A LETTER FROM CORPORAL CON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2429, 3 October 1900, Page 65

A LETTER FROM CORPORAL CON.

Dear Dot and Little Folk,— ln my last letter we had reached Marandellas, of which place I said that I should tell you more in this my next letter. Marandellas is the place chosen By' Sir Frederick Cariiugton, the general commanding the Rhodeeian Field Force, for his base camp. It is the nearest and most suitable point on the railway for the landing of and transmission of troops to either Fort Victoria or Bulawayo, and it is here Carrington equips his men 'and 3ees that they aie all ready for the road. All the colonial troops have been re-equipped, and even the New Zealand Fourth Contingent have been served with new uniforms, saddlery, and grins. The township consists of a station, or siding, a mud building with a thatch roof doing duty for a store and hotel combined, and p post office, whilst just a mile away from the siding the military camp is laid down. The camp is quite a busy place, with its rows of while tents, its hoi so lines, its stores, and ho&pitals. There is a canteen, an ordnance store, a piovisioii store, a magazine, an office and horse hospital combined, and a large hospital— all fine large buildings built of galvanised iron. All around this small place battles were fought by the British against the Mashonas in the rebellion of 1596, and there still remain the forts and breastworks built by the British during this war. Almost every kopje (the Mashonaland kopjes are nothing more nor less than huge heaps of rocks, with passages running all through them, and ahno3t in eveiy case surmounted with a huge rock) has been fortified, and it is a matter of no small wonder how the British soldiers managed to climb to the tors of some of the larger rocks and build there water vessels and breastworks of stone. One day J asked leave to go out shooting, and upon having it granted I made straight tracks for the place of which I told you in my last letter, and I found that the officer buiied there was not Major Wilson, but Major Francis Sfcuddart Evans, Ist Battalion Sherwood Foresters, who was killed whilst serving m the mounted infantry during the native rebellion in an attack on Gadzi's Kraal, a small native village. There were 16 graves all told, and I noticed that they had all been made within a very short time of one another, and that they were very neatly kept and well looked after even in this lonely place. There v/as one grave, the heading of which -would almost make one wish that the cowardly and treacherous Mashonas might rise again, now that we are better able to reach and punish them. The inscription on this stone ran : "In memory of Mrs C. M. Heine and three children, murdered by Mashonas, June, 1888." One of the graves held a hero — a young South African officer named Lieutenant Morris, of the Urntali "Volunteers, who lost his life whilst rescuing a brother officer in a desperate fight at Gadzi's Kraal. Of course I told you that I had left the IST.Z. Contingent and joined the Royal Field Artillery, now known as the Ehodesian Field Force Artillery. The big guns sent out to General Cariington weie not fully manned by the Imperial troops, and as a result he called for volunteers from among the colonial troops, and a number of officers, noncommissioned officers, and men left their colonial contingents and joined the big guns. There are three batteries, one as yet incompletod, of 15-pounders, and two batteries of VickersMazims, or pom-poms. These pom-poms fire shells weighing lib at the rate of about 300 .shells per minute, and derive their nick-name fiorn the peculiar "pom" report which they give. No. 1 N.Z. 15-pounder battery consist of six 12-pounders converted into 15-pounders, whilst our six guns, No. 2 15-pounder battery, are of the very latest pattern, and aie the only gun of their type t>t present in South Africa, bo you may imagine that we take a pride in our battery. Perhaps it would interest you to know how v/e spend our time in camp under English 'officers. At first 1 felt just a little nervous, because our mate=s used to try to frighten us out of joining the artillery by telling us that colonials coulcl never stand Imperial discipline, but I think that so far, at any rate, we 2kv?q gs&jt a very happy time, and the only

difference I find is that the work is done much more systematically, and that wo have much more leisure time at our disposal, while the officers spare no pains ill making thing? pleasant for the men. We ligve a cricket pitch, a football giound, and a hockey ground in our camp, whilst riot one of the colonial camps ever dream of having a game of any sort "at all.' Our reveille goes at 6 a.m., and we have an hour to wash, etc. ; fall-in sounds at 7 a.m., and we take our horses foi an hour's exercise, and enjoy our morning's canter immen&ely. Bieakfast, 8 a.m. ; stables, 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. ; drill, 11 a.m. to 12 a.m ; from 12 noon to 2 p.m. we have to ourselves for lunch, etc., and. then we have gun drill. The afternoon' drill is very often skipped fo^ a match of some sort, and on such an occasion we ara allowed to g&t stables over early.

