major called to him and said, "Young feller, Hender has arrived. I am one after his own heart, we will go and extract some news." Now it should be said that the major had come from that hall of learning which, in the view of the older officer, adds but "impudence to ignorance," to ignorance," and had sat at the feet of "Hender" when that everlamented soldier was laying the seeds of a General Staff, and starting for the first time in the British service a school of thought. On which account the major should have known better than to try and get news from the master, still less to expect to get it. However, over the deviation we journeyed, and came to the siding where the headquarters lay in railway carriages, and among them, in a goods-van, sat "Hender," with table and chair, and maps and orders. We passed the time o' day cheerily enough, and after some chat the major said, "And now, I suppose, colonel, you are sitting there engaged, as you so often instilled into us, in trying to think what the enemy is thinking of.” "Well," said Hender, "would you really like to know what I am thinking of?" to which an eager assent was given. "I am wondering very much," said the great man, "whether there will be tinned sausages for lunch, for we don't get much to eat here," . . . which was quite a useful lesson in the propriety of trying to worm out information, and also, perhaps, shows how much creature comforts hold unconscious sway in even a soldier. So that day passed like the next, except perhaps there seemed less artillery and cavalry watering in the Modder. That night again, I, the pawn, strolled across the deviation bridge after dark to dine with a chum, on such fare as an over strained commissariat and the daily dust-storm could provide. But the dust-storm had died away, and the moon was out, and peace lay on the camp, and the white tents glistened and the camp-fires twinkled. There had been something better than trek ox, with something to it, and the world seemed a good world as we lay on the sand and smoked. The army, too, was evidently in some spirits. We could hear songs and snatches from different camp-fires. The song of "Cock Kruger" was the favourite, and it came over the water from the cavalry camp: "Who killed Paul Kruger? 19th could be heard the old and thence back to frontier Yorkshire refrain,— “And I drink to thee, friend, as my friend drank to me, And I charge thee, friend, as my friend charged me, That thou drink to thy friend as my friend drank to me, And the more we drink together the merrier we shall be," which they certainly were. were. From another corner, from a regiment that had evidently been in Tirah, came the old Tirah refrain, born of much picketing of heights and chasing of elusive night snipers, "We'll catch the flying jackass in the morning." Which might very well have become a popular refrain in Africa, as the burgher became as elusive as the Afridi. Where we were sitting on the pat, the sappers had laid several sidings off the rail just before it reached the Modder River bridge, or what Mickie M'Dermott the ex-prize-fighter and dynamitard from "Joannie'sberg" had left of it. Half a dozen and more of them lay, black and rusty, with no bright top to catch the moonlight. The singing by the camp fires had died away, and except for the great electric beams from the Kimberley searchlights that flashed on the clouds in answer to these from the Naval searchlight on the truck by the bridge, and the click of the latter's shutters, all was quiet in the camp. Conversation had wandered fitfully to old days in Burma, the column in the jungle, and the chunking steamer by the ghat, the skirmish by the bamboo scrub, days, the raider and the scorching foothills in June, or the snow on the juniper in the pass in winter,-all incidents of small wars and the lessons they teach: wariness and endurance, no doubt, those first foundations of a good soldier, but which teach little of Grande Guerre, save perhaps the universal truth that an army moves upon its stomach. As Suddenly, silently, without even a shunting whistle, long black lines glided in front of us, almost as an apparition. On each of the six sidings were long trains of trucks. As the trains drew up, from all sides, equally suddenly and silently, came long lines of infantry, who were up in the trucks and away without more ado, almost before their presence could be realised. the first lot of trains glided out, a second series took their place, and one realised that some big flit was on, which the gossiping army, to its chagrin, had got no wind of. A grand defeat of the coffee-housers this. Something big doing, no doubt, but what? However, since it did not concern the pawn and his unit, and as the first duty of a soldier is to sleep while he may, and the second duty of eating when he can had been fulfilled, it only remained to turn in and see what the morrow and the staff would bring forth. eks and the coveted Kimberley. Lazily, as usual, the Naval guns fired their morning salute at the Brethren. Perfunctorily, as usual, the outposts of Lord Methuen's division had stood to arms before dawn and been relieved. Cronje, no doubt, had once more remarked to Albrecht, his chief of artillery, "What I tell, Albrecht, the English will never leave their railway." And Albrecht, tired perhaps of unheeded prophecy and such strategy as his memories of St Privat and the attack by the Guard had left him, may have refrained from saying, "Beware of your left flank." And all the while the whole of Lord Roberts's main army, three divisions and a cavalry division, were trekking hard all the previous night, and long into the day, to turn that left flank by "This 'ere Jacobstown," for all they were worth. From Belmont and Grasspan and Honeynest Kloof, and every other siding between the Modder and the Orange, an army and its transport was marching, by Ramdam, on Jacobsdal and its drifts, Wegdrii and