was powerless. In vain did the eager men watch for the proverbial herd of maddened cattle which, driven ahead of the flying commando, should endeavour to break through the network of iron. Not an ox, not a horse, not a desperate sheep tried even to smell the barbed wire, let alone charge it; and with the mystery deepened the general disgust. The Intelligence and Supply Officer and Provost Marshal now cautiously approached the Commandant and made tentative proposals to go out reconnoitring himself or to take out a party of scouts in order to find out exactly what was going on. But he met with no success. The chief was adamant in his refusal of permission for any such attempt. And rightly so. Scouts could do no more than discover that a fight was going on which was already known; they could not tell who was fighting or where. To do this would necessitate close contact which might mean capture or death at the hands of the enemy, or death at the hands of their own side. Besides, so long as it was dark, even such precise intelligence would not help the troops in Jakhal's Vlei two miles away. If there were no reasonable possibility of gaining some some definite advantage in exchange, the Colonel was not going to allow more lives to be risked. And so it came about that while some hundreds of Christian men were spending the bitter night in the actual attempt to kill each other, scores of others were cursing

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their slowness and awaiting with ghoulish expectancy the approach of their own chance.

As may have been imagined, this fever of impatience to a special degree possessed the soul of the O.C.R.A. He was not one of your strong, silent men. In him, indeed, the longing for "Kanonen Futter" had by now become intensified till it was an obsession betraying the impetuous bloodthirstiness of the novice, and not the cold, calculating touch of the artist in slaughter. Though he realised that the guns firing in the distance were probably those on an armoured train, he gathered that the enemy must be at about the same range, only more to the west, and had long ago prepared for instant action. But until the Commandant gave the word he could do nothing. There were the hostile forces gambolling and taking liberties within easy reach of his monsters. And here was this stray freak colonel who had suddenly blown into Jakhal's Vlei from God-knows-where, preventing his seizing the chance of a lifetime. The man was not even a Gunner. He very likely knew all about hand-guns, but how could he realise the value of the intervention of the Third Arm. From his turn-out, he was probably a prehistoric "dug-out," a "was- bird" of "weird" early Victorian ideas. Besides, he had been distinctly snuffy when approached, and had misnamed his O.C.R.A. foully. What was the Service coming to?

And if this beardless youth

was dying to fire off a shell in earnest, can he be censured? It was, at bottom, no lust for slaughter. He was simply keen. In the life of a soldier the chance of the "real thing" comes-perhaps once-perhaps never; the remainder of his days are spent in make-belief, in training and practice for the event -den Tag-which may never arrive. In other walks of life a man exercises his trade all the time. He does not spend his career in-so to speakfiring off blank ammunition or in shooting at a target. Who can blame a desire for the "real thing," or professional zeal, whether it be that of a burglar, a Harley Street appendix-hunter, or a trainer of blind monkeys?

Itching to approach the Commandant again, Lieutenant Greig - Usher for a long time fidgeted backwards and forwards between two pits on the hill-top. In each of these a few silent men were clotted round a pair of clumsy wheels with broad shining tyres, from between which projected skywards a squat howitzer. At

last he could stand the suspense no longer. Besides, being a zealous officer of some initiative, he was determined. In the words of a song oozing with music - hall patriotism which was current at the period, he was one of the "Boys of the Bull-dog Breed," and an indiarubber bull - dog at that. But he often lost from want of tact what he might have gained by pertinacity. Screwing up his courage, he gradually approached the figure in the red

bonnet, and, carefully adjusting strength to distance, or rather, charge to range, managed accidentally to stumble over a stone a little way in front of his chief. He clutched his foot as if in pain and said "Confound it!" loudly. Then, making play to recognise for the first time the man in front of whom he had used such a very strong expression, he added: "Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I didn't see you were so close." So far so good, but his next words were a relapse.

"Bit tricky walking round among these beastly stones in the moonlight, eh, what? By the way, sir, I was wrong about the range to their guns. It is really four thousand three hundred, and not four thou "Thanks, Mr Gusher, thanks Was there a malicious twinkle in the eye of the "Was-bird" as he repeated the name, or was it a glint of moonlight? — “but, you don't seem to realise that they're almost certain to be our own guns on an armoured train. As to the riflemen, it would be criminal to shoot at them without knowing who they are, and even if we knew they were the enemy, it would be worse than useless. No, we must have more light thrown upon the situation before we

"Quite, sir, quite. Of course that's what I was thinking," was the totally untruthful reply. "Four thousand is about the best range for starshell, and I have a lot here."

"If that's what you're driving at, you can burst a couple

of star-shell to the right of their guns, though I doubt whether it will be the slightest use at this distance."

The subaltern waited no second bidding. With a thrill such as he had not experienced since as a cadet he had roared out the executive word for firing a friction-tube at the half-yearly inspection at "The Shop," he now gave the necessary command. There followed a subdued clamour and the clanking as of iron oven-doors being opened and shut. Then silence.

"Number one-fire!"

With a roar and a shriek the shell rumbled up into the sky, while every glass on the hill-top was directed towards the veld to the right of the distant guns. The landscape was lit up in a ghostly sheen,

and the rails on the visible. stretches of line glittered as the projectile burst into a cloud of stars which floated downwards; but even through the best glasses nothing could be distinguished of the enemy.

The second howitzer spoke, and its missile burst with equal brilliancy and with equally negative result. When its last star had faded into nothingness, the moonlight seemed to have grown more watery than before, the darkness to have increased.

