncomfortable hour of 1 A.M. The Orderly-corporal left me and a Ser

bush-covered veldt, abrupt and limitless. Baden-Powell and his troops are here, and I believe the Boers are behind some low hills which lie north of us, and run east and west. Our cart halted by a stream of water, which I washed in, and found quite warm. Coffee and biscuits were served out. A lovely day, hot, but still, so no dust. The column stops here a day or so, I hear. We have been transferred to a marquee tent, where fifteen of us lie pretty close. The Battery is quite n

had been a deserter, long ago, when a lad, after two years in the Rifle Brigade, where he was sickened by tyranny of some sort. He confessed, after re-enlistment, and was pardoned. He had been fourteen years in his present corps, and had got on well. Opposite is a young scamp of Roberts's Horse. Looks eighteen, but calls it twenty-two: his career being that he was put in the Navy, ran away, was apprenticed to the merchant service, ran away (so forfeiting the premium his parents had paid), shipped to the Cape, and joined Roberts's Horse. I asked him what he would do

as though you may be perfectly well, as I am, the absence of fresh food makes any scratch fester. Most en

es a day, and otherwise we are left to ourselves. The food might, I think, be better and more plentiful. I have had the privilege of hearing Tommy's opinions on R.A.M.C. orderlies, and also those of an R.A.M.C. orderly on Tommy, or perhaps rather on his own status and grievances in general. Inside the tent Tommy was free and unequivocal about the whole tribe of orderlies, the criticism culminating in a ghoulish story from my right-hand neighbour, told in broadest Yorkshire, about one in Malta, "who stole the - boots off the - corpse in the - dead-'ouse." Outside the tent a communicative orderly poured into my ear the tale of Paardeberg, and its unspeakable horrors, the overwork and exhaustion of