nsport. Half
was very excellent mule-transport; the balance was composed of heavy
trek-waggons, with lumbering ox-teams. Futile expedient. The
disadvantages of the one outweighed the advantages of the other. It is
only a matter of weeks since a public outcry was raised--by ignorant
critics it is true--because Paris's convoy was overwhelmed in detail,
that officer having done what every other successful column commander
has done, allowed his ox-waggons to march on ahead of his more mobile
transport, in order not to delay the progress of the column. What
chance of success lies with the officer content to passively hug
ox-waggons instead of pressing on against his mobile foe? None: yet
half the column commanders have been content to parade the country as
escort to drays packed with merchandise. When a man has been found
enterprising enough to leave his ox-transport under escort, and to
form a striking arm with such part of his force as is mobile, you turn
and rend him if the dead-weight which has cramped and curtailed his
action falls into disaster. Thus, in your ignorance, you call for the
professional martyrdom of the only men who have served you honestly
and well. Why don't you strike at the system, which, when it equips
these columns, sends the commanders forth with the millstone of
ox-transport round their necks? Do you imagine that an officer,
possessed of the same dash which in the past has built up the
traditions of our mounted arm, selects to move with heavy transport
from choice? With him it can only be a Hobson's choice. He must take
what he can get or nothing. And having secured what chance will give
him, he must make the most of it or fail. If he takes risks and
succeeds, his luck will have been abnormal. If, taking the risks, he
fails once, he will, in all probability, be sacrificed to the yapping
of the curs who voice the taxpayer, or to the vanity of some less
competent senior. These sweaters give no second chances. If he steers
the middle way, and is sufficiently plausible in the tale he tells, he
may carry on to the end of the war, or the leave season; perhaps even,
if he is sufficiently cautious, he may worm his way into an honours
list. For it is the good, not the bad, that the modern system breaks.

It is one thing for the mounted men of a column to come into camp,
another for the transport. Houwater presented an ideal place for the
bivouac, with its running water, its solitary building--half farm,
ha