eir
shoulders, I noticed one man with a corn sack. Colonel Browne read the
Service, the rain splashing on his little Prayer Book. The body was
reverently lowered by means of a couple of ammunition belts from a
machine gun, and the three rounds cracked strangely in the rain-laden
air, the water dripping from the rifles. After the firing, one of the
party, a dour-looking Scot, void of all sentiment I should have thought
(God forgive me!) stooped, and picking some objects out of the mud,
thrust them into a handy pocket. They were his three empty cartridge
cases. Then the Fifes sorrowfully marched away, leaving their beloved
captain behind them. Happy Fifes to have possessed so good an officer!
Unhappy Fifes to have lost him!

* * * * *

Returning to where my poor saturated horse was miserably standing, I
mounted and slowly rode along with the convoy. After going some miles, I
was pleased to see the waggons turning off the slippery track on to the
veldt and outspanning. Seeing close by the road, lying on the site of a
former camp, sheets of corrugated iron from the roofs and other parts of
a few wrecked and deserted houses in the neighbourhood, I dismounted and
secured two large bent ones (these placed on the ground like an inverted
V form excellent shelters for tentless men), and proceeded to carry them
and drag my steed towards the camp. It was a long way and an awful fag.
At length through the pelting rain, there bore down upon the Sussex
Yeomanry lines two large bent sheets of galvanised iron, cursing
horribly and followed by a dripping horse. Suddenly the sheets fell
clattering to the wet ground and his comrades beheld the writer of these
immortal letters. Whiteing, Boleno, and the rest of our special clique
or mess, who had arrived before me had already commenced constructing
Mealie Villas (being the name given to our family residence wherever we
are). The ground was, of course, saturated by the rain, which continued
unceasing all day. Huddled together in the cribbed, cabined and confined
space of our "home, sweet home," half-naked, but fairly cheerful, we
passed the time in everlastingly patching up the leaks and defects in
the construction of the Villas. The next morning we had _reveille_ at
six, and turned out promptly to feed the wretched horses; the poor,
woe-begone looking creatures, hardly one of which was properly picketed,
were standing expectantly amid a perfect cobweb of mudd