o
make out requisitions for shirts and breeches and saddlery to the notes
of wood music; nor those nights when we lay in our blankets on the
grass, stars swinging above, the town-lights winking away below us. It
is not often in life that one slips into dreamless slumber on soft
grass, lullabied by the night-song of a south-wester in pine trees
centuries old.

If we had our discipline and our work at Cape Town, we had our
compensations, too. At that time khaki was completely the fashion
there. On the long promenade down Adderley Street to the pier-head you
could have counted a dozen men in khaki to one in mufti. It reminded
one of the days of the South African War fifteen years ago. There was
naturally a tendency to make much of the soldier-visitor. It did not
spoil him, though. A more orderly lot could not have been found. And
this with the people whose guests we were in indulgent mood, and the
civic authorities throwing open to us every amusement at their
disposal.

Though there was work ahead we were all sorry to leave Cape Town.

[Illustration: Brothers in Arms. The British Navy and Botha's Bodyguard
fraternised aboard. Many of the latter are, of course, pure South
African]

[Illustration: Boxing aboard. En route to German South-West Africa]

On Friday, the 5th of February, we struck camp at sunrise. All our
horses had been shipped the day before; we proceeded to the Docks by
train and on foot. As showing the kindness with which the troops were
treated I must mention that after the heavy work of embarking horses a
body of one of the Ladies' War Organisations arranged refreshments for
us at the railway station.

The journey by train from Groote Schuur to the City takes about fifteen
minutes; by motor about a quarter of that time. But war-work is a
trifle different; we were three hours on the heavily laden transport
wagons before we got to the transport _Galway Castle_.

Many of us who have moved about a good deal and are fond of the sea
were looking forward to that voyage. It was a four days' trip to Walvis
Bay; we thought we would have rather a jolly time. Disillusion is
hateful. And that trip was disillusionment itself. I suppose we
inexperienced ones overlooked automatically the fact that we were in
the ranks and travelling to war by transport. It wasn't a high-browed,
superior outlook that caused our undoing, I fancy. The thing is, you
must rough it soldiering by ship before you grasp the idea. There were