Leave was the one thing that really mattered—those ten glorious days when you went back to your own life, and bathed daily and ate what you wanted to, instead of what you could get. No one minded night-rides across the veldt with that end in view, and I have slept very comfortably under the stars, with my saddle for a pillow, dreamily wondering if the lion in the distance was making that noise because he was hungry or because he had had too much to eat. Once in Nairobi, you bought a silk shirt, and could display the trousers with the crease in them and the socks that mother sent you. You wallowed in your bath, and walked down Government Road pretending that you had never shovelled damp earth out of a trench or groomed an accumulation of sticky African mud off a truculent mule. In the afternoon you sat in the fashionable tearoom and ate cakes and sweets and ices, and in the evening there was a dance, and you met the dearest girl. It was all like heaven!
When we really did start—I was with the mounted column that came down from Longido, to sweep round and threaten the German rear—the people I was sorry for were the transport drivers. The rains broke soon after the advance began, and swamped us out at Kahe, where we had a three days' scrap in thick brush. What with weather and scrapping, and mud and broken bridges, we had a hard enough time ourselves—we had dropped the "country gentleman" part of it—but the wonder is that the transport ever got through at all. We used to curse at it sometimes. When you have been under fire all night and scrapping all day, when you have lost your pipe in the river and the cigarettes have run out, when you are very dirty and very hungry, and word is passed down that no one knows where the food-wagons are—that is the sort of happening that is calculated to make your spirits rise with a bound. Then they come along, like bearded and very dirty angels, dumping supplies of bully beef and potatoes, bread and jam, and dates and coffee, and all is forgiven.
It isn't always fun being a soldier in East Africa, but I think the transport driver who "gets there" every time deserves a Military Cross at the least.
STORIES OF HEROIC WOMEN IN THE GREAT WAR
Tales of Feminine Deeds of Daring
Thousands of stories from the battlefields tell of the heroism of the women of France, Russia, England, Italy—and all the countries involved in the war—women fighting as soldiers in every army; women who act as spies; women who risk their lives on dangerous missions. A few of these stories are told in these pages. The first three are from the New York World, and the fourth from the New York American.
I—STORY OF FRENCH WOMAN WHO DARED TO FIGHT IN A TANK
If Mlle. Gouraud were not the niece of Gen. Gouraud, whose right arm was blown off by a bursting Turkish shell at the Dardanelles, and who was in command of the contingent of Russian troops fighting in France, and who succeeded Gen. Lyautey as Military Governor of Moroccco, she probably would never have had a chance to suffer from "tank sickness." And it's because she came so close to proving her point—that men and women are equal in war work as well as peace pursuits—that Mlle. Gouraud is discouraged. For to-day she is engaged in the—for her—exceedingly tame occupation of driving a motor ambulance between the railroad stations and the various hospitals in Paris.