The Day's March.

Evening Post, Volume LXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

The Day's March.

THROUGH DUST AND TOIL AND HUNUER AFTER Dj* WET. (By an Axistralian.) [The author of this article (Mr. W. H. Anderson), says the Daily Mail, is an Australian surgeon who, on the call of the Mother" Country to the colonies in the black winter of 1899-1900, threw up his professional work and joined the Yeomanry <&s a trooper. He served through a great part of the war with Rundle's Division, the "Starving Eighth," and later was appointed to the special police in attendance on the Boer women and children. It was a striking letter of Mr. Anderson's which recently attracted so much attention in the Times, and by the courtesy of the editor of that journal was reprinted in the Daily Mail under the heading, "Our Polite Army." An interesting fact is that on his arrival at the front, heaving taken his dental instruments with him, he found his services as dentist in great request, as no provision had been made to relieve the sufferings of our soldiers in. this regard.] ( The day's march begins while the stars are stilt winking in a cold, keen sky, and with a white-faced moon doing sen-try-go in ,the cloud gaps. Clatter, clatter, clatter! and the Yeomen are moving through the camp to the front to take up their position as advance guard. Away over the Basuto mountains there are a few faint stieaks of light in the sky, and then the blood-red sun swings up and the day dawns like the ripening of anples. With the dawn the advance guard breaks up like a swarm of ants when the precocious schoolboy heaves a stone among them. Away they go, dotting the yellow veldt, skirting kopjes, and searching dongas; at any moment liable to be swept into eternity by the spiteful bullet of the sniper. Up in the front the going is comparatively pleasant, for there you miss the j convoy dust, and you have in addition j the musical tss, tss, tss of the guns to cheer you on your way. Down in the , rear it is awful. It is Hades all the way to the rearguard j dust and the stench of dead bullocks ! The heat is terrible. * ' TORTURED MEN. • The little ragged yellow men from Manchester look no longer to Heaven for help ; they hang their heads and drag their lagging feet across the dusty leagues 'of veldt. It is like following a funeral in Inferno. Not one of these haggard men utter a word ; each is a machine, a poor, worn-out, broken-down affair, trailing in the dust of 500 wagons and countless trek oxen. They are creeping along at the rate of two miles an hour and hoping to catch De Wet. Yesterday the mail arrived. It was full of legends aboub tons of clothing for the troops and countless comfortable boots. / The day's march reveals the truth. % Half the Manchesters have no soles ; dozens have no boots at all, and are limping along bare-footed, or with a puttee wrapped round the bleeding sole. Glothki'gl'Go and ask the Staffonds about the clothing. Ask that man with^ the hole in his trousers large enough for a. church window. There are seven devils in that man's etomach, and they will answer for him and make his tongue red-hot with oaths. Ask that man with the tattered sack round his loins. Clothing, forsooth! Ask yet another! GShat poor devil trailing along in the dust and the blinding glare of a noon-day sun. He is good enough, fie wears a thick Army cloak ' all the way, because he has no trousers at all. Kind, gentle, pious, British public ! Your sons are 1 down in Africa tramping the red leagues with bleeding feet, and clothed like an Italian organ grinder's monkey in prehistoric times. Well might a great man sneer at yoxi unctuous rectitude. Bint 'the little ragged yellow men are dumb and silent through ,it all. The men have had nothing to drink so far. Four hours' marching and j o water! Six hours, and still no water! Not because there waa none in the land. Oh, nol Two hours ago the convoy crossed* a clear limpid stream ; but the commanding officer, crop full with gpod breakfast, did not think it waa wise to halt. ' No one was allowed to x fall out. The officer had whisky and water in his bottle. The private's tongue was dry and swollen, his lips cracked, toe- crocked for speech. And so he still tramps on, dumb and silent through it all. LESSONS FROM TOMMY. Here is a Yeoman struggling to keep in his saddle. The day's march has its troubles and trials for him also. He has lost a lot of blood lately ; he suffers fr^is dysentery. Yesterday he went to tie Yeoman medico, who advised the Yeoman to take brandy and milk. Brandy and milk! The doctor kne<? very well there was a drop of nei her in' the land, save in" the officers' mess. And so the Yeoman went back to his I,.ijps to lose more blood — a flesh offering to the great pious British public. But he, too, has learnt to be dumb and siloat." Poor Tommy Atkins has taught him hi w to suffer, and Tommy has no horse. They are going to catch De Wet, &lim De Wet, who can travel eight miles mi hour if he wishes to. Here a bullock has fallen out ; he is dragged to the side i f the trek to die. The last of the joiwoy passes; his poor glassy ©yes look piteously after the wagons ; his month halfopen, as if asking for help. These glassy eyes follow you ! But the poor bullock must lie there, and die of thirst, his aide scarred with a thousand lashes. Hint beast has toiled in the yoke for t'x months, dragging the white man's hueden over countless leagues of dusty veirttHis life has been spent in trailing along in the rear of a hundred other wagona, the dust half-blinding his blood-shot eves His life has peen spent in trailing .alo.ig with the white man's burden, and floggel and cursed all the way by a black imn. Before all life has gone, and while his eyes can still see, great, ungainly, ni» couth grey vultures, circling round the noon-day sun, will sight his caroa c lying helpless by the trek. But many more bullocks and many more men must yet be offered up on the shrine of war before the Boer leader will be trapped. BISCUIT AND WATER. Then comes the halt, and th.i iilt'e ragged men drop down on ,the lurmiig veldt like weary cattle. By and by fifty yards from the camp, the halting place is dotted with bare backs bent over blue shirts. Continuous inspection of one's garments on active service is the only way to keep them on your back. Biscuit and water is the midday feast on the march, and the regular sacrament to the war god. • • But the Manchester man does not complain ; he is on quarter rations now. When he gets back to the great manufacturing city it will be full rations. And then the Manchester man looks down into his canteen and its dirty, muddy water. Who knows but what he, too, may fall a victim this very day to the spiteful Mauser. The brigade must be on the move again. On the march, at two miles an hour, to catch De Wet, slim D© Wet. How the wily Boer commandant must smile at the mighty tortoise creeping over the burning veldt, while he himself is sleeping comfortably in a feather bed at a friendly farmhouse. And theo to-inorrovr the lumbering tortoise will come down the road to the farmhouse, and out of spite set fire to it, but not De Wet. And so . the long convoy trails along like a serpant down the kopjo aide, its sinuous, '

dusty courso a splendid guide to the enemy. Here in a quiet little valley, the convoy halts j dailcness creeps overthe land. Soon the veldt is lit. up with countless little fires. Around these the little ragged yellow men are huddled in twos ana threes, coolnng their pound of flour, thankful that there is no rain. Had there been rain the dung would not have burnt; there would have been no fire, and, consequently, no food., And so Tommy, ever thankful for small mercies, eats his ration and falls to sleep. ' Out on the kopje, weary, but faithful men of his own race guard hiSi, and will continue to guard aim until the bullet of some hidden foe finds him out, and his eyes close in eternal rest. In the meantime he will sleep little and march a great deal. He will starve aud suffer many privations for his little visage, for I that was his vow when' he left his Lan- ! cashire cottage. De Wet will not be caught, but he will lake caro that" the Manchester man suffers many privations, and the great British public will see that he starves. And now the little camp fires are out, and night has fallen light as a rose leaf on the sleeping camp of - the little ragged yellow men. Thus ends the day's march.