A Yeoman's Letters Part 10

Everybody I meet seems agreed on one point, and that is there has been no Christmas this year. Well, let us hope we shall have a real old-fas.h.i.+oned one next year.

New Year's Eve.

"The year is dying, let him die."

Them's my sentiments-"let him die." Despite the nil nisi bonum sentiment, I can't find it in my heart to say (at this present time and in my present humour) a good word for the dying year, his last days having been ones to be remembered with-er-oblivion only, so to speak. Since writing last, I have been flying high-that is to say, my temperature has-having registered 104.4 (don't omit the point) for a couple of days. I was rather proud of this, for, as you know, I didn't swagger in here with a fever or anything like that. No, I simply and quietly waited about a week, and then let them see what I could do without any real effort. And that is the right way to do things.

Look at Kitchener. People out here have been saying: "Wait till Kitchener is in command," and "Kitchener will do this and that." I sincerely hope he will. Mick, our day orderly, has just told me that "to hear people spake, ye'd think he cud brake eggs wid a hard stick,"-which I believe is his sarcastic way of summing up hero wors.h.i.+p. I suggested most men could do that; whereupon Mick retorted: "Ye don't know, they might miss 'em." You never catch Mick napping. I only wish I could record the story of how he chucked the kits of "the Hon. Goschen and a nephew of the Juke of Portland's" out of one of the tents in 22 Ward, because they didn't choose the things which they wanted kept out, and let him take the rest away to the store tent. Needless to say, he was unaware at the time that he was entertaining angels.

Kitchener visited the Hospital some time ago but I missed seeing him. I was sleeping at the time, and was awakened by his voice inquiring how we were, and turned round just in time to see a khaki mackintosh disappear through the door. Of course, I had met him before. He turned me out of a house at which the C.-in-C. and staff had luncheon the day we were marching on Johannesburg. My luncheon on that occasion consisted of a nibble at a small, raw potato.

PARODY 9800134.

(Only one verse.)

When you've said "the war is over," and "the end is now in sight,"

And you've welcomed home your valiant C.I.V.'s, There are other absent beggars in the everlasting fight, And not the least of these your Yeoman, please.

He's a casual sort of Johnnie, and his casualties are great, And on the veldt and kopjes you will find him, For he's still on active service, eating things without a plate, And thinking of the things he's left behind him.

I'll spare you the chorus.

The accompanying sketch, perhaps, needs a little explanation. To be brief, the British Army feels aggrieved at the praise bestowed on the C.I.V. Regiment, and its early return to England. To hear a discussion on our poor unoffending and former comrades is to have a sad exhibition of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness.

Any amount of fellows have got bad teeth, and when one considers the trek-ox and the army biscuit, one cannot be surprised. A lance-corporal of ours went before the doctor last week on this score; he had practically no teeth, and has been sent into Pretoria on a month's furlough. It is generally circulated in the squadron that the authorities expect fresh ones to grow in that time.

Tuesday, January 1st, 1901.

I saw the New Year in-in bed. There is little or no news, when we do get some it is usually unsatisfactory. I suppose you know we have no paper in Pretoria; the best they can do for us is to let us buy for a tikkie the Bloemfontein Post, always four days old, and its contents! The same brief, ancient and censored war news, the inspired leading article, a column on a cricket match between two scratch Bloemfontein teams, a treason trial, advertis.e.m.e.nts for I.L.H. and other recruits, and that is about all. Well, here's "A Happy New Year to us all."

There are some terrible dunder-headed beings in this world of ours. I saw one the day I came through Pretoria to this hospital. We were acquaintances in London, and with the eye of a hawk he picked me out of a load of dirty, khaki-clad wretches, and pounced on me with "What on earth did you come out here for?" I told him "to play knuckle bones."