Rondeval. Before the Brethren had an inkling of what was doing the cavalry division was over the Riet and approaching the Modder at a gallop, and the infantry streaming after them. It was practically the first instance in our history of a piece of good and successful staff work on modern lines, and for its simplicity and its quietness is well worthy of remembrance. That the veldt was barren and the water scarce, and the marching therefore hard, and the commons short, has nothing to do with the case, for that is the way of armies and the soldiery have to put up with it, grumble they never so heartily. Nor does it matter that some link in the new chains failed, and a main food convoy was captured, and much harm caused thereby, because accidents of this sort are in the working factor of safety and margin of error, just as much as were D'Erlon's wanderings on the 16th of June, or Ney's failure to hold the English when he had found them, or even Grouchy's leisurely pursuit of the Prussians. All the elements of Grande Guerre were there: the ruthless pushing of the cavalry advance regardless of the prayers of the cavalry commanding officers, always so hard to disregard, as to the state of their horses; the artillery waggons cut loose by the way, all to attain the one object, regardless of lesser happenings. Then again, the forcing of the tired army to make an effort it believed it could not, lest Cronje escape from the toils, regardless of the feelings and grumblings of officers and men. Then at the beginning, the massing of camps at camps at the Modder, the sudden drafting up of troops and transport, and especially mounted troops, from quarters when the train was all laid, the complete misleading of the enemy, the accurate timings, the silent flittings, the baffling of the coffee-housers, the feeding of war correspon all 99 dents on hot air, all contribut- town singing "Who killed ing to illustrate the methods Paul Kruger?" and happenings of businesslike war on a large scale, that we have not known since the great war, and the "finest Commissariat officer since Moses." The same thing was repeated when the "grand army" left Bloemfontein for the north, but by that time the war was in hand as it were, and the silence and secrecy and excitement of the first successful attempt that had stirred men's hearts had gone. You don't reproduce this sort of situation more than once. So what began with "Hender" and his sausages ended up at Paardeberg and the tramp of the divisions, and for a time resembled that of the famous pace of the Legions on "the "the Legions' road to Rimini," viz. "twenty-four miles in eight hours, neither more nor less," as they swung through "this 'ere Jacobs Such was one of the rare glimpses of Grande Guerre that is vouchsafed to the British soldier, under one who might be described in the American metaphor: "Yes, sir! The greatest general since Julius Cæsar, and a durned sight prettier fighter." Or perhaps the Irish way is neater, as the jarvie said to his fare acrossing the "Phanix," "And were ye in South Africa, sorr ! Ah, Misther Roberts was there too, sorr, was he not, and he did well, sorr? And fwhy wouldn't he?" For the good soldier has naught but praise for his leader, whether he be Buller the undaunted, or Bobs the successful, or "Nosey," or "old Khabardar," and "our only general," and all the fighting leaders that England has turned out through the ages. G. F. MACMUNN. A PAGEANT IN THE MAKING. SETTLING INTO SHAPE. "What was that?" inquired Alice. "Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with," replied the Mock Turtle, . . . "and Fainting in Coils." The Mock Turtle's answer, or its equivalent in commonplace English, is an almost complete summary of the earliest stages of preparation for the Chester Pageant. Bath, Oxford, and York had run their respective courses, and Chester had decided to emulate them, conscious of indisputable assets in the shape of an ancient and interesting past, and natural surroundings of particular beauty and suitability. At the outset no one knew what to do or, when told, how to set about it, but all were willing to accept instruction from the various experienced advisers whose help was invoked; and there was abundance of good "raw material" to draw upon. Men accustomed to deal with civic finance and organisation, proved excellent workers on committees whose duty it was to attend to arrangements for advertising, printing, hospitality, and evening entertainments, to mention a few among many matters for careful consideration. The master of the art school took charge of the designing department, producing, after prolonged and ex haustive research, portfolios filled with coloured sketches of costumes, lay and ecclesiastical, for all the eight episodesfrom Roman to Stewart times. To all these albums were appended minute directions for the guidance of the Mistress of Costumes, whose duty it was to provide all necessary materials and oversee the preparation for every dress planned. A large old house, long vacant, the despair of houseagents, received a new lease of life and a gay coat of paint, and became straightway "Pageant House," the centre of all the manifold activities, the rendezvous of cheerful gatherings for sewing, stencilling, and flower-making, and the business headquarters of all the official work connected with the Pageant. Typewriters clicked from morning till night, telephones rang incessantly; piles of correspondence in the red-lettered Pageant envelopes that have become so familiar to Cestrians, heaped the long counter of the inquiry office. School children slipped in at odd minutes to obtain "Pageant stamps, which were distributed gratis; while the little coloured "folders," the "puff preliminary" of the performances, fluttered broadcast from the pages of books from the lending library, or appeared unexpectedly in the folds of parcels sent out by enterprising tradesmen. |