One anecdote I may here relate:—
Worn out with much marching, ragged and hungry, the half battalion under du Moulin halted at Kroonstad to refit. Supplies, and especially clothing and boots, were hard to get. Some tired subaltern returned, repulsed from the Ordnance Store, empty handed.
The matter quickly reached du Moulin's ears, and he disappeared for what seemed a few minutes. Presently out of a cloud of red dust emerged a mule wagon at a hand gallop. Standing up, driving, cracking a long whip and yelling at the Kaffirs to clear the road, came "Mullins," as he was familiarly known to all. His grey regulation shirt was rolled up to the elbow, showing a pair of red muscular arms like copper wire. He shouted as he turned his team into the camp, and we hurried to his wagon, to have bundles of new clothes, white shiny rolls of waterproof sheets, and thick soft blankets rapidly allotted to our men; and to save time (for we were moving next morning) "Mullins" himself hurled out the bundles into our arms.
At another time, when we were at Ventersburg Road Station in one of the brief intervals of rest allowed by Boers who blew up the railway line three times a week (this was in 1900), the siding leading to the dock for entraining horses or cattle was completely blocked by the burnt remains of a train of trucks, rusty and apparently immovable.
The railway staff smiled incredulously when du Moulin offered to remove the entire train of trucks. Without cranes or appliances they declared it was impossible.
Collecting all the spare rails, sleepers and fish-plates that could be found about the station yard, du Moulin started work, and a branch railway some 100 yards long was quickly laid leading into the veldt, with proper points connecting it with the siding. A hundred willing hands hauled at the ropes—the rusty axles, well greased, revolved. In half a day the siding was clear, and the ruined trucks were standing on the veldt, where they probably stand to this day!
Another picture of du Moulin under fire, and I have done.
On the 12th of June, 1900, at Diamond Hill, "B" Company was sent to support the three companies of the Royal Sussex under du Moulin, about midday. These three companies were lying under the scanty shelter of a few rocks at the edge of the flat-topped hill facing the main Boer position, at a distance of about 900 yards. The hail of bullets was incessant, the noise of guns and thousands of rifles deafening. As we arrived breathless, having crossed the 200 yards of flat open ground amid a "rush" of bullets, I sought du Moulin to ask where we were most wanted. He was standing up, a conspicuous figure amidst a "feu d'enfer"—pounding with the butt of a rifle a prostrate man, who would not move from the imagined shelter of a stone about as big as a Dutch cheese, and who could not see to fire from his position.
I got a very curt, lurid rejoinder, and promptly subsided behind a very inadequate rock myself.