ain, like hundreds of moving circus-vans in every
direction, with as little obvious intention as herds of buffalo. But
each had his appointed work, and each was utterly indifferent to the
battle going forward a mile away. Hundreds of teams, of sixteen oxen
each, crawled like great black water-snakes across the drifts, the Kaffir
drivers, naked and black, lashing them with whips as long as lariats,
shrieking, beseeching, and howling, and falling upon the oxen's horns to
drag them into place.

Mules from Spain and Texas, loaded with ammunition, kicked and plunged,
more oxen drew more soberly the great naval guns, which lurched as though
in a heavy sea, throwing the blue-jackets who hung upon the drag-ropes
from one high side of the trail to the other. Across the plain, and
making toward the trail, wagons loaded with fodder, with rations, with
camp equipment, with tents and cooking-stoves, crowded each other as
closely as cable-cars on Broadway. Scattered among them were fixed lines
of tethered horses, rows of dog-tents, camps of Kaffirs, hospital
stations with the Red Cross waving from the nearest and highest tree.
Dripping water-carts with as many spigots as the regiment had companies,
howitzer guns guided by as many ropes as a May-pole, crowded past these
to the trail, or gave way to the ambulances filled with men half dressed
and bound in the zinc-blue bandages that made the color detestable
forever after. Troops of the irregular horse gallop through this
multitude, with a jangling of spurs and sling-belts; and Tommies, in
close order, fight their way among the oxen, or help pull them to one
side as the stretchers pass, each with its burden, each with its blue
bandage stained a dark brownish crimson. It is only when the figure on
the stretcher lies under a blanket that the tumult and push and
sweltering mass comes to a quick pause, while the dead man's comrade
stands at attention, and the officer raises his fingers to his helmet.
Then the mass surges on again, with cracking of whips and shouts and
imprecations, while the yellow dust rises in thick clouds and buries the
picture in a glaring fog. This moving, struggling mass, that fights for
the right of way along the road, is within easy distance of the shells.
Those from their own guns pass over them with a shrill crescendo, those
from the enemy burst among them at rare intervals, or sink impotently in
the soft soil. And a dozen Tommies rush to dig them out as k