Our most popular game is hockey, and the colonials have waged ma-ny a hockey battle against the British Isles, who possess a great enthusiast in our major, Major Paris. We have some very fine horses, and at first we were rather amused at the .way the Imperial men pampered them; but we are now beginning to understand that in this country too much oare cannot be taken of either man or beast. Every military camp on our route has been the last resting place of some poor fellow and many a good horse has been dragged away off the road to make food for the myriads of vultures and crows that infest this dreary country. How sweet a sight would New Zealand's lovely mountains, green bush, and clear running streams prove to the weary sufferers on their fevered, racked: beds in the comfortless iron hospital you people at home cannot conceive ; and how they must long to hear the soft voice of mother or sister no one but the weary sufferer who hears his moans of pain answered by the attendant with the well-meant but rough question, ''Well, what's the matter now with you?" can know.

The country around puts one in mind of standing m a withered ciop of oats, and even the very trees seem baked up, although m a few months' time — just about Christinas — Rhodesia will put on her green mantle. At this time of the year the dried grass on the veldt often takes fire, and the law is veiy heavy upon any natives found lighting fires, as they sometimes do to capture the smaller game which hide among the long, yellow grass. Dear Dot and little folk, many weeks have passed by since I started this letter, and as I have at last found time I must draw it to a hasty close and skip much that I should like to tell you of.

Well, to cut a long story short, we commenced our march to Buluwayo in a veiy go-as-you-please kind of way, but after getting half-way on our road wo were suddenly staitled into activity by the news that Lord Carrington had been obliged to retreat before his enemies, and that we must hurry on. Tents and superfluous clothing were dispensed with, and on we pushed, commencing our march never later than 3 a.m., until at last we reached Buluwayo, of which town more in my next. The next day after reaching Buluwayo we entrained for Mafeking, dropping two of our 15-pounders and two Maxims at a place called Crocodile Pools. Crocodile Pools was the scene of very heavy fighting between Plumer and the Boers, and is at present invested by a body of colonial troops, some of whom are New Zealanders, as the T3oers are expected to make that way very shortly. From Crocodile Pools on we were continually on the gui vive, for lieavy fighting had taken place all along 'the line but a day or two before between the Australian Bushmen and the Boers. At Le Obatsi, a very small station, I had a minute's chat with the station master, and he told me that he had been taken prisoner at the commencement of the Avar, and his small station had been almost blown away by Boer shells. Between Lobatsi and Mafeking everything wag deserted. Pretty little cottages sunounded by nice flower gaiden3 were standing unoccupied, doors and windows broken, or wide open, and in some cases isolated houses were a total wieck, bearing testimony to the wanton destruction of propeity by the Dutchmen. At one small siding where we stopped the Boers had broken into the post office and had not left an article in the house, with the exception of the safe, which at the time of our visit was lying on its side, marked and battered all over by the marauders in their endeavours to prize it open. Unable to buist it open, they had managed by some means or other to make two large holes in the side, through vhich they had extracted the contents. Not far from here we saw a truck which had been captuied by tho enemy and run over into the break of a destroyed bridge, and there it lay, to give us an idea what we might also expect if tho Boers could only manage to get to business on the line. Shortly after we reached Mafeking, and I spent my first night in that city guarding our ammunition carts just outside the lailway station. My guard — for I may a,s well tell you that I havo been made a corporal — slept in their greatcoats on the gravel alongside the station, and during the night the sentry and I could hear the roaring of heavy guns not far away, and I could not help wondering how on earth they could see to &hoot, for tho night was ciaik and cloudy. Next morning T_ got into cgnip and in spite of the fact that I had the night before gone minus my tccv and had not yet breakfasted, I dived into the pile of letters that awaited me, '^itl forgot all about hunger in

the pleasure of reading some news of home, the first which I had received in South Africa. I read with pleasure the good wishes of all the little folk, but I really do not think that I deserve them all. Dear little folk, it is not fun to shoot Boers, and I am sure that if you could only live a poidier's life for a very .short time your prayer would be that peace might be proclaimed. You would also find that j a soldier has more than oae enemy to fight. 1 Often when roving, round among the different classes of men with whom we are obliged to live daily, I think of those words of Bobby Burns : You'll love the woild fu' soon, my lad, Aud, Anchev, dear, believe me, You'll find mankind an unco' lot,

And muckle they will grieve ye.

No matter how much the Boers may be in the wrong, they have fiiends and loved ones at he me, as fond and as anxious about diem as our friends at 'home are about u&, and although always ready to do our duty, we would rather not f.lioot Boeia if it could be avoided. Anc? now, Dot, foigive all mistakes m this hurried letter, for with best wishes to Boy, and thanking the little folk for all their good wishes, I remain, — Yours truly,

CON. P.S. — I v/as so pleased to get a letter from Boy to-day. — C.

[Trooper Con 110 longer, but Coiporal Con! Congratulations on jour promotion, comrade, and may it be o.ily the first step up the ladder. I am glad jou have taken the opportunity oi speaking a kind word for the poor deluded Bosrs, Con. It is their sclf-tcekmg leaders who arc to blame for the war, and not the men who have been deceived at eveiy turn by the unsciupulous officials and mercenaries whoso Bole object is their own aergiandisement. — DOT.]