call doolies: these
were filled up and taken away to the Elandslaagte Station. At one
o'clock we had the rare sight of a general under a waggon trying to
sleep, and two privates on top of it rummaging for loot. One found
himself a stock of gent's underwear, and contrived comforters and gloves
therewith; one got his fingers into a case and ate cooking raisins.
Once, when a few were as near sleep as any were that night, there was a
rattle and there was a clash that brought a hundred men springing up and
reaching for their rifles. On the ground lay a bucket, a cooking-pot, a
couple of tin plates, and knives and forks--all emptied out of a sack.
On top of them descended from the waggon on high a flame-coloured shock
of hair surmounting a freckled face, a covert coat, a kummerbund, and
cloth gaiters. Were we mad? Was it an apparition, or was that under the
kummerbund a bit of kilt and an end of sporran? Then said a voice, "Ould
Oireland in throuble again! Oi'm an Oirish Highlander; I beg your
pardon, sorr--and in throuble again. They tould me there was a box of
cigars here; do ye know, sorr, if the bhoys have shmoked them all?"

VIII.

THE HOME-COMING FROM DUNDEE.

SUPERFLUOUS ASSISTANCE--A SMILING VALLEY--THE BORDER MOUNTED
RIFLES--A RAIN-STORM--A THIRTY-TWO MILES' MARCH--HOW THE TROOPS
CAME INTO LADYSMITH.

LADYSMITH, _Oct. 27._

"Come to meet us!" cried the staff officer with amazement in his voice;
"what on earth for?"

It was on October 25, about five miles out on the Helpmakaar road, which
runs east from Ladysmith. By the stream below the hill he had just
trotted down, and choking the pass beyond, wriggled the familiar tail of
waggons and water-carts, ambulances, and doolies, and spare teams of old
mules in new harness. A couple of squadrons of Lancers had off-saddled
by the roadside, a phalanx of horses topped with furled red and white
pennons. Behind them stood a battery of artillery. Half a battalion of
green-kilted Gordons sunned their bare knees a little lower down; a
company or two of Manchesters back-boned the flabby convoy. The staff
officer could not make out what in the world it meant.

He had pushed on from the Dundee column, but it was a childish
superstition to imagine that the Dundee column could possibly need
assistance. They had only marched thirty odd miles on Monday and
Tuesday; starting at four in the morning, they would by two o'clock or
so have covered the seventeen