AVELLERS AND
CHAPLAINS THROUGHOUT THE BOER
WAR OF 1899-1902

PREFACE

The story of my long tramp with the Guards' Brigade was in part told
through a series of letters that appeared in _The Methodist Recorder_,
_The Methodist Times_, and other papers. The first portion of that
series was republished in "Chaplains in Khaki," as also extensive
selections in "From Aldershot to Pretoria." In this volume, therefore,
to avoid needless repetition, the story begins with our triumphal
occupation of Bloemfontein, and is continued till after the time of
the breaking-up of the Guards' Brigade.

No one will expect from a chaplain a technical and critical account of
the complicated military operations he witnessed at the seat of war.
For that he has no qualifications. Nor, on the other hand, would it be
quite satisfactory if he wrote only of what the chaplains and other
Christian workers were themselves privileged to do in connection with
the war. That would necessitate great sameness, if not great tameness.
These pages are rather intended to set forth the many-sided life of
our soldiers on active service, their privations and perils, their
failings and their heroisms, their rare endurance, and in some cases
their unfeigned piety; that all may see what manner of men they were
who in so many instances laid down their lives in the defence of the
empire; and amid what stupendous difficulties they endeavoured to do
their duty.

We owe it to the fact that these men have volunteered in such numbers
for military service that Britain alone of all European nations has
thus far escaped the curse of the conscription. In that sense,
therefore, they are the saviours and substitutes of the entire manhood
of our nation. If they had not consented of their own accord to step
into the breach, every able Englishman now at his desk, behind his
counter, or toiling at his bench, must have run the risk of having had
so to do. We owe to these men more than we have ever realised. It is
but right, therefore, that more than ever they should henceforth live
in an atmosphere of grateful kindliness, of Christian sympathy and
effort.

"God bless you, Tommy Atkins,
_Here's your country's love to you!_"

My authorities for the statements made in the introductory chapter are
Fitzpatrick's "Pretoria from Within," and Martineau's "Life of Sir
Bartle Frere." For the verifying or correcting of my own fa