With Methuens Column on an Ambulance Train | Page 5

absolute necessity of employing the colonial volunteers in patrolling the long line of some 600 miles from the sea to Modder River.
"Queen Victoria's afternoon tea"--as we called it--was served about five. The two orderlies for the day brought from the kitchen a huge tea-urn, some dozen bowls, and two large loaves. We supplemented this rudimentary fare with a pot of "Cape gooseberry" jam, the gift of a generous donor, and improved the quality of the tea with a little condensed milk. Fresh from the usages of a more effete civilisation I did not feel after two cups of tea and some butterless bread that "satisfaction of a felt want"--to quote Aristotle--which comes, say, after a dinner with the Drapers' Company in London, and for two nights I tore open and devoured with my ward-companion a tin of salmon which I bought from a Jew along the line. But, strange to say, after a few days of this _régime_, which in its chronological sequence of meals and its strange simplicity recalled the memories of early childhood, my internal economy seemed to have adapted itself to the changed environment, and after five o'clock with its tea and bread I no longer wished for more food. Exactly the same experience befalls those inexperienced travellers in tropical countries who, at first, are continually imbibing draughts of water, but soon learn the useful lesson of drinking at meal-time only, and before long do not even take the trouble to carry water-bottles with them at all.
Our destination was supposed to be De Aar, but nobody ever knew exactly where we were going or what we were going to do when we got there. During a campaign orders filter through various official channels, and frequently by the time they have reached the officer in charge of a train others of a contradictory purport are racing after them over the wires. This sort of thing is absolutely unavoidable. Between the army at the front and the great base at Capetown stretched some 700 miles of railway, and over this single line of rails ran an unending succession of trains carrying troops, food, guns, and last, but by no means least, tons upon tons of ammunition. The work of supplying a modern army in the field is stupendous, and the best thanks of the nation are due to the devoted labours of the Army Service Corps. The officers and men of the A.S.C. work night and day, they rarely see any fighting, and are seldom mentioned in the public press or in despatches; yet how much depends upon their zeal and devotion! Amateur critics at home have frequently asked why such and such a general has not left strong positions on the flank and advanced into the enemy's country further afield. Quite apart from the fearful danger of exposing our lines of communication to attack from a strong force of the enemy, these critics do not seem to possess the most elementary idea of what is involved in the advance of an army. How do they suppose hundreds of heavily laden transport waggons are to be dragged across the uneven veldt, intersected every now and then by rugged "kopjes" and "spruits" and "dongas"? Ammunition alone is a serious item to be considered. Lyddite shells, _e.g._, are packed two in a case: each case weighs 100 lb., and I have frequently seen a waggon loaded with, say, a ton of these shells, and drawn by eight mules, stuck fast for a time in the open veldt; the passers-by have run up and shoved at the wheels and so at last the lumbering cart has jogged slowly on. This load would probably in action disappear in half an hour; and when one reflects that in one of our recent engagements each battery fired off 200 shells, it is easy to understand the enormous weight of metal which has to follow an army in order to make the artillery efficient, and to realise how unwilling a general is to leave a railway behind him, and attempt to move his transport across the uncertain and devious tracks of an unmapped African veldt. Lord Kitchener's successful march upon Omdurman was only rendered possible by the fact that the army kept continuously to the railway and the Nile.
The railway journey northwards is full of interest. Between Capetown and Worcester the country is well watered and fields of yellow corn continually meet the eye, interspersed with vines and mealies. Yet here and there that lack of enterprise which seems to characterise the Dutch farmer is easily noticeable. Irrigation is sadly neglected and hundreds of acres which with a little care and outlay would grow excellent crops are still unproductive.
Soon after leaving Worcester the line rises by steep gradients nearly 2,500 feet. Right in front the Hex