ile I
attended as office-boy as usual, and was walking about with letters
most of the day. There are farriers and wheelers also at work in this
yard, so that one can always light one's pipe or make a cup of tea at
the forge fire. Just outside are ranged a row of antiquated Boer guns
of obsolete types; I expect they are the lot they used to show to our
diplomatic representative when he asked vexatious questions about the
"increasing armaments." I believe the Boers also left quantities of
good stores here when Pretoria was abandoned. These are fine new
barracks scarcely finished. They enclose a big quadrangle. Three or
four batteries, horse and field, are quartered in them now. Tried to
get to Pretoria after hours, but was stopped by a conscientious
sentry, who wanted my pass. I wished to get to the station, with a
vague idea of finding when there would be a train to Waterval, and
then running away.

_September 24._--Worried the Sergeant-Major again, and was told that I
might get away to-morrow. Meanwhile, I am getting deeper in the toils.

I was sitting on my tarpaulins writing, and feeling rather grateful
for the "softness" of my job, when a shout of "Ord'ly!" sent me into
the office. The Captain, who is a good-natured, pleasant chap, asked
me if I could do clerk's work. I said I was a clerk at home, and
thought I could. He said he thought I must find it irksome and lonely
to be sitting outside, and I might just as well pass the time between
errands in writing up ledgers inside. I was soon being initiated into
Ordnance accounts, which are things of the most diabolical complexity.
Ordnance comprises practically everything; from a gun-carriage to a
nail; from a tent, a waggon, a binocular, a blanket, a saddle, to an
ounce of grease and all the thousand constituents which go to make up
everything. These are tabulated in a book which is a nightmare of
subsections, and makes you dizzy to peruse. But no human brain can
tabulate Ordnance exhaustively, so half the book is blank columns, in
which you for ever multiply new subsections, new atoms of Ordnance
which nobody has thought of before. The task has a certain morbid
fascination about it, which I believe would become a disease if you
pursued it long enough, and leave you an analyticomaniac, or some
such horror. Myriad bits of ordnance are continually pouring in and
pouring out, and the object is to track them, and balance them, and
pursue every elusive atom from start to f