CHAPTER XX
Colonel Musgrave was drinking his coffee in the handsome salon of the merchant, Van Mopez; he opened a pink official telegram and read:
"Director of Commissariat to Colonel Musgrave. Marseilles Indian Depot overcrowded meet special train 1000 goats with native goatherds find suitable quarters and organize temporary farm."
"Damn the goats!" he said.
His job being to feed Australians, he thought it hard that he had to bear in addition the consequences of the religious laws of the Hindoos. But nothing troubled Colonel Musgrave long; he sent for his interpreter.
"Aurelle," he said, "I am expecting a thousand goats this evening; you will take my motor and scour the country. I must have a suitable piece of ground in five hours and a small building for the shepherds. If the owner refuses to let you hire them, you will commandeer them. Have a cigar? Good-bye."
Having thus disposed of this first anxiety, he turned to his adjutant.
"We now want an O.C Goats!" he said. "It will be an excellent reason for getting rid of Captain Cassell, who arrived yesterday. Captain! I asked him what he did in peace-time—musical critic of the Morning Leader!"
So that is how Captain Cassell, musical critic, was promoted goatherd-in-chief. Aurelle found a farmer's wife whose husband had been called up, and he persuaded her, at the cost of much eloquence, that the presence of a thousand goats in her orchards would be the beginning of all sorts of prosperity. He went in the evening to the station with Cassell to fetch the goats, and they both passed through the town at the head of the picturesque flock, herded by ancient Indians, who looked exactly like the shepherds in the Bible.
Colonel Musgrave ordered Cassell to send him a hundred goats per day for the front. After the fourth day Cassell sent over a short note by one of the children from the farm, announcing, as if it were quite a natural thing, that his flock would be exhausted the next day and asking for another contingent of goats.