WITH THE RED KIMBERLY

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 June 1901, Page 708

WITH THE RED KIMBERLY

By Ivan Hill.

J? Sabbath €ye Remembrance oj the War ih South jTfrica. THE 14th day of January, 1900, closed in upon the great camp at Modder River, and the last tinge of sunset faded out across the West over the wide, brown, barren " Karroo," which seemed like a wild, wasteful ocean suddenly

stagnated and soldified into the wierd inanimate — Sphinx-like ; a desolate range of grey-brown waves of silence, and lonely wind-swept distances to the Eastern and Western horizons. "The Veldt!" — in very truth, a giant desert place and night-mare-land that will long, long be haunted by the ghosts and memories of old battle-fields. The sound of bugles comes cheerily across the naked, shadowless void, and then, from the summit of the Base kopje, field-glasses are levelled upon a host of phantoms in khaki, moving noiselessly tent-wards in the dai'keniug twilight. The brave little flag above the Red Cross depot waves gently through the gloom, and God's stars shine out, one by one, in the clear sky. Then, through the cold night air, and softened and made beautiful by distance, come the half-tones of our dear old English band playing so sweetly and tenderly — something which, at Home, didn't always overcome us with a little flood of emotion, nor bring the rain into our eyes ! Those old hymns — the old, sweet messages, how unutterably they appealed to all our hearts! . . . "Abide with me, fast falls the Eventide" . . . "Lead, kindly Light," and then, in which is blended the true, fresh voices of a few " Army Nursing Sisters," the inspiring strains of " Onward, Christian Soldiers ! " . . . . And the music and the words are caught up amongst the twinkling lights

"Of Lanterns dimly burning."

It seemed as if the night were all sanctified by ten thousand voices singing gloriously 1 —until, in the midst of it all, out of the darkness, and from the North, there flashed a. strong, white search-light from the conning tower of "De Beers" — forty miles away — it was the nightly signal that told how Kimberly was held for England.