WITH THE SIXTH CONTINGENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5

WITH THE SIXTH CONTINGENT.

(From "Star" Special" Reporter.)

PRETORIA, May 10

After leaving Pietcrsburg. General Plumer made camp at Oliphants Eiver for some time, from which, place he would send out strong patrols to scour the country each side| of the river, and we would come in| touch with Kitchener's column! about 40 or 50 miles east of us withi the result that we were always bring-j lw in prisoners, waggons, and eat-, tie, who are trying to get through toj their commandos. The West Australians of our column have done some. ffood work in this respect. At lost; when we started to move south we had to bring all prisoners and their: waggons: and cattle., which previously had been sent to Petersburg, \ and then, forwarded down by rail to the different depots. One can imagine the length of a column with prisoners and cattle at ached To £ive some idea of the length of it the advance guard would halt, dismount and camp, and the rearguard would arrive about three hours later, on the] move all the time. .In the morning] the advance guard would move at 6 a.m., and perhaps the rear-guard, a everything went well Order of marching, advance guard, usually a different regiment every day, then the pom poms and a mounted guard, next a battery of guns, then the general and his staff, and main body, then a couple of miles of Cape carts containing officers luggage, cooks, orderlies, etc., with all their gear, ammunition carts, water carts, some ambulance carts, then the mule wag-g-ons with quarter-masters stores, hor«e feed, and troopers blankets, it they have any. Then comes the convoy proper, that is the stores and horse feed for the whole column. Very few waggons have less than .10 or 12 mules to draw them, or 12 or 14 bullocks. Then come the prisoners and their waggons, cattle, and the rear-oTiard. and ambulance waggons. Of course there are armed men on each flank all the way along the column stretched where possible fo a mil- or so from the column, and whenever the column halts there are men sent out to different post, to watch the enemy does not advance on us. The whole thing, when carried out by good officers, works smoothly, and no one company or man gets more than his share of work to do. As for our contingent S£ alone speaks for itself. One of our orderlies, who is on the general's staff, overheard the general say that the New Zealanders were as good a hodv of men as ever he had under n?m y I think Captain Markham mg the General as well as any of them.

He has plenty of dash, and docs not mind a bit of work. Another thing about our crowd is the kit waggon. Every other regiment but ours has one for their blankets* and kit, in which is carried a full change of clothes, blankets, watersheds, etc., which they get every night. Our unfortunate mob have to overload their horses or else throw away (heir kit, which latter always happens, with the result that the man are dirty and sleep cold at night, in fact are generally more miserable than any other crowd I have come in contact with, it is said that all this will be altered when we start trekking again. Out of GOO horses we started With we have only about 100 alive, and out of that number half are sick, and at the remount depot. 1 think several of our horses would have lasted longer ifj we had officers who would look after these sort of things. There are a large number of men coming into hospital every day from nil parts of the northern districts with malarial fever and dysentery, but few eases of enteric. Colonel tianks was through the hospital the other day visiting our invalids (of which there is a failnumber) wishing all a speedy recovery, and return to our regiment, which is encamped (i miles from Pretoria waiting lor remounts and outfitting' again. Dave (Jallagher, the well-known Auckland footballer, has been promoted to sergeant.