ARTFUL COLONIAL DODGERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 6700, 18 May 1900, Page 3

ARTFUL COLONIAL DODGERS.

The Adelaide men scored a distinct ! success the other day. They had to march with their machine gun by road for many weary miles along the railway. Some troopers being up bright and early conceived the brilliant idea of taking the gun to pieces, putting "her" under the tarpaulin of the forage truck, and getting in and hiding there themselves. At grey dawn they crawled into the truck, and waited with anxious hearts. Would they be discovered ? If discovered, would they be punished. Fortune favoured them and they got away all right, and after travelling five miles or so they crawled from under the tarpaulin, lit their pipes, and travelled along gaily. A cavalry regiment was on i the train, and an officer saw them, and i asked, " What are you fellows doin" here *?" " We're a machine gun section, sir." They omitted to add that they were travelling without orders, and such is the British army that a thousand Boers, so long as thev put on a bold face and kept quiet once" they started, could march a hundred miles in the middle of an army and never be discovered. No one dreamed of questioning the right of a machine-gun section to be on a cavalry train. ''Machine-gun section !" said the officer. "Capital ! "We may meet Boers any minute. Mount your gun in the truck, and prepare for action." And so it came that the machine-gun section not only saved themselves one hundred miles' walk, but arrived in high form, riding on the truck with their gun mounted. And they were looked upon as most useful comrades. If the affair had leaked out they mi"ht have been seriously punished. °