eral, a man of kindly
face and habit. As a soldier--a fierce, intrepid leader--can you not
remember the day when he lay amongst the scrub of the Modder bank with
his chest laid bare by a raking bullet, and refused to be carried to
hospital,--even entreated the doctors to let him carry out the mad
effort, worthy of a Marshal Ney, which had been intrusted to him, and
which all but cost him his life. Yet, so strange is the complex nature
of the Englishman, this man, whom the breath of war could rouse to a
courage almost superhuman, spent his leisure in the toils of artistic
photography, and evinced more demonstrative pleasure over a successful
plate than in a battlement of arms made sweet in victory.

At the next table sat a leader of another kind, or rather a different
development of the same type of quiet unassuming English
gentleman,--the gallant, thrusting, never-tiring Plumer. Small spare
man of dainty gait and finish, yet moulded in a clay which hitherto
has shown no flaw in the rougher elements of the soldier. It is no
inconsiderable tribute to his sterling qualities as a leader that he
gained both the confidence and devotion of the rough Bushboys from the
Antipodes, with whom he was associated. But however dainty and
unassuming the shell, it is the spirit which fashions the man, and he
who would continue in the shade of Plumer's banner must ride with all
the cunning he may possess to prove himself worthy of the lead he
follows. At another table sits Pilcher, the man on wires. Hot-headed
he may be, yet withal crafty in war: worthy representative of the race
of young soldiers which the Nile has bred. Then there was our own
brigadier, as buoyant in spirit and as light of heart as any of his
ancestors who played the gallant in the Court of Versailles, yet
possessing beneath the veneer of gaiety a steadfast tenacity of
purpose, which favoured the quartering added from the north of the
Tweed. The room was full of men--men who for eighteen solid months had
been engaging in the stern realities of war. The leaders who had
exercised the balance of life and death, the juniors who had looked a
thousand dangers squarely in the face. If success in war was only made
up in the excellence of fighting men, then England could stand out
pre-eminent. Unfortunately, success lies in business-soldiers _plus_
fighting men. It is in her business-soldiers that England's weakness
lies.

It is only when the intention is to do something despe