September 16.—Sunday.—We went to church in the evening; a tent pleasantly filled up, a Sister at the harmonium, hymns, a few prayers, the Psalms, and a short sermon; a strange parti-coloured congregation we were, in pyjamas, slippers and blue coats, some on crutches; Sisters in their bright uniforms. Chairs were scarce, and Henry and I sat on the floor. It was dark before the end, and in the dim light of two candles at the harmonium we looked a motley throng.
Both bound for the Convalescent camp tomorrow.
September 17.—Monday.—What we actually did to-day, seeing the commandant, regaining our kit, drawing new kit, might have been done in half an hour; but we took from nine till three doing it, most of which time we were standing waiting. However, about three we found ourselves in a covered cart with five others and our kits, bound for the Convalescent camp. We had said good-bye to the Sisters and our mates. Old Daddy, I am glad to say, had "worked it," as they say, and was radiant, having been marked up for home. No more of "that there veldt" for him. Jock had already been sent out and given a post as hospital orderly, and was now spreading the fame of the Highland Brigade in new fields. We both felt, on the whole, that we had been looked after very well in a very good hospital.
The mules jolted us across the valley, and landed us at a big block of tents, and we took places in one; mother earth again. Tea, the milkless variety again, at 4.30, and then we went to Henry's old tent in the General Hospital, which adjoins this camp, and talked to a friend of his there, a man in the Rifle Brigade, with a bad splintered knee. He was shot about the same time as Henry in a fine charge made by his battalion, which I remember reading about.
Both much depressed to-night; the atmosphere of this camp is like a convict settlement. The food and arrangements are all right, but nobody knows any one else; all are casual details from every possible regiment and volunteer corps in the Empire. Nearly all are "fed up;" nearly all want to get home. A vein of bitter pessimism runs through all conversations; there is a general air of languor and depression. Fatigues are the only occupation. I should go melancholy mad here, if I stayed; but I shall apply to return to the Battery. Even then there is another stage—the Rest camp—to be gone through. We sat up late this night outside the lines, talking of this strange coincidence of our meeting, and trying to plan future ones. He feels the same about this place, but is still too lame to rejoin his corps.
September 18.—We washed in a stream some distance off, and then had breakfast. Then general parade. There must be some two or three hundred of us, and a wretched, slipshod lot we looked. A voice said, "Those who want to rejoin their regiments, two paces to the front." A few accepted the invitation. I gave in my name, and was told to parade again at two, with kit packed. The next moment we were being split up into fatigue parties. Fatigues are always a nuisance, but I don't mind them under my own folk, with a definite necessary job to be done. A fatigue under strange masters and with strange mates is very irksome, especially when, as in this case, there is little really to be done, but they don't want to leave you idle. This was a typical case. I and a dozen others slouched off under a corporal, who showed us to a sergeant, who gave us to a sergeant-major, who pointed to a line of tents (Langman's Hospital), and bade us clean up the lines. To the ordinary eye there was nothing to clean up, but to the trained eye there were some minute fragments of paper and cigarette ends. Now the great thing in a fatigue of this kind is: (1) To make it last. No good hurrying, as fresh futilities will be devised for you. (2) To appear to be doing something at all costs. (3) To escape unobtrusively at the first opportunity. There are some past-masters in the theory and practice of fatigues who will disregard No. 1, and carry on No. 2 till the golden moment when, with inspired audacity, they achieve No. 3, and vanish from the scene. This requires genius. The less confident ploddingly fulfil Nos. 1 and 2, and don't attempt No. 3. Well, we loitered up and down, and collected a few handfuls, and when we had eked out the job to the uttermost, stood together in a listless knot and waited. "What shall we do?" we asked the corporal. "Do any — thing," he despairingly cried, "but do some — thing!" By this time the sergeant-major too was at his wits' end as he looked round his spotless lines. But you can't easily baffle a sergeant-major. There was a pump, with a big tub by it, to catch the waste, I suppose. The artistic possibilities of these simple objects flashed across him. In his mind's eye he saw this prosaic tub sublimed into a romantic pool, and girdled by a rockery, in whose mossy crannies errant trickles of water might lose themselves, and perhaps fertilize exotic flora yet unborn. At this moment I espied a wheelbarrow in the distance, and went for it with that purposeful briskness, which may sometimes be used in fatigues of this sort to disguise your real intentions. For it is of the greatest importance in a fatigue to have an implement; it is the outward symbol of labour; if observation falls on you, you can wipe your brow and lean on it; you can even use it for a few minutes if necessary. Without some stage property of this sort only a consummate actor can seem to be busy. Well, I got to the barrow just in time. There were two; a Grenadier Guardsman got the other, and amid envious looks we wheeled them off towards a heap of rubble in the offing, "conveniently low." Then, with a simultaneous sigh of relief, we mechanically produced our pipes and tobacco, found comfortable seats against the pile of rubble, and had a good chat, lazily watching the genesis of the naiad's grotto in the distance. When we had had a good smoke, and fought our battles over again, we got up and saw signs that the fatigue was guttering out; so we put a few stones in each of the barrows, and, well content, journeyed back to the scene of operations, and laid our stones round the base of the tub, more because we knew nowhere else to lay them than for any other reason, for the sergeant-major had apparently forgotten his grandiose designs in other schemes, and had disappeared. The fatigue party was thinning. The corporal said what may be freely translated as "disappear quietly," and we made off to our camp, where I found Henry, who had doctor's leave to be excused fatigues, being lame.
