ration: A terrible reckoning! Binks (who has just had a row with
a burly Sergeant and got an extra stable guard, and is also 'forit'):
"By Heavens! Wait till I get home and meet him in civvies and he has no
stripes to protect him!"]

Listen to this! When at home in barracks, and on the transport, the
orderly officer always went through the army routine of going round at
meals and asking "Any complaints?" Now that we are campaigning, divil an
officer asks if we have any complaints to make, or is in any way
solicitous as to our welfare or wants. And the consequence is this: we
are at the mercy of our quartermaster-sergeants, who are sometimes
fools, and more often the other thing as far as we are concerned, and
beings known by us as "the waggon crowd," _i.e._: the cooks, and divers
other non-combatants. What they don't want, or dare not withhold, is
given to the poor Yeoman, who has to march, fight, and do pickets and
guards. The man who marches and fights is the worst paid and worst
treated out here. This, it appears, is a way they have in the army. It
is, however, distinctly amusing to hear the _common_ troopers
proclaiming how they will get equal with their officers, especially the
non-coms., when they meet them in the sweet by-and-bye as civilians.

The night we stopped outside Pretoria before coming out this way, our
curiosity was aroused by suddenly hearing three hearty British cheers
from some lines not far from ours. On making an enquiry as to the cause
of this outburst of feeling, we were informed that the battalion had
just received the news that their adjutant, who was absent on leave, had
been made a prisoner by the Boers. Of course, some officers, especially
the Regular ones who have seen previous service, are decidedly popular,
our present General--"Mickey" Mahon--being an instance. There is no gold
lace or cocked hat about him. He is, in attire, probably the strangest
figure in the campaign. Picture to yourself a square-built man of middle
age, wearing an ordinary brown cap (not a service one), a khaki coat
with an odd sleeve, breeches, and box-cloth gaiters, carrying a hooked
cherrywood stick, and smoking a briar, and you have General Mahon.

And now listen to this little story about him. A few days ago a Tommy
was chasing a chicken near a farm on the line of march. Suddenly the
cackling, fluttering, feathered one dashed in the direction of a
plainly-dressed stranger. "Go it, mate; you've got 'un!" yelled