Even the novelty of such things, however, soon began to wear off, and under the depressing influences of life in a rest camp outside Kroonstad the trooper took a more gloomy view of things military, writing:
This place is like most of the so-called towns in South Africa, a mere cluster of tin huts with hardly a stone building in the lot. We, as usual, are not within a mile and a half of the town, and only one man per section of twenty-eight is allowed into it at a time. When you do get there, there is nothing much to buy or see, and prices are extremely high. Thank goodness, the climate at this time of year is just grand; at night it is very cold, and in the day warm, but never too warm unless one happens to be very hard at work. We seldom have any time to ourselves; even now, though I am writing letters, I am on duty with forty other men grazing the horses, about a couple of miles from camp. We are in a bad way for nags now, and very few of the Calcutta horses are left. It’s fun going out to commandeer things from the Boer farms, and it would make a person roar to see the different things different people choose to take. We are generally in a bad way for firewood, as this is practically a treeless country; so we break up chairs, beds, floors, doors, posts, rafters, and every blessed piece of wood to be got. Here as I sit on the side of a kopje I have a loaded rifle and cartridge bandolier on, and we are warned to stand to arms at any moment, as there are some wandering Boers about on the war-path who have cut the wires and played Old Nick with the railway and Bridges. It’s wonderful what good health men keep, considering the hardships they go through; we have not got a tent among the lot of us, barring those small servants’ tents used by the officers. Many among us have not even a change of clothes, on account of a golmal[[11]] made in regard to our kit bags, which got left behind at a camp near Bloemfontein. Goodness knows if we shall ever see those bags again. At present I have only the clothes on my back and one extra pair of socks to my name. Many of us have started growing long beards, and I have a beauty, but it wants a little trimming. I had a bath about four days ago, the first for weeks, and please goodness I will have a swim before leaving this place, as there is a river here which, though rather full of dead mules and horses, is better than nothing at all. Yesterday three horses got stuck in the river and were drowned, and this morning when watering horses I saw three mules and another nag which belonged to our Maxim gun team panklagged, and I fear that they also have been lost. There is most awful ‘pank’ in some of the rivers and ponds, and on more than one occasion we have all but lost men when crossing or watering. I have had about enough of it, and so has everyone else. It does make a man feel creepy when he has shells bursting about all round, and Boer shells do burst, for all that is said otherwise. They make a noise in the air like a huge flock of ducks when they take a dive downwards in their flight; and the rifle bullets going past sound like a breeze playing in the branches of a tree. I have now been in three engagements, and I’m perfectly satisfied! I don’t mind it where there is some cover, and you can see your enemy; but when the bullets come from Lord knows where, it’s real tough bread and butter to chew. The day we lost so heavily the Boers were rifle firing at over 2,000 yards, and as they use smokeless powder it was impossible to see them.
In those closing sentences there is a realistic touch that tells of the weariness and heart-sickness from which soldiers invariably suffer in days of rest following a succession of hard marches and heavy fighting. When there is stern work to be done, or a foe to be faced, these men may succumb to sheer exhaustion without a word of complaint. It is only after a day or two of comparative inaction, when supposed, by a pleasant fiction, to be resting in camp, that they will confess to being tired of the whole thing, or, as Tommy expresses it, ‘fair fed up.’ A total change comes with the order for a fresh advance, and everybody welcomes it except, perhaps, the regimental commanding officer, who knows that his horses would be all the better if given more time to regain condition, and his men more happy if there were a chance of re-clothing them. But what do rags and tatters matter when days have to be spent in marching through clouds of red dust and night blots out all distinction between weather-stained khaki and the soil on which it is laid? Colonel Lumsden must have felt the care for such things heavy on him, but he gave no sign of it in the notes by which he summarised the renewal of operations and of hard work that was in inverse ratio to the number of words employed in describing it:
We halted at Kroonstad till the 22nd, and then moved out some four and a half miles to a fresh camp clear of the town ready to join Colonel Henry’s brigade, and to start marching early next morning. Nothing of interest occurred at Kroonstad, except that we were able to leave behind a number of worn-out horses. These were replaced by fifty-six Argentines, which arrived the day before we left in a sorry condition, suffering from the effects of forced marches made without food, except what they could pick up on the veldt.
The next three days were spent in long weary marches, reconnoitring the country in front of the main advance, for we had been transferred at Kroonstad from General Hamilton’s column to the troops selected to march with Lord Roberts. Just after the men had settled down in camp at sunset on the 24th, bugles sounded a single G, and, on hearing this signal, all troops joined in singing ‘God Save the Queen.’
We were expecting to be in action every day, but nothing was seen of the enemy till the 26th, when we came upon him at about 9 A.M. in the railway station near Viljoen’s Drift, half a mile from the Vaal River. There some time was spent in reconnoitring to find out the enemy’s strength, and when a few shells had been put into the station, turning out only a hundred Boers, we were too late to stop the train which had apparently been loading up there. It steamed unhurt over the Vaal bridge, which was immediately blown up.
A general advance of the 8th Corps was made dismounted, and the enemy driven back, so that at noon the whole brigade was over the Vaal, much to the delight of the manager of the mines, who had been in a state of great anxiety. He treated all officers to breakfast, and told us that the Boers had not expected our force for two days, and that the party just ejected by us had arrived that very morning with the intention of blowing up his mines. He estimated that one million sterling had been saved by our unexpected arrival.
Our only casualty during the day was Sergeant H.A. Campbell, slightly wounded.
At 5 P.M. we moved off to our new camp, guarding the Vaal bridge, with the promise of a sorely-needed halt next day.
From this brief chronicle nobody would suppose that the honour of reconnoitring and drawing Boers out from their hiding-places among the sheds and shanties of corrugated iron at Viljoen’s Drift Station had fallen to Lumsden’s Horse. Lieutenant Pugh, however, supplies the missing links in a private letter: