On the Heels of De Wet | Page 3

have been sent by the Railway Staff
Officer. He's asleep now. Come back in the morning and see him!"
A. (furiously) "You d----d young cub!--is this the way you treat your
seniors? What do you belong to?"
P. Y. (Jumping up nervously) "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir; I thought you
were one of those helpless Yeomanry officers. They are the plague of
our lives. I will go and wake the R.S.O." [Disappears. Returns in five
minutes.]
P. Y. "The R.S.O. says that you must report to the office of the line of
communications. They may have orders about you. You will find the
brigade-major in a saloon carriage on the third siding outside the
Rosmead line." [Salutes.]
We go out into the night again, wondering if perdition can equal De
Aar for miserable discomfort, and De Aar officialdom for
inconsequence. The third siding, indeed! It was an hour before the
saloon was found in that labyrinth of cast-iron.
The brigade-major was there, a wretched worn object of a man,
plodding by the eccentric light of a tallow dip through the day's
telegrams. Poor wretch! he earns his pittance as thoroughly as any of us
do. Again we drew blank. "Never heard of you." All we could get out
of him was, "You had better bed down in the station and await events."
Poor devil! so worn with work and worry that he looked as if a simple
little De Aar dust-devil would snap his backbone if it touched him. So
we were turned adrift again in the old iron heap to swell the army of
vagrants who live by their wits upon the communications.
It was about two in the morning before we found our servants. The
soldier servant is a jewel--but a jewel with some blemishes. If you tell
him to do anything "by numbers," he will do it splendidly; but he does
not consider it part of his duty to think for himself, consequently you
have always to think both for yourself and your servant, and that is why

on this occasion we found ours sitting on our rolls of bedding at the far
end of the platform. It had never struck them that we should want to
sleep in a place like De Aar. Disgusted, we tried the hotel. Here they
loosed dogs on us and turned out the guard. Still more disgusted, we
returned to our bedding, and sardined in with the ruck and rubbish on
the platform.
* * * * *
Sunrise in South Africa. The sun knows how to rise on the veldt. When
first seen it is as good as a tonic. It makes one feel joyous at the mere
fact of being alive. But this feeling wears off with a week's trekking,
especially when the season gets colder, or a night-march has miscarried.
Then you never wish to see the sun rise again. There was a time when a
man who boasted that he had never seen the sun rise was branded as a
lazy sloth, an indolent good-for-nothing, who willingly missed half the
pleasures of life. After twenty months continuous trekking in South
Africa one is not sure that one's opinions on this subject fall into line
with those of the majority. For after a baker's dozen of sunrises one has
generally reached that state when the greatest natural pleasure is found
inside rather than outside of a sleeping-bag. But in spite of the general
detestation in which De Aar is held, the neighbouring hills furnish, in
the quickening light of dawn, studies in changing colour so voluptuous,
varied, and fantastic that the wonder is that all the artists in the world
have not fore-gathered at the place. But familiarity with all this beauty
reduces it to a commonplace. It just becomes part of the monotony of
your daily life, especially if you have, as we had that morning, to wait
your turn before you could wash, at the waste-water drippings from a
locomotive feed-pump. Here you fought for a place, jostled by men
who at home would have stepped off the pavement and saluted. But
after a few months of war, at a washing-pump there is little by which
you can distinguish officers from men, unless the former have their
tunics on. From the washtub to chota haziri. The buffet is not yet open,
but a dilapidated Kaffir woman on the platform is doling out at
sixpence a time a mess of treacle-like consistency which is called
coffee. What would you think if you could catch a glimpse of us? What
would the bright little maid who brings in the tea in the morning say, if

she could see us now? Certainly if we came to the front-door she would
slam it in our faces, and threaten us with the