The din of battle in the distance continued, varying in intensity but never quite ceasing. There was nothing for Jakhal's Vlei but to wait for the dawn, or the enemy-whichever should come first. And right profanely did Jakhal's Vlei wait.

To return to the scene of carnage at the front, it was not until the sad glimmer in the sky heralded the approach of another day that a halt was called to the slaughter being carried on between the railway and Lonely Farm. By this time the firing had died away completely; but an uncomfortable feeling had seized the participants on our side that things had somehow not developed properly, for no enemy had been actually seen. The armoured train, which had been the focus of so much brilliancy during the long hours of dark

ness, now sidled towards No. 342, and behind it slunk a consort which had puffed up to the sound of the guns during the night and right nobly taken its its share in hurling missiles over the veld. It is not easy to say which of these two collections of metal boxes had the more draggled appearance. Clothed entirely in steel, each train was painted from funnel-rim to couplingbars in a non-committal neutral tint almost brutal in its suggestion of sheer business. As the light grew stronger the grey sides of the trucks could

be seen to be mottled with the dark stains of oil and streaked with rust like the plates of a cattle-boat after a North Atlantic voyage. The 12pounder guns peering from behind their shields and the Union-Jacks hanging from the gaffs at the sterns of the trains gave them almost the appearance of slovenly kept ships of war. The whole outlook was dismal. Besides the two sinister trains there was nothing in the drab landscape but steel rails, barbed wire fencing and entanglements, and an iron blockhouse. Truly has pomp and panoply departed from warfare.

Both trains drew up alongside the blockhouse, and from one of Mother's trucks, almost squinting from lack of sleep and the headache produced by the metallic din which had assailed his ears all night, descended a dirty-looking tramp clad in soiled khaki. When he hailed the commander of No. 342, however, his voice proclaimed that he was the officer commanding the train. Whilst the worthy sergeant was ponderously climbing through the entanglement in obedience to this summons, a second ruffian swung himself down from the hinder train and joined the first.

It was the fashion at this time for the officers on board the armour trains to imitate their comrades of the Sister Service. Not only was the senior of them known as the "Commodore of the Fleet," but the sincere form of flattery descended down to tricks of

deportment and of personal appearance. The military men called the scarves they wore round their necks "sweat rags,' which they imagined to be a seamanlike habit; and since it was usually impossible, also contrary to regulation, for them to be clean shaved, they satisfied themselves with trimming whatever hair they could grow on their faces to a "torpedo beard" point. On the line now, also, curious expressions such as "Ay, ay!" and "Make it so," were sometimes heard. This inversion or perversion, however, was not all on the side of the army, for the naval officers holding shore billets at the coast ports for lengthy periods gradually became military in their method of life. They took to wearing khaki, helmets and putties, and in many other ways aped the "leather-neck."

As soon as the sergeant arrived alongside he was kneedeep in questions as to the strength of the enemy, and whether any of them had crossed the line, &c. But Mother's commander was in a hurry, and after a few moments' talk he swung himself up into his conning tower.

"By the way, any casualties, sergeant?"

can't make head or tail of it; but the veld is so tricky that a whole crowd of the Brethren may be lying doggo in some hollow waiting to make a rush when we're off our guard."

"Righto," said the other. Mother very soon puffed out of sight. The sergeant and the skipper left behind remained in earnest conversation, an object of interest to the many pairs of poached eyes peeping through slits in chilled steel or corrugated iron. The officer had just thoughtfully given instructions for a pail of boiling water, drawn fresh and oily from the boiler of the locomotive, to be taken up to the blockhouse, where no hot water would be ready for some time, when he happened to look steadily at the Saveloy Hotel. He rubbed his eyes and gave vent to an expressive whistle.

"By Jove, sergeant, your entrance traverse has been knocked about a bit. It's got a hole in it big enough for a fox's earth! Looks as if they'd got artillery on to you. I didn't hear any guns." Considering the noise that his own scrapiron caravan had been making, this was not even negative evidence.

The sergeant gazed with curiosity at the iron shield. There was the hole quite visible and as large as life. To tell the truth, he had not noticed it himself when he had rushed out in the semi-darkness, but he was not going to give that away, and the assumed indifference in his voice when he spoke was a direct measure of

VOL. CXCI.-NO. MCLX.

the pride with which this proof of a desperate fight inspired him. "Oh, that? Yes, we got our share of knocking about, sir. I dessay they did turn a few guns and pom-poms on to us-we must a' been worrying them a bit. Not that it made any difference to us, sir; we were too busy getting a bit of our own back. But it was 'ottish at times!"

His listener was just thinking that this was just the right sort of man to be on an independent job, when the sentry of the armoured train announced that a small party of mounted men was approaching from the direction from which the enemy had been firing during the night. It needed but a glance to discover that the party was British. At this moment the whistle of Mother returning from Jakhal's Vlei was heard. The sergeant now thought that with all this force present he might let his men leave their lair and, having obtained permission, shouted out to his detachment that they could come out of the house. He himself stayed by the train in the centre of things. He wanted to hear the news.

Outside No. 342 a small crowd of peevish soldiery gradually collected, and began stamping and beating their arms across their chests, for it was still very cold. The hot water from the engine, now slightly more coloured and called coffee, was served out and helped to restore their circulation. Some of the men wandered round the house examining the various bullet3 I