In the tent next to this is a quiet man with a gun-shot wound in his knee. He is Vicary, V.C., of the Dorset Regiment. You may remember he won it in the Tirah campaign for a deed immeasurably superior to that of Findlater's; he saved an officer's life by killing five Afridis, shooting two and bayoneting and b.u.t.t-ending the rest-a messy job. He is a small, quiet man, and wild horses could not induce him to talk of the winning of his V.C. He won't say a "blooming" word on the subject to anyone, not even an orderly.

We have a small library in the hospital (Mrs. d.i.c.k Chamberlain's). I got Max O'Rell's "John Bull and Co." from it a few days ago. It concludes with the author's reply to a question asked him the day before he left South Africa.

"Well, after all these long travels what are you going to do now?"

"What am I going to do?" he replied; "I am going to Europe to look at an old wall with a bit of ivy on it."

And, by the Lord Harry, that's just what I want to do myself.

I'm getting rather tired of my prolonged loaf in Arcadia, for that is the name of this part of Pretoria, and although it is really not my fault, still I feel ashamed of myself for not being with the company. Still, even if I were out of the hospital, I should merely be able to join a number of details of Suss.e.x, Devon, Dorset, Fife, and other Yeomen who are waiting in Pretoria an indefinite time for remounts and fresh equipment. I daresay my last letter, if it arrived at all arrived later than usual, as the day the mails left here there was a biggish fight a few miles down the line at the first station (Irene), and the train had to return. It is also rumoured that the home mails due were held up and collared, a hardy perennial this.

All last Friday we could hear big guns pounding away, and we heard on Sat.u.r.day that the enemy had pulled up a good deal of the line, but the fort, or forts, at Irene had held their own. In addition to this, rumour hath it that Delarey and eight hundred (or 500, or 1,000) have been killed or captured, also that Clements has been killed. But all this, as usual, needs confirmation. So inaccurate or vague is actual news when we do get it, that a big fight might take place in the nearest back-garden, and we should be absolutely ignorant of the real details of the combat.

I have just heard that the news that General Clements is dead is correct. He died of a wound received some days ago I am told. If it is true, we have lost another good officer and brave man.

We certainly have made every use of our privilege as Englishmen to grumble since we have been out here. A certain Bill Fletcher, erstwhile a c.o.c.kney pot boy, now of Kitchener's Horse, has just taken a bed in our tent, and has announced that he is tired of the "blooming" country, where the "blooming" flowers don't smell, the "blooming" birds don't sing, and the "blooming" fruit don't taste (this latter charge is not quite correct), and he wants to get back to the "blooming" fog and smoke of London; all this, and he has only been at it five months.[]

The Career of an Untruth.

Clements is not dead, and Delarey and his friends are not captured.

I am telling you the latest rumours and anti-rumours, as this letter progresses.

And yet the man I had the first version from had had it from an R.A.M.C. Sergeant, who had it on the most reliable authority of the commandant's orderly, who had heard the commandant tell it to the P.M.O. He had also been corroborated by a man who had seen the man who took it down from the heliograph. Also one of the hospital runners had heard Dr. -- tell Dr. --, and a friend of his had a friend who knew a man on the officers' mess, who had seen it up in orders, distinctly.

A Tommy came in just now and said "Hullo, Corporal!" I shook his flipper weakly and tried the dodge of pretending to recognise him. But I had to give it up, and admit I could not for the moment recognise him, and thought he had made a mistake. To which he replied he had not, and didn't I remember the soap. I did.

About two months or more ago, having halted at mid-day at some fontein or other en route for Rustenburg, Whiteing and I went down to the nearest stream to have the usual wash. There we found heaps of fellows was.h.i.+ng; but, alas! there was a great dearth of soap. A Northumberland man asked me if I could sell him some, and I gave him a small chunk. The demand was great, and there was practically no supply. When we got back to our lines, Whiteing, ever forgetful, discovered he had left his precious brown Windsor behind. It was too late to go back to try and find it, so he gave up all hopes of ever seeing it again. The next day, as we were riding through the infantry advance guard of the Border Regiment, one of the fellows shouted to me, asking if I had lost any soap the day before. I replied "No," and then recollected Whiteing's loss added that a friend of mine had. My infantry friend thereupon promised to bring it round in the evening, which he did. In this manner we became acquainted with him. I mention this incident just to show what a really good sportsman the true Thomas is. Here was soap in great request: we were strangers to him, having merely chatted with him and the others as we washed in the mud and water, and yet, without our even making enquiries for the precious lump, he went out of his way to return it.

