artial.

The Zulus were encamped near Ranchicourt. They too were a stalwart (p. 193)
lot of men, but felt the cold of the winter very much. I was riding
past them in the road one day and spoke to the British sergeant in
charge of them. He pointed out one young man who, he said, was the son
of a chief, and, in his own country, was entitled to a body-guard of
fifteen men. In recognition, therefore, of his aristocratic birth, he
was allowed to wear three stripes. While we were talking, the boy
looked round and saw that we were speaking about him. The sergeant
called out something to him in Zulu language, and the boy smiled and
nodded to me. I asked the sergeant what he had said to him. He
replied: "I told him that you thought you had met him before, and it
pleased him." This accounted for the boy's smiling at me and the nod
of recognition. I suppose he thought that on some occasion in my
rambles through Africa we had met in the jungle. At any rate, I
admired the sergeant's tact and savoir faire. There was a great
mixture of races among the allied forces in France, and I always felt
sorry for the poor heathen that they should be dragged into the war of
the Christian nations.

Our front trenches were not comfortable places. To reach them one had
to pass through Maroc and along a road on the outskirts of Loos.
Beside the road, in the cellars of a broken building, called Fort
Glatz, was a dressing station. The neighbourhood was frequently
shelled, for the road from Maroc to Loos was under observation from
the two mysterious iron towers in Wingles. Beyond Fort Glatz, the
engineers had a store of trench materials. The place was called
"Crucifix Dump," on account of the large crucifix which stood there on
a mound of earth. The figure on the crucifix was made of metal and it
had been struck by shrapnel. It looked so pathetic standing there amid
the ruin and desolation around, mutely saying to those who had ears to
hear, "Is it nothing to you, all ye who pass by; behold and see if
there was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" From a shrapnel hole near
the heart of the figure, birds could be seen flying in and out,
getting food for their young. At the foot, there was the grave of a
German officer who had been killed when the Germans occupied Loos.

I often used to go to Bully-Grenay to visit some of the siege batteries.
They had comfortable billets but the Germans soon found out their
location and sent over some very big shells. On