SMALL AMMUNITION.
At Colesberg, in one of the numerous cavalry fights, an old Boer was held at mercy by a lancer who had his lance ready to strike. "Moe nie! Moe nie!" cried the old man, which, being translated, means "Don't, don't!" The lancer, however, didn't understand Dutch, and replied, "I don't want your money, I want your life," but the renewed appeal was too piteous, and the old man was taken prisoner.
CHAPTER XII
"Vive la Compagnie"
Four Correspondents Dine the General, the Governor, and Rudyard Kipling, and Produce The Friend as well.
"Alles zal recht komen" were the words of the late President Brand, true friend of the English, which were graven on the pedestal of his statue before the doors of the Residency. We repeated them in new "tabs" beside the heading of our paper on March 28th, with an amended English translation facing them: "All has come right."
"All shall come right," we said, in our editorial, "was the motto of the late Orange Free State. What a prophet was he who conceived it, and how quickly has come the fruition of his prophecy! All has come right."
We published an appreciative editorial upon Sir Alfred Milner, who had come on the previous day upon a visit to Lord Roberts. It was written by Mr. Landon. Mr. Kipling contributed more "Kopje-Book Maxims," and bore a heavy hand in the production of an amusing column, entitled, "The Military Letter Writer."
This was the way that column came into being. Mr. Landon, Mr. Kipling, and I were in the poet's bedroom when Mr. Landon produced a model letter-writer which he had found somewhere. I take great credit for the phrase "found somewhere"; it might, with any other man than Mr. Landon, be so full and rich in meaning. The book professed to be a sober guide to the young and the ignorant in the paths of epistolary literature; therefore it was bound to be supremely funny. We screamed over what Landon read to us out of it.
Said Mr. Kipling: "Let's write some model military letters," and, as was his wont, he seized a pencil and paper and began to write No. 1, reading as he wrote. He urged us both to contribute, and Mr. Landon tried with much good intent, while I wished to do so, but could not begin to keep pace with the poet. Instant collaboration is almost always impossible, especially where the inspiration comes to one man who is seized by it, and begins to give it expression before his companions can match their minds with his. Therefore Mr. Kipling went on and on, and Mr. Landon took the block and pencil and wrote as Mr. Kipling talked. Thus were produced letter No. 1 and the italicised introduction to No. 2; the rest Mr. Landon arranged and edited out of his book.
The column was pieced out at the end with No. 3 of Mr. Kipling's "Fables for the Staff," which was, therefore, hidden in a bottom corner of the page—a stroke of genius on the part of those whom we anathematised collectively in the singular number as "The Dutch Compositor."