who seemed, by comparison, trim
and well cared for. The Boers wore their ordinary clothes, which were
relieved by only one military touch--the bandolier. This was generally
of home manufacture, and in many cases was a touching and significant
document of affection. "Thought flies best when the hands are easily
busy"; ah, how many thoughts and fears had been worked into those
bandoliers when busy fingers wrought them in the far-away farmhouse! In
some of them, I thought, portraits of the makers were to be discovered.
Fancy stitches and cunning invention which provided for thrice the usual
number of cartridges told one tale; flannel paddings which sought to
make of the military appointment a winter garment told another. The
Boers, I suppose, envied us our serge and whipcord, but to examine their
homely makeshifts was to realise that even the art of Stohwasser may
leave something to be desired. Although they eyed us diligently they had
now fallen strangely silent; they offered us little conversation, but
spoke freely in low tones amongst themselves; they replied to our
questions with a brief civility that did not encourage any very brisk
intercourse. We soon gave up the attempt and lay down under the shade of
the ambulance in our sheltered hollow, listening to the wind singing in
the thin vegetation of the hill above us.

The sound of picks ceased at last, and an orderly came to report that
the grave was ready. The stretchers were withdrawn from the ambulance
and exposed two bodies stained with soil and blood--one shot through the
lungs, another through the head; neither of them remarkable for the
dignity that death is supposed to lend to the meanest features, both
looking strangely small and almost grotesque in their crumpled postures:
two troopers of the Yeomanry, known (as it happened) to not one man of
the crowd; and now emerging, before they reached a final obscurity, to
be for a moment a mark for all our thoughts and eyes. They were laid
beside the grave; the Boers ranked themselves upon one side, we upon the
other; the doctor opened his book and, shyly enough, began the service.
A bird flew twittering and perched on the thorn above us, making the
office choral.

You are to remember that there were present to us just the simplest
facts of life. Hills and the naked sun, great winds and death--before
these we may cease to make believe; they tune and temper us to
accordance with pulses which, if only we are honest, wil