WITH THE C.I.V.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1514, 7 March 1901, Page 60

WITH THE C.I.V.

■•• There is som.-eth.mg; rather piquant in the contrast bet wee a ■the. bearer of. so arisfcoora-tie a name a-s , Erskine Childe.rgyj and his. posit ion- as a humble driver in. the ranks, of the Volunteer Artillery whp-j sailed, for South Africa- :at» the beginning: • of--last year. . The author of the brightly-writ ten ’• volume,.. “In the Ranks of the o.l.'v.was himself conscious of a vast change from the dignified seclusion of the House of Commons, where he held a. position as clerk, to the '.open veldt, ..and the stirring milieu of a camp, while the publio gain an 'almost Unparalleled opportunity ; of learning' the rbal“ ciirJ6umstances' of•' ah artillery man’s daily life, described , by dhe r who ' has : the ’ necessary education and literary skill to court ray the de-

tails in vivid and vivacious terms. Even to those wearied of the perpetual "stream of books dealing with ‘ the Boer war, Mr Childers- s graphic account of the events of the campaign, hi 3 modest allusion to his own share in the various actions in which the C.I.V. took so active and useful a part, the-incidental details of the country through which, they passed, the evenings by the camp fires, the. long marches in the broiling sun—have a freshness and vigour or their own,, which gives them a special charm. The whole book, however, is hardly more than a stringing together of pages. from a- diary, some of which were hastily penned while under heavy fire from, the enemy's guns, and there is no attempt at moralising, explaining, criticising, or any of the other forms of padding which encumber so many of the volumes already published on this war-worn subject of South Africa. The writer evidently laid to heart his .own maxim, “Take what comes and don’t worry,” and seems to have borne all the discomforts and privations which, fell to his lot in his new and strange situation with the courage and uncomplaining patience of the thoroughbred. As the result, he was able, ou his way home, to> sum up his experience, with the result- that he found “little but good in the retrospect.” “It is something,” he writes, “bred up as we have been in a complex civilisation, to have reduced living to its simplest terms, and to ' have realised how little one really wants. It is much to have learnt the discipline, self-restraint, endurance. and patience which soldiering demands, to- have given up newspaper reading for a time and have stepped! oneself into the region where history is made.” "