[ CHAPTER XII. ]
A DETAIL.
September 18, continued.—At two we paraded again with our kits, and about a dozen of us marched off to the Rest camp, which is the next stage. Everything was very hurried, but Henry had just time to tell me that he was ordered to Bloemfontein, when I had to start. We said good-bye, and I don't suppose will meet again till London. The Rest camp was about four miles off, on the other side of Pretoria. Arrived very hot and dusty. Waited some time, and then was told that I must go to the Artillery Barracks, another two miles in quite a different direction. I might just as well have gone there direct. However, I was lucky enough to get a lift for my kit and myself most of the way, and landed about 5.30 at a collection of big, red-brick buildings outside the town, was handed from person to person for some time, and finally found a resting-place on the floor of a huge bare room in a sort of a tin outbuilding, where some 150 R.A. men of all batteries were sitting or lying on their kit round the walls and down the centre; like lost souls, I pictured them, sitting round one of Dante's purgatorial retreats. I felt exactly like going to school again for the first time, though, of course, I soon found them all very friendly. I learned that there was no food to be got till to-morrow, but I foraged about till I found a sort of canteen-tent, where they sold buns, and, having some tea of my own, got water boiled over a friendly fire, and now feel happier; but I fervently hope I shall get back to the Battery soon. When I heard last from Williams, they had returned to Waterval after some hard forced marching.
September 19.—Loafed away last evening somehow. A wan electric light half lit the room after dark; the souls "twittered" like Homer's in dejected knots. "Fatigues all day, and a pass into town once a week," seem to be the prospect. Reveillé to-day at six. At parade, after breakfast, I was told off to act as an office orderly to Captain Davies, the Inspector of Ordnance, an all-day job, but otherwise with possibilities in it, I judged. Found the office, swept it out, and dusted and tidied things. Parlour-maid's work is nearly new to me (I have only cleaned windows before, in barracks at St. John's Wood), and I found myself trying to remember what I used to see Mary doing in the flat. I fancy my predecessor must have been a "slattern," for everything was thick with dust. I wish the Captain would leave his matches behind; there is not a match to be got in Pretoria now for the ordinary mortal. I'm afraid there are no perquisites in this situation. Also I wish he would get a waste-paper basket. I have made a humane resolve never to be without one myself, at home. Captain rode up about 9.30; I tied up his pony, and then sat on a stone step outside, feeling rather like a corner-boy trying to pick up a job. Found a friendly collar-maker in a room near. He also is a "detail," or "excess number," but a philosopher withal. He told me that from his observation I had a "soft job."—Nothing happened, so I have adjourned to some tarpaulins in the back yard. A shout of "Ord'ly" from the office interrupted me, and I was sent with a blue letter to the Chief Ordnance Officer in a camp about a mile away. Again to the same place in the afternoon, and one or two other little errands, but between whiles I had plenty of time to write. The Captain rode off about five, and I somehow got attached to the collar-maker, who was extremely friendly, and we spent the evening together. Looked in at a S.C.A. tent, and found a service going on. The Chaplain of the Bushmen was speaking.