ous for their care of their men,
and for their constant endeavour to keep them well served with
supplementary supplies of food. They foraged right and left, and
bargained with the farmers for all available milk and butter and
cheese and bread. Men on the march cannot always live on rations only,
and good leadership looks after the larder as well as after the lives
of the men. On this gracious errand there rode forth from the camp as
fine a group of regimental officers as could possibly be found; to
wit, the colonel of the Grenadiers, his adjutant and transport officer
who, beyond most, were choice young men and goodly; also the colonel
of one of the Coldstream battalions, and one orderly. Hiding near a
neighbouring kopje was a small body of Zarps watching for a chance of
sniping or capturing a seceding Boer. Of them our officers caught
sight, and with characteristic British pluck sought to capture them.
But on the kopje the Boers found effectual cover, plied their rifles
vigorously and presently captured all their would-be captors. As at
Belmont, and on the same day of the month, the colonel of the
Grenadiers was wounded in two places; the transport officer, the son
of one of our well-known generals, lost his right arm; the adjutant, a
younger brother of a noted earl, was shot through the heart, and the
life of the other colonel was for a while despaired of. It was in some
senses the saddest disaster that had yet befallen the Guards' Brigade;
and it was the outcome not of some decisive battle, but of a kindly
quest for milk.

CHAPTER II

A LONG HALT AT BLOEMFONTEIN

[Sidenote: _Refits._]

Before we could resume our march every commissariat store needed to be
replenished, and every man required a new outfit from top to toe. If
the march of the infantry had been much further prolonged we should
have degenerated into a literally bootless expedition, for some of the
men reached Bloemfontein with bare if not actually bleeding feet,
while their nether garments were in a condition that beggared and
baffled all description. Once smart Guardsmen had patched their
trousers with odd bits of sacking, and in one case the words "Lime
Juice Cordial" were still plainly visible on the sacking. So came that
"cordial" and its victorious wearer into the vanquished capital.
Others despairingly gave up all further attempts at patching, having
repeatedly proved, as the Scriptures say, that the rent is thereby
made worse. So they