Headquarters’ Mess
Sir Frederick had brought me English letters.
15th November.—Charter. One has heard of it so much, and seen it writ large in the map so often, that it comes as a surprise to find it is only a tiny laager of half a dozen waggons, round which huts are being built, ready for the rainy season. An unhealthy–looking place on low ground, beside a stagnant, muddy stream.
Here Sir Frederick, as usual, met an old friend in the first trooper he saw. “Good day, my lad. Not much of a place to be quartered in, this.”
“No, sir.”
“I have seen you before, somewhere.”
“Yes, sir, my name is——. I was in your Police Regiment two years. I lunched with you at Kimberley Club five years ago. Since then I have been running a ‘penny steamer’ on the Zambesi. Unhealthy? Yes; always down with fever, but I had luck, and was able to get up again. Came down here to recover, and took on as a trooper for the war.”
It is the story of many another cadet of good family moving in these parts.