with the positions of the posts and
columns, etc., marked on it, and for twenty minutes or so I found
myself enjoying the pleasantest interview with a much senior officer
than I had ever had in my life. He listened to my exposition of how it
seemed best to round up the enemy commandos, where sedentary forces
ought to be dumped down to act as stops, and what lines the mobile
columns ought to operate along. Lord K. occasionally interjected a
question or criticism as to some particular point, but seemed not in
the least displeased when I stuck to my own view. When he dismissed me
he spoke in a particularly friendly way, and my experience of him on
this occasion was nothing short of a revelation.

"Had a satisfactory talk?" asked Hamilton when I came out, and, on my
saying how nice the Chief had been, he remarked, "He's in one of his
good moods to-day, but you mightn't always find him quite so tame.
He's been down to the Old Colony and back these last two days, and
found things moving--that's why he could not see you before. But he
always keeps his movements very close, so you mustn't let it go any
further."

Walter Kitchener, not unnaturally, entertained unbounded admiration
for, and belief in, his brother, and he often told me tales from
Egyptian days of things that the Sirdar then did and of the resource
he would display in unexpected emergencies. One of these yarns about
the great War Minister at a stage of his career when he was still
mounting the ladder of success deserves to be repeated here.[3] It
happened one day, during the operations for the recovery of the Sudan
from the Mahdi-ists, that "K." was riding forward with his staff,
there being no troops nor transport actually on the move, he mounted
on his camel, the rest on horses and ponies. By the wayside they came
upon a heap of rolls of telegraph-wire lying near the track, which
some unit had apparently abandoned as lumber or else had been unable
to carry. "We can't leave that stuff behind," said the Sirdar to the
staff; "bring it along." Two or three of them dismounted to see what
could be done, but there was no gear available for lashing and the
rolls were heavy. A little party of the small donkeys of the country
was, however, being driven along by a native lad and came on the scene
just at this juncture. "Hurry up. Put the wire on those donkeys. I
don't want to sit here all day," commanded the Sirdar impatiently. The
donkeys had no saddles nor equipment of