of the rank in front. Here and there a stifled cry would tell of a sprained ankle, and a form would be carried out from the midst of the press to await the arrival of a stretcher. Every hundred yards or so the dark form of a horseman loomed up, motionless as a statue, cloaked and dripping: these were the mounted men distributed along the track to mark its course, one of the admirable precautions of an admirably conducted retirement. About 4 A.M., just as dawn broke over the swollen dismal Tugela, the bridge was reached, and as the last battalion tramped over the worn-out "chesses "1 which swayed sicklily beneath the moving weight, a single shell sang drearily from the enemy's position away back in the mist, and fell with a splash into the thick water alongside. It was like the full stop at the end of a chapter, such a chapter as the British army has never had to write beforea chapter of failure and sorrow, unrelieved save by the ceaseless heroism of the dead and living whose duty it had been to write it. Pity 'tis that that last solitary shell did not put a period to the disastrous chatter, as it did to the disaster itself. Soldiers, at 1 1 The planks which form the roadway of pontoon and other temporary bridges. least, do not wish to be reminded by quarrelsome irresponsibles how much duplicity and subterfuge has clustered round the sacred and dignified mournfulness of those days of wrath. IV. A BEATEN ARMY. A SORRY sight was that beaten army in its camp between Waggon Drift and Potgeiter's when daylight broke; muddy, dripping khaki, rusty rifles, helmets almost melted by the rain, are not martial adjuncts. But the spirits of all were undamped, either by rain, wretchedness, or defeat; the cheeriness of the sodden host was as remarkable as their appearance, and the feat of a certain general officer, who chose the time, after a week's close fighting and a cruel night-march, to make his inspection of the regimental kitchens, could only arouse good-humoured laughter instead of the tears to which it seemed equally entitled. No more pathetic attempt to plant Aldershot in Armageddon has ever been made! Not altogether ludicrous when one had divined its purpose, as a steadier in the midst of what the perpetrator wrongly imagined must be chaos, any more than the same officer's later and choicer chef d'œuvre, that of calling out and reprimanding a subaltern for his careless method of carrying his carbine what time the army was on the march towards the bloody kopjes of Vaal Krantz ! But there was no chaos, and on January 29 the brigades swung into hollow squares to hear Sir Redvers' speeches as smartly as ever they had done on Laffan's Plain before royalty. Lavater would have been puzzled by that square impassive face, as the General thanked his men for what they had done, and for having shown him what to do. Never a soul of the thousands there, nor, it appears, of the millions at home, understood his abrupt, cryptic sayings; but they, nevertheless, lifted a weight from hearts unconsciously heavy, omne ignotum pro magnifico. Sir Redvers Buller is fortunate in at least one of the attributes proper to a general, a good presence and appearance. Huge, heavy, solid, and reliable to look upon, he conveys to the imagination something of that comfort derivable from the sight of a big gun or a strong intrenchment. Most difficult of men to describe: impassive as Helvellyn, yet notoriously tender, with heart bleeding for his falling soldiers; de backyards. Women were seen behind the kopjes at Colenso and Vaal Krantz; there were some, smartly habited and well horsed, even with the raiding party which from Mooi river kept Pietermaritzburg awake and alarmed. Two girls were actually killed at Pieter's Hill-one, poor thing, whispering just before she died that her husband had kept her beside him in the trench "because she was a good shot." The tragedy of the world's war has no sadder, more awful scene than these trenches full of the most primitively manly race on earth, unable to wrench itself away from its women, carrying them everywhere, more cared for than caring, leaning upon them as the truest virility has always leaned on women. I have met Boers who have been ashamed of this trait, and Britons who have cursed them for indulging it in war; there is no need. Its very beauty is evinced by the ineffable pathos and pity of it when it is found in such savage surroundings, and sorrow for the poor women may go hand in hand with loftier sentiments when their point of view can be grasped. Pro aris et focis has become an unctuous quibble to us who have never been in danger. I am convinced that to almost every fighting Boer it has been the sternest of realities, before him always in letters of fire. Upon the |