More outbreaks telegraphed from Mashonaland. No doubt now that it is rebellion there too.
It is a curious experience sitting with Sir Richard Martin, Lord Grey, and the General, in the telegraph office, and listening to a conversation being ticked to us from Salisbury, some 800 miles away, just as if the sender (Judge Vintcent) were in the next room—the message being a string of startling details of more murders, impis gathering, heroic patrols making dashing rescues, preparations for defence, and state of food supplies and ammunition.
18th to 21st June.—Days of office–work, literally from daylight till—well, long, long after dark. Not a scrap of exercise, nor time to write a letter home.
Office work, however interesting it may be, would incline sometimes to become tedious, were it not for rays of humour that dart in from time to time through the overcharged cloud of routine. Here are some items that have come to us in the past few days, and which have tended to relieve the monotony of the work.
A letter from a lady, who writes direct to the General, runs as follows (she desires information as to the whereabouts of her brother):—“I apply to you direct, in preference to my brother’s commanding officer, because it is said, ‘Vaut mieux s’adresser au bon Dieu qu’ à tons ses saints.’
“If anything has happened to my brother, I hold Mr. Ch—— accountable for it, as, but for his playing lickspittle to Oom Kruger—but for his base betrayal of the Johannesburgers, which has made England the laughing–stock of all her enemies, there need have been no kissing at all. Probably the poor natives hoped to be magnanimous, à la Kruger, by screwing £25,000 out of each of their prisoners, and that England would follow suit by trying our chief defenders at bar as convicts, in spite of a protesting jury.”
Then, from the officer commanding one of the outlying forts, comes a letter to say: “... This being only a small fort, and no fighting to be done, I consider it only a waste of time to remain here. If you cannot place me in a position where active service can be done, I beg respectfully to submit my resignation.” I have had many letters of that kind from various volunteer officers.
Then, from England: “Dear Sir,—Could you kindly give me any details as to the death of my brother Charles. He is supposed to have been eaten by lions about four years ago in Mashonaland.”
My orderly (a volunteer) was not to be found to–day when I wanted him, but a loafer, hanging about the office door, said that the orderly had left word with him that “he was going out to lunch, but would be back soon, in case he were wanted.”
One volunteer trooper, apparently anxious that the routine of soldiering should, in his corps at anyrate, be carried out in its entirety, takes it upon himself to write to me as follows:—