I asked him why he had come into the hospital, and he told me he and several others had been sent in as unfit for the veldt, and so were to act as hospital orderlies. When I inquired how he liked the idea, he said it was all right, as he was clear of the horrible "hundred-and-fifty," and he laid his hands significantly where the pouches are wont to decorate the waist of the poor infantryman.

[Note.-I suppose you know the infantryman's cross is the hated 150 rounds in the two pouches, which after many miles marching become most irksome, especially for the muscles of the stomach.]

I, of course, inquired after n.o.bby, but he could not tell me anything about him, as n.o.bby is in "H" Company and his was "B."

To-day (the 16th) a large number of fellows are leaving here for the base and, the rumour is-home.

The P.M.O. asked a Yeomanry friend yesterday if he would like to go home or join his squadron, and the Yeoman's reply was he would like to rejoin his squadron-at home. In explanation, he smilingly stated that all of his squadron's officers, bar one, had gone home, and nearly all the squadron, having been invalided or discharged. Well, I think this is long enough for a letter written by a man who can hardly claim to be "on active service" just at present.[]

The Sisters' Alb.u.ms.

Sunday, January 26th, 1901.

Still at the above address, but going strong, and almost losing the Spartan habits engendered by my recent life on the veldt!

News is very scarce with us, and to dare to write you a long letter would be the height of impudence, so I will let you off with a moderately short one this week.

Last week an original burlesque (perhaps I ought to politely designate it a musical comedy) was produced in a large marquee here, which is called "the theatre." I don't know what the name of the piece was but it dealt with a Hospital Commission, and the dramatis personae consisted of a Boer spy, posing as the Commissioner, the real Commissioner, as a new nurse, nurses, orderlies, Kaffirs and doctors, amongst the latter being a Scotch Doctor, who drank a deal of "whuskey" and whose diagnoses were most entertaining. It was quite pathetic to watch the keen interest with which the audience followed the diversions of "Dr. Sandy" with the bottle.

I have been concerned in "doing something" in our day nurse's alb.u.m lately (I think I have already alluded to the presence of the alb.u.m evil out here). I have willingly volunteered to contribute to these volumes, hoping to see their contents, but, alas, in most cases I have had to start the tome; however, in the present case the alb.u.m has been well started by various patients. Most of the efforts are strikingly original and all in verse, so I determined to do something for the honour of the county of my birth, and, securing a pen and ink, perpetrated some Michael Angelic-like sketches of "the-ministering-angel-thou," order. Then, hearing that a poem (scratch a Tommy and you'll find a poet) was expected, valiantly started off with something like this:

"She wore a cape of scarlet, The eve when first we met; A gown of grey was on her form (I wore some flannelette!): She was a sister to us all, And yet no relation; She stuck upon my dexter leg, A hot fomentation."

But appearing suggestive of something else, I crossed it out and finally produced the following ambitious ode:-

The Great Panacea.

Poets from time of yore have sung In every clime and every tongue, Of beauty and the pow'r of love, Of things on earth and things above.

Sonnets to ladyes' eyes indited, And for such stuff been killed or knighted.

They've raved on this and raved on that, The dog or the domestic cat.

On blessed peace and glorious war, On deeds of daring dashed with gore, And scores of other wondrous deeds, Which History or Tradition heeds.

But I would humbly sing to praise Something unhonoured in those lays- The cure for broken legs and arms, For suff'rers of rheumatic qualms.