Home Again

Thames Star, Volume XXXX, Issue 10448, 20 September 1902, Page 6 (Supplement)

Home Again

THE END OF A PERIOD,

.(By Edgar Wallace in the "Daily

Mail."'

Even as unrelenting fate, so does Smithy dog my footsteps. I leave him. Nt Heal on.' guarding stores;, andi two. days la:or his strident voice hails me somewlit :o between Potchefstroomand Klerksdmp, with a demand for 'pipers. I wui not surprised, therefore, on boardina ;he good ship Dunottar .Castle to discover the. pensive Smithy— no: lonL" 1!- a common soldier, but. officer's st' va.ntjwithi right to wear mufti ■—holding- forth to a confrere on the blessings of home life as compared with life on the veldt, Kitchener as a strategist, and De Wet as a fighter. '"Ome! Think of it, cocky," said, Smithy, ecstatically, "no more , trek, do more biscuit an' beef, no more De Wettin', but breakfast in bed, and ai pub at every cornerl!" ALL OF THEM HAPPY. There were 380 Smithies on board, not all as eloquent, as. my friend, but every man. a>s happy. I watched them troop inboard from the 'vantage place of the upper deck. Tanned, hardened, •wiry little men, released from work, released from school—that hard, hard school where the art of taking cover and sleeping comfortably in the rain isi taught im the kindergarten stage, And they were going- back to England. "Think of^itK To England, wrere. you people Uve and work and play without, ever . thinking you are t'f.ing wonderful things in a. wonderful country. It was t'lilsn'r reward that they might be allowed to do and be what you are doing, and what you have been unconscious of—your blessed privileges. There was a man on the quarterdeck in khaki, with heavy gold lacing om the peak of his cap. A nice, comfortable, handsome gentleman, a little inclined to stoutness. The; Tommies oil board did not know him because they had never served under Mm. Shiithyi knew him, and communicatted!, the news to the troop deck, and four days out Smithy, acting as a; sort of deputation, from "forrard," waited! on me with the question, "Is 'Charley Knox goin' to get a big reception at Southampton 1" I opined not, and Smithy was bitter. '"Cos- 'c ain't made a song about what ,'e's done like —" aaid Smithy. The general officer he mentioned I wquld not for the world name. DOESN'T ADVERTISE. "Can't you put something in the paper about 'im?" asked Smiit'bry, almost tearfully, for the men who served under Knox are very jealousl for their general. I promised.. Will you kindly insert this? . General Sir Chas. Knox, X.C.8., is the best of our younger generals. He has won his way to the honors that have beeni bestowed upom him by courage, endurance, and high military qualities. He doesn't care twopence for the buttering of newspaper correspondents, and 1 as the truth; would s'oundl like fulsome flattery, I will refrain, my dear Smithy, from pursuingl the subject. Suffice tha.t he captured more guns than any other general, and never got his portrait into a biograph; series. There were other men of the Knox stamp on. board, and their occupationsi were various. Capper, for instance. You know Capper, who flogged the. rebels back from the edlge of Capetown. Capper spent his time in taking the) sun wit'hi a sextant and working o^lt impossible longitudes. Ontoe, off Sierra Leone, he made <bh"& alaming 'discovery that we were thirty miles inland! THE OTHERS THERE. , Then there was Ewart—CaloWetin the Army andi kindly gentleman; -where) ever to be. Ewart in canvas slippers, doing nothing in particular; reading a little, talking a little, is not tih'e

Ewart I saw in Deicetniber, 1899, bringing back the battered ranks of the Highland: Brigade from Magersfontein, tli© manl who«tha,t early morning groped' blindly forward in the dark, lit only by the threads of fire that darted from the Boers' front trenches and the fitful summer lightnings behind* the looming kopjes. No* "the Ewart that stumbled) ml the trenches seeking his. dying chief what time WauoliGpe fell among his Highlanders. A strange change tihiis' from that horrible field, bleak, sodden, carpeted 1 with writhing men, stinking with cordite, and humming with bullets, to this: grateful ship 1 slipping so easily over the sunny seas. Here is a, man in pince-nez gravely bending over a. chess-board. He was with Methuen at Tweebosch, and could teTl you things, about irregular cavalry His opponent was a prisoner of De Wet, and lived on mealie paip> for two months. He, at 'it/ay rate, is not an enthusiastic pro-Boer. Burly and bluff, al typical country gentleman, Spens revives the glory of Hampshire, cricket with am oakum ball on a 20ft. pitch. Private soldier and' general officer, company officer and junior subaltern, their work ia done, aud how well done! "SOMETHING LIKE HOME." It is home! A chilly enough'morning,, with low-lying land on the port bow, and a yellow light glaring intermittently from a slip of land to starboard. A hundred snowy seagulls sailing placidly in the wake of the ship—• I a feathery escort for the homeward | bound warriors who flock to the side 9 and to the fo'c'sle, head for a glimpse of green. The engines slow and stop— a. dead stillness and then a shiver from bow to stern as they are reversed. A little boat dances over the grey waters, a little boat with a yellow light, and ai rope ladder drops over our side. A silence, and then again the beat of the propeller—the pilot is aboard. And so past the Needles, white and solemn in the early light. The channel narrows, and half speed becomes quarter speed. Houses on both banks 1 and tiny yachts lying at anchor till a bend bringsl in! view a dozenl steam, yachts* lying bow to stern, and in the centre a black twofunnelled veiss.el of peculiar shape. A man-o'-war squat and aloof. A black, flat mass of metal brooding om the waters. In 'her shadow another ship. A large yacht—black, too, with three masts. 'Three masts that fly three flags. We move abreast, and' .swing round to port. Down comes our ensign slowly— we are dipping a salute to the black yacht. 'Through your .glasses you. see the flag she flies. It is the Royal Standard, and Atkins gazes with reverence. Smithy touches my elbow. "This is something like home," ihe whispers, huskily. "Good old England! I—l wonder how the King 7s ?"