ome of us began to quake. At this critical
point, when I was wandering in the corridor of the post office, I found
the Press Censor, all alone and unguarded; so I fastened upon him and
drove him, the kindest and most amiable of men, into his office, and
stood over him while he wrote a long telegram to the chief, in which
many reasons were given why I should go to the front. The result was
that I received the desired privilege, but when I left Cape Town many
men were still haunting the barracks and the post office.

My week of waiting was a busy time, but in the intervals between
sitting down before staff officers, interviewing possible--and
impossible--servants, and trying horses, I contrived to see a little
of the Cape Town life in those martial days.

One seemed to be no nearer the war there than in London or Manchester.
Troops marched to the station and disappeared into the night; so they
did at home. There were hospitals there, filled with wounded men; none
so large or so full as Netley. There was a big camp there; not so big a
camp as Aldershot. And the place was full of officers, coming and going,
even as Southampton had been crowded with officers pausing on their way
to or from the war. Then there was at Cape Town something like a famine
of news; by far the latest and most trustworthy came from London. Things
that thrilled us out there and were cabled home in hot haste were found
to be stale news in England. As the storm blows over the cliff far out
to sea, but leaves the hamlet on the shore in absolute peace, so Cape
Town seemed to be sheltered by the big, dominating mountain from all the
home-going news, and to abide in peaceful ignorance while the
telegraph-rooms resounded to the talk of the needles.

I rather dreaded the hospitals, but they were magnificent. To see so
many men bearing pain bravely and cheerfully were privilege enough; but
to find men who had undergone the most dreadful tortures soberly begging
and hoping to be sent back to the front showed one what can be
accomplished by discipline and an ideal of conduct. Here is an example.
Two men lay side by side in the Wynberg hospital. One had five holes in
his body, made during a charge by as many bullets. He had nearly
recovered. The other had been shot while lying down, and the bullet had
passed along his back and touched the base of his spine, paralysing him
for ever. Both men were almost weeping; the first with joy because there
was a chance of h