e way, had become interchangeable parts of a machine, the African
Braves still kept regimental fame. They had guarded the stretches of hot
sand in one of the desert African colonies of the Browns; and they had
served in the jungle in the region of Bodlapoo, which, by the way, was
nominally the cause of the war. They had fought Mohammedan fanatics and
black savages. It did not matter much to them when they died; now as
well as ever. If they had mothers or sisters they were the secrets of
each man's heart. The scapegrace youth, the stranded man of thirty who
would forget his past, the born adventurer, the renegade come a
cropper, the gentleman who had gambled, the remittance man whose
remittance had stopped, the peasant's son who had run away from home,
criminals and dreamers, some minor poets, some fairly good actors,
scholarly fellows who chanted the "Odyssey," and both oath-ripping and
taciturn, quiet-mannered fellows who could neither read nor write found
a home in the African Braves' muster-roll. Their spirit of corps had a
dervish fatalism. They had begged to have a share in the war and Partow
had consented. In the night after their long journey, while Westerling's
ram was getting its death-blow, they had detrained and started for the
front. But the Grays were going as fast as the Braves, and they had been
unable to get into action.

"Wait for us! We want to be in it!" cried their impatience. "We'll show
you how they fight in Africa! Way for us!"

"Give them a chance!" said Lanstron.

This order a general of corps repeated to a general of division, who
repeated it to a general of brigade.

"Give them a chance! Give them a chance!"

Reserves along the route of their advance knew them at a glance by their
uniform, their Indian tan, and their jaunty swagger and gave a cheer as
they passed. They touched the chord of romance in the hearts of
officers, who regarded them as an archaic survival which sentiment
permitted in an isolated instance in Africa, where it excellently
served. And officers looked at one another and shook their heads
knowingly, out of the drear, hard experience in spade approaches, when
they thought of that brilliant uniform as a target and of frontier
tactics against massed infantry and gun-fire.

"Once will be enough," said the cynical. "There won't be many left to
tell the tale!"

And the African Braves knew how the army felt. They had a reputation out
of Africa to sustain, this band of exot