On the Veldt; A Plain Narrative of Service Afield in South Africa (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. PORT ELIZABETH TO KROONSTAD. Off to the Front?Missing Horses?Troop-train Travelling?The Joy of It?Small Mercies?A New Sensation?On Sleeping Clothed? Speed ! ? Hospitable Cookhouse?Bungles at Bloemfontein? Defects of Transport?The Horse Scramble?In Camp. From Port Elizabeth to Kroonstad we were to travel by train. I had already heard enough of troop-trains, their speed and general characteristics, to know that we were not in for a typical holiday-trip. But we were not out for a picnic, anyhow: the last lingering idea of that sort, wherever the idea had existed, had vanished long ago. The great thing?the one thing that had relieved and delighted all of us?was that we were at last on shore, making good progress with a definite end, and that end active field-work, with stirring possibilities of hard fighting for the cause we all had at heart. Our recent fears had gone; the war was not over; there was still work to do, and we were to take our part in it. I think most of us would have gone cheerfully to Kroonstad, even if we had had to walk barefooted. We had three trains altogether: one for troops, two for horses. The first horse-train got away pretty early in the day, with Captain Wilson of South Australia in charge. The troop-train went next, in charge of Colonel Rowell.The second horse-train, under my charge, left half an hour or so after the troop-train. Some of us dined with the hospitable Mayor of Port Elizabeth before leaving; but we all got away during that Tuesday, according to orders. I mentioned awhile ago that we had already innocently encountered one of the risks of war, and thereby lost certain of our horses. I began to realise that fully at the Port Elizabeth railway-yard. Wilson had got away at noon with 240 horses and 40 men; I was to hav...